One of my hard drives crashed last night. I have two: a two-year-old 6 kilogigger, and a 5-month-old terabyter. The older one died. Of course, it was the one with my Windows install, and it had all of my device drivers and whatnot. Fortunately, I’ve been migrating files onto the new HD, so all of my important data is safe (-ish. I’ve been a little slow to back it up elsewhere.)
I keep a binder with my Windows CD’s, and a bunch of others that I’ve had for a long, long time (since, like, 1996). Prolly should clean it out, since I’ve still got install discs CD’s that are 3 and 4 upgrades old.
Anyway, I’ve had to install Win XP from scratch, meaning that I had to go out and buy another network cable since I couldn’t get online through my wireless connection (housemates’ internet connection; I’m not pirating wireless), just to download the drivers for my wireless adapter. But, now that I’ve got a wired connection, I’m not gonna worry about the wireless until I move.
So, I’ve spent several hours downloading Windows updates from before SP1 (that’s a looong time ago, in case you’re not up on your Windows history), while simultaneously downloading and installing my anti-virus updates, while also searching for drivers for my video card and monitor, ’cause the default 60 Hz refresh is giving me a headache. I need to fix other video problems, too, but that is the worst.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, I got to thinking: if I didn’t have a computer, I wouldn’t have to be going through all of this (even if it wasn’t a Windoze box). That’s about eight hours I could have spent watching television. (Heh, not bloody likely. I probably would have spent much of the time meandering the paseos around my current house.)
Further along that line of thought was this: I spend a good third or more of my waking life worrying about, tending to, or otherwise enslaved to technology. Mostly computers, but I’m a technophile at heart. If I had any less self-control, I’d be like the supervisor I had who was so completely overtaken by the thought of merely owning an iPhone, that on the release day, she could think of nothing else, and I mean literally nothing else. She was under an Apple-scented spell, and the only way to break it was to drive her to an Apple store and let her get her iPhone. Total addiction.
Our tech is leaching away our peace of mind. If we don’t have it, we want it; if we do have it we’re worried about losing it. And if we do have it, and aren’t worried about losing it, then our world comes to a gut-wrenching, mind-numbing halt when when it goes away.
So what if there were no high-tech gadgets for me to worry about. What if flint and steel were the killer app? What if catching my day’s food occupied a third of my waking life? I think I’d be okay with that.
And, thanks to Windows update asking my to restart my computer every five bloody minutes while I’m typing this entry, I’m now pretty sure I’d be okay with it. If I could just kick the tech habit.
So, what about you? How much of your life do your tech items take over, and what would you be doing if you didn’t have to text, or tweet, or drive while talking on your cell phone?
