Tag: Computers

The Destination Dream

I was moving again in last night’s dream. My home that I was selling was a large white house. Built circa the 1950s – hey, that’s when I was born – the home featured a large front porch, two sprawling sugar maple trees, and a large green yard with squared off sidewalks.

The dream’s beginning found me doing yard work. I was busy and happy. In a brief aside, I then go to work and tell a woman how to use a specific computer program to conduct a search. She’s mute during the entire exchange, leaving me doubtful about whether she understood what the search could do to save her time, or if she understand what I told her. I would check back on her.

As I returned to yard work, my wife accosted me. She needed to go to an organizing event for some activity that she was involved with, and wanted me to drive her. We argued briefly, but I resigned myself. We would take our truck, I told her, leading her to a small Ford Courier or Chevy LUV sized vehicle, in other words, a small truck. A white tarp covered the truck. When I pulled the tarp aside, I had to dump water off the tarp, and worried about the trunk having water damage. But it seemed fine. Weirdly, the trunk had no top.

I got in one side, and was awaiting my wife. Two other women got in as well. I asked them who they were, and they said that my wife told them that they could get a ride with us. I had not problem with that, but then realized I didn’t have a steering wheel because I was on the wrong side of the truck. After getting out and circling the truck, I told the woman behind the steering wheel that she needed to move. She wanted to know why. I told her that I needed the steering wheel, which made her laugh.

As I waited for her to move, I looked at my sidewalks under the sugar maples. They all ha a green hue. I worried about what caused that and then noticed that my yard needed edging.

My wife arrived, so I jumped in the truck and took off. She didn’t know where the event was, so we started aimlessly driving around. As we did, she got angry, which made me angry. She was angry because we were lost, and I was angry because she didn’t know where we were supposed to go. Eventually, I saw another woman. Pulling over, I asked her if she knew where the event was.

She showed me on a cell phone. She and I then discussed where I was. Her phone showed where I’d driven, depicting my path as a fat red line. I saw how I’d circled around the same area several times. I wasn’t far from my destination but unsure how to get there. I thought I needed to go one way, but the woman corrected me, showing me a quick, direct path on her phone. Meanwhile, my wife and the other two women had left the truck and were walking around. I called out to them that I knew where we needed to go. They finally came over.

Then I paused to go back to the woman that I’d shown how to use the search engine. She still wasn’t using it, so I showed her again. Then she seemed to understand. Feeling pleased that progress was being made, I got into the truck with my wife and the other two women and drove them to their destination.

Lot of women in this dream. I see all sorts of things percolating through my mind in this dream, and it’s very positive. It makes me smile.

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The Wait

I write on a laptop, typing and editing as I go. It has its bennies and shortcomings. For instance, you ever become so excited to write and edit, so looking forward to getting started that the muses are singing in your head and their energy is coursing in your blood vessels? But then you must turn…on…the…computer….

Then…open…the…program…

Then…open…the…document…

And…it…seems…to…take…about…two…million…years..?

Exasperating.

I am exaggerating. It doesn’t take two million years, but rather about three minutes, what with the things that are done automatically on startup, like Internet connections and security software updates. It just feels like a looonnnggg three minutes.

But it’s all open now. I have fresh coffee at hand. Time to write and edit like crazy, at least one more time.

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Whine #7,635,499,117,006

Sometimes I think, TGFC. Yes, thank God for coffee, a.k.a., thank God for caffeine. Coffee helps me cope when the friggin’ world seems determined to be the pebble in my shoe.

First, the wildfire smoke has returned. Grrr. Yes, the smoke isn’t as bad as the actual fire, nor the many accidents, disasters and true nightmares that others are enduring, you know, like being a refugee without a home — or country, any longer — or being torn away from your family and sent to another place, or raped or shot. I’m far from starving or being financially insecure. That’s why this is a whine.

Second, the bloody Internet connection is sooo…damnnn…slooowww…tooo…day….

