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Rage Against the Machines

Posted by michael on from the broken-dreams dept.

wiredbeat2000 writes "Kent Norman is a cognitive psychologist and director of the Laboratory for Automation Psychology and Decision Processes at the University of Maryland. He studies -- and makes films about -- why people lose it, and smash their computers, PDAs, mice, ect. MIT's Technology Review has a story about his lab."

4 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing beats the Etherkiller by The+Hobo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    clicky

    Tee hee

    --
    There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
  2. It's not the machine's fault! by HarveyBirdman · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Would you beat up a patient for having cancer?

    Well, yeah, some of you bastards would, but that's not the point. Oh, and so would Russell Crowe.

    The computer is sick and malfunctioning because some asshole installed Windows on it! Take a hammer to that guy, and not the poor computer.

    For further enlightenment on this desperate plague afflicitng our silicon bretheren, call 1-888-HELP4PC, and give generously.

    --
    --- Ban humanity.
  3. Smashing Mouses common among gamers by Man+in+Spandex · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sometimes me and my friends we prepare ghetto lans at somebody's house and we usually play fps games or red alert.
    What happended is once one of my friends got so pissed off at the so-called "bullshit". He then smashed his logitech mouse on his desk and we had to lend him another so he could until play until the end. It was funny though. Even he laughed at what he did.

    If you ask me, I pay for this hardware and no matter how much "bs" I'll get, I'd never think of damaging anything under my name.

    Only hardware I get pissed at is the monitors at school by smacking them cause sometimes I forget to close oracle cause it takes up 100mb easy :x

  4. Re:Reluctant by johannesg · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Yeah, same here. Although there was one case... I had a keyboard (I think Compaq, but I'm not sure) that had a split spacebar. No problem, right? Except that the right-hand part of this particular spacebar was actually configured to be backspace. I guess people who cannot type need that a lot. But I can type, and I learned that day that I type space with my right hand. Imagine every single space you are typing turning into a backspace...

    Eventually it reached a point where I closed my eyes and imagined throwing the keyboard against the wall. In my minds' eye, I could see it happen in slow motion: the case splitting as it hit the wall head on, and keys and bits of plastic flying out in all directions... Ahh, that felt *good*.

    But in the end I persevered with the damn broken keyboard, and after that made sure I never worked on that machine again.