Slashdot Mirror
Computers Top BBC List of Stress Producers
twitter writes "The BBC is reporting results of a poll by UK charity Developing Patient Partnerships that shows crashing computers to be one of the most common stresses and that it's actually killing people by driving them to drink and smoke. The quoted list has: 1. IT problems - 30%, 2. Change in financial status/personal injury - 24%, 3. Commuting - 20%. I've seen people take a smoke break when their computer pops a window and they lose an hour or two of work and admins taking their break straight from the bottle."
...buy a Mac!
(sorry, couldn't help it)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"Ah, my computer's crashed. Time to nip off to the pub..."
Dog is my co-pilot.
... and I put alcohol in my cereal I eat before going to work.
(And yes, I'm quite serious.)
They should have been more specific. I think they meant that Windows was the largest cause of stress.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
1. IT problems
3. Commuting
What about telecommuting?
sigfault. core dumped.
Surgeon General's warning: This product is an unstable, insecure piece of shit and will most likely drive you to suicide in sheer frustration.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
kidding right? because sometimes when I am stressed, porn on my comp is a great stress reliever
what is the frustration level of mac, linux, and microsoft users of all computer users.
Windows the top stress producer? Could a comparative study be done with, say, MacOSX users?
And guess that the 27% of men and 23% of women who would "light up in such a situation" roughly coorelates to the percentage of smokers in England.
The BBC is reporting results of a poll by UK charity Developing Patient Partnerships that shows crashing computers to be one of the most common stresses
The study also shows smashing computers to be one of the most common stress-relievers.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
From the article: "1. IT problems - 30% ... 2. Change in financial status/personal injury - 24%" Then later: "Over two thirds thought stress was simply having a 'bad day', 63% said it was dealing with difficult people and 58% saw stress as having too much to do." Okay, so which is it? 30% said IT problems were the top problem, but 63% said dealing with difficult people? Maybe the IT problems are caused by difficult people...?
Elsewhere: Considering that most people - 79% - believe they have been stressed in the last year.... ONLY 79%?! Who are these 21% of people who haven't felt stressed in the last 365 days?
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
I saw a video on youtube.com featuring a guy parodying the Mac commercials, slamming their interface. Lemme see if I can find it...
Here it is... and I know, I know, slashdotters are supposed to be above social bookmarking type sites, but... um.... I know - it has great porno. Yeah! That's it, it's the porno! Because, you know, I'm a nerd, and I got no girlfriend, so that means I'm a real leet slashdotter to be modded up... yeah!
My wife called me today to try to recover a couple of hours work she lost when her computer crashed. It gave no warning, just rebooted. I tried walking her through finding any temp files that might have her work, but to no avail.
"Sorry," I said, "that's just Windows. It crashes. That's why I don't like it." I looked up the uptime on the Sun workstation where I was: 121 days. RHEL4 Server: 122 days. Oh yeah, I did patch those last summer, around Labor Day.
Computers don't crash: Windows does.
If admins were honest with their users and didn't try to defend Windows or say that all operating systems crash just as much, the world would be a better place.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
to see the obvious.
It was not the GPL or being able to Use the Source that led me to Linux; it was Windows' misbehavior. I learned to love those other things later, after I found Linux to be much better behaved.
I would much, much rather spend time learning and configuring Linux to my liking -- a positive feeling of success and pride -- than put up with Windows' flaws -- a feeling of failure and helplessness.
Frankly, I didn't care whether I used BeOS (which I was considering at the time) BSD or Linux as long as it didn't crash all the time or get viruses (boot sector trojans were popular then.) As chance had it, my local computer store had a 5-linux-distro boxed set for sale for $20 USD, so Linux it was.
I have been an enthusiastic Linux user and contributer ever since.
IT problems while commuting as a result of personal injury - 74%
Leela: Bender? My God, you're a mess! ... what I don't do is none of your business.
Bender: Leave me alone.
Leela: Look at the 5:00 rust. You've been up all night not drinking, haven't you?
Bender: Hey
Leela: Please, Bender, have some malt liquor. If not for yourself, then for the people who love you.
Seems Google email realized they have Windows users... that auto-save has been great for retaining those important emails to my drinking buddies.
