You’re as Young as Your PC

My computer has reached middle age.

I have a laptop computer issued to my from my employer, which is really a way to eliminate any possible excuse I have for not being able to go to work. No matter how sick I might be, no matter that I might have the next pandemic gestating in my lungs, I can still get on through the internet and work. I blame Bill Gates, but that's by default.

A programmer's computer is like a mechanic's truck, it gets no maintenance and little in the way of attention, but it does get the damage so that I may spare such burdens to others. When you create a program from scratch, there are bound to be errors, omissions, "memory leaks" and typos. These are minimized by trying to make the system crash on your own PC before they're released into the world.

Thus the programmer's PC is the ground-zero for all the bad programming and lazy short cuts that blow up and create waves of electronic shrapnel. A programmer's PC doesn't last as long as most.

Apparently, only programmers know this axiom. The infrastructure people have a list of purchase dates and aging graphs that make an actuary table look like a child's crayon wanderings. All machines will be replaced IN ORDER and ONLY when their number has come up on the now-your-computer-is-dead list.

In the meantime, my laptop can no longer run as fast as it once could, it can't process as fast, and it's memory is cluttered with useless bits of trivia from so long ago, there is no way to know where the data originated.

It's battered, weathered, and the case has more creases and dings and scratches than ever before, yet according to the hallowed halls of administration, it's nowhere near early enough to retire. It's starting to sound a wee bit familiar.

But, as cluncky and slow as it may be, and as long as it takes to get going in the mornings, there are some things I will say in its defense. There are applications on there that took literally days to load, and even if I reloaded them on a new PC, they wouldn't have the history where I can simply select a project I'd worked on four years ago from the list of experience. It still runs the newest programs and the latest operating systems, and if it can't quite handle the newest version of Windows, well, from what I've seen, neither can I.

The dings and dents and scratches, yes give it character, but more importantly they identify the machine as mine more than any label could. Every mar on its surface was hard-won and placed there by me over the years. There are scratches that are the souvenirs and memorabilia of many business trips, there are dings and dents from a working vacation I took to Dallas when my step-father got a heart transplant.

The screen is as crisp and unblemished as the day I got it, though there are some spots that I cannot seem to clean off no matter how hard I try. One of the spots looks like a comma and I have incorrectly corrected may a grammatical error when a word landed on that spot.

It would be nice to have the big monitor, the dual processor, the memory so big and glorious that even the computer can't tell how much it has, but I'm really not ready to give up this one yet.

It may be middle aged, but so am I, and I still work every day.

Of course, there is the matter of the clogged processes, but I blame Bill Gates and everything falls into place from there.

 

Saw this - had to share

Just ask me

I bought a movie today, Monty Python's
Life of Brian. It was on the 5.50 rack, it is nearly 30 years old (1979). Still the movie does have an R rating, so the register at the grocery store where I bought it automatically prompted the cashier: "Is customer over 17?"

When I buy wine or beer, which does not happen too often, but once in a while, the message comes up again, this time asking about being older than 21. IN either case, the cashier usually does what the woman behind the counter today did. She reached over with a huff and smacked the "yes" button as though it should be obvious even to the machine that I was well over 17.

In any age restricted purchase or admission – again not often, but there are some R movies I'll see at the theatre and I have a fondness for a good White Zinfandel – I am passed through unasked to prove that I am an adult.

By the time I was 16, I had already surpassed most people in height and weight both. I had a full bushy beard I started cultivating at 14, and I just looked older than 18, which was the legal drinking age at that time. When my then best friend discovered that most people mistook me for much older, we began the Buying of the Beer. Each and every time I walked to the counter and placed a 6, 12 or 24 pack of beer down and pulled out the wallet, I sweated and feared I was going to be carded. I never was.

These days, I sweat and fear that I WON'T be carded. Looking a lot older than my physical age was one time a goal, now it's … disturbing. There is a hassle to being carded, pulling out the driver's license, going through the rigmarole, but it would be nice if maybe it just wasn't quite so obvious that my teenage years are so far behind me even a cash register should be able to tell.

I don't qualify for the discount meals at Denny's yet, I've thought about going in there and ordering senior special just so someone would card me, but there is a two part issue with that: 1. I'm afraid that I wouldn't be carded there either and 2. Denny's food.

Maybe I should try it the other way around. I think the next time I go to see a movie, I'll claim I'm under 12 to get that children's discount. I can't imagine it would work, but imagine the ego-shot if I could pass it just once.

Of course, I'd have to try it at a G or PG movie.