Word has done it again. It has added a feature that I didn’t ask for, I don’t want, and I can’t refuse.
Why do we have to pay to have these ad machines in our home? I mean, this computer that I had to pay for clearly serves Microsoft first and foremost and me when it’s not busy it may spare me a little time.
Microsoft sends it a message; it halts my game immediately to force me to respond to the latest whim of our overlord, the great god Microsoft.
There is no way to turn off the internal advertisements. I get forced out of writing my stories to marvel at the message that I have yet again been protected from some unseen threat. Yes, that is its job. I don’t even particularly want to read that alert when I am not busy, but when I am inspired and in the middle of a difficult sentence, I find it shattering to be thrown out of Word, presumably to adulate a program that is actually doing what it is supposed to do. Actually, that is a wonderful thing. What I really want to see is a program that does what it’s supposed to do without advertising. Not going to happen, is it.
I am 53, personal computers were not a thing in my youth. I am getting to an age where my cerebral adaptability is limited. Why am I subjected to all these constant changes and updates? Why do most of these updates make the experience worse? Why can’t I own anything? Microsoft is a subscription now. Stop making stupid intrusive updates. Now you have me on the hook to keep paying you why do you still change things to drain every last cent out of me? Oh, answered my own question.
If I buy whatever stupid, evil new program it offers it doesn’t even stop the constant advertising of that object.
I have sensory issues. Previous programs allowed me to customise things to reduce the sensory overload and confusion barriers to my creativity. Not so anymore. Even where I can make customisations, those customisations are randomly reset or overridden by the most resent update. Whose computer is this?
I am, by the way, morally and ethically opposed to the recent proliferation of AI. Not in an absolute way, I am happy for people to research AI and some uses, but it’s everywhere. It is editing my work right now. It is showing my mistakes when I am doing a first draft, the creative bit where you just type as fast as you can. Sure help me in the editing phase, if you must, but stop berating me over every mistake while I am on a roll. And it is trying to force me to use the modern idiom, to write like everyone else. My conversation, spoken and written is somewhat anachronistic, not too strange just a little unique. I don’t want this changed. It’s like they are trying to make all communication banal, every piece dry and rule bound, there would be no individuality in any piece of communication. There would be no discernible difference between different authors. You wouldn’t even need humans to… Ah!
So why am I insanely ranting about this? I mean this is a background rant in my head every time something goes wrong with my computing experience, i.e. every time I touch a computer.
And now I have run out of stupid words because readers like to read short posts, so I have to have 3 parts. And do you know why people like to read short posts, because computers have confused and retrained them to have shorter attention spans to make them more tractable to computer control.
Thanks again Microsoft.
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