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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.""
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!
I hit/swear at/sweet talk my computer all day long...
The Answer
Don't imagine the health department takes kindly to lithium-ion french fries.
Obviously he didn't cover the laptop with breading first.
In college, I used to keep tally of people who attacked their phones when receiving bad news. It's fascinatingly sad to watch: "The phone gave me bad news! I must destroy the phone!" By the end of the year, I swear I had a total of 35 confirmed phone attacks--but it was probably way above that.
Monster Zero is the reason we cannot live on the surface, but must live forever live underground like this.
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.
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
Deep fryer health regulations. That's a good one.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
What about us members of /. who are sick of stupid LoTR jokes? Where's our apology? :)
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?
Posted anonymously, for obvious reasons. ;)
I once worked at an unnamed fast food place, and spent a stint manning the fryers. One nightly task was to drain the oil through the external vacuum/filter.
Well, guess what happens if you forget to turn off the fryer, and still drain the oil out???
I'll *always* remember the cute little counter girl looking over my shoulder, and saying (just as calmly as can be) "is that vat supposed to be on fire?".
No, it wasn't -- and the resultant mess _almost_ resulted in the need for a new one. So yes, it's possible.....
a new frier or a new resturant?
...For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.
no anal?
Macs are the wieredest ones for crashing... Mine sits on the desk doing nothing most of the time (it's mostly a build server for the osx versions of my software.. it's got nothing installed but the basic osx + xcode) - I'll come to it after maybe a fortnight and the finder has gone into 100% CPU mode and taken most of the rest of the system with it... luckily the power plug is only a couple of inches away :)
The Win boxes stay up when not in use. Of course when you start to use them the story changes... it's *so* easy to bring down a windows box (my favourite is crashing the LSA.. it gives a 30 second countdown before falling over). [btw. before anyone asks that's not a virus I write software that integrates at quite a low level and the Win32 API isn't error checked at all at that level - the slightest error brings the whole thing crashing down].
Linux is *hard* to crash. Not impossible (fork bomb, even with ulimit, can sometimes cause the autokill routines to kill system processes like inetd). A runaway app at 100% CPU though doesn't do it, unlike Win and Mac.
The prize goes to AS400 which I haven't even been able to make break its stride even after trying hard. I can lock an individual login, but never had any effect on the stability of the system. Pity AS400 is such a damn awful piece of crap to work with most of the time...