Why?

[jonnygrouville]

Why does nothing get me more wound up than computers?

 

I have two kids under three, work in a very high pressure industry, am currently being taken to court on a matter with one of my properties, have to commute on public transport every day, occasionally have to deal with government departments, but nothing, absolutely nothing, gets me more wound up than computers.

 

In my thirties too, so have grown up with these things. Obviously not as au fait with them as the next generation, but generally get what is meant to happen.

 

How then can what seems to be the rest of the population of the planet apparently run their daily lives on mobile devices, and a small proportion push the boundaries of what the technology can achieve, truly breaking new ground on what is the frontier of our generation, but I try and copy some photographs from an SD card to my desktop and it is as if I have asked the stupid ba$tard thing to bend f***ing space-time?

 

Not using old technology either and had my brother over recently to "de-crap" it. Nonetheless, is still running stupidly slow and just generally making me want to pour paraffin into the back of it and go and bury it in the garden.

 

Here is the insanely frustrating thing. To find out what is wrong with a computer, you need to use a computer. No instruction books, no help-lines, you have to use the computer. What if the computer is the problem? Called my brother and he recommended using a Windows alternative. Didn't know they existed, but found one, thought I'd give it a try. What do you need to download it? Windows. F***ing Windows. The root cause of the problem.

 

"Morning doctor. I've been beating my head against a solid brick wall all morning and have a terrible headache. Can you help?"

 

"Certainly. Here is a hammer. Whilst you are pulling your forehead away from the wall between impacts, give yourself a smack in the back of the head with this thing."

 

"Thanks doc. Eight years at medical school well spent."

 

Now I do have prior here. I once got this amp modelling software to hook my guitar up to my computer. No worries. Then I got some recording software with some drum-modelling stuff. Good fun. Started to get a bit of latency where what I was playing was feeding into the track a little late. All the instruction book says is to log on to online forums and ask questions there. Okay. Asked my question. The first few responses were pretty rude, all saying I had bought inferior kit and should actually spend about three grand on professional recording equipment, high-speed computers and so on.

 

I thanked them for their time, wondering why they would be posting on the forum for one software whilst recommending another, and reiterated my query, restating that I did not want to spend many thousands of pounds, just wanted what I had working please. Same response, but really started to get personal.

 

Obviously, I flipped. My next few responses were directly aimed at the authors of the unhelpful posts and, as I remember it, used what I would loosely describe as violent sexual imagery and the sort of language fitting for my disdain at the way I was being treated. Needless to say, banned from the forum, software still not functioning, thanks a bundle.

 

Similarly my brother once bought Grouville senior "Computing For Dummies". They did not speak for three weeks before my dad called him and explained that, whilst he is clearly not a genius or one of the greatest thinkers of our age, having three degrees and being a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, he is "far from a f***ing dummy".

 

My better-half one owned an iPod nano. Loved it, but clearly did not want to be involved in any of the technical side of making it work. I could not load a single song onto this thing without basically wiping my whole computer every time. Every sodding time.

 

Also, all the Apple software seemed to be somewhat maliciously removing all the other software from the computer.

 

"Erm.... where's Real Player?"

 

"Real what?"

 

"Real Player. The media player set as my default."

 

"Oh that guy. Yeah, he... erm... went to buy cigarettes."

 

"What?"

 

"Oh did I say he went to the shops? I mean he moved to France... or Spain. Yes. Spain."

 

It was like living with Skynet. Every time I switched the thing on, something else I used every day had mysteriously disappeared with little Apple logos sneaking into my "favourites", the least appropriate use of the word ever unless you were asked to choose your favourite venereal disease.

 

Now I am fully aware that I have just punched all this into a computer and do not want to get into a discussion as to whether this is ironic or not, but it has, nonetheless, been a vaguely cathartic experience and has quelled my boiling inner-rage for another day.

 

Will it get me banned from here? Let's wait and see!

[StezzGolfer]

Whoa. Long ramble. I kinda skimmed through it ... was there a point to it?

tldr version, possibly?

[oldschoolrocker]

Jonny,
Banned from here?

Why?