I was at home first experiencing this. What the hell? Who knows, at that point. But now, in the coffee shop, it’s OMG time. Task Manager and all the security apps said there’s nothing wrong here. I tend to blame Google Chrome. Hasn’t been working right since that update.

Again, not big stuff, first world complaints.

Which took me back to Dr. Dinardo’s post, “Shifting From Anxiety to Excitement”. Her salient point:

Did you know that fear and excitement share the same set of neurotransmitters, including dopamine, glutamate, and acetylcholine.

  • Opposite emotions. Identical neurotransmitters.
  • Same neural activity. Different cognitive appraisal.

And the best way to shift from performance anxiety to excitement is to say one sentence on repeat.

Her information can be applied to multiple situations. It’s about changing your  reactions, right? So, as I walked, I worked on changing from feeling negative toward something on the spectrum’s positive side. While doing that, I thought about how Dr. Dinardo’s point is directed toward the first world. Her focus is on helping her students. The lessons can be applied to others (like me), but imagining myself leaving one of the world’s war-torn, disease-ravaged countries without any idea of where I’m going, it would be difficult for me to try to change my cognitive appraisal to be more upbeat.

It’s not a slam against Dr. Dinardo (although some might think, that sure read like a slam). It’s a slam against the world and the many ways that suffering is forced upon others, how slowly change takes place, and how impermanent it often seems. It’s a slam against people who think, let’s go back twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, one hundred years, to when times were simpler and life was easier. I consider that simplistic, narrow, and short-sighted, perhaps as simplistic, narrow, and short-sighted as my whining about the wildfire smoke and a slow Internet.

Yes, I understand that I’m simplifying cognitive appraisal and its mechanism. Hey, I’m only on my second cuppa. I’d need one or two more cups of coffee to go into it more thoughtfully.

I’ve read — and I’m dubious about projecting these things — that climate change will eventually affect our coffee supply. I’m dubious because projections are based on the known, and there often turns out to be many things that aren’t known that affect the projections. I’m also hopeful that a woman or man will arise, unite us, and say, “Enough with this shit. It’s time for a change,” and manage to rally everyone around them to change the world for the better for all, and save coffee.

It’s probably a naive hope. Meanwhile, I have coffee, time, a secure place, and a working computer. I’ll take advantage of the here and now, at least how it applies to me.

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Six Rules for Getting Along with Your Computer

  1. Remember that you wanted your computer. It didn’t want you.
  2. Shouting at your computer won’t make it do anything faster or better, but it might save you from insanity and keep you from taking more drastic action against your computer.
  3. Shaking a computer until parts come off tends to be counter-productive.
  4. A hammer to the computer might make you feel better, but the computer will probably complain.
  5. A computer connected to the web can probably find more curse words than you can find on your own. Use that to your advantage when cursing your computer.
  6. Remember that words have power. If you curse your computer, it might be taken seriously.

 

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Alphabet Issues

Time for a Sunday rant. I have good reason for it. I know; everyone who rants say they have good reasons for their rant. Let me state my case, and then you can decide.

Alphabet Inc. is trying to gaslight me.

Alphabet Inc. was created as a holding company for Google and its multi-tentacled endeavors. Google wants to be everything for us, substitutes for television, Netflix, Amazon, a dominant world force that we can trust. But the delta between what they promise and what’s delivered grows every day.

The three primary Google products I use are Gmail, Chrome, and the calendar. (I also sometimes use Google search, but it’s so damn commercialized, delivering the same results as different entries, that it’s become better to go with other search engines. They’re not much better, though. *Where have all the good searches gone?*) They’re three products that have been around for enough time for them to stabilize and cross that chasm from being bleeding edge to cash cow. When a product reaches the cash cow stage, it’s expected to be reliable and free from significant bugs.

It ain’t so with Chrome and Gmail.

