Today has been an interesting day. I spent the morning filling out an enormous packet of forms for my new job (which starts on Monday!!) and included such required bits of information as beneficiaries - i.e. who my pay should go to if I happen to shuffle off my mortal coil in the course of a 10-week internship -- and such typically American waivers like "if I use the barbecues on the work site and burn myself, I won't sue the company". Hah.
However, I also spent a good deal of today trying to figure out which new computer to buy. It's already been a while since I had realized that I needed to buy a new computer - first, it was just mildly annoying things: declining battery life, heating up while trying to watch movies, loud fan noises when running lots of data in Excel, etc. But then the problems started to get more severe. Fifty percent of the time, my "e" key does not work. I can no longer click-and-drag (just take a second to think of how many things you do with click-and-drag. Moving emails into folders. Songs into playlists. Arranging windows on your computer screen. !!!!) The fan sounds and the heat from the computer are starting to get ridiculous, and even the employee at the Apple store when I took my computer in a few months ago (to see if they agreed with me in that it was time to put the laptop out to pasture) ran a few tests and her eyebrows disappeared into her hairline as she saw how poorly it performed. She handed it gingerly back to me and said something along the lines of, "I'm surprise it's still running now..."
So, I've slogged along in this manner for the last few months, delaying and delaying in getting a new machine. But it's getting ridiculous. So, after debating lots of models, I picked one and spent about a half hour on the phone today with a computer rep at the store discussing the pros and cons of various models and "specs", as they call them. And I had the strangest thing happen.
It reminded me of a book called Otherland ( by Tad Williams) -- a science fiction book in which many things happen but one key or signature element of the book is The Net. Basically, the Net is just an extension of the internet we have today, but with some advancements. People hook themselves up to the net - not just so that they look through a screen, but rather all of your senses can be hooked in so that when you are online, you are "in" the Net - you can walk down the aisles of a virtual-reality shopping center, talk to other people who are also online (or your "sims" ((like an avatar)) can talk to each other, the projection you make of yourself online). Anyways, because so many people spend so much time in this VR (virtual reality) in the book, doing things like playing games, going shopping, doing research, etc, they come into contact with machines quite a lot of the time. If Amazon decided to build a VR store in this VR mall and my sim walked into it, I could talk to the VR store's manager and ask to buy a coffee pot but in all likelihood, the store manager will not be another real person's sim, but rather a computer program that is designed to sell things from Amazon to people who come to this store, much like a webpage (except it could talk in VR. Science fiction- what can I say.). The point is, given the chance of ending up talking to computer programs that may be quite sophisticated and look like the sims of real people online, the one question that is considered slightly rude but is required to be answered honestly in this VR in Otherland is the question "Are you a program?"
And I wanted to ask that of the person on the other end of the phone this morning.
He was a tech expert to be sure, answered questions (comprehended full sentences, if you will) but his intonation, word choice, use of computer buzz words and marketing terms -- I honestly - after a half hour of conversation - could not tell if I had been talking to a human or not. I mean, it must have been. Our technology isn't that good yet. Or is it?
So, that was the first thing today that made me feel like a book I'd read was extremely relevant. The second time happened just a few minutes ago.
I did end up getting a computer today and right now, it's sitting a few feet away from me. Yes, I am still typing on the machine that my dearest friend Erin has christened "Lappy McFail-Suck". I was instructed today on how I can use my external hard drive (where I have all my computer back-ups) to bring over the old data that I want onto the new machine. However, you can't really go through and select every piece of data you want to bring. For example, you can choose to bring over your Applications, but if you want any Applications at all, you need to bring all of them. With documents you can be a bit more selective, so the people at the store today suggested that I clean up my old machine as best I can and then make one last backup so that the transfer is relatively smooth and I don't have to root through too much old stuff on the new computer.
Good idea, I thought. So, I did the classic things to clear up your hard drive - delete unnecessary videos, music, clear the downloads folder and the trash, and then I thought I'd look and see how much space I'd freed up. I see how much space is taken up by Music, Documents, Backups, Videos.... Other. I have 55 Gigabytes worth of Other. What the hell is Other??? I have such enormous amounts of it compared to my documents and other things - where does it come from? And will it zoom over through the cable and contaminate my new computer as soon as they're connected?
In the middle of this freak-out (ca. 20 minutes ago), I was reminded inescapably of a passage in The Amber Spyglass (Philip Pullman), the third book in the trilogy that includes The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife. As the title implies, there's a certain knife involved in these books - a knife that has the ability to cut a hole in the air, a hole that is a window between one world and another (worlds that developed differently than our own). Fantastic series, I definitely recommend it. But in the third book, something happens to that knife and one of the characters is insisting on using it and another asks him (I paraphrase): "You know what you want to do with the knife. But do you know what the knife does on it's own? It has intentions, too." (the idea being that a knife so complex is not like a hammer, where really, all it does is whack in nails but if the knife slicing the reality between worlds, a lot more could be happening than the characters realize - and in fact, there is. Go read the books.)
And I just thought -- I can't see what's going on inside my computer! I can't see what interactions it has with websites on the minuscule level! I, in fact, do not know most of what my computer is doing. And the result is piles and piles of Other. I have all kinds of plans for the new computer, reminiscent of New Year's Resolutions. I will keep the Other at bay, as best I can. When I dare to open the computer and start using it, that is.
Don't worry. It'll be soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment