Annoying

You Actually Do

Chill Annoying, Tech

Stonewalled by Citrix’s new AI “Customer Service” model : sysadmin

Stonewalled by Citrix's new AI "Customer Service" model.

This is so common in my industry. I’ve had to do that with HP, VMWare, Citrix, and others.

Me: I’m calling about your SDN product. (Note that I called the correct support line.)

Them: We don’t offer SDN at this time.

Me: Yes, you actually do. I am using it and have five licenses I bought six months ago.

It’s amazing how often that sort of thing happens. The idea that corporations are “efficient” is only something a true libertardian could believe.

Steam

Chill Annoying

AI is a good example of how people can hate something while knowing nothing about it, not having used it, not having any clue how it will both improve and upend their lives, and just concluding it’s worthless based on outdated information built on nearly nothing of substance.

But the future is coming whether you like it or not. You can help shape it or be steamrolled by it. Those are the choices on offer. There really aren’t any others.

Equality

Chill Amusing, Annoying

I think one of the reasons women have trouble on the internet is that in real life, they are used to special treatment most of the time. They are accustomed to being handled gently the vast majority of the time by most people.

On the internet, that goes away. I certainly do not attempt to treat women cautiously here. They said they want equality; I give it to ’em. Others are the same. Turns out equality feels like punishment and being mistreated.

Welcome to the world men have always lived in! Nice to have you!

Discursive

Chill Annoying, Clowns

Why do math and physics come so easily to some people but feel almost impossible to others? What actually causes this gap?

Despite this being the disfavored explanation, it’s probably mostly genetic combined with congenital non-genetic brain differences.

I’m extremely good at anything verbal or language-based. And I can study 100x or even 1000x as long anything involving math and never achieve really anything. Yes, even if I understand the concept or practicum at the time perfectly, can do all the practice problems and apply it. As soon as I move on from that, it’s gone like smoke in the wind. It’s like I never learned it.

Whereas if I only glance for something for a second or two in the language realm, I’ll remember it forever.

It obviously is just built in and people hate that idea. Nevertheless, it’s true.

I do wonder, though, if some of my math incapacity comes from actual brain damage. I’m pretty sure I used to be a good deal better at math before I got hit in the head a lot as a kid and young teenager.

But what happened happened; can’t change it now.

Not So Good

Chill Annoying, Clowns

Renee Good was the kind of person I should be.

What? Fuck no. Despite the fact that I don’t think the ICE agent should have shot her (I mean, no one is “in fear of their life” while holding a fucking cell phone in one hand and a gun in the other), she was an idiot completely and totally out of her depth who thought she could and would operate with impunity.

And she got shot for her misperceptions. It’s not what she deserved, but life and its end is what it is, not what we wish it were.

I believe she was killed because she was a good person. Because she decided to be there.

She was a flaming idiot who put herself and her wife in a situation (with a dog in the vehicle) that she was totally unprepared for and unequipped to handle. What she did was worse than nothing. It made the entire left look like a bunch of delusional mega-clowns (which, alas, mostly they are) while only strengthening right-wing narratives.

I do not give a single fuck if she was a good person or not. That kind of virtue signaling is meaningless to me. I mostly care that she did something so colossally and avoidably stupid that it worsens the entire case against random ICE raids (which, mostly, I don’t think should be happening, to be clear).

The left always wants to judge the other side by what they do, not their intent. So here goes: Renee Good was a full-on clown and though she didn’t deserve to die, she did many stupid and completely-avoidable things leading to that outcome.

Look Elsewhere

Chill Amusing, Annoying

What’s a stereotype about men that feels especially inaccurate to you?

That the only thing we care about is sex.

Are women basing this off how men behaved when they were 16? Or what’s going on here? I think at least some of it comes from the men that women most often encounter tend to be this way because they are the most pushy and the most bold.

But for 99%+ of men, it’s just completely false.

My advice to women: if you want to find men who care about more than just sex, look around a bit more. The jerk might seem crazy hot to you, or at least be right in front of your face, but there are more men out there than that. And most of them want more than a quick lay.

Trust me on this. Also, get a male friend. He can identify the mega-abusive jerks in a fraction of a second (nearly all men can). And most women cannot, for whatever reason.

Not Even Wrong

Chill Annoying

Rona Dinur (@RonaDinur) / X

This is something that I’ve debated with a couple of friends about. My position is that most social phenomena are too multicausal, too contingent on unknown factors and too multivariate to model. On the other hand, they generally argue that having any analysis is “better than nothing.”

I do not agree. Often, a “scientific” analysis produces false certitude and absurd conclusions that are then taken as truth while in no way resembling reality — and in fact, that in many cases that are farcically absurd on their face. One good example is the “scientific” contention that there are no differences between generations. There are many more.

Knowing is better than not knowing of course. But false knowing is even worse than either of those.