Hilarious: No XP networking "Try reinstalling XP" 13199

Richard Rasker

Sure, there are always work-arounds, you can work overtime, bring in a personal computer you've purchased on e-bay, use a friend's machine,...

But in the illustration above, we are taking the case that one needs the computer to be productive in modern culture. You could go back to the abacus, quill pen, and crayons, but when you need to get your "creation" to a dozen users in many places, you suddenly have the problem of replicating your creative product - more lost time.

Not at all :D ;) :))

Keep in mind that in a real corporate environment, you might have to wait to get approvals for the service, approvals for the reimaging, have it scheduled for an overworked team of "box booters" or "box builders". But often, these guys only back up what THEY think is important.

As for that 3rd party software you purchased, downloaded, or installed via the corporate network - forget it. They are gone! Along with your data, e-mails, status reports, proposal drafts, and all of your working records.

Some corporations will give you a shared drive, but get incredibly upset when you drop 100 gigabytes of back-up information onto the shared hard drive.

Again, most of this price is paid by the end-user, who has almost no choice in which operating system is stuck into his PC and dumped onto his desktop. When Windows crashes and the drive needs to be reimaged, the end-user has to work the overtime to get back on schedule - usually without compensation. When McVirus trashes the computer and it takes 3 weeks to get it fixed, the end-user is expected to recover by working overtime, working weekends, evenings, and again, without compensation.

Of course, this can create some problems with the family, and after a few years of uncompensated overtime, the spouse decides to get divorced and live with a boyfriend, who blew his heart valves from taking stimulants to keep him awake so he would work more overtime. Or the one who suffers from chronic depression caused by physical exhaustion followed by zero compensation or recognition.

So now, the kids are growing up with Mom, who doesn't work and just collects child support and alimony, and boyfriend, who collects disability. This kids have no concept of a working parent as a role model, other than the dumb sucker who works his butt off, lives in a closet, drives a beat-up junk-mobile, and works 80 hours-week - because Windows is constantly crashing.

The kids grow up, and because they have no motivation to excel, don't even bother going to college. They get jobs at low wages, working double-shifts to pay rent, and working on a Windows workstation - that keeps crashing. To stay awake for 16-18 hours streight they start drinking pure espresso by the quart, add some ephedra "diet pills", and when they get home, they don't have time to come down, so they just drink some hard liquor, take some antihistimines, and pbutt out for 4-5 hours. Before long, they are smoking crack to stay awake, smoking dope to fall asleep, and they blow their heart valves, get on disability, go kids who don't need much maintenance.

Pretty soon there are so many of these "disabled" and "single-moms" that they elect politicians who want to provide national health care, free schooling for their kids regardless of their grades, life-time disability, will extend child-support until the kid is old enough and established enough to support Mom, then Mom can live with the kids and bring along hear dead-beat boyfriend. Of course, these are the same politicians who call the father who works his heart out but gets 3 payments behind because he needed to replace a car, get his teeth fixed, or move to an even cheaper closet - a "dead beat dad".

Now, let's talk about the REAL costs of Microsoft's half-baked software.

There are over 6 billion people on the planet.

There are 1 billion computer users.

The 1 billion computer users are working 80 hours-week so that the other 5 billion can mooch off them.

We ask for an operating system that will make us 4 times more productive so that we can work "normal" hours (maybe only 10 hours-day, 5 days-week) and still provide a better living for those who depend on our efforts. Instead, some pointy headed "Dilbert's Boss" type orders a whole new batch of "Windows only" computers because the Microsoft guy reccomended them.

And again, in the corporate world, it's often easier to get approval for more overtime than it is to get approval for a new PC.

Interesting thing is that many computers have been "recycled" exactly this way. Since it costs less to replace the old one, companies LEASE the computers. The returned computers are then loaded with Linux (which by now has all the necessary drivers), and they are sent to South America, India, Africa, China, Indonesia, and other places where nearly 4 billion people are living and a computer must often be shared by an entire village.

In some cases, the computer is even connected to something similar to ham radio equipment which can be used to connect remote villages via Internet. These villages can sell hand-crafted goods to Western distributors who will pay them what, in their world, would amount to over a year's income.

And when they finally decide they want to buy some more computers, Microsoft suddenly shows up and says "get rid of those Linux machines and use Windows instead".