Name: Anonymous 2008-12-09 7:57
Hay /prog/!
I've got a gift for you.
It's a small list of a few of the incredibly stupid things my father has said about computers, etc. Originally I just wrote it for therapeutic reasons, writing it down makes me rage a lot less; I thought that it would be selfish to keep it all to myself though (however I have posted other parts of it in the past), so I figured I would share it with you.
A little background(this isn't all that important, so feel free to skip): I'm a software dev professional that also has CCNP level networking knowledge among other things; however, my father is a computer hobbyist who just happens to be one of those types of people who pretends to know everything when they really know nothing. No matter what you say, no matter who you are, he is always right and he always knows everything. You've probably met one of these people before and know just how rage inducing they are.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy it; let's start:
-His crowning achievement is teaching himself to use Microsoft Front Page; there is nothing that anyone else can ever do that will be harder and more glorious than this. (yes, Microsoft Front Page; not HTML)
-He claims that creating a PGP key is so hard that only he and a handful of other 1337 haxors are able to do it.
-He claims that linux users ALL write code in pure binary (they open notepad up and type 010101010101001001...).
-He claims that it is impossible to do any kind of programming using any language except on linux.
-When informed that you can actually program on platforms other than linux, he just said “oh, but the languages on non-linux platforms are really bloated!”. He also said that C is a useless language (I suppose that's because he thinks linux was written in binary).
-For years he always talked about how linux is the best OS EVAR! he had never used it however, and would just spout some lame excuse whenever I pointed that out to him. When I got sick of it and gave him an ubanto CD; he used it for about two weeks, at which point he reinstalled windows and said “oh, there was a driver problem. linux doesn't work on my computer”.
-Another time he tried using linux, a long long time ago (sometime in the 90's), but he gave up quickly when he was greeted with a CLI after installation. How the hell do they expect him to be able to do anything if there isn't a nice GUI to look at? when I asked him about it, he said........ “driver problems” (ofcourse).
-He hangs around with teenagers and other deluded tinfoil hats online who think they are the final bosses of the internet (akin to how /b/ thinks it's full of super hackers). He actually told me once “i'm part of the inner circle of the internet. The fbi would give ANYTHING to be able to catch us”.
-One of my hard drives was broken when my computer fell on the floor and was completely beyond repair; he claimed that he knows the smartest guy on the internet, and that this guy made a program that can fix it (I wonder if this guy has a program that can fix fried PSUs, I've got a bunch of them in a box & it would save me a lot of money).
-He was given a VPN connection by some website he subscribed to. He claimed that this meant he had a PHYSICAL private network (I suppose he didn't even bother looking up what the acronym VPN stood for before bragging about it).
-Hiz ovar 50 but he typzors leik a 10 yarold skript kiddy.
-He thinks his default settings firewall/router keeps him safe from everything and anything!
-When I was young (can't remember exactly how old, probably 12 or something), I wanted to play online games (neopets motherfucker!); this required him to allow his browser to accept cookies. He spent the whole time complaining about how “his penis was flapping in the wind” and how “the cia was probably hacking his box as we speak”.
-He told me multiple times that the FBI was probably breaking into his house when he wasn't home and putting a keylogger on his computer so they could spy on him(I suppose he thinks they must be REALLY cracking down on people who download movies from torrents).
-He claims that Intel CPUs all have spyware in them (because Intel is american. facepalm.jpg).
-Actually, come to think of it, he pretty much claims that everything has spyware in it (except linux and other open sores stuff).
-Because Intel is american, he makes a point to only ever buy AMD (AMD is also american, but he thinks that they're chinese for some unknown reason).
-Whenever anyone has any kind of computer problems (both software or hardware) and they are unlucky enough to have him find out, he will immediately push them out of the way and looks through their computer's BIOS (I suppose he thinks that this makes him look smart or something). Windows crashed? Let me look in the BIOS! Your modem isn't getting a dial tone? Let me look in the BIOS! The printer has no power? Fuck looking if it's plugged in or not, let me look in the BIOS!
Once he is finished looking through the BIOS, he will tell you that you need to format your computer and reinstall windows.
-He was bragging that “the really super elite hackers can include messages when they hack you!”. After thinking about what he has said for a while, I figured out what he meant; he was talking about those DoS tools that let you include a message inside the DoS packets' payload (DoSing is teh super 1337, you know?).
-Over 9000 years ago last thursday, I asked him how to hack (I was young, about 13, stupid and didn't know anything about computers at the time); he told me “you need to learn how to use a (windows) computer without a mouse! And without a monitor!”. He then preceded to teach me how to use basic command line commands such as “dir” and “cd” telling me that if a folder has security on it (such as encryption), accessing the folder through the command line completely bypasses ALL security measures......
