"The majority of mankind is lazy-minded, incurious, absorbed in vanities, and tepid in emotion, and is therefore incapable of either much doubt or much faith; and when the ordinary man calls himself a sceptic or an unbeliever, that is ordinarily a simple pose, cloaking a disinclination to think anything out to a conclusion." --T. S. Eliot, in his 1958 Introduction to Pascal's Pensees

On Saturday, May 15, 2010, we celebrated with our daughter Emma her completion of high school.

Here is the slide show we put together for the occasion (but in a compressed and fuzzy form):

Emma's Graduation Slideshow from Mark Bingham on Vimeo.

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The new netbook arrived in a pristine box, with a battery waiting to be installed, with not a sign of previous use anywhere. The only trauma involved in getting it going was having to watch a screen (for what must have been 15 minutes) that said, "Please wait . . . initailizing."

It reminded me of the Apple "startpage" that opens up in my MacBook browser. In the upper left corner is a panel/link with the heading "The MacBook Pro Family." When I point the cursor at it, a text box opens up that reads, "High preformance comes in three sizes. . . ." No kidding. It's true even now, a month after I submitted a comment to Apple.

Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!

I ordered the netbook, of course, because we needed another computer--not (please believe me) to bring another Bingham into family online games of Settlers of Catan. When the package arrived, I opened it with the excitement of a child on Christmas morning. Right away, I started trying not to be bothered at . . .
* signs that the box had been opened before and resealed with tape
* the empty plastic bag that seemed intended to hold the power cord
* the fingerprints all too obvious both on the top cover and the area around the keyboard

Evidence of some kind of final inspection, perhaps?

Having plugged in the power cord (though the battery seemed to have charge remaining), I plunged into the process of asserting ownership. Curiously . . .
* during the online warranty/registration process, I was told that the serial number was already registered
* the machine seemed to think we were somewhere besides the Eastern United States: a time zone in India? a language setting that said “English (India)”?
* I did not find on the desktop the icon my manual said to click to start a trial version of Microsoft Office; I did find the icon in the “recycle bin,” along with quite a few other icons
* when I started downloading antivirus software, the download went into a folder in a user account I hadn’t set up
* when I started to set up an account for Windows Live Messenger, an email address I didn’t recognize magically appeared where I thought mine should go
* when Emma started to log in to Facebook, the same strange email address appeared

Curiouser and curiouser.

I decided I should get better acquainted with the stranger hiding in my new netbook, so I searched for him online and found, among other things, an online explanation he had posted about the basis on which some naturalization or immigration appeal was denied and his profile on a YouTube-like site (I was even introduced to some of his friends).

I decided to explore the netbook browser's history; it took me to PayPal pages for sending money to loved ones and to pages for fans of some pop star in India.

Melanie suggested that perhaps I should contact the online retailer from which I had ordered my new netbook and ask for an explanation. I did. The customer service representative assured me politely that I had indeed ordered and had indeed received a new machine. I asked him if I might explain my curiosity, and I launched into the list above. He stopped me before I was nearly finished, apologized, and told me that he was sending me a new new machine with free two-day express shipping. That was yesterday. Also yesterday I received email notification that my order had been shipped.

I'm eager to find out what new friends I may meet on Monday.