[1318] in Humor
FW: Technology Out of Control (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jason D. Hintersteiner)
Tue Feb 20 21:47:35 1996
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 1996 21:31:23 -0500
To: humor@MIT.EDU
From: "Jason D. Hintersteiner" <jdhinter@MIT.EDU>
<< FORWARDS DELETED >>
>
>
> Thirty Signs That Technology Has Overtaken Your Life
>
>
>1. Your stationery is more cluttered than Warren Beatty's address book.
>The letterhead lists a fax number, e-mail addresses for two on-line
>services, and your Internet address, which spreads across the breadth of
>the letterhead and continues to the back. In essence, you have conceded
>that the first page of any letter you write *is* letterhead.
>
>2. You have never sat through an entire movie without having at least
>one device on your body beep or buzz.
>
>3. You need to fill out a form that must be typewritten, but you can't
>because there isn't one typewriter in your house--only computers with
>laser printers.
>
>4. You think of the gadgets in your office as "friends," but you forget
>to send your father a birthday card.
>
>5. You disdain people who use low baud rates.
>
>6. When you go into a computer store, you eavesdrop on a salesperson
>talking with customers--and you butt in to correct him and spend the
>next twenty minutes answering the customers' questions, while the
>salesperson stands by silently, nodding his head.
>
>7. You use the phrase "digital compression" in a conversation without
>thinking how strange your mouth feels when you say it.
>
>8. You constantly find yourself in groups of people to whom you say the
>phrase "digital compression." Everyone understands what you mean, and you
>are not surprised or disappointed that you don't have to explain it.
>
>9. You know Bill Gates' e-mail address, but you have to look up your own
>social security number.
>
>10. You stop saying "phone number" and replace it with "voice number,"
>since we all know the majority of phone lines in any house are plugged
>into contraptions that talk to other contraptions.
>
>11. You sign Christmas cards by putting :-) next to your signature.
>
>12. Off the top of your head, you can think of nineteen keystroke
>symbols that are far more clever than :-)
>
>13. You back up your data every day.
>
>14. Your wife asks you to pick up some minipads for her at the store and
>you return with a rest for your mouse.
>
>15. You think jokes about being unable to program a VCR are stupid.
>
>16. On vacation, you read computer manuals and turn the pages
>faster than everyone else who is reading John Grisham novels.
>
>17. The thought that a CD could refer to finance or music rarely enters
>your mind.
>
>18. You are able to argue persuasively the Ross Perot's phrase "electronic
>town hall" makes more sense than the term "information superhighway," but
>you don't because, after all, the man still uses hand-drawn pie charts.
>
>19. You go to computer trade shows and map out your path for the exhibit
>hall in advance. But you cannot give someone directions to your house
>without looking up the street names.
>
>20. You would rather get more dots per inch than miles per gallon.
>
>21. You become upset when a person calls you on the phone to sell you
>something, but you think it's okay for a computer to call and demand that
>you start pushing buttons on your telephone to receive more information
>about the product it is selling.
>
>22. You know without a doubt that disks come in five-and-a-quarter and
>three-and-a-half-inch sizes.
>
>23. Al Gore strikes you as an "intriguing" fellow.
>
>24. You own a set of itty-bitty screw-drivers and you actually know where
>they are.
>
>25. While contemporaries swap stories about their recent hernia surgeries,
>you compare mouse-induced index-finger strain with a nine-year-old.
>
>26. You are so knowledgeable about technology that you feel secure
>enough to say "I don't know" when someone asks you a technology question
>instead of feeling compelled to make something up.
>
>27. You rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile tires.
>
>28. You have a functioning home copier machine, but every toaster you own
>turns bread into charcoal.
>
>29. You have ended friendships because of irreconcilably different
>opinions about which is better--the track ball or the track *pad*.
>
>30. You understand all the jokes in this message. If so, my friend,
>technology has taken over your life. We suggest, for your own good, that
>you go lie under a tree and write a haiku. And don't use a laptop.
>
> - - = - = - -
>
>31. You e-mail this message to your friends over the net. You'd never get
>around to showing it to them in person or reading it to them on the phone.
>In fact, you have probably never met most of these people face-to-face.
>
>32. You cc this message to your spouse.
>
>
