TWO COMPUTERS by Bill Reader

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Two Computers, by Bill Reader

Imagine if you will two computers.

One computer is built in a fuchsia case. One computer is built in a chartreuse case. Every component part of these computers is identical—same CPU, same GPU, same RAM, same motherboard.

But— and now we’ll look at two random examples of computers from the whole nation—the computers are running different operating systems. We will call these operating systems A and B.

Operating system A (OS-A) is a pain in the tail to install. While not impossible to install by yourself on your own computer— or a new one you acquire— it is sufficiently difficult to install that people who wish to do so often contract it out at great expense. Nonetheless, it is technically free. It is also, while not perfect, objectively pretty decent. When you install things on it, the programs generally work with relatively few bugs (not none, but fewer). The computer does what’s asked of it (at whatever pace the CPU is able), updates in a timely fashion, and is less susceptible to computer viruses. The people who maintain operating system A are also reasonably open minded—they’ll adapt good ideas that they like from anywhere. People often accuse people who run it of stealing code, which is a pretty silly accusation because all the code they adapt is likewise open source.

Operating system B (OS-B) is also free, but considerably easier to install. In fact, if you leave your computer in a house with other computers that have OS-B, and do nothing to prevent it, the computer will download and install OS-B by itself. OS-B is also pure misery to run. It’s pure misery even to be around. The more computers in your vicinity run it, the worse your life is. The worse the computers are, too—a special feature of the OS-B is that the more computers around it run OS-B, the harder it is to get rid of, and the worse all the computers run. Programs do not reliably install on it—they often end up corrupted and non-functional because the system doesn’t put much emphasis on parsing data accurately. Indeed, many programs can’t be installed at all— OS-B runs very inefficiently and refuses to even accept many programs. The creators of OS-B, who—unfortunately—maintain the codebase quite aggressively— tend to program computers running it to refuse to accept any program that becomes too popular on OS-A, in order to keep the two operating systems distinct. Despite the constant updates, it is exceedingly poor at maintaining its system integrity. It constantly pushes ads at the user demanding expensive peripherals be installed on it that do nothing to improve function. It actively seeks out things to download that will further destroy its ability to function. And because of this, it is very susceptible to computer viruses, which makes every aspect of its function worse. 

And it happens that OS-A is running in the computer that’s in a chartreuse case, and OS-B is running in the computer that is in a fuchsia case. This is somewhat unsurprising because OS-A tends to more commonly be shipped in computers that have a chartreuse case, in our world. There are complex historical reasons for this, but they’re mostly irrelevant. Why? Because the case, and the software, are totally distinct. The internal hardware being identical, you can install OS-A as easily on a computer in a fuchsia case as a computer in a chartreuse case, provided that the computer is not in a house full of OS-B, which will try to override it very hard. Sure, if you had a gun to your head and were forced to guess about the OS on a fuchsia computer, your best move would be to guess that it’s running OS-B… but it wouldn’t totally guarantee your survival.

Businesses very disproportionately have computers that have chartreuse cases— because, as we said, that’s what OS-A ships in most of the time. That doesn’t mean they have anything against computers with fuchsia cases that also run OS-A— when they find one that can run the programs they need for a price they can afford, they’re all too happy to buy one. Most business people don’t really give a crap about the color of the case because they’re not getting the computer to look at it, they’re getting the computer to run the programs they need.

But—

Some people with high opinions of themselves exist, who think of themselves as computer equity advocates. They fancy themselves nice, noble, brave, and very intelligent, and the last of these is particularly funny, since their understanding of computers is nearly non-existent.

It is so superficial, in fact, that they don’t really understand the difference between the color of the computer case, the hardware inside, and the operating system that it runs.

Ignorant as they are, they are more than capable of causing a lot of trouble.

For example, they have noticed that businesses—and the offices of the wealthy, and much of government, and really anywhere where people actually need to get things done rather than just look decorative— have a disproportionate tendency to use chartreuse computers.

Since they themselves get next to nothing productive done, and barely have any concept of getting productive things done, they’re not really capable of appreciating why this might be. They have instead concluded that the only possible reason for this is because the manufacturers of chartreuse computers are engaging in unfair market manipulation.

They support this by saying there cannot be any meaningful difference between fuchsia and chartreuse computers. T

hey point out that everyone reasonable agrees that the two types of computers have the same hardware. They cite examples of many fuchsia computers being used to accomplish important things, arguing that logically, if any fuchsia computers can accomplish this, all fuchsia computers can accomplish this.

People who are computer literate notice that these examples usually fall into one of three categories: a fuchsia computer running a completely custom OS or totally different foreign OS, unlike most on the consumer market; a fuchsia computer from a long time ago running what was effectively OS-A, which fact is totally lost on the computer equity advocates; or a fuchsia computer running OS-B and doing things that are objectively bad, which the computer equity advocates are pretending are good.

At all events, despite the problem existing mostly in their head, computer equity advocates are very quick, and vocal, in demanding it be solved.

They have demanded that people who have chartreuse computers be punished, since obviously they must have some unfair advantage. Things that have been demanded include that people running chartreuse computers pay a big fee for doing so.

Other people demand that the number of chartreuse computers in the world simply must be reduced, or the number of fuchsia computers increased. A very few slightly more technically savvy people, in that they are aware of what an OS is, demand that we stop installing the “chartreuse OS” on computers. This is somewhere between confusing and infuriating to anyone who can actually see what’s going on, since 1) there is no “chartreuse OS”, there is only OS-A, and 2) the reason it’s more popular is because it works better, and so they recognize that essentially people demanding this want computers, in general, to work less well. Confronted with this, computer equity advocates demanding “chartreuse OS” not be installed say that “fuchsia OS” would work just as well if only “chartreuse OS” didn’t exist and the people using it weren’t crowding out all the people running “fuchsia OS”.

Initially they agreed to proposals to have computers evaluated exclusively based on their performance statistics, since they both had equivalent hardware. But they were subsequently shocked and alarmed to see that chartreuse computers were still being used at just a high a rate in all the places they wanted fuchsia computers used. Subsequently they performed endless benchmarks to figure out what went wrong. To their chagrin they found that the fuchsia computers were consistently underperforming. Since most literally cannot conceive of an operating system, and the few who can can’t see it as a distinct concept from the computer hardware, which they likewise cannot distinguish from the computer case, this was puzzling in the extreme. But after a long while, they finally cracked it.

Clearly, the benchmarks themselves had been set up in a way that detected fuchsia computer cases and made the benchmarks run worse in computers that have them. Or maybe chartreuse computers interfered actively with the fuchsia computers to make them run worse. Probably both.

