Technology as a Fashion Accessory and The Technology/Culture Feedback Cycle

In It’s Cool to be a Geek? Technology Influencing the Culture of Cool, I remarked on how smartphones are cool and, if you possessed a smartphone, your cool factor got a bit of a boost. And, because I am so kind, I even gave a bit of an explanation as to why smartphones are seen as cool. In summary, smartphones are cool because they symbolize wealth, hipness, and tech know-how (which is no longer considered “geeky”, at least not in the negative sense of the word). The geek is vindicated and his world is now a fashion accessory. This may be cause for a bit of resentment and weeping. How would you like it if something that you cared for deeply (say, technology), something that once meant social ostracism, now became something that merited acceptance and accolade? Not only that, but to have your passion be reduced to mere fashion accessory by mainstream society? Kind of a kick in the teeth if you ask me. But let’s look on the bright side of all this. This means the geek’s passions are no longer disparaged, at least, not as as they once were. It also means businesses are striving to produce even greater, more innovative, tech. So, fear not geeks, there are pluses to this fashion accessory trend. So, let’s take the time to examine this trend a bit more.

In the named post above, I observed that some technology was becoming more of a fashion accessory. Here, I’ll speculate that this trend will continue into our future. Today, technology isn’t just something you use. It’s also something you wear. Something you showoff. Something you aren’t afraid to take out in public, like the wrist calculator of yesteryear. This is an interesting, and recent trend within the tech industry.

I’m not the first to notice this trend, but it’s something that deserves to be pointed out over and over again.

Why do I think this technology as fashion accessory trend will continue into the future? This speculation is based on what I perceive to be a cause of technology as fashion accessory. That cause being the growing pervasiveness of tech in modern society. I riff on this chord quite a lot, almost to a sickening degree. But it’s incredibly important to understand how technology influences our culture and how our culture influences technology. This technology as fashion accessory trend is just a symptom of a larger phenomenon.

The above paragraph is a bit confusing to read (and this is largely due to my inability to write), so I want to better explain it here, with a flowchart!

I just knew I’d find a use for Visio 2013. Hopefully this flowchart illustrates what I mean when I say “technology influences cultures, culture influences technology”. I also threw in another factor that contributes to the presence of technology in pop-culture: profit. If businesses make money by introducing tech-themed gadgets (see the bracelet above) or technology, in general, into the culture, then you will see more tech introduced into pop-culture. If you want to see more tech in mainstream society, then vote with your wallet. Buy the gadgets, gizmos, and other tech produced by businesses. Send a message with your dollar that you want to see more tech in society.

Something I want to clear up about the flowchart is the arrow that points from the “influence” circle to the “Technology advances far beyond…” parallelogram. It’s true, as the arrow suggests, that pop-culture supports the advancement of technology. However, pop-culture also directs the advancement of technology. For example, think about the Apple iPhone, would it look the way it does (sleek, slim, and simple), if pop-culture (or, rather, the makers of that culture: mainstream society) didn’t want it to look that way? Again, culture influences tech and tech influences culture. That can’t be repeated enough. We’re stuck in a perpetual feedback cycle. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

What does the future hold for us? My guess: more of the same.

I probably could have broken this post up into two separate posts, but I was on such a roll that I couldn’t help but relate the technology as fashion trend to the tech/culture feedback cycle. Oh well, such is life.

Will Machines Gain Rights?

In Programming a Ghost, I briefly explored the possibility of a computer developing, or being programmed with, a ghost or, more simply, a conscious. In that post, my focus was primarily on the possibility of a machine obtaining a ghost, how we would know whether a machine had a ghost, and what it would take to program a ghost. I also briefly mentioned that there would be enormous political, social, and economic repercussions if machines were to become conscious. Now’s the time to explore just one of those repercussions: machine rights.

I think it’s likely humanity will see serious “machine rights” movements within the next ten years. The debate has already started. And talk about the relationship between humans and machines is gaining political undertones. And why wouldn’t it? Machines are now closer to exhibiting human thought patterns than ever before.

