Computer Sentiment 1984

So I found this book in an IT colleague’s office. 

It’s called: “The Unofficial I Hate Computer Book”.

It was written in 1984, and like the George Orwell’s book by that name, it is a dystopian view of technology. 

The back cover says:

Computer haters of the world unite: It’s time to recognize and avenge the wonderful advances we’ve made thanks to computers–excessive eyestrain and headaches, irritating beeping noises, a one-ton printout where once there was a six-page report, a “simple” programming language you can’t understand without five handbooks, a dictionary, and a math degree.

The book goes on with illustration after illustration of unadulterated computer hate and associated violence. 

– Dogs dumping on it (see cover)

– Contests to smash it with a hammer

– Hara-kiri (suicide with a knife) into it

– Skeet shooting computers that are flung into the air

– Shotput with a computer

– Tanks rolling over them

– Sinking it in water with a heavy anvil

– Boxer practicing his punches on it

– Setting it ablaze with gasoline

– And on and on, page after hate-filled page.

So in the last 34-years, have we solved all the annoyances and complexity with computers and automation?  

Do the benefits of technology outway the costs and risks across-the-board?

How do security and privacy play in the equation? 

I wonder what the authors and readers back then would think of computers, tablets, smartphones and the Internet and apps nowadays–especially where we can’t live without them at all.  😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Aging Yet (Hopefully) Always Helping Each Other

I just love this drawing of the parents and child. 

My daughter found it on Instagram and sent it to me. 

As a little kid, my wife and I used to hold her hands and swing her between us when walking (like in the above illustration)–she loved that!

Now as we get older, we still try to be good, helpful parents (not too intrusive or helicopter-like–well maybe a little), but we can certainly see a day down the line when the cycle of life goes full circle. 

My daughter used to joke (I think) about putting me in an old age home–she knew that after seeing what my mom went through there with Parkinson’s, that is truly the last place I would want to end up. 

Of course, sometimes there really is no choice when a person just needs so much care that it is beyond what the family can do any longer. 

Frankly, what I have learned is that the most important and precious thing that parents and children can give each other is…time!

So is that child in the bottom illustration helping his aging parents along or is he dragging them off to the nursing home?  Perhaps, we’ll never know until it’s too late. 😉

(Source Photo: Rebecca Blumenthal from Instagram Unlimited Knowledge)