Moreover, they reckoned, this was a pretty far reaching conspiracy, as it was reproduced in thousands of different ways, across computers in a host of applications and settings. Clearly the only explanation was that in every case, the metrics themselves were built to disfavor computers with fuchsia cases. Of course, that would mean that tens of thousands if not millions of people were complicit in this conspiracy who would never have any reason to be, so the only explanation had to be that they were subconsciously participating in it. So they proposed a radical idea: break all the benchmarks so they don’t mean anything anymore. And tell people with chartreuse computers what bad people they are constantly, for doing all that subconscious slowing-down of fuchsia computers. They reckoned that, if no meaningful information is available to differentiate computers, and chartreuse computer owners are constantly being shamed about being part of a conspiracy so secret even they didn’t know they were in it, that should take care of the problem. Statistically, all other things being equal, the numbers should stabilize. And having determined in their own heads that the most important thing is to get equal numbers of fuchsia and chartreuse computer cases into every corner of society, this seems perfectly logical to them. A great many people—literally thousands of technical professionals and people experienced with computers— have tried to explain to them how unbelievably stupid this is. But the response of computer equity advocates is to accuse them of being in on the worldwide computer color conspiracy and then tell them to “educate themselves”.

They have even demanded that businesses be forced to buy equivalent numbers of fuchsia and chartreuse computers. Many less fuchsia computers are manufactured than chartreuse computers, so this is already difficult to comply with, and only a subset of fuchsia computers run operating system A. When companies are nonetheless forced to comply with this nonsensical order, they have to put all the computers that run operating system B in places where they can’t hurt anything. Various auditors will then come through and complain—to the exasperation of the people who run these businesses—that the fuchsia computers aren’t being allowed to do anything important, and the company is just checking a box, which of course it is.

Lately, because basic facts about numbers have started to catch up with the less catastrophically dim of them, they’ve been trying to hastily import large numbers of fuchsia computers so that it actually makes statistical sense to get even numbers of both computers, or preferably, more fuchsia than chartreuse. These computers don’t even run operating system B—they run operating system C, a basic OS that’s been around since roughly the dawn of humanity, has next to no features, can’t run almost any programs, and is fully incompatible with any of the modern systems around it. It’s not so much susceptible to viruses as being, itself, indifferentiable from malware, harming everything around it. Virtually anything is better than operating system C. OS-A is effectively the product of thousands of years of development to make something less awful than OS-C. In a way, operating system C is actually why it’s so hard to install A— the critical libraries for OS-C ship pre-installed in the BIOS of most motherboards. Not that anyone is allowed to say this, because computer equity advocates—geniuses that they are—know what your real problem is with operating system C.

Your problem is that it’s mostly shipped in a fuchsia case.

Casist.

And though all of the above is just a fanciful little story, as you have of course guessed, OS-A and OS-B are very real. You might know some people who run operating system A—it’s very popular among, say, upwardly mobile Asians and Indians in the United States. In fact most people successful beyond a certain degree for any reason other than luck are usually running some variant of it. You probably know of some people who run operating system B too— the original source code traces back at least to poor white southerners of the civil war era, but lots of other people run it now, unfortunately. It’s got a very active community that’s constantly cosmetically modifying it, but it’s been essentially the same old codebase for about a century and a half. About all they’ve kept is a variant of the southern accent—for old times sake one supposes.

And yes, some people will point out that in real life, there are the equivalent of people who are as violently in favor of chartreuse computers as the computer equity advocates are of fuchsia ones.

 But they are an incredibly tiny minority, and the only people who don’t recognize that are the real-life computer equity advocate types— that is to say, emotionally manipulative, psychotically paranoid gaslighters, who pursue ill-considered ends by means as ruthless as they themselves are ignorant.

They don’t make for the most reliable narrators, is what I’m saying. You’ll notice you almost never meet chartreuse boosters. But you hear about people faking being them pretty regularly, because there aren’t even enough to be an effective strawman. Moreover, and ironically, the reason real life computer equity advocates hate chartreuse boosterism is because, in their mind, they’re supporting the wrong color, not because the color is unimportant—as, in fact, it is. The truth is, they’re all idiots, both making a category error and arguing over whose interpretation of it is correct. Neither will ever win, because both are wrong.

I’ll say one last thing in closing—for the sake of argument above the hardware is noted to be the same. Someone out there—granted, probably a chartreuse booster, but never mind—is going to try to have an argument about that, so I’ll explain in advance why they’re being stupid. That way they— well, more likely the trolls pretending to be one of them— can be missing an explicitly stated point rather than an implied one.

Yes, as in real computers, the range of hardware in humans runs the gamut. For humans in the same general culture, though, most people of any color will fall in a range perfectly capable of running OS-A or OS-B equally well. The only people genuinely too dumb to run OS-A are people with cognitive impairment so severe they’re more like smart animals than dumb humans; such people are rare, and however much you rage, there is no entire race, however malnourished or mal-educated, on hardware that broken.

Many newly freed slaves were both, and yet were solidly on OS-A. It’s taken decades of intentionally predatory policies, exclusively by the Democratic party— first in the form of formal discrimination, then in the form of a welfare “safety net” that looks much more like a spider web, then again as paying their descendents to tear apart their own family structures, for OS-B to become so prevalent. In life, you’ll meet slow people on OS-A and quick people on OS-B—hopefully not too many of the latter as they can be extremely dangerous. Their status within whatever community they’re in will often reflect the underlying hardware, but where they assort in society depends a lot more on their operating system and what they install on it.

There have been many men with unexceptional CPUs who achieved fortune by dint of the right software. There have been many men with exceptional CPUs who ran software too dysfunctional and incompatible with society to ever achieve anything much, and certainly nothing good.

Your car will not go faster because it’s painted red, your computer will not be more capable if the case is chartreuse, and you are neither an intrinsically better or worse person because you tan better. What makes you a better or worse person is your software.

And yes, some software is better than other software. It’s a blindly obvious fact to everybody who uses a computer with multiple programs that do the same thing, even the real life computer equity advocate types. They just get selectively obtuse when talking about software running in human heads because they’re mediocre people who want to feel special for bravely fighting against bad guys… and to fit in with their friends. The trouble is, we really need our human network to work in real life, and we can’t afford their designer ignorance anymore.

209 thoughts on “TWO COMPUTERS by Bill Reader”

    4. I thought it might be Apple vs. PC (“same hardware” aside; it is, sort of), but only at first, until the comments about “ignorant advocates” appeared; those flagged that there was more going on than a “Tale of Two Computers of Different Colors”.

      It’s possibly the best and most (initially) subtle allegory I’ve read in quite a while.

      Bravo!👍👏👏

      Liked by 1 person

  4. In order to “feel special for bravely fighting against the bad guys” they first have to invent the bad guys. They way comic-book writers have to invent villains for their heroes to fight. Fight, but never ultimately defeat; because then the writers would have to make up new villains instead of constantly recycling the same dozen or so.

    In the heads of the fuchsia advocates, life is as simple as a comic book. Why won’t the story just go the way they want it to? Somebody must be sabotaging their Noble Cause!

