The Best Prescription

It may be better for your own mental health to ascribe human qualities to your computer’s performance.  For example, saying, “My computer’s in a funk today, not getting much done,” suggests that you should just be patient, perhaps try tomorrow when the machine’s feeling better.  While on the other hand, treating your computer’s performance as a technical issue—which of course it is—may have you spend the rest of your day trying to solve a problem which might just go away on its own after the computer has had a good night’s sleep—technically, a reboot.

Six Months to Live

I recently completed a short stint as an IT Technical Recruiter—short, because I didn't make any placements, and particularly because the owner of the recruiting firm I associated myself with and I mutually agreed I wasn't a "good fit."

My most valuable take-away from this experience is the fact that, if you’re an IT pro who finds him-or-herself unemployed for any reason, after six months your career is simply no longer viable.

I've been out of an IT job for far longer than six months. I had no idea my professional life was over. When I learned that it was, I felt how I imagine a zombie must feel when he first notices his accustomed lifestyle evading him.

I have a major IT home project I’d like to finish before I die—as in real death—which involves making one large searchable database out of my two enormous and very distinct existing ones. Perhaps only so my descendents can reconstruct some of the essence of me after I’m gone. This project will ensure me a life in IT while my ruined career remains among the walking dead.

And ensures my digital existence when my real existence ceases to… exist.

Tick-Tock

I don’t appreciate digital clock faces because you have to read them. You can glance at a traditional face with two arms and know immediately it’s ten after two. Digital reads, 2:10—a minimum of two steps, one for the hour, one for the minutes. And with digital, you have to think how close your time is to the hour, or quarter-hour, or half-hour; and how far from noon (or midnight) you are, proportionally. One quick glance at a clock face with hands and you know it all. Digital, well, you have to think about it. Not for very long, hopefully, but it’s not a welcome effort.

Another benefit: With an analog clock face you get aesthetics. There are attractive digital displays out there, but so many more traditional clock faces are minor works of art—especially if you’re into classic utilitarianism.

A mechanical stopwatch is an even simpler pleasure. A glance at one hand and you know how much time has passed—as long as you’re under a minute. All right, I’ll grant that, in the case of a stopwatch, having a digital number blinking at you may be saving mental effort, because you want that single number, and as precisely as possible, usually.

But if a one-second margin for error is acceptable, and you really want to know roughly how close you were to some mark, say 30 seconds, or a minute, then once again the mechanical watch is more friendly to your task.

And, by the way, for any hand-held stopwatch, digital or analog, I feel a one-second margin for error is the best you can hope for. Our reaction time is human.

I'll leave for another day whether "human" is naturally more analog or digital, but I bet you can guess how I feel about that.

Blogging Hiatus

Please read today's post on my Meta blog, which explains my recent absence from these pages.