Misunderstanding Computers

Why do we insist on seeing the computer as a magic box for controlling other people?
人はどうしてコンピュータを、人を制する魔法の箱として考えたいのですか?
Why do we want so much to control others when we won't control ourselves?
どうしてそれほど、自分を制しないのに、人をコントロールしたいのですか?

Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs are just fancy pens with fancy erasers, and the network is just a fancy backyard fence.
コンピュータの記憶というものはただ改良した紙ですし、CPU 何て特長ある筆に特殊の消しゴムがついたものにすぎないし、ネットワークそのものは裏庭の塀が少し拡大されたものぐらいです。

(original post/元の投稿 -- defining computers site/コンピュータを定義しようのサイト)

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Facebook and LinkedIn are out of control again.

I suppose it's an inherent problem of letting the metaphorical postal roads all be run for profit.

Facebook Messenger will not boot on this ancient tablet. It gets stuck in a loop demanding that I should let it see my telephone contact list.(But the tablet is not a phone.)

I suppose the proximate cause of the loop is the age of the OS. It's well beyon life support.

But there's the rub of things.

Why must we let important things like telephones be put at the mercy of the insane technical marketing update cycle?

It's this insane update cycle that is driving the human side of global warming.

Who still can't see this?

Now Facebook itself is no longer satisfied with just being Facebook. It has not shut down safely in more than a week.

And LinkedIn seems to be doing similar things, insisting, simply demanding that I turn my human network over to their engines of marketing.

Anyone willing to front me a cool USD hundred million or so to build a networking service that treats people like people and tech like tech?

[18 Dec. -- Latest updates, still can't get on the messenger app. (I can use an ancient Google Chrome browser to sort-of access it, sometimes. Irony on irony.)

Facebook app still freezes and dies regularly, sometimes taking the computer down with it.]