It doesn’t take a hi tech wizard to publish a blog. Any geek, lunatic, or ya-hoo can crank one out. I think I am a shining example of that.
I came relatively late in absorbing all of this technology that engulfs us. I say relatively late because I have known people who started using computers in their 80s. I started in my 30s and am on 50’s doorstep.
Certainly I am not loathe to admit that technocrap befuddles me. I don’t think I have gotten much past speed-dialing and maintaining an address book on my cell phone. I have had to learn more and more about computers as time progressed. But I still am pretty much in the category of techno-ignoramus, not to be confused with Uncle Remus. That is why today was a living hell for me.
I have just acquired a new (refurbished) laptop and a new (refurbished) digital camera. Hey, I’m a starving artist, I can’t afford all that expensive stuff. Combining heap more technodespair on me is the fact that I have a desktop operating system that is compatible with … itself basically. I won’t call any names but its initials are NT 4. I think I am about to change that. But in the meanwhile I had to simultaneously get my laptop and digital camera to, at the very least, introduce themselves to each other. So I spent a lot of time in tech support chat rooms this afternoon.
These people I chatted with online seemed very helpful, but sometimes I thought that maybe they were making up some of the stuff as they were going along. I suppose in their world everyone has the basic technological knowledge of a sixth-grader, which is better than I have.
Technology — like auto mechanics, carpentry, plumbing, all those good skills that would have earned me a decent living more so than writing for newspapers — seems tedious to me. I can removed a motherboard or a carburetor, but damned if I could put them back in the right spot. This brave new world is a little difficult for me sometimes in that respect. So if I happen to ask a dumb question that any sixth grader would know, try to realize where I came from technologically. And have mercy.