We are kinda like those groups that "have no dues or fees."
When one needs to go "off topic" and ramble a bit, we listen. Like I said before, this technology allows us to communicate as friends from afar, and hey, if you can't blow off some steam to a mate, what's left, drop some coin and get comfy on a professionals couch?

The PC is a different beast in the tech field. I cut my teeth on large mainframes back in the day, and considered myself fairly proficient with both the hardware and programming.
I still keep my hand in high tech underwater robotics, so I know my way around a schematic and troubleshooting, but, I'll be ****** if I do anything with my personal PC. It's clearly setting myself up for failure when I try. Unless, that is your area of expertise, and you religiously keep up with the updates, well, there's always something you overlook.
Good luck, and remember the old cliche,
GIGO.

btw,
Loved the post.

[billh17]

Nicely done ! A lot of us can relate to your comments ! Some of us will even admit it !

[birly-shirly]

Quality rant. Nice.

My brother and I both play the guitar. I play almost exclusively acoustic, whilst he's the opposite. I do know that he has recently been getting into various modelling amps, pedals and software mods - and his experience in seeking advice on online forums exactly mirrors yours Jonny.

He's also a PC/Windows user who deplores my reliance on Macs - so he sucks it up as being par for the modern discourse.

[thug the bunny]

Great rant! Finally I have found someone who feels the same way about modern technology. Whenever I rant about phones and computers I usually just get the same old glassy-eyed stare and a reply like, 'why can't you just adapt?'.

Computers have invaded every part of our lives, from automobiles to appliances to entertainment to eating to recreation to hygiene (eg, automated faucets where you wave your hands in a futile pantomime trying to get the f***ing water to turn on). I have said for many years now that the tide has turned from where we tell machines what to do, to where machines now tell us what to do. Right now as I am typing I'm not sure if I waved my fingers over the keyboard or mousepad the wrong way, but my computer twitches and scrolls and changes font size regularly without my voluntary input until I want to take the f***ing thing and throw it against the wall.

I can't wait to see what the future will bring...

[Fellaheen51]

Computers......a necessarily evil device in the modern world. Can relate to your rant Jonny, so damn frustrating at times. My use goes back to 1985 (?) or so with the acquisition of a used Commodore 64. Simple, worked, did what I needed it to do, which was simple word processing function while in grad school. Then moved over to Windows with the advent of 3.1. All I asked was that that the thing worked, didn't want to learn to trouble shoot when things went haywire, didn't want to delve into the root directories to figure what went wrong. And things could go wrong simply by turning the damn thing on.

The last straw was about six months ago, turned the loathsome beast on to print out a simple Excel sheet of some club specs I needed. All manners of PC hell broke loose. I was so P.O. that I literally kicked the cabinet. Went online with the iPad and ordered a shiny, new Macbook Pro. A Sunday morning. Half hour latter, received an email saying come an get it. Told the Mrs. we're going for a ride, she hadn't a clue what was unfolding.

Don't know if this will be the ultimate solution. So far so good. All I want a computer to do is just work for my intended purpose of the moment (currently posting on the Classic WRX forum). I'll go back to paper and pencil before returning to anything MS Win.

P.S. - Golf league buddy made comment last night that he "upgraded" from Win 8.x to 10 over the weekend. Encountered some form of reboot loop problem after the install. It's now with his computer "fix-it" guy attempting to get things straightened out. His comment on the whole matter, "If I'd a known this was going to take place, I wouldn't have touched the f****** thing!"

[HoldenCornfield]

[quote name='thug the bunny' timestamp='1440582019' post='12210504']
Great rant! Finally I have found someone who feels the same way about modern technology. Whenever I rant about phones and computers I usually just get the same old glassy-eyed stare and a reply like, 'why can't you just adapt?'.

[b]Computers have invaded every part of our lives[/b], from automobiles to appliances to entertainment to eating to recreation to hygiene (eg, automated faucets where you wave your hands in a futile pantomime trying to get the f***ing water to turn on). I have said for many years now that the tide has turned from where we tell machines what to do, to where machines now tell us what to do. Right now as I am typing I'm not sure if I waved my fingers over the keyboard or mousepad the wrong way, but my computer twitches and scrolls and changes font size regularly without my voluntary input until I want to take the f***ing thing and throw it against the wall.

