Talking to our machines
The actual title of this discussion is Yelling at Talking to our machines but I can't do a strike out there.
I've lived with my daughter and son-in-law (and adorable granddaughter!) for almost a year now. In that time, the printer has been wildly unpredictable. The last couple of months, we've used all the tricks in our magic hat to get it to print documents and such.
I've shut the printer down, uninstalled and reinstalled it dozens of times. The end of July I had two documents to print and it took me over an hour to finally coax it to print. Just one document. In trying to print the other one, I could swear the printer was laughing and saying, "Not today, Jedi."
So, yesterday I was sitting at my desk in the library, where the three of us have our computers. All of a sudden, the printer starts clicking and clacking. Lo and behold, a document spits out of the thing. It's for my daughter, who is nowhere near her computer. She is in fact folding the laundry!
I walked to the laundry room, and told her she has a miracle document. Her eyes rolled all the way across the street and she told me she has been trying to print out several things, and that was the last day she needed them in hand. What I didn't know until then was that she had gone out that morning and had bought a new printer. It was sitting near the front door.
That razzle-frazzle other printer knew that! It knew a replacement was in the house!
The crazy thing has been printing perfectly ever since, but we keep reminding it that the new printer will be installed and the old one thrown to the depths of Heck if it messes up even one more time. We did move the shiny new printer still in its box to the library where the old printer can see it and hopefully be quaking in its little boots.
Have you all needed to talk to your devices?
I've lived with my daughter and son-in-law (and adorable granddaughter!) for almost a year now. In that time, the printer has been wildly unpredictable. The last couple of months, we've used all the tricks in our magic hat to get it to print documents and such.
I've shut the printer down, uninstalled and reinstalled it dozens of times. The end of July I had two documents to print and it took me over an hour to finally coax it to print. Just one document. In trying to print the other one, I could swear the printer was laughing and saying, "Not today, Jedi."
So, yesterday I was sitting at my desk in the library, where the three of us have our computers. All of a sudden, the printer starts clicking and clacking. Lo and behold, a document spits out of the thing. It's for my daughter, who is nowhere near her computer. She is in fact folding the laundry!
I walked to the laundry room, and told her she has a miracle document. Her eyes rolled all the way across the street and she told me she has been trying to print out several things, and that was the last day she needed them in hand. What I didn't know until then was that she had gone out that morning and had bought a new printer. It was sitting near the front door.
That razzle-frazzle other printer knew that! It knew a replacement was in the house!
The crazy thing has been printing perfectly ever since, but we keep reminding it that the new printer will be installed and the old one thrown to the depths of Heck if it messes up even one more time. We did move the shiny new printer still in its box to the library where the old printer can see it and hopefully be quaking in its little boots.
Have you all needed to talk to your devices?
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My son occasionally threatens one.
He's inherited his father's "magic hands," that somehow manage to immediately fix whatever electronic piece of crap he lays them on. I only wish I had that gift.
We have two Eufi cleaning robots. Eric is vacuum only and does the upstairs carpets. Doris, recently awoken, mops and vacuums the hard floors downstairs. It's very hard not to anthropomorphise them with the way they feel their way around and make little panicky jerking motions if they get stuck.
Mrs Feet, a dab hand with a soldering iron, has traditionally threatened recalcitrant devices with being turned into a toaster.
An ordinary person has an Alexa, a smart stove, hearing aids hooked up to their phone, a smart phone or three, a smart fridge, various game systems, and so on and so on.
An experienced tech has a laptop and printer at home. And a shotgun pointed at the printer, in case it does something unexpected. The end.
Example:
Station: "Unexpected item in bagging area."
Me: "Shut up, you stupid idiot!"
This laptop I'm typing on right now has had a few encouraging talkings to. Normally those times consist of letting it know that you can do it! You're almost there! Of course, there's no user error involved, is there?
Printers definitely know when you have exactly 2 minutes to print something before you have to run out the door. They throw a fit every time.
The ink in the printer dried up a few years ago, as it had been so long since anything needed printing. Aside from that: laptops (plural), a wired keyboard and at least one external display.
You can talk (etc) to your machines, but bear in mind that they know whether or not you're an engineer. Either way, they do at least understand threats.