Modern polymathy
(2 June 2026)
In the workplace, everything is moving — or regressing — along the path of specialisation. The day will come when, the moment one of your appliances breaks down, they will send you a specialist in saying ‘Good morning!’, another specialist in unscrewing, and a third technician, specialised in screwing back.
To get by in daily life — nevertheless — you are required to be a Renaissance man, uomo universale, a polymath expert in law, computer science and every little field.
For example, everybody knows that streaming platforms physically prevent you from taking screenshots.
I just wanted to take screenshots to show my folks on Twitter my thoughts on films, naming the films and saying nice things about them (at least in part).
But the platforms prevent you from doing so, so you will have to know, too, that there is a Russian site where users share videos that does allow screenshots — but everything in there works extremely slowly and with difficulty due to geo-blocking.
To bypass geo-blocking, you will need to learn how to use something called VPN, and another thing called Smart DNS, which is like a VPN but limited to multimedia content and without the slowdown caused by the VPN.
There is a Smart DNS service that offers a fourteen-day free trial and then a subscription for less than three euros per month if you sign up for a two-year plan.
Smart DNS didn’t solve the problem, so I tried the free VPN option.
With the VPN, not only was the connection no slower, but everything on my phone became much faster.
The first server it connected me to was in Romania. I then went to the Russian site and, in an unexpected and funny turn of events, it covered my screen with a giant padlock and a message in Russian, telling me rather dramatically, but not without courtesy, that if I didn’t disable the VPN, I would not be allowed to use the Russian app.
I disabled the VPN, and everything went back to normal — no more giant padlock or Russian message, and the video either wouldn’t load or would load endlessly when I set the resolution to 1080p.
I reconnected the VPN, which this time placed me in Canada.
Prime Video asked if I was away on a trip, and when I went to my list, it showed several movies that are currently free in Spain as available only for rental or purchase. On Movistar Plus, the screen went completely black, and I was told I wasn’t connected to the internet.
Unlike Smart DNS, the VPN brought noticeable advantages. You simply have to use it or disconnect it depending on what you are doing.
The Russian video site continued to have the same problems with Smart DNS, and after reinstalling the app and updating it in the app store, I don’t know what else I can do. If the problem persists, I won’t be able to take screenshots of films anymore, and I will only have the option of taking photos of the television with my phone’s camera.
Right now, the VPN has me pretending to be in the United States.
I didn’t mention that our new polymathy is, above all, a consequence of our new world where no one can trust anything or anyone.