ALARM BELL!

Now that computers can perform every task from the magnificant to the mundane,  human beings are becoming increasingly obsolete.

And speaking of computers, Isadora really pulled a number on Fio, refusing to produce what Fiorella assumed had been saved the previous evening, Yours truly went ballistic all over FB, screamed enough to wake the dead, shouted no-no-no several hundred times, threw her shoes across the room, then picked them up and threw them again, after which she cried a lot and went into a a deep, angry depression.

Something must be done about Isadora. She is too complicated. Things that took one tap of a key on Dora take three steps or more on Isadora. And everytime Fio tries to write, unwanted suggestions are hurled at her. Besides, she guzzles power and always seems to be out of gas.

Fiorella was thrilled to be able to buy a computer similar to her old one, but too many bells and whistles have been added.

Consumer Complaint

Why is it that computer makers keep adding exotic bells and whistles to their products, but can't seem to find a way to keep the desktop icons from jumping around?

Conspiracies and Coincidences

Friend Jeanell's life would be a field day for conspiracy theorists.

 During the same time frame, three women, all with names beginning with J, all romance writers, all members of ARWA, all on the shady side of fifty, had their computers go down. Then there were Jeanell's former neighbors--the husband's given name was the same as Jeanell's younger son's middle name, the neighbor's older son's name was same as Jeanell's older son's name, and the neighbor's younger son's name was the male version of Jeanell's daughter's name. Which all goes to prove that sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence. However, about those three computers....

Electronic Addiction

Fio would like to think that, in the future, people will not have to be so tied to their computers, so dependent on them.  If Fio wants to know what the weather is going to be like tomorrow, she consults the computer.  If she needs to know a  phone number, she looks it up on the computer.    She blogs on the computer.  She sends messages to friends and family by the computer. When she writes her books, she uses on the computer. If she needs background on anything at all, she looks it up on the computer.

In short, she spends more time with her computer than she does with her husband.

Sense vs. Santorum

Ah, the political season--Fiorella's favorite fodder.

According to columnist George Will, Rick Santorum perceives himself as appealing to "the approximately seventy percent of Americans who don't have a college degree and are competing with the unskilled workers who are coming into this country," which is why Santorum proposes cutting legal immigration by twenty-five percent.

First of all, is Santorum is so stinkin' rich that he thinks seventy percent of Americans are competing to cleans sewers?

Second, how obtuse, simplistic, and out of touch can you get?  A college degree is no longer--if it ever was--a sine qua non to financial success.  In fact, with the way college loans are oppressing current-day graduates, the degree-holders may NEVER get out of debt.

Third, how insulting can you get?  Anyone who's wise in the ways of computers, even if he/she hasn't graduated from high school, can make a mint. Then there are all sorts of occupations--writing, the trades, entrepreneurship, the arts--that can at least pay the bills, and sometimes a lot more.  And Fiorella doubts that any of these people so employed feel threatened by "unskilled workers."

Fourth, Santorum's solution to this non-problem--cutting legal immigration by twenty-five percent--is laughable.  Why does he think legal immigrants are all aiming at low-level jobs? Those jobs are going to illegal immigrants, who are grateful for every opportunity they can get and  work hard to earn their places in the land of opportunity.

More power to them.  They're a lot brighter than Rick Santorun.



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Sounding Off

Fiorella wishes "they" would stop improving personal computers.  Her laptop has three different ways to control the size of print--the one labeled "font," the one that has a plus and minus on it, and the built-in mouse thing that suddenly enlarges the whole page if Fio so much as looks at it.

Fiorella is willing to learn how to do something--ONE way to do it, that is.  She doesn't need options.

And while she's on the topic, she doesn't like the way her font will suddenly up and change out of Times New Roman either.