Oh, man. Just getting people to think of their computer as being a constructed device amenable to prediction, rather than a malevolent box of evil out to make their life a misery, would be a major advance.
(As a sysadmin, I know that computers are actually in fact malevolent boxes of evil out to make your life a misery, and dealing with them is mostly a matter of who has the bigger spanner. But we want to start the masses gently.)
Perhaps we could shoot the malevolent boxes of evil amenable to prediction! This is a variety of bigger spanner. The secret sysadmin art is to understand the machine sufficiently well that you can glare at it, have it understand that you can and will strip it down to the case if it doesn’t behave, and have it start behaving. This is why when you call your sysadmin over about a problem, your PC starts working again.
It strikes me that “malevolent boxes of evil amenable to prediction” applies to many humans as well.
As a sysadmin, I know that computers are actually in fact malevolent boxes of evil out to make your life a misery, and dealing with them is mostly a matter of who has the bigger spanner. But we want to start the masses gently
Oh, man. Just getting people to think of their computer as being a constructed device amenable to prediction, rather than a malevolent box of evil out to make their life a misery, would be a major advance.
(As a sysadmin, I know that computers are actually in fact malevolent boxes of evil out to make your life a misery, and dealing with them is mostly a matter of who has the bigger spanner. But we want to start the masses gently.)
Perhaps we could shoot for “malevolent boxes of evil amenable to prediction”?
Perhaps we could shoot the malevolent boxes of evil amenable to prediction! This is a variety of bigger spanner. The secret sysadmin art is to understand the machine sufficiently well that you can glare at it, have it understand that you can and will strip it down to the case if it doesn’t behave, and have it start behaving. This is why when you call your sysadmin over about a problem, your PC starts working again.
It strikes me that “malevolent boxes of evil amenable to prediction” applies to many humans as well.
Humans are better approximated as malevolent tubes of evil.
Malevolent Hot Pockets (tm) of evil? Or maybe more of a nefarious calzone...
Nefarious Calzone is a totally awesome name for a melodrama villain.
Well said!