Its strange isn't it?

How we become dependent on our technology?

There are people who, like some kind of neo-luddites, disconnect themselves from anything technological in order to 'get back to nature', or 'slow down'. While I have a kind of grudging respect for them, I don't see the point.

In the last 50 years human ingenuity has come up with hundreds of gadgets and technological marvels which have the potential to make us more productive, more creative and less parochial than those who live a mere 2 generations before us.

We have devices that allow us to communicate with people on the other side of the world, and they fit in our pockets. We are connected to each other's knowledge in so many ways that we really have no further excuse for ignorance and prejudice.

As those who follow my twitter or Facebook are aware (two more technologies that are having a huge impact on our societies) I am without my own computer for the first time in almost a decade. I am currently writing this on my wife's laptop, which I only have access to while she's not using it. It has none of my collected thoughts on it, none of the little apps that I have installed and forgotten about but that I really notice the lack of. It also has none of my games and is incapable of running any but those released a good 5 years ago.

Seriously, its like having a piece of my brain removed. I use my PC as a repository of random thoughts, doodles, and other miscellany. Its as if certain key parts of my memory have been excised, parts that may well be incidental but which nevertheless play a large part in making me who I am. Its disorienting, debilitating and the only cure is to throw money which I don't have into buying new parts.

I had thought that a new power supply would be the answer to my problems, but the power supply arrived and it turned out to be the motherboard. The new motherboard I have (which I bought in relative ignorance of new memory standards and CPU compatibility) is not going to take the memory that I already have. Its turned into an epic clusterfuck and I'm getting frustrated with the whole enterprise.

I should consider myself lucky I suppose, that I have access to other computers which I can use to get may daily dose of connectedness, but its not my computer. The whole endeavour has highlighted to me how dependent I have become on technology, how enmeshed my life has become with a network of devices. How much of a cyborg I really am. We truly are living in the future.

M out

My PC is officially dead...

I thought it might be the power supply, and I have a new one en route, but some poking about leads me to believe it is the motherboard, which is a whole different mess of spanners.

I can't afford to replace the motherboard as well as the power supply, so I am without a computer of my own for the foreseeable future.

FML

M out

All the necessary information

Does it bug anyone else when someone expects you to organise something, moving apartments for example, and then doesn't give you all the information you need to organise it to your satisfaction?

I booked a van for moving next Wednesday, as that was when I was told we'd have keys. And now I'm being told that we don't know when we'll have keys so I may need to change the booking on the van. Which I now can't do till Monday.

I don't even have the damned address of the place we're moving to and so can't set in motion the changing of addresses with various services or most importantly schedule the phoneline and broadband to be moved.

I like to be on top of things (as I think I may have mentioned) my wife just seems to let things happen and doesn't organise anything. I bugs me intensely. It doesn't help that she's out of the country for the next week and a half. :/

M out

It doesn't rain but it pours...

On top of having issues with my webhosts for my other site, and packing up an apartment to move next week, my PC died this morning.

I'm hoping that its just the PSU that has gone (looks like it as I tested with a working PSU) but there is the possibility that it took the mobo with it, which is never a good thing.

Someone out there may be able to help answer a query in this regard:

Upon plugging the other power supply in to my PC and powering it up I got fans going and post beeps along with a high pitched whistle which was quite alarming. Does this mean that my mobo is shot and its putting too much strain on the PSU or is it a case of the PSU not being beefy enough to run the mobo?

(The original PSU was 400w while the one I tested it with was 550W so the second option doesn't seem likely)

Further updates will be sporadic at best for the foreseeable future which is a pain as the first weeks of a new blog are formative in terms of building a readership etc.

M out

I am Also Keith Neilson

There is another Keith Neilson, he lives in the world of EVE Online and writes about that game and subjects surrounding it. I am also Keith Neilson and I write about other stuff, generally game/internet/technology focussed but with forays into other areas as well.

Read on and discover that there is more to me than EVE