Found Goddess - The Computer Goddesses (Part 5) by Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D

Note. The term Found Goddess was created by Morgan Grey and Julia Penelope for their wonderful book, Found Goddesses: Asphalta to Viscera (New Victoria Publishers, 1980). I started Finding goddesses - Nerdix, Compuquia, Hostilia, and Whizziwig - when I was working on a Y2K project for a major corporation. I Found the other goddesses described here when I was writing a book on the subject, Finding New Goddesses (ECW Press, 2003). The newest goddesses are Fubar-Ma and Linker Bell, who have just now appeared. Well, maybe they've been standing around and/or hovering; I just got them down on paper.

The Computer Goddesses

So now you've got your downloads and pretty soon you get your upgrades. A few months ago, when I kept getting "illegal operation" messages when I disconnected from the Net, I also started getting "upgrade now" messages from my ISP. Yes, Reader, I started hearing the siren songs of Lucre, who squats up on the rocky cliff of Program Not Responding. Yes, I was in danger of being waylaid by Pecunia, who lurks in the dark cave of Fatal Error. Got a glitch? these filthy sirens sing. It's time to upgrade your system. And, Has your AI just failed its IQ test? Download our handy upgrade. But, Reader, take heart! Even though the dreadful path between Lucre and Pecunia is littered with impacted disks and flopping disks and slipped disks, it is possible to evade not only the hungry Upgrade Sirens but also their voracious employers - the Famous Software Monopoly, the Large Bucolic Hardware Company, the Nesting Internet Service Providers.

How, you ask, how do we escape the Siren Songs Of Costly Upgrade? We visit the Holy Shrine of Walmartis, the Savior Goddess. "User," the Savior Goddess says, "save your money. Get your upgrade here," She says, "at our Bargain Price. Look! We slash our prices every day. Come to our vast and Holy Temple Of Invasive Commerce."

Walmartis will help you stop your ears to the Temptations Of Great Expense. Walmartis will protect you from the Trolls Of Advertising. Walmartis will save you Big Bucks on your upgrade. All you have to do is seek Her out. She will save your money. Thank you, Blessed Walmartis, for being there. Thank you for being everywhere.

It happens a dozen times a day, every day: we send and receive e-mails with attachments. Sometimes they're really important attachments, things people need to know. And half the time we cannot open them. Or they're just not there. So we send (or receive) the usual answer: "Can't open attachment."

Fenestella[1] to the rescue! It is Her eternal task, and Her pleasure, to open things for us, to make openings in brick walls so we can look through. Can't open that attachment? Invoke our friendly Fenestella:

Fenestella, hear my plea,
Scan the server, use Your key.
Damned attachment - snicker-snee!
Make it open. Let me see.[2]

Somewhere in a dark corner of the realm of Nerdix, and without doubt in the same dark tower as the stealthy bugs and voracious viruses, live the Format Fairies. These are mischievous Good Neighbors who swarm at will and can arrive without warning to steal all the formatting codes in your document.

You may already be familiar with other Good Neighbors who "borrow" bright and shiny things from us. My friend Rebecca, for example, used to "lose" spoons all the time - teaspoons, tablespoons, spoons for cooking, even plastic spoons. She'd buy new spoons. They'd all be gone within a few days. We knew Who took them, and we'd ask to get them back. Occasionally a spoon or two would reappear. Also infamous are the Good Neighbors who steal socks from the dryer and office supplies from locked cabinets, and people have also told me about the mysterious disappearance of loose change, buttons, candles, and pens and pencils. How many people do you know who have single earrings? Sure, they're left over from Fairy raids.

One thing you can do when the Format Fairies raid your document is click up the Help Troll, that persistent pest who audaciously calls himself a Wizard. He's always there and he always has a lot to say. I have found his pronouncements to be enigmatic and perplexing, however, for he prefers to talk to devotees of Nerdix and is not consistently helpful to those who dwell in the halls of Compuquia. You can, however, also appeal to the Wizards of Que and Eye D' G[3] and consult their various Holy Writs. These books, especially the ones with the nifty pictures, are often helpful. What I have found more useful is to archive everything I write and keep the disk up to date. After Format Fairy depredations, I still have the disk to work from. So far, They have not stolen my disks. . . .

Remembering that the Format Fairies answer to no higher power and are exceedingly mischievous, we can try to appeal to them to have mercy on us.

Format Fairies, you're never outshone.
Please leave my format codes alone!
Format Fairies, you love each stunt,
Can't you please find somewhere else to hunt?

The most famous fairy of all, of course is Linker Bell, the search engine fairy. Lithe and lissome lover of all lost boys and girls, Linker Bell flits from site to site to site to site. Why, she can get us 18,800 hits in 0.19 seconds! With one hand tied behind her back!! Linker Bell has been everywhere and met everyone in Hardly-Ever Land. When she likes you, she'll sprinkle her fairy dust on your fingers so that you, too, can soar from site to site to site. She'll even tell you if you spelled your term wrong in the search box and she'll serve you a splendid menu of related searches. She'll bring you images and maps and news and go shopping with you (but you have to bring your own credit card), and on days you're feeling lucky, well . . . there's just no knowing where she'll lay her hands. Linker Bell loves all Lost Children and will hover beside your keyboard as you click and copy and paste. (She has, alas, no concept of plagiarism.)

It happens, alack, that pirates, do-gooders, and parents occasionally threaten Linker Bell's existence. Children, do you want to keep your search engine running? If your search goes astray, if your search engine begins to falter and fade, you must cry aloud, "I believe in fairies!" and click until Linker Bell's light returns. All together now, children - "I believe in fairies!" Click-click, click-click, click-click, click-click, click-click, click-click, click-click, click-click, click-click. Oh, look, children! Your belief has restarted Linker Bell! She is alive and well. You can keep searching!

Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. is the author of Pagan Every Day: Finding the Extraordinary in Our Ordinary Lives (RedWheel/Weiser, 2006), a unique daybook of daily meditations, stories, and activities. Her earlier books are Finding New Goddesses, Quicksilver Moon, Goddess Meditations, and Practicing the Presence of the Goddess. Her day job is freelance editing for people who don't want to embarrass themselves in print. Barbara lives in southern California. To purchase a signed copy of Finding New Goddesses, just send Barbara an email at bawriting@earthlink.net

[1]Her name comes from the Latin word for "window," fenestra. If you get really annoyed at anyone, you can defenestrate them (that is, throw them out the window). You may be tempted to defenestrate your computer. If you do, you'll only have to buy a new one.

[2] I have a friend who totally igores Fenestella. She prefers Zen e-mail. No attachment.

[3]Surely we can be confident that Eye D' G stands for Eye Of Goddess, She Who looks with mercy upon all computer users.