![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Bertie Owen, 6 September 2009 – 16 October 2023
I have never before mourned a computer, but I never named one before, either, and the process is novel to me.
Bertie Owen entered my life at the end of a period of technological stupidity during which I lost three laptops in two years. The first melted down after three years of reliable service, the third froze up after a much less satisfactory eight months, and the second so far as anyone can tell was accidentally kicked or tripped over at a friend's house while in my backpack and its case stove in, culprit unknown to this day. The latest machine arrived new, which had not been the case with all of my computers, and was installed to life at the dining room table of a family friend. I remember that I minded very much the loss of my desktop wallpaper which had been a screencap of a White Star from Babylon 5, but I never got around to finding a suitable replacement and over time acclimated to the sort of purple galactic swirl of the Apple default. The more major deal was that I was able to transfer over my preferred version of Word with several of my rarer fonts from college and grad school, such as Greek with all the diacritics and cuneiform.
The new machine went unnamed, and indeed without much of a discernible personality, until 16 June 2012 when I had to take it in to the Apple store under the impression that one of its fans had died and to the surprise of all concerned it was discovered instead to have never had more than the one fan to begin with. According to the specs produced by the very confused dude in the utilikilt, its model was supposed to have two. It occurred to me then to name it for the first two one-lunged people I could think of, the historical George VI and Le Guin's Owen Pugh. It immediately died in the back room of the Genius Bar and was recalled to life without loss of data and I began to think of it as a fisher king. I was unsurprised to learn a year later that he was the only model of his weight class to use a particular, slightly inconvenient wattage of charger. I am not actually sure at which point he acquired animate pronouns.
In increasing divergence from Apple's priorities, he was exactly optimized to my idea of a computer, i.e. a word processor I could check my e-mail on and sling over my shoulder to catch a train. He played music through a set of speakers even more ancient than himself and allowed me access to my minimal text-based social media and supported a number of necessary applications and connections with which newer machines were not reverse-compatible. He survived three keyboard transplants, the permanent death of his CD drive, two changes of hard drive, at least one replaced battery, and more chargers than I can recall. He traveled out of state every time I did and out of the country the last time it was possible for me to do so. He remained throughout technically a 15" 2009 MacBook Pro, but I understood he was also the ship of Theseus. He weathered misfortunes which had reduced younger machines to e-waste. He was incredibly stubborn. I had to blow cat fur out of his one fan on a regular basis.
Especially in light of the hurtling trend toward planned obsolescence and against the right to repair, I cannot believe he was expected to last fourteen years, replacement parts or no. I doubt he would have lasted this long without the technical doctoring of my father, who was repairing televisions in New York City in the '50's and built all of the computers of my childhood until the toaster Mac. Nonetheless, Bertie chugged along so sturdily, without any signs of building trouble, that I did not expect him to come up against the mortality of his LCD cable with a sudden static pop and zap to black mid-sentence on Sunday night. Then again, one of his eponyms famously pegged out with no sense of timing and at least the computer's successor only has to make the journey from Micro Center. I am still not reconciled to the loss. Even now, inaccessible except as an external hard drive, he remains an archive of more than twenty years of my life.
I can't take him with me, but I trust him for the nekyia.
Bertie Owen entered my life at the end of a period of technological stupidity during which I lost three laptops in two years. The first melted down after three years of reliable service, the third froze up after a much less satisfactory eight months, and the second so far as anyone can tell was accidentally kicked or tripped over at a friend's house while in my backpack and its case stove in, culprit unknown to this day. The latest machine arrived new, which had not been the case with all of my computers, and was installed to life at the dining room table of a family friend. I remember that I minded very much the loss of my desktop wallpaper which had been a screencap of a White Star from Babylon 5, but I never got around to finding a suitable replacement and over time acclimated to the sort of purple galactic swirl of the Apple default. The more major deal was that I was able to transfer over my preferred version of Word with several of my rarer fonts from college and grad school, such as Greek with all the diacritics and cuneiform.
The new machine went unnamed, and indeed without much of a discernible personality, until 16 June 2012 when I had to take it in to the Apple store under the impression that one of its fans had died and to the surprise of all concerned it was discovered instead to have never had more than the one fan to begin with. According to the specs produced by the very confused dude in the utilikilt, its model was supposed to have two. It occurred to me then to name it for the first two one-lunged people I could think of, the historical George VI and Le Guin's Owen Pugh. It immediately died in the back room of the Genius Bar and was recalled to life without loss of data and I began to think of it as a fisher king. I was unsurprised to learn a year later that he was the only model of his weight class to use a particular, slightly inconvenient wattage of charger. I am not actually sure at which point he acquired animate pronouns.
