I hope Amazon's drones never get off the ground

I love technology. I'm never one to write when I can type, and wouldn't dream of doing analogue what could be accomplished by some fancy gadget or tricky app. Whenever technology is dangled in front of me, I don't just bite, I megabyte.

And yes, I probably should have used a comedy app to find a better joke to put there.

But there comes a time when even a gadget freak like me must use his trendy aluminium stylus to draw a line on his tablet.

And I choose to draw it just short of the point where Amazon.com dispatches a massive army of drones to deliver orders by flying to your front door.

That's right – the world's largest online retailer is seriously pursuing a fleet of airborne delivery copters to cut its delivery times down to thirty minutes, which probably includes the time they'll need to fire missiles at any remaining physical bookstores that haven't already been crushed by Amazon.

Call me a Luddite. Call me one on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or even Google+.* Hey, even app.net if you know what it is, which I mention merely to establish my geek bona fides. But there are so many problems with the drone idea that I don't quite know where to start.

Nevertheless, Jeff Bezos has always been one to dream big, so I guess I shouldn't be afraid to criticise big as well. Here goes.

For starters, the whole thing seems incredibly dangerous. Bezos concedes that they need to figure out how to stop these things landing on people's heads, which is awfully considerate of him. But here's the thing – all vehicles crash a certain proportion of the time, and all electronic devices fail. A crash is bad enough when it's on the ground, but imagine what an airborne drone crash would be like. These things have whirring propellers, and they're heavy enough to do real damage. There is absolutely no way that Amazon can guarantee that these drones will be safe.

I'm going to come out and assert that the acceptable casualty rate so that people can get their crap delivered to them more quickly is zero. If anybody got injured even slightly just so that some lazy sod could get their Kindle delivered twenty-four hours earlier than it would have arrived by road, it would be not only awful, but a massive publicity nightmare for Amazon.

And how do you stop the drones crashing into each other, given how many of them there would be in this scenario? Sensors maybe, but sensors fail. If every company has its own delivery drones, how do you make their systems interface so they won't crash? I know this is being done on the road for driverless cars, but doing things in the air – in three dimensions instead of two – is massively more complex.

Oh, they'll use GPS, apparently. But if anyone's ever navigated via GPS and digital maps, they'll know that the data sets are riddled with imperfections, so much so that they come with safety warnings that say you shouldn't just blindly follow them onto, say, an airport runway, which is where Apple Maps recently directed some drivers. And if human common sense wasn't enough to override those directions, which could have caused a plane-on-car crash, what hope do autonomous drones have?

Then there's privacy. I assume these drones would have cameras on them for accountability, safety and remote piloting reasons, even if they'll largely be automated. Amazon makes millions of deliveries each year – are we comfortable with a private company having cameras absolutely everywhere? What if they monitored competitors – if there even are any left, the way Amazon's going?

And we can assume that the NSA will have access to the cameras' video streams – whether it's legal for it to have it or not. Do we really want flying surveillance robots all over the community, or is that going to happen anyway as we move ever closer to living in a cyber-panopticon?

If the likes of Amazon no longer use them, it's entirely conceivable that existing courier and postage services would go broke, meaning that it was no longer economical to have a publicly-owned post office, which would put thousands of people out of work, and potentially make it impossible for smaller players that don't have access to their own drones to compete. Not to worry, they can all get jobs with Amazon as drone technicians so they can make deliveries from a chair rather than hitting the pavement. Walking is so low-tech, after all. And why leave your house when Amazon can deliver every whim robotically?

But here's my biggest question – how is this even a problem that needs a solution? Are there really people out there who are so frustrated by Amazon's current speedy delivery options, that they are gagging for a drone to turn up on their doorstop within a matter of minutes? Are we so addicted to instant gratification that even an overnight option is just too darn slow?

I mean, toddlers will say "But I want it now" even though something is clearly going to take a little bit of time, like Angry Birds Star Wars II adding another whole free level to complete the ones they've already finished, to choose a not-at-all-random example. But don't we grow out of that? Is patience no longer a virtue in our society, unless you're Amazon and trying to prototype a ridiculously ambitious drone army?

I was glad to see Bill Gates pouring cold water on this bold plan. And this is a guy who knows about being overly optimistic, having backed the Zune.

I do like Gates' idea that drones could be used in disaster-hit areas – you can imagine a fleet of robotic aircraft could swarm out in an area like the Philippines post-typhoon, rapidly getting food to people where roads have been cut off. But that is a genuine problem requiring an urgent solution – unlike, for instance, being able to get your Miley Cyrus boxed set as rapidly as the crow can fly.