Nothing washes away a day of Windows being stupid and users being oblivious like one part gin plus one part tonic. Lime optional.
I RTFA and what a load of crap. Only mentions IT in the first paragraph. And we all know correlation != causation. On with the typical /. discussion!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
1) Other people
2) Work
Can you think of a stress issue that can't be traced back to one or both of these?
I somehow forgot to click on the post anonymously button. Now I'm caught redhanded posting a stupid story to slashdot. Oh well.. shit happens. In future I will make sure that I am not logged on to slashdot when I want to post anonymously, okay? Hey but you should have seen me jump up and yank the ethernet cable out of my machine... :-)
This sort of light-hearted humor is what promotes irresponsible drinking.
People, for your own sakes, check that what you are drinking isn't the ruler of a planet or something. Drink responsibly.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
Spam "stopped" and I got exactly 1,337 emails, but 10 minutes later it changes to 1,338.
The logic distilled:
When you're stressed, do you smoke or drink? [read: do you smoke or drink? This is an awful question for establishing a link. Possible alternate question: "do you like a massage when you're stressed?"]
What stresses you? Do crashing computers stress you? ["Yeah." Of course they do.]
Therefore, computers drive people to drink.
Nowhere have they established a causal link between the group that is stressed and the group that drinks, aside from what you'd expect from pretty random overlap. This has the smell of a bad study and results blown up to sound outrageous. The article reads like a bunch of observations about overlapping groups concluding with inflammatory statements about two of the groups which are only vaguely linked in the actual data.
Another analogy: IT problems lead to sex. Well, IT problems lead to stress, stressed people are more likely to get massages, and a nontrivial number of massage parlors offer sex services. IT problems lead to prostitution! Please give us more funding.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
"...admins taking their break straight from the bottle."
Jeez! I always figured we were a bunch of happy go lucky party animals.
You learn something new everyday!
DISCLAIMER:
I don't believe what I write, and neither should you.
Les Barker's spoken word poem seems to fit this story:
I bought a new computer.
It cost a thousand pound,
But every time I switch it on
It keeps on falling down.
I used to think it was my friend,
But now it drives me 'round the bend.
You'd be surprised the time I spend:
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.
I switch it on -
What is this?
Something wrong with CONFIG SYS
This isn't my idea of bliss:
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.
I want to share my printers and
I want to share my files.
I want to share my anger
'Cause it drives me blooming wild.
My songs, they say, are sublime;
I've conquered cadence, mastered rhyme.
But now-a-days I spend my time:
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.
Reinstall - oh what fun!
It says it helps you get things done.
Every day now, everyone's
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.
Look again. It will say
All you do is plug and play.
How do I spend every day?
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.
It can't find my printer and
It can't locate my mouse.
The other day it drove me
Right out of the bloomin' house.
Still unplugged, still unplayed,
I e-mailed God in search of aid.
He's far to busy, I'm afraid...
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.
Up at dawn for one more try
Will it work? - Can pigs fly?
How do I expect to die?
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.
I used to like a drink or three.
No time now - don't call for me.
How will I spend eternity?
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
How often do you have to deal with programs that you yourself have written not doing exactly what you want? I know I do all the time. Language and technology restrictions really frustrate me.
Try writing a PDA todo list where the "done" items are indicated by a strikethrough. Too bad! Microsoft Compact Framework doesn't support strikethrough font for labels. But try explaining that to your boss.
As a young programmer, I guess I have to learn to not get frustrated by these things, but it's hard when your job and career depends on it. Anyone have any other stories of programmning frustration or tips to deal with them please post.
"A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age." -Robert Frost
And im sat reading /. while smoking a fag and drinking a beer. Oh dear
I hate the people who love me, and they hate me!
Don't you have someone you'd die for?
They make them frustrating so you will break them, then buy a new one.
the Blue Screen of Death. I tell ya, these jokes just write themselves.
Cheers,
-AT
Working in a DevOps shop is like playing in a band made up entirely of keytarists.
Hi, Sadly, I'm olny 17, so I have (allas) only ever realy experienced Windoze and OSX at collage, although there are a fiew things that the students use in Windoze to their advantage.... I learnt infinite patents when all our family had as a computer wasa 10 yr old Pentium 2 running XP. You soon learn that there is nothing you can do. no tricks to stop it crashing, just sit and PRAY. Now I have a P4, and it still crashes as often. Shows its not the hardware at least...
