Machines, why does it have to be this way!

There everywhere. I’m sure I’m not the only one whose noticed. Your office is full of them, you drive one to work. You plug in when you get home. And don’t get me wrong, I’m only a partial neoluddite. I enjoy the internet and computer games. I adore the ability to download documents from all over the world, sagas, manuscripts, texts of every type and persuasion. It’s a golden age of learning. All due to machines.
But some of them, quite frankly, shit me.
Alarm clocks for example. Who wants to wake up alarmed! Damn things go off like the buildings on fire and nag you out of bed! Not how I wish to greet the day!
My last one had two settings. One was radio. Bad move. You wake up to some awful song followed by three clowns trying to have fun. And the news.
Yep, nothing like that to make you want to go out and join humanity.
Its other setting was an increasingly loud beeping noise. In case I’d gone deaf during the night I suppose. So it would go off, its initial beep was set at “annoying level” you’d be in the middle of some dream and suddenly think, “hang on, is the building on fire?” pick a dream, it can be one where the beautiful woman has come eagerly to your arms or the post apocalyptic nightmare with zombies and trust me, neither is improved by the thought
“Hang on, is the building on fire?”
The second burst of beeping reminds you that no, its just your life and its time to get up and face it.
Buy the third you want to slap it, amazed at its ability to pick the wrong day and the wrong time to go off, resentment has arrived.
By the fourth you’ve realized that your arguing with a machine, its getting louder, and your not going to win.
I hated that bloody clock!
Finally one chrismas holiday I gave myself a present!
I set that thing for the first morning of my holiday. It sat smugly all night and went off with a strong sense of self importance. I arose eagerly, unplugged it from the wall strode off into the garden, where It, I and a large log splitter engaged in a frank and honest discussion in the universal language. Which is to say it died, violently.
Course I’d forgotten I was entertaining a young lady and that lead to rather interesting conversation over breakfast.
I lived without a clock till Christmas, when some kind relative bought me a new one.
Its round, looks like a tyre and makes a strange electronic sounds like a vaguely frightened “Umm,” “Umm,” “Umm.” Its like its not quite sure if it should. Like a nervous bugler in a camp of hung over soldiers.
You can sleep through it. I have, on principle!
I set it sometimes on the weekends just so I can roll over, give it a cheery obscene finger sign and show it whose boss.
But why does it have to be like this? Why the aggravation?
If I’m going to buy a machine why shouldn’t it be nice to me?
Something pleasant, polite? I mean I’ve got 8 hours for the rest of human interaction, why not slip in the ones I’m not likely to get?
I’d like an alarm clock that makes me a coffee! And says in a sulty voice encouraging things like “Wow it’s a beautiful day, cmon, get up and enjoy it!” or “Mmm, that coffees hot, I made it specially for you,” or even “ get up handsome, the world needs you,” (That ones a personal favorite, the only times its been used on me I’ve been bolt awake in seconds.)
So why not? If we have to live with them why can’t we get along?
I don’t want some gps in my car that berates me when I take a short cut.
“You took an incorrect turn” or “you have missed the turning, you can try again in 70 meters”
Seriously, were half way to one that goes “you know you wouldn’t get anywhere in life without me, your lost again aren’t you, stupid. If I wasn’t here to guide you who knows where you’d end up.” ARRRRGGGGHHHHH
And the stupid thing is there’s men who would try to marry one!
Sure its fine for it to give advice, but if I’m going to buy a machine to tell me where to go it had better be polite about it.
Why not a pretty voice saying “Next lefts a tight corner, but your good at these. I think you can take it.” Or “Why not the next right, come on, lets be adventurous!”
It could make useful observations like, “nice gear change, your pretty smooth with this thing” Or “that was very controlled piece of evasion there, nicely read”
Maybe even occasional food for thought, “Hey you’re a little rough today tiger, did we have a bad day, or are we just having fun?”
My car doesn’t have a gps, so some charming engineer decided to put in an annoying beeping noise. If you put the key in before you shut the door it beeps, if you start the car with the door open it beeps. If your seatbelt isn’t on it beeps. Even if you live on a backwards slope and have to reverse! It cares not, beep!
Its legal to leave the belt off and turn around so you can check that the neighbors kids aren’t behind you but no. Beep!
I’m going to find that friggin beep maker and reprogram it with a screwdriver!
Road rage is on the increase, can’t imagine why! Were all being nagged at by our cars and told off by our GPS’s!
And when you get to work there is normally one machine that really exists to grate on you. For some people it’s their computer. With me, it’s the office printer. Well it thinks it’s a printer. It’s got document collators, a fax ability, it can do double sided and supposedly scan, and its networked, so it can hold the whole office to ransom. But its really just a printer. Bastard!
This thing takes up half a wall and stubbornly resist our attempts to subdue it. It has attitude. You press print, it won’t. It quibbles that the object isn’t quite a match for any of its preset paper sizes. It has so many it just can’t imagine which to choose. So you jab one and the thing reluctantly starts making noise and then…. nothing happens but a strange waving of rollers and accompanying noise. Like its waiting for applause or something and then…oh, behold, a printed page!
I mean I’m gen X! I’m not amazed at the printed page anymore. I’m not going to swoon!
And so now it sulks, sometimes it doesn’t print at all.
I tell the computer to print, and it does. It pops up a little message saying “your document has been sent to the printer. So I walk to the printer, and nothing. It sits there defiantly with a little light flashing saying “object in memory.”
I mean just get it out and print it, don’t think about it. I’m the human and I’ve already thought about it. I just need you to print the sodding thing.
But it wont, it will wait till your ready to head back to your desk to see what’s gone wrong with the print queue when it does its its “lo and behold from the belly of the beast I bring forth, a printed page!”
I’ve been known to snatch the page and growl at it.
It takes opportunities to control. It has three paper trays but it likes to use number three. It will interrupt your important printing to tell you tray three is empty. It has another two trays. But to get it to use one you have to assault it with finger strikes in a precise format that would leave a shaolin monk perplexed. It’s easier to just put an offering of paper into tray bloody three.
Last time the tech was out I asked him if we could stop it beeping.
“Oh it supposed to do that” he said cheerfully.
“But its bloody annoying, I mean we have to live with this thing. If its broken have it make a pot of coffee and drop chocolate like a one armed bandit in payout mode. There are easier ways to get peoples attention. Who designs these things, sadists?”
Clearly he thought I was mad so when he asked if there was anything else I’d like to improve the machine I added, yes, a “just bloody print it” button. It’s a 21st century machine and the futures a wonderful place, it comes from a long line of printers going back to the 70’s and is bred for the job! I don’t care which tray it uses or whether the papers American regulation size. I just want a sheet of paper, to come out of there, with stuff on it! And if the stuff could get from my computer, to the printer, with slightly better speed than a lame and emaciated pigeon I’d be much obliged.”
He left, and he hasn’t come back.
And so my struggle continues on by democratic means. My team didn’t like the idea at first but on my last informal survey of the office there are now three out of around 7 full time staff in favor of me assaulting it with a log splitter. Almost enough for me to have it put on an agenda and take it to a team meeting.
I’ll get that thing yet. And when I do I’m hoping we’ll see a smarter, nicer, more sociable printer arrive in its place. One that’s willing to get along, be one of the team, fit in. Hell, I’d be happy if it just printed!

