During a delirious technical presentation based on nonsense and mathematics at the company I work for I found that it would be the best time and place to analyze the roots of computer hatred. The following course of reasoning emerged.

As a computer professional, I noticed that whenever the computer is performing something correctly, the user’s experience is that of normality, i.e., business as usual. That is, neither joy nor disappointment. When, however, the computer messes up one way or another, users experience frustration and anger. Moreover, since normal users are left helpless in their attempt to find out why the misbehaviour occurred, they are overrun by mystical fear in a similar way as the primordial human would feel about the forces of nature upon which he has little or no control. Eventually mankind developed religion to deal with mysticism whereas the allegedly more advanced society we live in now came up with software engineering. Network administrators, programmers, software analysts and consultants, etc. play the role of priests in the users’ unwanted relationship with the computer god. Yet priests and computer professionals can rarely solve problems in practical terms; instead, they encourage you to believe and repeat some operation for dozens of times (like prayers). When everything fails, users loose their faith in the computer god and are left defeated with amplified anger and frustration deemed to end in software hell. This is what happens with most computer users every day.

Computer professionals have even harder times dealing with computer-related problems since they know there’s no such thing as a computer god. They know that every problem has a cause and a source and (at least in theory) it is solvable by finding the source and eliminating the cause. In other words, they have experienced some sort of enlightenment during their studies of computer witchcraft and now find themselves on a perpetual search for justice.

That having said, we can summarize that computers have deterministic positive behaviour and non-deterministic negative behaviour. This means that whichever side you’re on (i.e., user or professional) when something goes wrong you have to deal with non-determinism. In mathematics, a deterministic model is one which given some input produces a tractable and repeatable output. A non-deterministic model is one that given the same input may produce intractable and irreproducible results.

The computer’s positive behaviour is thus expected and not very interesting or particularly enjoyable. As a result, the computer user or professional has an emotionally dull experience with little or no satisfaction all day long even when the computer works fine.

On the other hand, the computer’s negative behaviour is unexpected and disruptive in very creative and inexplicable ways. Most users experience emotional exhaustion and intense dissatisfaction, anger, and frustration.

In computer science parlance, depending on the nature of their cause software faults which are difficult to find and remove are called Heisenbugs or Mandelbugs. A Heisenbug is an error which seems to disappear when attempting to study it whereas a Mandelbug is one whose causes are so complex that it defies repair or makes its behaviour appears chaotic and non-deterministic.

Now, there are of course many people on this planet who can successfully outwit the computer into doing what they want it to do without falling into depression and uncontrollable anger. They are sometimes pejoratively referred to as “computer geeks”. Geeks are usually people who dedicate their lives to working or playing on the computer. Thus, the term geek does not designate a competent computer professional. In fact, when used in this context it may baffle a true computer professional.

Competent computer professionals have the extraordinary ability to use their reasoning power only for solving problems rather than to involve emotionally to the same end resulting in faith-driven approaches to software debugging and computer problem solving. The most important abilities of a successful, competent, and happy computer professional are intelligence, patience, and extraordinary reasoning power which not many people possess.

A tendency towards emotionalism and mystical beliefs is what makes some computer professionals be less successful and unhappier than others. Simply put, not everyone who obtains a computer science degree is likely to be happy with his/her work in life and should therefore seek refuge in other professional fields or aim at higher level positions such as project, product manager, or even CEO.

Yet one of the most important causes for computer hatred and related anxieties may be a psychological stress factor induced by our current way of interacting with computers, namely the fact that computer users stare for many hours a day into a monitor. What they are seeing is usually not moving while fatiguing the eyes and the brain. Working with a computer is like staring at a white sheet of paper the whole day long compared to say what a bus drives sees everyday. It is the absolute monotony and inertia of the computer screen that absorbs the computer user’s focus for a prolonged period of time, sucking up all his useful energy without giving anything back; for, as we have already seen, the positive behaviour of computers does not provide true joy to users. The product of working on a computer is immaterial and dull. It has no physical meaning and thus almost completely eludes the conscious interaction with the human body. One does not have to move too much when working with a computer and the outcome of one’s work always remains trapped within it. Even compared to an old fashion clerk doing a lot of paperwork, working on the computer requires much less physical effort. It comes to no surprise that obesity has risen constantly in advanced societies starting with the 1970s – a fact that is commonly attributed to eating inappropriate food only.

