Hey John, a column on smart computers . Slothower.com

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Say John . . .

"Say John . . ." was a quarterly column I wrote for the Minnesota Daily's computer advertising supplement. This article and the next actaully ran as one piece, but it was a bit too long to present as a single web page. Read on , this is not as dated as one might think, given that it was published in 1990.

It was actually George that started it, though with this group of clowns it could’ve been anyone. We were sitting around in my basement, about a half a dozen of us who get together every month or two, and the subject of computers came up.

"I’d never have one of the damn things," said George, "It’s too much like slavery."

"Wait a minute," I countered, "explain yourself. Owning a machine is like slavery?" perhaps I was a bit defensive since I make my living writing about computers. I thought I’d heard all the phobias and anxieties expressed before, but this was a new one.

"I thought you were into slavery," prompted Jeff, alluding to George’s status as CEO of a fairly large company. "This would be right up your alley."

"Not like this. Oh, we use them in the office but you’ll never see one on my desk. I can’t bear to look at the things. They just sit and beg for you to use them. I’m reminded of dogs sitting and staring at you, waiting for a look or a glance."

"But they're not alive," I said. "It's just a hunk of silicon with a few impurities. A computer has no feelings, no needs or desires. It's just a machine."

"George has a point," said Paul, who is probably a little more socially conscious than some of us. " Look at what you just said, John. You sound like a 1850's plantation owner describing his 'darkies,' "no feelings, no needs or desires. It's just a machine.'"

"Come on," I whined as I got up to inventory the refrigerator. I wasn't sure how many beers had been consumed. "We're talking sophisticated machine. We're talking about a tool. Like a hammer or a saw . . . ."

"You're being insensitive," said George, sensing that a massacre was in the making, and, for once, he wasn't the target. "You don't treat a hammer or a saw like you do a computer. Human babies don't come with as detailed care requirements as you average computer. Of course it has needs and desires. In fact, if you don't treat it right it won't work at all. I haven't yet found a human employee that won't respond to verbal threats. A computer will just laugh, and stop working until it gets what it wants. My entire human-resources department costs less than computer support. I think that not only are they alive but they're smarter than we are."

"This is getting out of hand. Come on, guys. It's just a bunch of components, assembled in a factory and plugged in. It doesn't breed, it doesn't eat, it doesn't drink and it doesn't die."

"Tell that to my hardware technicians," said George. "I get a weekly list of computers that died in the past week. They even give me postmortem reports. And the secretaries in accounting held a funeral for one last month. I think they were serious."

"Let's get back to the smarter stuff," said Jeff. "It makes a lot of sense to me. For instance, I remember seeing you outside working last summer when it was 110 degrees, and shoveling snow at 10 degrees below zero. When was the last time you saw a computer do that?"

Finally Chris jumped in. "I know they're alive and aware. Moreover, George, you're wrong. They can be intimidated." Now Chris is something of a PC guru, even though a psychologist by trade, so we listened up. Paul even put his beer down and stopped crunching tortilla chips: a major concession on his part.

"You are all aware," said Chris, "of situations when a computer stops working, or starts doing things wrong. It happens to almost everybody. We have a dozen or so PCs in my clinic and this is a regular occurrence. But what is interesting is that as soon as somebody that understands the machine comes to work on the problem, the machine starts working properly. Especially if that someone is carrying a screwdriver.

"In fact, I fixed one especially recalcitrant PC by standing over it and humming "If I had a hammer." Poof, no more problem. In short, they know."

"I know they are aware," Paul added. "Have you noticed that they never screw up when it doesn't matter? If a drive is going to go bad, or some obscure 'stack overflow' is going to happen, it's only when you haven't backed up your work. A computer never fails if you're ready for it. It's like having kids -- they know when you're vulnerable."

"And look at how they get pampered. Air conditioning, clean power, clean air; our office was much nicer after we got PCs -- the management wouldn't air condition for human workers but didn't even raise an eyebrow when the systems people said it had to be done for the computers," said Paul. "By the way," he added, turning to me, "when the specifications talk about humidity, what does 'non-condensing' mean?"

"Don't hold their heads under water," Chris volunteered. "Actually, it means they don't want moisture forming drops of water on the wall or the equipment, and they don't want it so dry that static electricity is created. I can live with that."

The story continues