Showing posts with label using. Show all posts
Showing posts with label using. Show all posts
11 February 2019
09 January 2013
on using techmology
In an age that has witnessed the rapid spread of sophisticated hand-held computers, I find it hard to fathom how certain people still don't know how to use digital devices. “There's no instruction booklet,” they often say, or, “I don't know how to get back to the place where I can check my email.” If you are one such person, here are a few tips.
Tip #1: No matter how many buttons you push, you won't break the device. Every button has a name or icon on it to indicate what it does, so push each button in turn, wait to see what it does, and then memorize the steps needed to get to a certain area or to activate a favorite application. The hesitation to push a device to its limit is likely a holdover from analog times, when flimsy devices would break as soon as the user pulled what he should have pushed and twisted what he should have left alone. Computers may crash, but they tend to start back up again, good as new, so forget bygone concerns and have at it.
Tip #2: There are no instruction booklets because these devices are designed so that even brain-dead, snot-nosed teenagers can use them. Teenagers aren't smarter or better at using technology than the average adult – they are simply less afraid of making mistakes and just mash buttons until they get their device to do what they want it to do, whereupon they follow the same steps over and over again. (Besides, the instruction booklets of yore confused and frustrated more often than they helped, and only maybe one in ten users actually read them, so if you use that lame and tired excuse, please stop.)
Tip #3: If you find yourself in an area of your device that you don't recognize, find a button that looks like an arrow or that has the picture of an arrow on it and keep hitting that button until you can go no further and you find yourself back at square one. Then, start hitting buttons until you get where you want to go, and stay there. Only a handful of kids today do outrageous things with their hand-held computers; the rest use but a few applications – email, instant messaging, a social networking site, a music player, and maybe a video service – without ever delving into the inner workings of their devices or pushing their little toys to the limit.
Tip #4: When in doubt, ask a brain-dead, snot-nosed teenager for help. Seriously, nothing strokes their egos more than being asked to show Granny how to get back to her email inbox so she can see all those pictures of cherubic children her daughter-in-law keeps claiming to have sent. Get your device back promptly, though, unless you want to lose it forever to the fleet fingers of a trolling teen.
In the end, your stoic refusal to back down from a challenge will win the day and afford you all the advantages of the hand-held digital device. So step once more into the breech and mash those buttons until your tablet says, “Meep.” And, of course, mahalo.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
Tip #1: No matter how many buttons you push, you won't break the device. Every button has a name or icon on it to indicate what it does, so push each button in turn, wait to see what it does, and then memorize the steps needed to get to a certain area or to activate a favorite application. The hesitation to push a device to its limit is likely a holdover from analog times, when flimsy devices would break as soon as the user pulled what he should have pushed and twisted what he should have left alone. Computers may crash, but they tend to start back up again, good as new, so forget bygone concerns and have at it.
Tip #2: There are no instruction booklets because these devices are designed so that even brain-dead, snot-nosed teenagers can use them. Teenagers aren't smarter or better at using technology than the average adult – they are simply less afraid of making mistakes and just mash buttons until they get their device to do what they want it to do, whereupon they follow the same steps over and over again. (Besides, the instruction booklets of yore confused and frustrated more often than they helped, and only maybe one in ten users actually read them, so if you use that lame and tired excuse, please stop.)
Tip #3: If you find yourself in an area of your device that you don't recognize, find a button that looks like an arrow or that has the picture of an arrow on it and keep hitting that button until you can go no further and you find yourself back at square one. Then, start hitting buttons until you get where you want to go, and stay there. Only a handful of kids today do outrageous things with their hand-held computers; the rest use but a few applications – email, instant messaging, a social networking site, a music player, and maybe a video service – without ever delving into the inner workings of their devices or pushing their little toys to the limit.
Tip #4: When in doubt, ask a brain-dead, snot-nosed teenager for help. Seriously, nothing strokes their egos more than being asked to show Granny how to get back to her email inbox so she can see all those pictures of cherubic children her daughter-in-law keeps claiming to have sent. Get your device back promptly, though, unless you want to lose it forever to the fleet fingers of a trolling teen.
In the end, your stoic refusal to back down from a challenge will win the day and afford you all the advantages of the hand-held digital device. So step once more into the breech and mash those buttons until your tablet says, “Meep.” And, of course, mahalo.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
05 December 2012
on cleaning clothes
I no longer use a washing-machine powered by electricity. Instead, I have developed a series of buckets in which I clean my clothes, a system that works fairly well. To start, I fill up an old cat litter bucket – one that is clean, squat, and wider than the average contractor's bucket – with the clothes I wish to wash, a dollop of detergent, and water. Usually, I allow this brew to sit for many hours out on the deck so that the soap and water can impregnate the fibers and make cleaning easier. Such long soakings (which make up phase 1) work fine in summer; in winter, however, they find me cleaning my clothes in the evenings, the cold and the dark conspiring with the dirty, frigid water in which my garments have been sitting to make for a miserable task. Now, I process a load in one go, the wash and the rinse cycles following one another closely rather than being spaced out over an entire day.
