My Thoughts For The Month (Both Of 'Em) |
| As we move through what is being hailed as the Digital Age (or is this the Information Age? It's hard to keep up), technological advances are moving forward at an unprecedented rate. New technologies and new uses for technology are springing up at a faster, and sometimes an alarming, rate. What's even more alarming are the progenitors of these advances. |
| No, it's not all cropping up out of Japan, though much of it does. It's not coming from the govenment, as part of an Orwellian 'Big Brother' scheme involving Aliens, TWA flight 800, and the missing cufflink. The problem is that the world's leading technology developers, people who change the day-to-day lifestyles of millions of people across the globe, drink beer.
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| Now, I'm not condemning beer. Well, maybe American beer, but that's beside the point. All I'm saying is that maybe some of today's movers-and-shakers should cut back a little, you know?
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| Look at Netscape. Incredible company, well-steered and fast on their toes. Brought the Web to the forefront of attention, and changed the way a lot of people work, play, and get pornography. But tell me there isn't at least a six-pack behind the <BLINK> tag. And what about that mascot? You explain a fire-breathing iguana named 'Mozilla' some other way.
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| If that doesn't convince you, Navigator users, hold down your and keys and press 'f' (Mac users'll have to figure this one out on their own). G'wan, do it -- then come back here. We'll wait.
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| Internet Exploiter users, you quit laughing. I want to hear a better explanation for IE 4.0. Good thinking -- sell productivity software by making sure no supervisor will be able to tell if his or her employees are working or surfing the Web. You just know somebody at Microsoft had just finished a case and was thinking:
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| 'If I pull this off, I can spend eight hors a day at www.porn.com and nobody will notice.'
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| It ain't just browsers, either. Office '97 users, when you see the happy paperclip or orgami cat, do you think:
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| 'Oh, this must be an intuitive, user-friendly help interface,' or
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| 'Wow, Microsoft must've cut a bulk deal with Michelob!'
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| I know Macintosh users are feeling a little superior (well, a lot, but I mean a little more than usual) at this point. They may have a right to, now that I can't make fun of the paperclip disk-eject they had to suffer for just because some engineer had a hangover or somehting.
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| I think Mac developers probably aren't drunk. I also think that Mac users are. Overly emotional, easily provoked, defensive, and (in the Lisa days) unwilling to listen to reason. Classic symptoms.
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| UNIX was built by drunks. Look at 'daemons', the 'superuser', and the null device. LINUX was built by happy drunks. I have a distribution that warns me that an unidentified printer error will be displayed as 'LPT on fire'. And I won't even mention the Bourne Again shell.
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There's more. A children's game was recently scandalized over a hidden joke cerial commercial featuring a free prize condom ('Sure, Ed, they'll think it's funny. BLUUUURP'). OS/2: The Integration Platform ('Great slogan for the home users, Jack.' 'Thanks, Ed, wanna 'nother 'brewski?'). AOL. . . well, just AOL ('Nah, they won't mind if we jack up the price and don't tell 'em.').
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| Who can forget (Lots of you. Don't lie) when CERN's particle accellerator was down for almost a week -- because of two empty beer cans. In the vacuum chamber.
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| Lynx -- Now for Windows '95! (If you don't get this one, don't ask). COBOL. Acer -- 'Who needs quality? We have colorful cases!' AmiPro -- 'We don't know what it's supposed to mean, either, but you gotta admit it's better than 'FoxPro' or 'QuattroPro'!'. Microsoft Bob.
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| The list goes on and on. So keep in mind when your computer acts a little, well, wierd, that most likely nobody's out to get you -- they're just drunk.
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| And to all you developers out there; please, designate a programmer. Dont drink and write drivers.
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Logging off,
The Redneck
the_redneck@geocities.com
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