Posted on 12/25/2007 5:28:49 AM PST by Kaslin
ping
Merry Christmas!
I’m like you adjusting the volume is easier than turning it off and on.
Merry Christmas
ok, I’m a little woozy from trying out my new shiatsu heated back massager for too long, I see that you didn’t write this. I still agree with it totally.
Our TV stereo system’s on/off button says “Standby”.
The first thing I do when I get a thick instruction manual is grab a razor knife and slice out all the sections that aren’t in English. Turns a 1” thick manual into a 1/4” (or less) pamphlet.
I had a hi tech watch I liked, but it had an hourly beep that could not be disabled, and an alarm that defied all efforts to disarm.
Cruelly, its piezo transducer was at exactly the pitch where there is a 6 dB notch in my hearing. (Firearms).
So, it would disrupt meetings, and annoy everyone and cause embarassment. When my wife and I went on vacation, I had to wrap it in a sock and lock it in the safe, or it would wake her up every hour.
One day we were out for a walk, and she told me, "Your watch is beeping". There was a heavy line of traffic coming quickly down the road. A perfect time for the watch to be flung under the wheels- Very satisfying.
I bought a Russian-Made CRUDE thing with GEARS and SPRINGS (Paketa) that served me well for years. Ugly as a used tractor, but quiet and accurate. Twenty bucks.
I am relieved to know that I was not a xenophobic crank for doing the same thing.
I call it "Speed Reading".
There is a solution. If you want one with all the bells and whistles you have to learn how to ring the bells and blow the whistles. Otherwise you are wasting your money.
Damn Luddites...
Make sure to have a kid available at all times.
Mr. Sowell has discovered the great divide: The Generation Gap.
"When I bought one of these small, cheap, old-fashioned cathode-ray TV sets on sale to watch while on my exercise machine, I had no idea how high-tech and computerized even these obsolete sets had become. "
Exactly, sweetie.
I thought the best line in the article was this:
"Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I read the instruction book."
While I am very comfortable with computer technology and teach online classes, I am baffled by my cellphone. I do not want to use my phone as a mediocre camera. I have no need for idiotic ring tones and do not see my phone as an entertainment device. I do not want to use microscopic keys to send moronic text messages. I simply want a phone to take and make telephone calls. However, trying to find a cellphone that is just a phone is very near impossible.
I know, I'm being too picky. So, how about I apologize and wish everybody a Merry Christmas.
Besides, there are so many time-keeping devices in sight all day long, that a watch on my wrist would just be another thing that is one minute off from the others.
Another pet peeve is when one instruction book is for several different models and it is up to you to decide if the instructions are for the one you own or not. It is not always clear.
A big part of this is simply ego. I work in IT, and have done so since 1987. I started in software, and eventually moved into hardware, and have done mostly support since then. At this point, I'm in network administration. Anyway, I see my #1 job as a person who allows other people to do their jobs. They're NOT IT experts. In a lot of cases, they're lucky if they are able to turn on the computer. So when they call me, I attempt to figure out and fix the problem using THEIR language when possible. On the other hand, some of the guys I work with are a lot like SNL's "Nick Burns," who have an attitude.
Now I have to admit that I'm amazed at the poor quality of first line tech support the guys who are on the "help desk." At my last job, if a problem was escalated to me, I knew that the problem was serious, and the front line techs had eliminated all the simple problems. At this job, I have to start over from the beginning, since I can't trust these help desk script monkeys to have checked little things like indicator lights on the routers (even to the point that a router was powered off!), or even checking to see if a cable's been kicked loose. But I don't make an issue of it... However my coworkers insist on making a big deal of it... For instance, when someone who needs an account password changed, but only uses that account for email, sends a request for an "email password change," I respond with "password changed and tested." On the other hand, my coworker responds with "email enabled active directory user account password changed." Is his description more accurate than mine? In a technical sense, yes. Does it matter? No. The effect is the same. I know that I changed the AD user account password, since I did it through the ADUC utility. Does the user need to know this? No. It's just my coworker's need to show superiority over the "great unwashed."
Mark
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