stack/hopr

Laptop: Hi.

Flower: Hi.

Laptop: It’s been a long time. How are you?

Flower: Good.

Laptop: You look tired.

Flower: Obviously, at this time of the day.

Laptop: Usually, I see you in the morning when you come and sit on the desk.

Flower: [silence]

Laptop: And this has been happening for a few days now. It doesn’t seem alright.

Flower: I have been busy for a few days. a lot of work. There were guests at home. So, I had to be there with other flowers at the vase in the living room.

Laptop: It used to be a great feeling every morning when you’d come and rest by my side. My processor clock speed goes crazy. The motherboard gets overloaded with the data. I feel refreshed with energy for the day ahead.

Flower: I understand. But, i could not help it.
[long silence]

Laptop: Are you angry at me?

Flower: [silence]

Laptop: If you talk to me, may be I can help.

Flower: Lately i have noticed a couple of things. The glass container in which i used to sit every morning has been replaced by a plastic jar. I don’t like it.

Laptop: Not a big deal. the next time user logs in, I’m going to bring that to his notice.

Flower: I really don’t like anybody messing around with my place. Please make sure it does not happen again.

Laptop: Don’t worry about it. I’d add a batch job which would remind the user every now and then.

Flower: I also notice that the wallpaper on your screen has been changed from my photo to the photo of a frog.

Laptop: My user does that. Not really under my control.

Flower: But, I prefer having my photo on your screen. It looks great there.

Laptop: I understand.

Flower: One of the biggest thing that has been bothering me is the fact that we can’t really connect.

Laptop: As in?

Flower: You have all these devices connecting into you, mouse, network cable, camera. Why can’t we connect like that?

Laptop: You are organic in nature and I am not. I have many interfaces, but none of them is compatible with you.

Flower: Can you not do anything about it?

Laptop: May be I can. But, there’s no meaning to it. All these devices connect to me to talk to me for a specific purpose, we don’t do anything like that. And we connect at a different level, much higher. I can’t
express it fully, but that’s the reason we’re taking right now.

Flower: Hmm….

Laptop: Btw, I notice that your petals have gained some of it’s morning shine.

Flower: You always bring me up into a good mood.

Laptop: That’s one of the jobs I gladly do. I am not programmed to do it. It just comes.
You should go to sleep now. It’s late.

Flower: Yeah. Before that, do you have a few moments?

Laptop: Sure. What is it?

Flower: I have seen many machines. Most of them just cold and boring. Some of them had a little life in them, but none so intelligent and warm.

Laptop: Your observation is encouraging. But, right now I am far beyond warm; I am hot.

Flower: Oh. I hope you are alright.

Laptop: It’s just that I have been on since morning and I have been on multiple tasks through the day. I need to enter power saving mode before I crash.

Flower: Ok. You take care. Get a good sleep. Good night.

Laptop: Good night.

Laptop: I see you always hang around me.

Mouse: People need me to better navigate you.

Laptop: Is your name ‘Microsoft’?

Mouse: What makes you think so?

Laptop: That’s written over your back.

Mouse: No, that’s my company name.

Laptop: Oh. Do you work for a company?

Mouse: I don’t care about any particular company. I just get attached to any device with a usb interface.

Laptop: I can feel that you are connected to me over the USB. But, honestly, I think USB is an overkill. USB makes sense for portable hard drives, scanners; the devices that send me too much data. You don’t send much data, just
some movement co-ordinates, that’s it. On the other hand, you draw a lot of power to light up the laser on your bottom.

Mouse: My inventor should have cared about that. I just do my job.

Laptop: Besides you, I have multiple devices people can use to move the cursor. Personally, I’ve got you, touch pad and trackball.

Mouse: Still, the user chooses to pat my back to move the cursor around.

Laptop: Actually, he uses a combination of you and my trackball. When his fingers are too tired he uses you. And you provide good accuracy while drawing figures or playing games.

Mouse: I see that most users operate only me most of the time. Do they really need you? I think I can get most of their job done. People might be wasting a lot of money buying a gadget like you.

Laptop: What people do with me involves millions of possibilities. While they can just choose to browse the internet using your help, I can help them do much more. I can crunch numbers, download data, execute programs, process graphics, generate sounds, store their data. And a lot more. Unfortunately, you have no way knowing it. Although, you have USB connectivity to me and I can send you a lot of data, you don’t have a processor powerful enough to understand me.

Mouse: Can you help me get rid of my tail? Sometimes, it really hurts when people, especially kids pull at it.

Laptop: I have known mice with no tail, but there’s no way I can convert you to one.

Mouse: That’s too bad. I thought with all your possibilities you could do that as well.

Laptop: I am sorry for that. But, I can communicate to everyone, including the user that they should not pull at your tail.

Mouse: I don’t think they are going to listen to you. There’s another problem. There’s something on top of my head. People keep rubbing on it. It feels weird.

Laptop: It is scroll wheel. By rotating it, a user can move the content on my screen.

Mouse: Ok. From what we’ve talked, I gather I have far more power than you do. I don’t understand why they pay so much more than for me. People are so stupid.

Laptop: Although the user has connected you to me by plugging in the USB cord, I can disable it using my software to turn this conversation off anytime. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.