A match made in heaven

I’ve put a lot of thought into this, and found I like wires. I’m not planning to marry one or anything, but wires and I have made a good connection. Connection! See what I did there? I was talking about wires and I used the word connection. That’s funny stuff, unless you don’t think so. Perhaps we should just move on.

Frankly, if my wife ever gets tired of my bull-crap and kicks me out, it’s good to know that I have options. Of course, if my daughter ever found out I was living with a wire instead of her mother, she’d wrap it around my neck and pull. It’s a complicated relationship. Therefore, I keep wires at a distance, but I can still say I like them.

Happy connections

Wires have been with us a for long time and while I know a lot of it, I’m not going to tell you all their history. It’s boring as hell, and has nothing to do with my point.

My relationship with wires started in 1978 when I got my first computer. This was a box with a keyboard. It was wired to another box with extra memory, a box with a TV screen, and a box with a cassette tape, which rarely worked. But that’s not important right now.

The point is, I bought a computer and it was wired together. As the years have come and gone, I’ve had many such computers. All ugly boxes connected with wires. In fact, the more powerful the machine the more wires. For a guy who likes wires, this was sheer heaven, but again, not the point. Man, I’m having a lot of trouble keeping on topic. Maybe I should wire my thoughts together. Nah!

Lost friends

My point is, these days everyone’s trying to get rid of wires, and I don’t like it. It started around the turn of the century with something called Bluetooth. This was a fang-like device you stuck on your ear that somehow connected to your phone. You could talk hands free. We don’t need these anymore, not because folks don’t want to be hands-free, but because no one talks on their phone.

A few years later, the wire haters created Wi-Fi. This allows all your computer devices to access the net without wires in your house. This confuses me. How can it be a net if there aren’t any wires. Nets are made of wires. I guess, you can make a net out of string. Unfortunately, this fact doesn’t support my story so we’ll just ignore it. I enjoy ignoring facts almost as much as I like wires.

Wi-Fi works most of the time. Hard wiring the computer works all the time. I just don’t see the allure of being wireless. Then again, I once saw an associate take his computer into the restroom so he could continue working while sitting there. I agree it’s efficient. But maybe we’ve gone a bit too far.

Making peace with the situation

Yes, I do most of my work on a laptop computer. There are no wires, except the one that plugs it into the wall. But really you don’t even need that one. Thing is, without it, the battery will shut down in the middle of every important project, guaranteed. I’m always freaking out, and trying to find a power source, before some deadline or another. It’s just not worth it. Then again, if I hadn’t played those games for two hours, things might have worked out better. But this is just another fact I’m planning to ignore. See how convenient that is.

Much to my chagrin, while my computer no longer needs wires, nothing it connects to needs them either. For instance, I have a wireless printer. It connects to the Wi-Fi and when I send it a document, it prints it. Well not really. Remember what I said about Wi-Fi working most of the time? Take a guess when it stops. Usually when I need to print something.

At these times, I have to turn off the printer, restart the router, remove my cat from my keyboard, pray, preform a rain dance, and sacrifice a live chicken. This usually get the thing working for the document I need that day. I probably go through this ritual three or four times a month, and I’m running out of chickens.

When there was a wire connecting the two, I never had these issues. I pressed print and the printer printed. What a concept!! Why did they have to mess with things? I’ll tell you why. They call it progress. I call it a pain in the rump.

New is not better

 The reason I’m telling you all this is because I just got a new 3D printer. The old one could be wireless, or you could buy a cable and connect it directly. For me, it was connected. The new one has no such feature. It has to be wireless. Well, I guess it doesn’t have to be. It makes a very nice plant stand, or a warmer for my cat’s butt, it you don’t connect it to Wi-Fi. However, it lacks somewhat in the printing department.

Connecting the thing wireless was a problem unto itself. It had no keypad to enter the password. I had to connect it to my phone via Bluetooth, so my phone could be its controls. In essence I had to connect it wirelessly to my phone, so that I could connect it wirelessly to my computer. Seems a bit redundant.

After three tries, a bit of prayer, and a mystic African dance, I was able to use my phone as the controls. I selected my home network and entered the password. It told me it was wrong. Now I know the password and I entered it correctly, but I tried again. No such luck.

After many tries, and setting my children’s ears on fire with my colorful language, I figured out the problem. My phone was automatically capitalizing the first letter, because the grammar AI thought it should. How nice of it. Not!!! I had to enter the password, then go back and reset the first letter before it went through. I mean, why take one step when sixteen will do?

Things keep getting weirder

Then it did something really strange. A seven-digit number came on the screen and the phone asked me if this was the same number as on the printer. This makes no sense. The printer sent the number to my phone and displayed it. Of course, it’s the same. Just for kicks I said it wasn’t. Did it ask me to diagnose the issue? No! it just gave me another number and hoped.

Now, I’m an inquisitive idiot. I let it try nine times, and it never did anything but give me a new number. Why did it do this? I later found out; it was trying to make sure I was connecting the right printer. How many printers do they think I can set up at the same time? One! That’s it! If I had two or more, I would still only set them up one at a time. What kind of an idiot do they think I am?

Don’t Answer That!!