DATA

I have recently, in a past blog, written about The New-Fangled -Technologies that confront us on an almost daily basis.

It’s time I attacked the cost and the use of that commodity which one must have to operate the New-Fangled-Technologies, i.e. DATA!

For almost ten years I made use of an internet company, which for the meagre sum of ninety Rand a month supplied me with 2 Gigs of internet usage. Unfortunately, they were forced to close.

They kindly offered me the chance to join another company that would give me a Wi-Fi service of 2 Gigs usage, but at over twice the cost, two hundred Rand. After quickly looking at all other offers, I realised that this was going to be the cheapest on the market, so I signed on the dotted line and accepted the offer.

I have now been in the cloud, so to speak, with this company and the Windows Microsoft 10 operating system, for five months. Some things have been OK; I’ve managed to keep writing my blog; helped edit a couple of play-scripts for friends and continued to make posts on Facebook and send emails. All well and good, you might say. But!!!

I’ve continually been bombarded with annoying adverts and distractions asking me if I want to buy something or upgrade to some new-fangled-distraction!!

These adverts I’ve now realised are using up my paid for internet Data!!

Last month, for the first time ever!!! I found that I had used my 2 Gigs three days before the end of the month!

I do not download movies, I do not use U-tube! All I do is blog, Facebook and send emails!

Very annoying!!!!

Another complaint I have is that, in the past I’ve always enjoyed a game of “Free-Cell”. Now, with Windows ten, I must play this game in the cloud, so to speak, and this also means that almost every ten minutes or so, I’m hit with another wave of Ads offering me other games which I don’t want!

Microsoft does offer the ability to avoid these infuriating advertisements, but this means I must upgrade and pay an additional cost! Galling to say the least! It seems that every way there is to try and keeps costs down, the technology companies have a way to increase the cost!

At least when my late grandfather flew his racing pidgeons, way back in the nineteen-hundreds, the only cost he had was the feed, as he had me to clean their loft and from their effluent, he made the most efficient fertiliser! A pity there is no effluent from Data, or its usage!

Recently, The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) compared the cost of data within Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – the BRICS nations, because of a request by the public.

Its findings are published in a report analysing the tariff plans offered by local operators.

Icasa looked at the price of 500MB, 1GB and 2GB packages. In South Africa, the body found that the difference between the cheapest ($7.15 aproximately 90 Rand) and most expensive 2GB package ($19.57 aproximately R230).

Do a google search, “Ways to reduce your Data cost!” and you’ll find numerous ways to reduce your DATA usage, particularly when on holiday and using your smart phone. Most of the advice is common sense, like switching of your “roaming facility”. But it seems, unless you’re a hacker or computer boffin, there is no way to stop the technology companies charging fucking exorbitant rates.

If any of you readers have simple method, I would be extremely grateful if you could pass on the information.

This morning I came across another “Rip-off”. My over twenty-year-old Hansa gate motor is malfunctioning. I took a quick look and realised that the latch mechanism, which is a slightly bent metal bar with a free-wheeling plastic nodule at its end, was not working. This mechanism stops the gate motor by hitting a rise on the horizontal bar and the plastic nodule at the end of the metal bar had completely worn away.

Considering that the Hansa motor is over twenty-four years old, not bad.

I tracked down a gate repair company who specialises in Hansa motors and took the metal bar to them to get a spare part. I was knocked sideways when I was told the replacement would cost two hundred and twenty Rand. The offered alternative was to bring the motor in to them, and they would replace the mechanism totally for one thousand and forty Rand!!

I am now at work with some 20mm electrical plastic conduit and my Pratley’s quick-set glue and putty “Magyer-ing” a solution and making a new plastic nodule to fit on the end of the 4cm long slightly bent metal bar.

I am totally confused by the ingenuity that technology companies have in created new products that work twice as badly as the old ones that they created. This money-grabbing formula seems to be entering our lives daily.

I have a little tool-box draw in which I store all the Cadac-gas-valves I have accumulated over the past fifty years. I do not think I’ve bought a new one for at least twenty-five years. Every time one of my gas filling valves gets blocked I unblock an old one, fit it on the appliance and hey-presto the light, cooker, blow torch is working again.