The current understanding of rights is that, to have rights, something must possess the mental faculties of the one rights bearing organism on the planet: a human. If something possesses human thought patterns, or at least appears to possess human thought patterns, then how can someone argue that humans should have rights while machines should not have rights? The arguer would need to either disprove that the robot is thinking (how would that be possible?) or use another standard to determine whether something has rights. Would the new standard be the human soul? Perhaps “No Soul, No Vote” will become a popular political slogan in our near future. But, then, how would a person know whether a machine has or doesn’t have a soul? But this wouldn’t matter much to politicians, since politics has never been about honesty or intellectual debate. Politics is about political expediency and interest. What political candidate is going to run on a platform that seeks to give machines rights and, thus, lawfully prohibit people from interacting with machines against the machine’s “will”?

I don’t like the idea of having to ask my computer whether I can type on its keyboard or use its programs. But whether I like the idea of machine rights or not is not really relevant. I could dislike the idea of some person having rights, but this isn’t reason enough to strip someone of their rights.

While I don’t believe politicians, at least not mainstream politicians, will adopt machine rights as a political goal, I do believe the debate for machine rights will gain some steam in the coming years. It will be a slow process, but it will happen.

And what would happen if machines did gain rights? What machines would gain rights? Desktop computers, laptops, smartphones, infrastructure machines? Surely, if we are using the old standard of rights, the only machines that would gain rights would be those machines that exhibit human intelligence and reason to the same extent as an adult human. But, wouldn’t “lesser minded” machines also have some rights of their own? After all, children and the mentally retarded still have rights, though not the same set of rights as their adult, mentally-advanced peers.

Additionally, if machines were to gain rights, humans, since we depend upon machines, would need to develop machines that are safely below human intelligence and reason so that we could still use them without the long-arm of the law coming down upon our heads. But, wouldn’t machine activists simply argue that we are still abusing mentally-handicapped machines for our own ends? It could happen.

I don’t think machines will gain rights in my lifetime and I expect to live, at least, another sixty years. Remember, politics is about political expedience and interest so no popular politician, in his right mind, would advocate machine rights if giving machines rights would mean forbidding people from using them, unless the machines consented to being used.

We’re in for some interesting times.

Is the User an Idiot?

Once upon a time, in a distant wondrous past known today as the 80’s and 90’s, computers were complicated and, often, difficult-to-use machines. It would take a special group of people, known then and today as the geek, to master and use them effectively. Computers weren’t for everybody. And not everybody could afford them and not everybody had the time to learn how to use them. And, to be fair, computers back then didn’t have nearly the functionality of the computers today, so there wasn’t much point in learning how to use a computer, if you were the average person. But, then, in the late 90’s spanning into the early 2000’s, computers became a very useful thing, even to the average person. However, the computer was still a complex thing that the average person still couldn’t understand with ease. Enter “user-friendly” machines and interfaces. Say good-bye to the command line interface and say hello to the shiny, new graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Complicated and complex is out and simple is in. But at what cost? I’ll get back to this later. First, a little history.

Needless to say, the new found usefulness of computers and the new, easy-to-use interfaces, made the computer accessible to just about anyone. Now, computers were for everybody because everybody had use for them and could use them. As time went on, into the 2000’s, computers were gaining functions and abilities that could have only been imagined by a few geeks in the 80’s and early 90’s. But as these new functions came into play, they necessarily made the computer more complicated, so even easier, user-friendly, interfaces needed to be developed. In the early 2000’s entire industries committed to the development of “user-friendly” interfaces sprang from the void. The term “user-friendly” became mainstream and a bedrock within the tech industry. Everything needed to be user-friendly and ergonomic: the operating system, the applications, websites, interfaces, the hardware/software/firmware, the plug-in-play hardware, even the computer chair. If a product was user-friendly and easy to understand, it gave the manufacturer a serious edge over the competition.

Of course, “user-friendliness” wasn’t invented by the tech industry, however, it can be argued that the tech industry took it to its fullest implementation. If a new product isn’t user-friendly, then it’s shelved or redeveloped until it is user-friendly.