System upgrades and why they should be avoided

Well folks it’s been a real Monday. One of the great joys of life when you work in IT is what is commonly referred to as a systems upgrade. It’s when you leave on Friday with an ordered system full of carefully filed documents and return to find the sort of order that occurs when one armed men juggle kittens and chainsaws in high powered wind tunnels.
In some ways I feel oddly to blame, I awoke this morning to find myself in considerable pain from an old leg injury that to the best of my knowledge I hadn’t antagonized in any way whatsoever. After careful reflection I cannot think of a single thing I’ve done to offend said leg, but hurt it does. Maybe I’ve moved from sleepwalking to sleep full contact shoot wrestling? Who can tell? But given the state of work over the last few weeks has been akin to bedlam after a tanker of cheap gin has crashed into the cell block housing the most notorious crazies, I stupidly thought to myself, “well, at least this week must be a little better.” Shame on me. I should know better. That sort of idea has a deadly tendency to come back on you. Its like wearing underpants fashioned from particularly angry ferrets. It may feel warm and fuzzy, but its going to come back to bite you on the butt!
I arrived at work and made a bee line from the bike parking lot to the designated smoking area and then to the nearest supply of tolerable coffee. After all, it is a work day and no work day should be attempted without a double shot of caffeinated optimism.
Since I’m well known on campus (cant imagine why) and had a rather pronounced limp in the time it took me to go from A to B to C I fielded no less than 8 repetitions of same question, “what happened to your leg?”
The first few people got a brief summary, the next few an even briefer one and the last a plain faced and calmly delivered “oh I transgressed tribal law and was speared in the leg by my elders as a warning to others.” I managed to utter this while ducking through the office door into our air-conditioned haven for lost souls and coffee addicts.
I’d come in early, as experience has taught me that systems upgrades can cause difficulties in proportion to the size of the upgrade and the number of users involved. This was a campus wide roll out so potentially could have the sort of productivity implications that Godzilla brings to Tokyo.
And it did. Our new passwords didn’t work, our networks were no longer synchronized and our outlook mailboxes seemed to have undertaken their own digital version of the popular US teamwork approach known as “going postal.”
My day was spent reassuring clients while rushing from one tech issue to the next. Thankfully our tech support hotline had been pre warned and gave the distinct impression that many of our problems they had seen before. Maybe they recruit them from Beirut?
But by lunch time even they were obviously reeling under the workload and a call meant sitting on hold listening to soothing music and an automated message that assured us that the first available customer representative would answer our call. It was very reassuring, I mean otherwise I might have thought I’d rung into some radio station that played only old and soppy tunes. Being on hold does wonders for my ability to rationally deal with my fellow bipedal primates. In fact so fast does it erode my general sense of calm I long ago decided on a little personal rule that I tend to use in such situations. Well not so much a rule as a formula. 20 divided by X = Y, where 20 is the number of minutes, X is the quotient of my general discontent and Y is the likelihood that I’m going to have some fun with the person on the other end of the phone when I finally reach one. In short if I’m on hold for any lengthy period of time the likelihood that I’m going be sensible dramatically decreases. Thankfully they answered before things got truly crazy. He asked if he could have my name and I said only if I could have his, in fact maybe switching persona’s could be fun. He took it well, and dutifully recoded my name in his logging software.
I think the tech had a rough idea something was up when he asked what room number I was in and I replied I was somewhere between purgatory and the residence of Cerberus. “Would that be c3?” He asked.
