Thus The Wall Street Journal today. “As Malaysia Airlines flight 370’s disappearance shows, plane-tracking technology still has limited reach in some swaths of the planet,” elaborates the newspaper. The title is right on the money, but the byline is pretty disappointing. It narrows the technology’s limits way too much, that is. How about American satellites, which are supposed to see every detail worthy of note anyplace on earth? And how about European and Chinese satellites, as well? The missing Boeing 777 with two-hundred and thirty-nine people on it shows that much of the technology assumed to be widely available is actually a mere pipedream. And the jet is missing for six full days already. In short, engineers of all descriptions had better keep quiet about all the wonders they have concocted so far. They have a long way to go. The way things look at present, they will never get all that far, either. It is good to remember that the technology’s limits are the limits of the human species. Enough said.

Addendum (July 15, 2016)

More than two years later, the plane is still missing. Although a few pieces of its debris have presumably been found in the Indian Ocean, the search continues to this day. The technology’s limits are obvious enough from this sorry case. My heart thus goes to so many technology enthusiasts in universities like MIT, Stanford, Cambridge, Imperial College, and elsewhere. Malaysia Airlines flight 370 must be a nightmare for them all. The best and the brightest among them are the tragedy’s ultimate victims. Inconsolable, they will suffer till their very last day. My most sincere condolences!