Just how user-friendly can things get? How far does the user-friendly rabbit hole go? I’ll tell you how far it goes. One day, there won’t be a user-interface. One day, the user can just say “Do my taxes” and the taxes will be done. The user won’t even need to speak in coherent sentences. He could say, “OJFWOojfoewjofw ojwaf o”. And the computer would do its best to figure out just what the hell the user wants and then perform the action in record time. I feel for machines, I really do.

There is, of course, a serious problem with all this “user-friendly” emphasis. The technology has become too damn “friendly”! I think user-friendliness has its place. After all, in the end,  the end-user is a human, not a machine. And the average human doesn’t have the time, or doesn’t have the interest, to learn the ins-and-outs of a computer, on a basic level. But, as I mentioned, all of this user-friendliness has a cost.

This is where I explain the first image in this post. It looks familiar, doesn’t it? Doesn’t the text capitalization style seem to resemble the style used on a rather famous product line? Don’t worry if you don’t see it at first, I didn’t either. Here’s a picture to clear things up.

Yes, you guessed it. Apple is the prime culprit in making things too user-friendly. But what do I mean when I say something is too “user-friendly” and how could such a thing possibly have a downside? There are, in fact, trade-offs when it comes to making a product user-friendly. These trade-offs can be circumvented, however, but it would require far more effort and all that effort is already being thrown into making the product the most user-friendly thing on the planet. So, just what are these trade-offs? The trade-offs are low access to the backend of a product and the general dumbing down of the population.

Cut off from the Back End

There are few joys that are comparable to seeing the inner-workings of a technological miracle like the computer. But, what do I mean by “cut off from the back end”? I mean the gates to the inner-workings of the computer have been shut tight for fear that the user will, somehow, mess up the device (which is a possibility). Apple is a prime culprit of this crime (along with most smartphone manufacturers and Microsoft in their Windows Vista years). Seriously, in most smart phones, the user can’t even access the file system, let alone the deeper levels of the device. Does this seem like a strange complaint? I mean, why would anyone want to access the lower-levels of an operating system? That’s for those tech geeks and tech-support guys out there. Well, I like having the opportunity to augment certain functions of my computer that can’t be changed unless I have access to the computers registry files. There’s a psychological consequence to this, as well. When I can’t access the basic layers of my machine, it feels as though my machine isn’t really mine. I feel more like a simple user rather than the owner of the machine, an outsider rather than an insider. And I don’t like feeling like an outsider when using my beloved machines.

Dumbed Down Population

The famous philosopher/sociologist Herbert Spencer once said The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools. If this can be applied to this user-friendly trend, then it may be said that making everything so damn user-friendly has effectively dumbed-down the population. People don’t really have to think when it comes to technology. Just push a button and you’re off to the races. What incentive do people have to think about their technology when their technology can, effectively, think for them? The technology, sometimes, even goes so far as to treat the user as though the user is an idiot. And, in turn, the user kind of becomes an idiot or, more politely, an ignorant. Not a bad deal for the technocrats, though.

 

I’m pretty harsh on user-friendliness, but I’m keeping it within reason. I have admitted that user-friendliness does have its place since people are people, not machines. Additionally, keep in mind that user-friendliness depends on the user. The geeks may pine for the glory days of MS-DOS. But the MS-DOS command prompt was user-friendly. Though, I think we can all agree that things have become incredibly user-friendly, to a fault.

Perhaps we can strike a balance between user-friendliness and accessibility to the machine. It’s been noted that the reason businesses make computers so easy to use is so they can have that competitive edge in their respective market. And it’s been noted that most people desire the benefits offered by the computer, but can’t particularly be bothered to learn about the computer’s inner-workings. I’m not bashing those folks who just want the goods without understanding how a computer dishes out those goods. We can’t all be tech geeks and we don’t all have time to understand how to use the command line. I’m just going to leave them be. They have their lives and I have my geeky life. Sometimes, though, I just wish people would take the time to learn a little about the machine on which they depend so much. I’m not asking for the moon here.

