The New York Times reports on computer manufacturers that are trying to decrease bootup times–the time it takes your computer to power on, load the operating system, and generally make itself ready for use. I just rebooted my computer and it took about 35 seconds, but I hardly ever power it down. My work computer probably takes a little longer to boot, but again, it stays powered on most of the week. And in both cases, I usually don’t mind waiting. Maybe that’s because I’m now old enough to remember when computers took a loooong time to boot, long enough to get up, go check the mail, come back, and wait some more. The current state of affairs seems more than tolerable.

But I’m probably part of a dying breed. I’m comfortable with having a few empty moments when I’m not doing something.

And ten years from now, when boot times are a thing of the past, I’ll wonder how I once put up with wait times of 35 seconds.

A few of my friends with SMA have had some health problems lately. Today, in an effort to appear sensitive, I suggested to one of them that we should start a pool to place bets on which one of us will meet our demise first. She thought it was a great idea. I advised her to put her money on me, but she would have none of it. “You’re going to be puffing on your vent long after the rest of us are gone,” she said.

I’m not so sure about that. When the coming economic collapse forces all of us into the countryside to scavenge for food, I’m going to have a hell of a time finding a working electrical outlet to keep said vent puffing away.

In an average week, at least a couple strangers will make comments about my ventilator. The comments are usually variations on “That’s some contraption” or “That’s some set-up you’ve got there.” It usually happens in elevators when I’m facing away from the doors, giving fellow passengers a good view of the back of my chair. And to the untrained eye, my equipment probably does look exotic. My vent of choice is a boxy thing that hasn’t shrunk in size since I started using it in 1987. There’s also the attached humidifier, the external battery, my portable suction machine, and my supply bag. Taken all together, these items probably weigh almost as much as I do.

Comments like this used to surprise me. It’s not that I forgot about all the gadgetry on the back of my chair; it’s that I didn’t consider it that interesting. To me, this stuff is boring and utilitarian, like my keys or my wallet. But what I consider commonplace, most other people find incredibly foreign.

Some political observers, mostly conservatives, are beginning to fret about the possibility of a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress joining forces in January and forcing every American to listen to NPR and buy organic. I can sympathize with that concern, at least to an extent. The Republican hegemony of 2005-2007 was a disaster and I’m old enough to remember the backlash against Clinton and the Democrats in 1993-94. It’s entirely possible that an Obama administration, with the assist of a friendly Congress, could become giddy with power and implement some truly ill-conceived policies.

But I’m willing to accept that risk. The next administration will need to take swift action on a variety of fronts, but particularly in regards to the economy and health care. Republicans show little interest in providing serious cooperation on either of these issues. The ship of state turns slowly enough as it is and I don’t feel particularly accommodating towards the other side at the moment. But assuming Obama is elected, we Democrats shouldn’t hesitate to give his administration a reality check when appropriate. If Republicans had done more of that, they might have avoided implosion.

Director Ridley Scott has plans to turn the classic science fiction novel The Forever War into a film. I first encountered this book during a college course on literature inspired by the Vietnam War and it blew me away. It tells the story of William Mandella, a soldier swept up in a long and brutal war between humans and a race of hostile aliens. Mandella is part of an elite combat unit that is dispatched to battles in faraway corners of the galaxy and, because of the time-dilating effects of space travel, he returns home each time to a human civilization that seems increasingly alien to him. The only familiar fixtures in his life are his combat unit and the war itself.

Hollywood has a depressing track record of stripping great genre books of all their nuance and complexity, which results in bloodless film adaptations that leave only the haziest impression on audiences. To prove my point, how many of you can remember even a fragment of a scene from I, Robot? Neither can I. But Scott is a good choice for this project, assuming he can persuade the studio to keep the suits at bay.