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."
"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.
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
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.
That's so true. I work with Windows at work. Today I struggeled with Symantec corperate edition server pushouts to clients. Very frustratring. Now I sit at home with my Gentoo machine, completely content and stress-free. Computers running Windows and software that is specific to Windows is the number one source of stress in my life. I like computers.
I've seen a lot of things, but I've never been a witness.
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.
Hate too sound like a troll but I am trying too reistall my mac becuase it destroyed two hours of work the other day from a kernel panic. Oh well, once in 6 months too a year isn't bad right?
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
Seems Google email realized they have Windows users... that auto-save has been great for retaining those important emails to my drinking buddies.
I remember reading that Windows users make up most of the Slashdot demographic anyway, and that the Linux-using majority is a myth.
Thoughts?
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.
What did you possibly do to your Mac to get it to kernel panic?
... you should submit a bug report to the developer. That shouldn't be happening with production code.
I've been using OS X since the public beta, and I haven't had one do the old black-scrolling-text-screen-of-death in years now. And when it did happen back a while ago, it was mostly because I was using some (at the time) very shady drivers.
Whatever software you were running
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
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... :-)
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.
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.
Are you using Firefox?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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...
What is with the fixation on trying to pin everything on MS? The things that stress average people out are not platform specific. Average people can barely SAVE A FILE or install a program. These are the stresses that would apply. No matter what platform you're on people will have a stressfull time doing anything.
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.
Not a good statistical distribution or scientific study, just my personal experiences with a large and mostly homogenous (i.e., they all had roughly the same skill level usage patterns) userbase. Plus it's always irked me that application crashes can (not always, but can) cause instability in windows. Only kernel and system level applications should have that risk and I hope msword.exe isn't running as system.
I have no
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
I also made my life a lot less stressful by switching from Windows to Mac.
and I had similar results by switching from a car to a motorbike.
this "computers cause stress" is the same inaccuracy as "computers affected by viruses" - it's not *computers*, it's just Windows.
Here is the real mac parody site.
http://www.happynowhere.net/mac_parody.php
Star Trek, there maybe hope.
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.
Wow, had a powerbook for ages, and not seen that. Cool.
Mind you, My Dell Precision M60 blue screened for the first time the other night. It was provoked, a screw had fallen out and I accidentally pulled the hard drive out while the machine was on. Oops.
No harm done though!
-- "It's not stalking if you're married!" My Wife.
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.
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.
Software crashes. A stable operating system doesn't mean that the applications that run on it will never crash. It does mean that, generally speaking, you can force-quit the application and reopen it without it hosing your entire system and forcing a computer restart.
MS-Word crashes on my mac nearly as often as it does on my PC, but the difference is that I can generally open it right back up and keep working on my Mac, whereas it takes a huge dump in memory on my PC and slows everything else down.
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 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.
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.
Cars are complex machines, yet auto maufactures have managed to put some sence of consistency and intuitivness into their controls. Many people get stressed out in traffic jams, but you don't normally hear complains about the controls. Yeah, computers are much more complex to interact with by nature, but Apple and others have showen that it can be made easier if maufactures are willing to put in the effort.
...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.
Hmmm, so you're telling me your wife who couldn't reinstall the OS on her own and who chooses an OS based on how pretty it is hasn't needed your help with her system in 2 years.
She's either doing nothing more than reading email and surfing the web (with the occassional card game thrown in for good measure) or you're flat out lying.
If she was doing more she'd have come across a word document whose layout your office sweet had stuffed up, an excel spreadsheet with a macro it couldn't render or something else like that. You're not going to try to tell me she's admining the firewall herself or upgrading any secure components. Or are you going with the myth that Linux is impervious to attacks and security threats???
I'd love to....absolutely LOVE to go Linux only. When I can run my flight sims, chess software (and I'm not talking Winboard here!), open up my work documents without the formatting going to hell, not have to worry about the next upgrade installing draconian password security by default (that incident was fun. PAM with ridiculous security for my 'lil old home PC) etc. Then I may just think of ditching Windows.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
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
Well, okay, I indulged in a fairly typical Slashdottian bit of gratuitous MS-bashing and got a 0, Redundant only 8 posts in for my troubles. Still, I'd be quite honestly curious to see if there are any platform-based statistical correlations in the data.
The frustrations that my family exhibit (and bring to me to fix) are almost always spyware, worm, or other malware-related, followed in close second with registry issues caused by legitimate software. Both these things are almost solely found on Windows. Thing is 'computer' means 'windows box' the way 'kleenex' means 'tissue' these days, so it's hard to get a sense of what the study is really showing here.
