Has the human meat brain caught up yet to the speed at which computers operate? No, and never will, perhaps. Nevertheless, Silicon Valley keyboard people and programmers periodically update methods on programs like iMovie, Pages, and now, Blogger. All I can see is a different look. White and black with two very thin red lines, symbols instead of words when conveying directions.
Irritating me, these programmers have substituted the clear statement, New Post, for an orange circle with a plus sign inside it occupying the lower right screen corner. Being far down it's not noticeable. New Post, inside a rectangle, was placed at the top, was immediately perceivable, unambiguous, a good example of an effective SIGN. The new sign could represent crosshairs, Jesus, a place to put the business end of a Philips head screwdriver, or a big positive thumbs up from Tim Cook, successor to the equally weird but more human Steve Jobs. Cook isn't from Google, but he's a rich man lacking a concept of ordinary reality, like the people running Google.
Why change the New Post sign? It worked, there was no point in changing it. As someone says in one of my movies (to be seen on YouTube Channel John Berner), "There's always nerds messing with shit."
This beef of mine now derives from spending ten minutes searching for the New Post sign in the unnecessarily redesigned Blogger. When I wrote the post before this one, I had another ten minutes of New Post sign-searching until I asked Google how to find it. This sent me to regular people asking questions of regular people on how to find the thing in question. The answers helped, but again, I'm flummoxed by the modern age's desire to make things less clear, to trust the advice of non-experts. I wasted twenty minutes and another twenty minutes writing about it, but it gave me something to write about--a peeve, though not the pet kind because every pet I've had I've loved. I don't love Google and their practices, or Tim Cook and his lack of human relatability. I don't love the practice of messing with things that work fine.
With computer systems operating much of what happens in contemporary cars, imagine a motor company sending out flyers stating, "Introducing the NEW Ford Sideways Driving Feature." They remotely program all Fords to drive sideways, some cars slip into lane-gobbling sideways-driving without the driver's doing anything to make that happen. Glitches, 110 deaths, 5,327 accidents in a four day period, Congressional hearings with politicians on the receiving side of auto industry donations. The Day the Cars Rotated, a nightmarish film, with video game following, makes a big splash when it eventually reaches freshly reopened movie theaters in 2026.
What's the point of being able to rotate your car so it's the width of a large truck's load? What's the point of eliminating the words, New Post, which makes sense, in favor of a circle with a plus sign, which doesn't make sense, except as the command, "Add." Add what? Maybe I'm too dumb to operate a computer? Maybe I shouldn't judge nerds messing with shit just because they're getting paid to screw up perfectly operating platforms that people enjoy using. They always proclaim they're "simplifying" when they do this shit. "Easy to use!" The former Blogger was easy to use, you assholes!
The new one's also easy, once I get used to it, before they change it again, but the doorkeeper requires a specific password: a plus sign inside an orange circle.
But Vic, your lack of education in semiotics prevents you from making the lightning-quick connection: plus sign means add post. It's not your fault you concentrated on music and history in college, finished up with religious studies and English. Not a single thing in there can be applied to modern practices, except music, and you studied bass trombone and piano! You didn't even plan on joining a jazz combo! Why those instruments? You thought you'd someday be a classical pianist performing with symphony orchestras internationally? Don't you remember how you stumbled through that Mendelssohn piece, lost your rhythmic counting on it, fingered wrong notes, while three piano teachers judged your abilities at the end of the semester? An utter failure! Horrible performance! Epic!
You didn't study computers, you nitwit, like Anonymous Google Employee Showing Up For Work Wearing Sandals. Assigned to the team designing the new Blogger, Anonymous Google Employee Showing Up For Work Wearing Sandals might be a prankster, finding ways to obfuscate, getting a private chuckle out of people who have trouble finding his orange Easter egg hiding in plain sight.
It's all a money-making operation. Make things unnecessarily obsolete. The spending of money comes from that. Consumers of Big Macs are also consumers of technology. We are the Borg.
Do VCRs still work? Yes, that medium has nothing wrong with it, although the picture doesn't match quality of Blu-ray. When my simple DVD player malfunctions fatally I'll obtain a Blu-ray player, but will it last as long as the eleven years of excellent performance I got from a 1986 Zenith VCR?
The human mind, sucking in technological methods, force-fed them by the likes of Tim Cook among others, can slow down, use what's available for a while--how about two years on my laptop before it becomes one with the dinosaurs, can I have that, at least?
It's partly about the selling of lithium ion batteries encased in technological wonders. It's partly about why the United States Foreign Policy apparatus overthrew the Evo Morales government in Bolivia, a nation rich in lithium.
Don't mess with Apple!
