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Honolulu Lite
IN the long run, the recent destructive computer viruses spread by email are going to turn out to be a good thing, sort of like getting the mumps when you are a kid. Computers have
always bugged usThe home computer is still in its infancy, although it has been a fast-growing and precocious child. For many of us, our first computer was a little 64-K machine with glowing green screen and no hard drive. Mine never quite worked right, which I was to learn would be a quintessential element of all future computers. Computers got faster, bigger and more complicated but they never quite worked right.
In the old days, your computer didn't need the Internet or any outside help to crash. When it decided to stop working, it just did. Like a pouting child, it would just clam up or maybe send a cryptic error message like "Bad Daddy."
Every new or upgraded program boasted innovative elements but buried somewhere in each was a glitch, some quirky personality disorder, annoying but not bad enough to make you chuck the whole mess off your balcony. We learned to live with these abnormalities. We came to grips with the fact that no matter how big the wow factor in each new generation of machine -- larger hard drive, CD players, massive RAM, audio, video, cute colored plastic shell -- the dern thing would never work quite right. It's like going from a Model T to a Ford Fairlane to a Mustang to a Ferrari ... each one better, faster, sleeker but in each one the clock never works.
The Internet offered great new opportunities for home computer users and, in the grand tradition of computer evolution, great new annoyances and disappointments.
If one word sums up the entire essence of computers to this point in history it would be "annoyance." If computer manufacturers were honest, they wouldn't give computers names like iMac, Apple, Pavillion and Presario. They'd call them "Annoyer," "Irritator" or "Exasperator."
THE biggest annoyance has been the advent of email. It is now possible to reach out and annoy large numbers of people you don't even know. Eighty percent of the email I get is unwanted, unsolicited and, ultimately, unopened. You can't reply to unwanted email. If you send a polite reply asking the nitwit to take your name off his mailing list, that will be counted as a "hit" by the offending sending computer and your address will be forever etched in its address book. They refer to such unsolicited mass mailings as spam, which is an insult to the fine meat-like product.
Checking your email is like walking into a room full of roaches. The first thing you do is stomp on all the uninvited pests. Some solicitous unsolicited email senders invite you to "unsubscribe" to their mailing list if you don't want them to annoy you. This is like someone leaving a message on your telephone answering machine every day and the only way to make them stop is for you to call them and request it. Why these spamming idiots think you would ever buy whatever product they are trying to hawk is beyond me.
With email viruses rampant, we have good reason to kill all email unless it comes from someone we know. This should put many spammers out of business. Computer programmers will be forced to come up with an upgraded email system, which, if history is our guide, will be better, faster, smarter, more secure and not quite work right.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to charley@nomayo.com or
71224.113@compuserve.com.
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