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The trouble with
computers
AN OLD schoolmate is a nostalgia buff, particularly where popular music is
concerned. For 20 years he has rung me regularly to ask such questions as: "Who
replaced Brian Jones in the Rolling Stones?"
As he lives in Queensland, the cost of these calls became prohibitive. If the questions
were asked in the past few years, it was only in the dead of night and under the
influence.
But now my mate is on the Net and can satisfy his thirst for trivia via e-mail. The
difference now is that I have the upper hand. If he asks "what band sang about moving
pieces around a chessboard", I can reply in less than an hour with the name of the
band (Yes), its personnel, the song title (Your Move), the complete lyrics, and an
exhaustive biography and discography.
It drives my mate mad. He knows I have not suddenly become a very clever person . . . he
has known me too long for that. But the art of searching the Net -- the song questions are
answered with almost indecent ease at the Ultimate Band List
site -- and making the computer do what it is asked, are new and mysterious skills for my
friend.
He is new enough to them to believe they are logical beasts. On the other hand, I have
worked with computers for 19 years and know they are run by the little green men inside
them. I can divine the runes, but more importantly go straight to a relevant URL. My mate
will be able to do that one day, but in the meantime probably faces some serious sessions
of keyboard banging, shouting at his PC, and maybe even kicking it.
Most people who have driven a computer are familiar with the rage that builds up when a
program fails to respond or the system crashes. I started using computers in November
1980, and thumped my first keyboard in about January 1981. Hundreds of people have been
telling stories of their computer rage at a special BBC site set up a week ago to coincide
with the release of survey results, conducted by the Mori organisation and aptly entitled
Rage against the Machine.
The survey of 1250 British IT workers, done for Compaq, showed that four out of five
computer users had seen colleagues hurling abuse at their PCs. Three-quarters admitted
that they swore at their computers. And nearly half of all people working with computers
said they felt frustrated or stressed because of IT problems. Adding to the frustration
was the jargon used by support personnel.
Indeed, a quarter of all under-25-year-olds admitted that they had resorted to kicking
their PCs. The BBC must have had a bad week with its system because three days after the
computer rage survey it reported the results of another survey that revealed that many
workers were troubled by their wired workplaces.
The survey by Gallup said office workers in four countries complained their work was
interrupted every 10 minutes by telephones, faxes and e-mails.
I notice my system is running low on memory so I had better file this before the system
crashes.
#@%** computers, who needs them!
All articles Copyright: © West Australian Newspapers |
