"It's time for you to leave."

[Joel Rees]

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 1:26 AM, Patrick Lists
<fedora-list at puzzled.xs4all.nl> wrote:
> On 30-12-11 07:29, Joel Rees wrote:
>>
>> Reading her posts often reminds me of trying to teach my sisters how
>> to use something on the computer. All of them at once, on a day when
>> they definitely have their wires crossed.
>
> I solved that by advising my sister she should get a MacBook :)

Did she?

I got one of my sisters an iBook 12" G4 some seven years back, she's
still using it, and we are puzzled what to do to upgrade her by remote
because it's still sometimes the best she can do to remember how to
bring up e-mail. Fortunately, she's on good terms with the sales crew
at one of the local Apple specialist shops. (3rd party, would not ask
her to put up with a visit to the Apple Store.)

If we were to update her to the current version, I'd have to fly
across the ocean (because I'm the closest to free to do it) and
babysit her use the first few days. (Not a bad idea, really, for when
we can scrape together the money and time.)

All of my sisters have different places that they can deal with, which
can be confusing at times. But the also all think laterally, which
means that walking any of them through a problem involves a lot of
side trips (including teleportation and aliens and strange bugs at
times).

Women are not all one kind, but they have certain tendencies more than
men do, and Linda is just extreme in that way.

If she's real.

I don't really care. Her questions do touch on a lot of the most
difficult usability (Stupid spell checker reminding me that
"useability" is not standard spelling. Yes, lateral thinking runs
pretty strong in my family.) issues. The only way to tell if she is
real is to try to help her long enough to see if she stumbles. If you
don't care to participate, you can leave her alone.

I'm personally interested in partial solutions to the NP-complete UI
problems that she brings up. Well, some of them. Wish I had time for
actually tackling them, but NP-complete problems tend to require
lateral thinking and lots of letting things sit on the back burner, so
it's not so bad to not really have time now.

>> She could be a relatively thoroughly constructed troll, I'll grant
>> that. But I've known women who were just like this. (I've known a few
>> guys whose thought streams were as hard to follow, too, really.)
>
> Can't say I share that experience.

I think, if you thought about it, you could think of a few. If not,
you may need to get out more often. (Half kidding.)

But my children are mad at me for wanting them to shut off the game
machine. Leaving it playing the theme song in demo mode seems to help
calm their nerves so they can study, where it makes it hard for me to
work.

I know, cooperation requires a bit of give-and-take, so I'm not saying
we can't ask people like Linda to tone it down, and, I admit, she
crosses over the edge at times when she sees a problem that looks like
something she's trying to figure out and then starts talking about
conspiracy theories, but at least she has half-rational posts, as
well.

>[...]

--
Joel Rees