Post Discussion

Reply from Jo on November 5, 2007

Oh Gloria, your allegory of the computer/life is brilliant and amusing. I can’t stop smiling from reading it. It needs to be printed up on a big poster like “Life’s Little Instructions” or “Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”.

Reply from Trish on November 6, 2007

Well when you come into the room and Teeny-Weeny is playing on the keyboard and the screen reads, �Are you sure you want to permanently delete the selected item(s)?� You may instantly get over your impatience with your computers pedantic ways :).

Reply from Gloria on November 6, 2007

You ladies make me laugh!

Reply from Xenia on November 6, 2007

Gloria, You made me laugh! I guess many of us feel like you about computers and have the same frustrations but, you knew how to bring the humour into it.

There is much wisdom in that you compared it with how you dealt with life. Thinking about it……I recognize myself in there too.

Where you say: “Worst of all, 99.99% of the time, any trouble my computer gives me, it turns out that I created it.”……is so true as well of life and what befalls us.

Jo is right, this metaphor needs to be published for a wider audience!

Love,
Xenia

Reply from Engin Zeyno Vural on November 8, 2007

Dear Gloria,

Do you know that, I studied maths at uni - it was a total mistake, but nevermind.

In addition to our math lectures we had plenty of courses on computers which made me always cry sobbingly. My mind never ever works in the way of computers do. So those courses on computers made me really really suffer. You should have seen the programs that I had made. Infinite infinite un-ending loops turning madly on the monitor, a show of lights and colours and my crying lecturer….Sometimes when I sleep still I dream of those horrible classes like awful nightmares.

Reply from Gloria on November 8, 2007

Oh, my beloved Engin! I relate to the suffering, although I have thought if I took computer courses I wouldn’t be so intimidated. Of course, I have no inkling on they work. There are really a lot of things I can do, but I don’t know what I’m doing!

I suffered with geometry. I know what it feels like to struggle and when the course is over, it is the happiest day of your life!

At the same time, canim Engin, I laughed out loud when I read your post! You expressed the torment so delightfully! What you wrote is classic, Engin!

Reply from Engin Zeyno Vural on November 9, 2007

When I was writing I laughed too :))

Reply from Adrachin on November 16, 2007

There is a easy way to deal with computer anger. Direct it to /dev/null

—————
In Unix-like operating systems, /dev/null or the null device is a special file that discards all data written to it (but reports that the write operation succeeded), and provides no data to any process that reads from it (it returns EOF). In Unix programmer jargon, it may also be called the bit bucket or black hole.
—————

Gone for ever so to say.

And this big buggerm I tell you, what a mysterios place:

—————
The bit bucket is jargon for where lost computerized data has gone, by any means; any data which does not end up where it is supposed to, being lost in transmission, a computer crash, or the like is said to have gone to the bit bucket — that mysterious place on a computer where lost documents go, as in:

“What happened to that important spreadsheet that I was just editing?”

“Oh, it went into the bit bucket.”
————–

Bit Heaven so to say….. )

Reply from Gloria on November 17, 2007

Ah, Adrachin, it is so good to hear from you. It has been too long! Do you remember I named my computer Schatzi, and I do try to be patient with it. And with life too!