Too bad we humans can’t just march down to the computer store and buy a chunk of memory. I don’t know about you, but my brain is full - full of passwords.
A few years ago did you think you’d ever have to remember so many passwords? My money says you have enough to fill a dictionary. And if that dictionary is on your computer, you have to know the password to use it.
If you’re a subscriber reading this online, you had to know your password to get on the newspaper’s website.
Shoot, just to turn on your computer you had to type in a password.
Time was when only spies and secret agents had to worry about passwords.
Today our brain space is taken up with so many passwords there’s little room for important things, like remembering those goofy NFL refs are replacements.
Passwords let us tend to the vital things in everyday life. Without them you couldn’t play games on your smartphone at work or check on your fantasy football team.
I’ll wager that you have passwords for things you don’t even know about.
The other day I went to amazon.com to buy a new tent. Turns out I didn’t have to start an account because, unbeknownst to me, I already had one.
All I needed to do was type in the password and I could order my tent. Now I was toast.
I typed in every password I could pry from my brain and none of them worked. I decided to just sleep outside.
I had to come up with a new password to buy the tent. This required submitting it to customer service, no doubt halfway across the world in Timbuck-three. I twirled my thumbs waiting for an email confi rming my new password.
Good luck if the password gods deem your password unsatisfactory.
Sorry Charlie, just a simple one won’t do. It has to have at least seven characters, one number and a capital letter. Paininthehiney1comes to mind.
To clock in and out here at the salt mine, I have to type in the password.
Just to write this column I had to know the password to get into our writing program.
We have to know one password to put pictures in the print newspaper and another to get them on the website.
The bosses like us to tweet stuff , so there’s another password. If my tom cat, Boat Dock, wants me to read something on his Facebook page, there’s a password for that.
Might as well get used to it. The more gadgets that come along, the more passwords we’ll have.
Granted, some make life more convenient.
You can check your bank balance online and pay bills without envelopes or stamps. You can get cash on a road trip.
Still, the more passwords that fill my brain, the more I appreciate things that don’t require a password.
To get into the house, I stick a key in the knob and turn it. If I needed a password I’d be sleeping in that new tent a lot.
Maybe it’d be good to have a password to get into the ‘fridge. After you’d had a few brews, you’d forget the password and couldn’t pop any more tops.
One solution to password mania is to type out all your passwords and store them in your computer. But forget the password to turn it on and life as you know it is over.
Try this: Write down each of your passwords in a Big Chief tablet. Tear out the page and tape it to your computer. They’ll be right there at your fi ngertips.
FLIP PUTTHOFF IS OUTDOORS EDITOR FOR NWA MEDIA.
FOLLOW HIM ON TWITTER AT TWITTER.COM/NWAFLIP, IF YOU CAN REMEMBER YOUR PASSWORD.
Outdoor, Pages 6 on 09/20/2012