At Home with Tech

Some questions find answers in the most unexpected places, and others lead you right to your next challenge at home with your tech…

My son, who’s almost six, was having a spirited conversation the other day with another six year old…

The other boy said, “What number is bigger than infinity!?”

Now, at some point in our childhood, we’ve all had that conversation. Right?
You can shoot off the usual responses…

“Infinity plus one.”
“Infinity infinity.”
“Kajillion million”
“billion billion million kajillion!”

And the list goes on.

So my lad looks at the other boy and ponders the question for a moment.
His answer to what’s bigger than infinity…?

“Time.”

I think I felt a small tremor, and I’m sure the breeze outside picked up for just a moment.

The other boy scoffed at the response, and said, “Time isn’t a number!”

“Yes it is!”

“No it isn’t.”

“Yes, it is!!”

…and you can imagine how the conversation continued.

Fade Up from Black
If this were a movie scene, you would see a shot of these two young Einsteins in the foreground, continuing their argument, and you’d see me in the background. The camera shot would start to zoom in past them, bringing me front and center… my mouth would hang open slightly. I’d look stunned… because I was.

My boy had proclaimed that time was bigger than infinity. Now, that’s a huge concept. HUGE! My mind struggled to comprehend it.

And you know, I think my boy was actually on to something.
Time is pretty darn infinite.

Impressive… most impressive.

Add that one to the list of ‘kids say the darndest things.’

The Ghost of my Cable Box
And speaking of time, I’ve got a coda to my post last week, where
I ripped one of the cable boxes out of my house.

It’s a week later, and yes I’m surviving without a cable set top box in my home office, but I have encountered a problem…

No, I’m not missing all of that cable programming in the one room.
…but I am missing the digital clock display on the cable box.
(Seriously.)

I didn’t realize this, but after all of these years, that silly cable box became the singular authority on time in our home office.

Whenever I walked into the office after my banishment of the poor cable box, I found my eyes automatically drifting to that same space. It was like an autonomic response.

The day after the cable box’s disappearance, I was sitting at my desk and my wife walked in. I noticed her eyes dart to where the black box used to reside, and then without missing a beat, she asked me what time it was.

Whoah!
Her too….!!

Weird, right?
We both miss that cable set top box most, because it knew the time…

What Time is It?
Okay… so I think I need to pony up and get a small clock with atomic timekeeping for that same space.

…or simply glance at my iPhone, computer, watch or any of seemingly infinite ways to figure out what time it is.

I know… not a huge issue… and certainly not in the same league as time vs. infinity.

So, I’ll simply leave you with my own ‘deep’ question to ponder…

“Does anyone ever really know what time it is…?”