Another Daily Another Rant

Even allowing for the fact that Microsoft is a huge target it never ceases to amaze me as to just how stupid their programming can be.  Take today.  I refuse to allow Windows to automatically install updates and I get queasy when I see unexplained internet activity for which I cannot account.  Therefore when I received word today that there was a necessary update ready to be installed I was quizzical.  My suspicions were heightened when the update failed to install three times.  Turns out it was an update for Net Framework 1 and there was a very plausible reason for the failure—I didn’t have it installed on my computer.  In fact there was even a previous update called Service Pack 1 that needed to be installed before the update worked and Windows finally shut up about the update.  

 

On another topic entirely when did it become acceptable to invite a friend for lunch and spend most the meal talking on a cell phone to other people?  That’s the sight I witness today at a local pub I occasionally drop into for supper when I feel too exhausted to cook.  The pair in question were two men and as is my wont it occurred to me to wonder what my father would have thought of the situation.  As I expect I’ve already recorded somewhere in these ramblings the telephone did not enter my Father’s life until he was well into his fifties.  I have no memory of his ever using it to dial anyone up—if he absolutely had to use it my Mother probably dialled it for him and he would only have answered it if there was no one else available to take the call.  Somehow I don’t believe he truly trusted the technology; if he wanted to talk to someone he got into his truck and drove to see them in person.  Returning to the pair in the pub; what does it say about the importance accorded a relationship when you demonstrate that talking to other people during a meal together is more important than concentrating on the person in front of one?  Personally I find the practise rude as I do when a store manager abandons the transaction we are about to consummate to answer the phone and makes me stand there and wait interminably.  I just don’t understand this obsession with being constantly in touch in such an impersonal way especially when it interferes with face to face contact.