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Windows 8 my printer and I am not happy, or How i want to stop worrying and long for the bomb.

#136: Feb. - Mar. 2015 (Non-Fiction)
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stahrwe

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Windows 8 my printer and I am not happy, or How i want to stop worrying and long for the bomb.

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Carl Sagan has much to say in this book about how science and technology have made our lives better. But is he correct? Are we as individuals and a society happier because of Science and technology?

I am when I have my UNIVERSAL remote (UR) for my cable, DVD player, and tv, but, when I accidentally hit a particular button on it my tv changes from channel 3 to another channel not compatible with my dvr and chaos ensues. No button on my UR will change the tv back so I must find the remote which came with my tv to fix it. I keep that remote in a safe in my bedroom lest I loose it.

I have 85 remotes. I have one for the tv, cable, DVD, dvr, roku, stereo in my car, one each for 3 floor fans, a helium filled shark balloon, a remote for my remotes, and backup remotes in case I lose my remotes. When I was a kid, the remote for the tv was my little brother. Now I stress out about losing remotes.

I do almost all my business via my computer and I have friends around the globe who I have never met except via email. But I stress out when I ask one something and they don't reply. Also getting frequent email offers for male enhancement and ED medication is making me insecure.

I needed to charge my son's computer the other day so I went to get the charger from the drawer where we keep them. The problem - there are 800 chargers in that drawer and some of those chargers have 3 parts to them - the one for his computer does. What if I connect the wrong charger. Stressed.

The first computer I used was at work in the late 80's. It ran DOS, had two 51/4" floppy drives and no hard drive. As time went by I learned and used WORDSTAR, WORDPERFECT, then MSWORD; LOTUS 123, then excel. At the same time my computer got faster, hard drives, and newer operating systems. With each iteration I had to learn new software, or where Bill Gates had moved the most frequently used commands. Stressed.

My email came with WordPerfect for spelling. I activated it because I am a bad speller. But I learned a costly lesson when I was called to my bosses office to explain the email I had sent to multiple recipients asking for, "a new Pentium computer." (We used to call PC's Pentium) The speller had changed 'Pentium' to the word for male genitalia. Stress

When I was a lad the biggest threat we faced was Global Thermonuclear War. That threat could only come from one of two places - United States or Soviet Union. As time went by other countries acquired nuclear weapons and missiles but the threat was still limited but stressful. Now, I am told that some teen aged hacker could destroy the US banking system and electrical grid causing me to slowly starve to death. Stress

With early versions of DOS and Windows IT would install my printer and monitor.
Then XP came along and the computer installed the hardware with little input from me. Then wireless printers came along, big convenience. Then window 8 came along and an epic battle to install wireless printer ensued. Stress

All in all, I am not sure that science and technology are good for us or that they make us happier.
n=Infinity
Sum n = -1/12
n=1

where n are natural numbers.
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ant

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Re: Windows 8 my printer and I am not happy, or How i want to stop worrying and long for the bomb.

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Technological advancements are almost always a double edged sword.

- Nuclear energy produces nuclear waste and has created the ability for mankind to obliterated itself.

- Medical advancements have greatly increased the well-being and lifespan of humans. But we now are experiencing the rise of a medicated culture that can't function without it. In certain instances patients are over-medicated, or needlessly prescribed (there are always exceptions, of course) medication for one of the countless behavioral disorders that exist today.

- social networks have created anti-social, disengaged people in the real world.

- social networking has watered- down the meaning of the word "friend"

- privacy is harder to attain

- children spend less time being physically active.

- because technological advancements are making us sedntary creatures, our bones are becoming more brittle:

http://www.medicaldaily.com/human-evolu ... ves-315616

- An enormous increase in the "pace of life"


Who exactly is the servant in our relationship with technology?
Modern societies would freeze to a complete standstill if they were ever unplugged for an indefinite period of time.
Last edited by ant on Fri Jan 23, 2015 1:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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