The Library

I went to the library downtown a few days ago to kill time by surfing the web. I noticed, however, that every site I visited wanted me to upgrade the browser.

Which is when I figured out that the library still has Internet Explorer 6.

Kill me now.

Nothing really worked. Wikipedia was 10x the size it should have been, Twitter's layout was all wonky, and I couldn't even get into Facebook.

They had Firefox there too, but it wasn't really an improvement. The version of Firefox they run is as old as IE6.

A little investigation revealed that the library hadn't updated their software in almost five years. Their copy of Microsoft Office was from 2002, the messenger service was MSN messenger (not Windows Live Messenger), and they even had the very first version of Google Earth (the newest software they had, being released in June 2005).

Now, think about all that's happened in those 5 years. Five years ago, the NHL lockout had just ended. In the last 5 years, the Who released their last album. Katrina hit. Dumbledore died on page 596. 2007. Obama got elected (C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER). And I wrote about how the library has no sense of technology (you're damn right it's a sense).

You know, I shouldn't be surprised. Every single person who works at the library is a middle-aged woman. I wouldn't imagine that they would have the inclination, not to mention the knowledge (no offense, but they're librarians) to upgrade their software.

In the meantime, I'll go home if I want to get on the internet.

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Cheap 'puters

Mondays. 'Nuff said. Plus, the Monday after I lose an hour of sleep. It's a good thing someone figured out what coffee does.

It struck me today to think how much we use technology now. My history class now has a Smartboard, and a set of 40 netbooks. I also figured out that about a year or two after I've graduated, my school will likely have at least one good computer for every person there. Which isn't saying a whole lot, since in a few years, there'll be only 200 or so people, but still.

And as everything gets cheaper, it's gonna get even easier to put computers everywhere. Even now, you can see the effect of the lowering prices of computers. When I bought the laptop I have now back in November 2008, it cost $800, including the extended warranty. It came with 3GB of RAM, a 2GHz dual-core processor, and a cheap-a** Intel graphics card (which I absolutely hate). Now, a year and a half later, it seems you can get a hell of a lot more for $800.

Makes a person want to believe the stuff Ray Kurzweil (<- Really, Google Chrome? You think I wanted to say "unwieldy"?) says.

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