Schlimbesserung and Cyber-Cascade

        Schlimbesserung and Cyber-Cascade

          “Schlimbesserung” is a German word meaning an improvement that does not improve. Awhile back I experienced schlimbesserung and a cyber-cascade.

          It started, as usual, with slow internet. We decided that the router was too small for our three computers, so we got a new one. Alas, Hannah’s machine couldn’t log on to it because it needed Windows 7 or up, and her hand-me-down computer had Windows XP, and couldn’t upgrade. So we needed a new CPU with a new operating system, to interface with the new router!

          This was done, but alas, her new computer had new glitches. We called in a computer tech, who fixed up the glitches; but he also offered to upgrade our other two computers to…

          … wait for it…

          … Windows 8!

          Well, my computer had been plagued by unblocked ads, as had Sherri’s, so we foolishly said yes. It took him hours, and us $100, to do the reinstall. After a rocky start I got my system going more or less as before. Ads are blocked, and it is stabler, but I lost the chess game. I let it go; that game was a time-sink. So now I have less of a computer, but a better one.

          But poor Sherri lost all of her bookmarks.

          This illustrates Hellerstein’s Cyber-Warning:

          Installing new programming isn’t like a meal; it’s like surgery.