[ Home ]
[ Humor | Icons | Library | Manuals | Organizations | RFCs | Services | Software | Users ]
Being in the technical support industry, you get to experience some of the most amazing and hilarious examples of human stupidity. Most everyone has heard about the Macintosh "cupholder" incident, as well as the mouse "footpedal" FUBAR. I, myself have a favorite story about a man who called himself a "hacker" who managed to delete his system.ini from Windows 3.1. (For those of you that are uninitiated, the system.ini file is required for Windows 3.1 to be able to run at all)
Recently I have heard a rash of stories about fundamental Christians who have had some serious spiritual problems with their computers. A woman called a friend of mine in tears because her computer was "possessed." She told him that all she was trying to do was install some new software, when suddenly a robed character calling himself "The Setup Wizard" appeared on her screen. Of course, this must have been a demonic minion of Satan! More likely, a demonic minion of Bill Gates. You form your own conclusions.
Another call I heard about was a man raising Hell wanting to know why he had all these icons on his screen. When the agent tried to explain why they were there, the man informed him of what a good, God-fearing Protestant he was, and how he did not hold with all this icon business.
It seems to me that these people would do better to call a priest than a technician. Their problems, after all, are spiritual, not technical. You wouldn't call a plumber to fix your car, would you? And it's not as if the clergy knows nothing about technology -- the order of monks that originally transcribed the Bible from Hebrew to Latin have now made it their business to code the holy tome into HTML. I know for a fact that the Pope has been spotted in chat, and several of the churches in my area even have their own web sites.
Wouldn't it be great if you could just have your minister come by and bless away the bugs in Windows 95? Or if prayer could improve your connection speed on the Internet? Unfortunately, though, I don't think god ever intended a 56kbps connection. It should be clear that the ability to type 80 words per minute is a sin punishable by carpal tunnel syndrome. Even the forbidden fruit was an Apple.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is either that deeply religious people should never involve themselves in computing, or that local churches should establish their own help desks. While it might entertain me immensely to help someone remove a fetish bundle from their floppy drive, it's obvious that the pious have no need for an instrument can calculate the Nth digit of PI.