I'm a geek myself, but I absolutely hate this attitude that geeks are automatically superior to laypeople.

"lusers"

"LART"

"BOFH"

Absolutely disgusting attitude.

I just had to unfollow @nixcraft on Twitter.

Well, this character limit on Twitter is really working out nicely

@DragonLord The part about "idiot-friendly" is especially inflammatory, but I don't see a problem with them stating the fact that it is not "ignorant-friendly". It's actually pretty true. If you are ignorant of the commands on a UNIX-like OS, and you're sat down at a terminal, and don't know what commands to type to discover the commands, you're going to be pretty lost and frustrated, pretty fast.

If you're not familiar with conventions like command-line arguments, quoting string literals with special characters, shell scripting, the locations of files, the syntax of file paths, etc., you're going to be in for a world of hurt.

These are ignorance-related issues that have nothing to do with stupidity. An extremely smart person could be completely ignorant about UNIX-like systems. That doesn't make them an inferior or bad person; it just means they will need to educate themselves before trying to dive into UNIX or a similar OS.

geek.com/apps/…

PC makers are desperate to make every last dollar they can in a market that is sinking fast. This is a really bad omen for the whole PC market.

The problem is that some people try to dive right in anyway without any of the prerequisite knowledge, and then try to rely on other people to spoon-feed them the information they need to get done what they need - effectively getting another person to do their thinking for them.

hey guys, are you familiar with google hangouts on air?

is there a way to get the audio from my pc to be streamed without picking it up via my mic?

@Deep software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm

ah, forgot to specify: I'm on Chrome OS, nd can't install any programs.

zdnet.com/article/…

PC manufacturers are trying in vain to save a sinking ship. The traditional PC is a dying breed and it's only a matter of time before it disappears altogether.

@Deep then most likely no; that's about the least-customizable OS that exists

dangit.

Remember that crapware is $$$ for PC manufacturers, and the margins are likely to be mere dollars on a $1000 machine at this point.

Also, when I stream using hangouts on air, if my mouse stays still for a while, the stream stops displaying my screencast and instead displays my avater. is there a way I can turn this functionality off?

...making crapware one of the last ways PC manufacturers have a reasonable shot to turn a profit, save for upmarket "premium" PCs.

It's sad...

The economy is not helping.

The PC market is utter crap.

Heh. Most people get why that is wrong IMO.

For most people the modern PC is an appliance

They're reliable enough that you're going to buy a cheapish model, run it till it breaks, then replace it, and obsolence is more obsolete than it used to be.

Which is the real reason volumes are down to me, not tablets or phones, which are complimentary products.

Went on a rant a few hours ago.

@DragonLord: More, I'm a geek, so upgrading the system is the point sometimes.

In anger, I unfollowed nixCraft.

Now? I talked coworkers through using yum at work ;p

Geeks have their place. What is *not* justified is lashing out at users who don't understand how their computers work.

It's frustrating, yes.

But it's not an acceptable attitude to hate ordinary, everyday computer users.

erm.

Helping users dealing with trouble with their computers is precisely why I'm here on Super User.

Is that related to what I said or something else? ;p

Not everyone knows how to do maintenance or administrative activities on their PCs. That's okay.

Cause I don't see referring to most users having a PC as an appliance is being hateful towards average people. Its more a testiment to the longer effective and physical lifespans of a PC

Nope. I'd be out of a job if they were ;p

Yeah, the replacement lifecycle of PCs is much longer than before for ordinary users.

yup

and a good enough PC is cheap

When my dad comes around to an upgrade cycle, I don't see myself spending more than ~300usd