Tuesday 30 July 2013

Having Trouble with your pc? If you are under Forty You Don’t even Know the Meaning of Trouble

Can anyone else out there remember the 80’s?  Big hair, shoulder pads, leg-warmers, and horrendous pop music are the first things that spring to mind.  Not only that, but back in those days there were very few computers and definitely no internet.  How on Earth did we survive without Email, Facebook and mobile phones? Well, as I recall, it wasn’t easy...
High Tech ,  1980s Style

To arrange a meeting with a friend, you had a choice of writing a letter or calling them up on the phone.  Writing a letter meant finding suitable stationery and a supply of postage stamps.  Phoning involved calling from a traditional, land-line telephone.  In practice this often meant using a call-box.  First, you had to queue up outside the box, usually in the rain, while someone else conducted a seemingly endless conversation with their Mother in Basingstoke.  Once you had managed to get inside the box you then had to be sure to have the correct denomination of coins to hand, or else use the dreaded ‘Reversed Charges’ system and talk to a battle-axe of a Telephone Operator.  Sometimes it just seemed a whole lot easier to give up and spend another night in watching Dallas. What a wonderful, high-tech innovation it seemed when the phone card was introduced!

The world of business was an even bigger minefield.  In the typical 1980s office, for example, getting the computer boffins to co-operate with you to create even a simple report used to be a major exercise in office politics, communications and diplomacy.  The doorway to the IT Department looked to most people like the Mouth of Hell, only slightly less welcoming and appealing. Not only did you have the spotty, smelly, aggressive  and socially illiterate Computer Programmers to deal with (and I should know, I was one), there were other, even more frightening, difficult and cantankerous people to negotiate with and pacify in order to get the simplest task done.

Take for example the Key Punch Department, always peopled by an entirely female work-force and always ruled with a rod of iron, usually by an Amazonian woman called Brenda.  Even if you were clever enough to write your own computer programs for yourself, in Assembler, COBOL or FORTRAN, you still had to beg and plead with the Key Punch Supervisor to get your program onto the computer. No such luxuries as your own keyboard and mouse for data input; the mainframe was an expensive and mysterious piece of equipment hidden away from view in its own room with its own attendants and even its own carefully controlled micro-climate. Woes betide the hapless employee who wandered into this inner sanctum without the appropriate authorisation. 

This place had to be approached with extreme caution, only after making an appointment, and only if you had the correct badge and a program written out on the officially-approved stationery. As a humble Junior Programmer I used to have an awful time of it, struggling to complete coding-sheets to Brenda’s satisfaction.  Apparently my handwriting wasn’t up to scratch, and caused alarm bells to ring all over the Data Entry area. Once you had tidied up your coding sheets to Brenda’s satisfaction, cleared the Data Entry hurdle and got your program onto the mainframe, there was another, even more terrifying obstacle to overcome: the Computer Operator.

Just as all Data Entry Supervisors were called Brenda, so there was another unwritten Law of the Universe which dictated that all Computer Operators should be called Martin, and should dress in Corduroy jackets and gingham shirts liberally spattered with gravy and beer-stains.  The main reason for their existence was to bar access to the Mainframe to mere mortals like me.  Heaven forfend if anyone should try and get the precious mainframe to actually DO anything useful. Incorrect and irresponsible programming was liable to make the whole thing overheat and possible explode, or go into an endless loop. This was my trademark mistake, and usually led to the printer spewing out interminable screeds of expensive computer paper, and to another, inevitable rollicking for me from Martin. Oh the shame and humiliation of it.  Quite frankly it was much easier to just make the data up,  and type up your own fictitious report yourself :  a lot quicker and probably just as useful to all concerned.

Nowadays, well, you just don’t know you’re born!  No need to beg and plead with the awkward squad in the IT Department, no need to spend hours writing out COBOL programs longhand, no need  to drag your required information kicking and screaming out of the guts of a constipated mainframe computer.  Crikey, not even any need for a knowledge of any programming methodologies or languages.  All you need is a pc or laptop, an internet connection, and away you go, all by yourself.  There’s probably more processing power and storage capacity in today’s average home pc than there would have been in the entire IT department of a multi-national company back in the eighties.

So stop complaining about problems with your computer, because quite frankly, there really aren’t any to speak of.  Intermittent internet connection?  Broadband speed not fast enough?  Don’t make me laugh. Make the most of it, make friends with your pc; it’s probably the most powerful piece of technology you will ever own, and it’s so easy.  Plug it in, switch it on and get online to any information you could possibly desire, all from the comfort of your own home.  Research into any and every field of human endeavour, share documents and brainstorm ideas, link up and network with like-minded people all over the world!  With these facilities we should be able to organise World Peace, feed and clothe the entire World and design wonderful homes, schools and employment for all, no problem.  Creating a Business Intelligence Report for the Head of Accounts should be mere child’s play! Bet I could even find out what my old friends Brenda and Martin are doing these days, and send them a message!  On second thoughts, perhaps not.  I’m tired, let’s just have another game of Solitaire and a quick look at Facebook.  Saving the planet can wait till tomorrow.





