So as you may or may not have read in a past entry about my computer woes of late, my computer died. Alas it is a sad thing indeed, but it also is a WTF thing on several levels. The first is that these things are built worse than the first little piggy’s house of straw or at least that has been my experience with them. I have had 5 computers die on me in the last 8 years. I know WTF!!!
My bad karma can only do so much but I’m willing to chalk some of them up to this not all of them. Build them better it is pretty freaking simple concept.
Secondly and the bigger WTF is the whole programming changes and things not being compatible from version to version.
Seriously people you might just be to smart for your own good on this one. You are not reinventing the wheel with most of these programs and the updates performed.
So why the hell do document programs from one version to the next find it so impossible to read older versions? I’m not kidding this is completely stupid.
What is so dramatically different from the very first document creating programs to the current versions of them? I can’t get the computer to write papers for me. Even if they could write them is it necessary to make it impossible to read the saved files?
It’s call backward compatibility in the industry but that means that people don’t need to buy the new program if the old one does the same thing. So it is really about making money and screwing over the consumer.
If you argue it is more about intellectual property. Sure from one software maker to another. Sure there will be some differences. However from one writer to another the programs are essentially doing the same thing and this practice exclusivity is more about limiting consumer choice than it is about protecting intellectual property.
It’s not just with document producing programs. The industry does very little to insure backward compatibility and preserving the customers information from one version to the next regardless of the program.
This practice is rampant within every industry. However, when it comes to information this practice is even more dangerous and will ultimately lead to what I’m calling an intellectual ice age or stagnation.
We loose so much information every time an advance is made in the creation, storage and recovery of that information.
We loose information every time there is a glitch, hiccough or SNAFU / FUBAR moment within a server, network, mainframe or other grouping of computers.
Example in my work, yup that place I can’t talk about, there was an “event” with the computers at some point in the recent past. I can’t be more specific than that. This ‘event’ was experienced by every office doing my work. An @$$ load would be the technical term. This ‘event’ directly impacted ten of my cases that I know about. Now in my office if every person who does my work had ten cases impacted that would be 100 cases. Then times that by and @$$load. The information is gone.
So no matter what a computer guru tells you that information is still in there. Not so much and it’s not retrievable. All gone.
Our knowledge base can and will ultimately suffer a similar fate at some point if we don’t take precautions to fight against this and focus on preserving the information rather than just making a dollar.
Every step we blindly take forward via technology has the opposite effect of sending us backward many more steps backward leaving us with less knowledge.
In other news
Saw the movie Red. It was really good. If you haven’t seen it you should.
Gonna go kill some MAG avatars now.
That’s all for now, other stuff tomorrow
Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday
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Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood.
Ciao,
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Gamer Tag: invisible don
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