paul smith's Snaps & Bytes e-home
September 2003: Paul Smith - Bug-gered to death
I've said it before and I'll say it again, PCs are crap. By the time mine's finished booting I could have jumped in my Jag and been two miles down the road, still accelerating hard. My fridge won't be obsolete in another six months and I've never needed to defrag my lawnmower. Ever. I have a toasted sandwich maker that's more attractive to look at, a stereo that sounds better and a Hoover that makes a less annoying whirring noise. Like I say, utter crap.
Recently, the intrinsic crapness of home computers has been thrown into sharp relief by virus attacks. I've checked, and my telly has never been rendered unusable because a deep-south gimp whose sister is also his mother has seen fit to organise ones and noughts into a sequence that upsets it. Instead, I have to rely on Channel 5 to make it unwatchable.
Since 9-11, terrorism has become of passing interest to Americans, and I reckon the time has come for the instigators of these sorts of attacks to be punished as terrorists too. Their actions disrupt the transmission of vital information (as well as porn) worldwide and thus the global economy suffers as surly as if they'd left a suspicious package next to that nice Welshman, Dow Jones. It might just make them think twice before hitting the SEND button if they knew that it could result in being kept in a cage on Cuba, in an unflattering orange jumpsuit. Held for months without charge, or access to a computer and their sister/mother.
Now, I'm quite lucky. I use/suffer from AOL so don't get beaten up by Outlook-specific e-mail viruses, but I have plenty of friends who've been on the receiving end of all sorts of Internet-borne nasties, and they're all even crosser about it than me! Anti-virus software is only as good as your last update, and even the manufactures can't respond fast enough to counter major threats. An aggressive virus could be on half the world's computers in a matter of hours, and I believe it's only a question of time before such an outbreak causes very serious damage. There are a lot of hospitals, airports and nuclear missile silos out there which rely on computers to ensure people continue sucking air in and blowing it out again. It seems likely that people have already died due to the effects of electronic viruses and I think it's inevitable that more, perhaps many more, will in the future.
It isn't Football. It's not as serious as that, but it is now a matter of live and death. I can only hope that a digitally confused Boeing never mistakes my house for Heathrow. That's something else that's crap about PCs: I can turn my landing lights out any time I want to without getting a stern telling off when I switch them on again.
Paul Smith is still 'resting'. Job offers to info@snapsandbytes.co.uk please.
479 words Dale. I hope they get to you ok and haven't been corrupted by this BOLLOCK 'rude word' virus that's ARSING been attacking Word FELTCHING documents. Cheers TWAT.