(no subject)

[which_chick]

So I took this puter over to T. to give him so that I would not have to watch him and his people kill lambs. It talks to his camera. It talks to his kid's .mp3 player after we upgraded the firmware on the .mp3 player. It does internet. It does youtube. It plays DVDs. It does all the things that T. has stated he wants to do with a computer and (as an added bonus) it's faster, more capable, and less likely to die while it does them than what he was running.

T says to me "I don't understand this". I'm like "You don't understand Windows, either." Apparently that's not the POINT. I am missing the point, here. I read a statement of the problem in an article (excerpt linked, the relevant part) the other day and I thought the article was totally fucking making it up. The article is NOT making it up.

I don't get it.

Comments

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

You're a primate in a band of your fellow primates. You don't know what to do. Do you

(a) do what the other primates are doing

or

(b) look at the problem, abstract it, and decide on the basis of your own reasoning what the best thing to do is

?

The latter:

- Only helps in a situation that is new enough that doing what everybody normally does is wrong. How often do such new situations come up? (Exclude the last 50,000 years from your answer.)

- Sends the message to everybody "I am smarter than you and/or have access to special information". Under Primate Band Management Protocol (PBMP) 0.9bis, this message starts a randomized timer which will trigger a mandatory rank-adjustment attempt within a band-dependent time period. Failure to back this claim will result in negative rank adjustment and/or personal abuse.


If this behavior bothers you, stop socializing with apes.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

They *asked* for help. I am giving help. It is not my fault that they wanted the help of "Okay, let's do the same thing that has killed your last three computers dead, dead, dead and see if it ends up differently this time!" and are therefore not particularly thrilled about the help of "Here, let me give you this new thing which I don't think you will be able to break in the same way that you broke the last three."

Insanity is the word for when people do the same thing over and over while hoping for different results. I do not think it is rocket science to suggest to people that if they shit ain't be working the first three times they done tried it, then maybe they should try something else this time around.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Well, you're not going to get me to argue that this aspect of the state of being of the fleshpeople is one I admire. But it's a fairly explicable and immutable aspect, and I'm trying to improve my overall mental health by learning to adapt to things that are immutable.

This "give people Linux" plan is a good one. Do family politics mean you can't claim to have forgotten how Windows works and all you can do to help is provide this other thing?

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

This isn't family, just friends, and they're making an effort. I think they were just a bit shocked that it didn't say "Windows" on it and would not "play games bought from WalMart".

Games is not why they have a computer. It isn't a gaming system. They have a computer for school work, pictures, internet/email, and music. Also, I did warn them, in advance, that it wouldn't have Windows. What they really, really wanted was Windows 98.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

Zomg, this is so cute! It lets you go look at other people's shit (in /home/whatever, provided you haven't set it otherwise) but it won't let you break things. Hooray! Fantastic! (No, I had no idea what it did with user accounts. I don't have but one on my system because I'm the only person who uses the box.)

This is useful because T wants the kids to be able to *look* at the pictures but not to *delete* or *destroy* them. That's already built in, all they need is a link on the desktop to the appropriate folder (it's his folder, not theirs).

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Doesn't Walmart sell PCs with Linux+Wine preinstalled these days?

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Hm, apparently only online. But you can download the exact OS they sell (http://www.thinkgos.com/dgadgets.php).

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I didn't know that.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_the_firedancer/]

You're still trying to apply that earth logic then? I wish you luck with that - can I suggest a 2by4 might work better?