Wednesday, November 08, 2006

living in Windows

In a recent edition of Horizon, they speculated that with the increasing power of computers it would soon be possible to dump an entire human mind into a computer. This idea has actually been a common-place of science fiction for years (for recent examples see 'Eon' and 'Eternity' by Greg Bear).

This raises the terrible possibility of having to live in Microsoft Windows -

  • Your house-mate would be that bloody paperclip - constantly tapping, and asking if you want any help, which, when given, would be entirely unhelpful
  • Google would be constantly interupting to ask - Do you mean: get me out of here
  • Word would be offering synonyms for every other word you said - and poiting out speling mitsakes and errors in grammer your
  • Would they argue amongst themselves? - with Word pointing out to Google that it forgets the question mark when asking - Do you mean:

On the whole I think I'd rather carry on living in my own body - seriously defective though it may be...

1 comment:

Alec said...

This doesn't bear thinking about. Software developers blaming each other for incompatibility, non-compliance with standards, waiting years before an upgrade then having your legitimate copy of the software challenged by the digital rights management. Applications hanging, fatal error messages and finally the blue screen of death. As a metaphor its scary; as a possible reality it's a downright nightmare.