When I went to start this note – I found “another improvement” in my software. Well, actually in the software on my iPad. The great idea? A Split keyboard. Now, perhaps this innovation was greeted with cries of enthusiasm by some mobile device users. I did mention I was on my iPad, didn’t I. Hello? I don’t type with my thumbs, I actually type the way I was taught way back in typing class. Back in the 1960s on a typewriter which would put it long before any of the bright bulbs who came up with this idea were born.
In fact, for a long time there was a syndrome called “Blackberry Thumb” which was caused by gripping a Blackberry (the original smart communication device, preceding the touch screen smart phone by years and years) and using thumbs to press those tiny keys. I skipped the Blackberries, the cost and inconvenience was too great and most of the people with whom I worked didn’t have them anyway. The US Army certainly wasn’t going to shell out the money needed for them. (If you want the history which started in the late 1990s and more information about the Canadian parent company – go here on Wikipedia)
Meanwhile, it is late, I am irritated and finally figure out that it would be wise just to check the settings in my iPad. Sure enough, I can kill off the split keyboard. Done.
*If the above software improvement didn’t happen to you, then you aren’t using iOS.
But then I started thinking about winter of 1972 and driving with some friends while on school break out to Washington DC. It was cold and getting really snowy by the time we hit the Pennsylvania Turnpike. There were signs which said “Another Pennsylvania Turnpike improvement for your safety and convenience.
The punchline? The next set of signs said “No guard rails for the next 32 miles…..”
I used to drive the Pennsylvania Turnpike on my way to and from college, always with a carload of fellow students, and that was the part of the trip I dreaded.
One time there was a hillside collapsed across the highway and we were stuck for thankfully only a few hours, but long enough that one guy in a car behind us threw open his tailgate and declared, Let’s party!
Uh… People DO intend to be behind the wheel and on their way soon… I appreciated the sentiment, though–have a good time, y’all.
and it never was safe. I suppose that the improvements eventually made it safer, but at night – more than a bit scary