{"id":4049,"date":"2017-09-26T20:16:32","date_gmt":"2017-09-26T18:16:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4049"},"modified":"2020-03-16T08:14:42","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T07:14:42","slug":"log-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4049","title":{"rendered":"Look it Up"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Harvey and Sam<\/p><\/div>\n

Since knocking over two drinks into my computer one (sober, I swear) night a year ago, he has been on a slow decline. Multiple keys have stopped working. The space bar went first, followed by the 3, 9, and 7 keys, then the direction keys went. The battery lasts almost an entire 40 seconds,. It was a sad day when I had to outsource his work to an external keyboard.<\/p>\n

I had to face facts, Lester was on his way out.<\/p>\n

About a month ago, I was at work in my home office when I realized that I was not picking up the Wifi signal. I had to send an email and the signal was spotty at best, in and out. I was wholly frustrated.<\/p>\n

“What the F**k!” I screamed maturely. And then I wove together a quilt of vulgarities that made my cat shake her head. Since Lester’s battery is so weak these days he’s less of a laptop and more of a stationary desktop computer. To unplug it is a race against time to another outlet; I have about 40 seconds until it dies. That day I lost the race, and wove another friendship bracelet of vulgarity. My blood pressure was so high that I think I almost lost consciousness.<\/p>\n

It doesn’t seem like a problem, does it? The Wifi signal doesn’t reach the shitty laptop in the office, but it works in the living room and kitchen. Um. Easy solution.<\/p>\n

The problem is that I really like writing in my office, so that’s where I write. For the first week or so, I was irritated. When I needed a word, I would wander out to the living room and look up words on my tablet. But then I remembered that I had a book for this in my closet; it was called a dictionary.<\/p>\n

I started using my dictionary, placing it on a stool next to my desk. I named him Harvey (the dictionary, not the stool. the stool is Sam). In the good old days when my computer picked up Wifi in my office I would look up the first three letters of a word and Google would fill in the rest. It would instantly give me dozens of synonyms, closely related words, and a variety of phrases. It was so easy.<\/p>\n

But that was the problem. It was too easy; I wasn’t using my brain to think about words or phrases, let alone synonyms and antonyms. A friend of mine did a workshop for technology in the classroom and the teachers complained that kids no longer know how to use dictionaries. They simply expect the computer to do all the work. In a related issue, I notice that it takes me a minute to realize that my phone hasn’t finished a word for me, because my tablet does.<\/p>\n

After using Harvey for a few days I noticed that I was using a lot more energy to look up words. If a word wasn’t in the dictionary or thesaurus I had to scroll through my mental dictionary to find a synonym or a related term. Often times I find a better word. I am using my brain more.<\/p>\n

This wasn’t the only benefit. No internet means a whole world of distractions cut out. I don’t stop writing to flip through Facebook because in my office there is no Facebook. For the two hours a day I am writing, I am without question removed from the pissing match that is modern political debate.<\/p>\n

Even though I was logged out against my will, I am now a willing off logger. I can’t recommend it enough. Even though I thought that Lester’s days were winding down, I might have to keep him around for a while. He’s good luck. Plus, he’s used to my rants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since knocking over two drinks into my computer one (sober, I swear) night a year ago, he has been on a slow decline. Multiple keys have stopped working. The space bar went first, followed by the 3, 9, and 7 keys, then the direction keys went. The battery lasts almost an entire 40 seconds,. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4050,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/22117639_10154754093841123_1837962657_o.jpg?fit=852%2C1136&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-13j","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4049"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4953,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4049\/revisions\/4953"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}