Computersight -

I wrote a simple article called
Systems That Work

about sticking with a system that works.
Didn’t sound particularly revolutionary to me,
however, poster after poster spewed invective, one
claiming that I, (and those like me) held back the
progress of the human race because we refused to upgrade.

Now al qaeda is not the only organization made up of
fanatics. There is a huge population of semi-literate
Information Technology guys whose brains have been so
assimilated that saying “Linux” sends them into paroxysms
of invective coupled with a need to smash computers with
rolly chairs.

This “programming”, (talking about the “brain” of these
‘IT Experts’) is on par with Animal Farm’s Sheep; “XP good,
Vista better”, (and do you know how many years it took to
teach them to stop saying “98 good, XP better?”)

One would have thought a child could differentiate between
Soft ware and Hard ware, but alas, such line has blurred.

Further, it seems a religious tenet that one should strive to
have every single bell and whistle, despite the fact that all
one is doing is producing the same document that was produced
twenty years ago because that document, in that very form is
what the Law requires.

Hence a 286 (any of you IT guys know what I’m talking about?)
connected to a dot matrix printer or the latest over priced
pre bloated VISTA puppy with a full color laser printer, are
required to output the exact same document which looks the
exact same way it looked in 1962.

The use of a computer in an office is to produce the work
faster than a typewriter, which was invented to produce
the work faster than ink and pen.

This article, for example is being typed in Professional
Write, which was developed in 1986. It’s “speed” depends
on how fast I type. That depends on how fast I formulate
ideas. It doesn’t matter if I am typing on a state of the
art just off the production line with every bell and
whistle or a 286, it can’t go any faster, it can’t do more.

As the world went from Windows 3.1 to 95, to 98, to 2000,
to XP and now to VISTA, I stay pat. Why? Because all I need
is a blank screen where, when I’m ready, I can set margins,
spell check, find and replace; and not before.

All I need is a blank page to capture my prose. I don’t
need an automatic “spell check”, because often I’ll have
to use personal names or nicks, and don’t need a machine
telling me that Worf is spelled wrong.

In ancient days, “Command Line”, put all the power in the
hands of the user. The competence of users dropped when 3.1
was introduced, and has continued every single “upgrade” so
that the user is required to know nothing, to do nothing, and
allow the computer to spoon feed them.

There are few time wasters on par turning on a computer,
which is neither connected to the Internet nor receives
foreign media, doing malware checks and bringing up all
sorts of unneeded options, when all that is required is
to type a letter.

It is remarkable that in some offices to simply get a receipt
which wouldn’t take thirty seconds if done by hand, now
eats ten minutes because it is done by computer.

The tragedy is that the Borg have arrived, and have
assimilated most of the human race.