-When trying to explain the concept of photographic metadata to him, he completely misunderstood me and said “oh? really? I knew it!! I've been suspecting for a while now that the FBI makes cameras include special pixels so they can track you”. No matter how hard I tried to explain it, he simply ignored me and kept talking about how the FBI are watching everyone and spending all their time decoding the secret pixels in his photos.
-He said that NAT is a security feature and is also really annoying because he keeps needing to reconfigure it (NAT is done on his router 100% transparently with no user interaction what so ever.).
-He claims that on linux and windows 95 you were able to choose your own IP address; while true, he has absolutely no idea what a private IP address is and thought it meant that he could choose his own global IP address. He claims that they took this feature out because the FBI couldn't track people who chose their own IP.
-It's much safer to never update your OS. Windows updates all contain spyware and open backdoors in your computer so bill gates can hack you, then read your email and browse your porn folder; didn't you know? Not only that, but if you DO update your OS, it's much safer to download patches, service packs, etc from torrent websites and the like – NEVER download service packs or patches from Microsoft.
-Given the choice between a legitimate copy of windows and one posted on a random torrent website by a completely anonymous cracker, he will choose the latter; this is because Microsoft is much more likely to include a rootkit than a anonymous person off the internet (I suppose he thinks Microsoft is so rich because they steal everybody's credit card details).
-he said that linux users dislike ubuntu because ubuntu sell linux for profit.
-he bought me a “top of the range, super quality, $250 keyboard and mouse combo” for my birthday one year; I saw the exact same combo being sold in a shop for $30 (I'm amazed he actually thought I would believe him).
-he said the pirate bay is run by the FBI.
-he thinks that the people who own the internet proxies he makes use of would rather go to prison than tell the partyvan what his IP address is.
-he complained the a local university was getting 12Gbps internet, but he couldn't get it at his house. I suppose he doesn't realize his shitty computer wouldn't be able to handle anything near a 12Gbps data stream.
-He considers himself a “visionary”; however, he has NEVER come up with an original idea in his life, he just talks about crap he's seen on science fiction shows, pretending that he came up with the idea and that he's really creative and smart.
I've got a gift for you.
It's a small list of a few of the incredibly stupid things my father has said about computers, etc. Originally I just wrote it for therapeutic reasons, writing it down makes me rage a lot less; I thought that it would be selfish to keep it all to myself though (however I have posted other parts of it in the past), so I figured I would share it with you.
A little background(this isn't all that important, so feel free to skip): I'm a software dev professional that also has CCNP level networking knowledge among other things; however, my father is a computer hobbyist who just happens to be one of those types of people who pretends to know everything when they really know nothing. No matter what you say, no matter who you are, he is always right and he always knows everything. You've probably met one of these people before and know just how rage inducing they are.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy it; let's start:
-His crowning achievement is teaching himself to use Microsoft Front Page; there is nothing that anyone else can ever do that will be harder and more glorious than this. (yes, Microsoft Front Page; not HTML)
-He claims that creating a PGP key is so hard that only he and a handful of other 1337 haxors are able to do it.
-He claims that linux users ALL write code in pure binary (they open notepad up and type 010101010101001001...).
-He claims that it is impossible to do any kind of programming using any language except on linux.
-When informed that you can actually program on platforms other than linux, he just said “oh, but the languages on non-linux platforms are really bloated!”. He also said that C is a useless language (I suppose that's because he thinks linux was written in binary).
-For years he always talked about how linux is the best OS EVAR! he had never used it however, and would just spout some lame excuse whenever I pointed that out to him. When I got sick of it and gave him an ubanto CD; he used it for about two weeks, at which point he reinstalled windows and said “oh, there was a driver problem. linux doesn't work on my computer”.
-Another time he tried using linux, a long long time ago (sometime in the 90's), but he gave up quickly when he was greeted with a CLI after installation. How the hell do they expect him to be able to do anything if there isn't a nice GUI to look at? when I asked him about it, he said........ “driver problems” (ofcourse).
-He hangs around with teenagers and other deluded tinfoil hats online who think they are the final bosses of the internet (akin to how /b/ thinks it's full of super hackers). He actually told me once “i'm part of the inner circle of the internet. The fbi would give ANYTHING to be able to catch us”.
