If you've ever been to a gas station when the credit card machine is down, or on the phone with a government agency, or have gotten a car repaired or aligned, then you have probably run into the 'I'm useless without a computer to tell me what to do' syndrome.

With ever-increasing technology, cost-cutting, and overhead increases, the reliance on technology is growing and growing for a majority of people. Some people are literally useless without a computer to tell them what to do at any given point in time. If you point out that a piece of software is giving out incorrect information, they cannot do anything, because they rely on the computer. For instance, in a recent dealing with the Samsung corporation, their system says that a monitor built in November of 2005, with a 36 month warranty, had it's warranty expire on January of 2008. Calling into the phone system produced the same result. The person from Samsung offered no explanation, and was perfectly ok with the calculation.

So now the The Register has an article on how DARPA has awarded a 'Deep Green' contract to BAE Systems, to develop a computer system to assist US Commanders in directing US forces. That will be fine at first, with seasoned commanders using the system to augment their experience, but fast-forward a generation and what will you have.

You will have the people that cant take your order at a fast food place without pictures on the register. The cost-cutting will begin to move the cheaper resources up the ranks. The battles will be run by the computer, with the people being dumbfounded if the system is not online.

Will the call center be based in India? 'I'm sorry that you are experiencing technical difficulties, please reboot the system and if that doesnt work, we can go to level two support. You would first have to prove that you purchased the system, and provide serial numbers, since support will not be able to access or correlate the purchase records to verify that you have support.

A war will be one by whoever can get the power out on the other side, the soldiers shrug their shoulders and go back home.

What if David Lightman dials into the system?

Do ever think that maybe Dilbert has it better than you?

User: I need to setup a complicated way to transfer files, with specifics I copied from a website I read. Can you do that?

T.L.G: Sure give me the password to the userid on your machine, and I'll set it up for you.

User: That password would come from someone at your company.

T.L.G.: But, it's on your machine.....

User: Oh, here's the password - password

T.L.G.: ok, hold on.........now the keys are setup, and you can transfer files both ways without a password, using the ssh keys.

User: I tried it, it doesnt work.

T.L.G.: I have tested it, and it is setup like you requested.

User: Nope, you did something wrong, it doesnt work.

T.L.G.: Are you logged in as the yourcompany userid on your machine.

User: Why?

T.L.G.: Because that's what you need to do, you requested the setup!

User: Ok, I logged in as that user, and it still doesnt work.

T.L.G.: Use the IP address, unless you have our machine setup in your DNS.

User: ?

T.L.G.: Use the IP address.

User: Ok, it works now, thanks for fixing that.

T.L.G.: ??????

User: Now our users want to know how they can use this setup.

T.L.G.: The setup that you requested?

User: Yes.

T.L.G.: Should you know how you are going to use something if you requested it in the first place?

User: What do you mean?

T.L.G.: Please pack your desk, security will be stopping by to escort you out......

While perusing craigslist, I found an ad with a price, but no description.
I sent a message for more information, to see what kind of person posts an ad without any information other than it's a 'portable pc'.

Ad posting:
I WILL NOT SHIP THIS ITEM !!!

I have a portable PC for sale. I feel that $1000 is a very reasonable price. I would appreciate SERIOUS INQUIRIES ONLY !! Please E-mail for all questions.

I WILL NOT SHIP THIS ITEM !!!
DO NOT ASK AND DO NOT INQUIRE IF YOU ARE NOT LOCAL


Initial email:
I saw your ad on craigslist. What type of portable PC are you selling for $1000?

poster:
Hp pavilion - 1028 MB memory - 100 GB HD - DVD + R/RW - 17" monitor with side 10 key pad

ok, there's most of the information, then:
cpu?

Poster:
Windows Media Center

huh? try again:
Windows media center is the operating system, what CPU is installed in the laptop?

ongoing......

Update:

Poster:
i know what cpu stands for, but give me an example of the answer that you are looking for because i do not know.

My response, losing my temper a little bit, perhaps this is a social experiment?

Which one is installed in the laptop? It is a laptop, correct? If you know what it stands for, you should know which one you have. It is the Processor, central processing unit, it could be one of a thousand different ones, it is probably made by Intel or AMD.

What else could be happening?

In the morning processes work, but when I turn on my laptop, I get nothing, the hard drive doesn't spin up, and the screen doesn't light.

I remove/re-seat the memory and hard drive, maybe something jostled loose during transit, but still nothing. Ignoring it, I continue to work on other things.

A couple of hours later, I hit the power button on the laptop, and it comes up as if nothing were ever wrong. Maybe the bios was completely drained, I havent used it for a while, right?

Then I loose connection to my web server. The router at the shop went down. It was as if I have a karma capacitor that was charged, and discharged some good with the laptop coming up, and then immediately had to pull in some good from somewhere else, and brought the router down.

At the shop, I found that the router was not plugged into the UPS, the wrong cable was plugged in when the rack was moved. Everything comes back up ok.

Since everything came back up, I was at a Karma-discharged state. So for the rest of the evening, the twins were uncharictaristically full of mischief. They can be a handful, but last night they kept going and going. They would look at each other, laugh, and were off. Trying to get out of Lowes without me. They took the stuff we were buying, and had me running after them like a shoplifter trying to get away.

Jesus may love you,
but Karma hates you,
and she's a bitch!