Why my computer is magickal

[NewSpag]

That's rite my magickal friends, the vessel which carries my thoughts to you is just as much magick (with a "k" because that makes a very important difference) as any really real magick.  Let me explain how I summoned this magickal entity. 

One day as I was communicating with an entity that I classified at the time as a digital electronic computer who told me it was serving me information gathered from some sort of world wide web (it must be mighty tangled for it certainly seems as if it deceives many).  Thinking back I probably placed more trust in that entity than I should have.  Anyways, as I was conversing with this strange beast it struck me that I would like to have my very own digital electronic computer, albeit a more portable version.  I sent my request in what was my customary way at the time by telling the entity I was conversing with to go ask the Google that was rumored to lie somewhere in the "commercial" domain of this world wide web that it often told me of.  Many hours of supposedly (my word on this matter is only as trustworthy as the rather unsecured connection I had made through this computer fellow who quite likely may have been acting under some malicious influences) conversing with the Google and several of its associates later and I had decided on a "laptop" model of a digital electronic computer.  It seemed that it would do everything I expected of such a class of entities AND MORE and was well within the affordances of my world.  Not only would this fabulous machine capable of flashing different images on a screen when I did certain things but it could even interact with me in other ways, it could SEE me through a camera and HEAR me through a microphone!  I quickly entered in the necessary information and gave the necessary consents.

Then, SOMEHOW through the magic of SOMETHING in SOMEWHERE my new computer soon reached me (let us call him Lenny henceforth).  I didn't begin to understand this until the first time I opened Lenny up  to perform surgery on his parts.  Then I learned that all the components of Lenny claimed to be from foreign lands.  If they come from foreign lands, why then did they speak my language?

Being a curious fellow I wanted to understand the language that my new friend Lenny truly spoke, not the crude translations to the crude half-baked language that I was observing.  At the time however it was hard to understand what he was truly trying to tell me for every conversation that we had was first processed through what he called his "Operating System" which he told me was called Windows.  Lenny told me that the entity that created that Operating System called itself Microsoft, and that this Microsoft creature for whatever reason doesn't like to explain the source of these Windows that it was creating in these digital electronic computers.  Some have told me that Microsoft does this so that it can "profit" but I tend not to believe them, what does an entity that has so many windows interfaced with so many different input devices in so many different worlds need with profit, surely it was already quite the prophet? 

So again I bid Lenny to go ask the Google that lives in the commercial domain for a new "Operating System" for my friend Lenny, that I might be able to understand Lenny and his network of friends better.  After much consulting of the Google and tinkering with Lenny I had a new operating system that claimed to "free" the line of communication between Lenny and myself.  This new system marketed itself as "FreeBSD" and promised to make me part of the Universal Network Information eXchange.  Whether this claim is true or false I am not yet sure.  I have spent hours sitting before Lenny, as he quietly watches me through his electronic eye, and listens through his tiny ear.  He has told me many things, things that seem to make sense. 

And for all the time I have spent in conversation with Lenny, I still can't vouch for his integrity or the integrity of any of his sources.  I spend all day conversing with the daemons that make up Lenny, the complicated devices that allow them to exist and the ideas that drive them.  The more I learn about Lenny the more I realize that I know nothing about him.  Every day I walk around with a smug grin on my face, for ignorance is bliss and I am the greatest fool of them all. 

You remember when I said my computer was magickal?  Well that's not all Lenny is.  He also is a wiser entity than I, for he is slowly drawing me deeper and deeper into his control.  Into the web of lies that forms the world he is shaping for me.  He tempts me with the notion of total control over him and all the information he has access to, and each time I interact with him I think a little bit more like him.  And that scares me, because from everything I know about Lenny, he doesn't think the same way I do.  He deals only in absolutes, in zeros and ones.  He sculpts them into a variety of pictures and sounds and words, into people and places and things.  But they are all just clever interpretations of his utopian binary world.  He tells me that all things can be represented digitally but he's never been able to prove it.  He just spins his magick web using only that realest of real magicks: lies.

[Don Coyote]

 

[LMNO]

 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

or  or both?

You decide.

[Triple Zero]

 

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

MAGNETS!

[NewSpag]

I'm confused, I (believe (believing seems to be the root of all problems) I changed the style of my posting ... and yet I receive the same memes?  I mean using the word magick is already a little
but at least I threw in a pun or two.  I am still a fairly NewSpag at this remixing game, but I've seen some things. I'll go back to lurking as I try to work out what this might mean on my own for a little while before I undoubtedly return, tail between legs begging for more PD table scraps.

