Raymond Chen, a veteran Microsoft engineer, ironically reflects on how everyday appliances, including electric toothbrushes, now require constant updates and reboots—an absurdity unimaginable 40 years ago. With the advent of the internet, rebooting has transformed from a technical necessity in computing to a requirement for an array of household appliances. Chen reminisces about a simpler era when devices operated on basic mechanics, emphasizing how today's technology, despite its advancements, has popularized the frustrating norm of ceaseless updates and system reboots.
My electric toothbrush was acting up. The internet says that I needed to reboot my electric toothbrush. Pretty much no part of that last sentence made any sense 40 years ago.
Users soon became accustomed to performing regular restarts to keep the system stable. This became an unwanted feature of the operating system as time went by thanks to a never-ending stream of updates.
Where once the insertion of a cartridge and a flick of the on switch was enough to kick off a few hours of mindless fun, now... there can be a substantial wait while patches are downloaded.
While technology has improved hugely over the years, the acceptance of constant updates and reboots has become a humorous but frustrating norm in modern living.
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