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Computer Crash Reactions Examined
dankinit writes "MSNBC has an amusing story about research showing how people react to computer crashes and losing data. Among the numbers, 7% of those surveyed hit the computer, 13% yell at first, and another 13% try to "sweet-talk" their computer. The article also has results from a study done at the Univ. of Maryland. In that study, "One restaurant manager who was so upset with his laptop that he threw it into deep fryer. That destroyed the laptop ... and deep fryer, too.""
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
Whenever this one happens, I just hit F5 a few times.
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
My desktop at work: I do a dance of joy! Finally I get a new linux machine. Thankfully all my data is on the server so my desktop is no loss.
My home computer that hasn't been backed up in ages: I smack my head until I pass out. When I wake up I smack some more. I gnash my teeth as I lament the demise of my Diablo2 level 46 druid! Oh and all the pictures of both my kids.
The server at work: I start with a huge sigh as I restore data followed by snarls at users bugging me asking every ten minutes when the server will be back up.
The server at work that has bad backups that never got verified because everyone but me thinks the tapedrive is a magic box that never makes bad backups and I never get time allocated to manually verify them or time/money to come up with a better solution: I start smiling at the users as I fervently start hoping my home computer doesn't crash before I get home and print my resume. Where are the good backup tapes the users ask? Oh yeah, I took them home for offsite safekeeping, let me clean out my desk and go home to get them.....
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
I support many many users who are by no means savvy. A common reaction is to simply burst into tears. I have yet to find a gentle way to tell them they shoudn't have saved to c: without them losing it totally. It always sounds like Ha Ha!
How the hell do you destroy a deep fryer? I worked at a restraunt, of all the stuff in the place the deep fryer was like a burning pit from hell. It was something that CAUSED destruction but never took it!
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
I hit/swear at/sweet talk my computer all day long...
The Answer
I hit the monitor, not the computer. I've never gone as crazy as this guy.
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
Virus = very yes!
WHAT?!
FLAGRANT SYSTEM ERROR:
The System is Down. I dunno what you did, moron, but you sure screwed everything up.
Among the numbers, 7% of those surveyed hit the computer, 13% yell at first, and another 13% try to "sweet-talk" their computer.
It's like beating a dead horse, but without the smell.
You can't take the sky from me...
Yes:
"Guess the rest reinstalled the OS and called it a day..."
1/2 did, the other 1/2 bought new computers.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
"There was one restaurant manager who was so upset with his laptop that he threw it into deep fryer," Norman said.
Cave man throw laptop into deep fryer. No need use the.
Where does the computer's "mind" go when it "crashes"?
It uses it's last remaining CPU cycles to sing a song.
"Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do..
"I'm half-crazy, all for the love of you,
"It won't be a stylish marriage,
"I can't afford a carriage,
"But you'll look sweet, upon the seat
"Of a bicycle built for two."
Either that, or display the BSOD on Windows.
From TFA: "few computer users haven't considered tossing a misbehaving PC out an office window at one time or another. One respondent in Norman's study did just that, but left out an important step.
"His mistake was he forgot to open the window," Norman said."
Heh, one of the boarding students at my high school had a similar experience. What saved him was that he forgot to unplug the computer!
So, I think we've all learned some important lessons here. (You know, open the window and unplug the computer before throwing it to the death it so justly deserves...)
Things to do today: See list of things to do yesterday
What do you do when or if your computer crashes? 1) Hit the computer 2) Swear 3) Coax computer into giving your data back 4) Sigh and reboot 5) drop into kdb 6) Call Cowboy Neal for Tech support Then the comments section could be flooded by Mac/Linux fanboys who say "What? Crash? What's that? My leet system is t3h sold OMGLOLROFL!1! " On second thought, maybe the poll's not such a good idea.
I read the initial blurb as:
Among the numbers, 7% of those survived hit the computer, 13% yell at first, and another 13% try to "sweet-talk" their computer.
I was wondering for a moment how many failed to make it.
liqbase
You work for Microsoft don't you?
I was considering what could cause the deep fryer to become destroyed and came up with only one possible conclusion:
It was "The One Laptop". Only a deep fryer could really destroy the laptop being that it was the evil that the laptop was created from. And when the laptop was cast into the fryer the fryer erupted from the critical mass of evil and proceeded to destroy everything around it.
(apologies to Tolkien, Oppenheimer, and Jackson)
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
Did he get the death penalty or just life in prison?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
From TFA: "Yet the first step for many computer after a computer crash is to hit or yell at their machine"
;)
I must have some sort of special computer, when it crashes it just freeze, I have never seen it yell or hit itself.
I can see the new computers yelling AT their users, because well all know the no1 reason for computer problems is the user
What about us members of /. who are sick of stupid LoTR jokes? Where's our apology? :)
But 7 percent said their first reaction is the hit the computer, Johnson said, a step that's rarely productive.
That implies that sometimes it *is* productive? If there is any chance whatsoever of me getting my deleted files back (1 in a billion?) I'll hit the computer everytime!
Do you Gentoo!?
"brunt of my furry"
ummmmmm....gross.
Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em
I once had a customer (back in my small computer business days) who had bought a brand new, top of the line 486 Acer laptop. It came complete with a cool-ass trackball and COLOR screen!
Anyway, after a few days, the trackball started sticking on the guy and he called us. We cleaned it, but it would still stick - and he was starting to get pissed. We called Acer and got the usual tech runaround where they insisted they would get back to us. The customer finally called them and they told him the same thing - they never did.
