The perils of technology
Looking online for rental possibilities--so far with no luck in the area we want--I opened a second browser with the lds.org meetinghouse locator, so that I could bounce back and forth and check on addresses, as to which ward they would be in. This worked beautifully last week, in terms of information, though not in terms of finding anything in our ward.
Today [Sat.--I didn't get back to finish this], however, though I was sure I was in exactly the same function, I got nowhere at all. I don't know if I was missing something, or they have continued refining the site so that it's more complicated and I wasn't getting it, or what. I just know that something that I have used many times before suddenly wasn't working.
Isn't that the way it is? You get used to something and they change it. They want to make you able to do more, and you find yourself unable to do anything. You buy something you need and you can't figure it out.
Now, we did always figure out how to program the clock on the VCR. The infamous flashing "12:00" was never seen in our living room. But programming a new machine, where all our habits were useless, would be an exercise in frustration, as was retraining the habits of using the remote. The one red button which was only the power button is now two red buttons including the red-not-green record button and you just told it to go into 'one-touch record' mode and this model, it turns out, will not respond to the power button while recording--it won't 'stop,' it won't turn off, and is about to run over something on that tape that you really need, so your only shot is to grab the plug and pull it out. And try not to swear, because you just wiped out all your settings.
Of course, with a DVR, which is a digital device, so much more advanced than tape, you can't stop and come back to something you're recording. You can pause, but if you stop, then it records the whole (so far) thing to disc, and you have a separate file. Someone wanted a copy of Gone With the Wind and we had it on laser disc, and the only way to do that was to schedule the whole four hours and do it while running a timer to warn me to get back and be ready to pause the DVR and change the laser disc at the appropriate time.
Some things are obvious. The first vacuum cleaner I bought, I took home, plugged it in, and found it blowing instead of sucking. It went right back to the store, where I demonstrated that I did indeed know which end was which and that it had been reverse-wired. I was given an instant exchange, no hassles. The replacement worked the right way, so the company didn't mess up a whole batch (a concern from the salesperson), just mine.
I have an inexpensive digital camera, but I can't decipher the instructions and I'm not conversant with the icons. I see the little pictures, but I don't know what they mean. I inherited my youngest daughter's cell phone, but I don't know how some of its functions work, and so she gets mildly disgusted when she is home from time to time and shows me AGAIN; the problem is that I don't really use it so it doesn't become automatic. I have it for emergencies, and I do know how to make a call, and how to enter data into the 'phonebook' function. Since it is just a simple pre-paid phone it has no particular bells and whistles. It has not become a part of my life, fused to my left hand and ear, and I'm fine with that. She thinks it's terrible that I generally don't have it turned on; to me it exists so that I can use it if I need to if I'm away from home and I have a problem.
Hubby says he doesn't know how to "speak computer." As ward clerk, he kind of has to. The patient stake clerk has responded to some calls for help, and Hubby is gaining better familiarity, if not whiz-bang competence. But it's very true, that you have to think like the machine thinks--or, actually, how it's been programmed, because the whole problem is that the machine doesn't think and can't adjust. It forces you to do all the adjusting. It won't follow word clues, tone of voice, signs of mounting frustration, or make an intuitive conceptual leap. Unfortunately.
Computers can do amazing things, but we are now very dependent on them. We wince in sympathy and try to be patient when told, "the computer is down." Modern life doesn't function without the technology functioning. If the systems were to go down and stay down, total chaos would ensue.
I'm so very glad that the prayer "system" never goes down, and that I can always reach my Father in Heaven. That connection isn't dependent on anything but my attention.
Today [Sat.--I didn't get back to finish this], however, though I was sure I was in exactly the same function, I got nowhere at all. I don't know if I was missing something, or they have continued refining the site so that it's more complicated and I wasn't getting it, or what. I just know that something that I have used many times before suddenly wasn't working.
Isn't that the way it is? You get used to something and they change it. They want to make you able to do more, and you find yourself unable to do anything. You buy something you need and you can't figure it out.
Now, we did always figure out how to program the clock on the VCR. The infamous flashing "12:00" was never seen in our living room. But programming a new machine, where all our habits were useless, would be an exercise in frustration, as was retraining the habits of using the remote. The one red button which was only the power button is now two red buttons including the red-not-green record button and you just told it to go into 'one-touch record' mode and this model, it turns out, will not respond to the power button while recording--it won't 'stop,' it won't turn off, and is about to run over something on that tape that you really need, so your only shot is to grab the plug and pull it out. And try not to swear, because you just wiped out all your settings.
Of course, with a DVR, which is a digital device, so much more advanced than tape, you can't stop and come back to something you're recording. You can pause, but if you stop, then it records the whole (so far) thing to disc, and you have a separate file. Someone wanted a copy of Gone With the Wind and we had it on laser disc, and the only way to do that was to schedule the whole four hours and do it while running a timer to warn me to get back and be ready to pause the DVR and change the laser disc at the appropriate time.
Some things are obvious. The first vacuum cleaner I bought, I took home, plugged it in, and found it blowing instead of sucking. It went right back to the store, where I demonstrated that I did indeed know which end was which and that it had been reverse-wired. I was given an instant exchange, no hassles. The replacement worked the right way, so the company didn't mess up a whole batch (a concern from the salesperson), just mine.
I have an inexpensive digital camera, but I can't decipher the instructions and I'm not conversant with the icons. I see the little pictures, but I don't know what they mean. I inherited my youngest daughter's cell phone, but I don't know how some of its functions work, and so she gets mildly disgusted when she is home from time to time and shows me AGAIN; the problem is that I don't really use it so it doesn't become automatic. I have it for emergencies, and I do know how to make a call, and how to enter data into the 'phonebook' function. Since it is just a simple pre-paid phone it has no particular bells and whistles. It has not become a part of my life, fused to my left hand and ear, and I'm fine with that. She thinks it's terrible that I generally don't have it turned on; to me it exists so that I can use it if I need to if I'm away from home and I have a problem.
Hubby says he doesn't know how to "speak computer." As ward clerk, he kind of has to. The patient stake clerk has responded to some calls for help, and Hubby is gaining better familiarity, if not whiz-bang competence. But it's very true, that you have to think like the machine thinks--or, actually, how it's been programmed, because the whole problem is that the machine doesn't think and can't adjust. It forces you to do all the adjusting. It won't follow word clues, tone of voice, signs of mounting frustration, or make an intuitive conceptual leap. Unfortunately.
Computers can do amazing things, but we are now very dependent on them. We wince in sympathy and try to be patient when told, "the computer is down." Modern life doesn't function without the technology functioning. If the systems were to go down and stay down, total chaos would ensue.
I'm so very glad that the prayer "system" never goes down, and that I can always reach my Father in Heaven. That connection isn't dependent on anything but my attention.
I'm with you. And I hate it when something I can work gets changed, including Blogger. But I'm not averse to calling tech support, or whomever, and getting help!
ReplyDelete