Today's post might seem a bit silly or frivolous to some, but I would like to wax poetic for a bit about my MacBook Air. He doesn't have a name, sadly, or I would call him by it. I bought him from a chain of used electronic stores in San Francisco a few years back, and he dates back from 2011. I've owned a lot of computers in my day, but very few of them have come to mean as much as this one has. I've taken it all over the world, and most notably I carried it with me when I rode my bike across the country two years ago, which is where all the stickers come from.
Why do I like this thing so much? Well, first of all on a purely practical level, it's never let me down. Never, in 4 years, had a single hardware or software issue. For somebody who used to tinker with his own machines and knows what it's like to install device drivers and mess with COM ports, this is a minor miracle worth celebrating on its own. I've used this thing in tents in the heat, rain and cold, and not even one bad pixel. Even the battery still holds a reasonable charge.
But obviously it's more than just that. I recognize, of course, that at some level the joy I experience in dealing with this thing, this object, actually comes from inside. All it can do is reflect it back on to me. But it does so quite well. For some reason, interacting with this particular computer just makes me feel creative, productive and positive. The keyboard is solid to type on. The screen is pleasant; not too bright, not too dull. And the size is so incredibly appealing. For some reason, I have always had a fascination for small things. Not tiny things, but small. Efficient. Just small enough, and no smaller. I'm not sure why that is. Perhaps, at some level, I've always desired to be smaller myself. Who knows. Whatever it is, I like things that fit. The MacBook Air 11 is uniquely well-suited. Every other computer I've used is either bigger than I need it to be, or too small to be truly useful. And, of course, it doesn't hurt that Apple are such experts at hardware design. Everything about the machine is exactly correct; there is little or no wasted space, and it's weighted well to sit comfortable in your lap.
I am considering getting a new laptop, and I've looked extensively at other options, but I think, at the end of the day, I'm likely just going to buy the most recent revision of what I already have. And even at that, even when I do, it's likely to still be this one I throw in my pack on my next long ride.
