Sunday, July 26, 2009
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Thoughts On: Tech Support
Often the technically competent are subjected to a torture that is entirely a consequence of their technical competence. If the competent had just left the light bulb a bowl of flaming liquid the whole field of tech support would never have come about. In the days of bowls of flaming liquid, those who couldn't figure it out were eaten when their whimpers attracted predators to their dark abodes. Unfortunately the light bulb and it's horrid accompanying advances created the occupation most loathed by the technical people: tech support.
Let us begin to illustrate the issue by returning to our light bulb. The technically versed takes one look at the threading, turns off the power, screws in the bulb and has light. The average user looks at the threading, wonders why some moron added all these useless little ridges ,decides it will need extra coaxing, tries to force it into a socket with a hammer, gets shocked, and after a brief hospital visit, calls tech support.
Now, part of the problem is that people who need support are partly in charge of the whole light bulb design process. After enough tech support any technical person would be more than willing to just give all the non-techies a hammer, a box of light bulbs, and let them go to town until the problem solves itself. Instead we have lawyers, half-witted drool dispensers and marketing to make sure everyone has access to the light bulb and that the only ones to blame for the resulting nationwide epidemic of shocks are the techies for not making the darn things hammer proof in the first place.
Of course one may imagine the glorious empire we would have were it not for the aforementioned army of ill witted, hammer wielding oxygen theives. Just imagine the beautiful efficiency with which it would run. The pizza delivery robots, the flawless automatic transport systems, and the myriad of other wonders it would have. Just imagine how flawlessly they would run. Just, imagine. flawless...
Until of course they break down... and the repair bots flip a switch and start equipping lamp poles to fire missiles. So, maybe things are good now. When compared to providing tech support to grumpy lamp poles with missile launchers, maybe we should just stick to letting idiots own hammers and light sockets.
Let us begin to illustrate the issue by returning to our light bulb. The technically versed takes one look at the threading, turns off the power, screws in the bulb and has light. The average user looks at the threading, wonders why some moron added all these useless little ridges ,decides it will need extra coaxing, tries to force it into a socket with a hammer, gets shocked, and after a brief hospital visit, calls tech support.
Now, part of the problem is that people who need support are partly in charge of the whole light bulb design process. After enough tech support any technical person would be more than willing to just give all the non-techies a hammer, a box of light bulbs, and let them go to town until the problem solves itself. Instead we have lawyers, half-witted drool dispensers and marketing to make sure everyone has access to the light bulb and that the only ones to blame for the resulting nationwide epidemic of shocks are the techies for not making the darn things hammer proof in the first place.
Of course one may imagine the glorious empire we would have were it not for the aforementioned army of ill witted, hammer wielding oxygen theives. Just imagine the beautiful efficiency with which it would run. The pizza delivery robots, the flawless automatic transport systems, and the myriad of other wonders it would have. Just imagine how flawlessly they would run. Just, imagine. flawless...
Until of course they break down... and the repair bots flip a switch and start equipping lamp poles to fire missiles. So, maybe things are good now. When compared to providing tech support to grumpy lamp poles with missile launchers, maybe we should just stick to letting idiots own hammers and light sockets.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Don't touch my Screen- A Poem
Don't Touch My Screen
By: Gerrit Coetzee
My LCD is shiny.
Your fingers, grimy.
When they combine,
your ass is mine.
I will burn down your home.
Bury you deep in the loam.
I smash your fingers with a brick.
I'll break your elbows real quick.
Let me reiterate,
you I will obliterate.
My LCD is clean.
It has a nice glean.
Your hands are soiled.
Your hands are oiled,
and if you touch my screen,
I'll be holding your spleen.
I'm serious.
Dead serious.
Don't touch my screen.
By: Gerrit Coetzee
My LCD is shiny.
Your fingers, grimy.
When they combine,
your ass is mine.
I will burn down your home.
Bury you deep in the loam.
I smash your fingers with a brick.
I'll break your elbows real quick.
Let me reiterate,
you I will obliterate.
My LCD is clean.
It has a nice glean.
Your hands are soiled.
Your hands are oiled,
and if you touch my screen,
I'll be holding your spleen.
I'm serious.
Dead serious.
