June 24, 2002
4:13 PM

Computer answers for the whiner


There's quite a lot to write about, but before getting into that I'm making an entry of this messageboard post I made today. There's a whiny little lady there who can't distinguish between debate and personal attack, and she likes to make big bold claims. Bad combination. Here's my response to her post:


>ever wonder why you have a computer, or why you got it?

My first computer was "the family's computer", which my dad bought about 20 years ago. Apple //c, monochrome amber monitor. Later on we added all that fancy stuff like a loud line printer, joystick, color monitor, and this odd device called a "mouse".

Why did we get it? Probably for the same reasons most other families were getting personal computers in the mid 80s: play games, fun with programming, typing up and saving documents, financial organizing, maybe modem-related stuff, etc. I was still using that computer all the way through highschool to type up papers.

After that, I was just upgrading to a new computer every 4 or 5 years. Early in college I had some type of a 386 PC (14.4k modem, I think), and later I got a Pentium I PC (36.6k modem). A few years ago I bought the one I'm still using now, a Pentium III with 550Mhz and a 56k modem. Why did I keep buying new computers? As time went on, games and other programs (and yes, even internet-related things) were getting better and requiring more speed. New things were coming out too, like CD-ROM drives. It's not like I was buying computers every 6 months, though.

>what's the point of being online?

I started going on line in '93 when I started college because, well, it was practically mandatory. Email was one of the ways used for communicating with friends across campus, getting homework assignments for some classes, and being in touch with my fraternity and other clubs during the week. On top of that, we had to log in to use the school's intranet in UNIX to write programs and run software used for some classes. And my major wasn't even in computer science.

But I certainly ended up using the internet in my free time. And in 9 years, my underlying reason hasn't really changed: it's an excellent way to meet others of rare interests. There just aren't that many people who like the same bands I do, or have the same religion as me. That's how I was able to keep up to date on the news of my favorite bands, when Mtv and the radio stations all stopped giving them airplay in the 90s. I've dated a number of women I've met through ******.com and other similar sites. And I have some very close friends today that I originally met online.

>what is the point of wasting hours on a machine?

That's a rather loaded question with the word "wasting" in there.

>anyone remember what their life used to be like without the computer?

Before I had a computer in my home? Yeah, it was about 1983.

>are you an addict? how long can you go without being online? how long >can you go not checking your email? how addicted are you?

I've never been addicted to being on-line, in and of itself. I've certainly gone through heavy compulsion periods of posting to certain newsgroups and message boards, though. Fortunately I don't seem to be in one right now. I don't get so itchy to jump on line at home when I'm already sitting in front of a computer for work 8+ hours a day.

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