![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
They really are different from us
Jan. 11th, 2009 10:35 pmFired by the accusation of an ad hominem argument (for those of you not bothered to look it up, this argument essentially consists of the following train of logic: (1) George is stupid and a cunt. (2) George believes X. (3) Therefore X is probably false) I couldn't resist accessing this blog on Las Vegas and the recent IT convention.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/01/surfing_over_vegas.html
Geeks and Vegas always make for a strange mix. I remember some wag posting a picture of a couple of early 20s Internet pros who were part of a geek group in their mid-to-late-teens. The Internet pros in their 20s were not happy at photos of younger geekhood.
Anyhoo, Rory Cellan-Jones indicates in his piece how geekdom is fundamentally different from the rest of humanity. And this is not restricted to technology. There are two distinct groups here, those who are interested in something because of what it can do (I like money because of the things it can buy vs I like money for its own sake; I like cars for what they can do vs I like cars as items in their own right; I like technology for what it can do vs I like technology as something to play with).
Here's the key three paras:
It's the ending that gives it away. Not "hugely frustrating", but "hugely satisfying". And, since I am imbued with a fair share of IT geekdom, I can see where Rory is coming from. I well remember spending three hours one Friday afternoon in the late 1990s linking the IR on my Motorola to the IR on my Palm IIIx, running some obscure piece of programming on the Palm and sending and receiving an e-mail on it. This was while sitting in front of a computer that could do precisely the same thing far less expensively and far more quickly. The point was not what it could do, but the process, the promise of what might be done in the future.
But most people don't think that way. They do not find the first hesitant and faulty steps "hugely satisfying". They want it to work, to work now, to work cheaply, and not to be bothered about what is under the bonnet.
++++++++++++
And, speaking of new processes, we go live with Eidos XSmile and Eidos Methode tomorrow. I'm always worried about programs with stupid names. The Eidos explanation for the derivation of Methode (pronounced Me-tod, apparently, althoguh everyone at work calls it Method) is sad indeed, a cross between marketing and geekland. XSmile is kind of a pun on XML, because it's meant to be a "friendly" XML editor.
I've been operating both for the past week at work and at home. The work system is fine, but the home system seems to encounter problems if there is a temporary connection loss to the CORBA server — which is caused when the computer switches its attention to receiving an e-mail from one of our other servers, for example. It's just a matter of shutting down the program and relaunching it -- about 30 seconds maximum — but it would be nice to work a getaround for this. Well, there is a getaround; we have a web-based interface system as well. But the Virtual client connection is far better (easier to use, faster) than the "hotmail" equivalent.
But going live with it will be something else entirely. New website, new channel management job (plus the old job, natch), should make for fun times.
_______
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/01/surfing_over_vegas.html
Geeks and Vegas always make for a strange mix. I remember some wag posting a picture of a couple of early 20s Internet pros who were part of a geek group in their mid-to-late-teens. The Internet pros in their 20s were not happy at photos of younger geekhood.
Anyhoo, Rory Cellan-Jones indicates in his piece how geekdom is fundamentally different from the rest of humanity. And this is not restricted to technology. There are two distinct groups here, those who are interested in something because of what it can do (I like money because of the things it can buy vs I like money for its own sake; I like cars for what they can do vs I like cars as items in their own right; I like technology for what it can do vs I like technology as something to play with).
Here's the key three paras:
We took off at twilight and headed towards Las Vegas - and very quickly we were online, and at a pretty decent speed. We wanted to try a couple of "firsts" - at least they were firsts for us - a live broadcast from a plane, and a video call.
It was always going to be tricky to go live onto BBC World, and although we did manage to contact London, and they saw us for a minute, a software glitch then froze the picture. So we moved on to or (presumably 'our') next challenge.
Down on the ground, Maggie Shiels was waiting for my Skype video call - and, wonder of wonders, it worked. Well, the pictures worked anyway. The cabin of the flying boat was not pressurised and we could not hear each other above the roar of the engines. First, we resorted to holding up pieces of paper to our webcams, then we started Twittering to each other. It was all rather eccentric but hugely satisfying.
It's the ending that gives it away. Not "hugely frustrating", but "hugely satisfying". And, since I am imbued with a fair share of IT geekdom, I can see where Rory is coming from. I well remember spending three hours one Friday afternoon in the late 1990s linking the IR on my Motorola to the IR on my Palm IIIx, running some obscure piece of programming on the Palm and sending and receiving an e-mail on it. This was while sitting in front of a computer that could do precisely the same thing far less expensively and far more quickly. The point was not what it could do, but the process, the promise of what might be done in the future.
But most people don't think that way. They do not find the first hesitant and faulty steps "hugely satisfying". They want it to work, to work now, to work cheaply, and not to be bothered about what is under the bonnet.
++++++++++++
And, speaking of new processes, we go live with Eidos XSmile and Eidos Methode tomorrow. I'm always worried about programs with stupid names. The Eidos explanation for the derivation of Methode (pronounced Me-tod, apparently, althoguh everyone at work calls it Method) is sad indeed, a cross between marketing and geekland. XSmile is kind of a pun on XML, because it's meant to be a "friendly" XML editor.
I've been operating both for the past week at work and at home. The work system is fine, but the home system seems to encounter problems if there is a temporary connection loss to the CORBA server — which is caused when the computer switches its attention to receiving an e-mail from one of our other servers, for example. It's just a matter of shutting down the program and relaunching it -- about 30 seconds maximum — but it would be nice to work a getaround for this. Well, there is a getaround; we have a web-based interface system as well. But the Virtual client connection is far better (easier to use, faster) than the "hotmail" equivalent.
But going live with it will be something else entirely. New website, new channel management job (plus the old job, natch), should make for fun times.
_______
