Sep 25, 2005 14:03
Imagine a mostly empty master bedroom, beige carpet, sunlight streaming in through the window that stretches across one wall. On a blocky oak desk sits a massive charcoal-black IBM flatscreen CRT. Satellite speakers the size of coffee mugs rest on skeletal silver supports, aimed at the one chair in the room. The computer case, facing outward, features a large Jolly Roger skull and crossbones sticker, and aside from a pair of LEDs (one red, one blue) is otherwise completely featureless, an anonymous black box. Black IBM keyboard. A silver mesh studio microphone on its weighty cast iron stand. Behind the chair, a 14" Vornado Swan fan quietly hums away, complementing the efforts of the slowly turning ceiling fan.
One unlabeled cardboard banker's box is on the floor next to the desk. Aside from whatever sits in that box or hides in the unimaginably vast storage of the computer itself, there is no information in the room. Nothing on the white walls but cast shadow.