Apparently, American Airlines needs a working iPad to fly an aircraft.  Otherwise the pilots don’t have charts.  And I discovered today that it’s not just American, but multiple airlines who use tablets as their air charts.  So if the tablets break, the aircraft has no charts.

That’s just about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.

So if the tablet breaks while in flight, do they have to emergency land the aircraft?  If the answer’s yes, then we’re all placing our lives in the hands of some of the most breakable, fragile technology since somebody tried to use crystal glass as a medieval battlefield melee weapon.  Or, if the answer’s no, and the pilots just fly on with a broken iPad, then why can’t they just take off with it broken too?

So like, I suck at math.  So I use a calculator.  I can’t even do effective long division by hand no more.  But I’m not a mathematician.  So who cares.  But if I was an airline pilot, and I need an iPad?  Otherwise I can’t fly?  Then I’m pretty sure the pilot is too dependent upon technology and/or sucks as a pilot.

And don’t give me that nonsense that a paper chart is equivalent, that the iPad is just more efficient and is otherwise the same thing.  A paper air chart only breaks when the aircraft is in flames.  Circa 2019, some twelve-year-old-coked-out-virgin-boy from Cincinnati is going to find a way to hack the airline flight chart iPad.

We’re too dependent on technology.  We can’t do nothing without it no more.  Soon, we’ll need the smartphone to instruct us to do the following exquisite tasks:

– a new type of food arrives at your restaurant table; you’ve never eaten it before; whip out phone for directions on how to consume this new exotic treat; don’t bother trying to figure it out on your own, like it’s some kind of adventure; don’t live life, instead, do exactly as you’re told to do by others

– you no longer remember how to read a road map; road maps are you obey the verbal directions of a machine; in the event of the apocalypse, you’ll misinterpret an existing road map and drive towards the zombies’ lair instead of away from them; thus dooming your family to a lifetime banquet of brains; way to go

– you’ve forgotten how to talk to somebody face-to-face; the last time you actually saw your friends in non-text-social-media form was 2004; in fact, you just walked past them on the street and didn’t know it, you don’t even exist, nor do they

– in order to determine the time of day, you must consult your phone; one day, just for the hell of it you tried to look up at the sky to see if you could tell what time it was by the position of the sun; but you just burned your retinas as you hadn’t been outside beyond commuting to work in five weeks

– one morning, you awoke and found your phone had died; you thus no longer possessed the means to acquire news; given this, you thus naturally assumed the universe was ending, and that the dawn of a new age was at hand; and so you looted your neighbors’ homes for their worldly possessions, and declared yourself overlord of your general residential area; until you were viciously overthrown by the local authorities; but not having your smartphone handy, you were unable to determine which mental institution they were taking you, nor provide directions to the loon-van driver; for his phone had died too, and he didn’t know how to get back to work from your house