• Barthak (unregistered)

    Mallrats reference +1

  • (cs)

    “Can you frist it?” Nicholas asked.

    Alexander looked at the first comment. “No.”

  • Grzechooo (unregistered)

    Moral: Ain't no fool foolish enough for God to create better.

  • (cs)

    Lightening is electricity. Computers work on electricity. Electricity flows through wires. By greasing the pins, you effectively get greased lightening. That's what makes the PC so fast!

  • Smug Unix User (unregistered)

    Nepotism is great for removing qualified people and injecting your own loyalists to build your fiefdom. It is sad, but often profitable.

  • stinkiemcslimey (unregistered)

    i wish to complain about a sudden case of unicorninitis.

  • (cs)

    First mistake from Alexander was touching the desktop. Is this story of Alex the site owner?

  • Obvils (unregistered) in reply to Nagesh

    This but I expand. I believe it was the only mistake.

    Sounds like good ol' Nick was very aware of his stupidity and the fact that he disliked Alexander make it pretty obvious that this was a setup.

  • (cs) in reply to stinkiemcslimey
    stinkiemcslimey:
    i wish to complain about a sudden case of unicorninitis.
    Nah, that's normal round here. The clue is the appearance of the words "Remy Porter" in the byline.
  • CaptainCorrection (unregistered) in reply to snoofle

    Greetings. "Lightening is electricity" No, "lightening" is the act of making something lighter. You mean "lightning". Thank you! Captain Correction

  • GEoff (unregistered)

    Can you fix it?

    The correct answer, is yes, absolutely it can be fixed. We'll simply need to purchase a new CPU and a new Motherboard. Once we replace those components it'll work like a champ.

  • monsterzero (unregistered)

    I feel sorry for Nicholas' girlfriend (or boyfriend).

  • Joao Reis (unregistered) in reply to monsterzero
    monsterzero:
    I feel sorry for Nicholas' girlfriend (or boyfriend).

    Like greasing when is not needed!

    Sorry folks, was very hard not to...

    Cheers!

  • (cs) in reply to monsterzero
    monsterzero:
    I feel sorry for Nicholas' girlfriend (or boyfriend).
    Nicholas looked expectantly at his urologist. "Can it be fixed?" he asked.
  • (cs)

    Most people these days buy computers pre-assembled; but I remember the old days when you built your own. I can totally believe this story. I wish, for once, that the competent guy in the story comes out on top. It seems that most of the stories of this ilk have the one guy who knows what he's doing, gets the blame then gets the boot.

  • urza9814 (unregistered)

    Reminds me of a friend of mine who, when building his first computer, couldn't figure out what those little riser screws with the motherboard were for, so he just screwed the thing directly to the steel case...shorting out EVERYTHING and frying his motherboard.

    Not that I was totally absent of stupid mistakes when I started building PCs...like when I discovered that, when shutting it down for a quick repair, if you get impatient and pull the CD drive power connector out too early the blue sparks look quite pretty inside the molex connector... unfortunately it also fried one of the IDE controllers...no big loss though, the motherboard was some cheap Chinese garbage, no more than $50...

  • Well (unregistered)
    The computer was broken, and Alexander was the last person to touch it... Threats of unemployement flowed freely... There was a note from his old boss. A new position had opened up, and he wanted Alexander to apply.
    So? Don't leave us in suspense like that!! What did he do?
  • (cs)

    I would laugh if I haven't seen this before, except this guy used the thermal on EVERY SOCKET he found:

    AGP (video card fucked) PCI (USB card fucked) CPU (fucked) RAM (fucked all four 500MB DIMM's)

    He thought that it would protect all components from heat.

    Man, I laughed and cried so hard.

  • RRR (unregistered)

    Well, this one actually had a happy ending for a change.

  • (cs) in reply to DrPepper
    DrPepper:
    but I remember the old days when you built your own.
    So the "old days" were less than two years ago? That's when I last built a PC, two of them in fact, for home use. The last time I *bought* a PC was 2000 if you insist on counting laptops, or 1997 for desktop type machines.

    Now I'm going to go off and cry, because I feel old.

  • (cs) in reply to ubersoldat
    ubersoldat:
    I would laugh if I haven't seen this before, except this guy used the thermal on EVERY SOCKET he found:

    AGP (video card fucked) PCI (USB card fucked) CPU (fucked) RAM (fucked all four 500MB DIMM's)

    He thought that it would protect all components from heat.

