Untitled - witz cultural

381NOTES TO PAGES36-42pdmarily, if not entirely, a linguistic and discursive formation . . . Although researchersin the physical and human sciences acknowledged the importance ofmateriality in different ways, they nevertheless collaborated in creating the postmodernideology that the bodys materiality is secondary to the logical or semioticstructures it encodes" (192). Compare ]. David Bolter and Diane Gromola's discussionsof "the myths of disembodiment" inWindows and Minors,117-23.16. Mitchell wittily narrates the evolution of computers (rather than monitors ordisplays) from the vantage point of an architect-designer: "Mainframes were designedas large-scale items of industrial equipment, and at their best-in the handsof Charles Eames, for example-achieved a tough, hard-edged, machine-age clarityof form. They were often put on display in special, glass-enclosed rooms. The bulkycomputer workstations of the 1970s and 1980s were medium-scaled wheeled furniture-nottoo different from writing desks, pianos, and treadle sewing machines,but styled for laboratory rather than domestic environments. PCs evolved fromclumsy beige boxes to sleekly specialized, various colored and shaped versions foroffices, classrooms, and homes. Now that they are fading into history after a life ofapproximately twenty years, they look increasingly like surrealist constructionsthechance encounter ofa typewriter and a television on a desktop. Portables startedout mimicking luggage (right down to the handles and snaps), then appropriated theimagery of books that could open, close, and slip into a briefcase" (Me++,70-711.17. Mitchell points out that the effect on work-practice of such locationindependentinformation has turned out differently than many predicted: "Theemerging, characteristic pattern of twenty-first-century work is not that of telecommuting,as many futurists had once confidently predicted; it is that of the mobileworker who appropriates multiple, diverse sites as workplaces" (153).18. This brings up the entire subject of computer humor and parody, oftendirected at Microsoft products. Anyone who's found annoying the Microsoft OfficeAssistant in earlier versions of Word, which pops up with the intrusive statementthat you seem to be writing a letter and asks if you want help, will appreciate DaveDeckerts parody: one encounters what appears to be a screenshot ofa documentfrom an earlier version of Microsoft Word (5.11), in which a user has typed "DearWorld, I just can't take it anymore. I've decided"-at which point a cartoon image ofdancing paperclip pops up on the screen accompanied by the message "Looks likeyou're committing suicide," followed below by the text "Office Assistant can help youwrite a suicide note. First, tell us how you plan to kill yourself." This text appearsabove two rows of buttons, the top one of which offers the options "Pills," "|ump,""Pastry," and the bottom row has "Tips," "Options," and "Close" (dgd-filt@visar.com,2000). Another parody, apparently by a British user, mocks both the instability of theMicrosoft Windows operating system and its often unexpected hidden settings. Ona panel labeled "Hidden Settings (Notto be edited)," one discovers a series ofoptionsthat purports to explain difficulties users encounter every day. The first line has a boxcontaining a check next to "Crash gvery 2 Hours," the "2" and "Hours" appearingwithin option boxes, and the following lines contain in similar format the instructionto crash after 5000 "bytes of un-saved changes." Other factory-set options in'clude those for "Save," which produces "incredibly large files" and Auto Recovery