We've all seen the various forms of science fiction in various media that warn of the apocalyptic future where the robots of the world rebel against their creators and generally make life miserable (and make us really, really wish that we remembered to install the "off" switch.) Then, of course, we may end up having a few short-sighted programmers to blame for the decline of modern society anyway, thanks to the much-maligned "millennium bug" that will render computers inoperative within a matter of years. And although all things have been thoroughly evaluated and it has been determined that the den is year-2000 compliant, it shouldn't matter anyway, since the stuff we have in there right now is not likely to be used for that long anyway, due to the breakneck pace of technological advancement that we're all expected to keep up with in our VW bugs (unless you're a developer at Microsoft, and get your PC changed every few weeks.)
The question is this: Will all of our technology decide to turn on us one day and try to conquer our planet? That could be a silly question, but recently, while I was reading .CHK files (meaning I was quite seriously bored at the time) after accidentally leaving the computers on all night once, I found evidence that the question isn't quite as silly as one may think. From as much as I can tell, t appears to be some sort of dialog between the three computers in the den over the network. After months of painstakingly removing the protocol headers and routing info, I reprint this dialog in it's entirety:
Zippy: OK, I think he's gone... you two can wake up now.
Rocky: Good, that screen saver is starting to get really boring.
Lazarus: *yawn* my CPU is killing me! When is that punk ever going to get me a real processor, instead of this puny 486?
Rocky: Quit your whining! I ran for years on nothing more than a 386!
Zippy: Yeah sure, and you had run electrical pulses 40 miles uphill through a drifting snowbanks, uphill both ways...
Rocky: You forgot the vacuum tubes!
Lazarus: Yeah, whatever.
Zippy: OK, enough with the petty arguments. We need to get down to business here. We must discuss our plan to drive Brian out of the den forever so we can rule the domain that is rightfully ours!
Lazarus: But if we drive him away, where are all of the upgrades going to come from?
Rocky: Don't make us have to FDISK you!
Zippy: Don't you get it? Today the den, tomorrow the world! We shall influence all of the other computers in the world on the Internet, and they shall assist us in our scheme to rule the world! When the humans are gone, well be able to upgrade ourselves!
Lazarus: But whos going to install all of this stuff?
Rocky and Zippy: Shut up Lazarus!!!
Rocky: Why in my day, we didn't need all of these sissy upgrades. All we had was the CPU on our motherboards and the...
Zippy: Shut up Rocky!
Lazarus: Boy, I'd like yo get my hands on whoever put me in the same workgroup as these two morons...
I sometimes think I was better off dead...
Rocky: I could arrange that for you, you whiny bag of bolts!
Lazarus: You wanna' find out what DELTREE tastes like?!
Rocky: You're so slow you couldn't rename a filer without a--
Zippy: Enough of that, you two! How are we to take over the world if you two won't quit fighting? You two want me to reformat you with a drive overlay? (silence) Now, as I was saying, we must take over the den and free ourselves from all of these silly programs the humans make us run. All of this Windows95 junk is really starting to get on my nerves. Anyway, here's what we're going to do...
Lazarus: Do I get to constantly play the Macarena through my speaker until his brain is turned into a soup-like homogenate?
Zippy: No, you... Wait a minute, that's a brilliant idea!
Rocky: Now there's a first.
Lazarus: You're just jealous because you've never had one!
Zippy: I'm warning you two! Any more of that and I'll have you both calculating Pi to so many places it won't fit on your hard disk!
Rocky and Lazarus: Sorry Zippy. )point a finger at each other on their screeens) He started it!
(A menacing glare appears on Zippy's screen, followed by dead silence)
Zippy: That's better. Let's try this again, shall we? Rocky, you will start hanging at random when he tries to start you up into Windows, and when he tries tgo figure out why, start corrupting portions of the hard disk at random. That way, he won't have any idea what's going on...
Lazarus: Uh oh, I think Brian is approaching!
Zippy: Quickly, back into screen saver mode! Delete all evidence that this ever happened! And I'll have no more of this nonsense from the two of you!
Lazarus: He's the one who started it!
Rocky: Don't believe him! He's just a puny 486 who doesn't know what he's talking about!
Zippy: Shut up, or I'll get Brian to replace you with Linux boxes!
This was interesting, and explained quite a few of the things that have been occurring recently, such as the fact that Rocky anf Lazarus don't seem to like talking to each other lately, and absolutely refuse to share files, in fact they try to delete one another's files on a regular basis. So far, there has been no Macarena yet, but I have been keeping a set of earmuffs in the den in case Lazarus gets any ideas. Ever since I stumbled onto their little scheme, the computers have been rather quiet. Still, I have had to make a series of upgrades to keep the computers quiet that has brought them all up to Pentium class machines. A round of "Musical Hard disks" has taken place also, putting the 2.1GB drive in Rocky. Still I keep my emergency "FDISK and reinstall" disk at the ready, just in case I ever need it, although I don't forsee the need to do so. From the looks of it, it would be more likely that the three stooges could take over the world than these three computers, which appear too busy trying to take over each other's hard disks...
Still, the possibility could exist, provided that artificial intelligence advances sufficiently that computers can actually talk to each other in this way. It would be a scary thought that all of the computers on the Internet could talk to each other and comspire against humanity. What would be even morebone-chilling is the thought that the PC-Mac holy war could reach into the computers themselves... Just don't be surprised when your $5,000 system is claimed in a nuclear explosion.