    Man, I laughed and cried so hard.

    You know that thermal paste is actually a good thermal insulator, right? You use it to make sure that there aren't air spaces between the CPU and the heatsink, because those air spaces are an even better insulator.

  • doctor_of_ineptitude (unregistered) in reply to Well
    Well:
    The computer was broken, and Alexander was the last person to touch it... Threats of unemployement flowed freely... There was a note from his old boss. A new position had opened up, and he wanted Alexander to apply.
    So? Don't leave us in suspense like that!! What did he do?

    You already know what he did. He ranted it off here.

  • (cs) in reply to monsterzero
    monsterzero:
    I feel sorry for Nicholas' girlfriend (or boyfriend).

    But we've already learned he probably still lives with his mother.

    Someone say Dunning-Kruger?

  • Mr.Bob (unregistered)

    Ha ha! Everyone laugh at those whose areas of expertise do not exactly match our own, because they're hopeless morons! Ha ha!

    Alexander had the chance to mold a new boss and develop major points by taking him under his wing and give him technical training, and he instead chose to throw it away by sighing and rolling his eyes every time the new boss asked for help... is that the real WTF?

  • (cs) in reply to Mr.Bob
    Mr.Bob:
    Ha ha! Everyone laugh at those whose areas of expertise do not exactly match our own, because they're hopeless morons! Ha ha!

    Alexander had the chance to mold a new boss and develop major points by taking him under his wing and give him technical training, and he instead chose to throw it away by sighing and rolling his eyes every time the new boss asked for help... is that the real WTF?

    In my experience, you can't help a self-professed expert, certainly not when he's your superior and a blood relative to someone much higher up the corporate ladder. Ego will always prevail.

  • (cs) in reply to Mr.Bob
    Mr.Bob:
    Ha ha! Everyone laugh at those whose areas of expertise do not exactly match our own, because they're hopeless morons! Ha ha!

    Alexander had the chance to mold a new boss and develop major points by taking him under his wing and give him technical training, and he instead chose to throw it away by sighing and rolling his eyes every time the new boss asked for help... is that the real WTF?

    Have you ever worked in a small-or-medium privately-owned company. Above poster is right; there is no changing these type of people.

    Had an IT Manager at my last place who panicked when the files were in the wrong order in a Windows Explorer FTP site browser instance. No nepotism there, though, so I'm not sure how she got the job.

  • Stark_ (unregistered) in reply to DrPepper

    You don't get it, the good guy did come out on top. What you don't realize is that Alex's old boss probably left because the executives he reported to were intolerable. Alex likely never knew because his boss was just that good at dealing with shit and not passing it along. If Alex had been promoted, he probably would have been shit on but felt too achieved to leave.

  • Peter (unregistered) in reply to Steve The Cynic
    Steve The Cynic:
    ubersoldat:
    I would laugh if I haven't seen this before, except this guy used the thermal on EVERY SOCKET he found:

    AGP (video card fucked) PCI (USB card fucked) CPU (fucked) RAM (fucked all four 500MB DIMM's)

    He thought that it would protect all components from heat.

    Man, I laughed and cried so hard.

    You know that thermal paste is actually a good thermal insulator, right? You use it to make sure that there aren't air spaces between the CPU and the heatsink, because those air spaces are an even better insulator.

    Some of the more exotic "Arctic Silver Ice" thermal compounds are electrically conductive, making for even more fun. I suppose the .1 degC/Watt is worth the extra hassle. I just use the good ol' white stuff that doesn't come off your clothing...

  • Elron the Fantastic (unregistered) in reply to Mr.Bob
    Mr.Bob:
    Ha ha! Everyone laugh at those whose areas of expertise do not exactly match our own, because they're hopeless morons! Ha ha!

    Alexander had the chance to mold a new boss and develop major points by taking him under his wing and give him technical training, and he instead chose to throw it away by sighing and rolling his eyes every time the new boss asked for help... is that the real WTF?

    Obvious troll is obvious. In any case, perhaps he should have simply brought the computer to the owner in question and demonstrated the issue himself. There's no reason that the jackass manager should have been the first one to talk to the boss.