However, to unblock the valve a device is needed, a Cadac-valve-cleaning tool. A small device, a metal strip with a very thin, less than a millimetre in circumference. After a search of my tool shed, I couldn’t find mine.

So, I popped down to my local hardware store to be told that Cadac no longer make them and I would have to buy a new valve at forty-three Rand!!

I can announce success! The contraption for the gate is repaired and installed and it work! The marvel of Pratley’s quick-set putty and glue.

Maybe, I am wrong to assume that today is a totally a throw-away society. Everyone follows the easiest solution, throw it away and get a new one. Perhaps I am fortunate as my grandfather was an electrician and a joiner and he took great pleasure in teaching me his invaluable knowledge, which I still use today.

It seems as if today’s youth have not the foggiest idea how to use a nut & bolt; they do not understand the function of a washer. When it comes to the theory and the practical use of electricity their minds are a complete blank. The changing of a plug, connecting a three-way switch, changing a light-fitting, making a Janus cable extension, are all problems they are not educated to solve.

And I need not even mention gas! No wonder there are so many fires and explosions in the world!

I even solved the problem of the missing Cadac vale-cleaner. I made one using a fine stand of electrical wire!

If it works, if it can be repaired, don’t throw it away! and whatever you do; don't buy a new one!!!!!

New-Fangled-Technology and hard earned cash

So, I start to write in the cloud for the first time.

A weird feeling, before on my computers I could always see a list of my files I'd created and known that they were there on my hard drive. Now I am highly suspicious and harbour the thought that they are not in the ethereal cloud.

I long for the day when the pencil and sheet of paper will return, and pigeons were used for the sending of messages.

 All new-fangled technology frightens me. Maybe it's because I don't understand it or perhaps because in my seventies I'm too old to learn?

I throw this last thought into the dustbin or pray the cloud will delete it of its own accord, as I am still able to rewire an electrical distribution board with my eyes almost closed.

So, I press on putting my thoughts into the cloud and am elated to find the file is still there when I return to it the following morning.

What I find hard to grasp or understand is every time my finger hovers over the screen, particularly on my cell phone, some unwelcome application seems to download itself and gobble up the bytes.

Is this an implanted command by Microsoft or the creators of the millions of Applications available to the unsuspecting public? I believe both Microsoft and the Application-creators are to blame as they will try anything to fleece the public of its hard-earned cash!

I am inviting a computer-savvy youngster for an hour tomorrow to find and install an Application that will prevent any advertisements being shown anywhere on my phone and computer.

If he is successful I will immediately inform you.

Yippee!! Tamas, my friend’s son, was extremely helpful and successful in removing a couple of uninvited applications and he created a desktop shortcut to “My computer” and the “control panel”. A most useful task as I can now easily see what devices are attached to my laptop and transfer files back and forth. Thank you Tamas.

But unfortunately, I’m still a trifle confused.

I now have a Microsoft account, a Skype account, a Mays pharmacy account, an Egoli Gas account, a Telkom account, all with different rule and regulations, and maybe foolishly; I’ve given each of them a different password. To deal with this I’ve created a “passwords” file. Surely it would be more convenient if I had the same password for every account. “No, no!”, scream the computer literate saying, “It will be easy to hack into your accounts”. Sound advice, I think.

But very time consuming for my dear self!

I’ve now been thrown into a complete quandary!

I’ve downloaded a movie making AP called “Easy Movie Maker”.  It says that it is for beginners and is simple to use. I’m now five hours down the proverbial line and I still can’t make head or tail of it! I’ve managed to make 3 “Projects” and I’ve saved them, they appear in a box called “Projects!” But I can find no way to name them!

What is more galling, is the YouTube tutorials for the application are useless!!

Now after ten hours I returned to the FREE application. And discovered it’s not free!! I eventually managed to save a file and give it a name, at least I thought I had. After I clicked on “Submit” button, I was immediately asked for thirty-five Rand, so I closed the application down, only to discover it had not been saved. Money grabbing Arseholes!!!

“Easy Movie Maker” uninstalled and a new free-application downloaded called “Filmora”. I’ve open it once and again run into difficulties so onto the Net again to find a tutorial.