Don't touch my screen.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
The Most Annoying IRC personalities 2
There are many annoying people in this world and it would come to reason that a good deal of them come to troll on IRC. After the semi-success of the previous one and a few suggestions from other IRC users....
Here are a few more:
The Expert In the Mist: This guy knows almost everything about the discussion topic. He can program in 30 different languages and can build just about any electronic device from scratch. He has the answer to ALL of your questions. The only problem is he only stops idling for about 10 minutes, 12:00 at night on the first full moon of the year if the ambient temperature in France is equal to the the average temperature of the arctic icecaps multiplied by negative pi.
Mr. Quits: This guy quits randomly, often in the middle of a conversation, with no warning at all. Mr. Quits will be 3 lines away from fully explaining how to fix that obscure problem with your system when he suddenly quits. Mr. Quits never means to leave you hanging but he does it with such frequency that one can only assume he has a subconscious need to frustrate and shatter hopes.
The Drunkard: This si thast guy who stll massags oi got oblime nd talk abt.... stuff... even after he's brought himself 2 drinks away from alcohol poisoning. He normally starts off by listing in detail exactly what beverages were consumed in order for him to bless you with his current state. Then he slowly becomes less and less coherent until he gives a semi-coherent away message and passes out.
The Unknown Idler: This guy has been idling since the channel was started. Upon checking the logs you find that he said "hi" about two years back. May be dead.
The Playlist: I've often wanted to know exactly what song the other channel members are listening to. Thankfully, The Playlist is there to help me out. Shamelessly informing everyone in approximately 3 minute intervals the poorly formatted title, artist and play time information of their blatantly pirated mp3s. To make matters worse, The Playlist normally has horrendously bad taste in music.
The Morally Terrifying:
This guy has no discernible morals. The morally terrifying is the only one who thinks a discussion about gun-point rape and the like is a fun channel topic. Freud would have a heyday with this man. We can just hope his mother knows better than to hug him for too long at a time.
Lucifer the Op: Just try to wander off topic or be slightly abrasive and Lucifer will kick/ban for the next 3 months. Lucifer tends to select a few close friends who make sure that he doesn't miss an opportunity to ban someone.
The Uninformed:
This guy will join in on the discussion and talk about the topic. Can get very repetitive and infuriating. Whether it be about religion or cars he will contribute something... normally obvious or blatantly wrong. Will make sure you completely understand that smaller tires give you better gas mileage.
The Internet Aggregator: This guy never says anything of his own (other than the occasional lol or yea) but constantly sends links of funny/interesting finds on the internet. A internet aggregator is most terrifying when paired with digg and bash.
The Bot: The Bot is a hideous twisted peice of code that sits in the channel and spams useless information. Normally some withered malicious soul controls the silly thing, making sure that it has all the features nobody wants, such as the google compare feature or the all popular insult generator. The Bot's owner will normally start using his bot during the most interesting discussion of the day, there by ending it. The Bot is often modeled after other annoying IRC personalities, so that the channel will always have an Internet Aggregator and Lucifer the Op.
Here are a few more:
The Expert In the Mist: This guy knows almost everything about the discussion topic. He can program in 30 different languages and can build just about any electronic device from scratch. He has the answer to ALL of your questions. The only problem is he only stops idling for about 10 minutes, 12:00 at night on the first full moon of the year if the ambient temperature in France is equal to the the average temperature of the arctic icecaps multiplied by negative pi.
Mr. Quits: This guy quits randomly, often in the middle of a conversation, with no warning at all. Mr. Quits will be 3 lines away from fully explaining how to fix that obscure problem with your system when he suddenly quits. Mr. Quits never means to leave you hanging but he does it with such frequency that one can only assume he has a subconscious need to frustrate and shatter hopes.
The Drunkard: This si thast guy who stll massags oi got oblime nd talk abt.... stuff... even after he's brought himself 2 drinks away from alcohol poisoning. He normally starts off by listing in detail exactly what beverages were consumed in order for him to bless you with his current state. Then he slowly becomes less and less coherent until he gives a semi-coherent away message and passes out.
The Unknown Idler: This guy has been idling since the channel was started. Upon checking the logs you find that he said "hi" about two years back. May be dead.
