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Authored by: Imaginos1892 on Friday, July 20 2012 @ 05:00 PM EDT |
Now THAT's a distinction worth making. What actually happens
when you "install" software on your computer, say from a DVD?
The DVD-R drive spins the disk, shines a laser on it, and generates
some ephemeral signals from the reflected light, encoded as changes
in voltage. Those signals are conveyed to the hard drive, or some
other device (FLASH?) by a pretty complex process that changes
the states of some "bits" so that an accurate representation can be
reproduced at some later time.
None of this changes the physical structure of the computer in any
way, even though some ignoramus believes that you must have put
"something in there" because things happen that didn't useta. The
circuits within which the bits are expressed were already there; all
"installing" the data did was temporarily change some voltages and/or
currents. It doesn't matter to the computer whether those changed
signals represent a program, an image, or a digitized sound.
What PHYSICAL actions took place? The user moved a mouse,
maybe typed on a keyboard, and a disk spun. NOTHING CHANGED.
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I used to think I was paranoid.
I was afraid people were out to get me.
Now I know the truth -- they ARE out to get me.
I feel so much better.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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