The Man Who Went Through 11 Xbox 360s 428
1up is carrying the sad story of Justin Lowe. Just your average gamer, wanting to partake of the current generation of consoles. He's got a PSP, DS, PS3, and a 360. He really likes his 360 ... which is probably a good thing, since he's sent 11 of them back to Microsoft. He's now on his twelfth. The piece covers Justin's ongoing plight, and discusses Microsoft's claims of hardware failures being a 'vocal minority'. "Justin has not had a working system for longer than a month or two. The list of problems is almost comically large: three red lights of death, two with disc read errors, two dead on arrival, several with random audio and video-related issues and one that actually exploded. Looking at the situation through Moore's own standards, how has Microsoft performed? 'On a scale of one to ten, I'd rate them an 8... at first,' says Lowe. His [first] 360 broke in early January, just a few weeks after purchase."
Neither Sony or Microsoft are perfect (Score:2, Interesting)
No problems with the Wii yet, runs like a champ.
Some Wiis did have issues (Score:2, Informative)
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Although it's not "over"heating, and I haven't had any actual problems yet, does anybody else find that their Wii gets quite hot when you leave it in standby mode, with WiiConnect 24 turned on.
Mine was getting very hot indeed when in standby mode (evidently something was still putting out a significant amount of heat, but there wasn't even an intermittent fan to cool off the device). I ended up turning the standby mode completely off and now the system is obviously perfectly cool when it's not on. I've heard of a few failures blamed on this heat if the Wii is unused for a week or two, so you may want to consider turning off the standby mode on the Wii if it's a feature you can live without and
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My kids haven't even thrown the damn things. Maybe dropped it once, but not thrown.
And the damn wiimotes are not very heavy. It would take quite some speed to get it to break a TV.
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I think the moral of the story is "hardware breaks".
Actually, this does tell us something (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, a single dead console doesn't mean anything. One person having 11 dead consoles, however, does. If you have a hardware defect rate of 5% within a year, one in 20 people will have to replace their console within one year. That's nothing out of the ordinary. However, the probability of killing 11 consoles, given the same hardware defect rate, is about 0.05^11 (not quite, since you don't start out with all 11 consoles, so consoles you get later have less time to break within the same first year). In other words, only one in about 204,800,104,857,653 persons will have to replace 11 consoles. Microsoft has, however, only sold about 10'000'000 consoles
What does this tell us? Either this guy is doing something wrong, or Microsoft's hardware defect rate must be way above 5% per year.
What do they all have in common? (Score:3, Interesting)
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This happens a lot; but more likely at UPS or some other freight carrier.
I had friends who worked their way through college by working part-time at a UPS sorting facility. There were a few employees who definitely took out their aggression on merchandise.
Re:What do they all have in common? (Score:5, Interesting)
And then one day I had to drive to the UPS facility. After that, it was more like footballs and sacks of potatoes - and that was an order of magnitude better than the care shown by the UPS employees. Pack your boxes well. They are paid to get your stuff there fast and cheap; 'gently' doesn't fit into that equation.
Re:What do they all have in common? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What do they all have in common? (Score:5, Insightful)
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User Error (Score:5, Funny)
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either way... the only constant in all of Justin's failed (console) relationships is Justin.
Re:User Error (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, no. Failures don't follow a pure exponential, but is a bell curve. There's many possible contributing factors to failure, and particular users can be off the median on several of those, without being outside the operating requirements.
A customer's electricity, while OK, might be on the high voltage or high variation side of the OK spectrum. The room temperature, while inside the recommended range, might be on the high side. The air moisture might be lower or higher than average. Customer might have furry pets, which while not wrong, will cause a higher average failure rate. They might live in a high pollution area, or at a high altitude where air flow cools less. The weather patterns might be more extreme than normal. These (and many more) are all contributing factors that while they are within operating specs all ensures that there will be long tails on the bell curve, and certain customers that experience far more problems than others. They're not to blame either, nor is any one of these conditions a problem in itself. It's combinations, which is why you'll always get far more anomalies than you'd think.
