It sounds like the Webmaster is disenchanted with the new generation of computers. It is not the hardware that is the problem. The problem lies in the new generation of “smart” programmers who think that they are God’s gift to mankind, who think that just because it can be done and it meets the logic criteria, then it should be done regardless of how much control is sacrificed on the part of the user. I love my new HP. It has no external cables anywhere except for the power cord. It has no external peripheries except for the printer with only information about ordering them in the software. I mean it is really great having a fancy new $5000 computer that depends on a WiFi signal to work! Without a WiFi signal one can not even put data into the thing because neither the keyboard nor the mouse works. It is nice when everything is working, but now I have to depend on AT&T to make sure the WiFi modem is working. In the 21st century, it is no long “Look Dad! No hands!”, but it is #look Mom! No wires!” It makes for a a very neat computer desk, especially in the area behind the desk, but it adds a new gizmo to keep an eye on to make sure it is working properly.

The Good Ole Days indeed! I remember when Dad brought home from Japan the Japanese abacus. I remember questioning him, Did they actually use these things over there? In my mind’s eye, I good see thousands of Japanese women in huge offices doing the stenographic work for large Japanese corporations. Then I picked up ours and wondered, How did they ever use one of these things? Perhaps they were like the fancy new slide rule that I took to Georgia Tech in 1959. They were only a new fangled gizmo that distinguished the initiated from the “dumb asses” in the street. Perhaps that was all the abacus did for the Japanese government. That is all computers do for our government, which is the reason that government was the first to make mass use of them. Previously they were only used by “mad scientist” in the lab, like myself. The man in the street never saw them and didn’t even know what they were. Now that they have been taken out of the laboratory and have replaced pencil and paper in every home in the USA and the world, we hate every bit and bite of them, saying that there are too many bits and bites to handle, much less to digest the implications there of. It use to be that chemistry and reproducible chemical reactions were the primary function of a chemistry lab. Now, chemistry makes up about 1% of what’s done in a lab. Every laboratory instrument has a PC hanging onto the end of every instrument plus one at the beginning as well. the never ending data manipulation by the computer now takes up the other 99% of the chemist’s time just like it use to be that the deliverer of hard news took up 99% of the newscasters time in the news room while some smart analysts required the other 1% to analyze and digest. Now, it is the reverse. Dozens of lip flappers analyze and digest 99% of the time and the poor deliverer of hard news is shoved to three o’clock in the morning, when no one is watching, while the other 99% of the lip flappers analyze and digest to their hearts content rehashing old stale news. Thus no one watches the news any more. So, back to this old mad scientist turning out mountains of information in the form of tons of computer gibberish that is harder to understand than the original secrets which God has tied up in His magnificent and beautiful Creation. Computers are required to understand those secrets. Little ole dumb man can not do it without them. He does not have the interlectual capability for it. Sometimes I muse for the good ole days in Coal Fire in the Fifties to, but then I am forced to recognize that I really don’t want that when I remember all the emptiness that the lack of computational capability inhibited the proper understanding of God’s magnificent Creation. So now, when my mind wanders back to the “Good ole days”, I am abruptly awakened, pinch myself, and realize that I am currently living in the Good ole Days”. Then my computer develops a virus, and all of that hard work is lost, which is the reason for the mountain of antiviral software and those long nights learning how to use it.

Computers now will always be a certain and definite presence in all of our lives. With the government involved and with so many people in the basically easy business of computer programming and IT, computers are not going away anytime soon. If one is not a “computer nut” or “computer geek”, one can only hope to keep one’s need for computers at a bare minimum and plunge ahead through life as if they were only intended as a tool for automation and data handling which is really their expertise. Artificial intelligence is really a term devised by man and applied to make ‘COMPUTER GEEKS” appear more intelligent because they created them. So, I suggest that we let writers of good literature continue to do their thing and let computers continue to be useful gadgets where they are useful and to stop using them merely as a “toy” for kids and for the uninitiated. I don’t know about you, but I saw it coming way back in the early Sixties when my computer generated computer ID (a five digit number) became more important than my name in identifying myself to the University of Alabama. Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary wasn’t as big as U of A, but neither the Seminary student nor the professor seemed to have a need for computers, at least not at Southeastern which only had a few thousand students. I don’t suppose that God has a need for computers either since He is one. Just look at computers as just another tool like any other and keep one’s eye upon the Lord and His Will for each of our lives using computers as necessary to determine and complete that Will. That is my commitment.