5 ms·

Imagine if your house had Windows

12 points by edw519 15y ago

xxxxxxxxx 15y ago
If you and your neighbors stopped calling the build ten times a day asking him to do stuff like move the wall over three inches this wouldn't happen any more.
mrspandex 15y ago
Is this specifically about Windows? or about software in general? I think Microsoft would take it as a compliment that they release too often. I also think Windows is one of the most backward-compatible systems out there.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- slmbrhrt 15y ago
  Reminds of a video I saw of a guy upgrading through every version of Windows. It's a sight to behold. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPnehDhGa14 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPnehDhGa14
- joebadmo 15y ago
  It does seem pretty grumpy. It reminds me of how different people's mindsets can be regarding software updates. My wife, for example, reacts: "Oh no, an update." She hates updates and waits as long as possible to do them. I guess because updates are almost always available at inconvenient times and often break things. I, OTOH, usually go: "Ooh, an update!" And as a Windows user, I've been pretty happy with almost all the improvements in Win7.
bradleyland 15y ago
Well, if you want to apply the inverse of the analogy literally, everyone would still be using the command line, or, at best, ncurses-style applications.
- raganwald 15y ago
  If I were to apply the analogy literally, I would suggest most people would upgrade happily for the first few years after first using an OS, then their tolerance for change would decline, just as it often does with houses. They won’t embrace a major change unless their own circumstances undergo a similar change, such as having their children leave for college. Or in computers, such as buying a tablet where before they only used a laptop.
  - chadgeidel 15y ago
    Of course you are correct. I love change and "new stuff" because I'm a geek and that's what I do. My parents (or - even my younger brother who just wants things to work) not so much.
nordsieck 15y ago
The most maddening part is the control panel. There is absolutely no reason I can come up with for the seemingly random re-shuffling of names and functions that comes with each windows upgrade.
calciphus 15y ago
But those poor guys in the Apple Orchard... They don't have bathrooms, because the designer said that it would interrupt the flow of the house, and that no one uses them anymore. "But we need them", the home owners said. "No you don't," the developers replied. The residents have grown accustomed to it and use buckets and sinks instead. The house has no Windows, so you can't see the Real World. After spending years saying "You don't need to do that," the Developer finally responds that you can hang pictures on the wall of what the idealized Real World looks like. They offer to also sell you a second home over in the Windows development area, but you're either squatting or paying full price for it. Recently, the Developer replaced nearly every front door in the community with a garage door. "It gives you faster access to everything!" he explains. It opens seemingly at random, and looks nothing like the rest of the house. It's uncharacteristically gaudy. Most of the residents hide it or pretend it isn't there. Every street in the development is named after cats, but there's no sequential logic to it. When the ISP explains "You need to live north of Tiger to get high speed internet" in their ads, most people have to pull out a map to figure out if they can. People have taken to numbering the streets, but those numbers aren't written on the street signs. Fortunately, it's relatively easy and cheap to move to another street, but in most cases nothing changes. The residents claim they know the order, but when anyone comes to visit from out of town, they are confused and quickly lost, since most of the streets look the same anyway. Every 18 months or so, many of the residents bulldoze their entire home and replace it. They look down on those who don't. If someone hasn't bought a house recently enough, the developer won't even bring over new furniture, and the street cleaner begins skipping their house. All the cars a elegant and beautiful works of glass, wrapped in large, often gaudy rubber bumpers. Some people even cover their entire car in a bumper (except the windshield, which gets a gummy sticker). Early buyers of the glass car need the bumpers to cover a hole where fuel leaks out, but for most, it's because the glass cars might shatter. But all the residents of the Orchard are happy. They're a bit stuck up about how much their homes cost, despite that most people living in the "other" complex could easily afford it. They write long missives in their local paper about how bad it is to live in the other community, how they "just don't get it". They believe the home that suited them is clearly the best choice for everyone, even businesses. The talk with pride about how much money their Developer makes, even bragging that he has the highest margins in the industry, and wear their credit card debt as a badge of pride. To everyone else, they're an odd but mostly harmless group. But in their echo chamber, they're the smartest, most progressive, most intelligent and affluent people in the world, for whom the defining characteristic of their life is who they bought their house from. And somewhere, off in the hills, the Unix monastery (which designed and constructed much of the infrastructure for the Orchard, free of charge, for the betterment of everyone) lives in hand-built homes, constantly adjusted and tailored to their needs and whims, and occasionally stripped down to the foundation and rebuilt just for fun.
xm1994 15y ago
How about living in a chrome house? The Developer would just sneak in while I sleep and update everything without asking. The downside is it would consist of just one living area. If I were need any specialized rooms like a bathroom or kitchen they just attach one temporarily and charge me by the hour!
ciupinet 15y ago
In the late 90s and early 2000s operating systems were compared with airlines, in a humorous manner: http://www.webaugur.com/bazaar/53-what-if-operating-systems-were-airlines.html http://www.webaugur.com/bazaar/53-what-if-operating-systems-.... Now it seems that the comparisons have become more serious than that. I'm using Unix/Linux every day, and I don't feel like I'm living in a monastery.
danderson00 15y ago
This theme has been done so many times, it is not even funny any more. Buggered if I'm going back to House XP, because House 7 shits all over it. Stop being a Luddite and resisting progress, get used to things changing, it is inevitable. Windows rocks.

