Bad Choices: Laptops and...Liquid!

This is not a matter of preference. Unless your intent is to destroy your laptop (or someone else's, I suppose), do not - NOT - allow any liquid to come in contact with your machine.

I know this rule.

Many years ago (say, thirteen), I was caught out in a torrential downpour. I was soaked. My shoes were soaked. My knapsack was soaked. And the contents of my knapsack - most significantly, the laptop - were soaked.

I made the mistake then of turning the machine off (from hibernation) or on - and I learned my lesson, but good (okay, it took a wet cell phone where I made the same mistake to cement the point). If you turn the machine on (or off and then on again) before it is completely and utterly dry like the Sahara, you are likely to short something out (don't necessarily follow my advice here - the websites on drying out electronics recommend removing the battery and such, and I imagine they have good reasons, though I am not convinced that these cautions are mutually exclusive).

Please note that the downpour was not something I could have avoided (though I carried a plastic bag in my knapsack "just in case" for quite a while after that). Nor did I have an reasonable reason to think that ten years after the rain fiasco, the salad dressing covering my salad inside a plastic container inside a plastic bag inside my tote would leak out and onto my cell phone (since then, I wrap things that should never even have reason to leak more thoroughly).

Last night, however, I somehow found it reasonable to make a cup of coffee and sit cross-legged on my comfy couch while drinking it. This position is comfortable and calming and not inherently problematic...not even with the laptop on my knees. Er, until it was. And then it was readily apparent that choosing to sit cross-legged, holding a cup of coffee, and balancing a laptop on my knees (did I mention being on the phone?) was a no-good, very-bad choice.

Recommended: Couch, Laptop, No Coffee 

The coffee basically drizzled over the keyboard (and down between the keys, of course). I was advised to turn the computer upside down and let as much liquid as possible emerge. This turned out to be superb advice. I wiped up the drips, and decided that things were fine. Sat down to work...and discovered that the keyboard was not quite fine.

Not Recommended: Coffee + Keyboard
(though not as bad as the potential damage to a laptop)

For example: Hitting the spacebar carried an "n" along with it (example: "ngo nto nthe nstore"). Every time I hit "h," it refreshed my browser page. And when I tried to delete the "n's," I only succeeded in replacing them with "y's" (yes, using Backspace). And so it went...and so did I, around to corner to borrow a neighbor's blow dryer - which I used on a low heat, until I discovered the great debate whether to use a blow dryer or to avoid one at all costs, and use a vacuum instead. My new-favorite "dry-out-your-electronics" option was the bowl of rice, but I think that would work better for closed devices, and not a laptop keyboard (correct me, please, if I'm wrong).

Recommended: Laptop, Coffee, No Couch

I got lucky: By morning, nearly all keys did what I expected them to do, the rest worked by evening, and save for a little stiffness in the keys, we are back in business (except that the last night's intended post was deferred (and delayed) in favor of this one).

And tonight, I kept the coffee away from the computer.

Quick: If You Have a New Gadget....

...do you spend lots of time learning all the features and tricks and shortcuts, devoting your eating and sleeping time to mastering the device? Or do you dive right in and use the basics as best as you can, without being bothered that you don't know what else you could know?

One famous family story tells of my grandfather, ever frugal (even after he no longer needed to be), hot-wiring his own car to get it to start. Only at that point, or maybe even later, was he willing to "invest" in a new car (ahem, well-used clunker). I'm fairly certain that he would not have been considered a "gadget guy." The one gadget I know my grandparents discovered quite late in the game was a Caller ID box. My grandfather used it as an answering machine - indeed, he never had one of those. How does one use a Caller ID as an answering machine? Simple: call back whomever's number is shown, and say, "You called ME?" The challenge of this method is that the original caller may not connect the bellowed inquiry with his or her initial call hours earlier (I know; this happened to me - though at least I (of course) recognized my grandfather's voice).

(This approach has trickled down to my parents - who are supremely talented at "making do" with NOT the latest gadget...though they tend to crawl up onto the bandwagon eventually, even if the rest of the circus has moved on....leaving them making do, once again, with not-the-latest-gadget!).