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    1. No real reason why you can’t have comic heroes ultimately defeating villains; because there will always be new villains arising. Kinda feels like laziness to recycle old ones and avoid backstory and origins for the new ones. The multitude of Goblin villains that Spiderman has faced over the years is a slightly decent model of new villainhood replacing old, defeated, destroyed, or dead ones.

      Speaking of villains, anyone else see that list of 700+ “Intelligence” operatives who endorsed Kamala Harris? Small wonder Mossad makes them look like pre-schoolers.

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      1. No, that’s the real reason for that stupid rule “superheroes can’t kill villains” — because then the writers would have to constantly make up new villains. Instead, they put the villains in places like Arkham, which they’re always escaping from. You’d think somebody in Gotham would get a clue after a few iterations of ‘Joker escapes from Arkham again, causes more mayhem and mass death’ but somehow they never do.

        As one of my characters will observe, “This is why you kill the enemy.”

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        1. I’ve got an idea for Batman/Discworld crossover story where that’s a major plot point. Batman and Joker both end up in the Discworld, shortly after the events of Night Watch. Once Vimes finds out what Joker is like, he’s quick to compare him to Carcer (I’m using Heath Ledger’s terrifying Joker as the basis for the version in my story), and asks Batman why he keeps allowing Joker to be locked away in that cardboard prison named Arkham.

          My idea is that Batman is a firm believer in the rule of law, and puts firm limits on his vigilantism. He’ll help catch criminals that the police can’t, but he refuses to act as judge, jury, and executioner. And Joker is too smart to ever put himself in a situation where Batman’s killing him on the spot would be self-defense or the defense of others. He makes sure that by the time Batman is in the same room as him, his plot is already in the hands of others so that killing him wouldn’t stop it (e.g., the scene in The Dark Knight where Joker sets up a Prisoner’s Dilemma with two boats rigged with explosives; in my version, he doesn’t have a secondary detonator precisely because he expects Batman to find him, and he wants Batman to be forced by his own code of ethics to leave him alive). So even though he knows that the police aren’t capable of holding Joker, he refuses to step outside the law and kill Joker. (This is the only way I can see to make Batman’s character at all heroic, otherwise his refusal to kill Joker smacks of cowardice).

          And so when Joker finds himself in Ankh-Morpork, he asks people what the police are like in their city. And when he learns that Vimes is, at heart, precisely the same kind of person as Batman (internal code of ethics that won’t let him cross the line, “Who watches the watchmen?” attitude, and so on), he decides that his new goal is to force Vimes to betray his own code. (He thinks Batman is still back in their original universe; once he finds out Batman is also here, he makes that “force Vimes AND Batman to betray their own codes”).

          One of my favorite tropes is smart villains whose plots only fail because of something they don’t know and couldn’t have known. Both Timothy Zahn and Vathara do that very well: I’m thinking of Thrawn and of the villain in Vathara’s A Net of Dawn and Bones here. And what Joker doesn’t know, indeed has no way of knowing, is that there is one person in Ankh-Morpork who actually has the right to be judge, jury, and executioner. And so when Vimes and his officers find Joker and Joker surrenders (thinking it’ll be even easier to escape from their primitive cells than from Arkham), Vimes explains to Carrot what the Joker has done, how many people he’ll kill if he escapes from prison, and that his escaping is practically inevitable if they arrest him. Carrot listens, thinks about it, then draws his sword and carries out High Justice. And Vimes wonders whether his ancestor, “Old Stoneface” Vimes, would have approved of what he just did there, and whom he just asked for help.

          I haven’t written that scene yet; it will need to be carefully handled. But I want to make it clear that Carrot’s decision to kill Joker is motivated by the same sense of justice that leads Batman, again and again, NOT to kill Joker.

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            1. I dunno, I’m sold on Carrot doing that, in that setup.

              Exactly because he is a good man.

              Basically, Joker set up a bomb to go off when he is transferred from police custody. Setting it off would make him morally culpable, due to the setup of AM.

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              1. Ah, but in Men At Arms the bad guy (who was it at that point? I forget and don’t have my copy handy to look it up) was holding the gun and raising it to shoot someone, IIRC. So Carrot was justified in multiple ways, including self-defense and/or the defense of others.

                I specifically want this version of Joker to be smart enough to not give people the opportunity to kill him in self-defense, and for Carrot to kill him because he, alone in the city, actually has the right and duty to do so. (Arguably, Vetinari would also have the right and duty, but he’s not in the room and Carrot is. And Carrot isn’t one to pass off an irksome duty to someone else, especially if trying to do so would result in people dying.)

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                1. Question for an anti-gun ‘Progressive’ wanker:

                  “Twenty yards from you a terrorist is entering a number into a cell phone that will detonate a bomb and kill hundreds of innocent people. You have a gun. What do you do?”

                  PW: “What? Well, I, uh, but, that would be murder—”

                  “KABOOM! You’re too late. The bomb just went off. Good job dumbass. Now the terrorist is hopping around like a monkey on crack, laughing at you.”

                  Somehow, in their heads, criminals are ‘victims’ and their victims are guilty of…something. ‘Whiteness’ maybe.

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          2. Batman’s ‘Justice’ does nothing to actually protect the people of Gotham; and knowing that Arkham holds prisoners like a sieve holds water and allowing those captured to be put there for the revolving door means he is knowingly placing citizens in danger. Batman actually is just as much of a villain as the Joker is, only much less honest about it.

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            1. That is absolutely unjust.

              There are criminals who do not get back out of the criminal justice system; Gotham does improve.

              Trying to blame Batman because his single handed attempt to improve things did not result in instant perfect in is just as evil as the plots the Joker likes to throw.

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                1. Seems to me that if the City of Gotham were doing its job and executing some of those criminals, as is its right and duty, that the problem would be solved just as well, and without forcing a mere citizen to do the judiciary’s job.

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                  2. The Tim Burton/Michael Keaton Batman did actually kill the villains in their two movies (Joker and Penguin). Rather nastily too.,

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                2. Over how many universes?

                  That’s besides the various ones where Joker doesn’t actually kill people– and it ignores the civilians who do have guns, too.

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            2. That is a vice of unlimited serial stories. You can never ever improve things. You can’t clean up Gotham anymore than you can improve the image of mutants in normal human society, because then the story would end.

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          3. Carrot listens, thinks about it, then draws his sword and carries out High Justice. 

            And this is where your entire scenario founders. Because as soon as Joker realizes that the concept of “High Justice” hasn’t been neutered and removed, so that one person can decide and carry out an execution legally and instantly, he’ll do nothing but try to leave.

            Both Joker and Batman hold up a mirror to the entire “legal system” and reveal just how crazy and injustice promoting it actually is.

