Somebody Up There....
Posted: Thursday, 28 February 2008 |
9 comments |
....Doesn`t like me!
Last week we`d a thunderstorm here on Sanday. It fair rolled across the island..you know how it begins..the sky darkens and that much overused but well fitting word, `ominous`, happens....like a great bruised and unhealthy face the sky glares down at us, close quarters, then the thunder rolls across it like the biggest drum in the world is being beaten with half an oar maybe, or a giants thighbone...
And there you are, sitting quite happily tapping away at the keys on your laptop, which is, where else, but on your lap...
and there`s this blinding flash from just outside the window, and in a micro second there`s also a `fizzzz` at the cable end and it travels down the line and the back of the laptop lights up like a Jul tree and your hands get a whack and begin buzzing a fair bit....
and the Internet freezes...
So, long story short, that day last week I spent the day alternately cursing at the lightning, nursing hands that felt like the worst kinda pins and needles, and trying to wade through the "Press button one for blah blah blah" that is the BT helpline....
only to get a tech assistant who barely speaks English and has no real grasp of what I am saying when I tell him, yes, I did xyz and am sure it isn`t the actual laptop and yes, we DID have a lightning strike...
it took out my modem, which left me without the net for about a week.
During that time I came to realise just how much we rely on modern technology to keep us connected now...
I run a small business which relies upon being online.
I have friends I keep in regular contact with, some of whom thought I`d taken a snit or thrown some kinda wobbly at them for no reason because I didn`t ...couldn`t...get in touch...and some who were quite worried in case I was ill or hurt...
and I rely on the Net for little daily checking things. like logging into the Orcadian Online to check the weather here, or the Met Office for the Shipping forecast and suchlike, not to mention digital banking.....
Well, all of that went in one tiny fizz bang wallop and tingle.....
Our local island hostelry, the Belsair, runs a small Internet cafe...and they were kind enough to put up with my knocking their door at 9am of a morning so I could get online to inform folks why I wasn`t `talking` for a peedie while....
and thanks to that I was able to get online a couple of times to take care of business and banking.
Two more kindly folks are harder to find. Can`t thank them enough.
But the whole thing made me realise how much I take this technology for granted.
It keeps me in touch with folks I otherwise wouldn`t know, it makes business so much easier than in the days of paper and phone alone...
it provides information at the touch of a keyboard and allows me to have fun too as I load my Youtube up with `favourites`, old and loved songs that you think are lost forever only to see someone else thinks they`re worth sharing too!
We`ve come a long way, baby.....
in my youth, video recorders were Betamax and massive, clunky things...the first remote control tv`s had a lead from the remote to the telly and made a chunky sound as you changed the channel...all three of them....
mobile phones were in the realms of sci fi and akin to the communicators of Star Trek....
And the earliest computors needed an entire room to themselves, so massive they were, and could just about calculate two plus four inside a day....
And here we are...if mobile phones get any smaller I`ll need a microscope (electron, of course) to see the buttons....
my MP3 player lets me hear anything I like, but still reminds me of Sunday nights spent with my ear glued to the radio to listen to the top forty...and didn`t that die a death...sad...
the dvd recorder gives me cinematic quality recordings when I remember using early videos that often skipped, glitched and sometimes didn`t even run the voices in sync...and the quality of it all was so `soft focus` that there was never any need for aging actresses to hit the botox or facelifts because hell, who could see them through the fog of eighties video quality?
But amid all the glitz and glamour and functionality and excitement of up to date technology, folks forget there`s an ancient and sentient one that can kick the backside of any of it.
Thor strode the skies in his goat-drawn wain, Toothgrinder, Toothgnasher at the head, and cracked the whip and threw Mjollnir out into the heavens and the sparks struck from massive hooves lit up the darkness and one went astray and fried my modem and left me with still tingling fingers as a memento, a reminder that, whilst humans might think they have the upper hand, all it takes is one ancient God of Thunder to have a playful day and we are, truly, back in the Dark Ages.
Know something? It wasn`t half bad either......;-)
Posted on Hermit Life at 12:41
Comments
They Shoe Horses Don't They?
Blacksmiths I mean.. Nice to see yer back HL, although I can't see yer actual back, but you know what I mean, which is more than can be .........
Tws from Tuning In
Don't you have a surge protector plugged to your computer, Hermit? So, you had to get a new computer modem sent over? Aren't you using broad band? Anyway, good to hear from you again.
mjc from NM,USA
The PC and all of its packages ... so unbelievably useful ... but so distractingly ... fragile ... everything you have, could just be gone in a flash ... who thought of such a pernicious way of lulling you into a false sense of security, so that you forget how to do it the long way, and begin to rely upon the electronic way, and then Bang, you realise you've been had ... And this is a former computer programmer speaking too ... But I worked with IBM Big Blues, not silly mewling pcs ... Would take much more than the God of Thunder to bu&&er up a mainframe ... Proper computers, they are ... :-)
soaplady from in the office worrying about backups
mjc, on this side of the pond we tend to refer to the "thing" (often the "effing thing") that connects us to the internet as a "modem". Be it a 3g mobile usb device, a PCMCIA wireless either net card for the Coffee shop, a DSL gateway, ASDL router, or any other electronic device that modulates an analogue carrier enabling digital information to be sent over analogue transmission facilities - they're all "Modems" in modern lingua franca.
P.S. Hermit, I do love a good Thunderstorm, but don't envy your tingly fingers . . . poor you :( . . . On the up side, do you think will you develop Super Powers now? Will you become "Electra Girl"? Or 鈥淚nfo Woman鈥, able to hack a computer with the slightest touch of your hand? Will any of our data ever be safe again?
If so, can I help you pick out a cape? Can I can I can I can I can I pleeeeeeese?
Salty from Dublin
My Grandad used to say, all it would take to send us back to the bottom of the food chain would be if god took the spark out of electricity. I often think the gods laugh up their sleeves at us with our fancy new toys - one display of strength from them....and poof! all gone :)
XX
GerCelt from Dublin, Ireland
Soaplady - " but so distractingly ... fragile ... everything you have, could just be gone in a flash" - what a brilliant metaphor for Liff.
Flying Cat from Fragile Rock
Hermit LIfe, what an experience, tingling fingers is porbably getting off lightly. Amazing that your PC, or laptop, whatever, didn't get taken out too. Back up, back up, back up, is the rule, so why do I break it? And why can't that cat pronounce "Life" properly - is it a cleft lipp condition?
Barney from Swithiod smugly
Salty, thanks for bringing me up to speed.
mjc from NM,USA
It's a Terry Pratchett condition...(I'll gie ye a cleft lip so I will!)
Flying Cat from smug mode
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