Classical Jazz 2005: Home

I Hate Computers
or If PCs were Cars

I guess, indirectly, one of the reasons that I am good with computers has something to do with the fact that I loathe them so much. I hold all computers in contempt and I think that all programmers should be put to death. I have made it my life's study to know the enemy.

I cannot name any other manufactured item that most people are expected to use that is as horribly complex and arcane as a computer. Yet, it's almost a requirement these days to be able to use email and a web browser. If that were all it really took, I wouldn't have such a problem. But email and web browsers are just the tip of the computer iceberg. Like a snowball rolling down a hill, things seem to accrete. Web browsers and email require knowledge of modems and modem software; modems require knowledge of hardware configurations; hardware configurations require knowledge of maintenance and troubleshooting software; troubleshooting software requires knowledge of common computer problems; common computer problems are best researched on the world wide web; you need a web browser to view the world wide web; start at the beginning and repeat as necessary.

What was once a snowball is now an avalanche. I cannot believe people think they are supposed to know how to deal with just the top computer issues and still manage to get their regular work done with enough time left over to pick up the dry cleaning.

What's worse, from the dawn of the computer age, it is standard practice that programmers can never be held legally responsible for their software's inability to function. It's as if everyone in the computer industry owns a 'get out of jail free' card. Your word processor eats and destroys your graduate thesis? Too bad, dude. You loose all your family's photos and correspondence because some nifty utility mistook your files for trash? Gosh, sorry.

It has been pointed out that making the computer industry responsible for damages would stifle creativity and choke our courts with frivolous litigation. Perhaps so, but the line needs to be drawn somewhere. It's time to stop treating software like it's a printed book and more like it's a tool. When the computer industry was first starting up, the most you could ever loose through a failure of a computer was a few billion electrons. Today, as the virtual world and the real world become more and more intermingled, a computer failure means the loss of your livelihood. Soon it may mean the loss of your life.

If car manufacturers were allowed the liberties that computer companies enjoy, the gutters of our streets would flow with a tide of blood and nary could a hand be raised to stop it.

So allow me to reduce this issue to absurdity. What would our lives be like if cars were made, bought, and used like computers?

Lets say you are a typical human bean; an average Joe, who like just about everybody else gets around by bike or foot. When cars arrived on the scene, so many years ago, they were mere novelties. The model 'T' was introduced about 35 years ago. It was extremely expensive, loud, and the play toy of someone who was rich, obsessed, or both. Despite its shortcomings, many card-carrying visionaries and crackpots touted cars as the thing of the future. The leaders of the business world said, "Orville, it will never fly," and continued to invest in huge horse-drawn hay wagons.

The car-manufacturing world experienced explosive growth in the years that followed. As many as eight different car companies arose to produce an expensive product that still was considered to be more trouble than it was worth. Then the market went through a phase of consolidation until there were only two manufacturers left: Ford and Saturn. You realized that there might be something to these newfangled cars after all when you overheard Ford and Saturn owners at work argue about which car goes faster. For people who were talking about toys they certainly seemed deadly serious about them.

You continued to keep a distracted ear out for any car news of interest. Although you had rarely seen one you had formed a picture in your mind of what they were like. They could do everything a bicycle could, faster and better. They were hideously complex devices. It took a sustained mental effort to understand them. New models were coming out faster and faster and each one was speedier and more fuel-efficient than the last. Those who owned them were the type of people that you wouldn't invite to dinner.

Then, five years ago, it was as if your life was a dream and you had woken up to a nightmare. Cars were everywhere! Your neighbors had one. They were being used at work. Your kids even wanted one and your wife pointed out that they should get an early start.

Oh yes, your kids. They gave you impassioned speeches about how wonderful cars were. They pointed out that at the rate things were changing; it wouldn't be long until everyone in the world had a car. They painted a rosy picture of how you could visit anybody in the blink of an eye by traveling on the new 'transportation superhighways' that already crisscrossed the country (which, apparently, had been around for years but only truckers and shop teachers knew they existed).