[b]I can't wait to see what the future will bring[/b]...
[/quote]

And over the next 10-20 years, according to multiple sources I've read, computers with self-learning algorithms are poised to replace 25-50% of all [i]white-collar[/i] jobs, from accountants, managers, and analysts to lawyers and pilots.

This so called jobless recovery isn't an anomaly; its the new paradigm. Some see a doomsday scenario where over half the world's population is unemployed and in need of assistance. Others see a post-scarcity utopia where computers and robots do all the work and humans kick back in a life of leisure and abundance. I'd love to see the latter but I'm much more inclined to expect the former.

[scomac2002]

There will always be work for skilled craftsmen/women who can perform tasks to something other than a preset standard on a volume basis. It maybe fairly efficient to replace humans with machines for "repetitive mental tasks" that don't require a lot of infrastructure to perform. It will be less certain for physical tasks performed in a non set environment to a non set standard. I think we have a long way to go to get machines to respond to random commands versus the current scenario where you must communicate in the proper method in order to get the desired response.

[KYMAR]

Made it to Au fait and bailed.


I now want to sue you too.

[HoldenCornfield]

[quote name='scomac2002' timestamp='1440597386' post='12211330']
There will always be work for skilled craftsmen/women who can perform tasks to something other than a preset standard on a volume basis. It maybe fairly efficient to replace humans with machines for "repetitive mental tasks" that don't require a lot of infrastructure to perform. [b]It will be less certain for physical tasks performed in a non set environment to a non set standard. I think we have a long way to go to get machines to respond to random commands versus the current scenario where you must communicate in the proper method in order to get the desired response.[/b]
[/quote]

Actually, folks are much closer to doing all this with robotic computers than you might think. I was quite surprised. Check out this book if you really want the depressing details:

[url="http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Robots-Technology-Threat-Jobless-ebook/dp/B00PWX7RPG/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr="]http://www.amazon.co...g=UTF8&qid=&sr=[/url]


Or, if you prefer, the author's interview on NPR from a few months ago:

[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RA_z1aDdiQ"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RA_z1aDdiQ[/url]

[HoldenCornfield]

BTW, Jonny - as others have said, great rant. I feel your pain...and love your writing style, always makes me laugh. Rant on, brother.

[jsanatx]

Feel your pain buddy, everything works until it doesn't and then you have to take it to the Computer Nerds at Best Buy to get it fixed and pay up the arse. Then you get a phone call from Mr. FBI, "ah sir, you need to come into our office for an interview, the tech found some nasty pictures". "Wha??? I only clicked on a link", next thing you know you're sharing a room with Jared. Sucks I tell ya

[Blade Junkie]

Computers was what I wasted money on before I started buying old golf clubs.

Now I am eyeing the redundant metal drivers in the corner of the room, and thinking of the 5+ PC cases sat in the garage, and I'm thinking of a whole new sport ... hitting a PC around the garden with a metal wood to see which one breaks first


Might be good therapy for you to escape your busy life Jonny - LOL

[BIG STU]

I can agree with you 110%. I do not know a lot about computers period. I am a idiot savant on one. I can run a program if someone physically sits me down and shows me. Heck I can't even post pics on here yet. Rant on that is what your friends on here are for

[Ironmaster Oddities]

[quote name='Blade Junkie' timestamp='1440616273' post='12213292']
Computers was what I wasted money on before I started buying old golf clubs.

Now I am eyeing the redundant metal drivers in the corner of the room, and thinking of the 5+ PC cases sat in the garage, and I'm thinking of a whole new sport ... hitting a PC around the garden with a metal wood to see which one breaks first


Might be good therapy for you to escape your busy life Jonny - LOL
[/quote]
Chris,
Which is larger: the computer case or the head of the metal Wood?

