Our first computer was an AppleII+. Every program was run
from a floppy disk and was molasses-in-winter slow and the internet as we know
it did not exist. I could send text emails but I needed patience and
persistence. I now have a brand-new computer and I still need patience and
persistence on board the Sun Princess to send an email. Welcome to 1980.
We’re supposed to have wireless internet in every cabin. Technically,
we DO have wireless internet in our cabin but at most we have two bars (of five)
unless I prop the door open, then sometimes I can get three bars. I have been
known to stand in the hall to get a whole four bars!
To transport yourself to the age of text emails, imagine you
have firefox or IE open and you have two or three tabs open. If you want to
switch from one tab to another, you just click and almost instantly, the other
tab opens. Now try this: click on the tab and count s-l-o-w-l-y, like
one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, etc. When you get to 15-one-thousand the
new tab still hasn’t opened so you click again and count to 15-one-thousand.
Now, MAYBE, that tab will open. Upload a picture that’s less than a KB? Again,
for you almost instant. It takes me over a minute!
Not that I’m complaining—OK, OK, I’m complaining—because we
DO have internet and we do have unlimited internet. I can’t imagine having to
pay, at a MINIMUM, $.39/minute for a package of 1000 minutes (goes up to
$.79/minute if you just pay as you go) and I have used already over 3900
minutes! Let me see, that’s—yikes! $1,521. Or $3,081. Hmmhhh, am I too
connected? Nah!
Another perk we have is free laundry. Here I pop everything
in a bag and leave it on the bed and everything is magically returned the next
day (or the day I put it in if I check the same-day-service box) all ironed—even
the t-shirts!—and folded or put on a hanger. How on earth am I going to go home
and actually have to put things in the washer and then put them in the dryer
AND then FOLD them MYSELF?
As yet another digression, and bearing in mind our delay
into Mumbai, we are due in Dubai at 0800 which is 42 hours from now; according
to the ship we have 817nm to go at a current speed of 18.1kts. That math says we
will get into Dubai at 1130 or, in a
little more than 45 hours.
In the Arabian Sea, headed for the Gulf of Oman and the
Strait of Hormuz.
20° 12’ N
67° 58’ E
Reminds me of a "funny" - how kids think now vs in 1980: Playing Old MacDonald Had a Farm....a cow says "mooo" a goat says "bahhh" a mouse says "click"!!!!!!
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