Arrgh! Digital voodoo has taken over our lives! Curse them! Help!

The monster thermostat

Here it is, just after noon and half my day has been stolen by those digital marvels that are supposed to make my our lives easier.

It’s almost as if the digital revolution is a super secret plot to turn our minds to mush so they can take over the world. Well, at least the mush part is no BS.

Computer, cyber, online, programatic, interactive, virtual, hypermedia, web, server—it’s the vocabulary of the shamans, witches, warlocks, conjurors, demons, aliens, monstrosities, deviants who have brought the world to the brink of extinction.

Today I was grappling with a programed thermostat and trying to unlock access to a financial website.

Remember when you had a simple dial to set the temperature in your house? You wanted 71 degrees, you’d rotate the dial and presto, the furnace would go to work.

Now, ye gods, you’ve got to set the temperature, the date and time, how you want the blower to blow and more. Good luck.

My problem started yesterday when we lost our electric power after a big storm. Ignorantly, when the lights came back on we thought the air conditioning would too.

Fool.

This morning it was getting hot, into the 80s and the AC still was dead. The thermostat showed only the year and there was no way to reset it to normal. On to the internet, the modern day equivalent of the Delphic Oracle where the digital grotesqueries abide, I turned. An extensive search said I had to pull the device off the wall in order to install the factory resets.

Didn’t know I could do it, but after messing with it for a while I got it off without breaking it and discovered…it needed batteries. I put in the batteries and nothing happened. Oh, the batteries only were for keeping the device alive in a power outage.

Videos galore offered solutions, but I finally went to the manufacture’s website where I first had to pick the correct model number out of a list of them. I’ll spare you all the confusing steps I had to accomplish to get the AC back on.

Next up was a website that locked us out because presumably we had failed too often to try to get in. More intricate instructions. Dealing with people whose English was a second or third language.

All these devices are supposedly designed to make our lives easier. Everything is supposed to be more convenient. As if just flipping a dial to set the heat and AC was just too much to endure.

No, what we can not endure is the time thievery and the mounting frustration. The implication that if can’t follow pages of confusing instructions, it’s our fault. When will the instruction writers learn how to write?

Well, I’ve cooled down now and hope to get on to the stuff I had planned for today, but will have to put off until tomorrow. When, no doubt, another digital crisis will need my undivided and lengthy attention.

PS: After I wrote this I tried figuring out why my iPhone is unable to send to my mailbox pictures I’ve taken with my camera. The fixes turned out to be way too confusing. I gave up.

Related: The problem with the digital automatic front doors to our clubhouse.

Gallery front entrance doors

Due to the power outage yesterday the front double doors to the Clubhouse are not operational. A vendor did arrive today to assist with repair of the door. However, it was beyond their scope, and we have an additional vendor coming out tomorrow. While management is here, we do have a wedge holding the door open for access. Once management is gone for the day, we will need to secure the building and will not be able to leave the door wedged open.