The Challenges of Technology

[Kate Nonymous]

Mr. Nonymous's father has a love-hate relationship with technology. He loves that it lets him see his granddaughter, who lives a distance away. He hates that it doesn't do what he wants in exactly the way that he wants.

And, to be fair, his computer isn't working quite as it should. But he's loathe to return it, because he doesn't like returning things--even things that don't work, apparently. And he's loathe to speed it up by removing programs he doesn't need, because he paid for them.

All of which would be fine, if he would actually let Mr. Nonymous (a) fix the problem and (b) explain what he's doing. Instead, it all took much longer than it should have, and involved some odd analogies--Mr. Nonymous explained that if the Internet is a highway and an ISP is an on-ramp, then a browser is like a car. Whether you use Explorer or Firefox is up to you, but they'll both let you travel around to a variety of destinations.

But what about Outlook? asked his father. That, I said, is a monorail. It's on a fixed track from his computer to the ISP's server.

And that is how we explained 21st century communications as if they were 1950s transportation plans.