HARD

SUDOKU

 

 

3

8

2

5

 

6

8

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© 2008 PageFiller Lid and Associates www.pagefiller.com

 

 

 

The technophile imbecile

  

Liam Britten
editor in chief
t’s a good thing the Vancouver Giants
[== so damn well to open the WHL
playoffs this weekend. It’s good because it
at least gave me some reason to be celebratory

this weekend.

My weekend was spent on the joyless
and expensive task of computer repair. Yay. I
came home Friday night to find a completely
unresponsive computer awaiting me in my
room and from there my adventure began.
Hours spent trying to diagnose my problem
ended when I decided to take the thing into
a shop to have my initial theories confirmed:
motherboard completely fried. Time to shell
out for a new one.

What’s even worse is that one of my
hard drives, which contains years worth
of documents, movies, photos and music
collected on it appears to be completely shot
as well. Awesome. I’ve been collecting years
worth of memories and information on that
thing, so it may be time to look at going to
a data recovery specialist to get all my stuff
back. If anyone knows a quick way to raise
$500 that doesn’t involve prostitution, drop
me a line. Because at this point, turning a few
tricks is looking like a solid plan.

Of course, like just about anyone who
has a job or is going to school (both shrinking
populations in this economy), I need a
computer to get through my work. I need a
word processor to type up articles. I need the
Internet to communicate with colleagues. I
need a photo program to check out art for the
paper. In short, I can’t be the editor of The
Other Press unless I have a computer in my
home.

Going without computer access is a huge
handicap in this day and age. Every teacher
and fellow professional you will ever work
with will assume you have uninterrupted
computer access 24 hours a day. Not just
access to a library’s computers or to a friend’s
whenever you can borrow one, but complete,
24/7 access. And why not? In 2008, Statistics

Canada reported that nine out of ten urban
homes had high-speed Internet access. So in
your morning class of 30 students, only three
of your classmates won’t have the Internet
to work on their projects at home. I guess
those three people must be great at keeping
organized and finding time to get out to the
library whenever project time rolls around,
because I don’t know how else coursework
could get done in an environment when the
Internet, not printed books on a library shelf,
is expected to be your primary source of
information. es

Going without computer access is also
affecting me in other ways. I’ve been getting
a little stir crazy what with being in the house
all day and not having Facebook and other
means to contact friends. Pathetic, no? I can
barely remember the days when planning a
night out was done on the phone or through
word of mouth. It seems so... ancient. It seems
like something from the distant past, in the
long, long ago, when dragons ruled the land
and giants and monsters walked the earth. And
when AOL was still popular. Ancient times,
indeed.

I hope you, gentle reader, aren’t as
useless as I when the technical marvels we’ve
built our society around decide to crap out
when they’re needed most. If anything, this _
weekend without ready computer access has
taught me some things. First, I am a sorry
sack of crap when rogue power surge destroys
my ability to obsessively check email 56,456
times a day. Second, always have backup
copies of your data, even backups of your
backups. And finally, the Kamloops Blazers
don’t have anything on the Giants. Sorry,
Kamloops, but you’ re just another statistic.

Your friend in high fidelity,
Liam Britten

Editor in chief

The Other Press

 

WRITE FOR US!