Smallest Of Problems.

Last night, a bit before I set myself to the task of writing this, I had an incident with the internet here at my place. It is ordinarily pretty reliable, which is a pleasant surprise given the nature of service when there are few if any options open to the consumer. There is little we could do but stick with what we have, and so we are fortunate enough that this sort of thing doesn't happen any more than it does. It's unpleasant.

Really what happened is an exceptionally small matter. The internet went down for a little while. It felt larger while it was happening, but the moment it was done with I could appreciate how minor the inconvenience was and how little sympathy would be extended to me even by those who know me and care for me the most. Certainly I would thinking nothing of it if it was described to me by someone else. I would unquestionably make light of it.

What's It Gonna Be?

I haven't had a critical computer problem in some three years. That coincides with the catastrophic failure of my PC tower and my sudden total reliance on my Mac. I'd had that tower for some four or five years, and had swapped out enough parts for upgrades that nothing remained from what I had originally bought. PCs are neat like that- they're like the VW or lawnmower you can work on yourself. It's great if you know what you're doing, but I think most people don't. I was on the line, and there were plenty of scares before the thing finally died.

If PCs are VWs, then Macs are Porches. It's no comment on their quality, although I do regard them as fine computers-(they're the thing you want when you're in the film business). It's more that the consumer isn't trusted to affect repairs on their computer themselves. I have read about a change in the screws on the latest IPhone, the purpose of which is to keep meddling hands out of the innards. I think that's the source of this myth that Macs are somehow invincible, impervious to any virus and resistant to general wear.

Adopting A New Thing

I have recently acquired a laptop. This very post was written on it. I never have had one of my own, and having observed others using theirs all these years has left me none the wiser as to just how one makes the most of the thing. I have succeeded in squeezing all the functionality out of every cellphone I ever had, doing things with some that predated mainstream adoption with the advent of the smartphone. The laptop is something else though. I'm trying to not just really get the benefits of having a portable computer but to avoid the social pitfalls of same.

When does one use a laptop and not the phone? When does one eschew both and just be a human being the way we used to? I'm still trying to work that stuff out. It's probably unwise to have the laptop with you everywhere, so a judgment must be made on the likelihood of it proving both useful and not awkward. I'm accustomed to bringing everything and the kitchen sink just in case, but that's really not a workable strategy with something like this. As I don't presently drive, everything must be born on my back, so to speak. If I take the laptop with me, it must always be on my person. In a bad situation, it could be stolen or damaged. Bad situations must be avoided.

Just My Type

It's a popular thing to say that the Chinese word for crisis is made of characters which mean danger and opportunity. Condoleeza Rice once said so, but more people- Chinese people- say that's not really true. When a cascade of water from my glass poured over my keyboard, I can't say I immediately saw in crisis opportunity. After about a minute when the flood was contained and dried up, I began to test the keyboard to see if it had incurred any damage. I've always found keyboards and their predecessors rather interesting. The first thing I did was go to the word processor I was using before the accident and typed out "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs." It's a famous sentence, as it has been hammered into the heads of generations of American typing students. It's supposed to be the shortest sentence which contains each letter. Some quick research tells me that this is called a panagram.

The layout of keys is interesting. It's known as QWERTY because those are the first letters in the top row of keys dedicated to them. I had heard or read that the keys are laid out as they are not for efficiency but rather for inefficiency (hopefully this is not discredited as was my belief that the World Series was named for a sponsoring New York newspaper). On older typewriters, to type too quickly was apt to result in the machine breaking down. They keys were thus designed to keep the typist going at a rate of speed slow enough to prevent that. Children are still taught to type according to that layout, and they still make the keyboards that way in spite of the fact that a more efficient design could be conceived. I wonder if A results in B or B in A? It's a 'chicken and the egg' thing, I guess.