Digital photos and the hassles of getting them printed

I went to Walgreens again, where they have a digital photo machine that supposedly allows you to pick and print pictures. I guess if I didn't take many photos it might work, but twice now I've tried to upload photos from two CDs only to be told at the end of the upload (into the Walgreens Machine) that there was an error -- too many photos, too long of a time (25 minutes waiting for the machine load to load the photos from two CDs, about 500 pictures on each CD.

Now, 500 pictures frome ach CD sounds like a lot, but in today's digital age where hi-tech robber barons like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs squeeze you for every penny and give you some of the worst software and computers around. They're making money on the fact that they sell us junk that 35 percent of the time doesn't work properly and another 35 percent of the time requires technology assistance (at high prices, of course) to correct.

I don't like technology, at least the reality of technology. It doesn't work. It never fulfilled the promises it made. Just when you are happy with a system and software, Jobs and Gates -- modernday technology pirates -- steal your life and require you to load new "updates" that force you to update, by the way and that change settings to force you to have to replace your software.

It's a conspiracy of greed.

So I am standing at Walgreens watching people walk in to the store with their sweat pants and hair in rollers -- yea they still exist, I guess, sadly -- as the Walgreens photo computer loads the photos from each of two CDs. And when they load, the system crashes. Again.

I liked the old 36 MM film. Then, I had to plan my shot or grab something exciting. I'd have 24 or 36 pictures that I wanted. Now, with digital cameras, I can shoot everything, including the junk. Because humans can't resist the temptation to just keep shooting, especially when the cost of shooting is no longer at the front end, with the purchase of film, but at the back end where you have then hassle to take the pictures to be loaded, processed and then printed.

It was easy. I look back at my youth and I have albums of wonderful photographs easily laid out in chronological order so I and my family and children can view life's events easily and simply.

Now, everything is digital. And although I snap more pictures in digital format with devices that keep changing, I have very little to show for it.

Society has moved the burden from the businesses to the consumers.

Remember when we would pull in to a service station and get "service?" Now, I have to pay ahead of time, no one comes out to help me, and I listen to lengthy sales pitch messages from the gasoline pump asking me do I want a rewards card? A car wash? A credit for a car wash? Pushing products in the store.

I just want my damn gasoline morons!!!!

I want my non-technology life back. That's what I want. And I want to see Jobs and Gates jailed for unethical commercial behavior that has contributed to the expedited moral decay of our society.

-- Ray Hanania
www.RadioChicagoland.com