-One of my hard drives was broken when my computer fell on the floor and was completely beyond repair; he claimed that he knows the smartest guy on the internet, and that this guy made a program that can fix it (I wonder if this guy has a program that can fix fried PSUs, I've got a bunch of them in a box & it would save me a lot of money).
-He was given a VPN connection by some website he subscribed to. He claimed that this meant he had a PHYSICAL private network (I suppose he didn't even bother looking up what the acronym VPN stood for before bragging about it).
-Hiz ovar 50 but he typzors leik a 10 yarold skript kiddy.
-He thinks his default settings firewall/router keeps him safe from everything and anything!
-When I was young (can't remember exactly how old, probably 12 or something), I wanted to play online games (neopets motherfucker!); this required him to allow his browser to accept cookies. He spent the whole time complaining about how “his penis was flapping in the wind” and how “the cia was probably hacking his box as we speak”.
-He told me multiple times that the FBI was probably breaking into his house when he wasn't home and putting a keylogger on his computer so they could spy on him(I suppose he thinks they must be REALLY cracking down on people who download movies from torrents).
-He claims that Intel CPUs all have spyware in them (because Intel is american. facepalm.jpg).
-Actually, come to think of it, he pretty much claims that everything has spyware in it (except linux and other open sores stuff).
-Because Intel is american, he makes a point to only ever buy AMD (AMD is also american, but he thinks that they're chinese for some unknown reason).
-Whenever anyone has any kind of computer problems (both software or hardware) and they are unlucky enough to have him find out, he will immediately push them out of the way and looks through their computer's BIOS (I suppose he thinks that this makes him look smart or something). Windows crashed? Let me look in the BIOS! Your modem isn't getting a dial tone? Let me look in the BIOS! The printer has no power? Fuck looking if it's plugged in or not, let me look in the BIOS!
Once he is finished looking through the BIOS, he will tell you that you need to format your computer and reinstall windows.
-He was bragging that “the really super elite hackers can include messages when they hack you!”. After thinking about what he has said for a while, I figured out what he meant; he was talking about those DoS tools that let you include a message inside the DoS packets' payload (DoSing is teh super 1337, you know?).
-Over 9000 years ago last thursday, I asked him how to hack (I was young, about 13, stupid and didn't know anything about computers at the time); he told me “you need to learn how to use a (windows) computer without a mouse! And without a monitor!”. He then preceded to teach me how to use basic command line commands such as “dir” and “cd” telling me that if a folder has security on it (such as encryption), accessing the folder through the command line completely bypasses ALL security measures......
-When trying to explain the concept of photographic metadata to him, he completely misunderstood me and said “oh? really? I knew it!! I've been suspecting for a while now that the FBI makes cameras include special pixels so they can track you”. No matter how hard I tried to explain it, he simply ignored me and kept talking about how the FBI are watching everyone and spending all their time decoding the secret pixels in his photos.
-He said that NAT is a security feature and is also really annoying because he keeps needing to reconfigure it (NAT is done on his router 100% transparently with no user interaction what so ever.).
-He claims that on linux and windows 95 you were able to choose your own IP address; while true, he has absolutely no idea what a private IP address is and thought it meant that he could choose his own global IP address. He claims that they took this feature out because the FBI couldn't track people who chose their own IP.
-It's much safer to never update your OS. Windows updates all contain spyware and open backdoors in your computer so bill gates can hack you, then read your email and browse your porn folder; didn't you know? Not only that, but if you DO update your OS, it's much safer to download patches, service packs, etc from torrent websites and the like – NEVER download service packs or patches from Microsoft.
-Given the choice between a legitimate copy of windows and one posted on a random torrent website by a completely anonymous cracker, he will choose the latter; this is because Microsoft is much more likely to include a rootkit than a anonymous person off the internet (I suppose he thinks Microsoft is so rich because they steal everybody's credit card details).
-he said that linux users dislike ubuntu because ubuntu sell linux for profit.
-he bought me a “top of the range, super quality, $250 keyboard and mouse combo” for my birthday one year; I saw the exact same combo being sold in a shop for $30 (I'm amazed he actually thought I would believe him).
-he said the pirate bay is run by the FBI.
-he thinks that the people who own the internet proxies he makes use of would rather go to prison than tell the partyvan what his IP address is.
-he complained the a local university was getting 12Gbps internet, but he couldn't get it at his house. I suppose he doesn't realize his shitty computer wouldn't be able to handle anything near a 12Gbps data stream.
-He considers himself a “visionary”; however, he has NEVER come up with an original idea in his life, he just talks about crap he's seen on science fiction shows, pretending that he came up with the idea and that he's really creative and smart.