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Heck, I've seen laptops where in an informal survey, I concluded that the failure rate depended in part on whether you were left or right handed as to which corner you lifted when you closed it. No formal study there or anything, and only with a dozen or so data points, but the point is that it could be even the tiniest, most unlikely thing that you wouldn't even think about.
It could be a voltage leak on a cable TV line. That's pretty common, and most devices don't mind it, but some do. It could be dic
Re:User Error (Score:5, Informative)
I manage the largest (AFAIK) Xbox360 error code list [xbox-scene.com].
Basically the most common error that people _REALLY_ have when they get the "3 red lights of death" is a 0102 which has been tracked down to an issue with the Graphics Processor. What happens is the processor runs exceedingly hot to the point where the PCB actually weakens and the solder in the BGA softens (it's eco friendly lead free solder too so it's weaker right off the bat). The heat syncs are held on by springy metal brackets referred to as "X-Clamps" mounted on the back side of the motherboard (so the screws go right through the mobo)... What this does is create a perfect storm for deformation of the motherboard and cold (figuratively of course) connections within the BGA.
Once a motherboard has been sufficiently deformed it doesn't really ever get better, like frame damage to your car it can be repaired but it's never quite the same again. A temporary fix is to pull off the heat syncs and reflow the BGA with a heat gun... but it only takes weeks to a month before you'll get the red lights again. A more successful fix is to remove the "x-clamps" [xbox-scene.com] altogether and bolting the heat syncs directly to the case chassis... This prevents the unnecessary flexing of the PCB below the GPU and even when the area gets hot from use does not deform the PCB and thus does not create cold connections in the BGA.
What does this have to do with the same person having 11 faulty consoles? Simply put... the consoles he's getting back are NOT NEW. He's not returning it to the store but Microsoft themselves and either getting his original console back "fixed" by Microsoft, or he's getting a refurb that originally belonged to some other poor schmuck who had the same problem... again "fixed" by Microsoft. Once a console throws that error it's prone to failure again and again...
I don't have a broken 360, mine has been working a-ok since I picked it up on launch day... but I know thousands of people who've experienced broken consoles and I know many people personally who take great care of their console and just had it stop working one day... and then the next one they got was DOA... and the next one only worked for a week... etc. etc. etc.
In most cases you either have had no problems at all or you've got through 2 or 3 or more consoles. The only people I know who have had to replace it only once after the 3RLoD were those who were out of warranty and simply bought a new one instead of sending it in for repair.
Re:User Error (Score:5, Informative)
But it's heat sink. It acts as a sink for heat from the GPU. It should under no circumstances sync the heat.
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I suspect Justin's line voltage or some other equipment.
Perhaps his TV has a fault where it's feeding line voltage back into the system via the A/V cable (or whatever alphabet soup connector he's got.) Maybe he's running his XBox through a hacked Tivo, or his neighbour has a grow-up or an arc welder. As you've stated, he's the only guy this is happening to. It can't possibly be the Xbox. ( It can't probably be the Xbox? )
MS should send a hardware engineer to go check out his setup. Not beca
Re:What do they all have in common? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yea. That guy.
This is the "Guy who gets broken Xbox 360s." Out of all the people who have them, there's got to be one guy who always gets a bad one.
Still, MS claims the failure rate is around 3%, so that's pretty fricking improbable assuming that they're not lying...We're talking
If I were them, I'd start looking for an external factor. Does he live in an area with an unusually large number of electrical storms per year? Does he have bad wiring? Does he live in a really dusty environment? Is he a huge slob? Does he have the UPS guy from hell? Even if the failure rate on a 360 was 10% (which would be really hard to hide), the odds would still be 100,000,000 to 1 against getting 11 bad ones in a row...'Course they could be sending out refurbs to people who have problems, which very well may have a significantly higher fail rate...
Bah. Puppy needs more data.
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Re:What do they all have in common? (Score:4, Informative)
Then you've got to count all the possible failures. Harddrive failure rates are around 2-4% according to some surveys, so that could account for the whole thing by itself (even though it doesn't). Laptops, as a more mobile platform, are between 15 and 20% likely to crap out on a yearly basis, according to a Gartner press release from last year [gartner.com]...Same release put desktop failure rates at around 5% in the first year. Compared to those rates 3% looks godlike.
