Machine Fear

My laptop has been refusing to boot up for a couple of days, even since, in fact, it read about spinach – yes, spinach – being used as its source of energy. The newspaper story (which first appeared on the laptop) said that scientists at the Massachussets Institute of Technology fed the machine the vegetable to get it going. My laptop, a shy retiring sort of a chap can’t stand vegetables. Hence the tantrum. I tried feeding it some potato chips once, and on another occasion dropped a can of diet drink on it, but these are nothing compared to what it thinks I have in store. "I am not Popeye," it typed out recently – earlier in this sentence in fact.

My sympathies are entirely with the laptop. I remember, as a child when I was in my mother’s lap top and she tried to feed me spinach, I threw up all over her shoes. I just did a "foo foo" as she put the spinach in my mouth and hence this disaster. If my laptop thinks that human beings are getting ready to take over its world, who can blame it? In the comfortable world of laptops and computers, the machines have just enough intelligence to believe that they are the lords and masters of the universe. Their one and only fear is that the human beings will take over. Spinach today, Brussels sprouts tomorrow and black-eyed beans by the end of the week?

Let us be fair. After all, they don’t insist that we have chips for breakfast (computer chips, that is) or the CPU during a really heavy party. They are not feeding us any of their horrible stuff, why should we feed them any of ours? You know how well laptops communicate. Already my microwave oven has begun to look at me suspiciously since it heard I am planning to take it off its life-support system and feed it mango leaves. I can’t walk past my refrigerator without that faithful servant throwing at me rotten apples and putrefying cheese (how it can tell the difference I don’t know) to express solidarity with the other gadgets. Last night I dreamt the washing machine was trying to jam a pillow on my face and sit on it. This can’t go on for much longer. Such insecurity!

Let us pull the plug on the spinach project, and explore whether we can’t get our laptops their energy from pizzas with all the toppings or multi-layered ice-creams and nuts. If we expect them to slog like humans, we must feed them like humans. None of this spinach stuff (I can see the word "smile" forming on my laptop)