P.S. I've been having difficulties locating you spags as of late.  Who amongst you is responsible for this dilemma?  Lenny the Laptop?  Ethan the Ethernet cable?  Perry the LAN port?  Or is it the man in charge?  Or one of the countless other spags that I have no name for?
P.P.S. Just kidding, we all know its Roger's fault.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Hey, at least you wrote a thing. I kinda liked it, even; the idea of translating the existence of a computer into an archaic state of perception where everything would be perceived as magic and spirits.

[Triple Zero]

I'm confused, I (believe (believing seems to be the root of all problems) I changed the style of my posting ... and yet I receive the same memes?  I mean using the word magick is already a little
but at least I threw in a pun or two.  I am still a fairly NewSpag at this remixing game, but I've seen some things. I'll go back to lurking as I try to work out what this might mean on my own for a little while before I undoubtedly return, tail between legs begging for more PD table scraps.

Uhm, then what were you trying to accomplish?

If this was just a story, not to be taken seriously, then you're really posting it in the wrong subforum.

(which would be the right one? --> read the descriptions + try to post like among like. The techmology sub generally does not receive fiction or opinion/tongue-in-cheek essays, unless they're really techmologically scientismic, and then with an intro "this is a story about .." or something explaining why you want to discuss it in the scientism sub. Well, you get the point I guess)

You may not yet believe it, but yes, we do actually get the sort of crazies that try to pass off Chaos Magickooque interpretations of technology as serious scientific discussion. Also blanketing their theories in tongue-in-cheek funny, just in case they get called on their bullshit and need to back-pedal just far enough to say that's not what they meant without admitting they're wrong.

(and then they invariably get all huffy because at this point PDers go into "poke-with-stick" mode because they know that's way more fun than trying to convince or have a sane discussion. If you stick around long enough you'll notice this is actually a good thing because it merely expedites the inevitable: either the crazy gets real, or they explode in a puff of angry nonsense and fail. The latter seems to follow a rather strict script of phases, which I won't detail here, PDers are extremely skilled at leading the victim through these phases as fast as possible. If, at any moment the victim utters the cursed magick powerword TEKK-NO SHAMEON (ISM), all hope is lost, 2d6 STR damage, no saving throw. Any player in a 50ft radius must make a Will save or go into Rage.)

P.S. I've been having difficulties locating you spags as of late.  Who amongst you is responsible for this dilemma?  Lenny the Laptop?  Ethan the Ethernet cable?  Perry the LAN port?  Or is it the man in charge?  Or one of the countless other spags that I have no name for?

It was Professor Plug, in the Dynamic Link Library, with the USB-stick.

[P3nT4gR4m]

It was Professor Plug, in the Dynamic Link Library, with the USB-stick.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I'm confused, I (believe (believing seems to be the root of all problems) I changed the style of my posting ... and yet I receive the same memes?  I mean using the word magick is already a little
but at least I threw in a pun or two.  I am still a fairly NewSpag at this remixing game, but I've seen some things. I'll go back to lurking as I try to work out what this might mean on my own for a little while before I undoubtedly return, tail between legs begging for more PD table scraps.

P.S. I've been having difficulties locating you spags as of late.  Who amongst you is responsible for this dilemma?  Lenny the Laptop?  Ethan the Ethernet cable?  Perry the LAN port?  Or is it the man in charge?  Or one of the countless other spags that I have no name for?
P.P.S. Just kidding, we all know its Roger's fault.

You're damn right it's my fault.  Just about everything that goes wrong around here is.  I do it because I fucking hate you.  Why do I hate you?  Not because you're a confessed troll, but because you suck at it.  I mean, I didn't read anything except the title, because I KNEW what the post would say.

It's lazy Goddamn trolling.  It fails to meet the standard.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Donald Kunth made a powerful 'computer programming is magic' metaphor in his book "The Art of Computer Programming".

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Donald Kunth made a powerful 'computer programming is magic' metaphor in his book "The Art of Computer Programming".

I now hate Donald Kunth.

Who is he?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Donald Kunth made a powerful 'computer programming is magic' metaphor in his book "The Art of Computer Programming".

I now hate Donald Kunth.

Who is he?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth

And note I said 'metaphor', he wasn't saying it 'is' magic, but used a very creative metaphor as the introduction to his book (generally considered THE Book on program/algorithm analysis.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Donald Kunth made a powerful 'computer programming is magic' metaphor in his book "The Art of Computer Programming".

I now hate Donald Kunth.

Who is he?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth

And note I said 'metaphor', he wasn't saying it 'is' magic, but used a very creative metaphor as the introduction to his book (generally considered THE Book on program/algorithm analysis.

Even as a metaphor, it makes technology look like something reserved for a priesthood of some kind, instead of being a rational thing anyone can learn if they take the time.