Even if ATI and AMD merged nVidia would still be making the most popular, most proven, most feature-rich AMD chipset out there. nVidia makes a fucking ton of money off the nForce chipset, so I wouldn't count on them throwing a hissy fit and ending production just because AMD got in bed with ATI.
Neither AMD nor ATI have been known for their ability to make chipsets that don't Totally Suck, and being the leader in a particular market isn't something that a company will just let go of because of a grudge.
Re:Rumors that they're 'upgrading' from Ada.
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Mars Rover Upgraded
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· Score: 1
The analogy works just fine (which you seemed to have missed). The whip is not the horse: while a whip works well for telling a horse to move in the direction you want, a whip does not necessarily work well as a horse.
The point is just because Java works great for what it does on earth for NASA, it won't necessarily work well on rovers on Mars. You were chastising someone for having an opinion on the matter; I'm chastising you for using a really weak argument to do so (your argument being "Java is used for X, what's the problem with using it for Y?").
In this context the VBScript example works well. VBScript is used for getting records in and out of a database (X); what's the problem with using it to run and manage the database (Y)? Obviously it's a stupid idea, and by highlighting that you've drawn the same conclusion about your point.
Your argument about scripting/object oriented vs. compiled/structured only drives it home: the rovers use a RTOS on specialized hardware, which isn't exactly the first home of Java (regardless of how well suited Java may be to the tasks NASA defines).
Replacing the structured Query language itself with an object oriented programming language is just silly and really has nothing to do with using embedded java to control a mars rover.
That's what analogies are, and if it's silly in one respect it's silly in both.
One, developers are continually reinveting the wheel.
Two, game engine licences still cost afr, far too much money.
The wheel gets reinvented because if every game used the Source engine every game would play exactly like Half Life 2 and CounterStrike Source and DoD Source. If every game used the Doom III engine every game would play exactly like Doom III and Quake IV. Variety is the spice of life, and it's the variety of game engines that make games different from each other. There's already a chorus about how every game is the same, there's no innovation, nothing's original anymore--how much louder would those protests be if engines were more uniform?
Commoditizing game engines is one of the ways that game developers recoup costs; the biggest expense isn't the voice talent, it isn't the artists, it isn't the modelers, it's starting from absolutely nothing and making a framework to create huge 3d environments and manage user-interaction. So yes, they cost a lot of money. But they cost a lot of money to produce and the field of potential buyers is small (for a lot of reasons, not only because the cost is high).
Your further ideas about open source game engine development taking the lead are not sensible. With high cost licenses from the major graphics card makers, constantly shifting APIs, extremely expensive computer hardware, the broad fields of expertise required to create an engine, and the knowledge that within two to three years the entire engine--from top to bottom--will be worthless in the context of new hardware and APIs, the very idea of open source engines taking off (especially in the context of all games looking alike) isn't feasible.
Game engines are not like operating systems. They're not like Window Managers. They're not like servers. They're highly specialized to use specific generational hardware implementations and have a short shelf life.
Your invocation of Moore's Law doesn't make any contextual sense. It's not even a law in the general sense you appear to be using it, and your example of id and Valve only furthers the idea I've been pushing all along here: game engines are not like operating systems. Windows is the cruft of Windows from 1995 until now. Linux is the cruft of Linux from 1999 until now. Source is the cruft of Source; Doom III is the cruft of Doom III; engines are constantly rebuilt from scratch, are very nimble, and don't thrive on the incremental change model of open source (or Windows).
Re:Rumors that they're 'upgrading' from Ada.
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Mars Rover Upgraded
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· Score: 1
I use VBScript to control my SQL Server: put records in it, retrieve records from it. What makes you think that it would then be a good idea to re-write SQL Server in VBScript and replace the SQL language with VBScript?
I respectfully disagree. If you send your resume and application to a job posting, you are competing with the 100 other applicants that did the same. Whereas, if a recruiter finds your resume online and likes you enough to contact you, they are already sold enough to initiate the human level of contact.
Way to completely miss the point of what the parent said: most employers don't hire by searching resumes on the web. While it's possible it's true that having a recruiter find your resume and contact you means they're really into you, that doesn't change the fact that the huge majority of jobs are acquired by applying for them, not being offered them.
