Quality of life.

An old professor has gotten involved with Take Back Your Time (or maybe just simple living--I'm not sure). Librarians are always whining about being over-extended (and overworked and underpaid). While I fall into the same behavior, I've begun to wonder why.

I'm not going to blame technology. At a conference I attended recently, someone questioned why we put up with a technology in our home (the desktop PC) that breaks so frequently and take so much maintenance. It was one of those moments that makes you go hmmmm. (Like: 'Why hasn't Phoenix gone solar?')

That led me to ponder all the things that are broken in my house that I live very happily with:

• Broken shower/batch faucet handle
  
• Missing knobs from baseboard heaters
  
• No thermostats (this one is sort of geographic--couldn't have done it in Chicago)
  
• Wonky screen doors
  
• Sticky side door
  
• Non-functioning cd-burner
  
• I still watch TV on a 10 year old Macintosh
  
• No chimney flu
  
• Bookcase door knobs broken
  

I'm sure there's are many others. The point is, having a pc in the house isn't really different than having a clunky car or an old bike. There is a balance between not doing proper maintenance and just how much degradation in performance one is willing to put up with. I just re-installed windows to gain a minute on boot time and to get rid of the various demos and sharewares that I've installed over the last couple years. It's my understanding that most people never re-install windows. Do they just buy new PCs?

To me, it's not the PC that this is about. It's the network. It's easier for me to find the movie listings online when there's no paper in the house. But when there's a paper handy, that's faster. Looking for a recipe? If I know it's in one of my books, I'll look there. If it's an unknown? The Internet is the answer. Same with hiking trails. Same with fishing. Same with dozens of other little factoids. All these things add up to technology having changed my life significantly for the better. The time lost in the care and feeding of my PC? It's sort of like picking snails from the garden and washing dishes--a slightly unpleasant task that leads to greater benefits.