How to use a BackgroundWorker?

Why are people so lazy to learn how to use the technology they buy?

• I can't stand people who don't bother to learn how to use the technology they spend so much money on buying. I know it sounds incredible (sarcasm), but here's a few examples. I don't produce music for a living, but I have worked with some local bands in exchange for some beer. I do all my production work on DAW software like FL Studio and Pro Tools.... These programs are designed to ease the transition from analog tools to digital music production and just be easy to use. The other day I had the privilege of meeting up with the owner of a local studio whose name I won't disclose. He makes a LOT of money, suffice to say, and is a pretty popular go-to-guy around these parts. To my horror he knows little about music production. He's a "preset" kind of guy if you know what I mean. He has a huge amount of older equipment and some amazing sounding VST and RTAS instruments on his computers. Sadly, he doesn't ever use much of it and doesn't know how to use what he does. I can tell. His microphones weren't calibrated right, his monitors weren't flat but very bassy, his mixer had too many channels for his studio, he was unfamiliar with productivity tools like arpeggiators, auto chord, and knob tweak/MIDI automation, he only works with hip-hop artists and yet had an accordion, an untuned piano, and a violin sitting in the corner collecting dust, and he also had a huge rack of real effects and stuff that probably had roaches living in it... Also, I could have sworn I spotted a device blinking 12:00 somewhere in there.... He did know how to use auto-tune, so I'll give him that. I doubt he'd be able to tweak it if he needed to though. He kept telling me "oh I like this preset" and stuff the whole time. I'm going to college and I'm majoring in computer science. Music is just a hobby, but if that guy operates like that and makes the money he does, then I guess I know what to fall back on! I've also seen plenty of people who can't drive their expensive car correctly, can't use the features their shiny new TVs come with, buy Bose speakers because regular home theater stuff is "too complicated", can't root their Android phone or jailbreak their iPhones or hack their PSPs, don't know how to use Google, can't understand their car's stereo menus, etc... Why are people so lazy when it comes to figuring out the stuff they use EVERYDAY? It makes no sense to me.... I wish I had the money to just buy stuff and not use it.

• Answer:

  I can easily sympathize with you, as I have observed the same problem many, many times. This unpleasant condition has existed since the beginning of time, and it won't ever be eliminated. For a number of years, I have thought that before they could legally obtain any sort of gadgetry, people should need to possess a "technology license", which could be issued only after the person had demonstrated the ability to read and follow the instructions in an owner's manual. One of the most useful things to say about this annoyance: "Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is why so few people engage in it". Learning to use things properly requires thinking. Most people will buy something, learn only the most-needed basic particulars about it, and stumble along from there. Unless they are forced to learn more at gunpoint, they will most likely never know enough to be able to get even a small percentage of the full potential from their "techy thingies". I'd bet a grain of sand against a grain of salt that there were stone-age "technophobes" who couldn't understand how to use a flint knife to cut meat away from an elk bone. If they survived, it was because someone else did the job for them.