Over at the Slog, John is yet again moaning about what a lot of bastards Microsoft are, it’s not that MS shit won’t work, or can’t be made to work, it is that it doesn’t work in EXACTLY the same user interface way as he *wants* it to work.
One of his commenter’s was whining about that fact that somewhere around the 98/Me/Xp days, those evil bastards at microshaft swapped around the order in which My Documents and My Pictures appeared on the menu’s, confusing the living shit out of everyone, who had to relearn how to use an OS as a result.
John goes on to tell us that Windows 8 & 8.1 are also a steaming pile of shit, blissfully unaware of the fact that Windows Server 2012 is basically windows 8 with bits added… of course what he really means is the new GUI confuses him, shit ain’t where it used to be.
Was talking to someone else about bridge cameras, they’d just bought a Sony, I went all meh, Sony are on my shit-list and have been for many years now, since before the root-kit fiasco, so what would you have bought, they ask, in that price bracket? Canon SX50HS, no contest. No question. No hesitation.
Oh no, they looked at that and didn’t buy it because it got a 1 star review from another old experienced photography hand who said the EV (electronic viewfinder) was total shit, they refused to use the rear LCD screen, cos they have always used the viewfinder to compose… plus the Canon only has 12 mega-pixels, and the Sony has 20… so it’s better.
Now I grew up around photography, Dad had Rollei’s and 8mm clockwork cine cameras, back in the day, I’ve known several true pro photographers, and by true pro I mean mainstream media, their pics made the front page and the reuters wire, know one now, who estimates it would cost him in excess of quarter of a million dollars US to replace all his kit, and this is shit he uses all the time, not a collection on a shelf, he carries a Canon SX50HS *as well* as everything else, he says everyone else can make do with *just* an SX50, it will do everything they could ask, and they aren’t good enough to use better.
I agree with him, but lots of people on Amazon for instance do not, they think it is a shit camera.
I’ve sat in this guy’s garden and he has taken 6 pictures with the SX50 and leaned over and handed it to me and I have taken 6, then we go inside, his pictures were fucking jaw droppingly good and eye popping and wow, mine were sooooo much better than they would have been with a smart-phone camera…lol… but you could printed all 12 out and stopped some random fuck on the street and said sort these into two groups, the 6 you like the best and the 6 you like the least, and you know mine would have been in the 6 they liked the least.
Having said that, that demo was enough to get me to go on Amazon and order one there and then, and a few extras, remote control, spare battery, carry case, etc.
He came back out with about 8k worth of DSLR and lens (EOS 1DX), and took the same six shots, we went inside, as he said, unless you were blowing them up to poster size, not a lot in it, if we repeated the test at midnight, OK, there you would have seen a *clear* difference, but UK£8,000 worth? Only if you did that shit for a living…. and could bill it back… he can, people will and do pay him £2,500 a pop for a single photo.
Same as JW thinks Microsoft is all shit, (then he goes and buys a shitty little HP laptop with Win 8 and starts complaining about MS…) and it is always the same refrain.
I doesn’t do what I want it to do, the way I want it to do it, by pressing the buttons I want to press.
Shades of my pro photographer mate, nobody I know of any age or experience who works in IT actually thinks MS is complete shit, sure, they think there are a lot of people running 2012 server on boxes that really do not require it, but that’s matey and the SX50 HS vs EOS 1DX comparison again.
Or indeed the 2014 Mk7 1.6 blue-motion diesel golf vs Audi R8 comparison…. for legal road use where you intend to actually keep your licence… the £125k Audi is no better or faster A to B than the £22k VW, for 99.999% of users.
Being better and faster on the Autobahn doesn’t apply unless you actually drive the fucking autobahn’s regularly…. and then you need the actual driving skill and ability as well…
I don’t think any of these people are actually Luddites, per se..
As said in the previous post, technically a Luddite is someone who throws clogs in the new machines to break them, as the new machines threaten their old way of life.
The JW’s of this world are a different kettle of fish, it isn’t a case of deliberately breaking something, it is the case of being unable to use it properly, and being unwilling to learn how.
Now, while I do not expect everyone to be renaissance man…….. let’s look at my mum, she has never used a PC, or a tablet, or a smartphone, or the internet, nor does she have any interest in any of these things, none at all, she is quite happy with her digital terrestrial satellite TV, DVD/CD/MP3 player, music centre for audio CD’s and Radio and LP’s, books, and so on, and the landline push button telephone.
It’s not that she is *incapable* of learning how to use a PC, she just has no interest.
Contrast this with the JW’s of this world, who insist on using one, in order to publish his blog, but, being brutally honest, flatly refuse to learn how to use one properly, and insists instead that it is the evil and shit Microsoft who cannot write an operating system and application software exactly the way JW likes.
I deleted his blog link some time ago, because it became increasingly evident that far from merely falling short of some idealised lofty goal of being a renaissance man, JW is in fact nothing more than a fucking idiot.
In this case, his whole attitude towards MS etc *is* indicative of his general intellect and ability to perceive the world as it really is.
Even fucking idiots can be right about some things some of the time, and that’s how I ended up adding a link to him in the first place, more fool me…
More fool me because of the innate human tendency to cut someone some slack on items D through Q if you know that items A, B & C they were pretty much spot on with, so you give items D through Q head time that you would not have done otherwise.
It’s shades of Ben Bernanke refusing to accept that if QE as applied by him doesn’t fucking work, then the fault does not lie with him, or how he is using tool X, but instead the fault lies with the tool itself, or worse still, the material the tool is being used to modify.
A bad workman always blames his tools.
As a proverb this goes back at least as far as 1290 AD
I have come to the conclusion that no matter what specific field it is that the “workman” in question is blaming his “tools” for, no matter how distant that field appears to be from the subject in question, the fact that he is doing so is such a profound statement about the character of the “workman” themselves, that suddenly it becomes very relevant, not just to this field too, but to any and every field that “workman” may touch.
As in, it is a fucking serious and base and ripples-like-veins-through-marble fucking character flaw.
As in, it’s like a wimminz with dyed bright RED hair, that tells you enough, there are NO areas of her character that are worth a damn, or safe enough for you to be in any proximity of any kind to.