Last, how could I write you and not mention your most painful product, "repetitive strain injury?" Because of RSI, many people, including me, have to rethink their entire life plans. Now I know you did not bring this illness about, but you certainly have contributed to its recent rapid spread.

Or have you? I have always thought that perhaps you are neither friend nor foe to humanity, something neither to hail nor to hate.

After all, you are just a product of people, like guns and cars and drugs.

You aren't responsible for the crash of operating systems; poor design and implementation by companies resting on their success are. Who designs operating systems? People do.

You don't send unsolicited junk e-mail; people do.

You didn't create the Year 2000 Problem. Short-sighted programmers did. And who programs? People do.

You don't cause RSI. A misguided prevailing culture that values production over the cost to the health of the producer does. And who chooses to accept this way of life? People.

When I think about it, you haven't really "done" anything. No 'ology' ever does anything except that for which we use it. Thus I apologize, computer technology. Both my praise and rage are misdirected, and it seems I have answered my own initial questions.

You don't want anything. You are here because we made you and continue to use you. And you are our cultural master because, by our greed or fear or whatever, we allow it.

Sincerely,

Baratunde R. Thurston '99 is a user assistant for Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer Services (HASCS) and a Crimson Online Director and News Executive. This is his last Tech Talk of the semester, and he looks forward to pontificating in print next year. Until them, he urges you to think.