Letters from North
America
Whoever said this was
the information age made
a huge understatement,
it should have been the
‘too much’ information
age. All of these things
we now use were supposed
to allow us more free
time and make life
easier. I’m still
waiting for this to
happen.
I have four computers,
two pc’s (one at my
office, one at home) a
laptop and a net book. I
use each one for
different reasons. The
net book is small enough
to use in that ten inch
space they give you
between seats on an
airplane. Airplane tray
tables are designed for
kids of six and younger.
No decent adult sized
person can successfully
read, eat or handle
anything larger than a
copy of the Readers
Digest without having
your space interfere
with the person sitting
next to you. Or for that
matter having theirs
interfering into your
personal zone. Something
that no sane flying
passenger appreciates.
So, you end up with four
separate machines with
four separate sets of
information and most of
us end up searching for
this file and that file
without knowing where
anything is at any point
in time. Years ago we
carried everything we
needed in a briefcase on
a legal pad. We used a
phone to communicate
with others about our
personal and business
needs. You didn’t need a
user name and a password
to talk to your brother;
you just dialed his
number and talked to
him. If you want to
communicate to your
brother today on
something like Facebook,
you have to enter your
user name and some
password which you never
can seem to remember.
Most of us try to use
passwords that are
relatively simple to
remember, like our dogs
name or our birthdays,
but since these aren’t
secure, the various web
sites make it more and
more complicated.
Suppose your dog’s name
is Rover, you probably
have to combine that
with a series of numbers
such as 1234. Now, since
1234 has no relationship
to Rover in the first
place, as soon as you
establish this as your
password, you will
promptly forget what the
number actually is. You
might write it on your
hand, but that’s only
good until you take one
or two (hopefully)
baths.
Then you’re so paranoid,
you don’t purposely
write the number down
anywhere since you’re
afraid someone might
actually want those
pictures of you scuba
diving in Mexico. Then
to further complicate
matters you can’t or
don’t use the same user
name and password for
each and every website
you have on your
computer or in my case,
computers. No, that
would be too logical but
stupid. So, you have to
try and remember what
you used to log into
each web site ….more
information. You’re also
too paranoid to use one
of those password sites
or memory devices
because you heard about
some friends’ ex-brother
in law who did this and
their entire saving
account was transferred
out to some drug lord in
Russia. The fact that
you only have less than
fifty dollars in your
account at any one time
doesn’t really matter,
those drug lords are
merciless and stoop to
any depth to get all of
your money.
So if you are like me,
you have web sites on
some computers that are
not on the others. You
have e-mail addresses
scattered on all of them
and can’t remember which
one you used to contact
your long lost friend in
Australia. These web
sites are grouped in
files under favorites,
but you have forgotten
in which file you saved
what in. This causes you
to have to return to the
web site and select the
‘I’m too dumb to
remember anything’
button and start the
process all over again.
This means the web site
will send you a notice
to your e-mail telling
you what the information
is that you need to
enter their site. Thus
what should be done in a
matter of seconds now
takes ten minutes. This,
my friends, is not
progress, I don’t care
what they say.
In the old days,
everyone carried around
a little book with their
phone numbers in it….so
what if you lost it? No
big deal, no one was
going to break into your
bank and steal your life
savings just because
they found your personal
phone book.
Computers are great
labor saving tools for a
lot of things, but in
some cases they have
made life more
complicated, not
simpler. However, they
have become a way of
life and we won’t be
going back to the old
pad and pen any time
soon.
Sometimes I wish we
hadn’t made so much
progress.