But there's just not enough data.
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Without long term monitoring there is no way to know if he doesn't get the odd spike every 3 weeks or so I suppose his testing isn't conclusive but power does not seem to be the problem.
Just got back my first Xbox. Besides being without an Xbox for 2 weeks it was overall a very pleasant experience. Called support. Talked for 15 minutes. They decided it needed to be serviced and started the proces
Re:What do they all have in common? (Score:4, Informative)
Oh and he claims his dad is an electrician AND he has hired an independant contractor to look at the wiring. Also he claims to have not had these same issues with his other systems (and he claims to have several.)
TFA is quite good. There's even an mp3 of a call to MS...
Re:What do they all have in common? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What do they all have in common? (Score:4, Informative)
The odds of getting heads on the eleventh toss of a fair coin is 50% just like the first, but that's not what the grandparent is talking about. The odds of getting eleven heads in a row is indeed
Re:What do they all have in common? (Score:5, Funny)
That's in American Public Schools. In other parts of the world, we're pretty much agreed on 10%.
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What else do they all have in common? The same customer.
Re:What do they all have in common? Microsoft. (Score:2)
Consider the fact that there have been at least three separate, major problems with the X-Box 360 hardware and that these have been fairly widespread, (especially in Europe and other non-US markets where problem items are sometimes "dumped"). Then factor in MS's policy (since changed), of replacing the brand new X-Box 360 you purchased with a refurbished item. Add to that the fact that MS has actually changed the design of the X-B
Environment (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Environment (Score:5, Funny)
Yet another problem caused by Global Warming.
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There are definitely issues with some of these consoles. There always are when you ship millions of something. The question here is how common the issues are. You c
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wtf? (Score:5, Funny)
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Vocal Minority (Score:2, Interesting)
I had the three blinking red lights (first example voice prompt on the 360 support line!), and they proceeded to lose my freakin' Xbox. After two weeks of "here's your reference number, call back in a few days" I finally got a voicemail saying that they have the shipping reference . . . but they didn't, you know, leave the fucking reference number.
They sure seem overwhelmed given that they claim to have a below-industry-standard failure rate.
-Peter
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http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/31956?from=0&co mments_per_page=30 [gamerswithjobs.com]
Dedicated only to poll people who have had a faulty 360, who have seen the 3 rings.
Some of them are actually on their second or third system.
It's the sort of thing that stops me from buying a 360. Since I'm in Mexico, the repair process would be especially annoying.
Say what you want about the PS3, but it seems like a much more solid piece of hardware. (Insert "Yeah it doesn't fail because n
Re:Vocal Minority (Score:5, Funny)
Related joke follows; corollary follows joke.
Q: Why doesn't Mexico compete in the olympic triathlon?
A: Because everyone who can run, bike, or swim is in the US.
Corollary: Maybe he's in a wheelchair :)
All heat sink related? Probably not. (Score:3, Insightful)
I have 20+ friends with 360s, and none of them have experienced problems with their 360s. I have a hard time believing disc read errors, separate audio and visual problems, DOA and exploding consoles are ALL caused by the lack of a heatsink. Like a customer that comes back to PetsMart with dead fish after dead fish, I have trouble believing after 8 dead fish that ALL of the problem is PetsMart selling defective fish.
Re:All heat sink related? Probably not. (Score:5, Funny)
In fact, I have proof: http://slashdot.org/~Stickerboy/friends/ [slashdot.org]
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Puppy mills are a large problem, but at least at the PetSmart locations in the D.C. area they don't sell cats or dogs. They do have cats from local shelters there for adoption, though. There's a fee, but AFAIK this goes to the group running the shelter not anyone who bred the dogs.
There are, however, many other pet stores that do sell dogs from puppy mills. Also, I've gotten fish from PetSmart that had ick, so I'm hardly saying that all their animals are healthy or well taken care of.
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Curses! Foiled again!
-Aquaman
Any statisticicians out there? (Score:2)
I understand that with so many people reporting problems, someone is surely going to have eleven bad units, and I don't doubt that he did.
