Steve M.
Veteran
This Monday I knocked over a full bottle of water (second time within a week), getting some on my laptop. In panic mode I snatched the laptop up. Because I grabbed it at the very top of the screen and pressed inward, the screen broke. You can't see a crack, but now the screen is unreadable, while the papers on the desk were salvageable. The new screen's visual appearance of beautiful colours and lines is really cool, but it would be helpful to see what's underneath all that.
The obvious takeaways are: 1- don't put clear water in a tall, top heavy clear bottle with a small base near the computer. The water is now in a stable, squat, non clear coffee cup that is kept well away from things. 2- buy a tower PC for the home. If this had been a regular modular PC, the spill would probably have just cleaned off the keyboard. With a modular PC, a replacement monitor and keyboard can be purchased from any thrift store for $15. That's considerably less money than what the laptop cost to be replaced.
Since I'm moving in two weeks, most of what was on the laptop had been copied onto an aux HD, but what does that mean? There's still no real stuff, it simply "exists" in the netherworld of digital, ersatz form of zeros and ones. Some time ago I went full analog for developing my films and prints. After this spill, what's on the laptop and aux hard drives gets copied down with pencil and paper, or at least what's practical to write down.
At first I had the loony tunes idea of taking a picture of the comp stuff w/ my phone. Oh yeah, that should fix things. Hmm, what could possibly go wrong?
A lot of us, myself included, forget that what we see on a monitor ain't there, it's just an illusion that we think is there. Illusions are powerful and dangerous. Maybe it's better to know what's really there and what isn't. Sounds helpful to me. The way society is rapidly replacing real things with digitized stuff, perhaps we need to reappraise things. Pen and paper are cheap, whereas purchasing and replacing digital and electronic stuff always results in large amounts of money being transferred from me to some unseen and uncaring corporation, whether it be cameras, a room air conditioner or an electric toothbrush. Shoot, I can make my own 100% archival paper from rags and write on it with burnt sticks (charcoal). Ink is easy to make from raw materials too.
So those of us who don't shoot film, or who scan it and "save" it on computers or other digital means, might want to look at other ways to do this.
The obvious takeaways are: 1- don't put clear water in a tall, top heavy clear bottle with a small base near the computer. The water is now in a stable, squat, non clear coffee cup that is kept well away from things. 2- buy a tower PC for the home. If this had been a regular modular PC, the spill would probably have just cleaned off the keyboard. With a modular PC, a replacement monitor and keyboard can be purchased from any thrift store for $15. That's considerably less money than what the laptop cost to be replaced.
Since I'm moving in two weeks, most of what was on the laptop had been copied onto an aux HD, but what does that mean? There's still no real stuff, it simply "exists" in the netherworld of digital, ersatz form of zeros and ones. Some time ago I went full analog for developing my films and prints. After this spill, what's on the laptop and aux hard drives gets copied down with pencil and paper, or at least what's practical to write down.
At first I had the loony tunes idea of taking a picture of the comp stuff w/ my phone. Oh yeah, that should fix things. Hmm, what could possibly go wrong?
A lot of us, myself included, forget that what we see on a monitor ain't there, it's just an illusion that we think is there. Illusions are powerful and dangerous. Maybe it's better to know what's really there and what isn't. Sounds helpful to me. The way society is rapidly replacing real things with digitized stuff, perhaps we need to reappraise things. Pen and paper are cheap, whereas purchasing and replacing digital and electronic stuff always results in large amounts of money being transferred from me to some unseen and uncaring corporation, whether it be cameras, a room air conditioner or an electric toothbrush. Shoot, I can make my own 100% archival paper from rags and write on it with burnt sticks (charcoal). Ink is easy to make from raw materials too.
So those of us who don't shoot film, or who scan it and "save" it on computers or other digital means, might want to look at other ways to do this.
