Monday, September 11, 2006

What is this Life if Full of Computers?

Each time I go to the bank, I am reminded of my little post office savings bank book which I had some 4 decades ago. Everything was handwritten by the teller who received your deposits or gave you your withdrawals.

I wonder how agents used to work in the past when there was no pager or handphone!

Life is now made so much easier with the advent of all these fantastic electronic and mechanical gadgets!

Communication across the oceans is made so much easier and swifter.... and even cheaper, and in the case of the internet..... absolutely free!!!

I came across an article on the current use of words that still retain their original meaning, but with the advent of the computer, adopt a new meaning.

- Memory was something that you lost with age
- An application was for employment
- A program was a TV show
- A cursor used profanity
- A keyboard was a piano
- A web was a spider's home
- A virus was the flu
- A CD was a bank account
- A hard drive was a long day trip on the road
- A mouse pad was where a mouse lived
- And if you had a three and a half inch floppy, you just hoped
nobody ever found out.

(Adapted from http://idyllism.blogspot.com)

I can NEVER, NEVER understand how handphones or computers work. The moment the word "virus" is mentioned I think of germs and flu. I cannot understand how my computer can get virus. Anway, I will just enjoy using my computer and mobile phone. One cannot understand everything in life..... I will leave it to the experts.

Gan Chau

3 comments:

JerL said...

Hi! Thanks for making a reference to my blog! I'm honoured. *bow my head* :)

DK said...

Having joined the workforce 3 years ago, I can never ever understand how do people work in the past without emails.

The Oriental Express said...

Dear DK, you are right. Email is just great and wonderful.

As a legal secretary, I typed tons of letters and documents..... all with manual typewriters using stencils and carbon papers. Very messy. Make one mistake and you have to erase 5 times!!!

But it was good because it trained my fingers to be dexterous. My speed then was 84 words per minute. Now with the computer, I am typing at about 150 words per minute.

Hence your generation is luckier!

Thanks Jerl. Readers can "see" your personality in your writing - lively, mischievous, curious, observant and analytical - all are trademarks of a good writer! So keep up your writing.