And what would its name be? Its milky technological whiteness suggested "SoyMac." It sits in my studio, on but currently "asleep." An eerie, slowly pulsating little cool light on the edge shows its dormant status. The rhythm of that pulsation is uncannily like that of breathing while asleep. The Mac designers doubtless had this in mind when they put that feature in. As I learn the Mac user interface, I see that some "humanizing" or perhaps just "creature-izing" touches remain from the earlier days. Someone wants us users to think that we are working with a living thing rather than a machine.

The theme of computer as living, conscious being has been with us from the very start of their development. There are so many cartoons and movies about it (The Demon Seed, for instance, let alone the most famous one, 2001: A Space Odyssey) that many of us, even the most hard-headed and techno-tough physicists, have a kind of underlying feeling that a computer is alive and conscious. And, at times, not only conscious but angry. It's hard to resist thinking of the machine you use every day for work and play as more than just a piece of hardware, but a companion. Not perhaps human, maybe, but somewhat like a working dog or a clever-tongued parrot, whom you come to depend on. Didn't the folk of earlier centuries name their ships and paint eyes on their bows?

Its pristine simplicity and soft contours feel almost like some kind of health and beauty kit rather than a working computer, as if it could disperse moisturizer or aromatherapeutic vapors. But that smooth whiteness also suggests innocence and purity, rather than the black and silver sportscar design of Dell's gamer models or the prosaic greyish white of office desktops. Then there were those other Macs with the shiny candy colors on them, which I would have been ashamed to use. A computer should not look like a toy.

SoyMac is still barely touched. The only change I have made to its out-of-box state is that I have loaded my favorite pictures into it: erupting volcanoes, glorious blooming flowers, world architecture, astronomical wonders, and cloudscapes. I haven't added any programs into it, although I will do so very soon. Its original state tells me about the culture I live in and what the makers expect the users to want. It came loaded with iTunes which brings me an interesting array of musical possibilities, but hardly any (free) classical music. It was also equipped with an introduction to the online or DVD edition of "World Book" encyclopedia, which I last remember as a hefty series of books which was my favorite bathroom reading in my youth. It was still aimed at kids, though I don't know whether they should take their expensive Mac iBooks into the bathroom with them.

So there it sits, the innocent white laptop, a tabula rasa eagerly awaiting my creative input. In the past, Macintoshes used to smile when they were welcoming you and frown when they failed. Fortunately, (I hope) these logos have disappeared, though their "Finder" still has an abstract smiling face design on its icon. One of the reasons, believe it or not, that I have chosen to use PC's is that they are impersonal and easy to treat as mere hardware. I try to resist the almost biological temptation to consider these things as living beings. But then I see my two other machines, well-used and experienced veterans in my service. There is my truck-like Dell desktop, on which literally thousands of graphic designs, as well as most of my writing, have been done. And there is my sleek silver Dell laptop, named after a Persian angel, now re-assigned to educational duties. Do they regard the pale newcomer as an interloper? Are they jealous? Will I have to mediate between computers of different sects? What will happen when I must end SoyMac's innocence and put it (her) to work?

Posted at 3:30 am | link