In picking out paints for my place, I was excited to see that Home Depot could scan a color swatch and match it up to the types of paints they had on hand. My friend had helped me pick out coordinating colors, and they were nice, warm colors like “Burnished Cedar” or whatever. So I used the paint scanner to scan in those selections and see what kind of counterparts the store could give me. The results came back completely out of left field, something like

HOT PINK

What the hell was that?  I figured the machine was hiccuping, so I tried re-scanning. It came back something like

CRUSHED SKULL GRAY

And again:

BLOOD AND GUTS BURGANDY

What’s the point of a machine that makes your life easier if its output has absolutely no connection to reality?  The idea of the machine is fantastic, and it looks impressive--but ultimately, it doesn’t work.  It’s the equivalent of giving someone a flashlight and calling it a stun gun.

This is just like the time when I entered my face into a Celebrity Lookalike Generator and found out that I resembled a child star, the guy who invented the lightbulb, Keyser Söze, and Queen Latifah.

These are things that sound good but are not actually functional--much like one-size-fits-all socks, E-Z wall hangers, and representative democracy.

Technology blows.