Major Tom
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
I was going to post this in the "What Did You Do Today" thread but thought that it might possibly deserve it's own special place here
My life over the last few days has been about my computer. As I mentioned in this post on veremchuka's thread, I've been reinstalling everything on it (operating system, applications, the lot.)
Coincidentally, I ran into an older gentleman at the Post Office yesterday who was railing against the system. There is often someone like that at the Post Office! I did feel rather bad for this person though. All he wanted was a rate card. They either didn't have any, or had run out, but the answer he was given was to access the postal rates online. The only problem was that this gentleman doesn't own a computer.
This was the point at which I noticed him. He was loudly asking (to everyone in general and no-one in particular) what was happening to the Post Office. Not really aware of what his particular problem was (he filled me in on that later) but getting the gist of his general beef, I happily yelled back at him, "We're all using the internet, that's what happened!" It turned out that was not the right thing to say to him. He was really upset that he couldn't walk into a Post Office and get a simple postal rate card. He was waving a dollar bill in the air and proclaiming that he'd even pay for it, but he couldn't access it online as he didn't have a computer - and neither did many older people he knew.
There was a fair bit of desperation in his delivery and it really got me thinking. I know that there are ways around the lack of a computer, such as going to a friend's house, or to the public library, but not owning or having easy access to a computer can make life harder to the point where you are effectively shut out of many things. I spend a lot of time on my computer, but I'm not sure if I like where this is all going.
Any thoughts? Are computers undoubtedly a great thing, or are we sliding down some slippery slope of "progress", too far gone to do anything about it now?
My life over the last few days has been about my computer. As I mentioned in this post on veremchuka's thread, I've been reinstalling everything on it (operating system, applications, the lot.)
Coincidentally, I ran into an older gentleman at the Post Office yesterday who was railing against the system. There is often someone like that at the Post Office! I did feel rather bad for this person though. All he wanted was a rate card. They either didn't have any, or had run out, but the answer he was given was to access the postal rates online. The only problem was that this gentleman doesn't own a computer.
This was the point at which I noticed him. He was loudly asking (to everyone in general and no-one in particular) what was happening to the Post Office. Not really aware of what his particular problem was (he filled me in on that later) but getting the gist of his general beef, I happily yelled back at him, "We're all using the internet, that's what happened!" It turned out that was not the right thing to say to him. He was really upset that he couldn't walk into a Post Office and get a simple postal rate card. He was waving a dollar bill in the air and proclaiming that he'd even pay for it, but he couldn't access it online as he didn't have a computer - and neither did many older people he knew.
There was a fair bit of desperation in his delivery and it really got me thinking. I know that there are ways around the lack of a computer, such as going to a friend's house, or to the public library, but not owning or having easy access to a computer can make life harder to the point where you are effectively shut out of many things. I spend a lot of time on my computer, but I'm not sure if I like where this is all going.
Any thoughts? Are computers undoubtedly a great thing, or are we sliding down some slippery slope of "progress", too far gone to do anything about it now?