In the “why automation won’t be taking all our jobs anytime soon” category: This morning, my husband took his car to the dealer for a warranty repair. The touch screen with the radio controls, etc., weirded out and went blank a few days ago, then came back up after restarting the car. When my husband called the dealer, they assured him that they had a service bulletin describing the problem and could fix it with a software update. He made an appointment to bring in the car early this morning.

When they started working on it, however, they discovered that the update wouldn’t download from their diagnostic computer, which has a wireless connection and insufficient bandwidth. So my husband sat around all morning while they tried to figure out what to do. By the time I took a lunch break, I still hadn’t heard any more from him about it. Maybe they’re still clueless.

Anyway, I don’t expect to see a future of machines seamlessly running everything while we all sit around without any work to do. It’ll probably be more like Star Trek, where crews of overworked engineers scurry around fixing one problem after another. And while I’m on that subject, would you trust a transporter to reassemble all your body parts in the right order?

Nah, I didn’t really think so. Me neither.

One good thing is that the sun finally came out after a dark and chilly morning, and hopefully it’ll warm up enough so that we can get out on the river and row after work. My husband said he could definitely use the exercise after a morning like that.