Beauty in Simplicity

In today’s day and age, we find ourselves surrounded almost constantly by computers, machines, and automation of one sort or another. Near gone are the days of the completely mechanical contraption. What comes to mind for me when thinking about this is a video I saw of a hand-cranked razor blade stropper, that turned the circular stropping disk to clean and sharpen an affixed blade, and, in one fluid motion picked the blade up, rotates it, and puts it down to sharpen the other side. Nowadays, people don’t even sharpen razor blades, let alone use a hand cranked device to do so.

A vintage razor blade stropping mechanism

The point I’m getting at is that to computer driven devices of today, while innovative and extremely useful, fun and often creative in their own right, lack the same beauty, the same cleverness in the way they set out to achieve their purpose. A side effect, in my view, is that the users of these machines are also becoming more distant from them, less in-tune with the inner workings, and generally more apathetic to them. In fairness to the contemporary machine user, the machines are growing more and more complicated, and often are actively hostile to anyone looking to pry into their inner workings, for maintenance or otherwise. In today’s world, you’re hard pressed to buy a toaster that simply toasts bread. Instead, you’ll get a multi-functional kitchen assistant with 6-inch display, internet connectivity, programmable auto-toast settings, and built-in speakers. It will also come with a subscription to a home delivery bread service, as anything other than manufacturer approved bread won’t give you the best toast. Even better, last year’s model is 50% off, you can get it for $250.00! And the best part is, when the manufacturer of this little beauty goes bankrupt next year, and the software updates for your toaster stop getting published, your $250 kitchen machine will be as good as useless. After

all, how’s it supposed to toast your bread if it can’t talk to the server? I’ll get off my soapbox now…

In conclusion, take a moment to think of all the machines you use on a daily basis. Pick one of them, any one, and think a little bit deeper. Ask yourself how it works. Hell, take it apart if you want to. Try to figure out what each of the pieces do. Why is this one made from plastic and the other metal? Without a doubt you’ll learn something, and you’ll very likely run into a fun example of a simple, elegant machine to perform a mechanical task.