Working on the computer makes people lazy. One gets used to obtaining what one wants in “no time” through a mouse click. This also has repercussions upon life outside the office since one expects everything else to be solved as easily as doing a couple of mouse clicks. Why should one spend energy on anything given that all types of satisfactions can be provided by the computer at no energy costs at all? Why should one care to meet friends in person when there’s Facebook and email? Why should one spend energy on taking out the garbage when emptying the recycle bin of the computer is done through a click of the mouse and always works fine? How angry does one get when a garbage bag leaks which needs additional physical work for a task that should work every time smoothly?

The expectancy that everything in real life can be accomplished in the same way as it gets done on the computer makes us feel the same level of anger and frustration when something goes wrong in real life as when routine computer tasks fail. Computer-related frustration and expectations are projected upon day to day routine as well. The longer one works on the computer, the less happy one is to do things requiring physical work in real life.

Computer hatred is also a problem of human-computer interaction which entails visualization and input methods. Perhaps more interactive computers will exist in the future allowing people to use more muscles and see more diverse things when working with them. Much like an android, future computers would be able to communicate with humans through voice rather than typing and would produce 3D hologram-like visualizations of data and provide audio explanations of the meaning of the data (similar to a presentation). This would relief the user from the psychological stress of staring into a screen while seated on an (most of the times) inappropriate office chair.

Software is not made to work right in most of its forms and instances. The only software that is intended to contain zero faults is safety-critical software which is used (embedded) in cars, airplanes, trains, and some industrial machinery. All other software is deemed to fail for sure at some point since no software vendor nowadays has the capacity to create fault-free word processors and keep up with its competitors on that market sector at the same time. With the advent of the Internet, software vendors use automatic updates—an additional source of endless pain and frustration on the user side—to fix the product they already sold to you as perfectly functional. Software vendors collect error reports with or without user permission and first fix the 20% of the faults which cause 80% of the failures (following the so called Pareto principle). By the time these ones are fixed, a new version of the software reaches the market and history repeats. The 80% of the faults which never get to be fixed make up for your pain and frustration when using the computer.

Ironically, when the software that is made to never fail fails, users and the broader public first blame the car, the airplane, the pilot, or some other intermediate actor for the crash. By the time the analysis of the accident is finished, the vendor that put the software into the car has already moved off shore to some legal paradise.

Escaping from computer hell seems impossible nowadays. For most people changing their field of work does not come into question anymore. Computer professional rarely become gardeners. They’re already too lazy for that kind of work.

Call to action: coming soon.

There used to be a time when people met in bars and pubs to chat, have a couple of drinks, and have a good time together. Such groups were generically referred to as “friends”.

With the advent of Internet-enabled SmartPhones (i.e., a smart phone with a permanent connection to the Internet – also referred to as AlienationPhone) things have changed in such a way that new terminology is required to describe the phenomenon.

The setting is as follows: the friends meet as usual in a public place to have a drink and chat. However, there are now two types of people on this planet: (1) persons owning a Super-SmartPhone and (2) persons owning a DumbPhone (plain old cell phone with features for calling and texting only) or no cell phone at all (referred to as NoPhone for simplicity).

Depending on their behaviour in the considered setting, SmartPhone owners can be further categorized into: (A) SmartPhone Geniuses, (B) SmartPhone Idiots, and (C) SmartPhone Autists.

We further detail their behaviour to the end of formally defining the boundaries of their corresponding categories.

The SmartPhone Genius

A SmartPhone Genius is a guardian of accuracy in informal conversations. When someone says something about anything involving names, dates, or some other kind of precise information, the SmartPhone Genius checks the accuracy of the information by googling for that particular piece of information. He/she usually lands on Wikipedia and interrupts the conversation to correct whoever failed to provide the accurate name, location, year, number, book title, movie title, food name, African capital city, died-out crocodile specie from South America, the third wife’s name of some Roman emperor, Cleopatra’s only known three-legged male cat’s nickname, etc. When the information was indeed accurate, the now grim-faced SmartPhone Genius stares absently at the bar and waits for the next correction opportunity while his antennas keep listening passively to the otherwise totally uninteresting discussion.

The SmartPhone Idiot

A SmartPhone Idiot has no intention to follow the track of the conversation whatsoever. Instead, he/she interrupts the conversation whenever he/she finds something that triggers his/her interest on the World-wide Web, stating out loud a summary of his/her finding.

Example: Hey guys, have a look at these awesome new pink panties from Victoria’s Secret. Aren’t they just fucking lovely?!? (It is reasonable to assume that the guys were taking about something completely different than Victoria’s Secret fucking lovely pink panties).

