Replying to LO29464 --
Replying to LeO29464
Dear reader, hello Leo,
Some adformations. I also was - as a student - at the start of the
"information revolution". I remember how highly efficient and effective
(female) secretaries - managing a whole faculty for over thirty years with
a single file cabinet - were replaced by information systems that:
a. supplied large quantities of paper
b. the wrong information, too late. Within a year nobody was responsible
for the quality of the information.
I've seen how a smart manager, who was able to manage over 200 people in
numerous complicated technical projects had time at hand to talk to
everybody - using a planning board. He was replaced by a planning
department and system that was never right and consumed so much time
that nobody was able to communicate anymore.
I studied at Leiden University were Dijkstra had already showed how to
develop software the first time right: "go-to considered harmful".
Dijkstra refused to use PC's and still wrote his letters by hand.
When i saw MS-Dos the first time I said it was just a bad copy of CP/M.
The first IBM-pc made me laugh: no competition for the Apple. WordStar and
later WordPerfect were far better for manipulating signs than Word. Html
is - in my opinion - WordStar revisited. Lotus 1-2-3 did solve some of the
problems with VisiCalc, but Excell didn't improve that further. The
thirdbthing you want to do with a SlideWriter (!) is making a numbered
list. Now you still have to download a macro for PowerPoint to do this.
The latest gotpse here in Holland is MicroSoft who is advertising his
software as the first software that will not stop running. Whow. And i can
go on for ever: ICT is probably the biggest hoax in human history. The
most simple explanation i can find is that we feel so strongly cheated
that we do not want to admit to ourselves that we are: "the emperor's new
clothes". That would also explain the ruling in the US against (?)
MicroSoft.
Why are highly efficient and proficient human communications and
information "systems" replaced by expensive and inadequate mechanized
information systems (who remembers "MIS is a Mirage")? I wondered about
it, as you did, and proposed many theories to explain this paradox. The
millennium bug, that was already known to exist in 1988 (!), was - i
assumed - introduced to make sure that no ICT implementation would be
cost-effective.
The irony is that i'm still using ICT, because it also enabled the
internet (did i tell you that i happened to have build a browser in the
late 80's? The first email i send had to specify the complete path: from
computer to computer) by far and large the most expensive, time consuming,
ineffective and inefficient system in the world. But it is paid for by
others. This internet is one large virus - or better - a parasite
(para-site: www.parasite.con !). It is one large fungus.
The answer has nothing to do with this stupid hardware. Computers are
machines and just execute what they're told to do. The computers are only
telling something about ourselves: we want - or need - to be cheated,
fooled. There is something inside us that is unable to cope with reality -
or has a distorted image of it. We rather believe a story than accept
reality. We're all going to die, so let's suppose there is an after-life.
Brilliant! Now we only have to worry about the after life instead of the
here and now. Perhaps we're still rather primitive creatures, dropped
right from the savanne behind a type writer and - loo and behold - able to
type the bible. And a computer programme. Yek! Perhaps we're still
amazed, eyeless and dazed, confused by the power of knowledge, of knowing,
the responsibilities of consciousness. There always is a truth in old
stories: we were expelled from Paradise (who said paraside ?,
www.paradise.well.com) because we happened to be confronted with an
important question. What was the question again?
At has pointed out a even better explanation: the higher the order, the
faster the production of entropy. Now computers are highly ordered
systems: they are too regular, too square to be true. ICT is the latest
invention in speeding up the production of entropy. Loo around you and
you. Never in history has entropy been produced at such a rate. And the
best way to sell this to the gullible is to tell them that is new,
efficient and reliable. Once they're hooked, they will not admit that they
feel cheated and keep on typing, typing, typing seeing paradise by the
tft-light.
care
Jan
leo minnigh wrote:
>I have worked for many years in a large university library. That period
>was in the middle of the 'information revolution' - the upcoming of
>electronically transferred information ofwhich Internet is a part.
snip
> I left that strange environment in the beginning of this year.
snip
>Does the chlorophyl has knowledge??
snip
>A last remark. The evolution of our characters is very intriguing. As At
>told us, characters only work between different humans if these humans know
>to the code and know how to decode these signs.
>Dwig has explained some time ago how the computer language MS DOS evolved
>and why this inefficient language still is in use. What surprises me is how
>and why in the past humans were strong enough to throw inefficient language
>signs away and starteed with a complete new set of characters. Why and how
>did the Mesopotamic cuneiform vanished and replaced by another set of signs?
>Why started the Romans with another set of signs than the Greek used,
>despite the intense communication between them? Why are the very intelligent
>Egyptian hieroglyphs replaced by something else? And why is MS DOS still in
>use?
>
>Leo Minnigh
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