What happens when as far as logic and cohesiveness, two plus two seems to equal five?
My mom and I think we know. Firsthand and fivefold. This can be an ongoing rumble like a raging wildfire, first and foremost, (and not the cool in both temperature and function firestick kind), hence this run-on about what software and such can suck into its path and make everything jumble. Having the equivalent of that piece’s big impact. Gotta learn the “go” button.
However long, today’s rant has nothing to do with politics, which is unusual these days, rather we’ll get to that later. But maybe the wrath of Yahweh, and they could be related. Versus making Y actually Z.
Technology can be that terrible tack.
Finding a website plug-in — and especially actually installing it, or activating it, or implementing it, or whatever you call that term, so it seems — is not as easy as grabbing a cord and push, like the name implies. When updates that are supposed to be your computer savior for the somewhat less than savvy, do more than what you’d think, with unintended consequences.
But this all starts with mom and her early computer-solution-software history, now trailed off with far less triumph. Genetics at play here? And maybe thus to blame? At least frequent long-distance, as in the Old School method of actually talking to each other, conversation fodder.
So we went back and forth the other morning with tech disaster stories, until my phone was running out of juice. That great tale started while relying on only two percent! Here are my admittedly oddball observations, from a sheer layman’s perspective, used to using just bricks and mortar.
Thus I will insert my postponed trivia question at the end of this known-to-be long rant, and try to show how it all interweaves. As I had trouble posting it for publication into one of my website departments, and it got eaten like a spare sandwich. So you won’t see it under the category (synonym?) of Where Did You See It. I’ve got to recalibrate. My cursor easily slid sideways to select the existing body of copy, but that’s when the fun started.
Mom had to learn a computer program on her job, with little help as this was in an era before tech support, even before the days when computers such as they were, were old VDT machines the size of a fridge. (Learn as you go like me on a crazy new job, having taken a full morning to learn the crazy configurations to the program of the boss’s son, then just past the noon hour, thank you, it was time to start writing stories. And then there was the infamous “rotate” function to write a headline more than two columns wide.)
Back to mom, though, as she was a might-as-well-be executive secretary at a midsize district who had to keep straight the convolved files, and subfiles, on each person’s information, and be able to produce them with enough speed to satisfy any ADHDer. (Flash forward to these days, where she is challenged by cut-and-paste.) There were times when, we agree, you can type the same key or short strings of such, and get two different results. And a third version and a third result. And then make it officially take? And then educate the rest of your secs department on a soon-to-be archaic software, based solely on your own Blood, Sweat And Tears.
Cut to the chase, finally. With my own dear website. Now a newer version has been installed, and I went into the usual page to add to one of my departments, typed the brief and then … hit save?? The function I had always used was nowhere to be found, only what looked like a whole new style of page, minus the small margins such as seen at the bottom. There was no place to see a “publish” red key, or “update” or similar wording. Placed on top of it, overlapping it seems, was the screen to type in — hey that’s what I needed far earlier. The same adventure took place with doing plug-ins. And just what does “toggle” mean? And also the three dots or small bars if they are stacked up-and-down or sideways, like following my directions, or going forward in reverse. And what came first, the plug-in problem or the saving situation? At least with the plug-ins, I was eventually able to find my way back to Point A. But could not get back home to something as simple as “home.”
And on and on. My mom chimed in, saying there could be dozens of such pages and she is in an 8.5-by-11 mode, generating from a single template. And is there even a margin?
The reason for this tirade is that I looked at the varieties of plug-ins available, and they were in tens of thousands. My takeaway? The market is oversaturated with products that are basically minor duplications — Gimme Shelter from it, as how many different typefaces do you need? — to the point where they seem to clog up so much screen space it’s hard to find the old install function.
My mom echoed that “show available then switch” type of command, when using a newer version when you hit what seems to be the same prompt, as there are about 20 different widgets running across the top of the page. So not to fault just my owner company, people have had to be Einsteins for decades in all such activities. The command is still existing, if you use the site wrong, only underneath somewhere in a layer of sub-screens. Mom said she’s also seen such, hit A then try B then get C. And they all look strangely like a deformed Q housed in a box. Or a triangle set inside a square, to clearly guide you.
How did all this play out in typing up my Q and A post, now defunct, ransacked like many a referendum? The five paragraphs of where to find our super-sized political signs came easily, even when adding to it new phrases about where to go, north and south, to see them. But then it was time for the headline, and for me choosing where to place at the top of the page directions to a farm just past Boardman. Ooh, feeling like I timed out — I thought that was a thing of the past, like someone with a great point to make at a debate, and as with the old VDT terminals when saving a story could be an adventure. But out of necessity, this time, I found a way to retrieve, temporarily, before it was hit publish time.
So after traipsing through toggle, here is my full question and answer, that you dear reader have stuck with not only through the last quarter-hour, but day or so since first it got eaten:
Where is the area’s biggest (and baddest) presidential sign, and how to get there to see it? A tale of two cities for one 25 feet wide and that’s just the name. Drive halfway between Hudson and New Richmond and you will see one the size of a double-truck semi, at least in its east-west half, from either way you are driving, like home on your commute. Along County A and/or G. Damn the all caps, where’s that widget for auto-enforce? This truck in the ditch Trumps all comers, and drivers. The size of your car can’t compare.
Then commeth that driver’s version. From down south, as in past River Falls. He said there is not a semi-trailer truck, but a full-fledged storage unit that had its named message, in even bigger letters, stacked three floors high, as it is one of those facilities that needs dozens of steps to get to your assigned unit. As he said this, there was seen another set of messages on an overpass, with a flag atop a pole 20 feet high with its end dangling on the sidewalk. Back down the frontage road, we saw it from a different angle. Ouch. When Anoka came calling there were a bunch of teeny weenie flags on another overpass, as the Dems don’t do it as big as The Donald. At a juncture where above the freeway, there had earlier been only a single small flag, perched at a point where there are two lanes going north and three south.