HAL 9000

Every time I get on FB and see the prompt "How are you doing, Julie?" or "What are you doing, Julie?" I hear it as HAL 9000 from "A Space Odyssey."

I'll be honest, it creeps me out a little. I like FB  I like seeing what everyone is up to and love seeing pics of my family and friends who live far away. It makes me feel connected in some small way.

This post is not actually about FB so much as it is about computers in general. We have a Mac we inherited from hubby's dad when he passed. It's awesome and easy to use...and smarter than me. It irritates me. I can't help but think my computer is mocking me at times or intentionally thwarting my efforts to do something. I know that all software programs are written by man.  I often try to visualize who the creators might be as I'm working on things. We have software that tries to think ahead of me, like Auto Correct, and generally messes me up because it doesn't know me, knock it off, I can do this myself. I'm fairly certain it was written by a lovely English teacher, who essentially is red marking my paper as I write it. "Just trying to help, dear." We also have software that requires a large manual just to do basic things, like Photoshop. I know that the computer is staring at me and snickering because I can't alter this picture and it's not going to help me. I'm positive Photoshop creator is a snobby New York photographer that "graced" us with this program and if I'm not smart enough to use it, well that's on me. I'm sure once I read the Photoshop Bible I too will have perfect photos, but getting there...frustrating!

So while the idea of HAL 9000 still creeps me out a little, I would love to be able to prompt my computer to either back off or help me out and have it respond accordingly...without the whole trying to kill me thing.

Until next time,
Julie