I love technology! I often find myself buying new gizmos out of a real fascination to learn about these things.
I came back from the UK just recently and I had bought myself a well-known brand of small, touch-screen multimedia player (not an Apple). I was very pleased with my purchase and showed my husband with glee (he’s a computer whiz) and so together we set about trying to upload some music, videos and pictures so we could try it out and be really cool. Well 2 days later we had managed to get some music and a video on there but no pictures!!!! We were stumped: It was supposed to be so portable and ‘easy’!
I must say that I find the vagaries of digital technology (this includes DVD players, HD set top boxes, cameras, mp3 players and computers) fascinating but why isn’t everything compatible? Why do you have switch this to A and that to B and that to C and plug this in and unplug that and ….. just so that you can watch a DVD or listen to some music – incredible. Just as you have come to terms with the vagaries of a computer they sneakily update the Operating System so that everything has to be upgraded in some small way, because the printer now doesn’t work so you have to download the latest software from the printer site but the printer, poor thing (which has been in the family for almost generations but still plugs away) doesn’t know whether it’s Arthur or Martha so totally turns its heels up – so you go and get a new printer which needs half an hour to plug in and load new software meanwhile asking interminable questions about where to put what – well I don’t know – you choose!!
So – you know what? I’ve decided to unplug everything, including my earphones, and listen to the local life whether it be wild or manmade. Listening to the song of Brisbane – cicadas, birds, frogs and the wind through eucalyptus leaves, what could be more relaxing! Watching the drama of a magpie being chased off by a bevy of noisy miners, black ants taking over a termite’s nest – what could be more gruesome! A pair of pigeons billing and cooing at each other – how romantic! Being privileged to see a bird of prey zooming on the thermals and looking very relaxed with not a care in the world – Yes! so much less tension in my life!!!!!
Pippa