Silly-con Valley and the InterNot of things
My new computer is blazing fast. They tell me it has several million times the computing power of the ones they used to put a man on the moon, even though it’s only a fraction of the size.
I need all that power, because I can type almost 20 words a minute with only three or four mistakes. And I need as much speed and power as possible to watch cat videos on YouTube and post updates on Facebook — things the early astronauts could only dream about doing. Sure, they could plant a flag on the lunar surface, but they couldn’t download an app that tells them where all their friends are, and what they’re doing, every single second of every single day!
But with all the progress we’ve made, we have problems the oldtimers never had. Like when I say, “Hey, watch this,” and call someone over to my laptop and then the video I wanted to share with them will refuse to start. Or it will say “buffering,” or it will just sit there as if the keyboard is disconnected. As soon as the person walks away, disgusted that I’ve wasted 15 seconds of their time that they could have spent on Snapchat, the computer returns to normal.
It makes me realize how lucky those guys were to make it to the moon at all. What if their computer worked perfectly during thousands of hours of tests, and then when the astronauts got into space it suddenly started acting like mine, all shy and coy? I wonder if there’s a word for that. The InterNot?
If only it were just my computer and cellphone. I have a radio that squawks and hisses every time I come near it. As soon as I move away, everything is fine. It’s like owning the world’s worst theremin. I have a GPS unit that works fine as long as I know exactly where I’m going. When I don’t need it, it works perfectly, never a problem. If I’m in a strange neighborhood full of zombie-like pedestrians looking at me behind the wheel as if I were a succulent, aromatic, hot-off-the-grill brain-steak, the thing won’t work at all. Will the next left take me into a dead-end alley, or just a gang-infested, openair drug market? Let’s find out!
Our new electric oven has started to turn off while Sue’s making dinner. She’ll put a roast in the oven and when she comes back, the oven has conveniently turned itself off and there’s no way to know how long it’s been that way. It could’ve been five minutes or 30. Is the roast half-cooked, quarter-cooked or raw? If this is a feature on all new ovens, she’d rather not have it.
I have an alarm clock that goes off at 7 every morning — weekdays, weekends, rain or shine — no matter what time I actually set it for. I had to turn off the sound. So now it’s just a clock, not an alarm clock. It’s good for letting me know how late I am for important appointments. Well, some of the time, it is. The slightest, random, nanosecond-long power failure will make it, and almost every other clock we own, start blinking “12:00 12:00 12:00” until we reset them.
Countless times, we have picked up the ringing phone to find no one is on the other end. Of course, we know it’s a computer calling us. We know it because, like mine, it is shy in front of strangers. Which is a shame, because we love to take phone surveys at dinner time and hear about new low interest rates from the same people who are now charging us high interest rates. The only question is, why do they have to call to ask? If it’s such a good deal for us, why don’t they just change our rate without asking?
The computers that run our nuclear reactors, missile defense systems, homeland security initiatives and air traffic control are surely newer and better than mine. But then again, big companies get hacked every day, or simply go offline for no known reason. Just recently, there was a “ransomware” attack on computers all over the world. Companies had to pay a ransom for hackers to unlock their computers.
Maybe “123456” isn’t the best computer password. I hope it’s not our nuclear launch code.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Jim Mullen is away this week. This is an updated version of a 2011 column. Contact Jim Mullen at mullen. jim@gmail.com.)