e'd once bought because of its hyped up
de-hibernate feature -- its ability to go from its deepest power-saving
sleepmode to full waking glory without the customary thirty seconds of
drive-churning housekeeping as it reestablished its network connection, verified
its file system and memory, and pinged its buddy-list for state and presence
info. This Malaysian comm, the Crackler, had the uncanny ability to go into
suspended animation indefinitely, and yet throw your workspace back on its
display in a hot instant.

When Art actually laid hands on it, after it meandered its way across the world
by slow boat, corrupt GMT+8 Posts and Telegraphs authorities, over-engineered
courier services and Revenue Canada's Customs agents, he was enchanted by this
feature. He could put the device into deep sleep, close it up, and pop its cover
open and poof! there were his windows. It took him three days and an interesting
crash to notice that even though he was seeing his workspace, he wasn't able to
interact with it for thirty seconds. The auspicious crash revealed the presence
of a screenshot of his pre-hibernation workspace on the drive, and he realized
that the machine was tricking him, displaying the screenshot -- the illusion of
wakefulness -- when he woke it up, relying on the illusion to endure while it
performed its housekeeping tasks in the background. A little stopwatch work
proved that this chicanery actually added three seconds to the overall
wake-time, and taught him his first important user-experience lesson: perception
of functionality trumps the actual function.

And here was Fede, throwing up a verbal screenshot of wakefulness while he
churned in the background, housekeeping himself into real alertness. "Fede, I'm
here, I'm in Boston!"

"Good Art, good. How was the trip?"

"Wonderful. Virgin Upper was fantastic -- dancing girls, midget wrestling, hash
brownies..."

"Good, very good."

"And now I'm driving around under Boston through a land-yacht regatta. The boats
are mambo, but I think that banana patch the hotel soon."

"Glad to hear it." Art heard water running dimly, realized that Fede was taking
a leak.

"Meeting with the Jersey boys tomorrow. We're having brunch at a strip club."

"OK, OK, very funny," Fede said. "I'm awake. What's up?"

"Nothing. I just wanted to check in with you and let you know I arrived safe and
sound. How're things in London?"

"Your girlfriend called me."

"Linda?"

"You got