Sunday, June 04, 2006
PC or Mac
Hello,
The magic of a personal computer today
By the time I retired I had spent a good one third of my life, over twenty years, in the computer industry. And on being retired I resolved not to use a computer again, except to play my favourite computer game, one called DIGDUG or DIGGER, a very challenging game where dexterity, speed and foresight are required.
The reasons I had then was shared by all others who had been in the industry long enough, an industry well known to turn ones hair white in a short time. Being an industry where hardware, software and wares of all sorts kept obsoleting themselves rapidly, keeping up to date was like doing undergraduate study continuously. So retired meant fully retired for me, just to play DIGGER or other games.
And for about two decades, no amount of enticement by people who were hot on the Personal Computer (PC), considered an IN-THING for the brainy, could draw me back. They told me one could learn anything from under the sun from the INTERNET, or do undergraduate study without having to go to the university.
Well well, I was doubtful, so just to test them out, I asked one or two to show
me what is a bombardier beetle ?
It turned out that nothing about it could be found on the WorldWideWeb.
So much for so much claim !
A Bombardier Beetle is a small beetle about three cm long and a cm round. See the attachments. It will eject two separate streams of liquid from its rear when attacked. These combined to form a powerful chemical to hit the predator, like a toad, causing it's tongue to swell immediately, making it release its prey and allow the beetle to escape. The fascinating spectacle about this event is to see the toad huffing and puffing with its bloated tongue hanging out.
But an ostrich cannot bury its head in the sand for long, as the saying goes. As time went by, the PC offer its great uses by banks and other establishments etc.; and it enables one to do things from home. And worse, computer illiterate people will not be able to get things done, or get served, in time to come.
Fortuitously, a hand-me-down PC came into my hands over a year ago. The task of relearning everything from scratch was daunting as my knowledge of the big main frame computers was not applicable to the PC. And it was a great revelation to face what the Internet and its Worldwideweb offer today. So much had come into being; one can read the whole Bible there, over a thousand pages of text; or find the spelling and meaning of any word; it offers the whole dictionary.
These aside, besides a lot of others, like answers to questions, it is the things that other Internet users put in to share that is most interesting. Just for a mention, I have received and forwarded respectively more than a thousand mails since I corresponded; these include short movies, slide shows, pictures, quotations, poems, stories, etc. and jokes galore. Some of these are so unique and rare, inspiring and touching, revealing and eye-opening, marvelling and entertaining, including amazing works of personal creativeness.
One cannot get all these just from books, and as easy as they came.
They are truly treasured; they are archived.
I know there are colleagues who still keep clear of the PC or the Mac; they cannot be convinced. These do not know what they missed.
Have a nice day
Ronald
The magic of a personal computer today
By the time I retired I had spent a good one third of my life, over twenty years, in the computer industry. And on being retired I resolved not to use a computer again, except to play my favourite computer game, one called DIGDUG or DIGGER, a very challenging game where dexterity, speed and foresight are required.
The reasons I had then was shared by all others who had been in the industry long enough, an industry well known to turn ones hair white in a short time. Being an industry where hardware, software and wares of all sorts kept obsoleting themselves rapidly, keeping up to date was like doing undergraduate study continuously. So retired meant fully retired for me, just to play DIGGER or other games.
And for about two decades, no amount of enticement by people who were hot on the Personal Computer (PC), considered an IN-THING for the brainy, could draw me back. They told me one could learn anything from under the sun from the INTERNET, or do undergraduate study without having to go to the university.
Well well, I was doubtful, so just to test them out, I asked one or two to show
me what is a bombardier beetle ?
It turned out that nothing about it could be found on the WorldWideWeb.
So much for so much claim !
A Bombardier Beetle is a small beetle about three cm long and a cm round. See the attachments. It will eject two separate streams of liquid from its rear when attacked. These combined to form a powerful chemical to hit the predator, like a toad, causing it's tongue to swell immediately, making it release its prey and allow the beetle to escape. The fascinating spectacle about this event is to see the toad huffing and puffing with its bloated tongue hanging out.
But an ostrich cannot bury its head in the sand for long, as the saying goes. As time went by, the PC offer its great uses by banks and other establishments etc.; and it enables one to do things from home. And worse, computer illiterate people will not be able to get things done, or get served, in time to come.
Fortuitously, a hand-me-down PC came into my hands over a year ago. The task of relearning everything from scratch was daunting as my knowledge of the big main frame computers was not applicable to the PC. And it was a great revelation to face what the Internet and its Worldwideweb offer today. So much had come into being; one can read the whole Bible there, over a thousand pages of text; or find the spelling and meaning of any word; it offers the whole dictionary.
These aside, besides a lot of others, like answers to questions, it is the things that other Internet users put in to share that is most interesting. Just for a mention, I have received and forwarded respectively more than a thousand mails since I corresponded; these include short movies, slide shows, pictures, quotations, poems, stories, etc. and jokes galore. Some of these are so unique and rare, inspiring and touching, revealing and eye-opening, marvelling and entertaining, including amazing works of personal creativeness.
One cannot get all these just from books, and as easy as they came.
They are truly treasured; they are archived.
I know there are colleagues who still keep clear of the PC or the Mac; they cannot be convinced. These do not know what they missed.
Have a nice day
Ronald
# posted by chunmu @ 7:21 PM 
