Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Where did this concept of congratulating a user upon completion of an installation come from? I just paused to think about it and realized both how many installers seem to do it, and also how patronizing it is.
Why should a user be congratulated for clicking “Next” several times through a carefully scripted sequence of stages, where the most likely cause for failure is the programmer not handling some system condition they should have known about? Congratulations for navigating our crappy code?
This goes I think to a bigger societal shift. People are being applauded for being “special” without actually accomplishing anything. It’s worse when this mentality is forced upon everyone, look at the NCEA in New Zealand as a good example. It creates a society of entitlement.
I’m not sure which is better. That AT&T has been directed not to respond to these allegations, or that the company is running a “We’re a most admired company” banner next to this story.
Oh well, back to the telescreen.
Republican candidate Ron Paul spoke at Google last week. I wasn’t able to go because I had a meeting conflict. However watching the Q&A in the video I was disappointed and wished I had been able to go so that I could ask questions. I’m not a US citizen so can’t vote, but I feel like people can’t get past the fact that Ron Paul makes sense on one issue: that the Iraq war has been a disastrous waste of life, money and opportunity and ask some perhaps more interesting questions.
For example, as a self proclaimed “champion of the constitution,” why is he not seeking President Bush’s impeachment? Is he, but we just haven’t heard about it?
Also, many of his actual policies sound frightening, at least initially. As he goes on to explain his positions in more detail, the libertarian part of your brain realizes that what he’s saying actually makes a bit of sense, but you realize that for his ideas to reach fruition a series of unlikely steps would need to take place. Many of his policies are built on the notion everyone in communities across the country thinks about every issue logically, and will take care of the details of supporting that community, and as such the federal government should step back. In many places that’s true, especially on social issues that I feel the federal government only gets involved in for purely theatrical purposes. But in infrastructural areas, such as public works, education, healthcare etc, it’s been proven that given the opportunity, companies will squander public trust. Basically I’m saying that the government shouldn’t necessarily meddle in setting the school curriculum (other than to set some basic standards), but it should provide funding to operate them.
I have some thoughts here since even though I can’t vote, I do pay taxes in the United States. I like low taxes. I like the government staying out of my affairs. But I feel like much of the politics in this country are theatrical and a waste of time. If the government would stop wasting money on foolish adventures overseas and spend it at home, maybe people living here could have a decent healthcare system like everywhere else in the western world. Just a thought.