[Ironmaster Oddities]

You are preaching to the choir, Jonny boy. But I like your style.
When it comes to technology, I don't know if my a** is bored or punched. All I really want to do is be adept enough to use it effectively for work and the minimal tasks I need to enjoy my hobbies and leisure time. Maybe utilize <1/10 of 1% of the computer's "abilities". even with such low expectations, I am constantly slamming the door to the space shuttle on my air hose.
I think I may be untrainable. I am pretty sure that our office tech person has to show me how to perform mundane computer 101 stuff repeatedly, that she thinks that her boss is functionally brain dead. So on those rare occasions when I do get cruising on the PC and then it takes a dump, it really frosts my stones. Then I have to have her
Attempt to get the f***ing machine running correctly again.
I realize that my laptop and my smart phone could have probably run the World Bank 25 years ago. I don't care. I don't want it. Give me a Franklin Quest/Daytimer, a 4-function printing calculator, and a 1980's Motorola Star-tac mobile phone. But then I wouldn't have all my golfwrx pals around the globe. And that ****** Teevons wouldn't have turned me on to the Niles Hoard. and I could reclaim half my basement and one stall of my garage.

[thug the bunny]

I guess this is a bit off topic, but I find computer based automation more annoying than telemarketers, stupid commercials, and even politicians.

I recently rented a car for business travel and was upgraded to a nice Caddy CXT or CRX or XRC or whatever. It had automated freaking everything. I'm surprised it didn't scratch my a$$ for me. On the way down to DC, the traffic was heavy, but moving, up and down from 40 mph to 60 mph. So, everyone was in close proximity with each other a large portion of the drive. My otherwise beautiful car had the latest greatest sensors that flashed and emitted a really loud alarm every f'ing time I got within 20 ft of a car in front of me, and vibrated my seat every time I got within 1 ft of a dashed lane marker, ie, every f'ing time I changed lanes. I had neither the time nor the inclination to stop and find out how to override or change the automated settings. After 1 hr of driving I wanted to drive that thing into a wall.

Hey GM engineers, how about giving me an option to choose those settings, rather than making them default?

The problem with computer automation is that it make us follow whatever profile the engineers choose. I absolutely hate when I am stalking a girl, and shut off my car engine and all the lights in the car come on. Conversely, how about if I am being stalked, reach the safety of my car and hit my key fob, and the car lights up like a freaking UFO? Whatever automated algorithms they settle on can't possibly cover all possibilities of humans as individuals. I guess the brilliant engineers responsible for this think they are doing a great service for society, but what they are really doing is taking away control from the end user. The are de-powering (unpowering?) us. Could you engineers please just back off and allow me to tell my machine what to do, rather than vice versa?

[scomac2002]

A buddy of mine got a new Lexus E350 about a year and a half ago. Behaves exactly as thug has described his Caddy experience. My friend loves his tech gadgets, but even he found those features annoying. His wife refuses to drive the car because of it opting instead for a run-of-the-mill Corolla without all the [i]frills[/i]!

[jonnygrouville]

Hate needy technology! Stuff that needs to tell you all the time it is getting updated or whatever, as if it needs to validate its existence. Car that set off little alarms for every little thing, agreed. Horrid.

The tautological technological loops are the worst. Once had a computer that completely ground to a halt because the anti-virus software thought the anti-spyware was a virus and the anti-spyware thought the anti-virus was guess what? Yup. Spyware.

The whole thing about having to get online to fix a computer, but nothing if your problem is getting online. Like some torture from ancient Greek myths. Sisyphus wouldn't be pushing that big rock up that hill every day, he'd just be trying to synchronise an iPod with a Sony PC.

[Mike_C]

[jonnygrouville]

I am thirty-six.

But that cloud had been asking for it.

[BIG STU]

[quote name='scomac2002' timestamp='1440670138' post='12216942']
A buddy of mine got a new Lexus E350 about a year and a half ago. Behaves exactly as thug has described his Caddy experience. My friend loves his tech gadgets, but even he found those features annoying. His wife refuses to drive the car because of it opting instead for a run-of-the-mill Corolla without all the [i]frills[/i]!
[/quote]
[quote name='scomac2002' timestamp='1440670138' post='12216942']
A buddy of mine got a new Lexus E350 about a year and a half ago. Behaves exactly as thug has described his Caddy experience. My friend loves his tech gadgets, but even he found those features annoying. His wife refuses to drive the car because of it opting instead for a run-of-the-mill Corolla without all the [i]frills[/i]!
[/quote]
[quote name='scomac2002' timestamp='1440670138' post='12216942']
A buddy of mine got a new Lexus E350 about a year and a half ago. Behaves exactly as thug has described his Caddy experience. My friend loves his tech gadgets, but even he found those features annoying. His wife refuses to drive the car because of it opting instead for a run-of-the-mill Corolla without all the [i]frills[/i]!
[/quote] That is why I cry give me a carburetor a distributor with points and I am good. My old Dakota is sorta simple but still has a computer and early TPI injection. But I am on the edge of total revolt. I am seriously considering putting me an old school 318 or 360 with a carb in it or just getting rid of the thing and find me a 60s 70s or early model pick up and go from there

