Computer Scientists, the 'Computer Experts', and Those Who 'Know a Thing or Two' - Part 1: The Average Joe
Italian version available here
Translator's Note: This is a translation of an Italian blog post originally written in 2006. It reflects the tech landscape and common frustrations of that era. The tone is intentionally ironic and sarcastic, typical of tech rants from the time, and might read differently through today's lens.
Part One: The Friend
Given the "success" of my previous article (in the sense that many expressed their admiration), I'm back writing another piece of "social commentary" on my blog. This time I'm less polemical, but I want to explain why I've been getting increasingly angry lately (even though, in many cases, I can't say anything :-) ).
I'll break it down into parts: friends, clients, companies... and more, if it comes to mind.
Who hasn't been called over by a neighbor (or the friend-of-the-moment) because "my scanner doesn't work anymore on my Windows machine (or any other classic M$ system problem)"? And how many times have you found a pre-Roman Windows installation absolutely crammed with little icons in the system tray, three cascaded antivirus programs (all rigorously not updated), forty-two anti-spyware tools, the MS Office quick-launch bar AND the OpenOffice one simultaneously? Result: twelve minutes and thirty-six seconds to boot the machine and an instability matched only by a drunkard walking a tightrope 457 meters high. What do you do? You observe, you look, maybe if you're too expressive (like me) you wrinkle your nose, you stare at the machine with an air that asks "how are you even running?" and you pose the classic question:
Who installed all this (useless) crap in here???
The answer, unfortunately, is always the same, proud and confident: It was X, he really knows his stuff! X is a variable, substitute one of the following: friend, neighbor, colleague, twelve-year-old computer whiz kid.
At that point, sadly, you're in the unfortunate position of having to state your opinion, which is always the same: "This machine is a huge mess, the only option is to reformat and start over with only the strictly necessary things."
At which point, bewildered, your interlocutor says, "But X told me the computer is too old now and needs replacing!" You get suspicious and do your research. You discover the machine has an excellent processor, mountains (green, since the system just grazes) of RAM, an excessively large hard drive. So you ask: "Then why Windows 9Y?" The answer, again, is always the same: "Because X says 9Y is the best Windows there is!" Once more, you're stunned and already know what you have to do: convince them that this isn't always true (especially when you're convinced there's no such thing as a "best" Windows, but that's getting into personal opinions) and that anyway, above a certain hardware threshold, this is NEVER true.
Now you've sown doubt. X, whenever needed, always found a nice little program that did everything required, yet you propose wiping everything and starting from scratch! And using a Windows version that X considers "badly made"! The suspicion becomes founded: "Maybe he doesn't know enough! X installed loads of antivirus programs for me, all those programs I don't know what they are but they're supposed to be essential, all the office suites, and this guy wants to delete everything!" After a few questions, they decide to let you do it, but only for one reason: they can't call X for the umpteenth time. Let's give it a try.
You begin, under the worried eyes of the owner of your "patient" and... well, let's skip straight to the end. Let's just say they watch you attentively.
You install ONE antivirus, ONE anti-spyware program, ONE office suite (depending on the person, almost always OpenOffice), and the essential little programs they need. They ask, "Are you sure one antivirus is enough? Isn't it better to install two, just to be safer?" No, it's not necessary. But the doubt will linger for a long time.
The system works. It boots in 30 seconds flat, the antivirus updates itself perfectly without initiating unwanted connections, the machine never shows signs of strain, all their important programs are in place, the disk has recovered half its capacity. But they remain doubtful, something doesn't add up. How is it possible that their friend X, esteemed by all colleagues/friends/neighbors/relatives, didn't do a good job and, in fact, only made things worse?
