What am I doing this evening? Well, I am doing what I usually do and that is, having an epic battle with the internet and computer programmes and unhelpful AI “assistants”! I may have been born at the start of the Space Race but that does not mean that my brain can cope with all this ever-changing technology.
In my youthful, goat-keeping days, A.I. stood for “Artificial Insemination”! Yes, one’s pedigree nanny could become pregnant by frozen semen from an up-market billy miles (or even countries) away, all thanks to modern veterinary science! Less hassle too. Have you ever tried holding a panicking female goat, while an enormous and very smelly male goat is trying to “have his way with her”?! No fun, I can tell you! and it takes many washes to rid your overalls from Eau de Billy-Goat!
But I digress from giving out about computer programmes and AI! There is only one reason why I persevere with a system that does my head in! All I have ever wanted to do is to Write. Decades ago, that meant sending off your manuscript by post to an editor, in the hopes that it might be accepted for that newspaper or magazine or whatever publication was “looking for talent”. More often than not, your manuscript would be returned soon afterwards, covered in coffee-stains, with a short note saying “Thanks, but no thanks!” This ritual took time and was totally dependent upon the postal system.
The internet has changed all that. Not only has a whole new world-wide audience become available, but now you can publish your own work without pandering to an editor, who has a strict theme-code and word-restrictions. Of course, you still need to be mindful of your audience. If you don’t give them what they want, they won’t log in to your web-page / blog page ever again.
I just wish that the computer programmes were not so confusing and that they did not keep changing. I no sooner get used to one system than it is “up-graded” to something completely incomprehensible! Yikes! Maybe the old-fashioned human editor wasn’t too bad after all!
What are YOUR thoughts?
Good night!
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