I never bought the whole conspiracy thing. That is, unless I'm using a computer. The computer is your enemy. It is designed specifically to hurt you and to give you results that are totally unexpected.
And it KNOWS. For example it KNOWS when you've the big term-paper due so that it can throw tantrums and crash. It KNOWS when you call up the uber-cool software guy to come to your home and fix it up and you find it running smoothly like a Lamborghini on airplane fuel.
"But, but, there was something wrong with it just yesterday... I couldn't finish my paper. It really wasn't working yesterday, believe me." And you end up paying for the uber-cool software guy's time and gas anyway (was he driving that Lamborghini too?).
I work at the University computer lab, which is nice... I get to have Internet gratis during the free hours. So technically, I'm being paid for being online. Though, sometimes people come to me for help. Uh, oh.
This girl had some trouble with her powerpoint presentation which wasn't showing up as she wanted it to show up. I went there not at all sure whether I could help her in any way. I just go there and tinker around with display settings (so that in the end I could just shrug and say that I tried my best... one's got to do something you know.) And I refresh the page and voilà it turns out exactly the way she wants.
"Wow, you're good" she says.
I shrug and say "Aww.That was nothing. Do it all the time."
Wonder if the uber-cool software guy has the same travails with his personal computer?
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5 comments:
oh, you flirt! Seducing computer illiterates like that! You should be ashamed of yourself! =)
The word illiterate gives me goosebumps. Or goosepimples. Or whatever you call them.
And as far as conspiracies go, I'm like Michael Moore: I don't believe them unless they're true.
I approach computer repairs the same way I do auto repairs: kick the tires, and if that doesn't work, change the oil. It fixes the problem every time.
Oh, and I'm reading Rushdie again: "The Ground Beneath Her Feet", and loving his prose as usual.
About Rushdie...
A great writer is, so to speak, a second government in his country. And for that reason no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones. -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate (1918- )
>>TPF.
Aw.. come awn.
I was just doing my jobs. I wouldn't find computer illiterates interesting anyway.
"Which feed-reader do you use?" seems such a good way to start a conversation.
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