Windows itself isn't truely flawed. Hell, it runs great for me. It could run better if it was modular, but what can I do? It isn't like I have a second harddrive just laying around. The only reason Windows fucks up for so many people is because they don't know jack shit about computers. They still teach the fucking tag in IT classes at High School, that's just fucked up. [/endn00bhate]
It's never just a game when you're winning. - George Carlin
I'm a bit surprised as many as one in five feel commuting is a source of stress, actually.
I find it relaxing. In the morning, it gives me some time where I can't really work, and can't rush around looking for things, or doing last-minute household stuff. Instead I can sit (well, stand) on the train and sort oease into the day by reading a book or a bunch of saved webpages on my computer, or just listen to the radio.
In the evening, likewise, I can sit and wind down, again with a book or radio. I get some time to go over the work in my head, in a sense summarizing it and deciding what to do the nesxt morning. By the time I get home, I've left my work behind and can relax.
Here's somebody with the right idea: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jannem/22329391/
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
If IT problems are the bad thing, OpenBSD users must be quite mellow. OpenBSD doesn't crash, as long as you keep the load low.
i'll now be intoxicated during the hours of 9-5pm, except during lunch where you'll find me outside smoking.
ROFL
p.s. for non brits its a fag packet related joke.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
There's a second box along the side of that page, showing one how to avoid stress. Cool! Let's take a look:
...Have a nice evening.
H HHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
1. Live a healthy lifestyle
Well, duh. OK, maybe someone under stress needs the bleeding obvious told to them. Whatever.
2. Don't take too much on
Too much what? Stress?
3. Decide what causes you stress and change it
OS9 causes my stress. The Accounting Dept. says I can't change it either.
4. Avoid unnecessary conflict
So, one should just smile at that luser and say "Yes, you're right - it's a virus I let in through the firewall. Your kids music collection acquired through Kaaza - on our corporate laptop - has _nothing_ to do with all those strange pop-ups. No sir. I'll have it all fixed up in a jiffy."? OK.
5. Manage your time better
Good. Hang on, cell phone ringing again...
6. Practice saying "no" without feeling guilty
Me: Hullo?
Them: Hey - the server's down
Me: *checks with ssh* Odd - it was runnig like a top when I left for home.
Them: Well, with the construction going on in here, the electricians kinda shut the power to the server room off.
Me: Ummmm... The server is on UPS. Why's it dead?
Them: They shut it off a 5. It's now 8. The drill they plugged into the UPS didn't help either. Can you come in and fix it?
Me: NO. Get them to fix it - it's thier fault! And nothing you say will make me feel guilty enough to come in.
Them: Suuuure. Get your ass in here or your fired! The CIO golfs at my country club, you know.
Me: Yeahyeahyeah. Be there ASAP. As soon as I explain to my wife why I'm going to work during her birthday celebration.
Yup, no stress there....
7. Take time out to "recharge your batteries"
Me: Yup, the batteries aren't charging. You guys fried the my UPS batteries with your drill. You've trashed my DB and destroyed a 3000VA UPS. I need to see the foreman now - you guys owe us for all this.
FatAssSparky: Fuck you.
8. Talk about problems so they do not get out of proportion
Me: I'd like to talk to you about your workers killing power to my server room, and...
Foreman: Sorry 'bout that, buddy. Now, we want we should take 4 days to finish up here, or an extra week with similar 'mishaps', if you wanna start sqwaking about our little boo-boo dis evenin'?
Me: *WINCE*
9. Make time to see friends
Friend: Soko, if your just going to bitch about your day, I'm leaving. I hate that geeky stuff. Oh, and you pay the tab.
10. Do not use alcohol, nicotine or caffeine to cope with stress
Are they FUCKING KIDDING?? WHO ARE THESE MORONS?? I'll FUCKING SHOW THEM STRESS. WITH A SNOWSHOVEL CAVING IN THIER FUCKING SKULL!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGH
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
1. Your ops manager drowns on a glass of water. ...") for the 100th time. She has been at that job for about 100 days. Nope, she still doesn't get it.