The Bastards!!! “Filmora” just like the “Easy” bunch have now asked that I pay them $36 to gain the full programme and I have only 3 days to give them a credit card number, if I am to make use of their SPECIAL Offer!!!

Sorry “Filmora”, I haven’t got $36!!!!

It is galling to find all these “Free” offers on the Net only to discover a week later that they are not free!!

Surely, they are obliged to let their possible customers know that the deal is only a trial-useage and there will be a demand for payment in a week’s time?

“Filmora’s” deception has caused me to postpone my attempt to find a video-producing AP and I have returned to the one function I am able to understand, which is the writing of these blogs.  But I must admit that confusion is in the air. I have now discovered that my “word” application offers me the choice of writing my blog as either a document or a “Blog”, and yet I can’t fathom out the difference!

Common sense tells me that if I write it as a “Blog” the formatting will work better when I copy and paste it into my blog-post. However, for ten years I have written my blog as a word document and then copied and pasted it. Apart from a few trials and tribulations, as to the size of my font and the placing of a few photographs I seem to have succeeded.

I any of you reading this have any suggestions on this matter, I would greatly appreciate if you could comment at the end of reading on the blog page.

AND it is not just computers and the internet that are dabbling in new-fangled technologies!!

Our local power utility company seems to have entered the fray. Now instead of running their 3- phase supply on 3 separate high-wire street wires they are bungling then together into one. Alright, this prevents falling tree branches snapping the individual phase wire but now that all 3 insulated phases are “bungled” together it has become doubly difficult to trace a short! The reason they offer for the innovation is, “It’s cheaper!”

The medical fraternity is also climbing on the band wagon with new ways to cure our ailments and in some cases, finding new ways to diagnose them.

Recently, while watching Sky News, I learn that using over one thousand diagnosed cancer patients, research was showing that a diagnosis could be found using DNA, the complex building block of our being. DNA is a thread-like chain of nucleotides the genetic instructions used in the growth, development, functioning and reproduction of all known living organisms. Although it will still be some time before the test is used they jubilantly announced that it would cost over three hundred and fifty Pounds Sterling!

Yep, money certainly makes the world go around.

But it won’t make mine, as I have always been a man of limited means, I will rely on the wisdom of my doctor and my memories of my grandfather who went from an agile active sixty-five-year-old weighing over forty stone to a skeleton covered in skin in six weeks way back in the early nineteen-sixties.

A final industry I’d like you to consider is the automobile business. How would you feel in an Autonomous vehicle? It is estimated that by 2020 we'll have cars capable of being fully autonomous in certain circumstances, on highways and roads with a minimal of variables and no bad weather.

Also think about a vehicle that has a keyless entry and you start your car by using your finger-print or a scan of your eyeball.

Finally give a thought to a vehicle that constantly monitors your body keeping a track of all your vital functions. The legendary motor company Ford, is already working on the idea of your seatbelt or steering wheel sensors that track your vital statistics.

Yeah, it’s time we went back to the Russian pen used in space, the pencil and my grandpa’s pidgeons to carry our messages instead of one of these!!

Tower of Babel

I’m sure you’ve all heard the expression, “Talking in tongues” and are familiar with the Biblical
story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter X1.

So to those of you, who say, “There is no future in the past” and “History is a pile of Bunkum!”
I’d like to take this opportunity to enlighten you and perhaps change your narrow-minded
opinions.

I would like to debate the following issue:

The Tower of Babel is alive and well, it is living in our cell phones and is copulating and
breeding at an alarming rate!

Throughout my sixty years as a jobbing actor it has never ceased to amaze me how the jargon and Lingo-Franca of my own industry and all other professions changes on an almost yearly basis.

In years gone by I had to cope with several foreign tongues. French, German, Russian, Polish
were, and still are, my “Pigeon-Tongues”.


I can still ask where the loo is because I need to do a number two, in all these languages. I can
introduce myself and ask where I can get a free drink. And if I was involved with a member of the
opposite sex I could always fall back on a tourist phrase book for the translation of the stock
phrase, “Your place or mine?” 

The passion of sex is the same in all languages and needs no translation, I think you’ll agree?
 