Your once casual interest had turned into abject fear when you realized it was no longer a matter of getting a car when you got around to it, but having a car forced upon you. Your kids were right; everybody in the world will soon have their own car whether they liked it or not. But you resisted change. You had said to yourself, "cars aren't required," and "my bicycle always worked fine." But the words seemed to ring untrue - or, at least, a bit muffled - as if spoken by someone who had his head proudly shoved in a hole in the ground.

When you started to see car ads on TV, you knew you were going to have to give in. The bastards on Madison Avenue had gone right for the jugular with their commercials. Instead of tying to sell cars with sex, they had taken the power-trip approach. Their ads were filled with images of running down your adversaries on the road and still getting to work an hour early, combined with a subliminal counterpoint centered on glimpses of mass unemployment and the sounds that can only be described as the hoof beats of Genghis Khan's horde as they tore their way across Asia and Europe.

After enough of these commercials you wondered if a tourniquet around the neck would stop the bleeding. You decided that after your next paycheck you would break down and buy a car.

The much-heralded day arrives just like any other. You go to the bank and withdraw your life's savings, your wife's savings, and the kids' college tuition funds. Being a thoughtful person, you did a little research before hand. Although you can only get a car from Ford or Saturn, the choices are much wider than it seems necessary. Saturn's are nice, friendly cars owned by a minority of drivers. However, with Saturn, they have a take-what-you-can-get, no-haggle, policy that seems too restrictive; plus the fact that finding a gas station that has the right kind of fuel can be a pain.

So you are on the lookout for a good deal on a Ford. They have what is called a 'dealer options program.' This means that Ford provides the dealers with a basic stripped down car and it's up to the dealership to add all the other options, as they see fit.

At first glance, this seems like it would give you the most flexibility in finding the exact car you want. At second glance it is apparent that this policy makes comparative shopping nearly impossible, due to the fact that every dealership calls the same options by different names. At third glance you think you have gone blind. If you could see now you would be thinking how nice Saturn's no-nonsense policy looks, but you have already committed to ride down this road to hell and nothing is going to stop you now.

Relying on the often-wrong adage 'bigger is better' you decide to go to the largest dealership in town in the hope that more cars mean more experience in the sales staff. You realize you are in fact wretchedly mistaken when you get to the dealership and notice the faces of the salesmen are analogous with those you saw yesterday flipping hamburgers at McDonalds.

At least they are eager to please. Your assigned salesman, Myron, looks overtly anxious to help you find the car of your dreams. He takes you on a tour of a showroom filled with a bewildering assortment of cars of all shapes and sizes. There are cars that run on diesel fuel, alcohol, decaying peat, and the most popular: gasoline. There are cars with two wheel drive, four wheel drive, treads, tracks, rails, and even a motorized unicycle ("The nice thing about this baby is that it's small enough to fit in your closet."). There are cars with four, six, and eight cylinders ("The hamster powered ones are in the back room.").

Myron, despite the disadvantages of youth, has a great deal to say about each and every car. Whenever you allow him to ramble on for more than two minutes he seems to lapse into a fugue state where he speaks in tongues. After he does this a few times you realize he is only describing the mechanical gadgetry that lies hidden within. Occasionally Myron will hop into a car saying, "You gotta check this out." He then proceeds to do something mysterious with his hands and the car either honks it's horn or flashes it's lights. Whether your reactions are impassive or confused, he just bulls on through, dragging you to yet another car.

You realize that you reached your saturation point about 12 cars ago and it's time to make a decision. Myron is, for once in his sad focused life, helpful in breaking down the choices into a few broad categories. Based on the number of people in your family, the distance your home is from work, and the current phase of the moon, he suggests a mid-priced station wagon. "Mid-price" turns out to be twice as much as you are prepared to pay.

You tell Myron that is a lot of money for not much car. Myron counters with an unprecedented regurgitation of all the options the car is fitted with. He sways and sweats as he once again breaks out with a bad case of tongues. His voice climbs the scale in both volume and pitch as he succumbs to a primordial state of manic ecstasy. Other nearby salesmen are touched with the automotive fever and chorus "amen" and "you tell him, brother!" Then, in a masterful move that hints of drug reinforced behavioral therapy combined with the rumored dark arts of the Dale Carnegie Institute, he performs a laying on of hands. To wit; he grabs your hands and forces you to touch the hood of the car.

