When I got back last night, one of the four fans which seem to be needed to run a quiet computer was making a hidous graunching noise. I really hate that kind of thing when I am trying to work, so I spent some time trying in vain to shut it up this morning. Finally I just ordered a replacement, since this was the smallest and least important fan on the motherboard. Then I thought, I have a mac here. I will just plug everything into that, and work in delicious silence for a few days. I got more silence than I had bargained for. Itunes hung hard and repeatedly every time I asked it to read in new tracks from a USB hard drive. The only way to get it to shut off was to turn off the power. Why do people claim that Apples are more reliable and easier to use than PCs? They are just (lots) prettier. Nor could I work out any way to change the background colour of the screen from white. That is something that has maddened me about macs for years. I don’t like writing on a white background. It gives me headaches. Why can’t I change it? Meanwhile, I am never going to buy anything from the Itunes store, because of DRM. So why isn’t there a simple Mac app that just plays and organises music, without trying to sell me stuff?
In the end, I just yanked out the power connector for the noisy fan, and went back to the PC where I am typing this. If it starts to smoke, I will worry, offline.
UPDATE: I bought a new, elegant passive cooler to replace the noisy fan, but I would have had to get out the whole motherboard to install it, unless there is a way to yank out pushpins from the front. So in the end I just sprayed all the fans with WD40 and now have a silent, cool computer again.
I used to be really afraid of messing around like that until I went to a party many years ago, at Rupert’s where not only were all the people walking around with the brains rewired and hanging out but all the computers (back when to have even one was distinguished) all had their cases off and extra bits wedged in any old how. So, I thought, if this is how a man who really understands them treats his hardware, what can go wrong if I do the same?
The fact is you’ve got your headline backwards. This is not about you hating computers. This is about computers hating you. Which I believe, if you think carefully, you will decide is wholly justified. 🙂
Really says what life with all those robots would have been like.
wg
Many thanks for this, Andrew: it’s sobering to be reminded just how popular eugenics was in left and enlightened circles in the early 20th century. However, I think the fact that the idea died an instant death is grounds for optimism and encouragement. The Nazis were kind enough to show us just what is entailed in putting this particular theory into practice. The resulting shock made a lot of people think a bit harder. It’s not often that we see an apparently worthy idea becoming completely unacceptable in such a short period of time. Perhaps we really are capable of moral improvement.