But today I have to admit that I am in constant need of a translator, not in the area of sexual exploits as I can’t afford Viagra, but in the area of text messaging. Only the other day I received a message that went as follows, “M U @ / Ho 4 ish!!”

The 4ish is easy enough as I have always been a stickler when it comes to punctuality. But I’m
afraid the rest did tax even my rather bright Thespian’s brain.


Being a cryptic crossword enthusiast does help and it only took me a few minutes to ascertain that someone wanted to meet me at the back of a house or home at 4 o’clock rather urgently. The urgency is apparently being conveyed in the double exclamation mark.

The problem then arose as to who had sent me the message as it has been logged as a “Private
number”. I do know that there are ways and means using the most up to date technology available
and I could have spent half an hour at the local Internet cafe and discovered who was trying to
meet me.

But surely when you think of the amount of time the sender had spent encrypting the message; the
time I had to spend de-encrypting it; and the time spent by the service provider sending it; and
the time I would have had to spend at the Internet cafe; You must agree that it would have been
quicker for the sender to engage the services of the Wells Fargo stage coach mail line.

The other point I would like to raise is that in spite of this global phenomena of instant communication, the powers that be in both government and the private sector can still take days,
sometimes even months and years to solve a simple problem like, “Where’s my pay cheque?”

Enough said.

I think I have proved that the “Tower of Babel” is most certainly alive and is living in our cell
phones. The question still remains though as to whether it is “Well?”

At the turn of the last century, - 19th into the twentieth, - Sir William S. Gilbert of Gilbert
and Sullivan fame said, “We all use language that would make your hair curl.” 

Was he maybe alluding or referring to the illnesses that could be caught by the use of bad language?

Should that be the case I feel frightened that we are now rearing future generations of curly-
haired people. Just think of the consequences. Millions of “Perm-Set-and-Wavers” out of a job.
Hair dressing salons with advance bookings of over a year.  Hair straightening clinics opening up
on every street corner.

The mind boggles.

Harking back to Genesis, when the dear Lord gave us our languages and dialects, I don’t think he
had planned or envisaged that we would need to invent another that is compiled of asterixes,
exclamation marks, numerals, capital letters and back-slashes.

I do concede that all professions and trades have their own lingo and specialised vocabularies.
My own industry is no exception. “Print the 4th along with the pick-ups on eight and nine and can
the rest.”

This could be a common demand from a movie director to his continuity advisor. He is of course
referring to the “Takes” that have been shot on a particular set-up. He is telling his advisor of
the ones that he wants printed from the negative that will be sent to the film laboratory and the
ones he doesn’t want can stay on the negative in the film canister. Simple enough, but for
someone outside the industry it would probably either not interest them, or they wouldn’t have a
clue what he was talking about

Fifteen years ago in the early days of cell technology, my son, who works in the world of finance
told me, “The upward flotation trend in the present bear market could fold if the C I figures
Stateside weren’t hot.”

I was working in Scunthorpe Rep at the time and was shopping in the high street looking for a
friendly off-license run by an Indian friend of mine. Habbib had told me he had a special on
3-litre chateau cardboard dry red and “Toddie” was empty.

After leaving Habbibs’ wheeling my shopping trolley filled with twenty-five boxes, I kept
glancing at the shop windows to see if I could find an establishment selling bears. And my mind
was occupied as I tried to envisage what type and size of clothes a one-eyed Cyclops living in
America would buy if he was feeling a trifle warm.

I am sure you are aware by now that my imagination does tend to run wild. But I was following my
own rules of translation. “I” in sms-lingo can mean the personal pronoun or it could be an “eye”.

Now most of us humans are graced with two of these organs, one on the right side of our faces and
one on the left side. So I immediately jumped to the conclusion that my son was referring to a
person who had a central eye, a “C I”. 

The only person I knew of that fitted that description is a Cyclops from Greek mythology.

Needless to say that same evening after I had finished my performance portraying a brain damaged forty-year old man who had the mind of a three-year old and could only communicate in grunts and gurgles, my head was again catapulted into a state of utter confusion.

I received another text message from my son. “Ur shares 4 OL 2 B off-ld”. Please help me.
 
Point proved; there is always future in the past! It’s just that nobody bothers to look for it.