I may have already posted a couple of times about the guy who thought the CD tray was a cup holder, or the people who used tooth-paste as improvised thermal paste. Well, I got new stories today, from a colleague. He sent me a collection of screenshots of some community talk from Orkut, which I’m now translating to English (and removing the grossest grammatical errors in the process):
There was also some talk from a kid who had serial number generators for some programs, and some keyloggers and other malware, and was telling people he was willing to share these. He thought too much of himself because he could operate these things, and was bragging how he was superior because he was a lammer (the guys at a hacker community called him that and he naively took that as a compliment for his uber 1337 skillz). It’s funny how he went on saying “I am a lammer, which is a kind of hacker…”. And instead of telling him the truth, people milked some fun by feeding his ego.
I also get to hear this kind of thing personally sometimes. At college, a classmate came to me and asked if I could hack a Gunbound account for him. After I told him that not only that was way beyond my capacities, I also wouldn’t do it even if I could due to ethics and all that, he explained to me that he wanted to hack his own account. More gold? Free items? 100% chance to get the dragon? Nope. He just had forgotten his password, and wanted it back. Never mind that these things usually have a link somewhere that reads “have you forgotten your password?” or something like that. The poor guy was the joke of the class for about a week because of that.
Oh man, I help my uncle with the menial repairs and stuff in his shop, and some costumers really are ridiculous.
One time I answered a call from a woman saying that her computer wouldn’t start. From what she said, there had been a sudden power cut and the machine just wouldn’t start up again. I immediately started thinking about fried circuits and the like and was explaining the possible causes and how she’d better bring it to the workshop and stuff, and about fifteen minutes went by. Then she said something that raised an alarm.
Woman: Ah, I see. Oh well, once the light comes back up, I’ll put it in a box-
Me: [Interrupting] Wait, what did you say?
Woman: I said that I’d put it in a box-
Me: No, no, before that. About the lights.
Woman: I said that when the lights come back-
Me: So your electricity is still off?
Woman: Yes.
Me: And you don’t have any support generators?
Woman: No, why?
Me: And your computer, which is in the house that has no electricity, doesn’t start?
Woman: Yes, that’s what I’ve been telling you!
Right about now my uncle, who was sitting right next to me, was practically pissing himself laughing.
Me: Ok, I’ll tell you what to do. When the lights come back, put the machine in a box…
Woman: Yes?
Me: And give it to someone else. You are really too stupid to use a computer. Hung up
Uncle: [Laughing his ass off while giving me the thumbs up]
Well, if I ever did that here, I would be closer to being scolded than given the thumbs up. But I would give the thumbs up for anyone who acted like you did. You go, SE.
Eh? Don’t your telephones work aside from the regular electrical system? The wireless ones do need to be plugged into some electrical source, but regular old phones only need to be connected to the phone line and work even if the lot’s electricity has been cut off.
The general mystique around torrents always gets me. I don’t really know why, but the way torrents work is completely lost on most people, and the stupid questions they ask about it always makes me giggle.
Outside of that, the general lies you hear from people who are trying to make small talk with you always gets to me. Sure, i’m online alot, and i know you’re not…so don’t try to relate to me. I like other real-world stuff too, lets talk about that!! I’d rather talk about music or whatever than listen to you sit there and make shit up about how “intel is coming out with this sick ass 20ghz processor its coming out real soon man its gunna be SICK.”
Indeed, here the phone power is separated from the main electrical network too.
edit: I kinda know how you feel, Dev. I hear that kind of technological exageration at least twice a day in class. And I expected my peers to be more savvy on these matters.
I use torrents all the time, but I can’t explain to someone how they work for the life of me. I just oversimplify, saying it’s like a zip file, with a bunch of little pieces people have uploaded into this file, and when you extract it, it’s like unzipping all these pieces. The time it takes depends on how many people have uploaded pieces into th e torrent. I’m way off, but that’s the only way I can explain it.
I understand how it looks, but you’d really need to know my country and know how this repairman business is in here. And how ANY kind of business works here.
It’s a mine of gold since nobody, and I mean NOBODY knows shit about anything regarding electronics, so even the smallest tweak sends them into a panic. Also, the number of repairman shops is pretty darn low, probably due to the generally low level of people with actual knowledge.
In my uncle’s words, translated of course: We have buttloads of work to do, most of it is backlogged and we are getting more by the minute, be kind to the customers in general, but if they pull extremely idotic shit that a five-year-old could handle, tell them to go to hell and not waste our time.
Actually, when I think about it, badmouthing extremely stupid customers is kind of an unspoken right of any working person here. Seriously, it’s not that big of a deal for us.
How long has your uncle been in business? 'Cause I worked for one of those places and it was dead quiet whenever I worked. Seriously, the boss even suggested I bring homework so I wouldn’t waste time.
Heh, yeah, that calls to mind “Hello, welcome to Dogbert’s technical support. How may I abuse you?” (Scott Adams has been having Dogbert say that for, like, years now)
Wait…what? Theres an incredible demand for skilled technicians, thats what i get out of your post, and its also pretty hard to find a good job if you’re not an educated person in Argentina, right? So why would there not be programs to send uneducated kids to trade school for PC-repair or Electrical Engineering, to cash in on the demand and employ a bunch of people?
Because there isn’t even that much demand for electrical engineering experts to reach that level. This may sound contradictory, but computers, air conditioning and the like are gruesomely expensive luxuries here that very few people have. However, at same time, the amount of people who know how these things work (i.e. how to fix them) is even lower.
It’s a really tiny and unbelievably unbalanced market. Especially where I live, which is kind of a boundary region between the “Big City” and “The Open Country” regions, in which there’s practically nothing besides residential districts and if people need something, they got at best a half-hour trip to the city. My uncle pretty much runs the only decent electronic shop in a few kilometres (or at the very least the only well-known one), so there’s never any shortage of work.
That, and you are assuming the educational system here is regulated in a somewhat sensible manner. Believe me, “programs” are the last thing in the government’s schedule when they are barely managing to keep high-schools and colleges running with a tiny-ass budget.
To be frank, it’s very difficult to explain how these kinds of things work to foreigners. We usually hear from foreigners that “there’s no place like Argentina”, in both positive and negative senses. This is the freaking twilight zone when it comes to any sort of business.