[buug] Re: Jackpot!

[Nicolai Rosen]

On Wed, 12 Jul 2000, Christopher Sullivan wrote:
> Hear hear!  Nothing is more irritating than controller-less hardware like
> WinModems and stupid printers.  The entire reason for this is to make the
> hardware cheaper, and invariably, it ends up breaking even on Windows with
> the right drivers.

I love the reasoning behind these things. What winmodems have cost in man
hours for me alone amounts to the gnp of a small third world country. It
took me a while, but I finally learned that it's cheaper to put in an
extra few hours overtime at work and throw out bad hardware (or give it
away to an enemy or something) than try and get it to work.

Don't even get me started on all in one sound/modem/ide cards... *grrrr*

> If I may be so bold, many newcomers have never dealt with such a strange
> world before.  Some have, and those people are easy to spot.  But, your
> typical SUV-driving yuppie has a hard time dealing with the fact that what
> makes his new toy go is a piece of software written by (what amounts
> to) volunteers that create not for financial reward, but for the love of
> the Work (maybe with a side of Fame).

Don't forget the feel good aspect of giving. I've been both the benefactor
and benefited party in some rather generous hardware exchanges with people
I hardly know recently and I've gotta say that both really feel darned
good.

> > If people say they want both (ignorance and low cost), I wish them good
> > luck, but personall can't help them.  (I don't have the patience, and
> > don't want to deal with their attitude.  I'd tell them to buy PowerMacs,
> > except when they started whining about the price, I'd probably lose my
> > cool, so it's better to just say bon voyage.)
> 
> The irony of it is, Macintosh computers are cheaper (price/performance
> wise) than they have ever been.  This speaks more of Apple's lousy
> marketing right now than of their attitude.

Still not cheaper price/performance than PCs, but I don't want to start a
holy war here. I've got to agree that macs are quality hardware.

> > That brings us to the second point, about Linux being a general-purpose
> > computing environment:
> > 
> > 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.
> 
> Huzzah!  Ask these whiners what they want to do with the computer, and you
> might get a few answers like "surf the net" and maybe an occasional "edit
> Word documents" (read: use it as a fancy typewriter).  Almost without
> question, just about every task could be performed by a machine the power
> and performance of an i-opener.

Don't underestimate the power of porn. Seriously though, multimedia crap
software is very important to most users. You take away java, shockwave,
real blech, and all the other crap running on most PCs and suddenly the
text and picture only web becomes boring to most.

Oh yeah, & don't forget e-mail.

> So, I think that we're doomed.  We're stuck with the whiners.  This is why
> I personally think InstallFests at computer shows are not a really good
> idea.  Perhaps an organized evangelical display, staffed with patient
> members of the local Open Source community.  And then, quietly, invite
> potential installees to the LinuxCabal (grin) for snacks and the _real_
> InstallFest.

oh well, I guess that leaves me out. patience has never been one of my
chief virtues, though I have plenty of enthusiasm for the second refined
group if you guys want to weed out the others for me :)

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

There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled.
This time was called the Dark Ages.
	-Richard Lederer