Courtesy of my friend John…
School bus in Japan….
School bus in India….
…and who do you think we call when we need help with our computers?
Technorati Tags: Technical Support
Archive for the ‘Computing’ Category
Who Ya Gonna Call?
March 6, 2010
Spellchecking God
January 19, 2009
Among the many errant thoughts The Lion grumbled at this morning was one (or a constellation thereof) about spellcheckers. Not the human kind, the computer kind. There are very few of the human ones left, or at least one would think so given the flood of errors in texts these last few years.
People love their spellcheckers, believing them omniscient and infallible. They must believe so, since it is increasingly obvious more people use them and fail to spellcheck their spellcheckers. The skill of proofreading has pretty much died, more so in blogs and casual writing than in the professional ranks. Yet even in professional work The Lion too often finds errors of reliance on spellcheckers.
But people are determined to accept the authority of a computerized spellchecker, apparently from ignorance or laziness.
People who don’t know how to spell, or who are uncertain of spellings simply accept the machine’s authority. After all, the spellchecker is a computerized machine and thus must be infallible. Machines don’t err, right?
Lazy writers just don’t want to do the work of proofreading. But then lazy writers are careless about their writing in all degrees. They don’t think about what they’re saying, they don’t work at finding the most effective way to say their say, they don’t do grammar very well, and they don’t care much about spelling.
The easiest course for these people is to elevate the spellchecker to the status of a god.
Don’t question it. Just accept its dictates. Don’t even dare consider that it might be wrong. The spellchecker is Authority.
And certainly don’t look at the evidence that the spellchecker is often wrong. If you type ‘soon’ for ‘son’ you could well write ‘the Soon of God’ and your computer will find no error. The only corrective might be the sound of giggles from your readers.
That attitude towards spellcheckers by the uninformed, the ignorant, and the lazy is little different from that of the fundogelicals toward the Bible or the Koran or the Torah and their error-prone human leaders who vest themselves with the authority to correct error. Thus we have God, the Great Spellchecker in the Sky.
Of course the spellchecker on your computer won’t kill people, torture them, imprison them, shun them; it won’t destroy civil societies, it won’t burn books or people; it won’t brainwash children or try to destroy reason and science. No, the worst a spellchecker can do is make you look like an idiot. On the other hand that’s often the least the fundogelical view of the world can do to its adherents.
Technorati Tags: Spellchecker, Fundogelicals, Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, Religion, Computers, God
The Lion Wins A Battle With Technology!
January 22, 2008
Alright! The new machine is turned on and beautiful (The Lion had a girl like that, back when).
Naturally there had to be a hitch, and naturally it had to be with the Internet. Couldn’t connect (hmmmm, that’s a problem with the women these days for The Lion).
However, after half an hour with a Comcast tech we figured out the cable was a little hinky (damn! what was her name…?)
Fixed that and have been immersed in Vista ever since.
The computer is gorgeous. All black and brushed chrome an intense little blue lights. And fast! O my isitfast! (Had a girl like that too.)
And quiet too. The old one was noisy. (Ummmm…. can’t decide.)
The Lion hopes to develop a beautiful relationship with this machine. (Might as well. Can’t get a date.) And of course there’s always the router to look forward to…
The Lion Challenges Technology, Or Vice Versa…
January 21, 2008
The Lion has purchased a new computer, a very nice Dell, with bells and whistles, lots of memory, and Vista.
So far, The Lion has managed to hook up all the wires, with very little thanks to the basically crummy Dell documentation, and The Lion has managed to make room on his crowded desk to put the new hardware alongside the old computer, which still runs well, thank you.
The next step will be to plug everything in to the electric outlet feeding the surge suppressor. And then the tricky part – switching the cable modem to the new machine before firing everything up and hoping it all works.
And then dealing with Vista. The Lion invested in a whole thick O’Reilly book to cover anything that might be a thorn in the paw.
And then… hooking up a wired Linksys router so that both machines can talk to the internet, and possibly, if The Lion understands what he’s read so far, talk to each other.
The Lion finds all of this quite anxiety provoking, especially since it’s been six years since he had to go through this ordeal by cable. In keeping with his typical approach to life, The Lion is procrastinating, though for the sake of his reputation he calls it ‘gathering information’.
In any event, The Lion apologizes for not posting his usual enlightening and stunningly provocative posts (the ones with the naked women…), and hopes within a few days to be able to assuage his public’s (the six of you know who you are) addiction.
And does anybody out there know how to hook up a router….?
