The Things We Carry

Laptops are much better suited than smartphones to all but the simplest of tasks, but we’re willing to give up ease-of-use for portability. Smartphones have really, really good cameras these days, but not as good as an actual camera with a lens the size of a rocks glass.

Using a smartphone can be like having a superpower and a disability at the same time. You can access and work with all the knowledge of the world, but only by peeking through a narrow (albeit rather high-resolution) aperture; navigable with only 1 or 2 fingers. And that’s before we consider the quality of any given app.

My pocket tool has a knife (which works great), a pliers (which works pretty well) and screwdriver bits (which work OK, as long as you don’t have to turn them for too long). The idea of having a power circular saw built-in to a pocket multi-tool might sound kind of cool at first, but if my pocket tool had one, there’s a good chance that using it would be either terrifying or incredibly annoying.

The things we carry in our purses or pockets are for convenience (not to be confused with genuine ease), not necessarily for quality.