[lit-ideas] Re: Somewhat drastic - but effective
- From: Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2017 09:37:58 -0800
On 3/8/2017 12:49 AM, epostboxx@xxxxxxxx wrote:
I share this little misadventure because I’m sure some list members suffer from
a similar problem: a ‘work space' piled with papers and other assorted
paraphernalia, among which is much that is being kept unnecessarily and to the
detriment of attending to or organizing the rest.
Yesterday afternoon I knocked over a full glass of water on my desk.
Triage ensued. Much went into the trash, and (after overnight drying) many
items which had been lingering in the limbo of clutter for ages found their
rightful place. Long-lost treasures were greeted with delight.
(This procedure is not recommended for those of you whose work space
paraphernalia includes priceless artefacts or irreplaceable documents which
would be damaged by contact with water. Luckily my items of that sort are piled
on a higher level and my computer notebook was resting on a ‘lap cushion’ —
practices which I will now religiously observe.)
Chris Bruce
wringing out his soul, in
Kiel, Germany
- -
I'm sure I mentioned that I am whittling away my library
preparatory to moving to Northern Idaho; which activity qualifies as
drastic. Something very like Parkinson's Law has been at work since I
retired in 1998 and then lived much longer than I was supposed to.
Every time I read a copy of the /New York Review of Books/ I was in
danger of ordering another book or two from Amazon.com. Also, in my
feistier days I was fond of acrimonious debates and would order books
for no better reason than winning them. All these and more accumulated
on my shelves. The overflow went into cabinets I erected in my garage,
and then my wife died and I decided to move to Idaho, but my son who
volunteered to manage this move objected to moving so many books; so I
indulged in a great deal of soul searching.
For example, I’m sure everyone will recall that since the days of
David Myers my favorite topics were Islamism, Political Islam, Islamic
history, etc., but when the revolutionary spirit went out of them, much
as this spirit went out of Communism in the 1930s, I lost interest.
Most nations now are treating Islamic “terrorism” as a police rather
than a military matter. Thus, I asked myself if I really wanted to 1)
get into any more debates about Islamism, or 2) reread any of the books
I read while I was interested in the threat of Islamism, and had to
answer myself, “no.” Thus, all my Islamism was packaged up and driven
to the Salvation Army. And so on.
Now as to the hard-copies of materials that might be lying about,
there are two categories. (1) I have a couple of file cabinets in my
study for stuff I might need for tax purposes and hard copies of things
I’ve written, but (2) I seem to be striving toward a paperless study. I
do have hard copies of poems etc., but as backups only.
I was working on the KC-10 program in the early 80s when an
administrator came into my office and informed me that McDonnell Douglas
was computerizing asked if I wanted an IBM PC. Not having giving this
matter any thought whatsoever, I said, “sure,” and one was delivered a
few days later. None of us received any instruction, nor did McDonnel
Douglas have a plan for "computerizing." The fellow in the office next
to mine decided to teach himself Lotus 1, 2, 3, and I taught myself
Multimate. Secretaries from far and wide came to us to learn these two
systems. And surely, a writer could save his writings on Multimate.
After all we had floppy disks which would last for ever. Or so it
seemed at the time.
Which is to say that over time I had several catastrophic losses of
data. Not so much the data I was working on at McDonnell Douglas (I did
much better than my fellow workers), but my own data that I began
accumulating on my own PCs, first an Epson in 1990 and then a Gateway in
1995, etc.
Years later I now have an HP Envy laptop that I spent $1100 two
years ago that has a failing screen. I bought an HP $500 laptop
figuring that if these machines were only going to last me two years I
shouldn’t have to spend $1100 for them.
But there is the ongoing problem of Operating Systems. I have
gotten used to Windows 7 and have been trying to plan toward its demise
in January of 2020. I upgraded to Windows 10 but have been
“downgrading” my machines to Windows 7. I thus get many of the benefits
of Windows 10 but the interface I prefer.
I bought a refurbished Dell Latitude E6510 that had been
refurbished and upgraded for $379. This computer was extremely well
built and sold for close to $2000 in 2010, and most importantly it came
with Windows 7. I decided I wanted one computer to work on that wasn’t
upgraded to Windows 10.
Then too I have a desktop computer. I buy my desktops from an
outfit called ecollegepc.com, spending perhaps $1500 each time. They
allow me to “customize” my purchases. Thus I can research each
component that goes into my computer. These computers do last a long
time, but become outmoded; so I replace them every three or four years,
giving my previous desktop to my son. I use these mainly for editing my
photos I watch but I watch things from Netflix, HBO, Cinemax & Showtime
as well. My nephew & son use their TV monitors for such watching but
since I have a better monitor hooked to my desktop I use that.
Also, and back to the point, I have all my data on all my computers
as well as on thumb drives and external storage drives, simply because
data losses, not from spilled water but from computer-component failures
have caused me considerable anguish over the years.
As time has gone on, it seems that the move to Idaho may be in
doubt, but even if I don't move there, I shall continue to defy
Parkinson's law, the Peter Principle, or whatever law or principle most
applies to these troubled times.
Lawrence
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