[Sigia-l] A $1000 un-usable remote control FULL TEXT pt2

[Anthony Hempell]

...oops, here's page 2.
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Practice on the Neo gave me courage to tackle ProntoProEdit NG. I was
overconfident. Working through the editing program is like studying for
an exam that you know, deep down, you are going to fail. Disorientation
sets in fast. Simple words lose their meaning. I could feel the goal of
universality recede from my little world of remote devices.

Help came from David M. D'Arche, a service sales consultant for
Hewlett-Packard. Mr. D'Arche spends a lot of time on a Web site called
remotecentral.com, where remote-control buffs trade tips and agonize
over problems. User comments convinced him that a lot of people were
having difficulty with the ProntoPro user manual and accompanying
software. He wrote his own 138-page manual, "Ultimate Pronto Guide," and
began selling it on the Internet (www.prontowizard .com) for $16.95.


Yes, it is absurd to buy a guide to be able to understand another guide.
But it is also necessary.

Mr. D'Arche's guide, essentially a Pronto for Dummies, begins with a
chilling thought. "Creating a configuration in the Pronto is not an
event," the author writes. "It is a journey." He encourages prospective
users to get on the Internet and join "Pronto communities," sites where
the befuddled and the perplexed gather to exchange tips, share sorrows
and feel the communal bonds of Pronto ownership. Pronto, I was beginning
to feel, was not merely a device. It was a life commitment, a
philosophy, a way of being.

Would I be up to it?

Yes. The guide leads even the dimmest technorube (that would be me)
through the thickets of Pronto prose, clearing away the underbrush and
letting in the light of understanding. As always, there are distinct
phases in one's mastery of the fundamentals. First, blank
incomprehension, like that felt by the cave man surrounded by flint and
stone, yet unable to create a spark. Second, a stupefied "Oh," as the
obvious becomes, as it should, obvious. Third, hubris, or the foolish
expectation that success at Task A guarantees smooth sailing as Tasks B
through Z appear on the horizon. Fourth, rapid retreat to Square 1.

Step by step, I began to configure my Pronto, practicing, along with Mr.
D'Arche, on sample pages, knowing that eventually I would apply those
lessons to the real thing. ProntoProEdit NG, I came to understand, is a
marvelous, complex paint-by-numbers kit. It lets users design their own
device on the computer, and then, when ready, to transfer the results to
the Pronto itself.

Then I stopped and thought for minute. Why, I asked myself, am I doing
all this work? For $1,000, shouldn't somebody else be doing this for me?
I felt like a diner who enters a four-star restaurant and looks over a
tantalizing menu, only to be told that he has to go into the kitchen and
make it himself.

I truly believe that, given enough time, I could make my way - slowly,
painstakingly - through the editing process and emerge with a truly
universal remote. But I could also, in the same time, read Gibbon's
"Decline and Fall" unabridged, or learn a foreign language.

My Pronto experience, if nothing else, helped clarify my thinking on a
couple of important social issues. In "Bowling Alone," Robert D. Putnam
argues that Americans have lost traditional community rituals like
bowling in leagues, or going out for a night of bingo. In so doing, they
have become a more fragmented, alienated society. He obviously knows
nothing about the spontaneous communities, or mutual-aid societies, that
coalesce around inscrutable consumer goods like the Pronto, whose
demands leave little time for more traditional forms of socializing,
like hayrides and yo-yo tournaments.

I was also, during my Pronto adventure, reminded of a recent report
lamenting the decline of reading in the United States. While it might be
true that the average American no longer reads Milton or Marlowe, the
deficit is more than made up for by near-total immersion in the user
guides that come with every new piece of electronic equipment. The good
news is that Americans are not reading less - they're reading more, if
my experience is anything to go by.

Finally, by laying down my Prontos, like Prospero in the final act of
"The Tempest," I may have renounced magic powers, but I have come out
ahead. I now have two stunning additions to my collection of remote
controls.