I use the Inbox app to manage my Gmail. I write “manage” because that’s what they use to describe it. Inbox manages my mail as well as a toddler manages the bath water. Emails that have been read and deleted consistently haunt my inbox as unread, causing the frustration and irritation of wading through the past several days worth of mail along with today’s deliveries.

This is where the gaslighting comes in. Gaslighting is an old expression about conning people and confusing them about reality. “Didn’t I already do that?” they ask in old movies.

The villian laughs. “No, dear, you said you were going to. Honestly, were is your mind, my precious?”

That’s how it is with Gmail. “Didn’t I already read that?” I ask myself as I peruse the Inbox. “Oh, God, I thought I answered that yesterday.” I certainly meant to answer it. Where is my head?

Well, hell, it’s not my head, it’s Alphabet Inc. and their Gmail product. I have read, answered, and deleted these emails. Alphabet is just putting them back in.

Thinking it might be Inbox instead, I used Gmail without Inbox, as an experiment.

Nope; same results.

Don’t get me started on what’s going on with Chrome. It is very effective for administering my daily dose of first world blues and frustration, and is a wonderful impediment to having a good mood as I surf the net.

I would switch from Gmail, but our email addresses have their tentacles in every aspect of our lives. Extricating ourselves is a long and complicated process. It’s getting as involved as doing taxes in America or determining if it’s a catch in the NFL.

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A Dream in Four Parts

Today’s dream was clear and detailed. This could be attributed to how it was processed.

  1. I dreamed it.
  2. I awoke and thought about it.
  3. I fell asleep again, and dreamed about thinking about it.
  4. I dreamed about writing about it.

That sort of repetition reinforces matters, you know?

The dream’s four parts were interesting. It interested me, at least, because I was the star.

  1. The dream’s first part featured two officers with whom I was assigned at different locations.
  2. In the second part, I was diagramming a layout to provide a place for people to survive.
  3. With the third part, I was teaching another how to use a computer to document the diagram I’d created.
  4. The fourth part of the dream found me exploring deeper levels.

The two officers were Major Andrews and Captain Knot (fake names). I was assigned with one in Japan, and the other in Europe. One was a C141 pilot and the other flew Hercs.

Knot is a foot shorter than Andrews. But in this dream, Knot had instructions. Andrews was supposed to receive them. But Knot, the short one, teased Andrews the tall, holding the instructions up and behind him, preventing Andrews from reaching it, vexing the much taller Andrews.

In my analysis during my dream, this made me laugh. Part of me was keeping another part of me from having something. Here’s the twist. Andrews was an authority figure, the officer-in-charge, and I worked for him. Knot was a buddy.

Yes, lots to ponder there, no?

The diagram involved an enormous bunker. We were pre-positioned personnel, preparing the facilities as a sanctuary for the others who were to come. I was one of many, but an indeterminate number. I was given a space and the mission brief (the instructions that Knot kept from Andrews). Enthusiastically, I plotted how my space was to be used to help others. The results pleased me. I shared them with others, and they began copying my design.

The official coordinator arrived. Her task was to document the diagrams on a computer for them so higher authorities could approve them. But she was unfamiliar with her computer. I knew it, however, so I sat down and explained to her how to use it. The computer depended on touch screen technology and soft buttons. She didn’t know these terms, and had never used equipment like that. I walked her through their use. She picked it up quickly.

Then, I was off, exploring with Knot. The facilities, made of white cement, had multiple levels and doors. I began exploring with Knot reluctantly following. Going deeper, I discovered more subterranean levels. They connected to other places, like malls, airports, and government buildings. Discerning a pattern to the levels, doors, and buildings, I gained rapid familiarity with how to get around. Several places were marked with red doors and warnings not to loiter in the area and to stay away from those doors. That didn’t deter me but Knot was worried, and urged that we leave. I didn’t leave until one red door opened and a large man in a black uniform came out to speak with us.

At that point, I returned to the original level with Knot behind me.

Although I thought about it, and dreamed I wrote about it, I think I’ll need more time to fully process it. The aspect about deeper levels to explore intrigued me. I associated that with my self.

