What is Digg?7 Comments
- Cryoniq, on 07/05/2008, -1/+4Bet the nutcase is actually a semi payed Microsoft agent.
- prototypeangel, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2I'm just curious what'd be in his death threats anyways, a cliched "kill -9" or a SEGTERM even.
Or simply this: http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20080608 - angrykeyboarder, on 07/22/2008, -0/+1Part of the problem is, that nerds by their very nature are a dysfunctional group (myself included).
And nerds are the people who power the world of software (free or otherwise). - angrykeyboarder, on 07/22/2008, -0/+1I hope this ***** is tracked down and made equally uncomfortable.
- BalooUrsidae, on 07/04/2008, -1/+2Wow, just wow. I wonder if that nutjob gets any with anything other than his hand: That kind of behavior is probably enough to turn off anybody who isn't both misogynist and gay.
- prisoner24601, on 07/04/2008, -2/+2This is honestly such a perfect example of how a small (but incredibly vocal) subculture of astonishingly dysfunctional FOSS community members turn off normal people to Linux.
I remember awhile ago reading one of those "if operating systems were airlines" jokes. MacOS was the one where everything on the plane was immaculate, every seat was first class, and the food was incredible but it only flew to 10% of the cities the other ones did. Windows was a cattle-car packed airbus where every seat was coach, but the planes were scheduled left every airport for every other airport every 15 minutes, although they would often actually be delayed. Those jokes were pretty humorous (if a bit tired...) but the analogy for Linux was really interesting. The main joke was that you would have to compile your own seat when you got on the plane, and that you needed to know arcane comments like "mount /dev/747seat -t vcoach_class" to actually sit down when you were done, etc.
But later I was thinking about it and I realized that wasn't really the problem with Linux. It's not that it's "foreign" or complex, the biggest issue is with who you will be traveling with. You've got maybe a 50% chance when you get on the plane and see (as a noob) that you are supposed to compile your seat that if you ask "how am I supposed to do this?" the guy next to you will know how and be willing to show you. You've got maybe another 45% chance the guy will know how and want to help, but just isn't quite able to communicate it in a way that makes sense to someone who is a novice.
But the problem is that you've got maybe 5% of the FOSS community that falls into the "mean rude nerd" category. They genuinely revel in their pathetic sense of superiority over those who don't know as much as they do. Asking for help will be met with "read the man page!" or "google it you moron!"
You get on the plane and have to assemble your seat. Most people will grab a wrench and come over to help you and show you how the parts fit together. A fair number of people will honestly try to help you, but they compiled their seat for a 727 instead of a 747 so their instructions don't work, but at least they were polite. But... and this is really sick but true in my experience... there will be a handful of astonishingly mal-adjusted passengers who (if you have the bad luck of being within earshot when you say "gee, I'm not sure how to put my seat together") will THROW the wrench at your head while insulting you!
No wonder it's taking years to get "normal people" to move away from Windows/Office to Linux/OpenOffice. It's like an army that randomly shoots new recruits! - deadowl, on 07/04/2008, -5/+2There's are female programmers? Awesome!!!
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is