The Other Side

I copied a little ditty from Facebook last week concerning all the press attention the death of Steve Jobs was getting while our service men and women are being killed and wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq with little or no attention from the press. I readily clicked “like”; reposted, and went on my merry way without really thinking the situation through to the other side.

Without people like Steve Jobs who pioneered computing as we know it today, our fighting men and women would still be in the technology dark ages and dying at a much faster rate than we now see happening. That is not to say Americans dying in war is a good thing; what it does (in my mind) say is that many have not died because of computer technology that would otherwise be missing if it were not for the efforts of computer geeks like Mr. Jobs.

We live in a techno world which is expanding faster than the speed of light; and in fact, information in new atom computers will travel faster than light because there will be no space or time to slow them down. Our world is about to change into technologies unheard of just ten years ago.

I salute Steven Jobs as an American patriot who spent his lifetime pursuing the impossible and improbable while coming up with technologies that have and will continue to benefit mankind for decades to come. Every technology a soldier holds in his hands to communicate with his team in real time has a part of Steve Jobs inside. Yes, there are many more names that should be included, but they still live to invent even better technologies. They will just have to wait their turn for praise. Meanwhile, thank you, Mr. Jobs, for a life very well done!

Write on,

Mittster

Self-Cannibalism

Can you believe it? The Internet parasites that preyed upon any unsuspecting newbie who happened along are now huddled in small groups wondering what happened to their pocket books. They are all screaming, “Where did all the suckers go?” “It must be the economy!” “Let’s kill other spammers so there will be more money to go around!”

Yes, part of it is the economy, but more importantly it is that the old scams and promises of fortunes to be made while sitting on the couch watching television are no longer relevant. When the economy took a dump, everyone got on the e-mail spam wagon hoping to earn money by spending even more money, until the money ran out. Now the spammers are feeding on themselves. Soon there will be none left. At least that is the hope of honest Web surfers.

As an author doing book research on line, the Internet could be a death trap. My computer died many times from weird viruses and sites that were impossible to escape from. The maze was terrifying and for a time it seemed the only solution was a dictionary and thesauruses. The old- fashion way of research was looking good again.

Then, along came the Super Recession and slowly things started to improve online. Internet searches have become less dangerous and the mazes less frequent. Spam is starting to lessen and some of the Internet squawk is an insight to infighting between the hucksters. You have to love it…wait a minute, I hear something. Let me turn the volume up. What the hell, my screen is starting to flicker. Oh, my God, it’s the spammers. Somehow they found me and are attacking my computer! Help, someone help me….

Write on,

Mittster R.I.P.