In computer news this week:

"I wish coke was still cola, and a joint was a bad place to be ...."

Merle Haggard wrote those words back in the 70's, in his song "Are the good times really over for good". He was talking about how words in our language gain new meaning. If Merle was into computers he'd be having even more problems with our language.

This morning I logged onto the internet and went to a news page, and saw a headline that read " On Amazon, opportunity is destination". I clicked on the article, and it took me several seconds to realize this was not an article about Amazon.com, but instead about the Amazon river. In fact, were there not a big picture of a South American river and a native canoe, I would have been really confused.

I think this has happened to me several times recently, watching tv, reading magazines and the newspaper, and just talking to people. We get so caught up in our own worlds that we have a problem interpreting the rest of the world. A few weeks ago I was reading the morning paper, and the headline of an article made absolutely no sense to me, because I was interpreting it through my computer filter, and not my rest of the world filter.

It's almost like those optical illusion pictures you look at, where sometimes you just can't see what you're supposed to see because you're interpreting it differently. Then finally - maybe with someone else looking at it with you - the different picture suddenly appears.

As if the computer world didn't have enough buzzwords, now the internet adds a whole layer on top of that. Do you Yahoo? Need to check my email. Dot.com. MP3 music files. Webcam.

I think we all make the assumption that everyone uses computers and everyone is into today's computer world and the internet. Then we come across someone who isn't, or something that isn't, and it startles us. "How can you possibly function without a computer? How can you communicate without the internet? What kind of simple sheltered life do you live ?"

But the majority of the people in the world don't have computers and don't use the internet, and they get along fine. Maybe they get along better than us.

For one thing, they sure don't have information overload, which I think is exhausting everyone in the computer world. If they need information on something, they can pick up a book and read about it. They don't enter a search phrase on Yahoo , and then stare blankly at the thousand or so possible responses.

When they get a letter in their mailbox, they don't have to worry about a computer virus being attached to it.

They have a street address, not an email address, and it usually doesn't change for many years. People can find them by remembering where they live.. The internet provides instant communication anywhere in the world, but if you change your email address, nobody can find you.

If non-computer world people want to talk with someone, they can pick up that old fashioned device called the telephone. Or better yet, they can walk over to that person's house, sit down on a porch in the shade with a cold lemonade, and communicate with them. See the other person's expressions. Maybe pick up a guitar and play some music together. Just sit on that porch and watch the world go by and just enjoy life. All without the need for computers.

I'm heading off into the woods for my annual vacation away from computers, and I'm really looking forward to it. See you in September.

For Raw Bytes, this is Frank Delaney

POB 222 Spangle, Wa 99031 (509)245-3736 Email: fdspokane@aol.com