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            1. But that’s the part that Joker doesn’t, and can’t know. He can’t know that Carrot is the one person in the city with the right of High Justice, because only three people in the entire Disc know that, and none of them are going to blab. Two of them are right here in the room with Joker, and the third is Vetinari. If my memory isn’t playing tricks on me, the fact that no other people know about Carrot’s heritage is shown by the plotline in Feet of Clay where people want to overthrow Vetinari and put the true king in his place… Nobby Nobbs.

              Which is why I mentioned how I like smart villains defeated by the one point they didn’t know. Sometimes because they didn’t bother to do the research, or sometimes because they couldn’t have known. For example, Vathara’s villain in A Net of Dawn and Bones is ultimately defeated because the main characters showed mercy to a young teen who had just been turned into a werewolf. The villain, to whom other people are either tools to be used or toys to be played with until they’re broken, never even conceived of the idea that they would spare the werewolf. The werewolf ends up coming back to rescue them and although he doesn’t get very far, he does get just far enough to break the magic circle that the villain had them trapped in. Cue massive fight scene.

              Yes, if the Joker knew that Carrot could just decide “He needs killing” and kill him without violating his conscience, he’d go for a different plan, or at least do his best to make sure he would never be in the same room as Carrot. But he doesn’t, and there’s no way for him to find out that little secret. He’s quite good at making people talk, sure, but there’s nobody he can learn the secret from because he never encounters any of the people who know it! (He probably does encounter Vimes a time or two, but Vimes has a great poker face, plus at that point Joker couldn’t possibly have known the right questions to ask to find out about it so Vimes’s poker face wouldn’t come into play.)

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              1. In which case, it isn’t Justice, applied to all, Carrot’s just another capricious murderer. He’s just better than anyone else at coverup.

                No thanks.

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                1. Your statement makes no sense. Why the heck would it not be justice? Just because the criminal had no chance to find out that the judge was coming and run away?

                  Whatever, it’s not worth arguing with you about this.

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                  1. What is justice? It’s the application of the law equally to whoever lives under it. Everyone knows the law, and that includes the penalties. If that law doesn’t identify who and under what circumstances carries out capital punishment as part of that law, then how can anyone know whether the penalty is being applied properly. You did say that no one knew Carrot had that authority.

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              2. It’s Vimes who can decide “He just needs killing.” Witness how Angua’s brother died.

                Carrot was the one who insisted that “Personal doesn’t mean important” when discussing the guy who “killed” Angua. (Admittedly he did hope that because it wasn’t silver, it wouldn’t be permanent, but he didn’t know.)

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                1. It’s Vimes who can decide “He just needs killing.”

                  The difference is that Vimes HAS an official position that grants him that authority. Carrot doesn’t. If enough people decide Vimes is misusing that authority, Vimes can be stripped of it. Carrot has no such checks. No one can see the difference that makes in having an actual system of justice?

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                  2. Carrot is the actual king of Ankh and Morpork, much as he pretends otherwise.

                    The execution of high justice is very much his right and responsibility.

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                    1. The actual authority of a region is the actual person/people who are actually doing the business of governing, all in authority who ensure that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. A king who isn’t doing that does not have rightful authority.

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                  3. Yes, kings are inconvenient that way in having no official, legal way to dethrone them. (Other than the Old Stoneface solution). Which is why, in the real world, they are such a bad idea — and why, in Discworld, Carrot has chosen NOT to take up the throne he was born to, but leave the ruling of the city to Vetinari, who technically has no legitimacy but manages to be a perfectly benevolent dictator anyway. (Which is, I think, some of Pratchett’s leftism leaking through. Vetinari in real life would be a nightmare, whereas the canonical Vetinari has no vices.)

                    Wait a minute. I think I’ve put my finger on why your objections seem so odd to me. You’re objecting to what is, basically, Discworld canon about Carrot, and yet you haven’t even mentioned the many, many objections to Vetinari. Have you actually read the Discworld books? Or are you getting your information second-hand from my descriptions? Because if it’s the latter, that would explain why I’m getting a weird “but that makes no sense, why would he object to THAT?” vibe: because I’m assuming knowledge that you don’t actually have. If you have read them and you’re just not mentioning Vetinari because he’s not relevant to your point, then never mind, carry on.

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                    1. I’ve read some, but not all, and I don’t re-read them more than once every couple of years. Eidetic memory is a rare thing.

                      So you’ve set the Joker up with his own Kobayashi Maru. I didn’t like that in the original, and even less second-hand. OK.

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                    2. Um… not quite? I may not be explaining myself well, as I’m tending to type these when I really should be doing other things so I’m not spending hours on phrasing. But what I’m envisioning is that the Joker is trying to set up a Kobayashi Maru for Vimes the way he tried to set one up for Batman in the Dark Knight movies: kill me and you become just like me, put me in prison and I’ll just kill again. And since I don’t like those either (I like the trolley problem answer that is “pull the lever at just the right moment to derail the trolley, resulting in bruised passengers but no deaths”), I want his no-win scenario to fail, HARD. So I’m making sure that he fails, while trying to make sure he doesn’t pick up the Idiot Ball in the process because that’s unsatisfying.

                      If you meant that I’m setting the Joker up for a no-win scenario, I’d say no, I’m just setting him up to fail. His plot did have a win condition, he just failed to bring it about. Of course, since I’m the author and can do whatever I want with the plot, then in that sense the Joker never had a chance to win, because I’m not going to write a “the villain wins” story. I hate that trope. (Unless it’s done as Final Fantasy VI did it, where the villain wins temporarily but now the heroes have to undo his victory). But I wouldn’t call that a Kobayashi Maru, because in the logic of the story, the Joker did have a way to win, he just made a mistake that prevented his victory. That the author was always going write plot A does not mean that in the story’s own logic, plot B was impossible. Am I making any sense? I can’t tell, it’s late here and I should really stop writing and go sleep.

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                    3. “I’m tending to type these when I really should be doing other things so I’m not spending hours on phrasing.”

                      Likewise; I’m going to have to leave my lunch hour and go back to work.

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                2. Hmmm, yeah, maybe that’s better for my story after all. I’m trying to play up the parallels between Vimes and Batman, so maybe the contrast between them might work too. Batman can’t trust himself to make the “He just needs killing” decision because he’s afraid he would just… keep going, so he doesn’t allow himself to start, the way a recovering alcoholic doesn’t allow himself to take even one sip. Whereas Vimes, who doesn’t have the childhood trauma pushing him that Batman does, has a “Who watches the watchmen? I do.” attitude and so he knows that he will be able to stop with just one (metaphorical) sip. (He wouldn’t let himself have a single non-metaphorical sip of alcohol; see “recovering alcoholic” above).

                  So maybe I don’t need to get Carrot involved. The real motivation behind my wanting to write that scene is the thought that Joker really, truly needs killin’, and the only reason Batman won’t do it is because the writers won’t let him because they need Joker around to sell more comics. But since I’m writing a one-shot fanfic, I have more writing freedom to kill off the character who needs killin’.