Technology can do wonderful things to make our lives better, and Bezos has driven innovation in fields like e-books and e-commerce that transformed our society and economy. But in this particular instance, I very much hope that regulators cut Amazon down.

James and Miranda and looks and stuff

Image: Eva Rinaldi (CC)

Some things are destined to go together, like meat pies and sauce, or pokies and misery. Some things are so closely connected that it's even hard to think of one without the other, like Boonie and his moustache, or Elvis and cheeseburgers, or André Rieu and nausea.

In the same way, billionaires and supermodels are drawn inexorably to one another, much as the media is drawn inexorably to another billionaire, Clive Palmer. Some billionaires get supermodels, while others get hundreds of animatronic dinosaurs – and I think it's clear which offers the more fulfilling relationship.

So it made all kinds of sense when I read that James Packer was dating Miranda Kerr. It might just be the perfect match. After all, they undoubtedly have a great many interests in common, like Miranda Kerr, bikinis, and Miranda Kerr in bikinis.

He's not alone, of course – putting the phrase "Miranda Kerr bikini" into Google gets an astonishing 68 million results, and researching this article is definitely the first time I've ever looked up that phrase.

And as for the other pix of Miranda that come up in Google image search, let's just say that Victoria evidently didn't have much luck keeping that Secret of hers.

The new lovebirds have the town of Gunnedah in common too, of course. I mean, in James' case, it's because his now-ex-wife also comes from there, but still, I'm sure it gives them something to talk about now, and will enable him to continue his begrudging in-law visits into the future.

Plus they both have – sorry, had young families, and now have fragments of young families.

Not that I'm excessively worried about the feelings of Erica and Orlando, who will undoubtedly be just fine – financially, at least. While I've never married a billionaire or a supermodel, I doubt that if the opportunity arose, I'd be expecting the relationship to last forever.

Of course, James Packer may not be dating Miranda Kerr. The reports may simply be scandalous scuttlebutt. But we surely cannot doubt that James is a Miranda Kerr-dating kind of a guy. His dating strategy can be summarised as Australia's Last Top Model. The man updates his models almost as frequently as Apple.

Now let me pause for a moment to say what an absolutely fantastic bloke James Packer is. I feel I should clarify this, because whenever his business dealings are discussed, lots of media people who are far older and wiser than me seem to go out of their way to mention their close personal friendship with and respect for the guy and how they went to one of his weddings and dandled him on their knee and suchlike.

So let me definitively state that I haven't got a bad word to say about the guy. In fact, he's probably one of the most upstanding casino proprietors on the planet.

I've always had a bit of sympathy for James, in all honestly, because any bloke whose dad tried to toughen him up by buying a bowling machine and making him face 110mph full-paced deliveries deserves a break in life.

Although he did get that break some years ago, when his father didn't instantly garrotte him for losing all that money on One.Tel. Had he not been Kerry Packer's son, let's just say the famous phrase "bottom of the harbour scheme" might have had a more sinister implication.

But what's in it for Miranda, besides the billions and guaranteed entry to a forthcoming VIP-only casino she would have gotten into anyway? Some have expressed their shock that Kerr would swap a pretty thing like Orlando Bloom for a fellow who was, being charitable, not exactly in contention to play the yummiest of all the elves in Lord of the Rings.

Well, she doesn't need money, but she might like the idea of lots and lots of money. And besides, James Packer is probably a charismatic, fun guy, the way you can be if you have a massive stash of cash.

And that's the thing about coming from a family like the Packers – James is the kind of guy who's always known precisely which side his bread is buttered on, eaten it and then asked for seconds.

Miranda Kerr dating James Packer seems as much an example of the natural order of things as, say, James Packer getting planning approval for his casinos. Because anyone who's spent any time in a casino knows that the house always wins. And in particular, the House of Packer is not often known to lose.

I would wish James and Miranda every happiness if they didn't probably already have it, according to their own terms. James gets to date a woman whose beauty is world-renowned, even if her "difficult reputation" is too. And Miranda gets a guy who... owns stuff, and will undoubtedly go on to... own more stuff.

Which is a fine thing if you like... stuff.

So here's to James, Miranda, her looks and his stuff. A lasting, loving relationship isn't easy to find in this world. And if yours proves not to be one, breaking up and dating someone hot and/or rich instead is certainly a popular substitute.