| Show Computerization Inevitable While I was visiting an old friend frienda a few weeks ago we went for a ar aride aride r ride de in my friends friend's new American- American made car As we entered the car a voice oice chimed out informing us that the doors were open At first I thought I was hearing things and then I thought it was my friend playing some odd joke After we had settled into the car seats another voice blurted out that we we should fasten our seatbelts It was then that I noticed a digital display on the dashboard with an aerial view view of the car informing me that my door was ajar With all these voices and controls surrounding me I realized that I had entered a computerized car Yes once again I had been drawn into another high tech machine of the The Way It Itis IsBy Is IsBy By Dan Metcalf A y r Q v y n ti I That's one of the funny things about living in n this decade of high tech You feel very intimidated by byall byall all the complexities associated with computers When I rode in my friends friend's car I felt that there was no noway noway noway way I co could ld possibly drive the machine without a degree in computer computer computer com com- puter programming Have you ever tried to simply set the clock on the dash board in some of these cars Its It's nearly impossible unless you actually designed the car yourself My friend had owned the car for some time and had figured out how to set the time by then A Alot Alot Alot lot of these computer problems can be solved by trial and error though its it's not easy These high tech machines do come with operators manuals and at times they do offer some help The problem problem pro pro- blem IS is that some of these manuals really look more like an unabridged dictionary and are very hard to read With jobs being replaced by computers typewriters being replaced by word processors and even cash registers being replaced by computers at the grocery stores one might be led to believe that our very lives are being taken over by some floppy disk somewhere back in Washington DC D.C. What kind of word is floppy anyway Have you ever seen one actually flopping flopping flopping ing around 0 That's another thing about compute the computers the s language I mean some names can be outright weird Names like user friendly or bytes or megabytes can seem pretty strange to us simple people What I mean is that I still live in my myown myown myown own little world where a duck is a duck and life should be simple enough for anyone to compre compre- hend Just as I was beginning to master the English language someone someone someone so so- meone had to come up with an entirely entirely entirely en en- different high tech jargon Now dont don't give up on me yet I Iam Iam Iam am trying to adjust to this new and complex world of computerized machines Even as I write now I Ido Ido Ido do so on a word processor and even though it is really hard to start learning I can always somehow manage to print this column I still however drive a 1979 Dodge Aspen with no computerized parts or controls That gives me a sort of security about this ever-changing ever high tech world we live in I will admit on the other hand that I did drive an associates associate's Mercedes Benz last week complete with computerized dashboard controls and I liked it |
