1228 The Ultimate Software and Reverting to Form

Okay, here we are in the high tech age.  Computers, notebooks, netbooks, tablets, smartphones, game consoles, vacuum cleaners that clean your floors without you.

At some point, these gizmos are going to have warning labels:

“The Surgeon General has determined that game consoles, tablets, smartphones and other computer related devices can be habit forming.  Caution is advised.”

WebMD will list side effects: overgeneration of alpha waves, weight loss, weight gain, cardiac arrest and brain cancer.  Most common side effects: sleep loss, eye strain and social detachment.

All this is in the future.  But there are problems now, and they aren’t being addressed.  In fact, they have no web address.  But they need a dressing down.

There are too many calendars.  So many, in fact, that you need a calendar just to remind you which of your other calendars to check. Google Calendar, Yahoo Calendar, Windows 8 Calendar.  Wall calendar, desk calendar.

If you keep more than one, it gets confusing: Business appointments, personal appointments, birthdays, secret appointments, doctor appointments, dentist appointments, hairdresser appointments, oil change and state inspection appointments.  Dates that bills are due.

If you keep only one calendar, what happens when your hard drive dies or your wireless router dies?

The same is true with to-do lists.  Who needed one of those before the Sharp Wizard and the Palm Pilot rose to equality with food, clothing and shelter or life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

These old fashioned thingies have become passe except for their cult following which is fast aging into the ground.

But the effects haven’t.

Some people still use DayTimers and Day Runners, appointment books and such.  The “Day” books are complicated and over organized.  The simple old fashioned desk calendar or appointment book is too much work -- you have to transfer the birthdays from year to year, for example.

Is there an answer to all this confusion and danger?  Sure.  LSP Software.  LSP stands for “little scraps of paper.”

Yes, they can be lost.  Yes, they can be thrown away in error. And, no, they don’t track birthdays.  So keep your Google calendar for that and the bill-due-dates.  The rest of the stuff works better with LSP.

And there are no batteries, no “upgrades,” no new operating systems. Plus you can use it anywhere from up in outer space all the way down to hell without worrying about spying, interference or a stock price.

Many, if not most of us, started with this system (we’re all “software architects just like Bill Gates! Only poorer) and reverting to form wouldn’t hurt.

Shrapnel:

--Here’s hoping the latest choice of Miss America portends a wider future.  They picked a blue state woman who isn’t white over a rootin’ tootin’ Kansan blonde who was the favorite of many a red state yeehaw.  Maybe this is the path to more blue.

--Meantime, the reds are still assuring their membership that if they don’t vote against the Affordable Healthcare Act, don’t limit the debt ceiling and don’t vote to shut down almost everything, they’ll be forced out of office.  The blues are abandoning the president on many issues -- as they should.  And the rest of us are trying to figure out what life will look like when the United States Government is totally paralyzed instead of just from the neck up, as now.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013