The View from 2005: Much of this seems terribly dated now (it was written ten years ago), due to the ancient operating systems referred to. Also, there’s nothing here about the evils of viruses, spyware, privacy issues or networks, much less downloading, piracy, MP3, IPods or other facets of information technology. For all that, I think it still is right on in terms of the “change” problem, and I’m very pleased with my cost analysis of “staying current,” except to note that you might want to figure your time is now worth $100/hr, so you might want to double my numbers.

Just so you know, I still try to freeze time a little, by making my computers last for five years or more without major changes. It works pretty well. I’ve also learned to outsource my maintenance and upgrade decisions and implementations, as being far cheaper than doing it myself. I also dedicate computers to particular functions, which also helps.

It sure is a fun world!

Future Shock Revisited

“Freeze time,” the guy said.

“What?” Paul was suddenly lost.

“I mean it. Freeze time. It’s the best way out of your problem. Just permanently lock yourself into your present hardware/software configuration, and you won’t have any more problem.”

All Paul had really wanted to do was hook up a larger computer monitor in the control room. But the CPU wouldn’t support the new monitor without a video card and all the card slots were taken. No problem, Paul figured. He’d just swap the CPU with a newer one currently running in the lab, where they didn’t need the bigger monitor and weren’t so tight for slot space.

He’d done so, and everything worked fine except the new CPU wouldn’t recognize the audio card. After numerous reboots, diagnostics, fiddles and head scratching, Paul had admitted defeat and called the card’s manufacturer.

“Oh, it’s very simple,” the customer support guy said. “We don’t support that card any more on the version of the software you need to run in the newer systems. There was a clocking incompatibility. What you need to do is buy the new audio card and upgrade the software.”

When Paul began to bitch about how all he wanted was the larger monitor, which he’d already paid for, so he could at least see the sequencing software and didn’t want to upgrade his perfectly satisfactory audio card, couldn’t afford to either, and how it shouldn’t be this hard, the guy had just said,

“Freeze time.”

What a concept!

Back in the ‘60s, Alvin Toffler coined the term “Future Shock” to describe a particular wackiness (some call it madness) that afflicts us when we are overwhelmed by change. He made the case that the accelerating rate of change in human affairs is leading to increased psychic distress, to the detriment of our overall health. A customer-support boffin for a cutting-edge cyberspace corp saying “Freeze time” to a client is a pretty good example of Future Shock at work. Confronted with an unforeseen problem caused by incoherent parallel change, the guy goes into cyber-regression.

“Freeze time,” he says. A beautiful, elegant, hey, even poetic line.

Cryogenic cyberspace! A Pentium (rev. 1.99937) chip poised forever at step 001000011011101001010001, a bit frozen in ice-time. Quite the fix!