Technology Tamers and the Blue Screen of Ambiguity

"Something's wrong with our server. All the icons are missing and there’s just a blue screen."

I stumbled across the email by chance in my junk folder, but perked up when I saw it was from a company I’d done some work for, and not another ad promising to supply me dirt cheap pharmaceuticals or to make me larger than my friends.

I was tempted to respond, "Um, I write software…hardware is somebody else’s problem," but I didn’t, because I knew why she contacted me. I might not know as much about hardware as the other guy, but I was nicer. I wouldn’t look at her with an expression of thinly veiled boredom and borderline loathing that said You’re not worth my valuable time.

I reached into my bag of server tricks and pulled out the one that was smooth and worn from frequent use: the ole reboot. I explained the situation frankly, "Servers like to be rebooted every once in a while and yours probably hasn't been rebooted in months. It's a memory thing. It will either clear the problem right up, or make it worse...it might not boot up at all."

That's when the client, a woman I knew only professionally from interactions in her office where she chain-smoked and watched one soap opera after another, spoke these profound words: "That’s okay. If there's one thing I've learned about computers, it's that they work when they want to."

Alan Turing would burst with pride at the notion: computers personified to be temperamental. I gave her a weak smile—my blanket response to all such rhetorical statements. Yet, I was disturbed all afternoon, long after the reboot proved to be the cure.

I realized with a jolt that somehow we failed along the way. (We, being the purveyors of technology.) In our attempts to build systems that do just about everything, we lost the rote reliability inherent in machinery. It was supposed to be a 0 or 1, wasn’t it? Not .5. Certainly not mysterious blue.

We put our heads inside the jaws of technology and laughed, thinking we were smarter, more powerful—masters of the domain. But sometimes you can put your head in the proximity of sharp teeth one time too many.

I know I'm just being ridiculous and morose tonight. But last week I heard that for the May election primary, our county will be using "all new" election machines. Then I was told that the "new" machines use paper ballots with the sort of circles you fill in with a #2 pencil: "technology" we used 30 years ago for standardized tests in school. "Are these really new machines utilizing dated technology, or refurbished old machines?" I asked. "Oh, they're all new."

I pondered the fact that we probably salvaged similar machines years ago. This knee-jerk reaction to replace slick,touch-screens with back-to-the-future paper ballots was in response to perceived unreliability of newer systems.

"What’s next?" I asked another programmer. "A resurgence of DOS?" Hey...it's not so far fetched. Is newer and bluer better? We've programmed ourselves to think so. However, as far as I'm concerned, I'd like to move in the opposite direction of Alan Turing's vision. I don't care if computers think or feel. I certainly don't want them to be as flakey as humans. As software developers, I'm afraid too many of us have been too concerned with application sex appeal. We need to start wearing sensible shoes with good arch support, care about quality control, and build systems that do what they're supposed to do.