Computer assistance required

Why do people ask for assistance with computer problems they haven’t solutions for? That’s an easy one to answer: so they can show off their superior ability.

An example using you as the twit: there’s something wrong on your screen, a dialogue box appears and you can progress no further. What do you do? You ask your shining white knight to assist! Easy.

Said knight (me) arrives, asks you to do nothing more, not even move the mouse, then asks a series of questions. My first word though is “STOP!”

You:

Dismiss any and all dialogue boxes remaining on the screen,
Pan and scroll the screen so that the area causing problems is no longer visible, let alone in focus,

Answer “What were you doing prior to the event?” with “Nothing!”

Answer “What were the contents of the dialogue box, even approximately?” with “I don’t know, something technical, how am I supposed to know?”

Answer “What do you need to do to progress?” with “I don’t understand.”

Eventually a dialogue is established, an approximate timeline leading up to the error is ascertained, and other big words…

A plan coalesces!

“Right,” I say “I think I know what’s causing the problem and I’ve a solution* I think will work. Should we try it?”

“Yes.” you say.

I start to patiently explain the background, the reason for the error, and steps necessary to avoid the ‘thing’ happening in the future. And this is where it falls apart.

You click, pan, scroll, press buttons, dismiss dialogue boxes, and then, as if it wasn’t enough, offer an alternative solution. You do it before I finish. Every time.
“I know mine will work,” I say. You ignore this with “Yeah, but…” so I walk away.

Until the next time…

A few minutes later I observe a thought bubble above your head: “Er… that didn’t work, crap idea, I’ll go and ask X…”

A quarter of an hour later I observe X walking away a little flustered, and Google search appears on their screen. Eventually a solution appears and it’s implemented. X of course gets due credit. It is indeed only fair.

And there’s a smile on your face, you did well fixing that.

Until the next time…

Sense of humour

My oldest daughter is often challenged by her homework – there’s way too much for a 6-year-old, but the school gets good results and we don’t want to rock the boat, at least not just yet. The latest batch has what I presume is an exercise related to imagination.

The brief being to create a monster, describe its likes and attributes, and draw a picture. The most important bit, the one daughter 1 was most challenged by, giving said monster a name.

It should be easy, it’s only a name. Right? But we’d only recently finished with the weights and measures homework, moving together throughout the house finding objects for me to illustrate what things weigh. Brain full.

  • 5kg was easy for her – 5 bags of sugar.
  • 100g less easy given perfectionist daddy’s insistence in diving into the miscellaneous food items drawer. But we got there.
  • 63kg is what a mummy weighs. Not this mummy here you understand, as I noted at the bottom of the page to the teacher, in a pitiful attempt at humour and face-saving.
  • 30g is a packet of crips (chips if you’re the wrong side of the Atlantic Ocean.)

So, a name for the monster? She didn’t know. So I explained what it must be like being one. “Just imagine what life must be like as a monster,” I said. “Everyone’s out to get you simply because you’re going round the countryside eating small children and sheep. And, do you know, that’s wrong.”
She looked at me for a moment. And then looked again.

I continued “Imagine all you want is a quiet life, to just go down to the shops and buy some nice food, go home at the end of the day and sit down with a cup of steaming hot chocolate. And you can’t because the villagers are out to get you, stab you and set you on fire.”
At this point daughter 1 opened her mouth and said something very appropriate: “?”

Ok, non-verbal communication is indeed very powerful, but let’s move on…

“So,” I said “let’s pick a name now. Please.”

“Flib-blob-floo-boo,” or something very close, was her reply. I’m still not sure if as an answer or because I’d melted her brain. But I pushed for an answer – it was past her bedtime.

“How about Buttercup?” I asked. “Just because it’s a monster doesn’t mean it has to have a horrible name like Raaarg or Snaarlf.”

“No.” came the emphatic response.

“Snowdrop?” was met with a giggle. On our way now, I hoped, but I’ll spare you the despair I felt when each subsequent pick was rebuffed. Close to giving up or getting her mother to help I gave it my best shot: “Jim-Bob?” (her name) “or Ag-Ack-Ack?” (her younger sister’s name.) Incidentally I’m not in the habit of divulging my family’s names publicly. Apart from the cats.

Simply “No.”

My patience wearing thin, inspiration arrived: I asked her to pick a letter of the alphabet to start the name off.

“F” she smiled.

Imagine my thought bubble: “Uh-oh.”

“i” arrived quickly, much to my relief.

“s, h, l, e, g ,s, !”

Done, at last!

And here she is:

I have what’s been called a well-developed sense of humour. Ok, I’m putting a positive spin on it. Being frank, a lot of people think I’m a bit weird. And some think I’m a lot weird. And, do you know, I have no problem with that.

I do have a problem with the dangly bulbous-ended thing between Fishlegs’ legs. I dare not ask, especially as I made the assumption a girl would pick a female monster.

…

“A tail?” you say.

Naah, she’s seen my willy.

Dad’s Army mug

Here’s one of my favourite Christmas presents from 2013. On the face of it just an enamelled mug, but to me it’s much, much more than that. There’s a massive amount of symbolism going on here. Drinking from it in the comfort of my comfy armchair and surrounded by the comfort of our modern age I can nevertheless imagine myself transported back it time to…

(insert wavy transition sequence here)

I’m a young recruit to the WWII Home Guard, green around the gills, no clue what’s going on, my ability to take orders my only saving grace… and someone gives me a mug of tea.

Ok, ok, I’m ordered to make the tea but that’s a trifling detail – isn’t this my story‽

Tinny pressed mug; flimsy pressed spoon; muddy water on a rolling boil in a patterned, enamelled container of origin best-not elaborated on. The milk’s a bit lumpy but that’s ok, it goes in, the tea’s good; any refuge from this biting cold is welcome…

(a-aaaand back to the future)

It makes a satisfying tinny sound when stirring tea (with bags, 3-1/2 sugars, thanks!) – it’s reassuringly light, it harks back to a bygone era when a man used what he was given – and liked it.

And it’s already taken on a manly patina. Oh, yes.

Follow

I don't follow everyone who follows me on App.net (or previously Twitter) for a number of reasons, all selfish. Here are a few:

On the date I'm writing this I follow 73 people on App.net. Sure it's not a massive number, but it's enough for now. Some are more prolific than others.

Important to note: I read my timeline daily. All of it. Sometimes it takes more than one day to get through it all.

I skip over some posts of course, but the key thing to remember is I have directed posts (the one side of conversations of people I follow) turned on. It's a lot of posts.

I used to cite my now-practically-inactive Twitter account as evidence that I'm over-committed on social networks. That's no longer the case but my reading strategy is unfortunately still based on that network.

So, if a user's average post count is low I'll follow.

One day I'll figure this out but I'm such a nosy sod I reckon it'll take a while. I hope this helps you understand why I may or may not follow you.

Thankyou for feigning patience!

Killed

All, ok, most old content is gone. I wasn’t really interested in keeping it. A late spring clean?

Alternatively: Oops!