Sunday 16 December 2012

I'm still here but broadband still really poor!

Again - Apologies to all out there who follow my posts. I've had a frankly very frustrating and baffling time trying to get my BT broadband speed up to something vaguely usable. This means I'm lucky to be able to reliably access my posts let alone compose one.

As of today, my download speed is still a very meagre 287kbs - which is roughly a 60th of what it could potentially be with the deal I'm on!

I'm still waiting for a stable line so that I can demonstrate to my suppliers (BT) that the speed needs to be re-adjusted upwards.

It's times like these that make me think the vast majority of us are still 'children playing in the dark' when it comes to the technology now available to us and the increasing reliance we place on others - particularly large multinational corporate technology giants - that are allegedly 'in the know' about that technology.

It reminds me of an Armstrong and Miller TV sketch where a time-traveller - Alexander Armstrong - is sent back in time to tell Faraday - played by Ben Miller - about the technological wonders the future had in store. Only problem was that Armstrong's character was a last-minute (and uninformed) replacement for the boffin who was supposed to have been sent back - but who was 'Too fat to fit in the [time travel] pod'.

This led to (in my view) a funny and embarrassing exchange where Armstrong's character quickly revealed his absolute lack of (even basic) knowledge on the physics (and history) front when questioned by Faraday.

Anyway - here it is:-



Okay - so it's not likely to make everyone laugh, But I could see the point behind the sketch.
I expect a good 90 per cent (at least) of humanity today won't know how the everyday technology they use works, at least to the point that they could successfully build it themselves (and this includes myself!).

Makes me wonder what E.T. would think about that if they were observing us. Don't expect they'd be too impressed!