Tag: computers

Inconsistent

Today I found a little spreadsheet app continued to refer to a data range with slightly different cell references. It presented itself when weekly choir music listings all showed the same exact output. Finding first one, than two, and finally four different range references, I converted them to be the same. This was made laborious because I had changed the references in mid-stream, so to speak: when I found the formula didn’t reference enough rows, I just increased the reference then and there without changing the historical references.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Referring not to slavish grip
nor saying we should never slip,
he minds we should not fail to see
facts which die to constancy.
Today I killed both birds ('tis true!),
when facts revealed I'd misconstrued:
my references to data needed
rigid names. If I had heeded,
this past hour would not have passed
with pressure rising, with teethes quite gnashed.
Tomorrow I shall run to ground
All data I can find unsound.

72/100
100 poems in 100 days

Technology bites

Technological threads
wrap tightly. Despite
rich promises, every
third trial brings
misery, frustration,
anger, despair.
How can society's
linchpin fail so
often, so wrongly,
so spectacularly?
Flip switches, lights
light. Turn keys, car
starts. Water plants,
they grow. Turn on
computers, hold your
breath 'til sure no
obstinate refusal
to load one simple
operating system
occurs, no twirling 
apple-logo twirls
indefinitely, no
screen fails to light.
Progress? Or have
we simply traded
one stubborn mule
for another?

48/100