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| Rebecca wearing her grandfather's glasses in 2002 |
Back in that other century it seemed to me that change was
slow and almost not noticeable. But then you reach my 77 years and suddenly I
no longer avoid looking at the Vancouver Sun obituaries.
In that past century if I wanted advise on roses I went to Janet Wood who was the rose lady. There were equivalent experts for ferns, clematis, dwarf conifers, etc. Now for advice all I can do is look at myself in the mirror and then Google.
I bought my first medium format camera, a Mamiya RB-67 in
1977 and it was only about 15 years ago when they stopped making them in
versions that were almost digital. Now any digital camera, as your iPhone is rendered old-hat
within a couple of years.
There were some who said that the internet was permanent.
Anything you put into it was there in perpetuity. I have found that this is not
true.
My web page and blog are domain name and web hosted by a
company called Net Nation. At one time they were here in Vancouver by the
Bentall Centre. They have long been purchased by a US company.
Somehow this company has never been able to catch on the efficient idea of
billing me for both services at the same time. Twice in a near past year I suffered
the indignity of not remembering that my credit card had a new expiry date. My
web page was yanked as somehow I did not heed the Net Nation warning. In the
case of the web page it took about a whole week for bits of it to slowly come
to a zero/one reality. I have learned my lesson. But every time I am asked by the
company how I would like to have them improve their service they ignore my
suggestion of billing me one a year.
A friend in Portland, Curtis Daily, the baroque string
bassist, informed me a month ago that the lead photo of my granddaughter Rebecca
on my web page was gone and replaced by code gobbledegook. My friend artist, but
former designer, Ian Bateson has told me that my 2004-designed web page by the
local Skunkworks has coding that has expired its relevancy.
The folks at Skunkworks are busy trying to remedy the
situation. I was asked to provide them with the password for my web page. Are
you kidding? Would I remember a password from 2004. All this has been solved
and soon, I hope, Rebecca will be back where she belongs at the start of my web
page.
But all this shows you just how impermanent anything related
to the web and things digital.
If Dante were alive he would assign the darkest hole in hell
to those who invented pin numbers and passwords. They would share their ultra-hot
darkness with Steve Jobs who ruined this century with his iPhone.