The Playlist: I've often wanted to know exactly what song the other channel members are listening to. Thankfully, The Playlist is there to help me out. Shamelessly informing everyone in approximately 3 minute intervals the poorly formatted title, artist and play time information of their blatantly pirated mp3s. To make matters worse, The Playlist normally has horrendously bad taste in music.
The Morally Terrifying:
This guy has no discernible morals. The morally terrifying is the only one who thinks a discussion about gun-point rape and the like is a fun channel topic. Freud would have a heyday with this man. We can just hope his mother knows better than to hug him for too long at a time.
Lucifer the Op: Just try to wander off topic or be slightly abrasive and Lucifer will kick/ban for the next 3 months. Lucifer tends to select a few close friends who make sure that he doesn't miss an opportunity to ban someone.
The Uninformed:
This guy will join in on the discussion and talk about the topic. Can get very repetitive and infuriating. Whether it be about religion or cars he will contribute something... normally obvious or blatantly wrong. Will make sure you completely understand that smaller tires give you better gas mileage.
The Internet Aggregator: This guy never says anything of his own (other than the occasional lol or yea) but constantly sends links of funny/interesting finds on the internet. A internet aggregator is most terrifying when paired with digg and bash.
The Bot: The Bot is a hideous twisted peice of code that sits in the channel and spams useless information. Normally some withered malicious soul controls the silly thing, making sure that it has all the features nobody wants, such as the google compare feature or the all popular insult generator. The Bot's owner will normally start using his bot during the most interesting discussion of the day, there by ending it. The Bot is often modeled after other annoying IRC personalities, so that the channel will always have an Internet Aggregator and Lucifer the Op.
A List of some of the most annoying IRC personalites
Anyone who IRCs regularly know of a few distinct personalities that irritate to the core. It's almost as if there is a nest somewhere making sure that the supply of lost AOLers, obnoxious 13 year olds and elitist know nothings don't run out. No matter how many you try to kick/ban off the planet.
This is by no means a complete list, but just a few that stuck out in my mind at the time of writing.
The Elitist Know Nothing: This guy talks about everything with complete authority and refuses to budge on any topic as if he were the one who invented it. In all actuality, The Elitist Know Nothing, picked up most everything he knows from biased trade journals written by other Elitist Know Nothings. He has never really ever applied any of his knowledge to see if it's actually true or not. He just assumes that it is, and makes sure that you know your 20 years of programming experience mean nothing in the face of his all knowing intellect.
The Lost AOLer: This guy somehow managed to find IRC. He doesn't know exactly where he is. He is constantly confused as to why the ##linux (must be some kind of kinky sex act) members don't want to cyber with him.
THE 10-15 YEAR OLD: THESE GUYS ARE A MIX BETWEEN THE LOST AOLER AND THE ELITIST KNOW NOTHING. THEY HAVE FIGURED OUT THAT THEIR COMPUTER IS PRETTY SPIFFY AND THAT QBASIC CAN MAKE IT DO SOME KEWL STUFF. THEY THINK CAPS LOOK KEWLER THAN LOWERCASE AND YOU CAN ONLY HOPE AND PRAY THAT SOMEONE DOESN'T TEACH THEM L337. THE BRIGHT SIDE IS THAT THE 10-15 YEAR OLD WILL MAGICALLY LOG ON ONE DAY A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PERSON.
The Scary Asian/Arab: This kid barges in the channel and asks questions in mildly coherent English that most likely threaten every bit of security you have. For example: say you run a shell server, the Scary Asian will come asking for an account.. for stuff and ssh. When you ask what kind of stuff he will give some vague answer. You figure he's harmless because he kinda sounds like the 10-15 year old. Two weeks later all your bandwidth disappears and you find most of it going through a ssh tunnel he set up. The FBI knocks on your door to inquire about some files going through your server.
The I Can't Read The Topic Guy: This guy will wander into the channel and paste 30 lines of code right off. Of course the code is C and the channel is #perl, but that doesn't stop him. He then goes on to ask a question about the code while four other channel members try to explain various things to him such as "this is #perl" or "there's a pastebin for a reason." The I Can't read The Topic Guy will then make some sort of apology and go spam all 30 lines of code in #C.
