How good can a machine be?

The last ten days or more saw me frustrated as I was unable to enter my sites. I was unable to post a first person account of the terrible destructive storm which took place on Monday, 26 April, afternoon. I even had a number of photographs on the damage caused but I could not enter the internet to post them.

Then, there was the waiting for someone to come to make repairs. As the only resident in my home, I was not around when the technician came the first time. According to the technician, the wires outside the house were functioning properly and the problem could be at the telecommunication office, implying that since it was an engaged tone I was getting, it could be that I had not been paying my bills. That was adding salt to injury as I had always paid my bills on time. Later, I went to the telecom office to find that they could not solve the problem there as my account was alright and I was told to wait for the technician to appear again. Then, on Saturday, someone from the telecommunication phoned to ask me to detach the line from the phone and have that line going direct to my modem. That did not work. The next day, a Sunday, I was outstation when a technician phoned to say that my line was fine, upon which I told him I still could not enter the internet. He told me a technician would come. A technician did come but just to inform me that my line was dead and as such nothing could be done. Next day, somebody else would come to repair the line. I waited a day and no one turned up. By noon the next day, I took another trip to the telecommunication office to find out when my modem was to be repaired. I was told to wait. Wait! Wait! And Wait! Just a line and a modem and it had taken more than one week without any idea when it could be repaired. That is what we get when a big company subcontract services to small companies.

As a result of having to wait for this and that, I lost contact with my emails. Thus, nothing can be done until the waiting games ends and I have access to the internet again. At the time of writing this and the previous posting I use Celcom Broadband which has salved my frustration. Thank God we are getting other alternatives for our internet interests. Thanks to Celcom Broadband, much that I had put on hold is moving again. I no longer have to wonder when the people from TMNet would turn up to solve my internet woes. Looks like they may never turn up as i have heard nothing from them for the last two days despite an unresolved problem. Well, a computer can only be as efficient if everything linked to it goes well and that depends a lot on humans and their weaknesses.

Man makes machines, improving them each day, week, month or year. How good or fast the improvement to these machine are depends upon humans. If there is urgency due to competition from certain quarters, humans work harder to stay ahead of the competition. So industry is the primary factor which determines the speed of such improvements and this industry is stimulated by the need to ensure sales.
When machines reach the hands of consumers, how well it works depends upon the operational knowledge of the people involved. If the buyer of a computer does not understand how the computer works, he may not even know how to start one. Then he must know how to enter various programs to perform certain tasks. And should he have a digital camera, he may not know how to import photographs into his computer library. Then there is the internet where almost any knowledge is available to those who know how to use the search engines. Today, one can even do business on the internet if one knows how to use the web. However, a computer is as good or efficient as the knowledge and capability of the user.

So a machine can only be as strong as its weakest link and in this case the weakest link might be humans, be they the manufacturer, the user, the service provider or the technician. Perhaps it is a part made by humans, such as a defective modem. For things to run smoothly in our lives, only humans can ensure them. Well, when it comes to efficiency it starts and ends with humans.

Clearly, we are responsible for everything in our lives. We may be frustrated with the machines but we cannot blame them. If there be blame, then it must be ours. The fault lies within us. That is why knowledge and effort are so important to us, to our future and to the progress of our future generations.