[BIG STU]

[quote name='jonnygrouville' timestamp='1440704381' post='12219854']
Hate needy technology! Stuff that needs to tell you all the time it is getting updated or whatever, as if it needs to validate its existence. Car that set off little alarms for every little thing, agreed. Horrid.

The tautological technological loops are the worst. Once had a computer that completely ground to a halt because the anti-virus software thought the anti-spyware was a virus and the anti-spyware thought the anti-virus was guess what? Yup. Spyware.

The whole thing about having to get online to fix a computer, but nothing if your problem is getting online. Like some torture from ancient Greek myths. Sisyphus wouldn't be pushing that big rock up that hill every day, he'd just be trying to synchronise an iPod with a Sony PC.
[/quote] I think you can synchronise that iPod and Sony PC if you adjust the flux capacitor down to 1.5, LOL as I am making this comment I am getting the sound board at church ready for todays services. It is about a year old and the greatest latest computerized thing with pre set programs etc. The problem is that the presets do not always stay the same due to weather conditions and how many people we have there. I run and do the run up on full manual or "fly by wire old school" as I call it. One of the whiz kids on the later service said that in the future they will be fully computerized. I told him and the Assistant Rector that when that day came I would retire from the board and someone else could come in at 0500 on Sunday morning and do the run up and check

[justasgood]

Best rant ever.

I cut my teeth migrating an IBM sys34 to a sys36 then shortly to a sys38 ending my time on an AS400.....love main frames..... Hate pc's?

[dbuck47]

Good rant JG. I use one of the blasted things everyday for work. It seems that the simplest things are what "they" have trouble doing.

We can all relate.

[stixman]

Nice one, JG.
Don't know what anyone's talking about in this thread, but I get the vibe (whatever that is!).

I live the dream; I play old school golf and no-one at my Club has a clue what I'm on about, I drive an old,but fixable Volvo and I navigate the hills in all weathers using a map and compass (correct to 100 meters). What am I missing?

At the back of our 6th green the other day, I found a T shaped screwdriver thingy with a security style bit on the end and stamped Taylor Made.
I took it back to the Pro shop re. lost property and asked what the sam hell it was and should I put it on Ebay to find out.
Such a nice girl Emma, naive but nice. She said it was one of those spanners that they use to adjust the heads on drivers. I said 'Well thanks, but why would anyone want to do such a thing?'
So about ten minutes later I was getting tired of the game and said Thanks anyway, and wandered off.
See, technology can be fun....depends on your mindset.

[birly-shirly]

[quote name='stixman' timestamp='1441052587' post='12240948']
[...]

At the back of our 6th green the other day, I found a T shaped screwdriver thingy with a security style bit on the end and stamped Taylor Made.
I took it back to the Pro shop re. lost property and asked what the sam hell it was and should I put it on Ebay to find out.
Such a nice girl Emma, naive but nice. She said it was one of those spanners that they use to adjust the heads on drivers. I said 'Well thanks, but why would anyone want to do such a thing?'[...]
[/quote]

I know this one, I know this one!

The t-driver screwshaped thingy gets inserted into a hole in the head of one of those razorburner whatsits, and then you give it a good sharp twist, then twist again, until eventually it makes a sickening breaking noise.

There are days that I would love to have one for my computer.

[Nomad Golfer]

There is always Linux (free operating system) but I fear this would only lead to more confusion.

Linux is generally bullet proof and virus proof, but the learning curve is

like a well lofted iron shot heading for the stars !

[Fellaheen51]