“Impressive” I conceded, “your system obviously works very well,” wondering if my details had come up when my name was entered, or if perhaps they had a large map of Dante’s inferno on the wall of their call center. (Don’t rule it out, when I worked in a call center we did, and it was referred to often.)
I outlined the liturgy of errors and malfunctions we were experiencing and in a truly professional manner he noted “yes we seem to be having a few teething problems.”
“We are indeed” I concurred. “The sort of teething problems saber tooth lion cubs have in the land of sugary gazelles!”
“Oh,” he says “that bad?”
“Well let me put it this my friend almost everything I’ve touched this morning has fallen over, failed miserably or burst into flames. Its so bad I’m frightened to scratch my head for fear it will fall off, and am terrified of taking a loo break in case the law of unspeakable averages transfers to that field of operations and I’m left a scorched Eunuch.”
“Ahh,” he says. And we begin the process of slowly resolving the problems one by one. Or rather some of the problems. Some require a person on campus with administrator level access. Which of course mere mortals are not allowed in case they mess with the system. And if we let just any old IT professional do that what would we need consultative bodies for?
So we toiled, we logged, we resolved and escalated to tier two. And then when we had finished, a new batch of problems had arrived so we started again.
At one point my regular calling brought me back to the same tech.
“Oh hi,” he cheerfully intoned “I think we spoke earlier” in a voice that suggested whatever he was imbibing was a damn site stronger than the coffee I was using.
“Indeed,” I said agreeably. “I’m working up on my frequent caller points in the hope of saving up enough to get some padded wallpaper or one of those neat white huggy shirts with the brass restraining straps.”
“really?” he asked (now I’m sure he’s gone way past coffee)
“No Michael” I reply tolerantly “it s just your voice is so sexy I think I’m enamored with you.” Pregnant pause while the poor chap considered this.
“Do you realize these calls are recorded for training purposes…”
“I do,” I replied, “but I don’t have time to discuss the ethics of offshoring your work onto harmless aquatic sea mammals, I’m dealing with the biggest plague of bugs since the pharaoh told Moses to go stick it in the desert.”
“Yep,” he concludes “your defiantly the bloke I was talking to earlier….”

You see this is what an upgrade is, its where you remove old bugs while introducing a whole load of new ones. And like any invasive introduced species let loose into a pristine environment they multiply and wreak havoc. Though of course if you ask the vendors they will inevitably tell you “its not a bug, it’s a feature!”
So we logged our problems, assigned them numbers and cast them into the abyss of the technical support customer service software. (Note, service in this sense is apparently used the same way it is by vets when they use IVF techniques to “service” cattle.)
So I logged the jobs and realizing it was well past lunch time and the point of return to hope, I grabbed my filthy lung defilers and headed to the leper zone. There were a few other Tech chaps there. I decided you can tell who really cares at times like this. They are the ones steadfastly trying to kill themselves by any legal means. I smile at one who has the dull vacant lifeless eyes one associates with prisoners of war. It’s a mistake, he obviously thinks I might know something he doesn’t and like a shipwrecked man trying to clamber onto a tiny raft asks, “how’s the systems upgrade going”
“Oh its challenging” I say. We both know full well that this is tech speak for totally balls’ed up
“What’s your plan?” He asks
We’ll I was going to hide under my desk and hope no one noticed, or sacrifice a goat to the elder gods in the hope they would intervene, but the first was undignified (and my leg hurts) and the second would probably contravene a HR policy. So I’m going for the traditional one. Head for the nearest source of water armed with mankind’s oldest brewed beverage and not come out till the bottles empty and I’m full.”
He nodded thoughtfully “I think that’s the best plan I’ve heard all day”
So at least I can say my day wasn’t totally wasted. I brought some order to chaos, hope to the bereft and beer to the proximity of a large pool.
But the next time they want to upgrade my systems, I think I’ll plan some recreational leave. My sanity is fragile, and like windows, I fear each new upgrade will bring it crashing down.

