The movie Terminator shows us the future as a war between humans and robots battling for supreme control of the world. The scene shows an armegeddon type situation with a red sky and shells of robots packed on top of each other like cars crushed for scrap metal. But don’t worry, that type of war won’t happen because we don’t even need something sophisticated as a robot to wage the kind of battle that movie depicts. We are already there now.

My recent skirmish with the motherboard reduced me to a babbling screaming idiot mumbling in a corner about 2.6.9 and perl(the) over and over again – as seen here. Combine that with the 302 temporarily moved issues I was having at work and I had turned in to a hyped up super bunny that was stressed out and blood red eyed. In team meetings when they asked if I had anything to add all I could say was “I hate computers”.

I thought computers were meant to make our lives easier but it seems they are making it more complex. My tivo was just meant to record my favourite tv shows without me having to set up the vcr but now it just turns in to a chore where I have to watch all the shows before they are deleted. When I had a palm pilot I had to click 50 buttons just so I could write in my shopping list to add milk. I think the people who have dropped their expensive ipaqs for paper index cards in the back pocket are on the right track. Time reduced on repetitive tasks by using a computer is now transferred to more time spent on complex tasks.

But yet, while I curse computers and how much time they make me waste, I’m sitting here typing on a computer to post to a web site. It’s like a heroin addict trying to quit but wanting another fix. I’m starting to understand the unabomber a bit more regarding his need to live in the sticks in a wooden hut.

But Amy, before you descended into this repetative bitch about computers you talked about Terminator and robot wars, what the hell was that about? Well the point was that you don’t need robots to wage a war with humans, you just give them Microsoft Windows or Linux and ask them to complete a number of tasks. Pretty soon they are beaten, smashed against walls with error messages and viruses and still completing the tasks 6 months later. The latest sunday Dilbert explains this phenomenon in less than 10 scenes. Pretty soon we’ll all be bumbling, mumbling idiots and the machines will have won. I know I’ve already lost.

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