Your body jolts like a small-part victim in a bad Christopher Walken movie. You feel that the car is actually alive and speaking to your heart. You see visions of moving at unheard of speeds, air-conditioning, integrated cell phones, reclining seats, and all the blinking lights a person not in an ICU could ever desire.

As the visions seep out of your head like blood from a fatal stab wound, you hear yourself say, "Sounds great, I'll take it." You also wonder where that distant screaming is coming from, but no matter which way you turn it always seems to be coming from behind you.

Of course, before you actually buy the car, you need a test drive. Myron takes you out to the lot where you choose the color you like (out of three choices: white, beige, and gray). He gets into the driver's seat and you sit opposite because you don't know how to drive. (A note of explanation here: in this world nobody learns how to drive until after they've bought their first car. Borrowing someone else's car to learn to drive is on the level of borrowing someone's toothbrush to clean your toenails.)

Myron leisurely drives around the parking lot while explaining some of the more obscure options the car comes standard with. He proudly tells you about the combination child safety seat and ice chest. He shows you the extra controls on the radio that will play music backwards. When you reach out to examine the cigarette lighter he respectfully pushes your hand away while explaining that it also serves as an emergency flare gun. In fact, the whole dashboard is so crammed with dials, gauges, knobs, and buttons, that some of the supposed important things - speedometer, gas gauge, and the like - seem to be smaller than is wise.

You return to the showroom to sign the paperwork. In hope of reducing the overall cost you ask Myron if you can get a car without all those extra 'free' options. Through coke-bottle-thick lenses he looks bemused (or perhaps trapped in a bathyscaphe). He patiently explains that the 'free' options only cost money when you try to have them removed.

With the feeling of dread that accompanies a critical change in the history of mankind - for the worse - you sign the papers. Your new car will be delivered to your home in a few days.

You spend your last unmotorized days thinking about the places you will go in your new car. Your bicycle squeaks and creaks forlornly every time you use it.

Finally, the much-heralded day arrives and your new car is delivered. Myron personally appears and hands you they key. You invite him to stay a bit but he tells you that he has other pressing business while he nervously shuffles away. Like a king claiming a long lost throne, you sit down in the driver's seat.

Probably you get as far as getting the key in the ignition. It is doubtful you get the car to start. You are now one with 99% of all car owners everywhere; you feel like you own an expensive and highly unwieldy paperweight, not to mention the overwhelming sense of frustration, anger, embarrassment, and bewilderment.

You get out the owner's manual and try to read it. It starts off very helpfully. "How to recognize the ignition key." "How to attach the tires." (Yes, it seems that a few critical things like tires, windows, door locks, windshield wipers, and antenna are packaged in a separate box and you have to install them... by yourself.) After correctly installing the missing bits, you read "How to start the car."

So after a few hours, sometimes days, you have started your car for the first time. Now you are ready to actually make the car go. You turn to the next chapter in the manual.

At first you think you are the butt of a particularly cruel practical joke. Instead of the overtly friendly, easy-to-read instructions that are in the front of the manual you find a bizarre mish-mash of incomprehensible technical jargon - as if William S. Burroughs was creating a cut-and-paste work of demented prose using today's newspaper and an Albanian edition of Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Thank god there are little pen-and-ink illustrations in the margins or you would be completely and irrevocably screwed. By looking at a diagram entitled "fizzelswoop" and seeing the line, "rotate fizzelswoop right and left to make the car turn in the respective direction," you now understand that the fizzelswoop is what steers the car.

You are understandably proud of this accomplishment until you discover that you have been standing in the parking lot for a week, your wife has left you, and your cat is pregnant.