I agitate the clothes in the squat bucket by poking one side down with a long bamboo pole (a broomstick will also work during this, phase 2), forcing the items down on one side, which pushes them up on the other and allows me to mash the garments thoroughly. After I see a particular shirt or item for the third or fourth time, I put aside my stick and drop a skinnier bucket into the squat one (skinnier in that its bottom goes all the way down to the bottom of the wider bucket), this one with many holes drilled into its bottom and sides. I sit on the top of the skinner bucket, thus forcing the water from the clothes using my own weight. Once I am satisfied with this rudimentary straining, I take the skinnier bucket back out and resume poking at the clothes with my poker, rotating them around and around until they seem well agitated. (The water at this point will be oily, brownish, and filled with tiny particles of sweat, skin, and dirt.) I usually agitate and strain at least three times before dumping out what water I can and moving on to phase 3.
Phase 3 involves putting the skinnier bucket back into the squat bucket but then flipping both over together so that the water runs out. Then, I sit on the bottom of the squat bucket, using my own weight to strain the clothes against the skinnier bucket (which, again, has holes drilled into its bottom and sides). This forces much of the remaining water out of the clothes; I get even more out by rocking back and forth and by shifting position on the bottom of the squat bucket, which allows trapped pockets of water to escape onto the wooden deck, which must be swept off afterward to keep it from rotting quite so quickly. I generally give the clothes a visual check at this point, and a close smelling, to see if they need a third rinse or if the are clean enough to move on to phase 4. This last phase involves taking the wet items from the squat bucket and hanging them up to dry on my clothes-spider, a retractable hanger that perches at the edge of the deck far enough from the house so that the water dripping from the clothes does not seep into the foundation or moisten the siding. I usually leave the clothes there to drip their remaining moisture onto the grass; if I am lucky, they get an additional from the rain. Once the clothes are mostly dry, I move them to lines under the roof of the upper, front porch, where they are allowed to dry fully before being taken in, folded, and put away.
Cleaning clothes in the manner described above takes more time than with an electrical washing-machine; it uses virtually no electricity, however, it is all but silent, and it provides the washer with a good upper-body workout. The cost for the buckets, soap, and poker is less than $20, but the ability to wash one's clothes – without electricity or undue physical strain – is nearly priceless. Regain a slice of independence through honest effort! Mahalo.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
I agitate the clothes in the squat bucket by poking one side down with a long bamboo pole (a broomstick will also work during this, phase 2), forcing the items down on one side, which pushes them up on the other and allows me to mash the garments thoroughly. After I see a particular shirt or item for the third or fourth time, I put aside my stick and drop a skinnier bucket into the squat one (skinnier in that its bottom goes all the way down to the bottom of the wider bucket), this one with many holes drilled into its bottom and sides. I sit on the top of the skinner bucket, thus forcing the water from the clothes using my own weight. Once I am satisfied with this rudimentary straining, I take the skinnier bucket back out and resume poking at the clothes with my poker, rotating them around and around until they seem well agitated. (The water at this point will be oily, brownish, and filled with tiny particles of sweat, skin, and dirt.) I usually agitate and strain at least three times before dumping out what water I can and moving on to phase 3.
Phase 3 involves putting the skinnier bucket back into the squat bucket but then flipping both over together so that the water runs out. Then, I sit on the bottom of the squat bucket, using my own weight to strain the clothes against the skinnier bucket (which, again, has holes drilled into its bottom and sides). This forces much of the remaining water out of the clothes; I get even more out by rocking back and forth and by shifting position on the bottom of the squat bucket, which allows trapped pockets of water to escape onto the wooden deck, which must be swept off afterward to keep it from rotting quite so quickly. I generally give the clothes a visual check at this point, and a close smelling, to see if they need a third rinse or if the are clean enough to move on to phase 4. This last phase involves taking the wet items from the squat bucket and hanging them up to dry on my clothes-spider, a retractable hanger that perches at the edge of the deck far enough from the house so that the water dripping from the clothes does not seep into the foundation or moisten the siding. I usually leave the clothes there to drip their remaining moisture onto the grass; if I am lucky, they get an additional from the rain. Once the clothes are mostly dry, I move them to lines under the roof of the upper, front porch, where they are allowed to dry fully before being taken in, folded, and put away.
Cleaning clothes in the manner described above takes more time than with an electrical washing-machine; it uses virtually no electricity, however, it is all but silent, and it provides the washer with a good upper-body workout. The cost for the buckets, soap, and poker is less than $20, but the ability to wash one's clothes – without electricity or undue physical strain – is nearly priceless. Regain a slice of independence through honest effort! Mahalo.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
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