Not my grandfather's hot-wired car, but the 1974 Plymouth Gold Duster clunker that was my first car (gifted in person by that same grandfather (and grandmother) - if you imagine it in dark brown.

On the other side of the divide...

Remember Palm Pilots? One friend acquired his device and spent a long snowy weekend fiddling and niggling with it, until he had added all of the data he could possibly imagine and finally went to sleep looking forward to the technological enhancements to his upcoming week. Another friend makes sure that his place of employment provides for the latest updates to both Apple and PC products (his wife doesn't know what to make of most of it). And I recently had the lucky experience on a transatlantic flight of touch-screen individual T.V.'s. The most entertaining aspect of this entertainment center was the two-year-old sitting in her mother's lap in the next seat over who swiped her fingers across the screen to make the picture change (it didn't work; tapping was required - but the toddler is certainly comfortable with the technology).

The proliferation of gadgets in recent years is astounding: iTunes (MP3's and MP4's); iPhones (and other Smart Phones); Kindles (Nooks - and other e-readers); GPS; digital cameras (what's film?); HDTV; Bluetooth...Honestly, I don't know how all of them work (but I bet these people do: http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/).

As for me - I have my preferences (most importantly, I want things to work reliably and well). Sometimes, I pay more than the bare minimum for the sake of sleek functioning (I am not interested in needing to hot-wire my old cell phone (you really think it would work? then you're not a gadget person!). I don't want a smart phone (too much screen time as it is). And knowing that my phone has the capacity for Internet doesn't entice me to pay for the data packages. But I'm happy to have a cell phone that rings - yes, rings! I'm not surprised to find myself in the middle of the divide I've concocted (maybe a tad closer to the Luddite end, once I can trust in  my devices' high functionality).

Is this question a decision? Actually, I think it is. People surely have natural inclinations, but they also choose how to interact with all the current hardware. The most old-fashioned make use of current technology when it suits their purpose (one of the finest 92-year-olds I know - surely the finest! - is a whiz at email, and welcomed online billing).

There are political implications to this "decision" as well. Just this week (Feb. 13), the New York Times lauded Mooresville, NC for its wired school, dramatically changing the format of classroom instruction.  But in case you think that the purported successes of that school system are a definitive last word, don't forget that the New York Times admired a Silicon Valley school that shuns technology altogether last October 22. The implications of either sweeping approach merits the serious investigation of educators, but any preconceived approach to technology in general (whether cool or dangerous or boring or necessary) surely shades the question of technology in the classroom.

How about you? Do you take to technology? Or are you a closet Luddite?  (By the way, if you're reading this, you can't be a true luddite, by definition.)

Resolutions Update

Michelle Kwan, Figure Skating Legend,
most decorated  U.S. figure skater
(lots of practice...)

A resolution check-in shows that I am keeping all the plans in mind, but not yet putting them all into practice. Nobody is surprised, I'm sure, least of all me. But keeping the plan in mind is the point, because that's what enables the execution of it, eventually, over time.

Moreover, it seems that it takes 66 days for a new practice to become a habit (see here) - and I suppose that's the point of resolutions...to make the practices we want to shape ourselves become habits. Or, in the famous quote attributed to Aristotle that I have been known to make famous on a classroom blackboard (or whiteboard, as the case may be): "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit."

The most important new resolution of this year, however, arrived in the second week of January. I would have written about it then, but it needed some digesting, perhaps. The bottom line, however is that I resolved to not cop out on myself. For the first time in a long time, I decided that it's time I refuse to "settle" for that which I don't really respect...for that which I know to be beneath myself. Ironically, a few days after the need for this resolution became clear to me, someone I barely knew recommended that I shoot lower - that my standards just might be too high. I snorted, and said that I keep being hurt by my all-too-often willingness to accept mediocrity when I should have been striving for excellence.

So as a matter of practice and habit and indeed giving credit to myself and those around me - here's to quality, and strengthened resolve to strive for excellence in every arena. Sometimes, the saying makes the decision so.