2. The three staff PhDs together can't team up to figure out how to submit a web form.
3. The CEO knocks you out of a revenue project to work on his pet project.
4. After 6 months of dissing the CEO, his pet project starts making as much money as he predicted. Yes, you were wrong. Yes, the CEO was actually right.
5. For the 14th day in a row SQL Server Agent decides to magically, and for no reason, saboutage your carefully orchestrated maintenance plan for SQL Server.
6. Upon deploying a new server, you remembered to upload the hosts file in the smoothwall firewall. You also remembered to update the rules so only the bare minimum services are exposed. You are happy, so you go home. 12 hours later your junior employee informs you that you forgot to update the external DNS(which means you are missing some 12 entries), and the new server has been sitting pretty much idle all along.
7. The new sales guy uses "paradigm shift" during a meeting that had NOTHING TO DO WITH SHIFTING PARADIGMS.
8. To counteract #7, the marketing manager starts talking about "search engine optimization" in the same meeting. Yeah, the meeting wasn't about that either.
9. You just walked a person thru a very simple sequence of actions ("click here, now click here
10. The old nasty coffee urn dies, so the company buys a nice drip maker with a shutoff timer. After 2 hrs the pot shuts down, which forces people to brew fresh coffee instead of keeping it warmed thru the day with the expected nastiness. Of course, your coworkers are too lazy to brew fresh coffee, so they figure out how to turn on the coffee maker so it can keep the same batch warm all day, with the expected nastiness.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
TFA:
The poll by UK charity Developing Patient Partnerships showed more than a third of men and a quarter of women have a drink to cope with stress. Of the 1,000 people polled, 27% of men and 23% of women said they would light up a cigarette in such situations.
Was it really Windoze crapping out on them? It's hard to tell but the indicators are there. We only know what they told the poll and what a third of respondents told the poll was that their crashing computer was their problem. That was more than being fired, because most people are not fired. Other things, like the death of a loved one or crime did not make the list though they might create much greater problems for individuals because those things are rare. IT was more bothersome than listed commuting, though everyone has to commute and it's not fun. Notice that working longer hours, and greater demands from work did not make the top three though most people are doing that. There have been other studies that show that people would rather have their teeth pulled or pay Federal Taxes than fix their broken computer. As Bill Gates is who most people talk to when they turn on their computer at work, we can confidently say that Windoze is a great creator of stress. Bill should be ashamed to have made the top ten because he's nudged aside other common things like co-worker interaction, workplace noise and lack of privacy in the workplace and all the usual things that drive people to self destructive behavior like smoking and drinking.
The root cause of Windoze's power to annoy is that it's linked to number 2 and the user is helpless in a non free environment. If your computer craps out, you might just find yourself looking for another job and there is NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. The computer spys on them and it does not work right and it can hurt them but they have to sit still and take it. Worse, the Wintel press always blames the user. Is there anything else more humiliating than being blamed for things you hate but not being able to do anything about it? The rest is speculation, but humiliated people have a tendency to engage in destructive behavior.
Are more people drinking and smoking? Women are, especially working women who have to use computers all day. Smoking is also one of the few work sanctioned ways to get away from the computer.
Is it killing people? Yes, smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the world. As more women smoke, their rates of lung and other cancer is catching up with men.
Is it all Bill's fault? No, but his help is something most can do without. His "sharp business practice" attitude has been an inspiration to assholes everywhere and his software is responsible for the answers to the above poll. I wonder how much of the "improved efficiency" of IT is due to outsoutsourcing, H1Bs and fewer people forced to do more work, which is more a function of tax structure than anything else. There's real efficiency in electronic records, but there's more with software that does not suck.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
ROFL. The parent is an excellent demonstration of the kind of **stress** that can result from posting to Slashdot whilst logged in.
;-)
Textbook. Another life destroyed.
throwing chairs is way to relieve computer stress
You don't need a comma in the word 1337, and, quite honestly, I have no idea what 1338 is supposed to mean.
;)
Seriously, does anyone here know what a 'leeb' is?
LTFL, n00b.
Windows Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Tried meds, but no luck. Tried drinking more, but that only caused other problems. So haven't found the answer to my problem, although I can be relatively symptom-free if I stay on OSX or linux.