This whole anti-cookie thing drives me nuts since they really are harmless for the most part.
Cookies are tracking mechanisms. If I walk into Safeway I don't want to have a sticky note with a barcode stuck to my arm that will stay there until 2038 unless I manually remove it that gets scanned every time I walk in and every time I pick something up off the shelf.
There's no reason I should leave a brightly colored trail of everything I ever do on the Internet. The only reason I've ever heard is that it provides information and storage is cheap. Information is power, power is beneficial. What kind of deal is that, where I lose my privacy and the provider receives benefit? No thanks, I'll continue to opt-out of the tag-and-release program.
Encryption is the answer to this, and it continues to amaze me that otherwise intelligent software developers continue to create software that does not utilize encryption.
95% of web traffic continues to be by HTTP, instead of the easily deployed HTTPS (and by easily I mean the entire infrastructure to support it already exists, both for clients and servers).
SMTP continues to be plaintext and bounced around like a ping-pong ball. The reasons for using encryption with SMTP are the same reasons for using letters in envelopes and not postcards. Two thousand years ago the Romans used wax seals on their private documents to ensure no one intercepted the message en route, yet every email on the planet is still there to be read.
Instant Messages continue not to be encrypted between recipients, and just like HTTPS the infrastructure is already there to support it. Why is it that it is off by default in a world where you can't buy a system with anything less than a 2+ GHz Celeron processor?
VoIP continues to go unencrypted over the Internet, for reasons that I can't even begin to fathom. We expect to have digital wireless phone calls--on a system first deployed over ten years ago--encrypted, but the brand new digital wired calls not? Thank God there are people like Phil Zimmerman out there.
Seriously, this is the most basic concept in an age where the people have every right to fear their government that most people distrust and believe is corrupt, in an age where the government (allegedly) mandates that all Internet traffic is made available for illegal spying, in an age where people have feared the NSA was alreadyspying on citizens... the list goes on.
It is the responsibility and social responsibility of programmers and standards-makers to pursue wide encryption deployment, or the whole "Daddy, where were you when they took freedom of speech away from the Internet?" cliche will be answered with "With my shoulder to the wall helping the government take away everything else."
I agree, to a point. I know it's a high end task (one of the reasons I suggested the moon in the first place, not to mention costs and logistics). With steps taken from the moon to the next planet we will doubtlessly overcome several of these daunting tasks.
I agree that with time it can all be overcome, and I hope that there are manned missions eventually. I'm only arguing the point that there are reasons manned missions aren't happening now and that because of those reasons unmanned missions are a very attractive and benefit-rich avenue.
Yeah, because there is a lot of ROI in having rovers dig some mars dirt.... uh huh. Now if you can show Joe Sispack that his tax dollars not only helped build a Mars-destined craft but also brough him some new Earth based technology that's going to sell.
Joe Sixpack isn't going to benefit from having humans on Mars either. There are returns beyond making technology for companies to sell to make money (which seems rather unlikely); are we forgetting that this is about science? Not to mention that Joe Sixpack is going to be mighty upset about losing twenty billion dollars' worth of time and research and x great scientists when the ship more likely than not crashes and burns versus the four out of ten successful multiple-rover landings.
In this way I'm still not convinced that unmanned is better, we had near brushes with failure not to mention that so much had to be put into planning that humans could have easily overcome. So what if it costs 8-10 times more; it's worth it from the standpoint of research and reliability.
About 60% of all missions to Mars have failed. That's not near-brushes with failure, that's a very high failure rate. The planning and technology required to safely land humans on Mars is staggering and comes with a high likelihood of failure.
It would take only one failure for all future missions to be indefinitely scrubbed--can you imagine having every astronaut in the mission die when their six-month journey to Mars finally completes after dumping billions and billions of dollars into the trip and the infrastructure necessary to provide them with food and water? America won't even risk flying the shuttle 150 miles overhead.
With a manned mission more can be done in less time, but the risks and the cost when compared to unmanned missions is totally skewed--like I said, it's all about the ratios and ROI.
When you compare the cost, time and man-power required to get rovers to Mars versus people to Mars, it would seem that the rovers win out. Sure, the work they did could be completed in a week by people, but the rovers completed the jobs they were sent to do to 100% and then continued to work eight times longer than their planned time with a budget less than would be required to get people to Mars, nevermind keep them alive there and then bring them back. I suspect that getting a human expedition on Mars to last eight times longer than their supplies would normally permit would not be so easy.