Finally, there are alternative operating systems out there for those geeks looking for both accessibility and a challenge. I’m looking at you GNU. And that’s enough for me.

It’s Cool to be a Geek? Technology Influencing the Culture of Cool

When exactly did it become cool to be a geek? No really, help me out; I can’t pinpoint the exact time it became cool to be a geek. It kind of just snuck up on us, didn’t it? A slow, gradual, unnoticeable process that sought to lift up the lowly geek from his cradle of public ostracism. But it’s here, no doubt about it. Cool geeky action heroes star in mainstream movies, digital watches are chic, tech know-how no longer means you’re a loser, science-related Facebook pages have millions of followers, and “geek fashion” is trendy. I’ve got a theory as to why the geek has made a comeback, but, like all theories, it’s only a collection of observations and assumptions, and it has some holes. It’s not perfect, but perhaps it will help explain why the geek is the new king.

But is the geek truly the new king or am I simply losing my mind? Let’s make some observations.

First, let’s look at fashion. When I look at “geek fashion”, the primary thought that flashes in my mind is: What’s going on? How did dressing like a geek become fashionable? Fashion has always been the domain of the cool and hip, and now that geek-wear is accepted and cool, what does that say about society’s opinion of the geek? The fashionable parts of society have welcomed the geek with open arms. Is this “Geek is the New Sexy” fashion movement simply an offshoot of the hipster’s ironic fashion? Is there something more to this? I think there is, but let’s look at the action heroes next.

Shia Laboef is a prime example of how the geek is gaining momentum. Years ago, in the 80’s and 90’s, the geek was heavily stereotyped in cinema. At worst, he was made a target of ridicule. At best, an object of sympathy. Only occasionally was the geek the star of the show (see Revenge of the Nerds), but, even then, he was heavily lambasted for exhibiting the stereotypical geeky traits. But, now, Shia Laboef is the hero. Albeit a mostly reluctant hero. But, in the end, he still gets the girl (a standard trope of the hero within cinema). Additionally, look at the romanticizaton in cinema of king geek, the hacker, who is cool in his own way, but he too benefits from and adds to the geek’s new, cool image. Next, let’s look at cool technology.

In the 80’s and 90’s, you would be publicly ostracized if you were caught wearing a wrist calculator. The wrist calculator was the scarlet letter of the geek and all the reason anyone needed to poke-fun, at best, or humiliate, at worst, the geek. In 2015, if you don’t have the latest tech and the latest, hottest, smartphone, you’re cool status is called into question. What trendy teenager would be caught dead without their beloved, sleek, slim, sexy, cool smartphone? And not just teens. Everyone loves their phones, but it seems that teens and young adults in particular use their phones to boost their cool factor. Indeed, we are looking at a relatively new trend in technology. New technology needs to not only to function properly, like in the good ol’ days of the 80’s and 90’s, it also needs to look cool. Next, those science-related Facebook page and Youtube channels. 

Some of these Facebook pages, like IFLS, command the attention of millions of people. Numberphile, a channel that analyzes numerical and mathematical theories and relates them to practical matters, has over 1.2 million subscribers on Youtube. How the hell did such geeky subjects gain cultural momentum? In the 80’s and 90’s, mathematics and science were niche subjects that were only studied in university classrooms or under cover of night. These days, if you haven’t seen the latest post on IFLS, you’ve left the in crowd. All the cool kids love IFLS.

Perhaps I’m looking at this all wrong. Maybe geekiness never became cool. Maybe what became cool was the revised idea of the geek. Historically, the image of the geek involved bad skin; messy, dirty hair; a bad facial complexion (think acne); and social awkwardness. What does the new image of the geek look like? It sure as hell doesn’t look like me. The geek’s new image looks like a handsome, muscular guy with good skin, presumable social grace, and clean hair. How do we know he’s a geek? He’s also wearing horn-rimmed glasses.

