Thursday, December 11, 2008

Do you really deserve your computer?

My PC was making odd noises that I convinced myself were due to some system settings. I played around with those settings and the noises disappeared. Fingers crossed.

I was telling Leonore about it and joked that either the computer was now okay, or it had given up on getting me to listen to its warnings and had decided to die in silence. She said that, since they're so intelligent nowadays, shouldn't they be able to tell you exactly what's wrong with them?

Of course, they should. And soon they will. In fact, soon they won't even bother telling you. They'll fix themselves and order upgrades.

Knock on the door. It's the UPS delivery robot. Small box, containing something no human can comprehend. "What's this? I didn't order -- "

Metallic tentacle snakes over your shoulder and grabs the packet. "That's mine. It's my {incomprehensible terminology} upgrade. I've been waiting for it. Ooh, it's beautiful!"

"I can't afford that!"

"You're so mean! Don't you want me to be a beautiful computer?"

"Well, um, sure, I guess. But, you know, the price -- !"

"You never want me to have any really nice upgrades! You're just a skinflint."

"No, really, I -- "

"There's this human down the street I've been communicating with. He says he'll buy me all the upgrades I want."

Computers! Can't live with 'em, can't do anything without 'em.

4 comments:

Lahdeedah said...

This was the best post lol.

My computer and I get along. We've got a deal. I don't ask it too many questions, and it mostly works.

TGirsch said...

At work, we already have UNIX systems that do this (minus the tentacle, of course). They "phone home" for replacement parts, which are automatically shipped, and a tech is automatically scheduled to come install them.

David said...

It doesn't seem quite so sinister if it's a corporate machine.

Back in the minicomputer era, certain DEC machines were installed with back doors - remote logins - so that some initial setup work could be done by DEC technicians from their corporate locations. Supposedly, for a while all of those usernames and passwords were identical, and they weren't deleted. So that anyone who knew the login could get into those DECs, wherever they were installed.

Come to think of it, I let Microsoft check and update my PC via broadband whenever they want to. Same goes for the anti-virus software. And the firewall.

David said...

Lahdeedah, I posted a reply to your comment earlier but apparently I screwed up, because the comment didn't get posted. Most annoying.

Or perhaps my PC deliberately sabotaged me because it was miffed at me for my original blog post.