In increasing divergence from Apple's priorities, he was exactly optimized to my idea of a computer, i.e. a word processor I could check my e-mail on and sling over my shoulder to catch a train. He played music through a set of speakers even more ancient than himself and allowed me access to my minimal text-based social media and supported a number of necessary applications and connections with which newer machines were not reverse-compatible. He survived three keyboard transplants, the permanent death of his CD drive, two changes of hard drive, at least one replaced battery, and more chargers than I can recall. He traveled out of state every time I did and out of the country the last time it was possible for me to do so. He remained throughout technically a 15" 2009 MacBook Pro, but I understood he was also the ship of Theseus. He weathered misfortunes which had reduced younger machines to e-waste. He was incredibly stubborn. I had to blow cat fur out of his one fan on a regular basis.
Especially in light of the hurtling trend toward planned obsolescence and against the right to repair, I cannot believe he was expected to last fourteen years, replacement parts or no. I doubt he would have lasted this long without the technical doctoring of my father, who was repairing televisions in New York City in the '50's and built all of the computers of my childhood until the toaster Mac. Nonetheless, Bertie chugged along so sturdily, without any signs of building trouble, that I did not expect him to come up against the mortality of his LCD cable with a sudden static pop and zap to black mid-sentence on Sunday night. Then again, one of his eponyms famously pegged out with no sense of timing and at least the computer's successor only has to make the journey from Micro Center. I am still not reconciled to the loss. Even now, inaccessible except as an external hard drive, he remains an archive of more than twenty years of my life.
I can't take him with me, but I trust him for the nekyia.
no subject
no subject
Thank you. Getting hold of the data turned out to be far more complicated than anyone wanted, but the process is underway.
no subject
no subject
His hard drive stayed alive! We just couldn't get a display to come up on his screen or anyone else's and surgery was eventually required. I shall think of him as the ghost in the machine.
no subject
It maybe sounds weird to say about a computer, but so sorry for your loss. :( Machines, no matter what the type, do indeed have their own quirks and personalities, and so it only makes sense that you'd miss this one, especially after spending so much time with him.
no subject
Much! Ordinarily there should have been no issue with recent backups, but the events of the summer and fall interfered. His brain is now in multiple jars.
It maybe sounds weird to say about a computer, but so sorry for your loss.
Thank you. I am still desperately missing him.
no subject
no subject
Thank you. Me, too.
no subject
no subject
He was one of a kind. Thank you.
no subject
no subject
Please do!
*hugs*
no subject
no subject
Thank you.
*hugs*
no subject
no subject
Thank you.
no subject
(Also Wakanomori thinks he has a 2009 Macbook... but not a 15 inch... (just in case you want an ancient close-equivalent...) )
no subject
Thank you. They deserve all the recognition. Bertie's hard drive was still chugging to the last, even invisibly.
(Also Wakanomori thinks he has a 2009 Macbook... but not a 15 inch... (just in case you want an ancient close-equivalent...) )
*hugs*
no subject
no subject
Eight isn't bad!
no subject
*hugs*
Nine
no subject
Thank you.
*hugs*
no subject
I am very sorry about Bertie's loss! I am glad that it sounds from this as if you recovered the hard drive and data?? ♥
no subject
Yes! He is a brain in a canister and several ghosts in different machines. There are still issues of access, but keyn-ahora nothing seems to have been lost.
Thank you.
no subject
I was so sad about the end of my first Macbook. The one I have now is okay but it's not the same. I get it.
no subject
Thank you.
I was so sad about the end of my first Macbook. The one I have now is okay but it's not the same. I get it.
The sympathy is very much appreciated, and extended in return. What was your first?
no subject
It was heavier than the new ones but I liked the keyboard so much better!
no subject
I'm now recalling both the laptops I've named over the years and those I haven't. Three, so far, have told me their names, while one never did. I still feel rather guilty about that last.
no subject
Yes, it has! His hard drive is even still extant. I do not plan to throw him out.
I'm now recalling both the laptops I've named over the years and those I haven't. Three, so far, have told me their names, while one never did. I still feel rather guilty about that last.
It might just have been very private. It's not as though you wouldn't have made it feel safe.
no subject
My MacBook Pro Minions, circa 2011, send heartfelt condolences.
no subject
Thank you.
My MacBook Pro Minions, circa 2011, send heartfelt condolences.
Please tell them I really appreciate it.
no subject
Still, it is a really big change, and so unsettling. And people never really retire at others' convenience altogether.
P.
no subject
He still isn't technically dead: the failure was not of his hard drive. He's just sort of stored. Thank you.
Still, it is a really big change, and so unsettling. And people never really retire at others' convenience altogether.
It's true. I'm not enjoying entropy very much right now.
*hugs*
no subject
no subject
Thank you.
*hugs*
no subject
Wow, he lasted a long time. Not that that makes a faithful companion's passing any easier, ever.
no subject
*hugs*
Wow, he lasted a long time. Not that that makes a faithful companion's passing any easier, ever.
He was steadfast.
no subject
no subject
Thank you. You would definitely have met him. He was compact and silvery and somewhat battered around the edges, but who isn't these days?
It is of course also your story--the story of connection of person and machine. The soyvay-cyborg?
Symbiosis.
*hugs*