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What are you? Another Microsoft marketing/misinformation drone? Or have you just been brainwashed?

You're an IT administrator for a bank. You support about 35 mission-critical applications that go to a mainframe. [...] All those applications were written for Windows 95.

And the mainframe is running what? Windows For Mainframes Edition? I don't think so.

Now, Microsoft is a safe bet because you know those applications were written decades ago and will still work.

I disagree. I only use Windows at work, but it is my understanding that it is very difficult to make older Windows applications run in newer versions of Windows, especially applications that were written for Windows 95/98.

But you go with Apple, or Linux and what do you get? Every five years, maybe ten if you're lucky, you have to rebuild and redesign everything to make it work with the latest and greatest.

That's assuming that you keep updating Linux or Mac OS to the latest and greatest. But you don't have to. In your mainframe "example" it is assumed that the system images running the applications are not being updated. And then you complain that Linux/Apple apps may break if you update the OS? Come on.

You might want to change your desktop background to this one.

Being able to point them to an unbiased, reliable source to back up the "Firefox is safer" claim would help.

Unfortunately the facts are "biased" against MS products. It doesn't matter anyway, since if they're running Windows, then they're not likely to be influenced (or not allowed to be influenced) by troublesome things like empirical studies.

The problem is getting enough mainstream recognition that maybe something might actually be done about it. For now, though, we have the junk science, post-modern business, everything-is-an-opinion legacy to contend with.

The style's more like dogbert the evil HR director's, from http://dilbert.com/.
Only, he'd have labelled the vote button "Back to inbox"
purrr purrr

A good Dilbert strip covering this point. http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-05-08/

Agreed--but the methodology could well be iffy. From Adobe's methodology page, "Panelists are recruited from multiple sources such as RDD, in-person interviews, Web partners, as well as banner ads." The "Web partners" and banner ad commponents seem particularly troubling to me.

Obligatory link

So all those laid-off engineers will get a job in sales?

Good job I don't get to place purchase orders where I work!

You forgot about "fast" before the date http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2009-01-24/

http://www.dilbert.com/2009-01-24/

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/1999-02-02

> if I were your boss, I'd fire you, because you're clearly lacking in ethical stability, and making threats such as you have marks you as a company liability.

I think that's why you'll never become a boss, because it appears that your moral compass is not damaged [1].

[1] http://dilbert.com/fast/2008-07-21/

How you get a job like 'Director of Green'?

Invest in Diseased Livestock

http://www.dilbert.com/fast/1996-01-23/ On the other hand, if you enable internet filters to things like facebook you will very quickly expose your kids to the world of hacking, ssh tunnels and external proxies!

To further prepare students for the real world, every school in the United States should have a simulation of the 2008 credit meltdown - teachers will be giving out financial advices similar to this one so students will pay them, even borrowing money to pay them, in exchange for fantastic future returns (whether in more money, in grades or in a "future career"). The teachers will then use all the money on luxury resorts. In the event the students asks for money back (or better grades, "rewarding career", etc.), the teacher will ask the parents to beat the children up at home until they stop asking.

But that's still not real enough. The world nowadays is full of terrorists from Middle East and pirates from Sweden and Somalia. Schools should simulate that as well - you know, just to get our children fully prepared for the future. Oh, WWIII may happen in the future as well, we should give every school children in the United States an assault rifle, pistol, ammo, grenades, painkillers, antibiotics, rations, etc. - everything in the back pack of a real US soldier! When your son or daughter's school seem like a battlefield in the future, don't panic! We're just preparing them for the real world! Think of the children!

I keep asking my boss for a new machine

That's crazy talk. If you keep that up you'll soon be in charge of legacy systems. No, this is not a troll!

I keep asking my boss for a new machine

That's crazy talk. If you keep that up you'll soon be in charge of legacy systems. No, this is not a troll!

I keep asking my boss for a new machine

That's crazy talk. If you keep that up you'll soon be in charge of legacy systems. No, this is not a troll!

Obviously not enough geeks are garbage collectors, and thus still not good enough.

Cut out the "environmentalist bullshit" and you are still left with the cold reality that we are sending $700,000,000,000 out of this country every year to pay for our oil addiction. Much of that money goes to countries that don't particularly like us very much.

Technically, almost all that money goes to middlemen who bought it from countries that don't particularly like us very much.

This is a national security issue in addition to being an environmental one.

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2006-02-19/
How exactly is it a national security issue?
And how will the USA redirecting $700B per year make a difference?