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                  1. OK, that makes even more sense. Of course, then Batman would eventually have to ask himself if he’s too broken by his childhood traumas to really achieve his goals.

                    He shouldn’t like killing (Joker or anyone else), but he should like the situation that makes killing Joker the least awful option and puts the cost on Batman, who has chosen to take up the mantle of “hero”, rather than on the Joker’s future victims.

                    He may not have realized awful calls like that was part of being a hero, but given his intelligence and compassion (both of which we’ve seen, especially in Justice League (remember Ace?)), he would get there pretty fast. It’s what makes the McGuffin of the eternal Joker (Lex Luthor, etc.) grating, IMHO.

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                3. As for “personal doesn’t mean important”, this wouldn’t be personal to Carrot, it would be just another part of his job. This man needs to be removed from society, and prisons won’t hold him? Then we march him down to Vetinari, have an official (and quick) trial, and have him hanged right now before he has the time to come up with a way to escape. That won’t work either, because his accomplices have us outnumbered and cut off, and they would be able to overpower us and free him before we reach Vetinari? Well, he still needs to die for the sake of the city, so… (draws sword).

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                  1. Remember: Carrot is a very simple man. Which, as Angua notes at one point, doesn’t mean stupid. At. All.

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                  2. The thing is, Carrot didn’t let his control slip even when it was personal. He’s not going to let it slip when it’s impersonal.

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                4. I’m replying to this comment a lot, aren’t I? But you made me realize that it might be more satisfying if the mistake the Joker makes isn’t not knowing about Carrot’s birth, but rather misreading Vimes’s character. Because Joker hears about Vimes from the criminals of Ankh-Morpork, who see him always wanting to commit police brutality (it’s written on his face) when he encounters certain types of crimes, but never actually committing it. And so Joker judges Vimes to be just like Batman, and decides to set up a scenario where only killing him will stop his plan to have his accomplices… do something. (Maybe set fire to large parts of the residential district, I don’t know). And if Vimes kills him, Joker will have proven his point that Vimes is just like him, deep down, and he’ll die knowing that he’s broken the “incorruptible” man.

                  But what Joker doesn’t know is that Vimes does have that “This man just needs killing” mentality, and his personal code will allow him to use it. That could work very well for what I have in mind. The only thing I don’t know (yet) how to do is how to wipe the smug grin off Joker’s face before Vimes kills him. I want the Joker to die knowing that he failed, and that Vimes is not about to cross his own moral line when he draws his sword and stabs Joker through the heart. (And NOT through the gut, because that really WOULD cross Vimes’s moral code. When you put down a mad dog, you don’t let it suffer). Wait, maybe I’ve just figured out how to write that scene after all: Vimes explicitly points out to Joker that if he was the bad man Joker thinks he is, he’d stab him in the gut. “But I’m just putting down a mad dog, and you don’t get angry at mad dogs, you don’t torture them, you just end them.” Moves his sword to aim at Joker’s heart, gives Joker one moment to realize Vimes isn’t breaking his own conscience in the slightest and the Joker lost his gamble, and then kills him quickly and painlessly.

                  Yeah, that could work, and I don’t even have to bring Carrot into the scene at all.

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        2. Because executing a few violent criminals is soooo much worse than keeping them alive so they can murder hundreds more innocent people and terrorize everybody else.

          That scene in ‘The Dark Knight’ has always grated on me because nobody thought of something totally obvious. I would have asked the poor schlub holding the detonator button:

          “How do you know that button blows up the other boat? Ohhh, because the giggling psychopath told you so. That doesn’t make sense to me. This is the Joker, so where’s the joke? You, and somebody on that other boat, you stare at those buttons, agonize over the decision until one of you finally works up the nerve to kill half the hostages instead of letting everybody die. And then you feel bad. Boo-hoo. You get all angsty and guilty. What’s the fun in that?”

          “Now, imagine the Joker lied. You go through all the same shit, then whoever pushes their button blows themselves to tiny bits. Now that’s a punch line!”

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          1. Yep yep yep. I originally wrote, and then deleted as it was too wordy, that the Joker rigged two boats with explosives and gave them detonators that he claimed would blow up the other boat.

            I agree that the movie should have had someone make that point. Maybe not the people on the boats, who don’t have personal experience with the Joker yet. But definitely Batman should have thought of that and said something about it.

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            1. You’re worried about posting Too Many Words? HERE? :-D

              My first short story weighed in at 31,000 words. Because that’s how many words it took to tell the story. My other efforts have…similar issues. But if I cut out some of the words, parts of the story don’t get told.

              Liked by 1 person

            2. He wouldn’t do it that way, because that character wasn’t the Joker– there was no question on if he was going to murder folks.

              Part of what makes the Joker so … him …. is that he really might not kill you. He’ll get you dead to rights and then do a jump scare and walk off laughing.

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              1. Fair enough, but I never followed the Batman comics and hadn’t even seen the original Batman movie (at the age I was when it came out, I would have gotten nightmares from it — and my parents wisely kept me away from any movies that had anything remotely scary in them until I was old enough to handle them). I do remember the Joker being, how to put this politely, guano insane (heh), and so Heath Ledger’s performance completely fit my idea of the character, even though it wasn’t truly faithful to the larger canon. (And man, could Ledger act! Watch A Knight’s Tale and The Dark Knight back to back; you’d hardly believe those two characters are portrayed by the same man. What an actor he was. Even if I loved the Batman comic-book canon and was upset beyond words by how the writers had gotten the Joker completely wrong, I think I’d still thoroughly approve of Ledger’s performance)

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                1. Oh, he’s absolutely insane, and terrifying.

                  Ledger did an AMAZING job of making a nightmare worthy villain.

                  It just wasn’t the Joker; this is an issue that the movies run into a lot, like they’ll have a very good Bruce Wayne but not Batman, or the other way around.

                  I’m not sure how they’d have gotten the “not sure he’s actually going to try to kill you, but he may randomly decide to make a fart joke instead and run off laughing because you were scared but never in danger” aspect of the Joker.

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              1. The Joker’s entire shtick is showing Gotham how fragile its morality is. One man with some goons, a few bombs, and a bit of clown makeup can shatter it completely. The ferry scene is not about the Joker killing people. It’s about bringing the survivors down to his level.

                Switching the triggers for a cheap gotcha completely undermines that. The Joker isn’t trying to punish the wicked. He’s trying to corrupt the innocent. Or, from his perspective, unmask the hypocritical citizens of Gotham for who they really are.

                We even see him give the exact same choice to a couple of thugs earlier in the movie: whichever one kills the other gets to live. Unless I’m badly misremembering, he was true to his word.

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                1. But the people on the boats don’t know that. They have no reason to trust the Joker’s word that the detonator on their boat doesn’t blow up their own boat. The writers should have been smart enough to have the characters at least consider that. Then, in order to (re-)establish the moral quandary, they could have someone look at the detonators and the bombs and say “Yep, this thing was based on the electronics from a two-channel walkie-talkie you can buy at Walmart. The bomb on our ship is set to channel 1 and our detonator is set to channel 2.” So now there’s a reason for the characters to believe the setup.

