[ale] FWIW Dept. of Philosophy

[Thompson Freeman]

Getting this off my chest, so the time restricted should delete and move
on.

I've known for a long time that I dislike the wintel world's approach to
computer technology, but my eldest daughter provided the reason to
complain about it recently. She had a hungup browser on a machine on the
internal net, and finding that her machine was not hung up, walked over to
the server/NAT machine and did what she does to fix computers at work -
three finger salute. Well, the reason her session had hung (or at least it
appears this way), I had saturated the ppp link from another node... 

This would not be a problem (except for the dent in the ceiling where my
head stopped short during a balistic exercise), except when I updated the
disk on the server, I had looked at the enclosed disk utility from the
manufacturer. I cann't get rid of the utility now (so far), and since the
stupid thing is looking for a windows partition or something - everything
hangs on boot until you hit return.

I'm sorry, but wintel approaches are no way to run a railroad, they
encourage dispicable habits. She was most embarrassed and contrite, but
better habits would save her the confusion.

I appreciate the opportunity to vent in front of people. I'm feeling
better now. I'll comment out the three finger salute in inittab shortly,
and just _pray_ she doesn't remember the hardware reset button...

=========================================================
Thompson Freeman           Even the Immortal Brahma
                           Shaves before he hugs his mama
tfreeman at vnet.net          Karma Shave
========================================================