Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 16:18:48 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
From: Elspeth Kovar <EKovar at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Crash, thud
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

At 08:37 PM 1/3/2006, Mike B. wrote:
>At 1/3/2006 05:48 PM, Elspeth Kovar wrote:
>
> >I'm going to assume that you'd gone from Michael's initial "Elspeth's
> >computer suffered . . . " directly into generalities.  But as it was that
> >email to which you were responding I need to answer what you were, in
> >effect, saying about me as well as anyone who doesn't have your command of
> >the subject.
>
>Of course it went to generalities.  Anyone with common sense and a basic
>command of English should have divined that...and I presume you did, and
>that that is the basis for your "assuming" it.

Actually, despite my having common sense and a basic command of English I'm
afraid that your presumption was wrong.

I thought that Michael's second sentence was sufficiently clear as to
indicate "Let's skip the whole computer debate".  When you immediately came
back with common computer errors that people make and then followed it up
with saying that anyone who made such a mistake was insane it didn't feel
like a generality.  Remember, I came back online lambasting myself for a
common mistake -- not paying attention -- and had not only been very
worried and having had a difficult time putting things back together but
was also embarrassed.  I'd also completely forgotten that you go from
specifics directly into generalities.

So no, I didn't divine that you'd done so until the second or third
reading.  I had hoped that folks had followed Michael's suggestion that
people just don't go into it, and certainly not until I'd gotten back
online to say what had happened.  So it felt very much like a slap in the
face: 'Elspeth let her computer get infected' directly followed by 'here
are stupid things that people do that let it happen.'

I assumed that you wouldn't do that, but it was an assumption.

I also know that people who go online with ActiveX still enabled are not
insane and quite often not even stupid or careless.  Thus, between a
requirement to educate and my feeling a need to defend myself, I listed the
things that I do right but some people don't.

>If you are going to drive on the public highways it's a good idea to know
>about things like traffic lights, speed limits, road markings and signs,
>and the controls that make your vehicle go, stop and turn.  You don't need
>to be a professional driver to need this information.  Heading out onto the
>highway without these bits of basic knowledge is insane, and only an idiot
>would do so. . . .

>If you are going to go out on the "information superhighway" it's a good
>idea to know about things like firewalls, virus filters, and the major
>protocols and technologies used to do so.

I recall that when my brother got his driver's license one of the greatest
things, to him, was that he could now go over to NIH without to use the
computers without having to cajole a parent for a ride or wait until one of
them was going over there on a weekend.  He was taught mostly by someone
who'd learned the rules of the road in about 1950, they being fairly simple
and having changed very little between then and now.

Computers, on the other hand, have changed a great deal.  And the knowledge
needed to go on the 'information highway' is much more complex than that
needed to drive on public highways.

D'accord?

Elspeth