But what is the probability of this happening to a given person, assuming, say, a 5% overall failure rate? (ignoring the "RMA pool effect" which makes you more likely to get a bad unit back)
And given the number sold so far, assuming people don't just give up and junk or sell the thing when the warranty runs out, what percentage of failure rate is needed for two or three
Re:Any statisticicians out there? (Score:5, Informative)
So, unless this guy is driving the Heart Of Gold, there is something else going on here.
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You might be interested in this article [itwire.com.au]: "According to some reports Xbox 360's continue to experience hardware issues. A recent query put to an Australian game retailer puts the figure at a 30% return rate."
However, reading further into the article it isn't very credibly sourced.
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There is a bridge in DC. Some calculated the probability of a breakdown given the length of the bridge, amount of traffic, number of overall breakdowns, etc.... It was like
So it may sound statistically small, but it is still possible given how man 360s have shipped.
Math (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Math (Score:4, Informative)
The trivial math only holds for events of chance that have no memory: that is, where history doesn't have any input on future outcomes.
But in the case of sending back a console that's already been determined faulty, that's not the case at all.
It's much, much more likely that an already-failed electronics device will fail again after service sends it back.
Having 11 hardware failures is far more plausible if he was repeatedly sent back the same defective consoles.
I'd like to know how many unique serial numbers we're talking about here.
But because the odds of getting so many bad machines in a row are still so low, this situation screams User Error or Incompetent Customer Service. Without any further information all we can do is pick a team and cheer.
Re:Math (Score:4, Informative)
Anding and oring (Score:2)
If you want the chance of something and something else happening, then you multiply the two numbers. If you want one or the other then you add them together.
The chances of 11 failures at a 5% random failure rate?
0.05 * 0.05 * 0.05
Basically, it isn't random, not even with MS. Someone's fucking over the machines.
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Either the error rate is a lot higher (like 15% to 20% which is obviously not the case) or there are environmental
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No, they'd only have to sell one, and then replace it eleven times.
Now, assuming they could maintain an average failure rate of 5% over the lifetime of the console, you wouldn't expect to see this happen again until more than 200 trillion units had shipped, but the one occurence could occur anywhere within the first 200 trillion unit interval.
Yaz.
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I know you were looking for theoretical numbers that excluded this, but keep in mind that this is likely a high source of failure for this guy. Of his 11 failed XBox 360s, he received new ones some of the time, but some of them (maybe half? from when I RTFA) were refurbished.
Reasons why refurbished products might have a lower MTBF:
1. Failure was just a symptom of a larger problem. Like, the solder paste used to build the PC
Glad I buy at Wal-Mart (Score:3, Interesting)
Strangely Apt Quote... (Score:2)
When I first read this, Slashdot's quote at the bottom of the page said:
Eleven in a row is to unlikely (Score:2, Insightful)
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What makes you think so? Given all the anecdotal stories about broken XBox360s, friends with broken ones and friends of friends with broken ones and very few stories of people actually being happy with their one and never heard about a fault, I would bet that the failure rate is at least that high if not higher.
One issue that might screw the numbers up however are the refurbished units, assuming that the repairs actually didn't fix
Don't be so quick to blame the victim. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not likely that XBox failure rates are >20% (as another poster indicated would be necessary to randomly pick 11 successive failures). It's probably something much simpler like a repair division, refurbishing returned machines and shipping them as replacements. Such a strategy looks good from a business point of view, as you get to "recover" some of cost of failed hardware. However, should the diagnosis be wrong or incomplete, or if the repair center lacks the resources of the production center, your return will be substantially less reliable than a new machine.
Perhaps he chain smokes and his long haired dog likes to cuddle the machine for warmth while his apartment shakes as trains pass outside tossing droplets of condensing water from his window air conditioner into he beloved XBox 360 which is struggling to deal with the 118 Volt 66 Hz electricity. That still doesn't mean that he deserves to put up with the hassle of replacing his system 11 times. If the repair centers note excessive dog hair, water exposure, vibrational damage, dropping, etc. they should notify him and not entertain a 12th replacement. The fact that they are still returning replacements without cutting him off implies that they know they have bigger problems than an abusive customer.
