This Bodes Ill
So I reboot the computer and what should I hear issuing from my speakers but a lengthy audio ad for an acne treatment? Yegads! No browser, no player, no evident process running, ergo no way to stop the freaking thing, except to reboot yet again. It didn’t reappear after that, but needless to say I am thoroughly steamed. Time to update my ad-ware killer.
At this early stage in the investigation my prime suspect is Download Accelerator. One more trick like that, buddy, and I’ll uninstall you so fast your head will spin.
The sense of violated selfhood arising from this burst of unwanted advertising was surprising potent. Was it McLuhan who popularized the notion that our technology is an extension of our bodies? (Sounds like McLuhan. I could look it up but then what kind of blog entry would this be? Let’s say it was McLuhan.) The thought is that organisms have always evolved via DNA mutation over millions of years but that now we evolve through technological innovation, acquiring radical new capabilities over the course of mere generations.
According to the logic of this metaphor, computers are extensions of our brains. To hear an unbidden voice, warning me that my flesh might become corrupt and purulent if I didn’t follow its commands - why, it was like having a technologically simulated schizophrenic break.