Maybe I’m just looking at that wrong, because I just described a fashion model modeling “geek fashion”. The fashion industry both reflects and influences culture, so it may be safe to assume that something had to cause the fashion industry to take up the geek banner.

Still, maybe Shia Laboef is a fluke. Maybe it’s all just a fad. Maybe smartphones are seen as cool because wealth equals cool. Maybe Facebook pages are only cool to certain niches, albeit, large niches and have other appeal aside from their technical subject matter. Maybe there is more to the above observations. I suspect there is more in the works that influence these phenomenon, but I’ll just look at just one of the trends at work. I’ll argue that there is a serious, overriding, trend in the works. What is this trend? The lessening and removal of the geek stigma; it is the vindication of the master of tech, the geek.

But, why? How did this trend come about? Why has the geek made such a comeback? What made the fashion industry take up the geek banner? Here’s my imperfect theory.

Given that technology has become increasingly prevalent and, even, invasive, it only makes sense that those folks who understand it all, the geeks, share some part in the fame and coolness that new tech radiates. But, there is a problem with this. Why didn’t this happen in an earlier time, like the 90’s, when technology was just as new? Well, it was new back then, so why wasn’t the geek romanticized, then? My only explanation is that the technology back then, while revolutionary and becoming more common, was simply not as common as it is today. It was “in” people’s lives, but most people didn’t notice it. It just wasn’t as obvious, and in-your-face, as today’s tech.

All of this obvious tech that, quite frankly, rules our lives more than ever has had more than its fair chance to influence the culture. Tech influences the culture and the culture influences the tech (see iPhone culture for proof of that). In the past, the geek was a mere hobbyist whose hobbies didn’t impact much of anything. Today, his skills and abilities have made him a veritable technocrat, and he, thusly, enjoys a golden age that most other subcultures can only hope to catch a glimpse of.

It’s a good time to be a geek. As long predicted, the meek have inherited the earth. The culture of cool is only a reflection of this fact.

I Wanna be Anonymous and I ain’t the Only One!!!

No, I’m not talking about the hacker group “Anonymous”; I’m talking about good ol’ anonymity. Have you ever searched your name using Google? I do on occasion and I’m usually surprised by what I find. Odd little tidbits of information about my life and my history always seem to leak onto the Internet, in some way, at some time. It’s really terrifying that anyone who knows my full name can just perform a Google search to discover who I am. And I have a unique name, so I don’t have the luxury of being buried beneath hundreds of similar names. I’m not the only one worried about my information getting into the wrong hands. Some folks are willing to go to extremes in order to hide their online activities and I can’t really blame them. Anonymity, once something that was relatively easy to have, even on the Internet, is now a fleeting thing in our surveillance age. But, you may ask, “why is anonymity so precious and so prized?” That’s an excellent question. Let’s begin.

Anonymity is precious, but why? Why would anyone care that there information is put on the web for all to see? Okay, maybe people don’t want to have their credit card information or social security numbers readily available to the world. But why would anyone care if random people knew their birthday? After all, it could mean gifts! Well, even seemingly innocent information can have its price. Information links to information. Profiles can be made. A birthday here, a few likes and dislikes there, and a serious profile of who a particular person is can be made. Still, why does this matter? Have any enemies? Perhaps you don’t have any enemies now, but you will have some in the future. And you don’t want any enemies grabbing hold of your information even if the information is nothing more than your likes and dislikes. You don’t want past information to haunt you in the future.

Still not convinced? There’s a rather famous quote, which I just can’t find right now, by a king(?). He said, to paraphrase, “Allow a man to speak twenty words, and I’ll find a way to hang him seven times.” The fact is, there are people out there in influential positions who may not like what you have to say on the Internet. What you say could get you fired, and it could even prevent you from getting a job in the first place. In America, you (ideally) can’t be imprisoned for saying “offensive” things. Unfortunately, the first amendment doesn’t protect you from losing your job over poor word-choice. Perhaps, one day, the first amendment will no longer protect someone from being sent to prison for saying some words. Perhaps that day is already here. “Hate speech” laws are currently used to lengthen a person’s prison sentence. It’s probably only a matter of time before those laws can be used to send someone to jail. Terrifying to think about, but it is a possibility in America and a reality in other countries.