George Formby's When I'm Cleaning Windows
As they say, drinking doesn't solve any problems. You still have the problems, plus the drinking.
I do get your point about the survey though,
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
The DPP is urging people not to look to smoking, eating junk food and drinking alcohol, as these activities do not help stress levels.
I wonder though, if the substance being smoked is marijuana (rather than tobacco), how that statement would look (assuming compulsory honesty). Somewhat related, there was some recent study (just one! oh noes! no link! must be bogus!) linking moderate-to-high marijuana use to decreased incidence of depression (and decreased incidence of posting links to studies). Taking a puff certainly seems to ease the stress of posting anonymously (obligatory parenthetical) (here's another).
The things that stress average people out are not platform specific.
I have to disagree. The article specifically said "crashing computer". That is an MS specific feature. Other OSes don't do that nearly as often, which is one more reason I don't use MS products.
A challenge for you: Put your wife in front of your precious Unix/Linux boxen. Put the equvialent applications on those boxes and let her run loose with them. Give her the same connectivity. Oh and don't forget she gets to be admin too. Lets see how stable they are in a month.
See that's the problem. Narrow minded people like you that have managed to get a box stable for their own needs and automatically assume that if everyone else can't do the same for their purposes it must be because they've chosen an inferior OS.
If Linux were so stable as you describe AND did everything people wanted to do with windows (WITHOUT requiring a computer science degree to administer), just how long do you think it'd be considered a geek's OS? People aren't using Windows because they're all morons. They're using Windows because despite its flaws it does what they require more than other operating systems. That doesn't mean I love the damn system but I'd sooner ask a non-computer person to hang off a cliff by a piece of sewing thread than suggest they switch to Linux to resolve all their problems.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Even Bender found a way to 'releive his stress'
.. Are you jacking on in there?!
Bender.
Actually the term used in the poll said "IT-related problems". The article then extrapolated that to mean crashing computers.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I would say that the people I support get stressed by their lack of understanding of typical software flow. Want to change a default behavior 90% of the time thats in Tools->Options. Though recent trends are leaning into Edit->Preferences. Hell just mouseover all the things at the top and look for something that says Options or Preferences under it. Just as long as (true story) they dont set both the font and background colors to white and masterfully save this as normal.dot How they figured out this feat of ingorance is beyond me. First, that is STUPID. Second, how the hell with that level of brain seepage did they manage to replace their normal.dot? Its almost like they knew what they were doing and just wanted some attention from someone...anyone...IT will do.
There's something to be said about MS lock-in due to vendor lock-in and the vendors are writing their apps...or I should say bought the company that wrote their apps.. and adding features that break 10 others. I shit you not, the latest version of one application we must use and pay gobs of cash / year for runs on a 16 bit subsystem and is a VB App as far as I can tell. It meshes a combination of Access 97 databases and a homebrew TCP widget that's about 5% reliable with a butt ugly UI. If the access databases haven't soiled themselves due to a lockup of the VB...likely related to an indefinate wait on the TCP widget...then the GD license file LIKE ANYONE WOULD STEAL THIS SHIT is corrupted and their data goes to who knows where without the slightest notice to users or admins. Atomicity for these guys has something to do with Hiroshima as far as they know. Something else thats cute? That server has reissued over 50 times the number of seats we have, not because we're thieves, because it doesn't even keep track and every crash and burn requires a reinstall. THAT CAUSES STRESS.
So don't shove this off on Windows, sure it's not the best OS, but without all of the applications and hack drivers it's really a good OS. I bet the above poster's wife forgot to mention the sudden boot of the system roughly coincided with her trying to print it on that brand new laser printer she plugged into the UPS.
I threw out my BP6 yesterday. Wife and i live in a 1 bedroom apartment and we were running out of space. I have such fond memories of that thing.
I have 2 identical boxes at work. Very nice boxes. One runs FC4, the other runs XP. I have to generate some documents on the FC4 box and then move them to the XP box. Please tell me, why has OO.org crashed 4 times in the past 4 months? And why hasn't Office 2003 ... ever crashed? I'm performing the same operations. If anything I perform the more intensive operations on the XP box.
My coworker has 1 box - FC4. For awhile it refused to boot - he'd have to restart it several times, it would hang up on mounting the file system - the FILE SYSTEM. But kick it and reboot a few times and it would work.