                  The characters blindly trusting the word of a murderous psychopath is what bothers me here.

                  Like

                  1. Which brings us to one of the other running themes of the movie: how people react to fear. Throughout the movie, we repeatedly see people make selfish, short-sighted decisions as a result of fear. The people on the ferries react the same way as everyone else in Gotham: they panic, they try to save their own skin, but ultimately they make the right choice. Having one of them skip the panic and go straight to analyzing radio frequencies would not fit at all. It would require the citizens of Gotham to violate their established character.

                    Moreover, the passengers have no reason to think the Joker is lying. He clearly has the means to blow up both boats any time he likes. He clearly wants to play a game with the passengers. He clearly gets something out of making the passengers of one boat blow up the other. So why would he lie about what the triggers do? He gets exactly what he wants—what he has announced to Gotham that he wants in a very public way—by playing it straight.

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                    1. “Your captor is almost always lying to you.”

                      “Your captor is manipulating you.”

                      Basic prisoner resistance.

                      They are lying. Figuring out what is the lie can be challenging. But never doubt they lie.

                      You are being manipulated, for their benefit. Figuing out the objective can be challenging. Never doubt they are manipulating.

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        3. The Joker’s first appearance ended in his death until someone realized they wanted to bring him back, so they put in a panel where someone said he’d live after all.

          Like

  6. When the less dim fuchsia advocates realized that those basic facts about numbers didn’t fit with what they were saying, they declared that numbers themselves are Caseist and Eeevul, invented by Chartreuse Supremacists to subjugate the Noble Fuchsia Peoples.

    Say, you missed the opportunity to call this post ‘A Tale Of Two Computers’. :-P

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Linux, Windows, MAC

      Capitalists, Marxists, Anarchists

      Republicans, Democrat (socialists), Independents

      Dogs, Ferrets, Cats

      Welcome to the Trinary Universe. Binary is too limiting.

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  9. I though I was the master of bad analogies.

    About the whole “fuchsia and chartreuse” choice of colours. It’s confusing because it doesn’t fall into easy visualization for many people. I’d stick to something that is a color that could be found on an axial resistor.

    Like my uncle said: “People that really know the names of more than 20 colours are either female, gay, artists, salesmen or in the paint/fabric business. Or are married to someone that has redecorated their house and have been forcibly educated to care…”

    Equally the choice of computers/people and software/culture is cute but wordy. Makes for a difficult read, like a sci-fi novel full of Slavic/Alien character names nobody can pronounce.

    Like

          3. PMS colours are Pantone’s official colours. Traditionally used in printing, design, etc…

            Feel free to assign moods to all 40 trillion shades. “Spite Sapphire” is the stare I got from an ex…

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    2. I found it worked better for being two words that were recognizable as colors, exactly because the common-use colors have emotional connections.

      While funky green and pink are more likely to be known for their names in and of themselves.

      Like my uncle said: “People that really know the names of more than 20 colours are either female, gay, artists, salesmen or in the paint/fabric business. Or are married to someone that has redecorated their house and have been forcibly educated to care…”

      So, was he colorblind, or just that bad at looking at words?

      Because I could probably come up with at least twenty different shades of green, if I had to. 90% of them would be things like oak leaf green, rye grass green, lime green, etc. And I’m not even good with colors.

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      1. Ah, green and pink. Being an archetypal guy, I had no idea what those colors were, and was going to have to look them up. Thank you, Foxfier.

        And I did note while reading it that the article actually worked better with me having absolutely no idea what those colors were.

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        1. To be honest, I was a bit proud of not artist me that I sort of knew what they were before I looked them up.

          I know fuchsia, because it’s a flower and I can listen in plant talk if not actually do anything:

          and I was pretty sure chartreuse was green because there’s a fairly common gag of using it for monsters that are really not going to be scary when you get to know them.

          Liked by 1 person

        1. Ah, but note that my being female has nothing to do with the example of objectively-easy-to-recognize colors.

          Just he was thinking funky names from stuff he wasn’t familiar with (a specific flower, a fancy alcohol) rather than stuff he is familiar with.

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          1. It comes from growing up having only eight crayons in my box. And a family B&W television with poor reception.

            After I learned BBRYGBVGW for electronics and ROYGBIV for astronomy, I though I had this spectrum thing down.

            Then later in life doing technical work in a design agency where there were fights about “fonts and colours”.

            “Lar, which one of these 43 identical-looking fonts looks better on these 73 identical-looking shades of green background?”

            Or dealing with multitudes of women in my life talking about fabric or paint.

            “That’s not white, it’s ivory!”

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                1. Many years ago a friend of my beloved’s in the SCA got a set of plastic armor made from blue plastic barrels. He topped it off with a white helm. Well, he did until he was at a Ren Fair and a child called out, “Look, Mommy, a Smurf!”

                  The armor got painted black and the helmet went silver.

                  Liked by 1 person

            2. My philosophical digression came out of a memorable conversation with my dad about a field being the wrong color of green to be bailed that day.

              (I eventually found out that not only was it the wrong color, different fields have different colors of green that are acceptable for bailing without danger.)

              Liked by 1 person

            3. I work in post-production photography. Color-correction is literally my job. (Well, part of it. And if the photographers do their job correctly, one I don’t have to employ very often. But I learned during a point where our monitors weren’t accepting instructions from the computer on how to project, so they were inaccurate, and if you can learn to color-correct to Oompa Loompa, you can do it much easier when the colors are where they are supposed to be.)

              So yes, I can see those ten slightly different shades of white in the XKCD cartoon on how to drive someone with good color perception crazy.

              I’m not even a tetrachromat…

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          2. I recently bought some hobby paints from Walmart, so I have a handy list of paint names from the Apple Barrel line… and they went the “adjective noun” route for most of their names. Here are a few pulled randomly from my box:

            Flamingo Coral (a sort of orange shading towards pink)
            Country Gray (one of about seven or eight shades of gray they offer)
            Bright Yellow
            Beige
            Jack-O-Lantern (a vivid orange)
            Apricot (a more subdued orange)
            Bright Blue
            Dark Blue Grey
            Pale Daffodil (a very pale yellow, but definitely yellow rather than off-white)

            No fuchsia, chartreuse, or taupe in the whole lot.

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            1. In my house, it’s the other way around.
              I once went shopping for tile with my husband. The shop people kept staring at me, wondering if I knew he was gay. He’s not. He just has amazing visual acuity. (And I have unusually bad which is why I’m night blind.)
              Years later repeated same shopping for granite counters, with sons in tow. The sons (teens) kept coming to me and going “I’m so embarrassed” as their dad insisted the two remnants of black granite I wanted clashed with each other…. (We were getting the house before last ready for sale. Victorian, small counters. Us broke, so we wanted to get the remnants because cheap. We did. No one who walked through complaining of clashing blacks. Nor did the buyers. Sigh.)

