Thursday, July 08, 2004
Entropy makes fools of us all
I have always liked computers, and disdained machines. By machines, I mean anything that makes its living by moving its parts; by computers, I mean those oh so useful boxes that perform a trillion calculations for me every day, accurate in every case. Machines do one thing over and over. Computers are universal; you can program a computer to do (almost) anything. I'm always afraid of breaking machines, or of lacking the skill to use them correctly. Learning to drive was not fun. Learning to use a computer is painless---make a mistake, and no harm done. You can always start again.
But there's a catch, and I hate to admit it. Computers are machines, too. The fool us with an virtual world of logic and light, but under the hood its all silicon, wires, and motors. And it can break.
Last night I was fiddling with my 1.5 year old laptop, optimizing some setting in my latex configuration, thinking how I'd never been so happy with a PC as with this neat, orderly, reliable notebook, which had never had a significant problem of any kind. So naturally, five minutes later, the motherboard died.
Yes, just like an automobile, or a house, or the creatures of the wilds, or a human being, a computer is just a machine that will inevitably decay, break down, and pass away. So which is the scarier thought: that we're all doomed to be dust, or that my dissertation, and all the data, programs, and calculations that go into it, is trapped in an ephemeral world that could crumble without warning? Having heard of academics who lost their lives' work in house fires, I'm pretty sure I know the answer.
But there's a catch, and I hate to admit it. Computers are machines, too. The fool us with an virtual world of logic and light, but under the hood its all silicon, wires, and motors. And it can break.
Last night I was fiddling with my 1.5 year old laptop, optimizing some setting in my latex configuration, thinking how I'd never been so happy with a PC as with this neat, orderly, reliable notebook, which had never had a significant problem of any kind. So naturally, five minutes later, the motherboard died.
Yes, just like an automobile, or a house, or the creatures of the wilds, or a human being, a computer is just a machine that will inevitably decay, break down, and pass away. So which is the scarier thought: that we're all doomed to be dust, or that my dissertation, and all the data, programs, and calculations that go into it, is trapped in an ephemeral world that could crumble without warning? Having heard of academics who lost their lives' work in house fires, I'm pretty sure I know the answer.
