Computer Stupidities (2013)
I know those stories are supposed to be midly amusing, but they always put me into a mild state of depression.<p>First, most of them are probably urban legends, and I&#x27;m not too keen on them. (That&#x27;s a slippery slope argument, so feel free to dismiss it, but I don&#x27;t know how far &#x27;that grandma overthere who sued to put her cat in the microwave&#x27; is from &#x27;that pizzeria basement where people run sex rings&#x27;)<p>Second, the overal tone of stories is &quot;IT people who know about computer stuff&quot; vs &quot;clueless non-IT people who don&#x27;t know about computer stuff&quot;.<p>Now, there is a huge source of humor and irony in people who <i>claim</i> to be expert at something, when in reality they don&#x27;t have a clue.<p>And sometimes, the misinterpretation of computer jargon by non-IT experts can be rather poetic. (&quot;It said I would have 98 windows. Where are the windows ?&quot;)<p>But I claim, that, most of the times, in those stories, the joke should be on <i>us</i> (IT-people), not on <i>them</i>.<p>Especially since those stories are from the mid-90s to early 2000s the non-IT people were not &quot;clueless&quot;. They were <i>never taught</i> how IT &quot;works&quot;.<p>And let&#x27;s face it, IT does <i>not</i> work.<p>They probably had references to how things are supposed to <i>work</i>. 60s household technology. Toasters. Light bulbs. Vaccuum cleaners. Fridge. TV sets. Washing machines. Even cars.<p>Those things &quot;worked&quot;. The vendor would show you the thing, you would turn around it for a while, get how it works, and go on with your life. And you would be able to explain it to you kid, and your neighboor.<p>And yeah, you might have no idea how your car engine worked in the details. (Although, you probably did. Your military instructors explained it to you, because your car and the jeep with which your father freed Europe worked the same.)<p>But you knew rather intuitively that if it started making weird noises, you would bring it to a technician who would be able to do something.<p>And car do not break <i>that</i> often unless you do stupid things like running into a tree or mixing up gas, right ?<p>Introduce 90s computers.<p>You would pay good money to buy it. No one would explain it to you (because vendors were probably as clueless as you were.)<p>You would not be trained how to use it - cause it would change in 2 years anyway.<p>You would be <i>required</i> to know how to use it, or you would start to fear loosing your job.<p>(Remember when we &#x27;high-salary experts&#x27; had &#x27;javascript fatigue&#x27; ? Don&#x27;t you think everyone had some sort of &#x27;computer-nonsense fatigue&#x27; at some point ?)<p>You don&#x27;t have the words to talk about the things.
You have no mental model about the &quot;normal behavior&quot;. 
Or what made a machine &quot;better&quot; than another. 
Or what made a machine &quot;compatible&quot; with another.<p>And, let&#x27;s not forget one tiny little details: THOSE THINGS BARELY WORKED AT ALL !!!!<p>The number of hilarious bugs, stupid behavior, counter-intuitive UX, border-line ripoff software should be humbling to us.<p>Anyone read &quot;The insane are running the asylum&quot; as a programmer and wanted to cry ?<p>Anyone had to explain to their father that &quot;yeah, now that I have installed Windows 95, if you want to switch the computer off, you need to click on &#x27;Start&#x27; first...&quot; ?<p>So, yes, confused people were calling customer <i>support</i> to try and get <i>support</i>, because they had other things to do with their life, and for some reason, the market had decided they had to do it through one of those computer thingies that are slow, expensive, buggy and talk to me like they don&#x27;t know the meaning of <i>words</i>.<p>In an ideal world, we would have made computers simpler. More compatible. More standards. Maybe a bit less powerful, but basically more <i>real-people</i> friendly.<p>The market had no incentive for that.<p>But now, at least, we have trained people no to bother calling IT support anyway - because IT-support people are expensive, and it&#x27;s better to have clueless minions on <i>that</i> side of the phone to, only paid to make user waste enough time to accept that the insane behavior of the computer is actually normal, and that it&#x27;s really their fault.<p>And, since software eats the world, people have now graciously stopped expecting <i>anything</i> to work at all.<p>To paraphrase Stroustrup:<p>&quot;If only my computer was as simple as a my car&quot;, one wished !  
&quot;If only using my computer was as easy as using my phone&quot;, one prayed !
&quot;If only software was as straightforward as laundry&quot;, one lamented !<p>&quot;Careful what you wish for&quot;, said the programmer.<p>&quot;Your car is now a computer with wheels, that will show your speed to be `NaN mph`.&quot;
&quot;Your phone is now a pocket computer, that will let you make lousy phone calls if you&#x27;re lucky, between software updates.&quot;
&quot;And your washing machine is now a computer, so now you won&#x27;t know with program to use - but that&#x27;s okay, you don&#x27;t know at which temperature you&#x27;re supposed to wash that shirt anyway. Go ask your mom.&quot;<p>We taught them that.<p>So yeah us ! Let&#x27;s have some fun mocking the peons!!<p>Or maybe re-read &#x27;Fondation&#x27; on our e-reader - provided the last DRM software update did not break it, of course.