From: michels@informatik.uni-kl.de Newsgroups: alt.humor.best-of-usenet Subject: [alt.fan.douglas-adams] What do the Sirius Cybernetics corporation and Microsoft have in common? Date: 13 Feb 1999 21:50:24 GMT Subject: What do the Sirius Cybernetics corporation and Microsoft have in common? From: Martin Harvey Newsgroups: alt.fan.douglas-adams, comp.lang.pascal.delphi.misc Yes, this post *is* relevant to both newsgroups! Was happily hacking away on my machine this evening, writing some software, when I ran into a couple of problems to do with registering services under NT. Basically, I ended up having a services entry that was invalid... and I wanted to delete it. In the ensuing frustration, I realised that DA's depiction of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation was absolutely *visionary*! Microsoft *is* the SCC! If you consider my mutterings on the one side, and the content of the dialog boxes shown by the screen on the other, the conversation went something like this: Computer: "I'm sorry, one of the system services failed to load." Me: "OK, load up the NT service manager" Computer: "Hmm.. I really don't feel like that today" <15 seconds of hard disk drive grinding omitted> Computer: "Alright... here it is" Me: "Delete MCH Test service" Computer: "Can't do that. You can either enable or disable services" Me: "There's gotta be a delete button somewhere!" Computer: "I'm sorry, but for the protection and comfort of the users, Microsoft has not put a delete button on this form. Deleting services could have adverse effects on the system." Me: "I created the darn service... are you telling me I can't delete it? Log in as Adminstrator, and open up the registry editor" Me: "Delete the service registry key." Computer: "I'm sorry, but I failed to do that." Me: "Look... I'm logged in as administrator. The whole idea of administrators is that there are no restrictions on what they can do...." Computer: "For the protection and comfort of the users, you cannot delete this key. It could have adverse effects on system performance." Me: "I'm Administrator, and I'm not allowed to do this?" Computer: "For the protection and comfort of the users, you cannot delete this key. It could have adverse effects on system performance." AAARGH!!!! What really pisses me off, is that Microsoft send out all these darn press releases about "The new ... technologies will allow people to do amazing things such as ... enhancing productivity and making ... more enjoyable, accessible and powerful for everyone", when in fact it's all complete corporate bull****. Microsoft software has only ever made my life harder, more frustrating, generally annoying... An exact parallel of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation! And here's the final thought. You know SCC's "Genuine People personalities" in their products... that just pissed the users off?? Well... I can tell you, the first time I ever wanted to HIT THE SCREEN on my PC was when that Microsoft "Dancing Paper Clip" appeared... strange similarity don't you think?