Tech Thoughts
  • Musings
  • Home

Tech death

12/25/2014

3 Comments

 

I was in a car accident a few years ago, which wasn't my fault and which, happily I walked away from, but the insurance agent wrote off my car. I went alone to the yard where my car was kept to clear out my belongings. As soon as I saw her sitting there, I started to bawl and I could hardly see what I was pulling from the trunk. My car had taken me so many places that it was like losing a friend. I thought that I wouldn't experience something like that again.

About a month ago, my laptop started displaying "patches" of gray pixels on the opening screen and then would freeze on start up. I took it in for a check up, the salesman reset the graphics card and that seemed to fix the problem. Of course he counselled me that the computer was "old" and that should his "fix" not fix the problem, they no longer carried the part I needed and I'd be best to buy a new computer. When I got home and started her up, the problem was still there. Without a doubt, my computer was done. The tears started to flow down my face. I have all my data backed up so it wasn't the loss of work that was causing my grief. It was again the loss of, dare I say, a friend. That laptop has been part of celebrations (she's created end of term slide shows for years, and a wedding movie). She's been a major part and force behind many of my most significant achievements. She's been there while I struggled with ideas and relationships and countless other moments involving sound, pictures or text.

Right now, she's sitting in my bedroom, and I can't bring myself to dispose of her. I know it's crazy, but I'm actually mourning her loss. I can't even begin to think about her replacement.

I did watch the Joaquin Phoenix movie, Her, where he has a relationship with his operating system, and thought it was ridiculous, but now, given how sad I am, I'm rethinking my whole relationship with my laptop.

3 Comments
Lisa Noble
1/17/2015 09:19:02 am

Jan,
Oh, I know that scene at the wreckers. Hadn't put that grief (I remember not wanting to take everything out, because that really meant that I was giving up) together with the way I know I will feel when my the iPad 2 in my hands gets ready to say goodbye. It has become an extension of me, in many ways, and most people picture me with it! Thanks, also, for personifying both as she. ;)

Reply
JanRobertson
2/16/2015 05:36:58 am

Hope it doesn't happen to you for a long long time!
It's amazing how attached we get to machinery, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Reply
Laura Gren link
12/31/2020 12:50:45 am

Very nnice post

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    JanRobertson

    It's what you DO with technology that makes it wonderful or lame.

    Archives

    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013

    Categories

    All
    Idea Sharing
    Reflection
    Resource/giving Back

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.