The SmartPhone Autist

The SmartPhone Autist is perhaps the most common type of smart phone user. Such a person entirely succumbs to his/her smart phone’s “inland empire” since it provides everything that he/she needs and wishes. When at a table with other people, the SmartPhone Autist will only communicate with the waiters and sometimes greet upon arrival and leaving. He is an appendix of the group that somebody knows or used to know and now keeps getting email invitations to these meetings which he/she sometimes attends for no apparent reason. Smart phone autists are also easy to spot in public transportation where they don’t bother to look out the window or stare at random people. Their only conscious connection with the world is realized through their smart phone.

Tell us which type are you using the website’s contact form and win a free trip to www.smartphone-alienation-paradise.kp

The User Licence Agreement must be the most unread document in the entire world. Yet, it may harm you or your company in case of a law suite more than the world's most read document - The Holy Bible - which can only promise to send you to hell (unless you don't sign some sort of licence agreement with God, which, in term, can heavily harm you in the after world’s most dreaded trial court: the purgatory).

Take-home message: not having ever read a licence agreement is like not having ever opened the Holy Bible.

I'm quite sure somebody said this in the past:

By stubbornly trying to fix something you might break something else that may turn out to be more important to you and more difficult to fix.

It applies to software, life, and everything else.

Henry Kissinger once said something like "I've got very strong principles! And if you don't like them, I've got others too."

Allow me to comment on that: it's true. Considering that life's a game you either make the rules or play after other people's rules. If rules don't apply to a particular situation, adapt them as quickly as possible. That's what old Henry probably meant to say.

What I wanted to say is that prejudgments are necessary and useful. However, one should reconsider and reformulate his/her prejudgments from time to time.

It applies to software, life, and everything else.

So what is software like?

Software is like women: you ask for something and get back nothing.

Software behaves as unexpectedly as a woman: you think everything is going just fine and then Bang! Disaster strikes.

Software requires continuous debugging just as a woman needs constant attention. Otherwise, disaster strikes.

When you first buy a software package, you never know what to actually expect. It's like going on a blind date with someone you met on Facebook. Expect the worst: she's not really a woman only because she told you so.

If you steal software, you can be busted by the copyright law. The copyright low is just like an angry, frustrated husband whose wife is madly trying to get pregnant with another man.

Software pops up whenever you don't want it to. Think of automatic updates and then think of your wife.

But hey, isn't software just the most beautiful, brilliant, caring, and fun thing for your computer?

And if software is like women, are men like damn stupid computers?

Exactly! Men are pig. Computers are worse...

People who work a lot with computers tend to make everything else simpler. This is because they're not left with too much time for anything else! The computer eats and eats and eats the life out of you and then, the next thing you know... you don't know anything other than the damn buttoned beast and the funny things that happen inside of it.

Unfortunately, I am one of those people. So when I want to cook a meal the very task of standing up from my chair, preparing the ingredients, cooking the ingredients, waiting for them to cool down, eating... well eating is OK... but still... you get my point, I hope. It's something that makes you exit your world in a box and it's uncomfortable.

So I say: "to hell with eating". And that works for a couple of minutes. But then I start finding it hard to concentrate and to reason because different foods and flavors take over my mind. I have to sepparate myself from the computer or else I'll die by starvation. This brain is a shrewd bastard! And in no time, there I am... cooking... but hey, it's still me!

I have salad, tortellini and cheese but only one plate! Well yeah, when you're into computers (or better said, within computers) you don't think about buying plates and such. To make a long story short, I have a Wok. You all know what a wok is? Well I didn't before I was 26. That was 2 years ago. Anyhow, it wasn't until 2 months ago that I had one for myself. I got it from the lovely people who rented me this wonderful room for 500 Euros a month. But that's another story. So I decide to make the salad in the wok, since there was no other choice: one plate and a lot of different food.
Now, for engineers there's only one step from a brilliant idea to a ridiculously simple and efficient solution for the real life. Why on earth do I need anything else than the Wok? I can put the tortellini right on the salad and everything else in that damn wok. Problem solved! I eat by myself anyway, so who's there to judge me?!

And this is how the famous tortellini alla wok was created. Remember: keep is simple but make it look complicated!

So there I am, after only 20 minutes of work and reflection, back on my chair holding the wok on my knees, filled with tortellini and salad and cheese and olive oil... yummi... writing about all this on my weblog! No time and no drop wasted (the wok has a respectable diameter) .

God bless simplicity for it's the only thing I understand!

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