Gerard Meuchner's Posts
Motherboard
In the spirit of openness and transparency to which this blog is devoted, I have to confess that I never intended writing for A Thousand Nerds, even though I'm the one who came up with the name for this blog. I'm a technology user, not a technology inventor. I just want stuff to work, and I am perfectly happy leaving it to people far smarter than I am to figure it all out. (Scoff if you like, but it's people like me who keep this service economy of ours humming.)
That was until our resident Nerd Herder, the irrepressible Jane Ryan, approached me. Jane's many duties include corralling Kodak's Nerds to submit posts to ATN, as we refer to it. Her well had temporarily run dry, proving that writer's block also afflicts the engineers among us. Would I, could I, Jane cajoled, conjure up some thoughts to fit this space?
And so it is that I have the honor of sharing this blog with scientists who hold patents, understand quantum physics, and read tech manuals for fun. I share none of those virtues, and I'd like to say, before I prattle on much further, that I appreciate the willingness of the Nerds to allow someone like me to add my voice to theirs.
I say this because the truth is that I am an Anti-Nerd. Not in the sense that I am against Nerds, because I am not, but rather to indicate that I don't have the mental capacity to be one of them -- which brings me to the motherboard.
"You're thinking computer nerd, right? Actually, I don't know diddly about computers."
I used to own a PC as my home computer. I will not say which brand because that would be unfair to all the PCs that suffered, at the time of my ownership, from the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). For those who remember that particular hell, I have no need to recount its horror; for those who never knew it, you have been spared a trip to Dante's tenth circle.
After innumerable episodes of BSOD, and countless hours grinding the enamel off my teeth with the technicians who so blithely staff the phone lines in these so-called customer service departments, I was offered a novel solution to my problem by a help desker whose optimism was truly heroic. "Just swap out the motherboard!" he said cheerily.
Now remember that this was early in 2002, before Wikipedia made it easy (remember that word!) for us Anti-Nerds to figure out what a motherboard was. My friendly help desker kindly offered to mail me one, at a price, after which I -- yes, me! -- was to open up the computer, rummage around its innards like some high-tech gastroenterologist, and replace the thing.
I think the kind reader has sensed by now the Herculean nature of this task for yours truly. For starters, I am not a technology Nerd, as I have previously mentioned, but nor am I a contortionist. Really -- do PC designers think we're all aspiring Houdinis? You've got to get on all fours to extract the pizza box from beneath the desk, then unscramble the bramble of wires that connects the modem to the PC to the monitor to the keyboard to the mouse and to whatever peripherals are strewn about. It ain't easy. (Some might argue that one can just leave the pizza box exposed for easy access; these are the same people who have yet to realize they no longer live in dormitories.)
I finally lifted the case off the computer only to discover that a computer collects dust as efficiently as a clothes dryer collects lint. I sifted through the assorted electronics, located the motherboard, removed it and vacuumed the interior as best I could before installing the new motherboard. Once installed, I reconnected every wire to every device, slid the box back in place, turned the thing on and -- you guessed it! -- the BSOD was there to greet me.
"This computer has hairballs in it again."
Then came one of those moments of serendipity that reaffirms one's faith in all that is good and right in this world. Just days after cursing Motherboard 2.0, I saw a commercial for a most amazing bit of technology -- the original iMac from Apple. And there it was -- the answer to my prayers. No more pizza box and the spine-wrenching movements required to connect it. No more BSOD, or so my Mac-using colleagues attested. An honest-to-God, all-in-one, plug-and-play thing of beauty. Just the redemption that this Anti-Nerd needed. I bought one within days. (I should point out here that I am absolutely reliant on the PC on my desk at work and on the amazingly efficient local tech support team that keeps me running. I also realize that 2002 was eons ago in computer world, but phobias are long-lived with us Anti-Nerds.)
There's a lesson in this. We Anti-Nerds love technology -- but only when it is easy to use. I don't want to overhaul the engine in my car; I just want to drive it. I don't want to replace motherboards; I want to email pictures to friends. That's when technology makes life better. Time spent chatting with tech support saps life.
Anti-Nerds, for example, love antilock brakes because we don't have to do anything different -- just step on the pedal. (I know, I know -- the Auto Nerd will say that antilock brakes are properly used by holding the pedal down instead of pumping it, but the Anti-Nerd says get real.)
If you've gotten this far, you probably know where this story is headed -- right back to good old George Eastman. He said it best: "You press the button, we do the rest." That spirit lives on at Kodak, most notably, I am proud to say for this newly minted blogger, in my new KODAK EASYSHARE 5300 printer (if you'll pardon a bit of gratuitous advertising).
You see, my previous printer, which shall also go unnamed, had the printhead built right into the ink cartridge. This is not an easy approach from the Anti-Nerd weltanschauung. (The Word Nerd will get that reference, but it's not linguistic ease of use. See the problem complexity creates?) Aside from the cost of that liquid gold, every time I replaced the cartridges, I had to reset the printer using that stupid little sheet of paper with all the colored bars and so on. By the time my 5300 arrived -- here's that serendipity thing again -- my old printer had stopped recognizing that stupid sheet of multicolored bars. Something about a "scanner failure." Don't ask.
The Nerds at Kodak, you've got to love them, made life easier for techno-dolts like me. They made the printhead a permanent fixture in the printer, which is where it belongs. Now we Anti-Nerds only have to buy ink when the well runs dry, not pricey silicon, saving me money and something more precious -- time. Because in the end, the Anti-Nerd understands that technology, when properly designed, is about giving us more time for the moments that really matter.
Editors Note: I believe he doth protest too much. By his own admission, Gerard is a Cycling Nerd. And as you know, nerd-dom is not the sole domain of technologists.
