Technofear Part 5

Is there a human being in the world who knows how to use a projector? I’m talking about the portable ones that can be plugged into a laptop to give a presentation. It seems that nobody is capable of comprehending what selection of connections in what order are necessary to facilitate projecting. It appears that there is an unnecessarily elaborate series of tasks one has to undertake in a very particular order before the projector and the laptop will begin to communicate with one another. The correct sequence is a closely guarded secret, known only by a handful of top international projectionists across the planet. It’s a bit like the inner circle of projectionism, but where projectionism is to do with projectors and not projecting people’s personal feelings onto others. If the projectionists used projectionism to project their knowledge of projectors onto others then we wouldn’t have this problem. I digress.

The net result of this ignorance is that, no matter what laptop or projector you use, and regardless of how many people are present, there will be a long period of unplugging and replugging in of cables, followed by pressing buttons repeatedly in the vain hope that one of them is a ‘connect’ button. I find that, after a while, I usually recall that F5 has something to do with it, but even then I can only establish a link where either the computer is displaying and the projector is not, or the projector is displaying but the computer is not, but never both simultaneously. And even when we do figure it out, I know deep down that I will have forgotten how to do it when I next use a projector. They should make it part of the national curriculum for all 12 year olds, saving hours of expensive work time and frustration later in life. If I ever see a CV containing the phrase ‘can operate projectors’ I will employ that person instantly.