Rational Action

Assume for a moment that computers can think. Anyone who knows anything about computers can certainly attest to the veracity of that statement. In fact, the sentience of computers has become so commonly accepted that Hollywood has made a movie about it. But if that doesn’t convince you, just withold your disbelief. It’s time for a quick lesson in the thought pattern of the common laptop.

You may or may not know that there is a component in every computer (laptop included) called the CPU. The CPU does all of the thinking, and as a result, it generates a lot of heat. Here is the thought pattern for the “Pentium 4-Mobile” CPU (your laptop probably has one) as it begins to heat up:

1. It’s getting warm in here. I’m going to turn on my fan!
2. Oh man it’s getting even hotter. I’m going to turn up that fan so it makes lots of noise, and I’m going to lower my speed so that I make less heat! Oh yeah, and by doing that, I’m going to make the computer really really loud and really really slow!
3. The temperature is still rising! I’m going to SHUT THE COMPUTER DOWN WITHOUT WARNING YOU AT ALL.

How stupid. Your computer has a 30 watt lightbulb under its keyboard and the only way it knows how to cool itself is by flicking the light switch off. No matter if you’re doing something important. Yeah, I know. I too thought “Pentium 4″ meant fast in and outside the icebox.

(Luckily this is not my computer)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 25th, 2004 at 12:26 am and is filed under Rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.