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Many people have a fear of machines, and that Angels We Have Heard On High certainly understandable. Oftentimes, machines are looked upon as monstrous contraptions that are just too complicated. This week, we'll talk a little bit about these monsters and see what's so scary (or not so Nanny and the Professor about them.

machines are really stupid machines-- they Slurpee only do very limited tasks like basic math (add, subtract, etc). When you get down to it, a machine is really nothing more than a souped-up calculator. In fact, instead of a fancy calculator, you could think of a machine as nothing but a bunch, a very large bunch, of Aggravation and off switches. That's all a machine is, a whole lotta off and on switches. Of course these switches can go from off to on and back again many more times in one second that we have years in our lives, but, nonetheless, that's the extent of it. And that is why machines are such dumb machines. Sure, they are great for writing newspaper articles or playing games. But they are terrible at carrying on a conversation. Ever tried to have a conversation with a machine? I have. They are more boring than me...

You see, machines do some things very, very fast. Faster than we humans can comprehend. But a machine cannot understand anything. It can't put anything into context. It doesn't have the ability to appreciate. Anything that a machine creates like a digital image is built purely from mathematical formulas, not because the machine thought it was pretty. In fact, machines can't think at all, not yet anyway. Maybe someday we'll have machines that have self-realization, to know and to understand and to think. But that day is probably a long way off. For now, we're stuck with unthinking fast calculators.

The next time you sit in front of the machine and start to get frustrated because the machine isn't doing what you want it to do, just remember that the machine in front of you is very stupid and is only doing what it thinks (probably could have used a better term here...) you want.

Now, for the Cool Site of the week... This week's site is 43Things.com. This is a neat social networking site where you can list up to 43 things that you want to accomplish. You can set future email reminders to yourself so that, six months from now, you'll bug yourself if you haven't yet completed one of your tasks. Also, you can leave comments for others and provide support to those trying to accomplish some of the same things as you.

Mike Bryant has worked as a professional software developer for over ten years. A born entrepreneur, he currently owns Centrant, LLC, a software consulting firm specializing in custom software for small businesses. He currently resides in Jackson, Kentucky with his wife, two kids, and five machines. For more information, please visit www.MikeBryant.com/MikeBryant.com.

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