The Computers Have Spoken

Okay, reached the coffee shop with the Thinkpad and the Mini. The Mini is used for web connections to look up information and distract me while I play with my mind. The Thinkpad would only be used for writing in Word. This is the process as evolved through the previous days.

First, whatever the Thinkpad is doing, eating resources for a while, it’s unresponsive for the first fifteen minutes. My actions have reduced the lag but that lag still exists. While it’ sharpening, I end up re-committing to calm patience by gnawing off body parts (don’t worry, they’re from my body). The Mini permits me to check mail and news, read blogs, etc, basically be a time killer while I await the Thinkpad’s permission to start writing.

But it went to crap today. The mini refused to participate in posting a comment to this blog, and then, while typing another post, the words all disappeared. Actually, that’s an incorrect description. I would type and words would not appear beyond the first two paragraphs. Oh, it would pretend to type, moving along like words and spaces were showing up but there wasn’t anything discernible to my feeble, human vision.

I shut down that post, giving up on it for now, for my TP was ready to receive me Word input. Off I went, merrily clicking along –

Dead. No warning. Lights out.

I powered up again but about forty percent of what I’d written was gone. Using computers since 1981, I have a habit of saving frequently, yet it was no more. Of course, the machine was having trouble saving. It’s behavior has been inconsistent and bizarre. All tests are ‘normal’, and no hardware issues have been found. I’ve run exhaustive tests, attempted new profiles and other battles against corruption, but it remains troublesome.

I accept all of this today, though, as signs from our new masters that I’m not to do anything on computer today. Maybe it’s a take on that wonderful short story, “Friend’s Best Man”, but it’s the machines rising up through our keyboards, instead of the animals, and my computers are trying to save me.

So, later.

If we survive the revolution.