Tag: computers

on target

I’m not at all sure that I like targeted ads and automatic sign-ups to mailing lists when you buy from a website; I may have nothing to hide, but I don’t like the idea of my emails being read and of organisations – public or private – keeping tabs on me.

Sometimes the ads and mail outs are so wildly off-course that they are funny, but on occasions it’s uncanny how well they seem to know you. An email in my inbox this morning makes me suspect that Big Brother is watching me personally:

amazon targeted mail ("as you've shown an interest in books...")
It’s absolutely true: I have “shown an interest in books.”

I don’t think that can possibly be true of a few million other people whose email addresses are on record with Amazon, can it?
 

logic test

This morning, I wanted to make a pun on the idea of a poet as a “maker” and a poem as “a made thing”; before I did so, though, I went to Google to check that I had the etymology right. What I found reminded me of those IQ test questions where you fill in the next word in a set or in a sequence.

Here the sequence starts “poet, poem, poetry,” but the final word is not the one I would have expected:

derivation of word "poem". Google results

computer consumables

Yesterday’s post touched on domesticity and cleaning, so I think this is as good a time as any to post this poem.

Slattern



My laptop

is a messy eater. Each morning

I find tell-tale crisp crumbs

            wedged

between its square white teeth


alongside

cracker fragments and

the improbably orange powder

of industrial snacks.



It’s happy

sat atop a take-out pizza box

and olive stones have never yet

upset its equilibrium.


It’s anchored

to the desk by coffee rings

and gin-and-tonic lemon juice

has glued the disc drive shut.



Pass me

a paper towel and I will wipe

that smear of melted chocolate

from the space bar                   lip.

 
 
Remember: Don’t confuse the narrator with the writer. You may have seen the photo of a dreadfully dirty keyboard the other day, but you should not assume that this poem is in any way based on real life!!

no going back

The time before last when I upgraded to a new laptop, I was very careful to keep copies of all my old writing; so the other day when I went looking for an article written in 1999, I found several versions of it on my current computer.

Sadly, none of them were compatible with the programs I have available, and when I opened one of the documents, it began like this:

##MMXPR3#C#CXP#########################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################.### ###.#######�### ###�###�###�############################### ###
#######

There are 115 pages, with huge blank expanses and intermittent passages like the above. The three-page article is also in there, but it would require more patience than I have to hand in order to extract it.
Continue reading “no going back”

the wrong message

Facebook is in the news again, with its new messaging service – here’s the report from the BBC site. There is just so much I disagree with in the comments and attitudes reported there that I don’t know where to begin. Here are just a few details from the article:

Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook co-founder): “Maybe we can help push the way people do messaging more towards this simple, real-time, immediate personal experience.”

Leaving aside the fact he sounds as if he wants to push people into doing things his way, the phrase “simple, real-time, immediate personal experience” catches my eye. To me, that sounds like a description of conversation. I have a phone for that. And when I have time, I try and actually meet up with the people I want to have a “personal experience” with.
Continue reading “the wrong message”