Oh, I do get grumpy. You'll hear this on the radio and TV: "Just go to www.foobar.com backslash special offer!".. and, curmudgeon that I am,
I start yelling "It's not a backslash, you bleeping idiot!"

That's embarassing. People stare at me - especially since
they, deluded by Windows and reinforced by constant repetition
in media, likely are quite sure that "/" is indeed a backslash - duh!

I really need to learn to just keep my mouth shut. If conveniently
near an Internet connected computer I could quickly show them the error
of their belief, but even then I've seen people shrug their shoulders
and insist that "\" is a slash.. if Mighty Microsoft says
so, it must be true, right? But, but, I splutter, Microsoft
says no such thing. For example I submit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/870839 which plainly
explains a bug in Microsoft Excel thusly:

When you open a Microsoft Excel for Windows workbook in Microsoft
Excel 2004 for Mac, the yen character may appear as a backslash
(\).

See? Even Microsoft knows what a backslash is.

It could be worse. If they say "Log in to www.foobar.com backslash special offer!" I turn purple. Of course it's always possible that you really will
have to log in that site, but I doubt it. No doubt the people that write
this junk think it's cool computer talk, but it of course it really
isn't: it's dumb, I don't know beans about computers talk. And again
it causes people to look at me like I'm the crazy one.. well, ok, maybe
I was shouting a little..

Then there's the security stuff. Last night I watched an old NCIS
episode.. just happened to flip into it as the boss told some young lass
that she needed to break into a Pentagon computer. I'm not sure what the
point of all this was, but soon that woman and another man were hacking
away at their keyboards and the screen was full of hexadecimal dumps
interspersed with blinking red "Access Denied!" lines. Oh yeah,
I'm sure that's how the Pentagon does it - plain old passwords. And I'm sure they'd let you keep guessing as long as you like, too. Those
attempts wouldn't attract any attention at all.. yeah, right.

Oh, TV can be so annoying.. I don't know why I bother yelling
at it when no one is here to "shush" me.

Finally, I don't like blurred out logos, expecially when I can
tell from the keyboard or the screen that yes, it is a Mac. What's
the point of that blurriness over the Apple logo on the back of the cover?
You tried to get them to pay for it appearing and they said "no" so
you spitefully blur it out? Is that the reason? Or is it some incredibly
dumb legal thing? I'd like to know.. in the meantime I'll just
keep shouting "I KNOW that's a Mac, idiot!".. why are you looking
at me like there's something wrong with ME? I'm not the one who
doesn't know what a backslash is, dammit!

| << Home | 7:30 PM | Technorati | Ping