I repeat, my windows box works fine.
I submit to you, two factors.
The first is the user. A compotent user will have a better experiance in any environment. Your wife was an idiot. If you can lose "a couple hours of work" by not going to File->save every once in awhile, well, you kind of get what is coming to you. Sorry.
The second is the software and operating system. Particularly the configurations, although some software is doomed from the beginning. Doesnt matter if it is Windows or Linux. It will f*ck up. I've seen both. Again, I've had more problems with OO.org than Office 2k3. And my coworkers FC4 wouldn't boot on the first 3-7 tries (reformat solved it. Couldn't pin the problem). And I've seen NT4 machines with damn near 2 year uptimes. Windows doesn't crash. Stupid users and poorly written software does. There are enough cases of windows servers lasting godawful long times (And don't tell me I should be patching - back in the NT days we didn't, there were only 6.5 major service packs, and nowadays you don't need every little patch anyways if you have a good firewall) and I've seen Linux boxes that can't stay afloat. IF you set it up right it will last. So it all comes back to the user. If your dumb, well you get whats coming to you.
Sorry if its a rant. I use Windows and Linux. Right tool for the right job. My windows box works just as well as my Linux box. Guess I'm just better than you at setting it up and keeping it running. I have no other explanation. Stupid users, stupid problems.
...Captain Obvious has been named President of the BBC.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
That's why I drink and smoke. Computers! When do I get to sue Microsoft and use the money for stress-relieving hookers?!
Lighten up. Its only a post.
Computers also give you FPS games to frag your worries away...
...and a USB lighter next to the cigarette dispenser.
What next? A USB space heater? USB was not designed to power your little trinkets especially not one that's primary purpose is to convert power straight to heat. This will just drive you to more drinking and smoking after your USB port melts down.
So not only is Microsoft monopolizing the software market, costing millions in virus damage through lousy security, and destroying competitors with the crushing power of the dark side of the force, but they are also killing the American workforce.
Thus undermining capitalism.
Thus causing recession.
Thus starving the orphans of the office workers they killed.
Oh and don't forget she gets to be admin too.
/sarcasm
What? Make her run Linspire?
Why the heck would you grant administrator rights to a person that doesn't know how to admin the machine? I allow all of my friends to ride in my car but only people that can drive are allowed to operate it.
If I configure a Windows system for someone I don't make them an admin unless they can actually handle the responsibility. Sadly, it doesn't stop all of the malware that can take down the whole system, not just things that the user has access to.
This is why I recommend people go with MacOS or Linux or BSD. Yes, you can't run everything on other platforms but when the user just wants to browse the web, check email, and play movies/music, Windows is definately not the best choice.
So it's not just big companies. Everybody abuses the patent system.
In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
Thank you very much.
There you have it. You killed my mother, Bill Gates.
Umm.... the forgot to ask those smokers what other computer issues make them light up a butt. Being an IT smoker let me start to list them...
while (true) {
print "users";
}
High Frutose Corn Syrup is very bad for you as it adds as much as 1/3 to your triglicerides --- causing you to gain alot of weight. Its in alot of junk food, soft drinks, etc...
Remove it from your diet and you will be healthier.
This computer stress thing... its alot teh same....
Simply remove Microsoft from your computer diet and your stress level will decrease.
Its the MS user frustration function. Its pervasive...junk food...
And you thought YOU were going to get moderated troll...
At least you can go to a porn site when the computer comes back up and masturbate. That relieves stress.
I remember that. Or, more accurately, I remember reading about that. I never managed to keep a Windows 9x machine alive for the requisite span of time.
That's not entirely true. A well-designed power supply which provides a maximum of 12 volts DC can work with an input of just a bit more than than 12 volts RMS. A power supply could actually be designed with step-up capability such that, so long as the source will provide adequate current, the required ouput voltage can be maintained with any input voltage.
This is a bit beside the point, however, as power supplies for computers are not designed with such silliness in mind. Enter the line conditioner. This handy (albeit usually expensive) device will provide a stable AC output voltage for a wide range of input voltages, and also acts as the mother of all surge suppressors. You plug it into the wall and plug your equipment into the line conditioner. I have one inline with my UPS. When power drops out altogether, my UPS covers me. When the voltage drops far too low to safely run my equipment, my conditioner protects me. The better UPSes actually have integrated line conditioning, so read the specs before dismissing that horribly expensive UPS. Me? I'm a cheap bastid, so my setup is a bit goofy.
