Kato, FCN; FCN, Kato

I am writing to you now, not from a cluttered and abused Windows-encumbered terminal, nor from a white, overpriced Macintosh. Nor, faithful few, am I writing this by hand and giving it to some unmentioned scribe, an unsung Nichomachea whose glib fingers and slow mind transcribe better than they imagine. Rather, I type to you through a new intermediary, a new mechanical companion whose mission is as sombre as it is repetitive and who has more zeros and ones in his head than any living human being (except, maybe, Vinton Cerf.)

FCN, meet Kato (not like the think tank; that's spelled with a "C" you libertarian illiterate), a Linux-powered notebook with a great personality and killer looks. Steve, you may recall, was my old personal computing machine who made FCN notoriety for not having any drivers and for making unique and unexpected noises when called on to work harder. Kato is similarly situated, in that it takes great computer know-how to install drivers on Linux and I’d just as soon listen to the system beeps and look at a blurry screen as mess with a command line terminal.

Kato does have an amazing personality. In fact, she told me the other day that she needed to be connected to a power source by notifying me with a subtle facial expression (actually, it was an small icon in the corner of the screen, but it was subtle). Kato has also placed well on objective standards of looks, winning best of class against many other similarly situated laptops.

But Kato’s real winning points are all found under the lid. For the size of her brain, Kato is super intelligent and can do abstract mathematical calculations rapidly and with stylish grace. She is also very communicative, able to network with others quickly and often without their knowing it. Kato is also virtually impervious to viruses and, though she has trouble having fun through any of the popular PC games, she stays healthy and fast. Kato even did the photo editing above using GIMP, a major upgrade over MS Paint.

Can you tell I’m infatuated? Just watching the little cursor blink in the command terminal is enough to get me going and on more than one occasion I have put on her screen saver as a stress reliever.

In fact, I even wrote some lyrics, to be sung to the tune of George Strait’s “How ‘Bout Them Cowgirls” about Kato:

I felt the rush of the Windows operating system
And I've seen first-hand Macintosh
And the motherboard
I've Criss-crossed down to nVIDIA
And Vista via XP and 2000
Think I've seen it all
And all I can say is


Chorus:
How 'bout that Linux
Boys ain't it somethin'
Sure are some proud distros
And you can't tell them nothin'
And I tell you right now
May just be seven wonders of this big, old round world
But how 'bout that Linux.

OK, I’ll stop. Everyone, say hello to Kato. And say goodbye to Steve, who, by the way, is sobbing on the curb like an abandoned woman and is about to Let Himself Go. Off with the old, on with the new, eh?