{"id":2217,"date":"2004-02-08T10:01:37","date_gmt":"2004-02-09T02:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/02\/08\/geek-backlash\/"},"modified":"2019-12-09T16:05:11","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T00:05:11","slug":"geek-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/02\/08\/geek-backlash\/","title":{"rendered":"Geek backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:11800,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.nytimes.com\\\/2004\\\/02\\\/05\\\/technology\\\/05VIRU.html?ex=1391317200&amp;en=1fec5f37bf9801c1&amp;ei=5007&amp;partner=USERLAND&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:11801,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.cafeshops.com\\\/macbastard&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:11802,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/jacquelinepassey.blogs.com\\\/blog\\\/2004\\\/02\\\/stupid_people_a.html&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20041011123619\\\/http:\\\/\\\/jacquelinepassey.blogs.com:80\\\/blog\\\/2004\\\/02\\\/stupid_people_a.html&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 19:26:07&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 19:26:07&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>It was bound to happen eventually. It actually probably started happening a few years ago, but now it&#8217;s actually getting news stories &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2004\/02\/05\/technology\/05VIRU.html?ex=1391317200&amp;en=1fec5f37bf9801c1&amp;ei=5007&amp;partner=USERLAND\" title=\"Learn or Log Off\">&#8216;geeks&#8217; are tired of fixing people&#8217;s problems<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  As MyDoom, the fastest-spreading virus ever, continues to clog e-mail in-boxes and disrupt business, the computer-savvy are becoming openly hostile toward the not-so-savvy who unwittingly play into the hands of virus writers.<\/p>\n<p>  The tension over the MyDoom virus underscores a growing friction between technophiles and what they see as a breed of technophobes who want to enjoy the benefits of digital technology without making the effort to use it responsibly.<\/p>\n<p>  The virus spreads when Internet users ignore a basic rule of Internet life: never click on an unknown e-mail attachment. Once someone does, MyDoom begins to send itself to the names in that person&#8217;s e-mail address book. If no one opened the attachment, the virus&#8217;s destructive power would never be unleashed.<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;It takes affirmative action on the part of the clueless user to become infected,&#8221; wrote Scott Bowling, president of the World Wide Web Artists Consortium, expressing frustration on the group&#8217;s discussion forum. &#8220;How to beat this into these people&#8217;s heads?&#8221;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;ve always counted myself somewhat lucky in this regard. I owe a lot of my geek leanings towards my parents (specifically, my mom, in a somewhat unusual reversal of sterotype), and while I&#8217;ve surpassed them in my knowledge base, I can generally rest assured that they&#8217;re quite competent enough to avoid many of the more obvious &#8220;duh&#8221; issues on their own. If they run into something that they can&#8217;t solve on their own, while they&#8217;re not above tossing a quick question my way to see if it&#8217;s something I can solve quickly, they also don&#8217;t mind if it&#8217;s something that they need to seek &#8220;official&#8221; assistance with.<\/p>\n<p>The majority of my friends tend to either be at <em>least<\/em> as computer-literate as I am (if not more so), or at the other extreme, avoiding those infernal machines at all costs. Those few that are in the middle ground &#8212; well, if they&#8217;re friends with me, they&#8217;re likely friends with a lot of other &#8216;puter geeks at the same time, and will rapidly discover that they have no excuse for incompetence. ;)<\/p>\n<p>That said, though, I&#8217;ve certainly seen the backlash coming. One of the big benefits I&#8217;ve found to being a Mac user is ducking tech support issues. While <em>I<\/em> know that I know my way around Windows, when I do get the occasional &#8220;why won&#8217;t this work?&#8221; question from acquaintances or co-workers, it&#8217;s very easy to just assume a befuddled expression, mumble something about being a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cafeshops.com\/macbastard\" title=\"Smug Virus-Free Mac-Using Bastard\">smug virus-free mac-using bastard<\/a>, toss in a few pointed comments about Windows stability, and go on my merry little way.<\/p>\n<p>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/jacquelinepassey.blogs.com\/blog\/2004\/02\/stupid_people_a.html\" title=\"Stupid People and Computers\">Jacqueline<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><strong>iTunes:<\/strong> &#8220;Blue Nun, The&#8221; by Beastie Boys, The from the album <em>Check Your Head<\/em> (1992, 0:32).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was bound to happen eventually. It actually probably started happening a few years ago, but now it&#8217;s actually getting news stories &mdash; &#8216;geeks&#8217; are tired of fixing people&#8217;s problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2043,2038],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-2217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-tech","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}