It's about the returns on investment, and the yield from rovers appears to be a lot better than the yield from sending Bob the Geologist.
Umm no. You can appeal your conviction in the US system, but the prosecution can not appeal an aquittal. So you can have a "second prosecution" after conviction.
You don't seem to understand what an appeal is. There has to be grounds for an appeal, and when in appellate court there is no second trial. There is no jury. There is no prosecution. Guilt has been decided and the convicted must appeal that decision by proving the trial was unfair in some manner, or by showing that it was impossible for the convicted person to have committed the crime. Often times even this isn't possible--new evidence generally cannot be introduced into an appeal as the appeal is only related to the original trial.
I guess it's a difference of opinion, in the US the idea is that "If one court can find a shred of reasonable doubt, there is", in Europe it is "The higher the court, the higher the competence and the higher the accuracy."
In the US it's not about reasonable doubt in the appeals process. It's a matter of whether the trial was conducted properly and fairly. The vast majority of appeals fail because appellate courts generally defer to the trial judge's judgement.
Let me take a simple example[...]
If by "simple example" you mean "random and meaningless numbers," go ahead and take it.
Personally I think the US lets you off way too cheaply if you're guilty and manage to sucker the court somehow. Pull it off once and you're home free.
Once again you misunderstand the US justice system. There is no suckering the court--either there was misconduct in the trial or there wasn't, and if there was you don't get a free pass. You don't get to go home. You get retried for the same crime after the verdict is set aside. Appellate courts aren't there to decide guilt or innocence, they're there to decide if a person received a fair trial and if they didn't to make sure they do.
I believe it was Joseph Joubert who said, It is better to debate a question without deciding it than to decide it without debate. So while you may find this matter resolved simply because some people will say one thing and others will say another... I'd like to hear them out.
This has been informative. Thanks for posting the detailed analysis and I apologize if the tone of my reply was off-putting.
Seriously, they fuck you at the drive thru. Those numbers are absolutely ridiculous and depressing, and I make a lot of money (or so I thought; turns out I can't cover a mortgage payment).
That first link laid it out exactly, thanks for providing it. A $400,000 home at 30 years with a 10% interest rate is $3510.29 per month. For 360 months. A $400,000 home that costs $1.26 million. Well, at least banks, which primarily receive and hold money, don't have to worry about running out of money.
In the words of Joe Pesci, "They FUCK YOU at the drive-thru!"
Care to elaborate on how that's so? Last time I checked 1,111 * 3.6 (aka 360%) = 3,999.6, and 400,000 * 3.6 (aka 360%) = 1,440,000, and 1,440,000 / 360 (# of months in 30 years) = 4,000. Looks to me like paying 1.4 million dollars for a 4 hundred thousand dollar home is paying 360% interest.
No, it really doesn't work well enough. The CHIMP mirror is made of cheap plastic and the resolution of the "mirror" (silver-painted plastic) is ridiculous. To boot, the wedge of the mirror makes it impossible to attach to any modern LCD without blocking a significant part of the screen.
The quality is something I'd expect for a trinket from the back of a comic book. Very disappointing. I solidly do not recommend the product.
That's part of the point I'm trying to make: you're not cut out for support (and I hope you don't take offense from that). Support is a relationship that requires certain things to work fluidly and well.
Reality, of course, often dictates that technical people are placed in positions of having to support others professionally and privately when it's not an ideal place for them to be. It's not very different from people who don't work well with others being put in supervisory positions, people who work well in person being put on the phones, or people who learn from conversation being stuck in a room with a book. They're just skills.
Me: Ok, tell me what the screen says now.
Mom: It's blue.
Me: What do you mean "it's blue"? What does it say?
Mom: It says, "9F D8 34 7B..."
Me: Um, that's ok, ma, I don't speak hex.
Mom: "... FA 25 3C A2..."
Your post was great, and I think a lot of it will help the person that asked. Having said that, it's important to point out that a lot of the frustration that people feel is borne of the feeling that the person providing support knows exactly what they're doing and the person seeking support doesn't.