The Enter Key Abuser: This Guy
Does not understand
that
pressing enter after every
1-5 words
is irritating
and that people would listen
to him more
if he stopped that
Mr. Offtopic: This guy never talks about anything on topic. He'll tell you about the state of his room, the color of his socks, or about how awesome the hot pockets him mom brought him are. Never mind the fact that this is the #cryptography channel and you are trying to explain something to someone. Mr. Offtopic does not actually need any interaction from other users. He will continue rambling on regardless.
The Evil Wizard: This is the guy that's been programming for 30 years and has achieved wizardry. His sole purpose in life is to hang out in the help channels and inform anyone who asks a question how dumb they are. He refuses to part with any useful knowledge and instead tells people to google it or links to the most cryptic documentation he knows of. Delights in making newbies give up on whatever they were trying to do.
The 50/50 Guy: This guy actually knows his stuff.. Half of the time. The other half he cycles between all the annoying IRC personalties. He'll be talking coherently about a C program he wrote one minute and then suddenly go into a string of expletives and tell you about his toenails.
A part 2 coming some time in the future!
EDIT: Part 2 is up!
This is by no means a complete list, but just a few that stuck out in my mind at the time of writing.
The Elitist Know Nothing: This guy talks about everything with complete authority and refuses to budge on any topic as if he were the one who invented it. In all actuality, The Elitist Know Nothing, picked up most everything he knows from biased trade journals written by other Elitist Know Nothings. He has never really ever applied any of his knowledge to see if it's actually true or not. He just assumes that it is, and makes sure that you know your 20 years of programming experience mean nothing in the face of his all knowing intellect.
The Lost AOLer: This guy somehow managed to find IRC. He doesn't know exactly where he is. He is constantly confused as to why the ##linux (must be some kind of kinky sex act) members don't want to cyber with him.
THE 10-15 YEAR OLD: THESE GUYS ARE A MIX BETWEEN THE LOST AOLER AND THE ELITIST KNOW NOTHING. THEY HAVE FIGURED OUT THAT THEIR COMPUTER IS PRETTY SPIFFY AND THAT QBASIC CAN MAKE IT DO SOME KEWL STUFF. THEY THINK CAPS LOOK KEWLER THAN LOWERCASE AND YOU CAN ONLY HOPE AND PRAY THAT SOMEONE DOESN'T TEACH THEM L337. THE BRIGHT SIDE IS THAT THE 10-15 YEAR OLD WILL MAGICALLY LOG ON ONE DAY A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PERSON.
The Scary Asian/Arab: This kid barges in the channel and asks questions in mildly coherent English that most likely threaten every bit of security you have. For example: say you run a shell server, the Scary Asian will come asking for an account.. for stuff and ssh. When you ask what kind of stuff he will give some vague answer. You figure he's harmless because he kinda sounds like the 10-15 year old. Two weeks later all your bandwidth disappears and you find most of it going through a ssh tunnel he set up. The FBI knocks on your door to inquire about some files going through your server.
The I Can't Read The Topic Guy: This guy will wander into the channel and paste 30 lines of code right off. Of course the code is C and the channel is #perl, but that doesn't stop him. He then goes on to ask a question about the code while four other channel members try to explain various things to him such as "this is #perl" or "there's a pastebin for a reason." The I Can't read The Topic Guy will then make some sort of apology and go spam all 30 lines of code in #C.
The Enter Key Abuser: This Guy
Does not understand
that
pressing enter after every
1-5 words
is irritating
and that people would listen
to him more
if he stopped that
Mr. Offtopic: This guy never talks about anything on topic. He'll tell you about the state of his room, the color of his socks, or about how awesome the hot pockets him mom brought him are. Never mind the fact that this is the #cryptography channel and you are trying to explain something to someone. Mr. Offtopic does not actually need any interaction from other users. He will continue rambling on regardless.
The Evil Wizard: This is the guy that's been programming for 30 years and has achieved wizardry. His sole purpose in life is to hang out in the help channels and inform anyone who asks a question how dumb they are. He refuses to part with any useful knowledge and instead tells people to google it or links to the most cryptic documentation he knows of. Delights in making newbies give up on whatever they were trying to do.
The 50/50 Guy: This guy actually knows his stuff.. Half of the time. The other half he cycles between all the annoying IRC personalties. He'll be talking coherently about a C program he wrote one minute and then suddenly go into a string of expletives and tell you about his toenails.
A part 2 coming some time in the future!
EDIT: Part 2 is up!
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