- Sure is dusty in here... - It's not dust, it's your predecessors. Think hard before you make me an offer you cannot deliver.
As far as I can tell going for the budget models gets you a more usable phone. No "must-have" bloat features like logging in using your arsehole, no "personal assistants" constantly spying on everything you say in it's vicinity, sometimes you even get a user replaceable battery!
Oh my god, what crazy hell is this that people have made of buying a phone that doesn’t cost $600!?!?
One where the cheapass phone lasts longer (both between charges and overall) and that you aren't heartbroken if you break? I have a 4yo LG Zone3 that still works fine. Can check email, can get on some forums (screen is too small to bother with here), can text and make calls. Oh, and it has a few apps on it that I like.
Which is still way more than mine could do (I mean, it could acces Internet, I just never bothered with that). On the other hand, mine can survive being boiled in an electric kettle (a friend checked that on hers) and doesn't mind being dropped on the floor :P But it makes phone calls and does texts - which are the primary functionalities I ask of a phone.
I'm making "must fit inside my asshole" a requirement for buying a future phone. Bonus points for making salespeople uncomfortable.
What do you mean, your phone doesn't run off a fuel cell? What kind of junk are you trying to sell me?
Phone conversation from a colleague: Colleague: Hi, the roof is leaking and water is pouring onto my computer, desk and floor. Site support: We're sorry to hear that. Does this mean that your computer isn't working? C: ....yes? There is water pouring from the ceiling into my office. SS: Have you tried restarting the computer? C: *hangs up*
Had a great one from our Shadowrun GM last week. He decided to join the Facebook group for his home town of Lesmahagow. For those who aren't in the know, The 'Gow is just a couple of Wargs away from being Mordor. Well, some of the members of this group had been remarking that a group of gypsies had been hanging around the car park of the local supermarket. A few days later, one of the members posted this gem of wisdom: "If you meet some gypsies with a white van in the Tesco car park and they offer you a TV, don't buy it! It doesn't work!" My goodness me! Just as well he spoke up - selling TVs off the back of a van seems like a perfectly legitimate business to me :( But it got better: "When I got it home, I found the screen was cracked." So, he bought a TV off some gypsies from the back of an unmarked van, was surprised when it didn't work, but even better was that he didn't even look at what he was buying until he got home and opened the box... I mean, "off the back of a van" was a meme before people knew what memes were.
One I overheard: PFY: Hello, It Helpdesk Computer User Non Technical: Yes, hello, I'm having problems with my blinds PFY: Your blinds? C**T: Yes, in my office they won't stay open, I pull them down but they go back up again PFY: Sorry Ma'am, this line is only for Windows problems
Oh, that reminds me that old joke about four engineers riding a car. At some point, the car's engine dies out. Mechanical enigneer rolls up his sleeves: it's the fuel pump, gotta fixit and we'll be going. Electrical engineer pushes him aside: naw, that's ignition. Gotta clean the contacts, and it'll purr like a good cat. Chemical engineer looks at them like they were kids: you seriously expect the engine to run on such a fuel? Need to filter the contmainants out! IT engineer looks at his buddies with hope: guys, guys! Perhaps we should try getting out of the car and then getting in again...? ;)
You laugh, but I work in IT. You would be surprised how many buggy windows problems can be fixed by restarting the machine. (perhaps you wouldn't) I would guess about half the calls I get can be fixed with a restart. There is a reason IT always start with that. Now if that doesn't fix the problem, step two, turn off the firewall, seriously, if its not windows, its a good chance its the firewall. After that is when it gets interesting, and you actually need someone who knows his stuff. What really gets me frustrated is when I get called to fix the coffee pot. Office workers think if it runs off electricity, it must be IT's job to fix it. Unless your coffee pot is running an SQL database, I don't want to hear about. ( Come to think of it, if your coffee pot is running an SQL database I still don't want to hear about it. )
Because when things go wrong it's usually because code has hit an exception or bug somewhere and doesn't know how to continue, like if you were following a map but got lost. Rebooting is like being able to teleport back to the start of the route, you're going back to a blank state.
This ^. In part it is due to Windows trying to do too much. The upside is you get plug and play. Pick a device, plug it into your PC and it will usually work. The downside is that every Tom, Dick and Henry of hardware manufactures gets to monkey around with code that interacts with the main operating system. All those errors and sloppy code flow down hill, and eventually end up with the PC 'stuck'. Rebooting resets all that nonsense to a fresh start. You might be able to dig into the operating system and find the process that is mucking things up, but in all honesty, it is way faster and easier to just restart. Now if you have more of a closed system like Apple, fewer errors are introduced into the system, and you have fewer lockups. But you also have less stuff that will actually work with the system. And if you work with Linux, your know computers well enough to fix that stuff yourself. Linux users don't call Tech Support, they are Tech Support.
