3E

Does our over reliance on computers make us vulnerable, as was shown by the tank demonstration?

Yes. One computer glitch and you've had it! I can't see the need for it in everyday items like washing machines and cars - what's wrong with knobs to twist or keys to turn?

Gee >2 Sergeirocks: You must have been born before 1960. Knobs and keys are not as much fun as the sound of clicking keys. Has anyone you know ever had the joy of crashing a key or a knob? Have you spent hours trying to reboot those items? Where little meerkat is your sense of adventure? Yeah...I agree with you. Of course anything that runs our lives like computers makes us vulnerable...not to mention completely batty.

>3 Carol420: And lazy. And up the creek without a paddle because the computer has gone on strike and you can't do what you wanted to do. Doubly annoying in banks or shops or trying to pay a bill.

Just before Christmas I went into a library 10 minutes before closing time, knew which book I wanted, wouldn't have taken long to find it, staff all standing round with their coats on, "We're closing," said one of the librarians, "I know which book I want," says I, "I've shut the system down," says she pointing to the computer. Exit me, very miffed, I can tell you. Wouldn't have been a problem in days of yore, when the books came with a ticket that was slipped into a funny little ticket holder and placed in date order in a narrow little box...

I think so. We've had various versions of this theme in our books recently and I think the general feeling was that yes, we are vulnerable. Power grids, banking, automobiles (Tesla, etc), airplanes) all are so heavily dependent on computers nowadays that if there's a cascade failure, we're in trouble.

I don't like computerized everything in my car or washing machine because when they go on the blink, it's very expensive to fix them.

I don't think we can go back to the days before computerized technology but at least we still know how. My sister works for a huge school district in Colorado who recently spent a fortune replacing their analog clocks with digital clocks because students couldn't tell what time it was.

>7 Olivermagnus: That's sad... but funny also. I remember when I was about 4 or 5 years old, one of my aunts decided she was going to teach me to tell time so would quit asking if it was 5:00 yet. We had only one TV station at that time and it came on the air at 5:00 p.m. Consequently 5:00 was the ONLY time I was interested in learning.

>7 Olivermagnus: >8 Carol420: We have both analog and digital clocks in classrooms to help teach the children how to tell the time on analog clocks.