So one fine morning at breakfast, the guy sits down with his laptop and cup of coffee in the kitchen and the trackball sticks on him again. Not just a little glitch either, I mean the pointer simply isn't moving. With one sweep of his hand, the coffee cup goes flying and smashes to small pieces on the floor. His wife looks the mess with disgust and says, "Why don't you take out your aggression on your computer instead?"
And the guys yells, "Yeah? Well, I think I will!" And slams the laptop to the ground and starts JUMPING UP AND DOWN ON IT!
Sheepishly, the guy comes back to us with the laptop in many pieces and tells us this story (and we had to try not to laugh about it). We called Acer, and finally got through to the president of the company and explained what happened. Believe it or not, Acer profusely appologised and sent us a brand new model (sans trackball of course)!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
One restaurant manager who was so upset with his laptop that he threw it into deep fryer. That destroyed the laptop ... and deep fryer, too
Yes, but how did it taste???
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Never underestimate the power of percussive maintenance. Eons ago, back when the C64 was bleeding edge tech, I was in a school computer class. Our C64 locked up, taking with it everything we had done in the preceeding period. I head-butted the keyboard. It unfroze and worked fine for the rest of the period. True story. Used my head to solve the problem;-)
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
If it was Canadian beer, he probably got the Medal of Honor.
Honestly, Moosehead? Molson? Labatt's? There's a reason that Canada imports a lot of its beer.
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
"One restaurant manager who was so upset with his laptop that he threw it into deep fryer."
One laptop computer $1500
One commercial deepfryer $3000
The realization that not only have you destroyed your computer, but also a vital means to your restaruants busniness and your business and personal information due to a split second of impulse anger.... priceless
Here's the hardware abuse link, I don't think it's shown up here yet.
So, it wasn't a crash. But one day, my 98 box suddenly stopped playing sound.
Odd. Checked the speakers, they were fine. Hmm. Oh, I'm an idiot, check the volume controls. No, those are fine too. Very odd. Oh, what the hell, check that 98 still believes the hardware is there. Yep, hardware's there. Drivers read fine too.
Dead soundcard? Hmm. Reinstall the drivers.
Sound! Ahh.
Two days later, no sound.
Reinstall the drivers. No sound.
Reinstall again. No sound.
Reinstall again. Threaten to install RedHat on the box as it boots.
Sound. And never another problem with sound as long as I had the box.
Real techs just threaten to install Linux on misbehaving Windows boxes. Hitting them doesn't do anything; they're already into bondage and masochism.
Last time my computer crashed (thanks to Win98), I responded by meeting my first girlfriend and making out with her for hours.
:'(
Now I run Linux on my PC... I guess this means I'll never have another girlfriend.
I worked at a law firm once where one of the partners put his fist through the CRT after the computer ate his 150+ page brief;-) The best part of the story (which he tells with a ragamuffin gleam in his eye) is that it also happened to be the the first day in the office for a new legal secretary. She had just walked into his office to be introduced when he sucker punched the monitor. It was months, apparantly, before she would walk past his office again;-)
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
It also helps if you give the computer the "just in case I need it" look.
Look at computer, look at hammer, look back at computer, give it the look. Maybe give a little nod. My old Pentium 66 always got the hint.
[javac] 100 errors
I have twice attacked a phone in my lifetime.
Once was when my girlfriend's mother caught us having sex in high school. The phone call that initiated the phone-bashing incident was about 2 hours after that when I got to hear her mother telling her what to say:
Mom: You can never see him again....
Ex-Girl: I can never see you again...
It was like a soap opera with the Jedi mind trick worked into it. Funny and distressing at the same time. The phone met with an unfortunate rapid deceleration incident after contacting a brick wall at a high rate of relative velocity.
The second phone attack was much more fun. I was sleeping in a twin bed, next to the wall, with my girlfriend on the outside of the bed next to me.
In the pitch black of night there is a terrible shriek. My mind is clouded, dim, and limbic from sleep; enraged and disoriented by this hideous sound that keeps repeating itself. It screams once, twice, then on the third keening screech I launch myself over my sleeping girlfriend and land on top of the offending THING. I have absolutely no idea what it is that is making the noise, but I am driven insane with anger that it won't stop. The room is pitch black so I have to feel the screaming thing to find a way to make it stop. I grab it wholly in my hands and start to roughly search for a weak point, squeezing it hard all the while in vain hopes that it will choke and stop. Suddenly I feel a small tail-like thing in my hands and realize with grim and ecstatic joy that I have discovered its weak spot. I grab it, and as it yells again I begin to yank furiously on the tail, over and over.
Unfortunately I have begun to wake up now and by the time I realize just exactly what is going on I am sitting there in the dark, naked, with a phone in one hand and a frayed phone cord in the other, grinning like a madman but with the dawning realization that I have just killed with primal rage...my telephone. My girlfrind turns on the light about this time and looks at me, starteled. Then she fixes me with that LOOK. You might know the one. It is like she is never, ever gonna consider me fully human again, but dosen't want to let me know that she is thinking this in, just in case I decide to fulfil her basest opinions of me.
It still cracks me up to think of how I slaughtered a telephone in my sleep.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
crash different.
On an old 486 I had a long time ago, the keyboard on it was flaky. Everytime the computer started to boot, it would give me the keyboard error POST with the message:
Press F2 for setup
Press F1 to resume
This of course yielded nothing as the keyboard wasn't accepting input.
After getting pissed off at this, out of sheer frustration I hit the keyboard, and it proceeded to function. From that point on, I realized that if I drop the kb from about 6 inches above the desk, it would begin to function. I started to use it as a security feature. No one believed me until they saw it for themselves, but this worked everytime, without fail for the life of computer. True Story!
Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity!