The Last Refuge of the Unimaginative

Damned blank page. I've been away awhile doing my nerd thing. Writing code, reading up on HTML5, relearning Javascript – something I do about every year-and-a-half. Whenever I need to stop doing computer stuff and start doing human stuff I have to bang my head against the wall to reboot my brain.

Why the head trauma? It helps switchover to the different user interface.

Ask a computer to do something 100 times and it will respond the same way every time. It may not do what you want it to do, but computers are absolutely consistent. On the other hand, if you ask a person to do something 100 times, chances are, right around the 25th time you make the same request, they'll punch you in the mouth – after having responded 24 different, other ways.

As much as we love predictability in our machinery – cars, phones and computers – we find it annoying in people.

Last year, my wife finally asked me to stop saying that things “matched my eyes” after I asked her to stop saying we need to stop for a “bite to eat.” Nothing wrong with either of those phrases, anymore than there is with a single drop of water hitting the back of your hand. After a few hundred drops, however . . .

My father used to enjoy telling the story about a woman who said to her husband, “You liked beans for dinner last night, you liked them for lunch today, you liked them for dinner the day before and for lunch and dinner the day before that, now all of a sudden you don't like beans? What's wrong with you?”

That story was funny the first 10 or 12 times I heard it.

I suppose if someone wants proof that there is a higher being, a supreme creator whose powers and intelligence towers over ours, inconsistency could be a clue. When we create a machine, if it behaves unpredictably, we say it has failed. When one of the supreme being's creations does unexpected things, it's evidence of a kind of success far beyond our comprehension.

The inspiration for this blog? Today I had to do a routine, no action required, presentation to the County Council. The Council's response to my report provided, as far as I'm concerned, absolute proof that there is a God.

And, she has a twisted sense of humor.

I need a reboot.