A Kindred Spirit

As part of my emerging 'Luddite' tendencies, I have taken to doing a regular search of websites throughout the world for inspiration. I'm suppose I'm looking for a modern-day Ned Ludd! Most of the time I find folk who use the term 'Luddite' in the contemporary way - referring to a person who rejects technology in every way. That's not quite how I see the world. As you can probably tell...

However, today I stumbled across an article on a website that I can identify with - this is more like it.

http://tothecenter.com/news.php?readmore=11313

More later.

Keeping in touch

A thought struck me at the weekend. You don't have to go too far back in the past to find a time when letter writing was the standard way of communicating with a friend or loved one who was far away. Many can tell with fondness of the love letters they got from their lovers - they may have even kept them - tied with a red ribbon, kept in a box by the bed! However, what do we have now in the 21st Century? Communication could be by Skype, by text message, by email. All great ways to keep in touch, but not so easy to tie a ribbon around. Are we losing something in our embrace of technology? What will be our keepsakes in the future? Think about it.

What's your problem?

Another sensational week in the office, which on reflection can be summed up by looking at the extent of technological problems we seem to face. And as it's my job to 'sort them out', I get involved with them all! However, looking at each in the cold light of day, are these bugs really all they appear to be? Is the tech in fact more trouble than it's worth (as some say)? Let's look at these issues from a Luddite point of view - are these all problems caused by the presence of technology? And could we work better without it?

* The instant messaging system suddenly gave up working sometime last week. It's not essential to work, but it's nice to have (I can tell when people are logged in to their PCs, great to know when you're trying to talk to people some hundred miles away). I reported the fault, however after a week or so the IT team are still investigating the problem. They say it might be a hardware fault, it might be software. It could I suppose be someone unplugging something they shouldn't - but I guess they'd never tell me if this was the reason. :)

* There was the problems we had with the letters produced by the company's computer system. One particular type of letter stopped working at all, immediately following an upgrade to the system. Is this truly the computer's fault, or the fault of the programmer who worked on the upgrade? In fact, this turned out to be the programmer - although the client was said to be at fault for not testing the release properly! (****!)

* And then there was the fact that all the phones suddenly stopped ringing one afternoon. Quiet, I grant you. Too quiet. The problem was traced to the 0845 provider, whose network went down unexpectedly. I'm told this was definitely a hardware failure. We got the phones back pretty quickly, thankfully.

Out of three examples, we have one failure of the technology, one failure of the programmer, and one where the court is still out. Do you know what I think? I think that on average it'll work out that more than half the time the problem is due to people - although you can bet that in most cases the computers will be blamed.

Could we work better without tech? If we did, we'd need far more people to do the work - with all the consequent cost repercussions, i.e., training, health & safety, holiday and sickness cover. Remember, it was to reduce such reliance on personnel (and improve productivity) that employers chose to automate, leading to the Luddite riots - see top of this blog.

"People are a problem." - Douglas Adams

So, where's my jetpack?

When I was young, the future was always depicted in optimistic tones. I suppose we always pictured life like The Jetsons. There were hi-tech gadgets, labour-saving devices, and robots. And they all had jetpacks to get around.

Fast forward a bit to the 21st century... and yes, here are the gadgets. Ipods, personal organisers, mobile phones. Your labour-saving devices are here too. Microwaves, dishwashers. The robots are all in the factories, poor Rosie hasn't quite made it home yet. And the jetpacks? Not a trace. And I think Health and Safety will put paid to all that.

I miss my jetpack.

Holidays in the 21st Century

I've just returned from a short break away with the family. As usual we spent it under canvas. I love sitting out somewhere peaceful and green! However, such is the pace of life in the 21st Century that folk on some campsites seem to complain about 'not having a mobile phone signal' or 'not being able to get wifi for my laptop'.

Am I strange - because I consider it a distinct advantage not having access whilst I'm on my hols. It's supposed to be a break! Yes, I do take the mobile away with me, but if folk can't reach me they can always leave a message! We do usually go off site at least once a day (the shops are only a short distance away) and can get a chance to check messages then. And emails can of course wait!

I think that people lack the discipline; they can't seem to leave the technology behind. Hmmm ... need to ponder that a bit longer. Seems to strike a chord with me, too...