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        2. Fuchsia?

          Colour? Automobile model? Spice? Band? Drink? Or name of a new office mate?

          Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes

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      3. And now having read over the comments….. how was the topic not obvious to everyone as soon at the case colors were described?

        Granted there is a massive excess of words to get to that point. But it’s not like the point was hidden by anything but that excess of words.

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        3. I don’t know, I spent about the first… third, maybe… wondering if it was going to be sex, race, or politics.

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    3. I thought it was a very good analogy, and also that it would been twice as good with half the word count. But that might have taken more than twice as long to write.

      And, yeah, I got suckered in to “Windows vs *nix/Apple” too, at first. Well done!

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      1. Unix VS Windows/Andorid VS Apple

        Or

        Independent Open No Control VS Somewhat Control VS Full Control

        Regardless: Hardware Independent VS Hardware Dependent

        Like I’ve already posted “If it had been computer related, the post would have been easier to follow past the first two paragraphs. Not: Wait! What?” Reread. Then “Oh!”

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  10. Props to the author for ‘Casist’.

    Extending the analogy, compare the behavior of certain stripes of white^H chartreuse supremacists and Linux aficionados:

    ‘It’s GNU/Linux!’

    ‘Actually, I consider myself more of an ethnic nationalist’

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I think you are thinking of Arch users.

      Consider *BSD users. They know they are superior, but just want to be left alone like those that live mostly off the grid and raise their own food and children. The OpenBSD folks also have bunkers and ham radios.

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      1. As an OpenBSD user with a ham radio license and a sadly dwindling years supply of food, I feel called out…

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        1. I keep a OpenBSD workstation in the house, just in case IBM and Microsoft corrupt Linux. Besides, it keeps an eye on that Fedora laptop and hangs out with the Steam Deck.

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  11. Hmm. The hardware is not always equivalent. Many of the production lines for the fuchsia computers, which run OS-B, have very shoddy quality control, and are using inferior components for assembly. The fuchsia advocates have progressively (deliberate word choice there) made that situation worse.

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      1. Not necessarily evolution but damage. For example, a poor diet in childhood can lead to reduced capability as an adult. Correctible in the next generation if one is allowed to address the root problem and not justify it as “you have to respect their culture.”

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        1. Well, yeah, if the variation happens before a selection event that is definitively final, like random susceptibility to an instantly fatal disease. But the variation takes time to build up, which is why bottleneck selection events leave a species under-differentiated and thus more vulnerable to a subsequent selection event.

          Liked by 1 person

      3. Apparently need to clarify… Happens when trying to extend an analogy.

        The DESIGN of all the “computers” is perfectly good. Yes, the installed “operating system” is terrible for all too many of them. End of analogizing.

        “Inferior components” == terrible diet.

        “Poor quality control” == drugs, alcohol, etc. during gestation, that actually damages what would be a perfectly healthy child.

        Note – chartreuse, fuchsia, blue, or polka dot – this is true of all too many “production lines.” Just more prevalent in some than in others.

        Liked by 1 person

          1. Agreed. Fix the programs on the “production machines,” and the “hardware” won’t have nearly so many defects.

            And… I’m done with this analogy. Beginning to annoy me, to be honest.

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    3. The quality control schemes– there are several different ones, mostly completely unconnected from realty– and even the quality of the components often has nothing to do with how well the computer works, just how long it can run.

      Which is sad, but goes into the realm of “do you want a super computer for a year, or one that can’t function but runs forever?”

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  12. I’m afraid that this was a little sophisticated for me to really follow, I kept trying to map it to how little I know of the IT situation.

    A is apparently American mainstream, western civ, judeo christian sorts of culture. Free men, who have security in many of their options for investment.

    B is basically crab bucket ism, a culture of tenants constantly being jerked around and stolen from. But, likewise made from a different mixture of the same cultural ingredients that made mainstream American cultures.

    C, third world tribal stuff. The general trend of humanity for very long, and the reason why most historic and prehistoric societies sucked.

    There seems like there might be a culture D, the cult of power which recruits from Academia, which is basically in result a different kind of savage barbarism, like C. ‘D’, if we suppose it exists, is cosmetically quite distinct from C flavors. But the emotional core and the experiences may be pretty identical.

    C culturalists don’t see any reason to, as a tactic, superficially follow ‘the law’. D culturalists do so as a tactic, while stewing inside about how everything of civilization, law, and peace is an ancient conspiracy against them. They tell themselves that they would have had happiness, peace, and plenty if only the bad bad ancients, particularly the Hebrews, had not said that it was wrong for a man to have sexual intercourse with his own daughters.

    But they primarily use words, trickery, and wishful thinking, instead of being as ready to violence as C is. They tried C’s violence in the 1960s, and want to try it again now, but they were punished very heavily over the 1960s and 1970s, and are still shy. They have a strange mix of utter confidence, and also unwillingness to just go ahead and eat certain costs.

    Anyway, bravo Bill Reader.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I’d say your D is actually a subset of B. They’re the ones that came up with the idea of a vast, ancient conspiracy against the fuchsias and the whole computer equity project: “words, trickery, and wishful thinking” as you put it.

      Liked by 1 person

  13. Off-topic request for next week’s promo post. I have a story I want to post next week rather than wait until it’s on-topic for the week’s prompt, because it’s closely related to something mentioned in yesterday’s promo post. (I won’t say more yet, for fear of spoilers). So could I request one of the following prompt words for next week so that my story will be on-topic and I won’t have to wait longer to post it? The words are castle, siege, betray/betrayal, or gate.

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      1. I think I have her email address, but I also wanted to post my request here since I know email can slip through the cracks.

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  14. The Reader believes that there is some lizard level firmware that needs to be overwritten by culture and education for OS-A to successfully run. Since we as a society have seceded our culture and education system to folks who run OS-B, we have a problem.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. SO much THIS!

      Meseems that lots of the Biblical thou-shalt-not precepts boil down to “Thou shalt not let thine Inner Monkey make thy decisions.”

      It’s as if some 20,000 years ago, Somebody said: “Your natural instincts worked fine when you were ANIMALS, even with opposable thumbs. But now you nimrods have thumbs and abstract, symbolic language! That means you’ll be counting by tomorrow, writing by next week, doing math by the end of the month, and building H-Bombs before the summer’s over. You GOTTA stop being animals! Or you’ll crash everything!

      “Here’s a list of Bad Moves that your instincts are gonna urge you to make. Thou Shalt Not!”

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        1. The Support Law Enforcement / Police Benevolent Association bumper stickers inspired the following:

          F*ck The Police

          The Law Enforcement Spouses Association

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        1. It’s always been funny to me that the automotive press is so intrinsically biased towards “smaller”, “lower”, and “more power”, which is why they barely tolerate pickup trucks, though crazy huge monster motor off-road-racing modified ones are apparently okay for trips to the local grocery store. And they absolutely hate full size SUVs with a burning passion.