It's kind of like taking your car into the shop. A lot of people will be nervous in front of the mechanic and not want to describe what the problem is with the car because they don't know the terminology or where the problem could be. Instead they'll say it sounds like the catalytic converter is overheating the timing belt on the radiator exhaust manifold piston: a bunch of useless information. Nervousness breeds uncertainty breeds impatience breeds hositility, and the same is true with computers.
The problem is often that the person providing support doesn't ask the right questions. Some of the best support I've gotten has been from people that led me to the answers. The questions in your example are perfect: "What does the screen say?" and "What do you mean 'it's blue,' what does it say?" Screens don't say anything, they have things printed on them, and when the user gives you an answer, it doesn't help to ask them a ridiculing question ("what do you mean, 'it's blue?'" (hint: they mean 'it's blue')) and then repeat your original question. It gets you nowhere (as you demonstrated). When it's expected that there's a whole lot of useless information (a hex dump) and a little bit of useful information (IRQ NOT LESS OR EQUAL TO), it's the job of the person providing support to lead the user to the answer. Try the exchange:
You: "The screen should be light blue with a white box for a password below your username. Do you see that?"
Mom: "The screen's dark blue and it has a bunch of white text."
You: "OK, there should be a bunch of random text at the top, with the letters A through F and the numbers 0 through 9. Ignore that part; we're looking for the first line below all the random text that has actual words in it. Read me that line."
Like you said, people aren't dumb and they're naturally inquisitive. Leading them through the troubleshooting steps makes support a lot easier and productive. Most of the problems I see with support analysts is that they don't know how to ask the right questions, not that the user is too dumb to understand. Even the dumbest user can be helped if they're willing and if the support person has the right skills.
I can't find my GameBoy. I think you might have it. I'll be over around 3 tommorrow to toss your house and see if a Gameboy turns up, at which point, I'll take it home with me, then sue you for something. Have a nice day, and please be a nice host and have refreshments for me when I show up.
While I sympathize with you and believe what any copyright holder can do with regard to search of records is totally wrong and exemplary of corruption in legislatures, it is much more akin to the following:
You can't find your GameBoy and think I have it.
You go to my best friend's house, who has had permission from me to be in my home and take pictures of my things.
You say to my friend, "Hey, I think Layman took my GameBoy. Did you get a picture of it when you were at his house yesterday?"
My friend confirms he has a picture of it in my house.
If you're a school bus driver filling up the tank on Old Yeller and one of your students comes up to you and asks, "Hey bus driver! Will you add this bottle of Opus's Secret Solution to the oil? It'll make the ride for seat #12 all smooth for me!" are you going to do it?
Of course not, and here are a few reasons:
It's not your bus; you just drive it
You don't know what's in that bottle of OSS
It may make seat 12 great but cause the engine to seize up
You're talking to a kid whose bus-maintenance experience could be summed up as having read The Magical School Bus for all you know
Your responsibility isn't to make one kid's ride pleasant, it's to get all the kids to school every day
Busses are expensive and there may be no replacement engines at the depot if the bottle of elixir breaks everything
The bus is no longer under its 10,000 mile warranty so anything that stops working will have to be replaced out of pocket and serviced by yourself
There's no company to contact to ask for a service contract for Opus's Secret Solution so that in the event of a problem while using it Opus can lend assistance until it's resolved
You don't want to have to watch the news every night to find out if there's been a reported problem with OSS that causes the engine to shut off when a Lexus pulls up next to you and that a new bottle of OSS is required to correct that issue
Kid 12 is only going to be at school for another year, the bus needs to run for four years; after kid 12 leaves, do you try to safely remove the elixir or leave it in?
I would say the point I'm trying to make is that system administrators have in their heads the knowledge to administer systems safely and correctly. My experience is that people who try to second guess them lack fundamental knowledge and experience (or have just forgotten it) to understand why they do what they do.
Sys admins aren't the giant assholes everyone thinks: part of the job is to look out for the safety of everyone, and similar attitudes and responses are prevalent in similar roles of responsibility in other fields.
Sucks to have it happen to you, but how should arrests based on descriptions work otherwise? "Hey, you look like the description of the burgler/mugger/ect. We will send you a letter in a few days to arrest you!"?
