The Death of Booting Up
Found on Slate on Saturday, 13 August 2011
Remember "booting up"? It was the first thing you did every morning-you waited two minutes, three minutes, sometimes even longer while your computer ran through a series of self-tests, loading screens, and an error prompt or two before settling into any kind of useful state.
Apple's MacBook Air loads up in 16 seconds, and machines based on Google's cloud-based Chrome OS boast boot times of under 10 seconds. Even Windows computers are fast-with the right set-up, your Windows 7 laptop can load just as quickly as a MacBook.
That's nice and spiff, but pretty useless. I wonder if people really sit down in front of their PC and switch it on, waiting for the desktop to come up while gnawing on the desk. In most cases, my system has booted before I return to it; there are always a few things one does between pressing the button and starting to work. Besides, I boot only once a day, so a minute more or less doesn't really shorten my life.