"Bill Gates’s first day at work in the newly created role of technology
adviser got off to a rocky start yesterday as the Microsoft founder
struggled for hours to install the Windows 8.1 upgrade" (New Yorker, 5 February 2014).
Lots of people have expressed amusement or sympathy about this. But the twist comes later in the story.
"After failing to install the upgrade by lunchtime, Mr. Gates summoned
the new Microsoft C.E.O. Satya Nadella, who attempted to help him with
the installation, but with no success."
What is really going on here? Has Nadella nothing better to do? One wonders whether Gates really didn't know how to install the software or whom to call, or whether he was just making a point about who was really the boss.
When someone as clever as Gates asks a stupid question, it may not be a stupid question at all. See my post On the Difference between Judges and Geeks.
A Microsoft spokesman said that Mr. Gates’s first day in his new job had been “a learning experience.” Yes, but for whom?
As they say in Italy, se non è vero, è molto ben trovato.
Showing posts with label humour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humour. Show all posts
Thursday, February 06, 2014
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Software Updates
My colleagues and I have been using Articulate to produce eLearning materials. The software adds a soundtrack to a Powerpoint file and produces a Flash movie.
Some of the materials we produced last year now have to be updated in order to work correctly with Flash 10. So I read the instructions on the Articulate website and downloaded an Updater program.
But when I try to run the Updater program, I get an error. Turns out that the Updater needs Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0. So now I have to download that as well.
So I have a little time to post something to this blog while I wait for all this stuff to install.
British readers of a certain age may remember a comic song by Flanders and Swann called The Gasman Cometh (lyrics), in which the gasman creates work for the carpenter, the carpenter creates work for the electrician, and so on through various trades, until they get to the painter who "painted over the gas tap and I couldn't turn it on".
Updating a laptop sometimes seems to be a similar infinite regress. I'm always afraid I'll be singing down the phone to technical support, something like "it's loaded over the bootfile and I cannot turn it on".
All I need now is a song about a big six-layered, semantic-grid-painted, Microsoft-transport, Intel-engined, ninety-seven–terabyte service bus. (Original song Transport of Delight.)
Some of the materials we produced last year now have to be updated in order to work correctly with Flash 10. So I read the instructions on the Articulate website and downloaded an Updater program.
But when I try to run the Updater program, I get an error. Turns out that the Updater needs Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0. So now I have to download that as well.
So I have a little time to post something to this blog while I wait for all this stuff to install.
British readers of a certain age may remember a comic song by Flanders and Swann called The Gasman Cometh (lyrics), in which the gasman creates work for the carpenter, the carpenter creates work for the electrician, and so on through various trades, until they get to the painter who "painted over the gas tap and I couldn't turn it on".
Updating a laptop sometimes seems to be a similar infinite regress. I'm always afraid I'll be singing down the phone to technical support, something like "it's loaded over the bootfile and I cannot turn it on".
All I need now is a song about a big six-layered, semantic-grid-painted, Microsoft-transport, Intel-engined, ninety-seven–terabyte service bus. (Original song Transport of Delight.)
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