I'm not saying that gaming systems needs to be mil-spec, but from the descriptions I've heard, the XBox 360 isn't the most robust machine out there. I doubt that they could ALL be wrong, even with the skweaky wheels making more noise.
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The OP's is a one in 100,000,000,000 - and that's assuming a truly massive failure rate of 10% globally. If you assume a 5% failure rate, the chance plummets to one in 204,800,000,000,000. That's one in 204 trillion.
There's clearly some common factor here, whether it's the UPS delivery man or keeping the XBox and its power supply under an overturned cardboard box while running.
Perhaps even purposefully. I can definitely see the motivation to go through so many XBox units as
my 1st 360 died within 30 minutes of turning it on (Score:2)
Other factors... (Score:5, Informative)
More likely is that some other factor is causing this, perhaps the powerstrip he's plugged it into has a badly grounded outlet, or perhaps the main outlet itself - or possibly any of another hundred or so electrical issues there could be - such issues tend to plague complex electronics in very odd ways, and not the same way every time.
If I were at Microsoft, I'd replace his unit, but advise this guy he needs to get some help looking for what other factors could be causing these malfunctions.
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Re:Other factors... (Score:4, Informative)
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Well...is he a good electrician?
Re:Other factors... (Score:5, Funny)
Swi
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Re:Other factors... (Score:5, Informative)
Bah (Score:3, Funny)
This isn't the hate-filled microsoft bashing I came here to read, damnit.
I'd call this a comedy of errors but... (Score:4, Informative)
The real tragedy here is that Microsoft management didn't catch this case long before this and flag it as a priority fix case - send him a new machine, have someone deliver it to his house, whatever it takes to get the problem fixed. The cost of doing that is FAR less than the cost of fixing the amount of bad publicity this will generate.
The day MS makes a product that doesn't suck (Score:5, Funny)
Despair.com.. (Score:3, Funny)
Let's see a photo of his installation (Score:2, Informative)
He probably has the thing in a hot spot, like on top of a big CRT monitor, in an enclosed space, in a location with air vents blocked, or next to a hot air vent. We know the XBox 360 has marginal cooling.
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It's disgustingly easy to overheat a 360, especially if you put it in -any- e
This one Goes to... Eleven?! (Score:2)
advice for Xbox 360 owners (Score:2)
Always put the box on a hard surface.
If you've gotta lay it on a carpeted floor,
put a book or a magazine under it to get the
bottom of the box up out of the carpet.
Don't let dust accumulate in the vent holes
or fans -- use a vacuum to suck it clean every
once in a while.
MS deserves praise. (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, honestly, if a customer bought something, then brought it back broken, 11 FREAKING TIMES in a row, do you really think most retailers would keep accepting it back, over and over again? Eventually they'd be blaming it on you and refusing to take it back. Instead, MS doesn't seem to care much that this guy has the worlds worst mean failure rate, and aside from getting him to check his wiring, they keep sending him new ones without much question. My personal experience just trying to return my malfunctioning video card twice (well, the first time was the repair return, the second time was because they sent me back the exact same physical card, without repairing it first) tells me that most retailers are complete asshats, and will happily blame you if they can possibly get away with it.
Many other retailers would cut you off or make you start paying, and you wouldn't really have much success complaining "hey, I broke my xbox 10 times in a row, and now they won't send me a replacement for free!". MS keeps pumping them out. They get a +1 in my book for that.
Probably ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who's to say, but it would explain why the replacements have been buggy, where a new one might not be.
Then again, maybe they were all new.
Change of Tactics (Score:3, Funny)
On the 13th... (Score:5, Funny)
refurbished xbox's (Score:3, Interesting)
Then a friend of mine bought a refurbished xbox (not a 360 though). Thing crapped out. As did it's replacement. And the one after that. After the 3rd, he just gave up, took a refund, and went to the store to buy a new unit. No problems since.
We ended up deciding that MS must not really be doing comprehensive quality control on it's rebuilds, and that they're only fixing the most easily spotted problem on returned units (if that much) and not looking for deeper failures.
I don't trust the refurbished xbox at all. And, honestly, I'm now a bit weary of buying any refurbished electronics.