          But in spite of writing over and over again how people only need tiny econoboxes, those stupid members of the public keep buying big SUVs.

          Of course the motor press is also always up for “vastly more expensive” too, so they happily churn out driving reviews for the latest low slung two seater six or seven figure Aston Martin or Ferrari, but the “most people only need” thing runs through almost everything else they write.

          I decide what I need. If I need the Earth Pounder 3000 full size SUV, then that’s what I need.

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          2. People go for the SUVs because smog laws killed the station wagon. If CAFE standards didn’t require non-trucks to have higher mileage than current safety standards can support (all those structural supports and crumple zones add weight), there would still be actual 3-4 row station wagons around and SUVs wouldn’t be as popular.

            Plus once all the cars on the road get taller, you kind of need to be higher too for safety.

            Liked by 1 person

      3. A large-ish collection of same topic stickers on the back of a vehicle often serves as a reliable gage of the driver’s anger level and propensity for rage-moves.

        And that anger can be a very, very strange contract to the seeming message/content of the decalcomania.

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        1. My most accurate current predictor of “drives like an a–” is “Tesla?”

          The Model 3 and Model Y driving population hereabouts seems to encompass a significant fraction of the zippy-zoom-cutoff-lane-change-what’s-a-turn-signal? addicts.

          It used to be BMW drivers, who famously cannot locate their German engineered turn signals, included more of the butthead-move drivers, then for a bit it was Prius drivers, but now, at least in the commute timeframes I am out there, it’s definitely Teslas.

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            1. So far they are few enough (I see one or two a day now) and huge-looking enough (they are actually not that huge, but styling cues make them seem like Jawa Sandcrawlers) that people just dodge out of their way, so they just sedately cruise through.

              I probably see hundreds a of 3’s and Y’s a day here.

              Like

          2. Joke I’ve retold many times in person, and some of the people I told it to actually got it:

            If you’re ever feeling like your job is pointless, just remember. Somewhere in Germany is some poor sap whose job is to put turn signals onto BMWs.

            Liked by 1 person

  17. Is there *anyone* but me that started reading, got a bit into it and said, “Oh, it’s another, “culture matters, not race, thing and it’s setting up “normal,” vs, “intersectional,” cultures as an allegory?” And then started skimming and muttering to themselves? Because that was my reaction.

    That isn’t to say it’s not well done. And it might work very well indeed for people who really haven’t thought about it. A way to get under their defenses.

    I’m tired. Drove my beloved 180 miles round trip to the cardiologist (the good news is, it was good news) yesterday and the fall pollen/defoliant season is in full swing. And we have an early round of Mystery Crud making the rounds (don’t have it, but it’s out there; looks like flu, but isn’t flu or covid. The mystery crud usually doesn’t show up until around February).

    Liked by 1 person

      1. As a technical dude, I think the K.I.S.S. principle would have been a better approach. With some editing and tweaking of the analogies, it could work well.

        Incorporating memes as cultural virus like John Barnes did in his books would be a cherry on the summit.

        Liked by 1 person

            3. No, seriously, professor really is a lie down with dogs, get up with fleas situation where accidentally writing for an academic audience is concerned.

              I’m tempted to think that my next guest post essay should try to make seventy dimensional convolutions look simple and straightforward. (Joke: “But I don’t even know if convolution can be defined for that!”)

              Anyway, I found the essay interesting and stimulating. I’ve also been trying to figure out what is going on with this stuff, and how to explain it, so someone else’s essay is more to chew over.

              Liked by 1 person

      1. He and our son were off picking lumber for a cross raising. No, not that kind of cross raising! No humans will be crucified as a consequence of replacing our small church’s big outdoor cross.

        We’re the last Methodist church in North Alabama before you hit the border. The church, and cross, are visible from the interstate. So we’re keeping up appearances and, I believe, railroad ties.

        Liked by 1 person

  18. Okay, so I thought this was a Windows/Linux thing to start and was winding up the reasons why 100% shift to Linux still isn’t possible for everyone and even though abandoning Windows for Mac is now possible in more of those situations I now consider any Apple product inferior because of company senior management and will until at least two CEOs after Tim.

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    1. ”Unless you say saying ‘Don’t’ is a ‘red line’ and then we will refrain from saying ‘Don’t’ and send pallets of cash.”

      Like

  20. I strongly suspect that those who use computers running OS-A will be able to cope with an ever-increasing flow of information more easily and more fully than those who use computers running computers running OS-B.

    We may call this effect “Fuchsia Shock.” ;-)

    (When it comes to coping with even early mass-media information flow, OS-C users have been hopelessly lost for decades, if not centuries.)

    Liked by 1 person

  21. Fuchsia? Wasn’t that the name of Titus Groan’s older sister, the one who died?

    Or is it that-which-shocks, as in ‘Fuchsia shock?’

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  23. I read a couple of paragraphs. I think the post is about politics. I couldn’t finish reading, however. You lost me at “fuschia” and that other word. Are these colors?

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        1. Sorry. I just can’t understand people’s minds locking over COLOR NAMES.
          I know the post is a bit wordy, but the guy is tired and under pressure, and I can’t really throw stones on wordy.
          BUT COLORS? I’m not the color person in this house. Dan used to do computer graphic design, which means he learned to see colors I can’t even imagine, and don’t know the names to.
          I thought fuchsia was sort of salmon and chartreuse was a deep purple until I did renderings.
          But I just went “Okay, different colors.”
          I really shouldn’t snap at people, but it’s starting to remind me of “You have a couple in your book, and you have a vagina, therefore your book of interstellar war is a romance, and I won’t read it.”
          I still shouldn’t snap.

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              1. You need a heavy bag and some wrist braces, and a good 20 minutes a day working over that bag.

                Splitting wood with an axe can work, but punching is more lizard-brain primal.

                (grin)

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                  1. …and using a Progressive as a punching bag would cause talk. :-P

                    Ishmael: “And ‘talk’, I suppose, is more to be feared than pneumonia?”

                    Biddy: “Oh, yes! You can get over pneumonia.”

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        1. No. I apologize. I shouldn’t have snapped. But all the men fixating on the color names are reminding me of all the people who tell me I write romance because they a) never read a romance in their lives. b) I have a female name. c)there is often a love interest in my books. (As there was in every one of the Greats books, except sometimes Asimov because the ’tisms was strong in that one.)
          So I snapped in reflex.

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        2. They lost me a bit, too; I kept having to pause and remind myself which of those two color-names-no-normal-person-ever-uses was which, even though I had no problem following the rest of the analogy. Would’ve been a lot easier to follow with just about any other color — but normal color names probably have too many associations that’d get in the way, so there may have been no way around it.

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