Tag: communications

So, how are humans like Windows you ask?  Great question.  Be honest now, when you get that blue screen (to MS's credit I've not seen it in a very long time) you immediately crunch down on that power or reset button as fast as you can and never even try to understand what the dying last words of your operating system were.  What just happened?  Well, my mantra is "that's Windows", but something did actually happen to cause the dreaded blue screen.  It's likely that even if you did take the time to read the problem it would not be intelligible.  I'm fairly technically competent, build my own PCs, a little programming, network my home etc. and I can't understand what they mean half the time.  I've been on the phone with Microsoft support for 2 hours once and they couldn't even figure it out.

Each time a blue screen occurs a log file is created of what is usually referred to as the "stack dump".   A stack is basically a set of instructions, commands, calculations or other that are held in memory awaiting to be run.  A stack dump then is when this set of instructions gets written to the log.  A software engineer can sometimes look at this dump file to determine what caused the error to occur and possibly diagnose the situation.

The problem is that many times these events seem random.  Have you ever been in a relationship or conversation with a person and all of a sudden they blow up on you.  Well, you've just experienced the human blue screen.  Unfortunately, we don't write our stack dumps out to a log file.  Many times the error that Windows shows is "A fatal exception has occurred." luckily the errors we as humans make are rarely fatal and there are chances to repair any damage done.  Sometimes with Windows the best fix is to just wipe the hard drive clean and start all over with a fresh install of the OS.  Obviously, we can't do this as humans.  Memories get moved from our RAM (short term memory) to our hard drives (long term) and they are stuck there forever.

So what do we do?  Do we have to go around walking on egg shells to avoid those blue screens.  Of course not, but it's always nice to remember that we are all humans and like PCs sometimes we can break.  Value the relationships we have – defrag the relationship's hard drive once in a while.  Uninstall old junk – hurt feelings, even old friends we really don't need; make room for new fresh programs and hardware – friends, activities and hobbies that are not damaging. 

There you have it, humans are like Windows.  I don't know what I'll do when we all go to Linux or a quasi OS like a browser.  We won't have those same problems, unless of course that browser is made by Microsoft.

Do you have any of those human blue screen moments?  Share your thoughts and experiences.

 

From Wikipedia:  Analogue electronics (or analog in American English) are electronic systems with a continuously variable signal, in contrast to digital electronics where signals usually take only two different levels.

When you read the definition did anything jump out at you?  It did me.  As much as my wife would like to think I can turn on and off my emotions like a robot, I can not.  See, we humans are analogue creatures.  We are constantly receiving a continuous variable signal.  Digital circuits are On or Off.  Of course, with today's technology we've made digital circuits mimic analogue circuits, think old school radio knobs vs. pushing the button to turn up your MP3 player's volume.  The problem and it can be a big problem, just ask Toyota, is that with digital circuits sometimes they don't respond the way we want them to.  They forget their programming and there's no graduation, it reverts back to On or Off.

Human interactions involve a huge set of variables or input.  We are constantly taking in data.  Sometimes it great, kind, loving words from our kids and sometimes it's negative self talk or our boss ripping our head off.  

So, what's my point?  Well it's simply this:  we are analogue; we have an infinite number of thoughts and potential reactions for any given situation.  The next time you're in a conversation or discussion and don't get the reaction you thought or wanted remember that it's not all or nothing.  Maybe the person didn't understand something or maybe they had a bad day.  It may have nothing to do with anything that was said.  If we'll all just give each other an extra dose of grace my guess is that we'll have less misunderstanding and hurt feelings and more fruitful relationships.