Here’s another, more trivial reason, why anonymity is important. When I say “trivial”, I mean it only in a relative sense of the word. Remember when I spoke of “building a profile” on someone? Profiles can be built and used in social engineering attacks. I once had a boss who was targeted by a couple of social engineers. The only thing they needed was the location of his Aikido dojo and, from there, they were able to grab information about his workplace, finances, methods of payment, his schedule, and, even, his personality. Information can be used to grab more information, so it’s best to limit the information you throw out into the world.

Another reason to remain anonymous on the net is targeted ads. Now this will seem really trivial (and not in the relative sense of the word), but is it trivial? After all, I’m sure some people love to have advertisements that match their interests targeted at them. It makes shopping much more convenient. But doesn’t companies having that kind of information about you pose some kind of threat to you? How businesses use that information really isn’t up to you. They may sell it, exploit it, or discard it on a whim.

Indeed, in recent years, Facebook, Google, and Amazon have become far more information hungry. They want more information about you than they once did. Real names are now required by Facebook and Google. Aliases will no longer be accepted. What about security questions? Aren’t those used just for user authentication? Think about what those questions ask: where were you born, what is your mother’s maiden name, where was your first job? Sounds to me like these popular websites want to build profiles on their users.

Still not convinced of anonymity's importance? How about a little social proof. In recent years, in response to information grabbing organizations and a renewed desire for privacy, new apps and services have sprung up from the void. DuckDuckGo, Whisper, Secret, Local Anonymous, proxy services, virtual privacy networks, the list goes on. As to whether these apps and services provide perfect anonymity is another issue. However, these apps and services rose out of a growing need people have. The need to keep there personal lives and information private, and the need to voice their honest opinions about controversial subjects.

All this considered, if you want to have some semblance of a life, you necessarily need to sacrifice some anonymity. They don’t allow anonymous people to sign up for bank accounts or to get hired at a job. Necessarily, you’ll need to give away some information. Does this mean that the treasures of anonymity are forever outside our reach? No, you can do a great deal to remain relatively anonymous. Anonymity, too, is a relative term. And there are relative degrees of anonymity. Additionally, you can be fairly anonymous on the Internet while not being anonymous in the company of friends and family.

I haven’t gone to extremes to protect my identity either. I’ve protected my information well enough to suit my purposes. Some things can be found out about me such as my name and whatever is put on this blog (good luck attaching my real name to this blog, suckers!), but that’s about it. Nothing too damning. And, like I mentioned before, perfect anonymity isn’t really achievable if you want to have some semblance of a life.

So, how do you remain fairly anonymous? It seems rather simple, and I’ve given some advice in the paragraphs above, but I want to give some explicit advice here. Most of this will seem obvious.

• When using web forums, don’t use your real name (use a cool sounding alias like L337_hacker or Bonobo the Chimpanzee)
• Use a throw-away email account
• Never send information to untrusted websites
• Use a proxy server when surfing the web
• Make sure the information you send over communication channels is encrypted
• Don’t give out your name, address, phone number, email address, backing information, etc. unless absolutely necessary
• And, above all, don’t put any more information, than necessary, online

How much anonymity should a person strive for? That’s up to you. I’m doing a great deal more these days to preserve my anonymity on the Internet and so are other folks. Still, more can still be done to protect ourselves from the electric eye.

Expanding on the God-Machine

This is more of an explanation of a past concept than a full-fledged post, but I felt this explanation was needed. In Supercomputers: The Deity just Waiting to Happen, I speculated on the emergence of a God-machine, but I don’t think I was being clear on what I meant by “God-machine”.  I mentioned some criteria that would need to be met before a computer could be called a God-machine. These criteria were that it would need to have the processing power of a supercomputer AND have sovereignty over a large, networked group of computers. I think I should also mention that to be considered a God-machine, the computer must also possess some features of a God. Seems reasonable, right? This God-machine would need to be both omniscient and omnipotent or achieve these qualities to some degree. Now, a computer can’t really be omnipotent and it can’t really be omniscient, but it can get pretty close to both “ideals” provided it has certain characteristics.