(Well, anyway, that's my attempt at being reasonable and salvaging karma from my admittedly knee-jerk attempt at getting a first post.)
There you have it. You killed my mother, Bill Gates.
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...
At least you can go to a porn site when the computer comes back up and masturbate. That relieves stress.
I simply *love* being called a liar for sharing being stupid enough to share personal information on Slashdot, thank you for reminding me of this fact. Nobody's asking you to ditch Windows. If you're too dumb to figure out what my non-technical wife had no problems understanding, blame yourself.
Working in a DevOps shop is like playing in a band made up entirely of keytarists.
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
You had one kernel panic so you're reinstalling? What, do you think you're running Windows? ;)
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.
OK, that was funny as hell. I don't hate Macs, they're not as bad as the guy makes it out, but he's still funny. He'd be funnier if he was slamming Windows.
Flamebait, troll... who gives a f**k today? There are plenty of almost-identical posts on this thread where one is modded troll and the other insightful.
Anyone for a case of MUI (Modding Under Influence)? I guess they will just blame it on the most recent Windows crash, or some Windows user from Marketing complaining that Spider Solitare "Won't Work (tm)".
I swear we should be allowed to give mod points to sigs... "-1, Offtopic"
Wow, looks like all the grumpy mods ran out of points before you posted this - earlier you would have been modded "Troll" :P
I would agree, up to a point, however I would be more inclined to say "stupid users affected by viruses". Stupid users are cross-platform compatible, and all that, however Windows really does thrive on a lack of education - the whole MS ploy (if their interface is anything to go by) is that "You don't need to know how to use a computer to use Windows!"
I swear we should be allowed to give mod points to sigs... "-1, Offtopic"
Interesting, have you ever tried to put a scratched CD in a G5 running Panther and watch it crash the entire system? I've seen it happen at least 5 times at work on different machines. Clean the CD and everything works fine. But, I've never noticed this happen on either Windows or Linux. In my experience, OS X is only stable when used for the most minor of tasks. Push it too hard and....well, if it's never happened to you you must be a very light user of your computer
I would agree - I am happy that I've been using Linux-only long enough to (almost) honestly say "I don't know - I don't use Windows" when someone asks me something. I use Gentoo too (that was strange to type) and yeah, sometimes things don't work just right - but the beauty of it is that most things can be fixed because you can find out what the hell went wrong. Try getting useful information from a Windows application crash (excluding those that are cross-platform FOSS with decent debugging practices) :P
Hell yes its stressful when it "just crashes" for no apparent reason, without the damn courtesy to give a debug output! Yet more evidence that Windows is marketed to morons _
I swear we should be allowed to give mod points to sigs... "-1, Offtopic"
The network hasn't been the same since.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Sounds kind of like the way it treats disk space - just sticks a file in the MIDDLE (not the beginning) of the BIGGEST gap it can find. And then provides a defrag tool that works only 10% of the time - the rest of the time it either NEVER finishes, or crashes, causing some nice corruption. Yay for Windows!
I'm not stressed - I dropped Windows like a bad habit 5 months ago.
I swear we should be allowed to give mod points to sigs... "-1, Offtopic"
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.
get openoffice... compatable with Microsoft Office and less than a 1000th of the price (aka free) If it doesn't work, BIN IT thank goodness for that...
I simply *love* being called a liar for sharing being stupid enough to share personal information on Slashdot, thank you for reminding me of this fact.
Oh a pity party??? And I'm invited? Fantastic!
Lets see what brought this on:
She's either doing nothing more than reading email and surfing the web (with the occassional card game thrown in for good measure) or you're flat out lying.
I said either blah or you're a liar and you took this to mean I called you a liar. A little touchy are we?
If you use a computer system you need to administer it. The only systems that don't require this are ones that do the same simple things day in and day out (retrieve email, display web pages etc). If you're generating new data you need to keep it sorted and organised. If you're adding new software you have to install, upgrade and if there's a problem solve it. That's just a fact. There's not a system on the planet let alone a desktop OS that administers itself, so stop peddling that fairytale.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
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.
---------------------
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.
----------------------
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 think a good part of the problem here is that you're equating all OSes with your Windows experience. *nix != Windows. I initially setup the system with the software she wanted, wrote a few scripts to keep everything updated (runs every morning at ~4:30am), and that's pretty much it. Done. It keeps itself shiny and updated, and that means all the software on the system, not just core OS updates. Linux uses a package manager to keep track of software and keep it updated, so there is no real need to manage software updates individually unless you install something that is not in your disto's repositories.
Working in a DevOps shop is like playing in a band made up entirely of keytarists.
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.
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.