Not all amps are created equal. Your 60 amp oven is drawing 14.4 kilowatts of power (Electric ovens operate on 240 volts RMS here in USAnia, times the stated 60 amps, times an assumed power factor of 1 since ovens are a resistive load). The two twelve volt, 38 amp power rails combined can supply 912 watts of power to a load. On the source side, that ammounts to only 7 amps of current (the 912 watts, divided by 120 volts RMS, divided by a power factor of 1 just to make the math easier). This is not nearly so significant.
Batou: Hey, Major... You ever hear of "human rights"? Major: I understand the concept, but I've never seen it in action
That's ironic... I've been weaning myself off nicotine addiction and alcoholism by becoming an internet addict.
I've been using a mac without any problems. Now using the outdated adobe premiere was another story. It did flake out and crash a lot. But as long as you hit the "save now" quick key combo about every 5 minutes the crash wasn't too disruptive. Final cut has never crashed on me, not once. Media 100 never crashed on me, nor has Avid.
The video made me laugh. Dragging files from a cd to the desktop doesn't make an alias on my machine, it coppies the file over. Also inserting music cds won't auto play. I don't think I ever changed any settings, everything seems to just work. My powerbook has been running for 65 days now. I do shut it down from time to time.
If this guy really has these problems, he needs to find a mac user to fix his machine. unfriendly behavior is unusual
Comment removed based on user account deletion
In the bad old days:
Now:
However, if your boss makes you run a crash-happy application don't blame your drinking on 'computers'. There is good software available. It is the decision making in software selection that is often at fault.
Warning! Windows is dangerous to your health! It is extremely advisable to move away from the Windows box and switch to a Linux machine.
I've seen people take a smoke break when their computer pops a window and they lose an hour or two of work
You surely cant mean MS word users suffer this problem... We all use Autorecovery.
The network hasn't been the same since.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Almost sounds like he thinks that's a bad thing.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Clue up so you don't have to do enduser support.
I found out that in such situations of having to explain repeatedly something is to have them write down the steps to achieve that task.
VERY large corp in 1997. Manager comes in to my convertible office (cubicle), very pale and sweaty because a phone mail reporting system was out.
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John's on vacation. Figure out what is wrong with this system. He usually works on it. Here's the documentation.
What? That's not documentation. That's a Dbase II manual.
Well, that's what it is written on.
On a Windows 3.1 box I bet.
Yeah. So. It works.
DBase II disappeared a decade ago.
We've never seen the need to upgrade. FIX IT.
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You all guessed it. Rebooted and Bob's your uncle. Man, that John was a piece of work. That poor manager was stressed out of his mind thinking the world would discover he was nursing a dead legacy app. John could die in that job. I would have given my left nut to see that manager poring over that Dbase II manual thinking it was documentation for the system. 'Wow, this is impressive work but I can't find anything on the phone mail system'.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
I do -- DOSEmu. WordPerfect-5.1, dragmax, pipemax (auto racing development programs), mercury (the old Borland graphical maths solver) and grammatik-2 run perfectly on it. I have used DOS since ver 3.1.
No blue screen of death in DOS, that's true. Just don't use extended memory or you'll get instant death-crashes without the blue screen warning.
I know you were trolling...you just didn't know you were half right, did you?
"I know you were trolling...you just didn't know you were half right, did you?"
Take it as you wish. I'm just being real. Windows has no magic "crash" API, there's always a rational reason for a problem - overheating, bad hardware, bad electricity, bad software, wrong configuration.. OR last: bug in the OS.
You'll be surprised how stable Windows is if you handle it properly (first hand experience). But of course it's much easier to just say "Hey, Windows sucks that's why it crashes" and be done with it.
stress producer, i thought it was supposed to be your plastic pal who's fun to be with.
I am not a newbie. Windows' problems with respect to stability (I am speaking of 9x, the only versions I have used) are endemic, and IN THE OS. I have had a new installation of W98 go south in less than an hour with NO APPLICATIONS YET INSTALLED simply by playing a video through MPlayer.
