Angelic Eye for the Gendered-Species Individual ([info]rysmiel) wrote,
@ 2008-07-24 15:06:00
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any sufficiently irritating technology is indistinguishable from unsympathetic magic
It would seem that poking $sysadmin about having access to a Windows emulator that can use the program I need to use prompts doubt and shaking of heads, whereas actually folding the whole damn shebang up and mailing it to myself at gmail with the intent of seeing whether it can be made to work on my home machine prompts $sysadmin to mail saying "am setting you up an account on another machine that has a suitable emulator, will let you know when it is available."

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[info]redbird
2008-07-23 07:29 pm UTC (link)
*sigh* At the instant, I suspect that the real reason I'm an ex-sysadmin is that I'd rather talk to people than guess at what they need and tell them they're wrong when they disagree with me.

Nonetheless, this sounds like something resembling progress.

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[info]shweta_narayan
2008-07-23 08:56 pm UTC (link)
Ugh.
On the other hand I like your law much better than Clarke's.

Because unless sufficiently advanced technology fails to work unless the right person mutters arcane chants and smacks it, it is nothing like magic at all. And I am so tired of magic systems that work like an idealized image of tech.

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[info]wyld_dandelyon
2008-07-23 10:35 pm UTC (link)
Love your subject title!

And love the story. It's sometimes amazing what convinces some people that one is serious!

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[info]rysmiel
2008-07-24 02:51 pm UTC (link)
Oh, I didn't actually tell him that I was sending it to myself at home. Hence the magical thinking.

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[info]wyld_dandelyon
2008-07-24 03:01 pm UTC (link)
Actually, my guess was that "the whole app" was a big enough file that it was noticed somehow, and the sysop guessed what it was, and finally decided you really did want to use the app.

Mind you, I don't know how reasonable that guess is, but my (lay person's) guess is that it's possible that either size or amount of coding might flag something for a sysop to check to be sure their system hasn't been hijacked by a virus or worm. (If you want to gauge my level of computer expertise, I used to call myself a hacker-friendly user, before hacker became a bad word.)

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