Evidence of a shed goddess cult in contenporary Australian culture.

Hi Folks,

I found myself discussing with a good friend the way sometimes archeologists make a find and jump quickly to the conclusion it had religious significance. A bog man is found and of course he was sacrificed, a building whose function is unclear must have been a temple and art on cave walls is clearly magically intended. Similarly it can be amazing to see the pages written by modern heathens on topics that have very scant primary references. Which is not to say that the archeologists are wrong, or that the heathens aren't using upg (unsubstantiated personal gnossis) to good effect, but it does sometimes seem a bit much. anyway I found myself using an analogy of what these same standards might "reveal" were the same "assumptions" applied to our modern lives. Imagine the curious and misleading outcomes we would get if we started to assume that all things unexplainable were clearly religious. And being a tongue in cheek sort of lad I put finger to keyboard and came up with this. A nonsense article entitled ...
Evidence of a shed goddess cult in contemporary Australian culture. its not intended to be serious or particular enlightening, just a bit of fun.... so with no further ado....

Evidence of a shed goddess cult in contemporary Australian culture.

"a modern rite undertaken by men involves retreating to a special ritual place called a "shed." This structure was often placed away from the main living areas thus showing it had religious purposes and was “set apart” for this reason. The main area of the shed is often warded with various items such as old car parts, vinyl record collections, old sporting trophies and lawnmowers that don’t start, among other items of little practical use. From this we may deduce that their function was ritualistic and served to hallow the space for ritual and to discourage intrusion by the uninitiated. Women folk were actively discouraged from entering the shed, though various magazines and calendars have been found suggesting a pervading belief in a shed goddess whose worship may have occurred there. It may be deduced that these relics relate to the goddess aspect as the depictions are stylized with body shapes not representative of real women and clothing is either absent or of a clearly ritualized nature. The postures of the goddess’s suggest some sort of fertility role though in some depictions the figures are seen holding power tools or adorning vehicles of one sort of another. It is reasonable to assume therefore that the shed goddess was related to sexuality, power tools and all things mechanical.

Often a beer fridge is a central feature and stored here to ensure informal blots could be performed and this relic was of singular importance. Men visiting another’s shed to partake in ritual will bring offerings for the fridge and it is considered a mortal sin to remove the last alcoholic beverage from another’s fridge.

Specific clothing was often worn in the shed, old and treasured garments and the ritual nature of these robes may be determined by their holy state and that they were not worn in public. Men attempting to wear shed clothes out in public were often admonished by their family’s and told “your not wearing that out in public!”

Anthropologists have also noted that dogs were often welcome in sheds, where other family members were not. This has lead some to suggest that dogs were linked closely to the shed cult and may have been perceived as companion animals to the shed goddess. Primary sources indicate that the dog was considered “mans best friend” and many a man was known to retreat to “the doghouse” during inter household arguments. It is possible that the shed was a later extension of the doghouse but this doesn’t match archaeological evidence that doghouses and sheds seem to have coexisted in even the earliest of Australian excavations.

Men use shed space to seek answers to questions, undertake private worship of the goddess and attempt to auger answers on why their car (or lawnmower) is not working properly. Given the lack recorded incidents of lawnmowers becoming functional it must be concluded that their use in this manner was mainly symbolic and it has been speculated that they served as a way of containing evil spirits and the numerous curses that were often directed at them. A variety of ritual objects are used in a shed ritual, including specialized tools including hammers, and galdor (spoken magic) was used to evoke the gods, shed wrights and spirits of the machine, (whose parentage was often questioned.) During the particularly potent “Ah F*^&$%& it” rite the hammer is struck onto the supporting hand of the practitioner which leads to an altered state of awareness and particularly potent form of galdor. Variants of this rite are recorded using shifters and bringing the knuckles into contact with metal surfaces. There has been speculations as to weather this blood rite is a variant or evidence or part of a separate cult.

The shed formed a vital role in the household, used for cementing relationships between the men of the community and served as a sanctuary in times of household strife or war."

Now all I need is a university willing to offer me a phd studying the phenomenum, a big shed and of course lots of ice cold "offerings" ;-) hey weirder things have been funded before :-)

I hate the Traffic

There are few things that I can truly say I don’t appreciate. Most of life’s little annoyances I can handle if not with grace, with a certain stoic fortitude. But I’ve decided that I hate the traffic on the gateway motorway...

I have just posted my entire rant on Neshamah Comments - so check it out.