The Goldfish Chronicles

Watching my son learning to write with a wipe-off black marker, rather than having to get it right first time, reminds me of one of my reasons why computers (and their games) are healthy for children. Namely that they teach a child to be prepared to suggest an answer knowing they can try again.

Not that it’s a new idea. I imagine most people learnt to write on a chalkboard where they could erase and rewrite to their heart’s content; but for some reason that got lost in later life where paper’s had to be perfect etc. I still remember rewriting page N of an English essay multiple times because I would not have it perfect. Everything I ever wrote was always in a shorthand scribble because I knew it would need rewriting for a final copy. Most of my artwork would suffer from some lack of perfection in the execution that would stand out as the flaw in an otherwise average piece of art (I aspired to be average at Art ).

Pondering the above makes me wonder if the lack of fear of being wrong and a quality bar are antagonistic towards each other. To hit quality you need to be afraid of mistakes. As usual the answer is probably a compromise that you grok as you get older - don’t be afraid of being wrong, but do be afraid of deadlines. How many late night essays and painful coursework did it take to pick that one up ? (I love end of term exams that test if it’s in your head and not coursework through the year which is a constant burn-out mechanism).

One other thing I meant to hit while writing this was a mention of Time’s Eye by Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke. It pits Alexander against Genghis Khan at one point - with the odd note that Alexander’s Companions were the better natural horseman because they weren’t used to the stirrup yet. Once the stirrup is introduced to them, the protagonist feels sad that the level of skill will fade away in a few generations.

What’s related here is that we introduce crutches, quality also drops. As something becomes more mass-marketable, the level of skill dedicated to the task drops. The crossbow shows up and lowers the skill of archery, the gun arrives and lowers it further. The microwave kills skill for cooking. The computer lowers the quality bar.

How many times do you phone up the number on the back of the card, to be told that everything has been reset and the card is fine, then have payment declined again, before you decide it’s time for a new company?

I wouldn’t mind if it’s the case where I’m buying plane tickets to the UK out of the blue and they phone me to confirm as MBNA would do. That’s good, though over time it should notice I do that every so often. What irks me here is that a monthly payment is being declined after 11 months of happy payments, and an Amazon UK purchase was declined (I shop there frequently) leading to the Christmas presents to be delayed in shipping. Neither of these cases should be flagging as fraudulent (both are also very low dollar amounts).

Incidentally I spent 20 times as much on plane tickets a month ago and they went through fine.