No Thanks For The Memory Gu Students Don’T Wait For Computer To Crash
After pulling a 17-hour all-nighter at a computer, Gonzaga University senior Joseph Muzik found the perfect quick pick-me-up.
It wasn’t a cold shower, a triple-shot latte or No-Doz. No, Muzik found this far more destructive and much more exhilarating.
With a sledgehammer in his grip, Muzik took out his scholastic stress on an effigy of the culprit: a retired personal computer.
As the 6 pounds of steel broke through the computer’s case, computer chips flew, the sound card shattered and the floppy disk drive was annihilated.
Pleased by the sight of the mutilated motherboard, Muzik raised his fists and let out a loud, guttural grunt in victory as other students looked on.
“It felt so great. I feel awesome,” said the mechanical engineering major from Othello, Wash.
For a donation of $1 to $3, Gonzaga students were allowed to take out their high-tech frustrations Friday in front of the Crosby Student Center on campus.
Gonzaga’s Society of Women Engineers put on the fund-raiser, which will help members attend conferences of their organization.
One dollar bought one swing, $2 bought two hits and $3 purchased 30 seconds of mayhem.
“A month ago, my paper was eaten by a computer,” said Dani Hubbs, a society member and environmental engineering major who helped organize the event. “I then went to a SWE meeting and I was so mad. I said, `Why don’t we just bash computers?’ It started out as a joke.”
The group of about a dozen students rounded up 16 obsolete PCs from Gonzaga’s administration building and a local business.
“Look at this sledgehammer and these computers; they go well together,” Hubbs shouted as she lured more cohorts to the exhibit.
“I’m going to do just one swing, because if you get me going, you may not be able to stop me,” said senior Scott Gellner of Spokane.
Among students’ frustrations with computers, term papers disappearing into the abyss was the most common complaint. Then came crashing hard drives.
“They’re always crashing, so now I’m crashing them,” said senior Andy VanInwegan, a business major from Boise.
The engineering students had their own complaints.
“If you write a program and leave out a semicolon at the end of the line, it causes an infinite loop and your program just dies,” said junior Laura Schloss from Priest River, Idaho, the president of the Gonzaga SWE chapter. “I had that happen my freshman year many times.”
Senior Jane Sims of Spokane had a more personal reason to feel hostile toward computers.
“My ex-husband-to-be is a CEO and president of a computer company,” she said.
As safety-conscious engineers, SWE members took a few swings of their own before letting students loose on the machines.
“We did a trial run a week ago to test and see how far things would fly,” Schloss said.
As a result, the group roped off a perimeter about 20 feet around the smashing platform. No monitors were used, because of their glass screens. And the computer killers were required to wear safety goggles.