Seeing that learning to drive the monstrosity may well cause irrevocable harm to your life, you decide to enroll in a driver's education class. After you get over the fact that it will cost a few of your paychecks, you attend class only to discover that you are being taught to drive with a car that is in no way similar to your model, the teacher spends half his time referring to other models of cars that you know you will never drive because you are not a stunt driver, and any actual driving you do is on a special closed course with very large foam pillows placed in strategic corners. If you are a thinking man, you are appalled that in the weekend seminar you never were allowed to drive on the streets. If you are a bold man then you point this out to your instructor. If you are an observant man you notice the instructor gives you a look that suggests you asked him to massage your prostate.

Armed with a dangerous amount of little knowledge, you try to drive your car with disappointing results. Your car insists on doing things that you know, deep down inside, it isn't supposed to do. Since you paid a huge premium to get dealer service and repairs, you turn to the dealership for help. The first time you call you get no further than saying, "I'm having a problem with my new car," before you are slammed on hold. You are entertained and enlightened with recorded messages touting the features of the new line of cars that debuted two days after your purchase. After an hour listening to these self-serving advertisements, someone picks up the phone and tells you that you are being transferred to the service department.

The service department answers with a monotone automated voice, "Please press one if your car has two wheels, three if your car has five wheels, four if your car is a boat. You may interrupt this menu at any time by pressing star. My dad said I wouldn't be worth anything after my laryngectomy. Please press eight if your car has more than three wheels but less than five wheels." You dutifully press eight. Then other questions follow; do your windshield wipers go left-to-right or right-to-left, is the fizzelswoop horizontal or vertical in respect to the nyuknyuknyuk spanner (which requires you to go out to the car and look), and what is the exact shade of blue the top of the front windshield is tinted with. There probably were some more questions after those, but you don't remember because the birds have flown south for the winter, your beard has mice living in it, and you have fallen asleep.

The next day (or is it month?) you try again. Being a superior reasoning bipedal creature you discover if you just keep jabbing the phone's zero button like a demented monkey on a very small typewriter you can bypass the menus. The service representative answers and asks for your Vehicle Identification Number, which, of course, you don't have memorized. When you tell the service representative that you need to go outside to get it he tells you that you will have to call back, yet the tone in his voice seems to say, "You fool! You've put the whole world in jeopardy with your ignorant meddling."

Now, on your third attempt, you think you are ready for the service representative; you've obtained your VIN, you have your owner's manual in hand, you've lit one black and one white candle, and, if you've read them correctly, the fresh entrails of a rooster seem to indicate you won't get a busy signal. Maybe they are right, for you find yourself speaking to a service representative after only half an hour of diligently mashing the buttons on the phone.

When you promptly supply your VIN, the service representative audibly sighs and asks you the nature of your problem. You try to tell him but quickly experience a tragic failure to communicate. While you describe things in terms of steering wheels, radio knobs, and 'guaranteed-cling' (tm) leatherette seats, the service representative insists on using their 'proper' names; fizzelswoop rotational enhancer, glxbittle actuator, and shuuuurrrripowww sophont containment device, respectively, I think.

Thankfully the service representative doesn't seem to get irritated at your ignorance. He continues to ask the same questions over and over again; rephrasing in different ways and occasionally sparing with dangerous combinations of subject-verb agreement. He does this all in low, measured tones that keep making you ever so sleepy, so tired, you know your eyelids are getting so heavy, wouldn't it be nice to put the phone down and take a nap?

I suppose it's time for a miracle - 'cause if this keeps up we'll never get to the end. So, just as you are about to nod off to Lala-land, the ghost of your dead father appears and warns you that something is rotten in the state of Denmark - or is that the cat box? At any rate, you snap awake and speak with renewed purpose.

Coincidentally, the near-hypnotic state you were in allowed some of the car related technical terms to sink into your otherwise under-funded gray matter. You finally have made yourself understood to one of the elite community of 'road warriors!'

Visions of cracking open a bottle of wine and smoking a good cigar evaporate with a hissing sound. The hissing turns out to be the service representative saying, "Shhhesh! Why didn't you say you had an older car? You're lucky, this will be the last week we will service and repair that model. All you need is a factory service call. Let me set one up for you."