The mystery must be solved: two days later, they call you together, on speakerphone (or summon you to a private assembly, like some kind of improvised tribunal), and X asks for explanations about your work, which in his opinion was wrong and hasty. You explain point by point what's wrong, why FAT isn't a suitable File System for a 250GB disk, why creating n 20GB partitions to "keep data separate" makes no sense (what needs to be kept that separate, anyway...), why the person couldn't create a file larger than 2GB (linking back to the FAT FS issue), you explain how a file system works, what a disk looks like inside, the minuscule weight of the read heads and the actual average angular velocity of the disk, the seek rate, and the fact that RPM alone means nothing... and him? He listens, with the superior air of a professor questioning an unprepared student. You get angry facing the famous "know-it-all ignorance" (from the Latin ignoramus, meaning one who does not know, something I'd like to discuss further in the future and present not only in IT). You launch into a technical tirade, the proof of fifty-one theorems, the simplification of NP-complete problems, the mathematical proof of software correctness (don't criticize me: it's all ironic, I know full well it's unprovable!), four Turing machines (two with only one head), and two Krebs cycles (which have nothing to do with it but fit nicely). You conclude with the typical, sighed "Q.E.D.". He falls silent for a few seconds and then asks: "But did you install that little program for Windoze that defragments the memory while you use it (and probably sucks up 98.2% of the CPU)?" You answer no, you didn't install it because you let the Kernel handle it. He replies sharply, "We're talking about computers, don't speak German! After installing everything, did you run defrag?" No. He then launches into a lecture, starting with a pseudo-technical explanation highlighting the importance of having a defragmented disk (even if it means keeping the machine on 12 hours a day uselessly, since everyone knows defrag is only done when you're not using the computer), followed by a mix-up of misused technical terms (like the famous "format the RAM, initialize the BIOS memory, park the disk heads" (a useless operation, automatically done by hard drives for over fifteen years)). Finally, the last question: "But did you install the latest DirectX beta? And the codecs to watch DVDs (even though the machine DOESN'T HAVE a DVD drive)?" You, without a permanent Internet connection and on a machine that will ONLY run [MS|Open]Office, decided it wasn't necessary. You answer "No, on a machine like this, it's not needed." At that point, the condemning sentence:
I see, thank you, everything's fine. Good evening.
Which, as later confirmed by the unfortunate (generic) owner, was followed by a series of comments about your incompetence, how you only did what any idiot could have done, how you skipped fundamental steps (like benchmarking, to compare it to his couuuuuusin's computer), the fact that you messed up because you didn't install firewall software on Windows (without understanding that with a professional ADSL router, even with an on-demand connection, the little software firewall isn't needed). He again throws around random terms, talks about how he saw the best operating system in the world in a video ("imagine, it had icons with 75 billion colors, super animated, and they even said, audibly, 'click me, I'll be yours forever.' That's a well-made operating system. As soon as the beta comes out, I'll download it from eMule"). Little does it matter if it needs 2GB of RAM just to run decently. If it's just for writing a simple letter in plain text (strictly .txt, because for this user, the extension is fundamental. He's afraid to use Unix because he thinks files are tricky... they lack extensions! How do you launch a program if there's no .exe?). And besides, you're clearly an IT newbie! You didn't install any additional themes, the desktop is still bare, the same default wallpaper! The real "computer user (TM)", the one who "knows his stuff", immediately changes all the graphical settings!
How do you come out of this? Angry and belittled, if the person doesn't respect you much (or knows you little). Angry but satisfied if you know the person well and they trust you, understanding that their friend X is just the classic "tinkerer who gets it (TM)", the one who installs Windows twice a week hoping to find the hidden checkbox that unlocks undocumented features pushing his computer higher than others, both in performance and stability.
One of the harshest personal experiences: I was already in university, met someone my age who asked: "What computer do you have?" I replied: "Various, custom-built and not. My laptop is an iBook, a Macintosh, running MacOS Panther, Debian Linux, and I'm also trying the (then) new Ubuntu Linux". He asked for the hard drive's revolutions per minute, and at that moment, I couldn't remember. He replied: "So you're one of those who doesn't know anything. Bye".
Q.E.D.
Written and posted by: Stefano Marinelli