I don't know if I would call apple's interface "intuitive". If you learn Mac first, perhaps, but I don't think any computer interface is intuitive. CLI may be the closest to an intuitive interface as it is just like typing. Any GUI has some learning curve as moving a small puck on a cord to make a dot on the screen bounce over a little picture is not something that corresponds to anything in the outside world.
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.
Of course, Linux is completely stress free, especially for novice users.
I refer you to http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1210067,00.as p
Yes, it's the Dvorak troll, but the stats from Bill G are enlightening.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
"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
Your assumption that I'm unfamiliar with Linux is just wrong. I've installed and run Linux on numerous occassions. The gotchas each time with each new distro, especially when things go wrong and you're stuck hand editing XConfigs, dealing with a new version of PAM locking you out until you change to a hideous password, are stuck hand writing rules to facilitate connection to your ISP etc. (all actual experiences I've had).
The Linux package managers are all mediocre. You have to be aware that one thing will break another, that this library is incompatible with that etc.
When is the last time your wife installed a major new piece of software on her system? Did she get you to do it or did she do it herself? How often does she do this? What does your wife actually use the system for? Email, web browsing and the occassional openoffice document is my guess. Perhaps instant messaging too? Maybe a little graphics editing ala gimp if she's adventurous? I'd guess that's about it. Answer these questions if you want to retain any credibility.
My problem is that my experience with Windows has been awful but in the end I've been able to do what I wanted to with the system. With Linux I've installed a lot of distros each with their own intriciate problems that in the end have just been broken for the things I wanted to do. You can argue all you like that this is due to my own lack of sysadmin skills and I'll agree with you. I don't want to keep up with the latest and greatest.
With XP I learnt about a handful of utils (most GUI driven so you don't have to be familiar with 100 command line options) - I know the control panel well. I know a handful of network utils, and a handful of disk utils. Oh yes I do run a good piece of antivirus software, and a firewall. (The only pain comes when I install new hardware - my last graphics card was hell to install and it's still not quite right but that's either NVidia drivers or my motherboard and/or graphics card are faulty - I'm still not sure which).
These days I only run Linux when there's a good reason. If I'm fiddling with astronomy analytic software that only runs on Unix variants for example. Occassionally I might try out a distro on an emulator like VMWARE if I've got access to one.
Under windows I'm always installing and uninstalling software. I've played with flight sims, games, music and video editing software, and plenty of development tools. I do much more than browse and edit word docs, and there's always something new to explore.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
If you think that CLI is the closest thing to an intuitive interface, I'm sorry, but you're really not at all qualified say what makes an intuitive user interface. CLI is not intuitive. Surely I don't need to explain why?
"The Linux package managers are all mediocre. You have to be aware that one thing will break another, that this library is incompatible with that etc."
"When is the last time your wife installed a major new piece of software on her system? Did she get you to do it or did she do it herself? How often does she do this? What does your wife actually use the system for? Email, web browsing and the occassional openoffice document is my guess. Perhaps instant messaging too? Maybe a little graphics editing ala gimp if she's adventurous? I'd guess that's about it. Answer these questions if you want to retain any credibility."
"With XP I learnt about a handful of utils (most GUI driven so you don't have to be familiar with 100 command line options) - I know the control panel well. I know a handful of network utils, and a handful of disk utils. Oh yes I do run a good piece of antivirus software, and a firewall. (The only pain comes when I install new hardware - my last graphics card was hell to install and it's still not quite right but that's either NVidia drivers or my motherboard and/or graphics card are faulty - I'm still not sure which)."
Working in a DevOps shop is like playing in a band made up entirely of keytarists.
"Compatible" my ass. I spend several hours every day cleaning up the garbage that results from conversions between .doc and .sxw files.
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 are under 25, aren't you? If you didn't grow up with the smalltalk-esque gui paradigm, there is nothing intuitive about sliding a puck with a button around. As I said, CLI is akin to typing, so relatively easy transition. The mouse has no outside world analogy, so it is not inherently inuitive.
Or do I have to explain this to you at much greater length?
Boys from the City. Not yet caught by the Whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.
GUI is intuitive because you move around the mouse and manipluate things with it like you would do in real life. So, for instance, to scroll down a page, you drag a bar. To adjust the volume, you move a slider. To move a file to a different folder, you drag its icon onto the folder. If you want to do this on a CLI, you need to know the commands. If you don't know the commands, you can't do jack shit, and it is therefore the opposite of inuitive. I don't know of any cases in real life where I need to type a command to adjust the volume on my stereo. Not everyone knows how to type, anyway.
What do you do for a living, BTW?
You must be talking about LSD?
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com