The Velveteen iBook

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

My iBook is getting old. His matte finish has been rubbed to a high gloss where my hands rest, the keys on the keyboard are losing their markings, and the filth that has collected between the keys would make Hercules blink. But I could (do) live with all of that, they are the signs that he is Real. No, his age itself is the problem. Although Burton (for that is his name) is my newest computer, he's three generations behind the state of the art: he's a 700MHz G3, the G4 and G5 have come and gone, and now the Apple world runs on Intel too. It is unconscionable for a software developer to be using a machine this old, much older than many of my customers' computers. I shall have to upgrade soon, much as it tears at my heart.

Burton was present when I became "Udge," my first blog-post was written on this very keyboard. He knows all my secrets, my passwords and logins and my favourite music, the blogs I read. He talks to the bank and the Finanzamt on my behalf. Amazon Germany and the American Mothership both greet him as an old friend.

I shall keep Burton, obviously, and will continue to use him online and for trainblogging; but the development system has got to move on.

Sigh.