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Gaffer Variety:
Arrogant Mothers V056:
By Willie Gaffer:
September 4, 206:
Microsoft did it again. I changed the power supply and the local area network (LAN) card in my backup computer. The power supply crapped out so I had to change it. I changed the LAN card because I wanted a faster one. That's fine. The computer kept right on working as it should have. Then, a week after the fact, the Microsoft OS decided it could not verify that my computer was legitimate. It shut me down at a time when I was in the middle of some very important work.
The software refused to recognize my modem and forced me to go through a long telephone procedure to get my system recertified. I had no choice. I had to do it. I finally forced my way through one of those so called intelligent answering programs to get to a real person. Then I discovered they had outsourced that function. The person I got was probably Indian. Her accent was so thick I had to get her to repeat herself several times before I could understand her. I finally asked her to just slow down a bit, which she did. So, after about an hour of wasted time I finally had my machine recertified.
I should have been out of the woods, right? Wrong! A few hours later, after a reboot, I got one of those windows that told me my machine had just recovered from a serious error. I had a choice to send or not to send a report to the Mothers at Microsoft. I clicked "Don't send." The screen came back and I clicked "don't Send" again. The screen came back again. After about ten of those, I finally decide to let the Mothers have their way so I could get on with my work.
Well, it didn't happen. I clicked on ""Send" and got a window that said it was sending the report. That window stayed on my screen for about 15 minutes before I canceled it and the "Send, Don't Send" screen came back. I thought perhaps the software had assumed I had an always on connection, which I don't. I have a modem. So, I logged onto the internet and clicked on "Send" again. The same thing happened.
I finally canceled that window and, of course, the "Send, Don't Send" screen came back. Then I began angrily clicking on the "Don't Send" button as the window closed and immediately snapped back. I counted them. After 39 more clicks on "Don't Send" the window finally went away and stayed away, at least for that time.
I have been dealing with these arrogant intrusions into my work ever since I got Windows XP. On both of my computers, these intrusions happen on a regular basis. I don't know what Microsoft is up to, but I do not think it has anything to do with real failures of my system. They are gathering information to some purpose, but I don't know what it is. There is no way I will be convinced that more than 50 failures occurred on my system in just one reboot. You tell me what they are really up to. I don't know.
There is no good reason for having Windows XP. The only advantage it offers is large hard drive support. The old Me edition of Windows would not support drives greater than 32 GB, but it was more stable than XP has ever been. XP supports larger drives, but they still implemented it wrong. There is no reason they could not have written the software to support any sized drive, but they did not. They just increased the limit. That is the bit-whacker mentality personified. Duh! Sooner or later it will catch up with them again.
I have sometimes had the thought, if only I had one more life to live. If that happened, I could dedicate that life to putting Microsoft out of business. I would do that by creating a turnkey system based on the Linux operating system imbedded in an Intel type processor. If the computer industry has established one principle it is that open architecture will not work. Open architecture is much like communism. It is totally dependent on the participants behaving ethically. We know, given the current phase of human evolution, that is impossible. So my plan would call for a set of turnkey systems each designed for a particular market segment. The options would be buy or lease.
Now, would I really go after Microsoft? I doubt it. They are small potatoes compared to the thieves at K-mart. Then there are the people in the current administration, then there is congress, then there is Haliburton, then there are the auto companies, etcetera, ad infinitum. With only one extra life, I would have a tough choice of who to target. I would have to think about it.
The question becomes, what action would have the most effect on the largest number of crooks and/or bunglers. With that I can narrow the action down to a single item of scientific development. The item is a small fusion reactor that would produce from 10 to 50 kilowatts of electrical energy. Think about how many of our enemies we could get with a thing like that. First we could put such a device in automobiles to replace the gasoline engine. It would produce a much nicer auto with zero emissions and it would demolish OPEC. Those extremist Muslim scum would drown in their own oil.
We could also place these things in homes and put the consumer power companies out of business. No more land lines for power and no more power outages. We could also put these things in factories and eliminate a lot of smokestacks. With no auto emissions and very few smokestacks we could reverse global warming from greenhouse gases. Our kids will be safe from drowning and they will be able to breath.
I'm sorry Microsoft, but you are just to small of potatoes
for my dream. You are very arrogant, annoying and intrusive, but
you do not compare to Detroit Edison, GM, or Ford. You do not
even compare to K-mart. So go ahead Gates. At least you're doing
some good now.
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