Some C_mplai_ts Ab_ut T__hnol_gy

You used to know how fast a computer was, just by using it. Sure, my old 386 took a second to render each frame in Doom, but I knew I could depend on it always being slow. But today's computers can be impressively quick, or they can grind to a halt.

For one thing, more of the devices we use are essentially computers that have been programed to do one thing, rather than a bit of electronics designed from the ground up to do one simple task.  For instance, thirty years ago you could change channels quickly with a remote control that was little more than three transistors in a plastic box.  But my cable box/PVR is really a computer that's particularly fast at processing video.  Unfortunately, this means it boots up about as fast as a computer.  For the first minute or so, it recognizes maybe half of my button presses.  I type in one of the long modern channel number, but it misses half the numbers, so who knows which channel it's going to send me to.  At least, that's my excuse how it got on that station.

It's also because most computers are multitasking. If something electronic is unresponsive, it's probably because that gizmo is doing something behind the scenes. Just about everything is connected to a network, if not the Internet, so it will have to occasionally tend to matters of communication. I think that's a reassuring way to look at it: these machines aren't slow they're just distracted. "Oh, I'm sorry, did you just press a button? I was just... Wait, give me a minute."

I'm assuming that's the problem with the self-check-out machines.  Today I tried typing in the code for hothouse tomatoes, and it took so long to notice when I typed the first digit, that somehow it registered the second digit first, then the first digit.  So I had to clear it and start again, but of course that forever too.  And this was probably because it was getting updated on the price code for those new flat bagels while it was accepting my input. 

Or maybe technology just hates me.  I don't know why, all I've ever done is use it to complain about it.