Tag: technology

Ancient technology

My neighbour’s tenth grader just came over to borrow my scientific calculator because she’d left hers at school.

It’s the calculator that took me through high school Physics, Math and Accounting. As she went out the gate I realised the calculator is older than her…by over a decade! I guess I really can’t object any more to young people calling me “oom” (literal translation, “uncle” – in Afrikaans it’s used for non-relatives as well, with “sir” only used in formal settings, or if the person is deliberately difficult.) They should treat my calculator with that level of respect, for crying out loud!

What’s amazing is that these calculators haven’t changed much over the past three decades. It’s kinda refreshing to think that with the pace that technology keeps changing, some just do their job so well that no one feels the need to mess with it. If it ain’t broke, and all that…

Technology killing off vital skills – Part 2

Two months ago I wrote a post commenting on an article in The Daily Mail Online on how the increase of technology is causing a decline in other, what some consider to be, vital skills. If you recall, I measured up pretty well with skills like map-reading and fire-starting, and aside from the potential need to perhaps Google how to make certain knots (like if, for example, I decide to actually become a pirate), I’d be quite able to survive without my smart phone.

You should know by now never to take any promise I make on this blog seriously, like the promise I made to tackle the second half of that list within the week. But let’s remedy that, shall we?

Continue reading “Technology killing off vital skills – Part 2” →

Technology killing off vital skills – Part 1

According to The Daily Mail Online twenty vital skills are apparently dying out in our “world of technology and convenience”. Naturally I found myself checking how I measured up against the list. Do I have what it takes to survive in a world without tech? If Google goes offline and the world wide web unravels, will I be able to keep the threads of my life together?

Continue reading “Technology killing off vital skills – Part 1” →

Gmail Password Leak Update

In case any of you missed this, now might be a good time to update your WordPress and Gmail passwords (and Facebook, and Twitter, and Instagram, and Amazon…I should make a list of all my online accounts, methinks.)

WordPress.com News

This week, a group of hackers released a list of about 5 million Gmail addresses and passwords. This list was not generated as a result of an exploit of WordPress.com, but since a number of emails on the list matched email addresses associated with WordPress.com accounts, we took steps to protect our users.

We downloaded the list, compared it to our user database, and proactively reset over 100,000 accounts for which the password given in the list matched the WordPress.com password. We also sent email notification of the password reset containing instructions for regaining access to the account. Users who received the email were instructed to follow these steps:

  1. Go to WordPress.com.
  2. Click the “Login” button on the homepage.
  3. Click on the link “Lost your password?”
  4. Enter your WordPress.com username.
  5. Click the “Get New Password” button.

In general, it’s very important that passwords be unique for each account. Using the same…

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On technical difficulties…and movie trivia

You may or may not have noticed that I’ve been a tad quiet this week.  I’ve not been taking a break from the blog…at least, not voluntarily.  My internet went on a temporary vacation, preventing me from doing anything here.

That shouldn’t happen.  I have uncapped internet.  It’s 3G, so at times there are signal problems, but this wasn’t the signal.  I know because Facebook worked fine.  And Twitter.  And all my programs’ automatic updates downloaded fine.  But nothing else.

I don’t have a problem with Facebook as such, but it’s a tad frustrating to not be able to access anything else for forty-eight-plus hours.  And Twitter is full of links.  I couldn’t click on any of them.  No Wikipedia.  No Google.  No news websites to read where I can be upset by the comments (actually that was a relief).  No blogs!  It was torture, I tell ya!

Thankfully, all’s back to normal now.  Updating my browser seemed to do the trick, though I have no idea why the previous version which had worked fine until two days ago suddenly didn’t.  I also don’t know why both Chrome and Internet Explorer (yeah, I was actually THAT desperate) developed the same problem at the same time.

Whatever the reason, I’m glad to be back.  Though when I consider that I spent the first two-thirds of my life without internet it’s a tiny bit disconcerting that two days without it now affects me so.  I might need to take an enforced internet vacation soon for the sake of my sanity.

But enough of that.  Here’s a bit of movie trivia:

This powerful wizard from a galaxy far, far away was also a vampire, a dentist and a pastor and in real life caught Nazi war criminals before becoming an actor.

Comment with the name of the actor and all the movies referenced if you can figure it out.  First person who gets it right wins a walk for two under the full moon on Saturday night (not with me, though, unless you’ll spring for my plane ticket).