12 points by edw519 15y ago

If you and your neighbors stopped calling the build ten times a day asking him to do stuff like move the wall over three inches this wouldn't happen any more.

mrspandex 15y ago

Is this specifically about Windows? or about software in general? I think Microsoft would take it as a compliment that they release too often. I also think Windows is one of the most backward-compatible systems out there.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
slmbrhrt 15y ago
Reminds of a video I saw of a guy upgrading through every version of Windows. It's a sight to behold. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPnehDhGa14 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPnehDhGa14
joebadmo 15y ago
It does seem pretty grumpy. It reminds me of how different people's mindsets can be regarding software updates. My wife, for example, reacts: "Oh no, an update." She hates updates and waits as long as possible to do them. I guess because updates are almost always available at inconvenient times and often break things. I, OTOH, usually go: "Ooh, an update!" And as a Windows user, I've been pretty happy with almost all the improvements in Win7.

bradleyland 15y ago

Well, if you want to apply the inverse of the analogy literally, everyone would still be using the command line, or, at best, ncurses-style applications.

raganwald 15y ago
If I were to apply the analogy literally, I would suggest most people would upgrade happily for the first few years after first using an OS, then their tolerance for change would decline, just as it often does with houses. They won’t embrace a major change unless their own circumstances undergo a similar change, such as having their children leave for college. Or in computers, such as buying a tablet where before they only used a laptop.
- chadgeidel 15y ago
  Of course you are correct. I love change and "new stuff" because I'm a geek and that's what I do. My parents (or - even my younger brother who just wants things to work) not so much.

nordsieck 15y ago

The most maddening part is the control panel. There is absolutely no reason I can come up with for the seemingly random re-shuffling of names and functions that comes with each windows upgrade.

calciphus 15y ago

But those poor guys in the Apple Orchard... They don't have bathrooms, because the designer said that it would interrupt the flow of the house, and that no one uses them anymore. "But we need them", the home owners said. "No you don't," the developers replied. The residents have grown accustomed to it and use buckets and sinks instead. The house has no Windows, so you can't see the Real World. After spending years saying "You don't need to do that," the Developer finally responds that you can hang pictures on the wall of what the idealized Real World looks like. They offer to also sell you a second home over in the Windows development area, but you're either squatting or paying full price for it. Recently, the Developer replaced nearly every front door in the community with a garage door. "It gives you faster access to everything!" he explains. It opens seemingly at random, and looks nothing like the rest of the house. It's uncharacteristically gaudy. Most of the residents hide it or pretend it isn't there. Every street in the development is named after cats, but there's no sequential logic to it. When the ISP explains "You need to live north of Tiger to get high speed internet" in their ads, most people have to pull out a map to figure out if they can. People have taken to numbering the streets, but those numbers aren't written on the street signs. Fortunately, it's relatively easy and cheap to move to another street, but in most cases nothing changes. The residents claim they know the order, but when anyone comes to visit from out of town, they are confused and quickly lost, since most of the streets look the same anyway. Every 18 months or so, many of the residents bulldoze their entire home and replace it. They look down on those who don't. If someone hasn't bought a house recently enough, the developer won't even bring over new furniture, and the street cleaner begins skipping their house. All the cars a elegant and beautiful works of glass, wrapped in large, often gaudy rubber bumpers. Some people even cover their entire car in a bumper (except the windshield, which gets a gummy sticker). Early buyers of the glass car need the bumpers to cover a hole where fuel leaks out, but for most, it's because the glass cars might shatter. But all the residents of the Orchard are happy. They're a bit stuck up about how much their homes cost, despite that most people living in the "other" complex could easily afford it. They write long missives in their local paper about how bad it is to live in the other community, how they "just don't get it". They believe the home that suited them is clearly the best choice for everyone, even businesses. The talk with pride about how much money their Developer makes, even bragging that he has the highest margins in the industry, and wear their credit card debt as a badge of pride. To everyone else, they're an odd but mostly harmless group. But in their echo chamber, they're the smartest, most progressive, most intelligent and affluent people in the world, for whom the defining characteristic of their life is who they bought their house from. And somewhere, off in the hills, the Unix monastery (which designed and constructed much of the infrastructure for the Orchard, free of charge, for the betterment of everyone) lives in hand-built homes, constantly adjusted and tailored to their needs and whims, and occasionally stripped down to the foundation and rebuilt just for fun.

xm1994 15y ago

How about living in a chrome house? The Developer would just sneak in while I sleep and update everything without asking. The downside is it would consist of just one living area. If I were need any specialized rooms like a bathroom or kitchen they just attach one temporarily and charge me by the hour!

ciupinet 15y ago

In the late 90s and early 2000s operating systems were compared with airlines, in a humorous manner: http://www.webaugur.com/bazaar/53-what-if-operating-systems-were-airlines.html http://www.webaugur.com/bazaar/53-what-if-operating-systems-.... Now it seems that the comparisons have become more serious than that. I'm using Unix/Linux every day, and I don't feel like I'm living in a monastery.

danderson00 15y ago

This theme has been done so many times, it is not even funny any more. Buggered if I'm going back to House XP, because House 7 shits all over it. Stop being a Luddite and resisting progress, get used to things changing, it is inevitable. Windows rocks.