It is never easy to re-examine one’s fundamental convictions, but now I am forced to question my previous disbelief in the existence of Satan.
I am compelled to confront this ugly possibility by the fact that from time to time my electronic devices seem to fall under demonic possession.
Now, I should start by saying that I am not someone with a natural animosity toward personal technology.
I have been known to be completely reasonable when the Watson self-checkout machines refuse to let me proceed until I place my last purchased item into the bagging area.
I patiently explain, sometimes with dramatic physical re-enactments, that I have placed the product directly in the centre of the bagging area, and even into a bag itself.
Despite these kinds of sympathetic efforts, technology finds me wanting; I am disfavoured within the IT-based community and the situation has become so bad that it’s brought to mind this possibility of a malevolent presence — Beelzebub, Lucifer, the Dark Lord, whatever you want to call him.
Let me describe the events of last Wednesday when technology was especially mean to me during the Global Financial Leaders’ Investment Summit 2024.
I woke up in Hong Kong to find that my phone, which normally charges through the port on the bottom, was no longer accepting charges from that entry point.
I didn’t think much of it, assuming I could clean out some dust or something.
Then I tried to pair it with my ear buds, which it usually automatically pairs with.
Nothing doing.
This sometimes happens, so I tried connecting it with my backup ear buds, the ones that sound like they’re beaming music from the bottom of the Pacific.
These devices also refused to be on speaking terms.
I went to the Bluetooth page on the phone, and it was just a bunch of ‘not connected’ readings.
I did what any master technologist would do.
I rubbed the ear buds against my phone in a seductive circular manner that I thought might foster a rapprochement.
I put them in my ears and grazed the phone against my cheeks with a pressure that was amorous and gentle, but also firm.
Still, the phone and ear buds refused to sync.
People talk a lot about artificial intelligence (AI) but not enough about artificial obstinacy.
As I rushed to the airport, my Find My app rubbed salt in the wounds by telling me I had left behind the ear buds that my phone refused to recognise in the first place.
At the airport, it occurred to me that I might clean the charging port by using a suction technique.
So if you were at the airport yesterday and a small child asked you, “Why is that man sucking on his phone?”
Well, that man was me.
I got on the plane, secure in the knowledge that the airplane had very reliable Wi-Fi service.
But the ever-cheerful flight attendant, Betty informed me that this time it wasn’t working, because, you know, Satan.
I got home and found my home Wi-Fi wasn’t working, either.
I fixed it by turning it off and on, a manoeuver that shows, as the IT types would say, that I am tech savvy.
While at home I had to print six documents.
I used to have a printer that served me well until one day it decided my ink cartridges were corrupt and refused to do any further printing.
I bought more cartridges from the printer’s manufacturer, but my printer still saw shadiness in all the new cartridges.
Then I bought a new printer, but it’s snooty.
Asking it to print something is like applying to Harvard.
It was willing to print out an essay from the journal Daedalus and an academic paper on ageing, but it was unwilling to print four other documents from mere newspapers and websites.
Like Bartleby the Scrivener, it would prefer not to.
You might be reading this account thinking that I’m the problem here.
I’m just a technology idiot who doesn’t know how to fix things.
I am open to this possibility.
When my wife and I last went shopping for a car and the salesman started explaining the amazing electronic features of the new models, I was unable to follow him after 0.7 seconds.
But I remind you of the central reality. Gizmos that were working for me one minute stopped working the next.
I want my technology to have many capacities, but free will is not among them.
As I’m writing this sad tale, my computer is alerting me that I have to shut it down for a vital security update, as it does frequently when I’m on deadline.
For a decade, if I deleted an email on my phone it was also deleted on my laptop, but one day that stopped working, too.
Every time I log onto my bank’s website, using the same computer each time, I get an email telling me a new device has been detected.
And don’t even get me started on subjective security questions.
How am I supposed to remember what my favorite pizza topping was 15 years ago when I opened that account?
People grow and change.
I am thinking of finding a priest who can do a full-scale technological exorcism — like in that old Linda Blair movie.
Before I do, let me just send this off to our technician before my computer crashe$^%#&*((@”+!%#.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of Sarawak Tribune.