So, what, are the police supposed to arrest everyone in fawn colored clothes? Keep on bringing them in until they get lucky?
Every time the police arrest the wrong person, no matter for how short a time, something has gone wrong and that event needs to be studied to minimize it in the future. Not just because it inconvenienced some guy, but because it means the real criminal remains free during that time, and the police that would have arrested him were not free--they were doing paperwork to process an innocent man and search his home.
If the excuse is just that "this is how police work is done," then I think it's time to start firing cops that decide the bar for "good enough" is that low. If I did my job that badly, I know I would be. If a shipment of servers came in for a department and I didn't check the ID of the person that came to pick them up, my ass would be responsible for the theft (even if top-notch police work later caught the criminal responsible and returned all the items safely).
As long as you've already made up your mind about who's right and wrong and who the good guys and bad guys are, there's no point in continuing to discuss it.
You've demonstrated a serious disinterest in pursuing a conversation critically and logically and aren't choosing to challenge any particular points. So while your offer that I go try out being a GI is intriguing, there's no reason for me to consider it.
Slashdot Mirror
Even if ATI and AMD merged nVidia would still be making the most popular, most proven, most feature-rich AMD chipset out there. nVidia makes a fucking ton of money off the nForce chipset, so I wouldn't count on them throwing a hissy fit and ending production just because AMD got in bed with ATI.
Neither AMD nor ATI have been known for their ability to make chipsets that don't Totally Suck, and being the leader in a particular market isn't something that a company will just let go of because of a grudge.
The point is just because Java works great for what it does on earth for NASA, it won't necessarily work well on rovers on Mars. You were chastising someone for having an opinion on the matter; I'm chastising you for using a really weak argument to do so (your argument being "Java is used for X, what's the problem with using it for Y?").
In this context the VBScript example works well. VBScript is used for getting records in and out of a database (X); what's the problem with using it to run and manage the database (Y)? Obviously it's a stupid idea, and by highlighting that you've drawn the same conclusion about your point.
Your argument about scripting/object oriented vs. compiled/structured only drives it home: the rovers use a RTOS on specialized hardware, which isn't exactly the first home of Java (regardless of how well suited Java may be to the tasks NASA defines). That's what analogies are, and if it's silly in one respect it's silly in both.
Commoditizing game engines is one of the ways that game developers recoup costs; the biggest expense isn't the voice talent, it isn't the artists, it isn't the modelers, it's starting from absolutely nothing and making a framework to create huge 3d environments and manage user-interaction. So yes, they cost a lot of money. But they cost a lot of money to produce and the field of potential buyers is small (for a lot of reasons, not only because the cost is high).
Your further ideas about open source game engine development taking the lead are not sensible. With high cost licenses from the major graphics card makers, constantly shifting APIs, extremely expensive computer hardware, the broad fields of expertise required to create an engine, and the knowledge that within two to three years the entire engine--from top to bottom--will be worthless in the context of new hardware and APIs, the very idea of open source engines taking off (especially in the context of all games looking alike) isn't feasible.
Game engines are not like operating systems. They're not like Window Managers. They're not like servers. They're highly specialized to use specific generational hardware implementations and have a short shelf life.
Your invocation of Moore's Law doesn't make any contextual sense. It's not even a law in the general sense you appear to be using it, and your example of id and Valve only furthers the idea I've been pushing all along here: game engines are not like operating systems. Windows is the cruft of Windows from 1995 until now. Linux is the cruft of Linux from 1999 until now. Source is the cruft of Source; Doom III is the cruft of Doom III; engines are constantly rebuilt from scratch, are very nimble, and don't thrive on the incremental change model of open source (or Windows).
I use VBScript to control my SQL Server: put records in it, retrieve records from it. What makes you think that it would then be a good idea to re-write SQL Server in VBScript and replace the SQL language with VBScript?
The whip != the horse.
I respectfully disagree. If you send your resume and application to a job posting, you are competing with the 100 other applicants that did the same. Whereas, if a recruiter finds your resume online and likes you enough to contact you, they are already sold enough to initiate the human level of contact.
Way to completely miss the point of what the parent said: most employers don't hire by searching resumes on the web. While it's possible it's true that having a recruiter find your resume and contact you means they're really into you, that doesn't change the fact that the huge majority of jobs are acquired by applying for them, not being offered them.
