I'm inclined to agree with, to a degree
I was coming from anger at people that can't spell stack and don't even
want to; who think any junk is good enough
of course, machines are really like unconscious processes
not t'other way round
L
On Wed, August 1, 2012 22:48, Dominic Fox wrote:
> I must admit, I think of webservers as hard-pressed servitors; "the
> website is too busy to show the webpage" sounds to me like "give us a
> break, guv, I'm up to my eyeballs". More plangent than arrogant, although
> phrased in aspie-factualist style - I can imagine the person who wrote the
> error message responding to a chugger on the high-street, "my stack is
> full - I have at least three things I am thinking about at the moment - I
> am unable to service your request".
>
> You may think I'm exaggerating; a colleague of mine recently described
> a personally dislocating experience, not as having occasioned a period of
> reflection, but as having required him to recompile his entire operating
> system. Partly this is a fanciful way of speaking, a display of
> credentials, a bit of in-crowd lingo. But some people would find it
> strange and uncomfortable to describe their inner workings in such terms,
> and some - evidently - would not. Delight in the machine-like quality of
> unconscious processes, their absurd automatism, is not a widely-spread
> sentiment.
>
> Dominic
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 6:59 PM, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>> ALl I can say, L, is OMG!
>>
>>
>> D
>> On 2012-08-01, at 8:15 AM, Lawrence Upton wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I apologise for having no snapshot again
>>>
>>>
>>> That has to be said. It's said. & I am sorry
>>>
>>>
>>> Now what I want is --
>>>
>>>
>>> I don't know if I have ever remarked, I probably have, that the
>>> message we used to get from Windows "It is now safe turn off your
>>> computer" always sounded sinister to me, as if it meant "but wait a
>>> few years"
>>>
>>> Since then various incidents have confirmed the wisdom of my concern
>>>
>>>
>>> And so to today when I just received the arrogant message
>>>
>>>
>>> "The website is too busy to show the webpage"
>>>
>>>
>>> Well, I'll try again now
>>>
>>>
>>> Actually, this machine nonsense is to be distinguished from the human
>>> version -- I tried recently to access a bSkyb facility and got "I'm
>>> afraid that's gone with the clouds" and nothing more
>>>
>>> I approached bSkyb suggesting that this is intolerable arrogance and
>>> I
>>> didn't find it at all funny. A human replied and wearily explained
>>> that it meant they couldn't do what they wanted to because cookies
>>> were disabled
>>>
>>> There was a tone of _obviously_ about it
>>>
>>>
>>> L
>>>
>>>
>>> -----
>>> Lawrence Upton
>>> Visiting Fellow, Music Dept,
>>> Goldsmiths, University of London
>>> New Cross, London SE14 6NW
>>> ----
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Douglas Barbour
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
>> http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>>
>>
>> Latest books:
>> Continuations & Continuations 2 (with Sheila E Murphy)
>> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=962
>> Wednesdays'
>> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_
>> 10.html
>>
>>
>>
>> Why can’t words mean what they say?
>>
>>
>> Robert Kroetsch
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Shall we be pure or impure? Today
> we shall be very pure. It must always be possible to contain impurities
in a
> pure way. --Tarmo Uustalu and Varmo Vene
>
>
-----
Lawrence Upton
Visiting Fellow, Music Dept,
Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross, London SE14 6NW
----
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