Yesterday, something happened – I’m not quite sure what. The first thing I noticed was the sudden disappearance of all my e-mail. Then, before I knew it, my PowerBook lost it’s mind. Or, more precisely, my mind.
All the preferences for almost everything just vanished inexplicably. My names and addresses, the settings for all the various controls on the computer, the preferences for reading blogs and entering new posts, my own e-mail address…
I floudered for a bit trying to figure out what happened, but I’ll probably never be able to. I started to assess the damage, much as stroke victims must do, quietly trying to put the pieces back together. I wonder if this is a subtle, electronic harbinger of what happens with such insidious diseases such as Alzheimers?
So much information is stored in our little laptops, and when it disappears we realize that none of it was backed up in our brains. The amazing computer has not only transformed the way our society deals with information, it’s taken the information away from us completely and gives it back only when it feels like it. Now I sit with an empty laptop – and feel oddly detached because my e-mail program is devoid of all the e-mails I’ve received. It’s almost as if the people who wrote them are gone.
