A question is just how technophile I am.

• So, am I “opposed” to “tech” because there are issues with myoelectric technology (which objectively is junk [link])?
• Because I am able to, with surgical accuracy, pinpoint the intractable issues of myo aficionadoes [link]? Because I critically comment on Cybathlon [e.g. link]?

“Indeed, there lies the integrity of technical craft: with gadgets, results are not negotiable. The clear, cool beauty of this kind of work is that in the last analysis, it doesn’t matter where you went to school, or what letters come after your name, or whom you know, or how you negotiate; what does matter is that you either get the gadget to work, or you don’t. Bottom line, end of story.” Fiddling with Gadgets, by Terence Dyke and Paul Smolen

I define technology as that, which, under realistic circumstances, without further ado or comments or theatrical demonstrations, just works. Its working is not negotiable as it just works.

In other words, once I walk into a prosthetist’s office, if it is technology under that definition, firstly, I share my predicament also related to work and activities with the prosthetist, then I get informed about actual prosthetic options given their true and realistic, comprehensive and sufficiently detailed technical performance and limitation characteristics, after which I will consent to what I also see as matching my realistically shared needs and requirements, calmly assuming that prosthetic manufacturers respect CE legislation and inform rather than exaggerating prosthetic arm part and component performance, with the result that I walk out of that office with a prosthetic arm that does have all components that work just as needed. If that is technology then I am the first and foremost technology fan.

We all know things are somewhat to totally different in context of prosthetic arms as encountered and experienced in real life, which begs the question if at all, here, we are dealing with actual technology as defined also by Dyke and Smolen. Or if in fact we are dealing with a deeply problematic and rather creative re-interpretation of use and sale of technical parts that predominantly surfs on large social gulfs and rifts, and that exploits amputees, if not also insurances. But an abuse of the term technology, that, in essence, totally lacks the defining characteristic of what I see as pure and true technology  that has me as its biggest fan: that it works, bottom line, end of story, day and night, year after year, decade after decade.

Examples of prior me being technophile:

• Around 1983, I had a C-64 Commodore computer. My uncle and godfather had ALS, so he could not speak and no assistive device around at the time. I bought an easy going light switch in a hardware store, soldered a cable on it, connected it to a plug that plugged onto the C-64 motherboard, and wrote code that would draw a very large letter on the screen, with the sequence of letters and characters being displayed smaller underneath so it could easily be read also from a distance or without glasses on. The letters circled automatically so all he neeeded to do was wait a bit, press with his head against the easy going switch, then wait for the print command that also came up every round, and then he could type a sentence and thus share his thought. He was superbly and extremely happy. So sure I was a technophile already then. Help my dear godfather get through really difficult times by way of experimental tinkering with technology.
• In 1993, I agreed with my forensic medicine heads of the department that post mortem imaging was the way to go. There is a written memorandum. Can’t be negotiated away. Currently and this is still on the rise, since 25 years, everyone and their grandmother claims it as their own. Love gets more once it is shared, so no problem there. Whoever else “invented” post mortem imaging, Pueschel, Bratze, etc., I love them all. Fact is, that this technology being used on a wide front in applied forensic medicine started as my brain child, and to that, I should add, I am a totally openly confessing technophile.
• In 2005, our IT guys bet me that it was not possible to implement an online tool in pHp to reliably get a time of death estimate based on Henssge’s formulas. Whereas I was of the opinion that stationary computers and mobile devices and their operating systems come and go whereas the fastest computers running the steadiest and most stable of environments were web servers, so why not put that in pHp, and have it run unobserved and unmanaged for a few decades. So I bet 1 cup of coffee this could be done. Not only did I sit down and code that the same afternoon with a simple text editor and an online pHp command lookup repository, I also wrote a detailed How To paper ten years after [link]. So, yep. I won that coffee to show I am that technophile.
• And with regard to my prosthetic arm, I wrote a case study paper to be published in the most prestigious rehabilitation journal in 2018, also containing the tiny amount of 216 references [link]. Do you think you need a more epic proof that I am totally technophile? I even wear that stuff, practically every day.

So if I was to describe my orientation towards technology then I am a definite fan of trying to understand technology and find applications that are reliable and adequate. I am not a fan of exaggerated claims, unfounded uses or hiding negative side effects. I do not think one should abuse technology to exploit hopes, emotions and finances of amputees or anyone else. I am therefore not an uncritical fan of technology abuse as it seems to be practiced across the prosthetic arm sales and use scenario.

But I am definitely a great friend of actual technology, which as quoted above, is that technology that simply works.