Your visions of success again reappear as if wheeled by an incontinent peripatetic waiter. You feel like you are finally getting somewhere. The service representative consults his records and cheerily says, "We can get a service crew to your place in 15 minutes." You are dumbfounded at the speed and efficiency of the car dealership. "Wow! I thought I would have to drive it in to get it serviced," you tell the rep. You wax enthusiastic about how happy you are that you paid extra and bought your car from a large dealership until you notice there is silence from the other end of the line. Well, not quite silence; more like someone put his hand over the receiver and is snickering at you.

The rep tells you that you need to be by your car for the service technicians to find you. You fly out the door thinking that you are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I would like to be sarcastic and say that the light you are seeing is that of an incoming train, but it wouldn't be true. It's more like a slow moving, manually powered hand cart driven by a very elderly and indiscriminately horny woman that doesn't understand the meaning of the terms "oh god, no," and "somebody please, kill me now."

Precisely 15 minutes later, as you wait by your car, you notice three very grubby mechanics get off a city bus and wander aimlessly in the parking lot. Only by the sheer randomness of Brownian motion do they get near you, but when they do their attitudes seem to change and they edge forward towards your car with purpose. Due to the fact that they are mechanics wearing the logo of the dealership you can only conclude that this is the service crew. You find it mysterious that a prestigious dealership would employ such tragically handicapped mechanics. Of the three, only one can see, one can hear, and one can talk. Their names are embroidered on greasy coveralls: Huey, Dewey, and Lem.

You try to tell them what the problem is but they don't seem interested in you. Huey, who is blind, keeps making lifting motions with his hands until, by random chance, he gets in front of your car and manages to get the hood up. Dewey, who is deaf, is trying to fix your radio. Lem just stands there saying "Yep yep yep, this has gotta go all right." Even though they have yet to acknowledge your existence, you decide to leave your car in their capable hands and nip into your place for a bite to eat.

Upon returning from lunch, you see that nothing is really being done. However, despite the obvious lack of appropriate sensing organs, the mechanics seem to feel your proximity and get back to work. Further experimentation reveals that despite the universal rule that people hate to have someone look over their shoulders while they work, these mechanics seem to work faster and better when you are doing so. Every time your mind wanders though, the mechanics start acting aimless and lost.

Despite your painfully obvious disabilities, you try to talk to the mechanics about some other things that aren't quite problems - more like unexpected weirdnesses. Why does the car have two spare tires? Is the horn supposed to honk whenever you push in the cigarette lighter? Why are their three extra buckles on the seatbelts and what the hell are they supposed to buckle to?

The mechanics continue to ignore you. However, when Lem says, "It's a free option, not a defect," you hope that in some way he was referring to what you were asking about.

You spend the next two hours watching the mechanics like a hungry hawk with low self-esteem, not understanding one iota of the work they are doing. You presume they are finished when they wander away, leaving the hood up, all the doors ajar, and the engine running. Under a windshield wiper you find a slip of paper that warns you that you must turn off the car and start it again for the repairs to work. You do so and check to see if the various problems have been fixed.

The good news: your old problems are gone. The bad news: you now have new problems. Since the number of new problems is slightly less than the number of old problems (say, by one) you decide to save face and declare the operation a success - even if the patient will never play the violin again.

Meanwhile, at work things have gotten so epidemic with people not knowing how to drive that your boss has hired a driving consultant to help the employees learn. When you first meet the consultant the only way that you can actually tell that it is a human is because it is wearing pants. To tell the tru7h, it's unfair to refer to the consultant as an 'it' - no female (of any species) would smell that peculiar or have those clumps of hair growing in all those odd places. And despite the fact that the consultant is always smiling a smug smile you have an unreasoning sense of dread. After your get your first 'lesson' with the driving consultant the dread becomes the reasoning kind. Not even Torquemada had such a superb grasp of sarcasm, irony, and the effective use of pubic embarrassment!

Back at home you and your wife don't have sex anymore because the constant barrage against the walls of your self esteem have left you impotent; probably permanently. Your children avoid you except for your darling four-year-old, who only wants your attention so that she can borrow the keys to the car - which, I might add, she can already drive much better than you.