Thursday 4 July 2013

Isaac Newton & the Cat Flap


Famous throughout the world as a pre-eminent physicist, mathematician, astronomer, alchemist, natural philosopher and theologian,  Sir Isaac Newton has exerted more influence on the development of modern physics than Einstein and made a greater contribution to the welfare of humanity than Jesus. So says Wikipedia, so it must be true. It is a lesser-known fact that he also deserves an honourable mention for his role in improving the lot of the humble Home Worker.

Isaac Newton, the Greatest Geek of All Time

One fateful day in the late 17th century, whilst on the brink of demonstrating the Generalised Binomial Theorem by means of the Approximation of the Roots of a Function (sounds a bit technical to you and me, but just an average morning’s work in the Newton household) Newton became distracted by the antics of his cat.  Desperate to get out of the house to answer a much-needed call of Nature, Puss was clawing frantically at the door, and set up a prolonged and noisy bout of miaowing and caterwauling.  Finally, even the most high-minded brain could stand it no longer, and science took a back seat for 5 minutes while the genius abandoned his scientific endeavours to get up from his desk and let the cat out. 

There followed a ten-minute interlude of perfect peace and quiet; just long enough for Sir Isaac to return to remember where he had got to before he was so rudely interrupted. Then Grimalkin, having successfully completed his crucial mission, decided to come back inside.  He returned to the door-step and set up such an ear-splitting lamentation as would raise the dead from their graves.  Three minutes of this appalling racket was sufficient to distract even Sir Isaac from the depths of his philosophising, and so, once again, the course of scientific and metaphysical enlightenment was put on hold while the cat was let back in.  So it went on for the rest of the day, until even our long-suffering hero had had enough, laid down his quill pen in an abrupt, nay angry manner, and went to kick the poor innocent creature. Just as his noble foot was poised to administer the cruel blow, it happened: Sir Isaac Newton had an idea!

This sort of thing was always happening to him at unexpected moments.  We all know about the apple falling from the tree and inspiring him to discover gravity.  What most people don’t know is that this was just one in a long line of brilliant ideas instigated by common-or-garden incidents.  Let’s face it, a lesser mortal would just have eaten the ruddy apple, or given the poor old cat a jolly good kicking, but Sir Isaac was a veritable one-man ideas factory, and couldn’t help himself.  So what was his great idea and contribution to humanity?  That’s right: the cat-flap!  What a boon, both to mankind and to the feline race.  No more irritating mewling noises, no more annoying interruptions.  At last, freedom for the Home Worker to concentrate on his studies in perfect peace and tranquility.  And as for the cat, no more uncomfortable bursting bladder.  Thanks to the simple but utterly brilliant notion of taking a hand saw and cutting a small, cat-sized hole in the door, the philosopher is forever free to concentrate on the most complex of  theses, and the domestic cat is saved the constant humiliation of having to ask permission from its master to perform the most basic and essential of functions. 

It is no coincidence that Newton’s finest achievements were made in the years immediate following this historic event. So it is no exaggeration to conjecture that, were it not for the invention of the lowly cat flap, we would still be labouring under the misapprehension that the Sun travels around the Earth, and that the Moon is made of green cheese.The cat flap has certainly made my working life, largely spent in a home shared with (among others) two cats, more peaceful and productive.  To be strictly scientific about it (which would please old Sir Isaac) I offer you the following equation: -

500,000
(ESTIMATED NUMBER OF HOME-WORKERS IN THE UK)
            X
 6
(THE  NUMBER OR TIMES PER DAY THAT A NORMAL CAT REQUIRES TO BE  LET IN OR OUT OF THE HOUSE)
             X
1
(THE AVERAGE NUMBER OF CATS OWNED BY THE TYPICAL HOME WORKER)
            X
10
(THE AVERAGE TIME IN MINUTES WASTED IN LETTING CAT IN OR OUT)
            / 60 X 30
            =
15,000,000
(THE NUMBER OF LOST MAN-HOURS PER MONTH IN THE UK)


 With more and more people choosing to work from home, that is a heck of a lot of man-hours!  So the cat flap is a considerably more useful invention than say, the type-writer, the personal computer or the Internet. I would even go as far as to say that for me, it is a greater time-saving device than even my trusty laptop. What a godsend for all of us. The only unfortunate part of the story is that, in his enthusiasm, Sir Isaac cut two separate holes in his back door, a big one for the cat and a smaller one for the kittens.  Thank goodness he didn’t own a Great Dane. His house was always a bit draughty from then onwards.  Which only goes to show that no one is perfect, not even the greatest scientific genius of the modern age.