Overall, the dream was a powerful and uplifting experience. In a striking juxtaposition, it matches my feeling the day after winter solstice that a weight had been lifted from me. I’d had a feeling for a while that I was on the precipice of a change. After solstice and this dream, I feel that I’m moving on to something else.

That has me excited and hopeful.

 

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Razors & Computer Security

Remember back when razors came as a single blade? Then we advanced to twin blades and multiple blades. My current razor has three blades. It’s all in the pursuit of the closest shave possible.

And that was a good thing. It used to be so hazardous walking on the street as a man. You’d be going along, minding your own business, when, suddenly, a car screeches to a halt beside you, lights flashing. Uniformed people would leap out and surround you. “Let us feel your shave,” they would order, “to ensure it’s the closest that it can be.”

You had no choice but to comply, or risk getting sent to a barber for a shave. Our nation had no tolerance for any but the cleanest shaved man.

That’s how it seemed, at least from the commercials and advertisements.

I’ve always been amused by that approach, that more blades mean a closer shave, and more particularly, that a close shave is critical to civilization’s continued existence. We seem to be going down a similar path with computer security. If one layer of authentication is good, two is better. Hence, they’ve launched double-layered and two-step authentication. Naturally, it’s doomed to fall. Experts don’t seriously believe an absolutely secure computer is possible, if it’s accessing the web.

But I see a day in the future when companies and websites will tell you, “We’re more secure, because we have three layers of security.” Then someone else will announced, “Our security is better because we have four layers,” and the security race will be on.

Razors and computer security weren’t the first to think that if some was good, more was better. Remember American car ads, touting lower, longer, wider?

1949 Hudson Ad-02

Ford probably took the idea of more is better to an unusual but clever conclusion. They speculated that if some was good, then more is better with its front-end dive on braking. If some dive indicated your car’s brakes were doing their job and stopping you, then more dive would indicate better braking, right? They saved a lot of money and gained sales by gaming people into the perception their brakes were better because of that impressive front-end dive when you slammed on the brakes, when nothing had been changed.

Of course, we’ve always had the cubic inch and horsepower race. Still do, actually. Because, as they say, if some is good, more is better.

Probably why we have so many nukes in the United States. At least it feeds the perception that we’re safer.

Like with computers.

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A Dream of Reassurance

The dream leaped into chaos. ‘They’ were trying to become organized.

First, we were working in packed offices. All were dressed in dark blue utility uniforms and black jump boots. Men and women were present, but no children, and no elderly. Thirty people were using office space planned for ten people. I was upper middle-management, which afforded me more freedom and space. While the majority worked at two rows of tables, side by side by side, elbows to assholes, my space was in the back. But  the filing cabinets, telephones, and coffee fax machines were at the front. I was required to go forward to get what I needed, and then go back via a narrow row. The two people in charge would often be in that narrow row, talking, planning and consulting, forcing me to wait and fume with impatience.

So I began thinking ahead about other things that I could do. I knew, in the dream, we would be leaving soon. We would not be able to take much. There was something confusing in the dream about carefully cutting our pockets from our shirts to make quasi-gloves to protect our hands, and wearing strange netting as leggings to protect our legs.

The order came to pack up. Confusion and noise levels increased as we, and thousands of others, left our offices and crowded into a marshaling area. I followed all the instructions. Inspectors went through to see how everyone was doing. My activities impressed them, which amused me.

But horror struck me after a while. I realized that I’d done as instructed, and had packed my laptop into my luggage. My God, what a mistake, I thought. I was distraught, believing, people handling the bags will rip me off. I’d never see that computer again, and all my work on it would be lost.

At that point, I began stirring from my sleep, and the dream. As I did, a voice said, “Don’t worry. You’re not going to lose anything. You still have everything you need.”

Just before I left the dream, I was given my wheeled black travel bag. I opened it, and there was my laptop. I awoke, pleased and relieved.

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