Despite the loathsomeness of the driving consultant at work, he is actually a very effective tool. It is not because he is understanding or patient or a good communicator. It can't be, because he is none of those things. It is simply because in his wake he leaves broken people desperately scrambling to teach themselves as much as they can learn in the vain hope that knowledge will stave off his return.

So you send your nights with the door to the garage locked and a small fortune in books, audiotapes, and videos scattered at your feet. But the more you learn the less you know. You started by reading general books about cars. After one or two basic books you look for something more specific. To your horror you discover that there are books on each and every part of the car - each heavy enough to break a toe if dropped, or perhaps a better use: heavy enough to keep the lid of a coffin closed even if, say, Myron happened to be trapped inside.

Finally the day arrives, after years of study, trial, and error, that you can be considered 'pretty savvy' about cars. Of course you don't have the same car you had when you first embarked on this road of tears. In fact, you have gone through three cars, five major engine overhauls, and innumerable tanks of gas. This is pretty strange considering that you have driven less than 50 miles to date.

Now that you are fairly comfortable driving and maintaining your car you have set your sights on actually going someplace. Perhaps a trip to see your elderly mother who still insists that cars are tools of the devil. You pack your bags and head out.

On your trip you deal with the car's peculiarities as well as you can. Despite the illogic of the concept, each car has it's own personality that must be coped with. For example, you have to open and close the glove box exactly twice before the trunk will open. Everyone else tells similar stories about their cars - many much worse - usually involving the loss of non-essential body parts at inopportune moments. You pat your car affectionately and are thankful for what you've got.

Somewhere along the way (usually when you are one to two blocks from your destination) your car starts acting up. Every time you turn left the car goes right and adjusting the volume on the radio causes the car to vary its speed. You stop the car and look under the hood to make sure the steering linkage is not cross-linked with the antenna (or as it says in the owner's manual's troubleshooting section, "Under no circumstances should you allow the fizzelswoop camber piffle to become arglebarg pawpaw with the glxbittle wakkawakka mount.") When you open the hood - exactly the same way you have a million times before - the car catches fire and then promptly explodes.

The paramedics find your battered body next to the wreckage. Luckily your third degree burns are limited to your eyes, wrists, and fingers. Also for some miraculous reason the tires, windows, door locks, windshield wipers, and antenna all survive the catastrophe unblemished. Too bad about the ultra-rare and expensive Bavarian leaded crystal you had in the trunk as a present for your mother.

As you are put in the ambulance you are muttering, "those sons-of-bitches at Ford are gonna pay." The paramedics have a good laugh at your expense (literally) and hand you the very toasted cover of your owner's manual and a microscope. You find on the inside cover, set in exidiously small type, the "Common Driver's Licensing Agreement." The CDLA, as it is affectionately known in the industry, starts off with a pithy, "by inserting your key in the ignition of this vehicle you are agreeing to all the terms and conditions of this agreement, may god have mercy on your soul." Other entertaining passages include, "before placing any items in the vehicle to be transported, an additional duplicate item should be stored in a safe place in the event that the original item is lost due to fire, explosion, or acts of god," and, "Ford Motor Company shall never be held liable or responsible in any way, shape, or form, for the loss, damage, or destruction of any part of the vehicle, personal effects, or body parts." Finally at the end of the document is, "you may have other rights depending upon the state you live in," and the only state that is listed is Maine, where it says the Ford must reimburse the owner for all lost lobsters.

As you recuperate in the hospital you discover that your medical insurance specifically does not cover automobile accidents. When you ask the doctor why doesn't the government make the insurance companies cover car accidents he tells you that the cost to cover one individual would be equal to the gross national product of a medium sized Asian country.

In the end you think things would have been better if you had stayed with the bicycle, but progress rolls ever on - often going backwards and crushing your feet. Now there is no turning back, so you fervently hope there isn't a dead end ahead.

Back up the rabbit hole, let us return to the real world. All I know is that my life is easy. Even though I hate computers I made them my career. It's my job to monkey with them and I don't have to save any room in my brain for anything else.

Frankly, I don't see how the rest of you do it.

March 1, 2001

 

 

 

 

 

it pays the bills dept

here is something I hope is doing no evil.

could be worse dept

there could be more of them