So, for all those statisticians quoting 1 in 204 trillion odds, I think it's safer to say that a spanking new unit has that failure rate, while a refurbished unit might have a failure rate much closer to unity. If they'd bothered to send him a new unit at any point for his troubles, my bet is he'd have a much better chance at keeping the thing (and it might not help to dust!)
stats (Score:3, Interesting)
I know of a chap up to seven. (Score:3, Interesting)
He's used a UPS , Power conditioner, he's even moved house (co-incidentally) I think he's tried multiple TV's - he's pretty much eliminated all the variables and still 7 down.
He loves the games on the system and is always |_| so close to swapping to a PS3 but ultimately the games he loves are on the 360.
It's a real shame and it's why I don't own one yet myself (and dipshit Microsoft love halting the release of products in other regions! Hello, Australia want the elite too!)
Either way, that's an appauling amount of consoles to fail.
Also one of the members of this particular forum ran a 'survey' system which had about 500 or so users on there, each time one failed they incrimented the number for each user.
A large quantity of guys only had 1 console, no failures but ultimately it worked out to around a 20% failure rate according to his survey, with of course the guy with 7 dead ones at the top of the list.
Crazy stuff, I'm waiting for the 'fixed' edition! (it better come out before GTA4 goddamnit!)
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Back several years ago I switched to Linux because I was getting over 10 Blue Screens of Death from XP.... is this maybe a reflection of that level of quality (or lack thereof) translating from M$ software to hardware, considering M$ has really not built quality software products?
Here's an anecdote from a sample of two. I've been the casual computer geek, not liking Windows but running it since that's where the games are. A friend of mine has always been real nerdcore, never into gaming but massively into programming and serious applications. In other words, he's not the kind of idiot who goes about breaking things through tinkering and ignorance. Between the two of us, I would be the one you'd expect to see having squirrely Windows problems.
How did it really turn out? He was reins
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One day I discovered that I could hold my finger about and inch above the pad and by concentrating I could make the mouse start clicking repeatedly. I never could get it to move though. And I couldn't really control the clicking -- just turn the repeated clicking on or off.
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Computers are like dogs and bees (Score:2)
If you are a novice user alone with a machine it will crash, just to taunt you.
However, if a confident tech support person is watching, it will know not to crash.
Remember, your computer HATES you, and wants nothing less than your total mental destruction, meatbag.
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They can smell fear.
If you are a novice user alone with a machine it will crash, just to taunt you.
However, if a confident tech support person is watching, it will know not to crash.
GMTA. I use a line similar to that with my end users.
end user: Well, the computer has been crashing when I do x.
me: Show me.
end user: (clicking about for a minute) I don't understand, it was crashing for me a few minutes ago but it won't crash when you're here. Why not?
me: *tilts head so fluorescent lights flash off glasses ominously* Because it wouldn't dare.
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Mac? You just don't have those issu
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I'd say it's more likely the Mac was protecting him from himself, which is something Windows and Linux don't necessarily do. When I programmed on my MS machine, and installed lots of software, I had to reinstall all the damn time. Now? Every year and a half or so. I program a lot on Linux machines, but I'm super careful, and I always run as a user, not a superuser...Still, I've screwed 'em up a few times, just dicking around with non-standard libraries and custom compiles.
Mac? You just don't have those issues. Mac software installs are hilarious if you're used to Windows. It doesn't expose it's system files in userland, and it hides superuser access altogether.
I suppose that's possible. He's also become a virtual machine evangelist these days. "Crashie, crashie, my buggy little machine. I don't care, I've got a clean version of you backed up!" he'd cackle. Yah, computer geeks are the hatters of the 21st century, I'm just not sure what's serving as our mercury. Maybe Mountain Dew production has been outsourced to China?
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I've been the casual computer geek, not liking Windows but running it since that's where the games are. A friend of mine has always been real nerdcore, never into gaming but massively into programming and serious applications. In other words, he's not the kind of idiot who goes about breaking things through tinkering and ignorance... How did it really turn out? He was reinstalling Windows once a month. Sounds like your friend knew just enough to be dangerous. If you want to muck around in the guts of the m
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