.dlls replaced, anything can (and will) happen.
Once apps are installed and
I am not going to buy Windows again. Ever.
End of story.
As for you, do what you like.
NB: Do you realize you sound like a Microsoft shill?
The best part is the associated URL, landoverbaptist.org.
Boys from the City. Not yet caught by the Whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.
No. There is an inherent problem in the OS. Window's refusal to compartmentalize memory and Window's insistence on running everything in one big memory segment creates a greater likelihood a catastrophic crash than Unix/Linux systems.
Boys from the City. Not yet caught by the Whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.
I think my church can deal with that. They didn't excommunicate me btw but I can recommend two people to be crucified to both sides of me. Would you like to come?
"I am speaking of 9x, the only versions I have used"
Oh ok, that's pretty different. Microsoft knew very well that 9x is problematic, which is why the goal was from the very start to transition to NT. 9x was just a short term strategy.
9x was the best that could be done at the time (to ensure full compatibility with the plethora of DOS/Win3.11 apps that were present at the time). As you know, compatibility plays crucial role in the success of the Windows series.
"No. There is an inherent problem in the OS. Window's refusal to compartmentalize memory and Window's insistence on running everything in one big memory segment creates a greater likelihood a catastrophic crash than Unix/Linux systems."
You don't realize we're talking the same thing. The "one big memory segment" issue where one program could poke the memory of another program and crash it (including system critical drivers etc.), is present only in 9x series and it was part of ensuring DOS apps can run natively, since they don't understand 32-bit protected mode.
This problem is non-existent in NT since it only emulates DOS mode instead of making it part of the core OS... NT works like Unix instead, where the address space of a program is local to the program (so even with the best of intentions, the program can't touch the memory outside its own space).
And FYI Microsoft was fully aware, but it was apparent the casual users won't jump on an OS that doesn't run their Windows 3.11 apps (where Win 3.11 is really a graphic shell over DOS, W 3.11 has no its own API for file access for example and instead uses DOS's one).
NT 3.51 and 4.0 was available at the time, so it's not like NT was invented post factum.
You see, it's good to know things, but when you don't know the whole story it's easy to blame and come up with the wrong conclusions.
Microsoft just did whatever was necessary to transition the users to the NT experience and keep its market share.
BTW, if you had random crashing while playing MPlayer after fresh 9x install, it's most likely bad hardware. I remember at the time VIA was selling a bunch of terrible mobos, I had to return my VIA motherboard after repeated BSOD's on fresh Win98 and switched to Intel mobo and never had such serious issues on that PC since.
Well, it's true i wasn't taking converion into account for the stated amps etc, but then there is efficiency to calculate, and and the 5 v rail, so by the time you have it all figured out having the PC plugged into a 15 amp line, that also powers a monitor can cause a breaker to trip every time. even if no other devices are on the same line, and most houses are wired so that each room or worse each floor has a single breaker for outlets. add in a UPS to deal with undervoltages and brownouts and the amperage requirement goes up yet again... it's pretty easy with high end equipment to wind up with a setup that exceeds the 15-20 amps normal wiring uses.
Anyways, i know how easy it is to trip breakers etc because i was on fuses, and replaced a 15 amp fuse with a 20 amp fuse to take care of problems i was having with power going out on me, and this was 4 years ago and i only had 4 computers (none of them high end) running. the high end has drastically increased power requirments because of dual graphic cards, dvd burners, affordable raid setups etc.
still, bad power does cause a lot of stability issues with a lot of electrical devices, including computers.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
OK> Your response in the last paragraph is basically "If you install fresh and have exactly the right hardware it is rock solid". Well, um, that isn't exactly a stable OS. I installed FreeBSD on flaky hardware, ancient hardware, everywhere, and I have left it running unpatched for a year or more, and it doesn't crash. A 2 month old install of XP, on the otherhand, crashes 1/day if I dare to use mozilla.
To anticipate your response, yes, Mozilla is crashing it, but my argument is: The is no way Mozialla should be able to take out the entire OS/UI. THAT is a design flaw.
Boys from the City. Not yet caught by the Whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.
You must be talking about LSD?
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com