There’s a saying, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” It’s trite, yes, but it’s also true. That’s not a problem in and of itself with one huge caveat–the person knows that there are limitations to what they know. Sadly, there are many people who do not know that, and many of them are in charge of this country.
Ahem.
This is not a political post, so I will leave it at that. For now. Who knows if I’ll go back to it later in the post? (Spoiler: I probably will because that’s just how i am.)
In this case, I’m using the saying because of technology. For the last two or three Saturdays not including today, my audio has not been worknig in my Taiji Zoom class. It worked fine before that, and suddenly, it wasn’t working. Thee had been an update, but it still worked past that.
The first time, I tested it while in class. While everything seemed to work, I did not hear the playback on the testing of my audio. I gave up and said I’d fix it later. I also noticed that I had two windows open accidentally. I thought maybe that was the issue. Also, maybe I had joined without audio? Because that’s a choice. I didn’t know. I did try to rejoin the meeting, but that didn’t work, either. I mean, I could see and be seen. I could hear, but I could not be heard.
I decided to call my bro before the next class, but I didn’t manage to do it. Nor did I do the basic thing you always do when something goes wrong with your computer–restart. I don’t use my laptop much these days (I have a desktop, too), and it’s difficult for me to deal with issues on it because, well, that’s just how my brain works.
For the next class, I made sure I only had one window open. I made sure I joined with audio. It should have been fine.
It was NOT fine. Once again, I could see and be seen. I could hear, but I could not be heard. I had no idea what was wrong because, again, it had worked just two weeks ago. And it worked after the update so it wasn’t as if the update had fucked something up.
This is why I’m thinking about technology in general. I use it a lot, but I don’t consider myself good with it, necessarily. It’s more that I know what I need to know, and if I don’t know something, I Google it. If that doesn’t work, then I call my brother. Before I Google and/or call my brother, though, there’s a period of intense frustration that I can’t figure it out by myself. I feel like since I’m decent with technology, I should be able to figure out fairly simple things. Like why my fucking aduio wouldn’t work.
One time, I had someone hack into my bank account. They quickly notified me, and I called their helpline to, well, get help. The guy told me what to do, and we got it taken care of after an hour of intense discussion. Once we were done, I profusely thanked him for helping me because it was such a pain in the ass.
He quickly said that it was not a big deal and that I made it easy for him because I actually knew what to do when he said things like, “open the drop-down menu”. To me, that’s so elementary, but I guess it depends on how much you use a compputer and for what. My brother has also said that I’m a heavy user–or at least a medium-heavy one.
I think the thing is that I am a heavy user in terms of how much I use technology, but I don’t have to stretch myself too much on the daily. So when I run into a problem, once I go through my usual bag of tricks, I have nothing. The problem is that as i said earlier, you don’t know what you don’t know. In the case of this so-called simple problem, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t realize that I could not actually hear my voice when I was testing it. It showed that my voice was registering, but I could not actually hear it.
Yesterday, I did the basic turn the laptop off and turned it on again. Then, I noticed something that I had forgotten–I could join with the app or join from a browser. I join from the browser because I don’t have the app. I like to keep my app count as low as possible so if I can join from a browser, I will. The problem was that I was joining with the app, which, apparently, allowed me to do it with video, but not with audio. Again, I could hear the audio from the class to me, but I could not be heard.
This time, I joined with the browser, and I had no problem. It might have just been the restart, but I have aa hunch it was joining with the app (hwhich I don’t have) that was the problem.
At any rate, I’m proud of myself for figuring it out. Had I not, I would have eventually pushed myself to call my brother. He would have been able to tell me before I could even finish my question. He’s done that before, and he really makes my life easier. I don’t want to rely on him too much, though, so I at least try to fix the issue myself before I relent and call him. I feel really good when I can figure it out myself, but I don’t feel bad about calling my brother if I need help. I think it’s because I know I have given it all I can and that there’s no shame in getting help if you need it. Plus, my bother can find the issue in ten seconds or less. If he can’t, then the answer can’t be found.
More tomorrow.