It’s been a while since I’ve sat in a computer lab well into the night. We’re deep into a big test, things are working as we’d hoped, and very talented engineers are looking deep into data packets in an attempt to coax expensive hardware into doing as its told. My role in all this is peripheral; I take notes, ask questions, and nod thoughtfully at appropriate times. I’m a reasonably knowledgeable guy when it comes to computers and networks, but the folks in the lab tonight are playing well over my head.

I walked outside a little while ago and remembered one of the facts of late-night work: the air feels different in the early morning. Years ago, when I worked the third shift at a steel pipe mill, I enjoyed going out to inspect rail cars at 3:00 AM. No matter how hot the day had been (and Birmingham, Alabama in July can be very hot, indeed), the early-morning air was soft and gently warm against the skin. Walking out in the orange-yellow glow of the sodium lights, I walked through velvet-soft air to the rail cars stacked high with lengths of seamless steel pipe. There’s an excitement to working when most of the world is asleep, and it almost makes working through the night worthwhile.

There’s a considerable difference between the view tonight and the view way back then. The Honolulu skyline is mottled light and dark with offices and apartments occupied and bright, or empty and dark. Thirty years ago, most offices left the lights on all night long; in places like New York City, it was as though no one ever slept. That’s not to say that Honolulu is dark tonight — the light is still well above the baby turtle confusion level, and the city has an energetic hum, but it’s obvious that people have started thinking about turning off lights when the room is empty. It’s a small thing in the overall scheme of things, but it shows that office managers and homeowners are thinking about energy and efficiency at least as much as the high-profile eco-celebrities who are always private-jetting off to lecture the less fortunate on the evils of consumption.

I’m typing this on ecto, and like most of the Mac software I’ve tried, it works. That may seem like damning with faint praise, but after more than a year of wrestling with Vista operational software is a blessing. The nifty design of the Mac hardware, while nice, is not a compelling issue for me. Software that works when I want it to work is. I’m sure I’ll be disappointed down the line, but for now I’m a happy camper. We’ll see if the feeling holds when I come back to the lab in the morning.

Categories: General computing, Hardware