Easy fixed-see

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-11-14/

... and just as effective.

It was just as bad an idea 12 years ago:

http://www.dilbert.com/fast/1996-01-23/

It was just as bad an idea 12 years ago:

http://www.dilbert.com/fast/1996-01-23/

I'm surprised that the case of Dilbert in particular is being cited here. It's not as if you can't get every strip back to 1991 from the website.

How very timely this Dilbert strip is, then!

A geek with a girlfriend

See: http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-10-27/

http://dilbert.com/fast/2005-08-01/

Obligatory Dilbert.

I can't find the one where Mordac changes Dilbert's password to "the entire text of The Da Vinci Code, except the parts he doesn't believe".

I remember receiving a spammy email like this. And just for giggles, I used "Reply All" and bitched to the sender about how all these email addresses are public knowledge, and about how all the recipients of the email were going to be spammed by any spammer with a worm on anybody's computer on the list, and how annoying it was to receive email like this with everybody on the "to" line...

By replying to all, everybody's address was on the "to" line.

Again.

Maybe I'm just sick. I don't know. But I did get a few responses from people like "Why did you send your reply to everybody?!?!?! Aren't you just making the problem worse!?!?!". But the funniest part is when one of these replies was sent - you guessed it - to everybody on the list.

It was like a barf storm of recursive spammy WTFs.

BWAAA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

Or this:
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1997-09-10/

Just had to link to Dilbert, which seems to be paralleling this story ....

Just had to link to Dilbert, which seems to be paralleling this story ....

Not that type of baking, silly. This kind.

http://dilbert.com/fast/ is better. Virtually nothing on the page except the comic, and it's in color.

Some PHB will

Not just forthcoming, but he justifies them nicely.

Though, direct implication of his statements is that Mr. Adams makes more than $250k per year. Obama's plan only raises taxes on people making more than that per year, and lowers them for everyone else. This is quite believable, for a man in Adams' position and fame. However, it is a relevant data point that he never specifically mentions.

Not just forthcoming, but he justifies them nicely.

Remember, kids: "The Dilbert Principle" can be both fun and scarily accurate.

Still doesn't beat the tablet PC that Dilbert gave to his pointy haired boss: http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-04-03/

You need to see this particular Dilbert cartoon, which is very much like what you describe :)

http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2008-09-09/

http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2008-08-07/

depending on the number of users you have, how abusive they are [...]

Well depending on how abusive you are, Mordac, you may declare the letter "e" (the most frequently occuring in English) to be the separator — and punish attempts to use it as "abuse" by refusing service or worse.

entirely plausible to use a delimiter that *is* allowed in usernames

Sorry, I was talking about 99.99% of Unix installations out there. I did not account for yours... My post certainly was system-specific (no e-mail system today can afford to be incompatible with Unix), but trying to be "policy-specific" — accounting for all policies out there — is simply impractical for a generic method.

I and all people using some sort of ad-blocking would love to have less advertisement.

Actually, most such people would not even notice...

But yeah, Internet should be free, sure...

http://dilbert.com/2008-08-11/

This is what usually happens

Although some people I work with write all of their passwords down and keep it under their keyboard or in their desk.

Actually, we do our best to smugly mock all religions without prejudice whenever we get the chance. That's because most fundamentalists of any stripe think all unbelievers will burn equally well in hell, so we return the favour as best we can.

And this is the single biggest problem with humanity. "They did it to me, so it's okay if I do it to them." And so the vast majority of humanity plays the game of topper on a global scale, seeing who can commit the biggest atrocity, rather than decrying said atrocities no matter who commits them and striving to a more tolerant attitude towards others.

Or, to put it another way, there are far too few people following the motto of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Well, my mother is not a moron, thank you very much...

I know, that N.0 release (of anything) is often not well-polished, but I fully expected a N.0.2 to be an improvement over anything (N-1).x. It was not... KDE-project lied to me by calling everything starting with KDE-4.0 a release. Even if I made a mistake, the blame is on them.

Well, my mother is not a moron, thank you very much...

I know, that N.0 release (of anything) is often not well-polished, but I fully expected a N.0.2 to be an improvement over anything (N-1).x. It was not... KDE-project lied to me by calling everything starting with KDE-4.0 a release. Even if I made a mistake, the blame is on them.

And this explains why I fell for it...

Reminds me of an old dilbert cartoon.

Evil HR director won't raise Wally's salary because he lacks 10 years experience in Java.