to me. I do not understand how they work at all.
I tried once. It was a required component of my statistics course at university. I somehow scraped through. After that I managed to use SPSS - the "Statistical Package for the Social Sciences".
I used that program because, like the statistics course itself, it was a required part of my studies. Statistics themselves however are something I have little time for when they are applied to the learning abilities of actual people.
Once in a while since then I have had to do a simple statistical calculation and put it into something I have been writing. For the most part I have avoided such things. I understand there are now computer programs which will do all these things in an instant. My students have used these - and probably do not understand the maths behind the figures.
But there are computer programs which will do other things. I have several in the machine I am currently using. They do the mathematical calculations for a knitting pattern of one sort or another. There is also a cross stitch pattern maker - not that I cross stitch but it made useful knitting charts. I need to remove that as it no longer works.
And there is the new knitting program. Well not quite "new" I bought this over twelve months ago. I researched the available programs first, found out what the publishers of knitting patterns preferred, read the reviews and went ahead. It was not particularly cheap but it was not the most expensive program either.
The computer technician had problems loading it and sent frantic messages off to the maker. No, they could not work out why it would not load. There was nothing unusual on my computer apart from the Blissymbol program - and that was not causing the issue.
Eventually we managed to load it.
Other things happened. Last year was not a good knitting year for me. The Senior Cat needed more help, other people needed more help. I had some extra work to do. I completed my second doctorate. The garden needed more watering. Children needed minding and adults needed a listening ear.
I now have to come to grips with this program. I have a major project to design and hand over as quickly as possible. It isn't "urgent" in the sense that I need to sit day and night at the screen until it is done but it needs to be completed more quickly than I otherwise might do it.
This program will produce a chart and knitted instructions. It is actually very good. I am sure it is very good. I am the problem. It requires the ability to manipulate the mouse to land the pencil or the paintbrush (for colours) precisely on the little squares. My paws do not like this. Then there are things I still have to work out how to do - a repeat for instance. I would like to repeat an entire block not just a tiny part of it. Do I really have to click in eleven ships for the First Fleet? Couldn't I just do one and then repeat it eleven times? How do I add columns of stitches - and take columns of stitches away?
I thought I had worked it out - and lost the entire afternoon's work.
I am a frustrated cat!
I will not be beaten by this thing. I will go back to it. I will work on it.
If I don't you might find me curled up in a corner with one paw over my ears and another paw over my eyes...and I will be a quivering mess.
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4 comments:
GOOD LUCK!
Claws crossed?
LMcC
absolutely! :)
My sympathies. I used to love computer technology, but nowadays I am having trouble keeping up. I like to tell people that for me, the three most frightening words in the English language are "new and improved." A loving pat and a scratch behind the ears. <3
By the way, my late feline companion, Theo, was a mathematical genius. In my working days, in my final job before retirement, when I got home from work, Theo would greet me at the door and deliver a few choice words in Cat about how he felt being left alone all day. Then I would fix Theo's supper and my supper, and eat while Theo would retire to the bedroom.
After I had finished my supper and washing up, I would retire to our big chair in the living room, and announce loudly,"Theo, there is a LAP available. Five minutes or so later, Theo would saunter into the living room, jump into my lap and give himself a nice thorough, very wet bath. Then he would sit facing me and watch and listen very intently as I told him about my workday, and especially about the mathematical and software problems that were still bothering me at the end of the day.
Theo would stare at me intently and say, in his own feline telepathic way, "John, the solution is SO obvious, I can't BELIEVE you don't see it!
Instantly, I would realize just HOW obvious the solution was, and, of course, the next work day Theo's solution never failed to solve the problem.
After Theo passed away at the age of 18, my productivity began to decline, and I retired soon after. They don't allow cats here at the Veterans home. (We have some visiting dogs from an organization called Love On 4 Paws. They're very cute and affectionate, but not very smart.)
Previous comment that mentioned my friend Theo was from John Karlsson on Facebook. I forget how to say that in HTML. Sigh...
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