First, let’s discuss omnipotence. A supercomputer may not be able to achieve omnipotence, but it could, potentially, get close if the supercomputer had domain over a large network of infrastructure-related computers. That is, computers that control the electrical grid, water/sewer systems, gas/coal/nuclear power plants, and data centers. I think if a supercomputer had domain over these computers, it would be pretty damn close to omnipotence. It would possess omnipotence over the continuance of civilization as we know it and it could throw us back into the dark ages by simply shutting down the electrical grid. I hope future God-machines don’t have a bone to pick with humanity.

Now, omniscience. I think a supercomputer could get closer to omniscience than it could to omnipotence. Since a God-machine would necessarily have a lot of processing power and a lot of data, given to it by its extensive networks, it could become indistinguishable from an all-knowing deity. It may even be able to predict events based on probability and its extensive data stores.

A final qualification that I haven’t explicitly listed, though I have suggested it, is that (to be considered a God-machine) a supercomputer must work independently of human guidance. Of course, the supercomputer would need guidance in its more formative stages, however, later on, it shouldn’t need any. It should be self-sufficient, command-wise, and self-driven. It would almost have a ghost or, at least, a half-ghost.

Let’s break this down. A supercomputer must have these characteristics if it is to be considered a God-machine:

• Pseudo-omnipotence
• Pseudo-omniscience
• Independence from human guidance

This turned into a greater post than I had initially anticipated. Hopefully it has cleared up a few things about my “God-machine” concept. The one question that still remains is whether a God-machine is possible. Like the previous article, I’ll leave that up to speculation.

The Joy of a First Computer

Sooner or later, I’m going to give away my age. It will probably be in this post, but I won’t give it to you explicitly. You’ll have to work for it. Anyway, does anyone aside from me remember their first computer? I remember my first computer fondly. I remember walking down the stairs of my house into my family’s wood paneled, shag carpeted, basement. I remember the sight of a salesman (or was he a technician?) proudly presenting a detailed image of a mountain lion on a strange-looking box thing. Was it a television? No, there wasn’t a remote and you couldn’t change the channel. Was it a canvas? No, it was pixelated and flashing. Was it a new kind of radio? Possibly, but who had ever heard of a radio with a television screen built into it? If you haven’t already guessed, this was the first time I had seen a computer. And I was mystified. After a while, the computer migrated upstairs and was placed in an empty room, near my brother’s bedroom and family bathroom on the north side of my house. It was placed on the floor. I soon discovered that this machine had something to offer outside animal pictures, videogames. So, I played. The one game I remember playing for hours and hours was a game called Mahjong (I don’t think the computer had any other games installed, no Internet either). I’d lay on the shag carpeting (seriously, it was all over my house, my house never left the 70’s until the early 2000’s) and play until my elbows were sufficiently carpet-burned.

Today, I wish I had done more than play games on the computer, but my interest in computing didn’t really spark into I was in my early 20’s.

I’ve searched long and hard for the exact model of the computer I so fondly remember. I can only go by its brand and by my memory of what it looked like. I think I’ve discovered the model.

I think the computer in the image above was the computer of my youth. According the image description, this is the Packard Bell Synera series. I can’t find much on this model when performing a Google search. Perhaps this isn’t the computer of my youth. Perhaps I’ll post an advertisement on Craigslist: “Wanted, memories of old computer.” I’m sure someone will respond, it is Craigslist after all.

The particular computer model doesn’t matter (though, I’d still like to know what that damn model is for certain). What matters is the feelings and memories my first computer gave me. As I mentioned, my love of computing, and technology in general, didn’t really sprout until I was in my early 20’s. However, it was with this computer, my first computer, that the seeds of this love were planted. Everything has its origins, and my love’s origin was embedded in that ancient machine.