The Lunacy of Technology

It is an understatement to say that modern technology has come on in leaps and bounds in the last fifteen years or so. When I was at school, I remember marvelling at the release of the brand new Intel Pentium 200 processor. A few years later came the Pentium 2, and the newer AMD chips. Then there were the RAM chips that increased in capacity (and length), and the 80 MB hard drives that became 500 MB, and later to 6.4GB.

"Too big. We'll never fill it" we would say as we looked wide eyed at the wondrous, yet mysterious black box encased in anti-static bags, wrapped in bubble wrap, and hidden behind protective glass. It constantly amazes me now at the total disregard for these precautions, as attitudes towards the delicacy of components has changed. In comparison, the price of technology has reduced, allowing people to care less.

The New User Influxation

The place is in chaos, the servers are maxed out, everybody is stressed, tensions are high and no one can remember their password, date of birth or even their name. The same time every year we get a huge influx of new users: More users to report problems, more users to create them. Each one has to be registered on the system to get their vital computer user accounts, and then have to go through a long, gruelling induction by our highly trained specialists.

I say gruelling, as it is more taxing for the inductors than for the inductees. From the stories they have told me it resembles a cross between the London riots, and the Krypton Factor for the technologically afraid.