[buug] Re: Jackpot!

[Nicolai Rosen]

On Fri, 7 Jul 2000, Rick Moen wrote:
> Have you ever heard annoying, whiney people ask (rhetorically) why
> computers should have to be so complex, when automobiles are simple
> by comparison?  The implication is that we should somehow feel ashamed
> to have thus failed the questioner in his reasonable requirement that 
> everything he wants to use be made simple for him.
>
> That (supposedly) rhetorical question has a straight-forward and obvious
> answer -- which, of course, never occurs to such people:  Automobiles 
> are machines designed for a very limited range of tasks, while 
> computers are machines designed for an incredibly broad range of tasks.
> Computers cannot be made simple and still have them be computers.  Those
> of us who _like_ computers, specifically because of their incredible
> adaptability, have learned to live with complexity and not whine about
> it, because we know it's a necessary precondition for _functionality_.

Actually, I'd say that there's an even more straight-forward and obvious
answer or perhaps question: What are you on & can I have some of whatever
it is? When's the last time you repaired your own car or did something to
it yourself any more complex than putting gas in the tank? People only
consider cars simple because when they break or need to be upgraded they
pay somebody else to do it. The same goes for computers. (For the record
I repair my own car and operate my own computer)

Nicolai Rosen, nick at netaxs.com
http://www.netaxs.com/~nick/

You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it
right, it is obvious that it is right -- at least if you have any
experience -- because what usually happens is that more comes out than
goes in ... The inexperienced, the crackpots, and people like that, make
guesses that are simple, but you can immediately see that they are wrong,
so that does not count. Others, the inexperienced students, make guesses
that are very complicated, and it sort of looks as if it is all right,
but I know it is not true because the truth always turns out to be simpler
than you thought.
	-Physicist Richard Feynman