Digital Dis-Information

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Sorry. Computers are down. We don’t have the information.

They’ll better rise again because I need that money.  I have bills to pay.  I don’t know why I owe the whole world, but nobody owes me any money, but that is another blog.
They sold us a lame duck with the digital thing. Computers will make things easier, they said.  We will call up information in a second, instead of weeks of thumbing through files.  
That is how they introduced the wonderful digital Eden.  That was donkey years ago, but the Garden of Eden has weeds and it affects us quite often.  One bank had a big printed sign last week, apologising for the slow service because the system was down. 

The dis-information about how wonderful the digital highway was going to be is that, they did not tell us about the downside.  Yes, the downside.  It was going to be up, up and up when computers ran our lives.
Drug companies now inform us about the negative sides of drugs we buy from the drugstore.  The boys and girls in Bangalore and Silicon Valley should also upload the secret about computer vacation.
Computers are down because they are also human.  They need a vacation, a lunch break, Bank holiday, Independence Day, Bastille Day, Princess Diana day etc.

 I won’t say coffee break, because computers are always down for more than fifteen minutes.
'Give me a break,' said the tired computer.
Nonqaba waka Msimang is the author of Sweetness, a South African novel.

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