This whole anti-cookie thing drives me nuts since they really are harmless for the most part.
Cookies are tracking mechanisms. If I walk into Safeway I don't want to have a sticky note with a barcode stuck to my arm that will stay there until 2038 unless I manually remove it that gets scanned every time I walk in and every time I pick something up off the shelf.
There's no reason I should leave a brightly colored trail of everything I ever do on the Internet. The only reason I've ever heard is that it provides information and storage is cheap. Information is power, power is beneficial. What kind of deal is that, where I lose my privacy and the provider receives benefit? No thanks, I'll continue to opt-out of the tag-and-release program.
Encryption is the answer to this, and it continues to amaze me that otherwise intelligent software developers continue to create software that does not utilize encryption.
95% of web traffic continues to be by HTTP, instead of the easily deployed HTTPS (and by easily I mean the entire infrastructure to support it already exists, both for clients and servers).
SMTP continues to be plaintext and bounced around like a ping-pong ball. The reasons for using encryption with SMTP are the same reasons for using letters in envelopes and not postcards. Two thousand years ago the Romans used wax seals on their private documents to ensure no one intercepted the message en route, yet every email on the planet is still there to be read.
Instant Messages continue not to be encrypted between recipients, and just like HTTPS the infrastructure is already there to support it. Why is it that it is off by default in a world where you can't buy a system with anything less than a 2+ GHz Celeron processor?
VoIP continues to go unencrypted over the Internet, for reasons that I can't even begin to fathom. We expect to have digital wireless phone calls--on a system first deployed over ten years ago--encrypted, but the brand new digital wired calls not? Thank God there are people like Phil Zimmerman out there.
Seriously, this is the most basic concept in an age where the people have every right to fear their government that most people distrust and believe is corrupt, in an age where the government (allegedly) mandates that all Internet traffic is made available for illegal spying, in an age where people have feared the NSA was already spying on citizens... the list goes on.
It is the responsibility and social responsibility of programmers and standards-makers to pursue wide encryption deployment, or the whole "Daddy, where were you when they took freedom of speech away from the Internet?" cliche will be answered with "With my shoulder to the wall helping the government take away everything else."
It would take only one failure for all future missions to be indefinitely scrubbed--can you imagine having every astronaut in the mission die when their six-month journey to Mars finally completes after dumping billions and billions of dollars into the trip and the infrastructure necessary to provide them with food and water? America won't even risk flying the shuttle 150 miles overhead.
With a manned mission more can be done in less time, but the risks and the cost when compared to unmanned missions is totally skewed--like I said, it's all about the ratios and ROI.
When you compare the cost, time and man-power required to get rovers to Mars versus people to Mars, it would seem that the rovers win out. Sure, the work they did could be completed in a week by people, but the rovers completed the jobs they were sent to do to 100% and then continued to work eight times longer than their planned time with a budget less than would be required to get people to Mars, nevermind keep them alive there and then bring them back. I suspect that getting a human expedition on Mars to last eight times longer than their supplies would normally permit would not be so easy.
It's about the returns on investment, and the yield from rovers appears to be a lot better than the yield from sending Bob the Geologist.
Noooooooooooooooooooo!
Sounds like it's about time for a Rebel Alliance.
I believe it was Joseph Joubert who said, It is better to debate a question without deciding it than to decide it without debate. So while you may find this matter resolved simply because some people will say one thing and others will say another... I'd like to hear them out.
This has been informative. Thanks for posting the detailed analysis and I apologize if the tone of my reply was off-putting.
Seriously, they fuck you at the drive thru. Those numbers are absolutely ridiculous and depressing, and I make a lot of money (or so I thought; turns out I can't cover a mortgage payment).
That first link laid it out exactly, thanks for providing it. A $400,000 home at 30 years with a 10% interest rate is $3510.29 per month. For 360 months. A $400,000 home that costs $1.26 million. Well, at least banks, which primarily receive and hold money, don't have to worry about running out of money.
In the words of Joe Pesci, "They FUCK YOU at the drive-thru!"
