Yeah, I may as well be fighting windmills

[cosmolinguist]

My brother told us at dinner Monday that he was going to buy my parents some RAM for $10 (after a $40 or $50 rebate, or something), because he wants to put XP on their computer.

I thought this was a wonderful idea, and told him so, because I hate ME. Not that I'm crazy about Windows XP, either ... but that doesn't really matter; it's not my computer. I am amused, however, that my brother and I are sort of intervening to help out our hapless parents; my mom claimed to have no idea what we're talking about, even when I tried to explain operating systems to her. She didn't want to listen. Bah.

I was trying to explain because my dad had, for some reason, looked at me and said, "Oh yeah, you have that off-brand computer ... "

I thought he was talking about my lack of Windows, but then Chris said, "Oh yeah, that's the way to go!" which meant he was talking about my computer (which makes sense, since that's what Dad actually said).

"That ... 'Linux'?" Dad asked Chris. (I'm amazed he's retained this much information, actually. I wasn't sure he would've been able to assert that I don't use Windows; it's not like I talk about this a lot. No point.)

"No!" Chris said. Naturally. He hates Linux. I think this is one of those fear-born-of-ignorance things, but I'm not sure. He's hard to talk to; on the subjet of computers; he's sure he knows everything. I couldn't even convince him that there's a difference between disk space and RAM (he uses the word "memory" interchangably for both).

Anyway, Chris and I explained to our parents that there's a difference between computer and operating system ... or at least we tried to, but I don't think it worked.

And my dad still thinks my OS--or my "computer"--is "off-brand." Oh good.

Comments

[apotheon.livejournal.com]

Well . . . it is off-brand . . . thank goodness.

It sounds like Chris is short a few screws in his system case.

[cosmolinguist]

Indeed; my dad (like my brother) seems to be a victim of the "appealing to the majority" fallacy in logic that comradexavier likes to remind me of all the time...

And as for Chris, he's a good guy, but the most amusing bizarre thing about this is that he's going to a community college to get a degree in network something-or-other (I only know what my parents tell me, and it took a long time to get even something as specific as the word "network" out of the likes of them) ... and I know more about Linux than he does. Granted, one would think I should know something, having used it for half a year, but we're talking really basic things here: I remember mentioning that it was free, and him being surprised almost to the point of disbelief by this. He probably disregarded it anyway, knowing his sister is a hopeless idiot when it comes to computers.

[apotheon.livejournal.com]

riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight, idiot, hopeless, got it

He's probably getting one of those Windows Networking certification programs of instruction. You know, like the wholly useless Microsoft certs I have.

Bleah.

[kwakhed.livejournal.com]

i so hear you on the "windmills" comment... my company pushes linux linux linux as a solution to customers... what do all our internal tools run on? windows. :-P people have come up with ways around it with virtual consoles and whatnot, but come on! some of us inside the company would prefer to run on straight linux too!

more power to you -- keep fighting the good freeware fight.