I used to snigger at these people, Voodoo Coding and magical thinking are lazy and ineffective. Any problem with technology can be solved by first understanding it, because technology is pure rational thought made into material, right?
I've just been given an account on an MicroSoft cloud email system. I'm learning humility.
I can log into it on my tablet (Android chrome), but not on my laptop (Linux chrome). I'm sure I used to be able to log on using both, but then something broke, and one side went away. I've deleted all the cookies on the laptop, I've re-entered all the passwords, I've clicked all the boxes I can tick, and still the final login screen just blithely re-appears.
I'm sure there's someone somewhere who can explain this to me. But I can't be arsed, and I'm sure it would take a lot longer than I want to spend for the simple convenience of being able to read email on the platform of my choice. I could probably fire up a Windows VM, set up a VPN, and log in via a MicroSoft ecosystem, but ... that can't be arsed thing again.
Here's the thing: as I was ringing all the changes in the laptop GUI login, I had a terrifying thought ... what if, by altering something on the laptop, I lost my tablet access!?!?!!!! I'd better be careful!
Then I realised the horrible truth: I've been slowly waltzed into technological dependency and magical thinking by a vendor's stupid design, and by my own studied ignorance.
Now I've just got to find a dead chicken to wave at the screen, and I will surely be able to read my email.
