Technology is pretty integrated within my life. I have a PC at home. At work I use a dual platform (Mac & PC) station and some fairly snazzy graphics and layout programs. My cell phone makes me happy, but not as happy as my iPod. With my lovely digital camera I can update my flickr account with photographs of finished knitting projects for my Ravelry account. I use and love technology, and so it’s pretty easy to overlook the fact that I don’t always understand it. When I start to get overconfident, my special hidden talent tends to rise to the surface.
I crash Macs. I crash Macs like nobody’s business.
It’s unusual since Apple has always prided themselves on Macs simplicity and user-friendliness. In passing conversations with Mac devotees I’m usually scoffed at until forced to reveal how many times my current work Mac has been reformatted in the span of 3 years. After one such reveal, a fellow student asked me to step away from her brand new Powerbook.
It is fascinating to me how crashing my work Mac changes my relationship with it. While working, the Mac is simply a machine. It displays only that which I command, nothing more and nothing less. However when it stops working in a predictable manner, it is suddenly transformed in my mind as an obstinate mystery, a box of beeps and flashing lights that I weep and plead with that the last auto-save was recent.
The most positive thing about the experience is that it keeps me fairly honest. I think maybe this mental transformation may be how people with less mediation might view technology, an object that may or may not have a will of it’s own, that may or may not be seconds from utter disaster. It’s a mindset that is easily lost as what was rare becomes an everyday necessity. My Mac reminds me of this fact daily.
Plus, it gives me a few good jokes.
