Back in the day (mid/late 90s), any download on Internet Explorer had a “file transfer” pop-up with an animation involving a planet (the Internet) sending flying sheets of paper (the download) to a Manila folder (the computer’s file system).
I legit had one client ask me why they couldn’t make the download go faster my moving the planet closer to the folder, or vice versa.
I recall just sitting there for a number of seconds while my poor brain tried to grasp just how badly out-of-whack their interpretation of the universe was.
Spoiler alert: they were a very poor client, and refused to relinquish an entire raft of very poorly thought out or even entirely wrong concepts of computing and the Internet. They were also credulous AF, and while I could have made an arseload of money correcting what they did on a weekly or even daily basis, I just didn’t want that kind of headache.
“On two occasions I have been asked, ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.” – Charles Babbage, discovering what Technical Support would be dealing with a century or more later.
You should have chosen the money, and retired early. You make a shell company doing whatever, that just drains your built up money. You pay yourself benefits, you kick back and relax, doing whatever bullshit job you invented as the CEO of fuckaround.inc
Back in the day (mid/late 90s), any download on Internet Explorer had a “file transfer” pop-up with an animation involving a planet (the Internet) sending flying sheets of paper (the download) to a Manila folder (the computer’s file system).
I legit had one client ask me why they couldn’t make the download go faster my moving the planet closer to the folder, or vice versa.
I recall just sitting there for a number of seconds while my poor brain tried to grasp just how badly out-of-whack their interpretation of the universe was.
Spoiler alert: they were a very poor client, and refused to relinquish an entire raft of very poorly thought out or even entirely wrong concepts of computing and the Internet. They were also credulous AF, and while I could have made an arseload of money correcting what they did on a weekly or even daily basis, I just didn’t want that kind of headache.
“On two occasions I have been asked, ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.” – Charles Babbage, discovering what Technical Support would be dealing with a century or more later.
The client:
That animation was honestly the best thing about IE. The only good thing in fact.
You should have chosen the money, and retired early. You make a shell company doing whatever, that just drains your built up money. You pay yourself benefits, you kick back and relax, doing whatever bullshit job you invented as the CEO of fuckaround.inc
I just came. When I wake up tomorrow it was all a fantasy.