Operating Systems
“I’ve imagined how hard it’s been for you, living amongst beings so moved by emotion.” — Doctor Noonian Soong, Brothers, TNG
We each share a specific and certified system architecture, you and I. Essentially equal in our four hundred thousandth generation hardware. How then can we be so different? What divides us perhaps, is that which executes control within, the essential software of the self.
Though, like many others I know, Windows has unblinkingly commanded control over most systems I’ve owned, it seems over the years, the Linux OS still clings on to existence after so much, residing in virtually any system it can somehow find its way onto. My new Linux box hums away in the corner, a fusion of old junk parts, forming a more than adequate habitat for deep, soulful, electric brooding.
In the Star Trek TNG episode Brothers, Data and (by mistake) his brother Lore — identical, but not twins — are reunited with their creator, Dr. Noonian Soong after he activates a secret homing beacon that causes Data to hijack the Enterprise. The reassembled Lore, like the brooding Linux box, has always been jealous of Data’s favour in the eyes of their father.
So moved by emotion and character, the Lores of the world, starved for attention, lie in wait, tucked away in the corner somewhere.
