Technology is annoying.

I leave this server alone for 20 days and THIS is what happens?!

For those of you who don't know or don't care, this site, georgekovats.com, the city on the hill, was down for a few days. In fact, as some folks noticed (like Mark), this site reverted to a primal, more Septemberish state of being... a time when pages were statically driven - no server-side scripting - only ornate, blue HTML...

Why would a web server just up and decide to reverse 3 months of work?

It doesn't need a reason. That's what technology was meant to do -
...to confuse, piss off and annoy people. And to make nerds rich for all the hazing they put up with in high school. Lonely, rich nerds.

As Samuel B. Morse said it best in his first morse code message ever back in 1844, "What hath God wrought?" And that was before Tech Suport, Tivo and iPods ever existed. What insight.

The Boggling

Not to start lecturing Unibomber's principles here, but the most obvious way Technology mocks us is in its complexity. Take programming a VCR. Classic example. I know it seems easy enough these days, but tell me: when you finish programming your VCR, how confident are you generally that the VCR will turn on when it's supposed to, and that you didn't screw something up? How often do you end up with 3 hours of a National Geographic special on sea manatees instead of the Raiders-Jets game?

On a more specifc level, I've been spending a few days recently trying to get Suse Linux running on two servers. More accurately, I've spent time peering over an experienced Asian coworker's shoulders as he tries to get the servers running. Still, I'm watching a man who's dealt with this process numerous times before (on other distributions of Linux) getting stumped by the simplest of tasks. Every small step means more troubleshooting, tweeking, testing, configuring, and grinding headaches. I'm pretty sure the problem's not him - he's taped a whole season of McGuyver on VHS.

The Annoying

I swear, if I don't hear another Christina Aguilera cell phone ringer as long as I live,...

Cell phones altogether have gotten far too annoying as it is. The idea of a portable phone is ideal for many of life's crises, but a discussion on what shoes to wear while checking out at Sam's Club is not one of them. And these loopy ditty-tunes that go off every 3 minutes are just the albatrosses of cell phone technology. I'm not normally violent, but the electronic version of La Cucaracha pushes me ever so closely to the edge of reason...

And what gives with the designer front lights you see on some of thes import cars? You know - those foreign-made psuedo-sport cars that distract you with yellow or blu-ish headlights? Shouldn't anything that pulls drivers' attention from the road be considered a hazard? Maybe even illegal? Call me crazy... but if rich kids can get away with headlights that glow colors, I should be able to mount a scrolling LCD screen on my hood that reads "Big Pimin' G 4-life". Mark my words, that idea would make silly money.

Because people are f--king idiots (sorry, but you know it's true).

The Cruel

Even if you are a man on the "cutting edge", think of all the things you knew in and out at one time... I'll bet the more technologically savvy you are, the more time you've wasted on currently obsolete knowledge. Do you see any books at Barnes & Noble on the ADA programming language? Any "FORTRAN for Dummies" books laying around your home? Probably not. There's a reason.

So, for every technology you're smart (or patient) enough to pin down, it's guaranteed to turn sour on you quicker than 2% milk.

The Sad Truth is...

I almost look forward to respites from technology, but at the same time, I cling to every bit of hardware I have. Sh-t, I've put how many hours into this damned website... for what? Edgar Allen Poe, as bad of a drunken writer he was had a special epitaph on his tombstone. What's mine gonna' read? "George Kovats - He had a neat little website that was worth checking out."

I don't know. For all the time I spend with my head in front of a Cathode-Ray Tube screen, you'd think I'd have a better relationship with technology. I suppose I'm being too "glass half empty" on this one. I'm sorry Playstation. Sorry Samsung, Microsoft and Hitachi. As complicated and annoying as you are, you really take the edge off of what could be a pretty harsh reality.

-G