The Clouds, Me and You

I never realized that my love/hate relationship with the wonderful world of computers would draw so much attention and comment. While it is readily apparent that like most of you of a certain age, every advancement in this brave new world brings with it new challenges (for the younger set... opportunities) that in many cases are both intellectual and physical in nature.

For example, this whole area of "texting" that I dare not enter. The rage on television these days are the shows about "the living dead" aka zombies. Well in New York City we walk among them. They are the mindless souls walking our streets with their thumbs busy at work never looking where they are going. I guess it is better than having them behind the wheel of a car.


The last time I remember people walking with their heads pointed down instead of watching where they were going was that time before the pooper scooper law. At least then it was not only a good idea to do so, but an imperative.


If I were physically able to join these masses, I would not. It is hard enough to navigate when not involved in trying to Tweet (whatever that is) or make sure you are not run over by a car driven by a "texter." For me, not only looking at where I am going, but being aware of what I am looking at, is a form of self protection.

Now to the subjects of clouds. This is one of the great marketing ploys of the technology sector. When you say "clouds" to most people, they envision great puffy white puffs of cotton floating across the heavens. 

From your comments, I find that there is a great deal of confusion in understanding what the term  "in the clouds" means. Most people when they hear the term believe that their data is being stored somewhere in the sky; hopefully near Heaven. The mental picture they have looks something like this...


Unfortunately this is like a Grade B Hollywood scenario. How could any rational person think that cotton candy like this could contain all your data plus all the data stored in the clouds from all the PCs, MACS, and assorted other devices?

In this instance, fantasy is better than reality. Here my friends, is the actual "in the clouds" storage device. It sure does not look like anything you pictured! These clouds are not high up in the sky, but are really nothing more than servers located in a server farm. These farms are operated by large corporations such as Amazon, Apple and Microsoft. These organizations "rent" out space in their clouds to smaller organizations that in many cases allow you to store data "in the clouds."


Put simply, there is no way you would like to be in an airplane that had to fly through a cloud made up of servers.


You would be better off on an Italian cruise ship.