A Cheer For Return of Nines!

Would all computer "problems" be this easily fixed. A new keyboard was all that I needed. Now I have an abundances of 999999's!

Sometimes people are asked what they would keep if they were allowed only a cetrtain small number of mechanical devices in their homes. I used to say "my dishwasher." Having grown up without this invention, I would have given up any number of other things that make life work. Some people might answer, "microwave," automatic washer," or "dryer." All things that were not part of my childhood.

Now my answer would be "my computer." It is my connection to friends and to the world. And it enables me do do a host of things more easily than "by hand." I used to write on those yellow legal pads. Today I can hardly write a coherent paragraph, much less a series of paragraphs without cut, move, and paste. Or have access to Internet resources, whenever I want to check some piece of data. And my life as a poet was born when I learned to use a computer.

Unfortunately, this connectiveness brings a host of risks. Hardly a week goes by without news articles about those risks. Having your address book stolen - or worse financial information that gives someone else access to vital information - is terrible experience. Hence "secure" passwords - or at least we hope they are secure. (And my "acute crisis" when the nine on my keyboard stopped working and prevented me from doing a number of things.)

Today's intriguing news article was about legal issues arising out of use of personal devices at work - cell phones and laptops in particular. The overlap between people's personal and work life becomes blurred. And as one person said it well: there is no way to bar cell phones at work. People will bring them anyway.

There were no car accidents before the invention of cars. But who would ban cars - other than in places where cars are not really workable. I think of Venice where it is obvious why there are no cars. I think of villages build on hills elsewhere in Italy or other places in Europe where passage-ways are not wide enough to accommodate cars.I remember sitting at a sidewalk cafe in Seville watching a very animated "discussion" in which a woman was adamantly insisting she could drive her sleek BMW down an alley that all of us bystanders could see was impossible. Quite entertaining!

Computers are much the same. I never worried about anyone stealing my Social Security number in the days before personal computers! Or accessing placers in my life I wish to remain private.

Today I am simply reveling in being able to enter a nine whereever needed!