Care to elaborate on how that's so? Last time I checked 1,111 * 3.6 (aka 360%) = 3,999.6, and 400,000 * 3.6 (aka 360%) = 1,440,000, and 1,440,000 / 360 (# of months in 30 years) = 4,000. Looks to me like paying 1.4 million dollars for a 4 hundred thousand dollar home is paying 360% interest.
I'd really like to know if I'm wrong.
A thirty year mortgage at 0% interest for a $400,000 loan is $1,111 per month. Is your credit so bad that the best interest rate you can get is 360%?
No, it really doesn't work well enough. The CHIMP mirror is made of cheap plastic and the resolution of the "mirror" (silver-painted plastic) is ridiculous. To boot, the wedge of the mirror makes it impossible to attach to any modern LCD without blocking a significant part of the screen.
The quality is something I'd expect for a trinket from the back of a comic book. Very disappointing. I solidly do not recommend the product.
That's part of the point I'm trying to make: you're not cut out for support (and I hope you don't take offense from that). Support is a relationship that requires certain things to work fluidly and well.
Reality, of course, often dictates that technical people are placed in positions of having to support others professionally and privately when it's not an ideal place for them to be. It's not very different from people who don't work well with others being put in supervisory positions, people who work well in person being put on the phones, or people who learn from conversation being stuck in a room with a book. They're just skills.
It's kind of like taking your car into the shop. A lot of people will be nervous in front of the mechanic and not want to describe what the problem is with the car because they don't know the terminology or where the problem could be. Instead they'll say it sounds like the catalytic converter is overheating the timing belt on the radiator exhaust manifold piston: a bunch of useless information. Nervousness breeds uncertainty breeds impatience breeds hositility, and the same is true with computers.
The problem is often that the person providing support doesn't ask the right questions. Some of the best support I've gotten has been from people that led me to the answers. The questions in your example are perfect: "What does the screen say?" and "What do you mean 'it's blue,' what does it say?" Screens don't say anything, they have things printed on them, and when the user gives you an answer, it doesn't help to ask them a ridiculing question ("what do you mean, 'it's blue?'" (hint: they mean 'it's blue')) and then repeat your original question. It gets you nowhere (as you demonstrated). When it's expected that there's a whole lot of useless information (a hex dump) and a little bit of useful information (IRQ NOT LESS OR EQUAL TO), it's the job of the person providing support to lead the user to the answer. Try the exchange:
You: "The screen should be light blue with a white box for a password below your username. Do you see that?"
Mom: "The screen's dark blue and it has a bunch of white text."
You: "OK, there should be a bunch of random text at the top, with the letters A through F and the numbers 0 through 9. Ignore that part; we're looking for the first line below all the random text that has actual words in it. Read me that line."
Like you said, people aren't dumb and they're naturally inquisitive. Leading them through the troubleshooting steps makes support a lot easier and productive. Most of the problems I see with support analysts is that they don't know how to ask the right questions, not that the user is too dumb to understand. Even the dumbest user can be helped if they're willing and if the support person has the right skills.
Of course not, and here are a few reasons:
I would say the point I'm trying to make is that system administrators have in their heads the knowledge to administer systems safely and correctly. My experience is that people who try to second guess them lack fundamental knowledge and experience (or have just forgotten it) to understand why they do what they do.
Sys admins aren't the giant assholes everyone thinks: part of the job is to look out for the safety of everyone, and similar attitudes and responses are prevalent in similar roles of responsibility in other fields.
Every time the police arrest the wrong person, no matter for how short a time, something has gone wrong and that event needs to be studied to minimize it in the future. Not just because it inconvenienced some guy, but because it means the real criminal remains free during that time, and the police that would have arrested him were not free--they were doing paperwork to process an innocent man and search his home.
If the excuse is just that "this is how police work is done," then I think it's time to start firing cops that decide the bar for "good enough" is that low. If I did my job that badly, I know I would be. If a shipment of servers came in for a department and I didn't check the ID of the person that came to pick them up, my ass would be responsible for the theft (even if top-notch police work later caught the criminal responsible and returned all the items safely).
As long as you've already made up your mind about who's right and wrong and who the good guys and bad guys are, there's no point in continuing to discuss it.
You've demonstrated a serious disinterest in pursuing a conversation critically and logically and aren't choosing to challenge any particular points. So while your offer that I go try out being a GI is intriguing, there's no reason for me to consider it.