  • (cs) in reply to ubersoldat
    ubersoldat:
    I would laugh if I haven't seen this before, except this guy used the thermal on EVERY SOCKET he found:

    AGP (video card fucked) PCI (USB card fucked) CPU (fucked) RAM (fucked all four 500MB DIMM's)

    He thought that it would protect all components from heat.

    Man, I laughed and cried so hard.

    And then he went to work for NASA...

  • (cs) in reply to Elron the Fantastic
    Elron the Fantastic:
    In any case, perhaps he should have simply brought the computer to the owner in question and demonstrated the issue himself. There's no reason that the jackass manager should have been the first one to talk to the boss.
    Yea, I know. That is what duck tape is good for.
  • fjf (unregistered) in reply to urza9814
    urza9814:
    Reminds me of a friend of mine who, when building his first computer, couldn't figure out what those little riser screws with the motherboard were for, so he just screwed the thing directly to the steel case...shorting out EVERYTHING and frying his motherboard.

    Not that I was totally absent of stupid mistakes when I started building PCs...like when I discovered that, when shutting it down for a quick repair, if you get impatient and pull the CD drive power connector out too early the blue sparks look quite pretty inside the molex connector... unfortunately it also fried one of the IDE controllers...no big loss though, the motherboard was some cheap Chinese garbage, no more than $50...

    Oh, it's PC assembly story time ...

    In the 1990s I assembled a machine together with a friend. There were two ways the power supply plugs (AT) would fit and two ways the CPU would fit. We didn't have any manuals, but fortunately he was quite sure which way to put the power and I how to place the CPU. Needless to say, we got it right on our 4th attempt, but to our surprise, it still worked.

  • (cs) in reply to snoofle
    snoofle:
    Lightening is electricity. Computers work on electricity. Electricity flows through wires. By greasing the pins, you effectively get greased lightening. That's what makes the PC so fast!
    Lightening is a women getting close to going into labor. Lightning is electricity. But then again, most women approaching lightening would love a method of speeding up the remainder of the process.
  • (cs) in reply to Mr.Bob
    Mr.Bob:
    Ha ha! Everyone laugh at those whose areas of expertise do not exactly match our own, because they're hopeless morons! Ha ha!

    Alexander had the chance to mold a new boss and develop major points by taking him under his wing and give him technical training, and he instead chose to throw it away by sighing and rolling his eyes every time the new boss asked for help... is that the real WTF?

    Nope, it's not the real WTF. The real WTF is someone like that getting a position through the wonders of family ties.

    Also, Nicholas seems to be the kind of person who knows better than seasoned gurus because he managed to plug the correct cable into the correct socket after a few tries and won't admit the horrible, horrible truth, that if it hadn't been for the wonders of nepotism he'd be assembling burgers at your local McDonald's at best. Please reread the text, Nicholas wasn't a smart person that could be instructed by someone, he was an ass. Upper management material.

  • A developer (unregistered)

    I'm sure Alexander learned a valuable lesson from this experience... Make sure the blame falls onto the right person who fucked it up. I would have not touched it until the idiot owner came over and I showed him EXACTLY what his moronic cousin did. After that if he blamed me I would tlel him to go fuck himself.

  • Duke Nukem (unregistered) in reply to Manni_reloaded

    I attended a relatively technical school (How to Run a Nuclear Reactor in 4200 easy steps). Several people at the school were the smartest people in the world. They told me so themselves. The laughter echoing down the halls when they failed out made jet engines seem like kittens purring.

  • Cyn (unregistered) in reply to DrPepper
    DrPepper:
    Most people these days buy computers pre-assembled; but I remember the old days when you built your own. I can totally believe this story. I wish, for once, that the competent guy in the story comes out on top. It seems that most of the stories of this ilk have the one guy who knows what he's doing, gets the blame then gets the boot.

    I think you're looking for www.thedailyandeveryonelivedhappilyeverafter.com

  • (cs)

    That reminds me of a friend of mine, that bought a brand new shiny AGP video card, back when AGP was all the rage. So he called me that he put it on, but it didn't work. I went to check what his problem was and, lo and behold, his mainboard didn't have AGP slots. Only PCI. Nevertheless he had somehow managed to insert it.

    "How. Did. You. Insert. That. Card. There." was all I could say "Well... it was kinda hard and I had to use a hammer, but I finally got it in. Is that the problem?"

    Anyway, we had to throw away the brand new shiny AGP card, and this PCI slot didn't work any more, but curiously everything else was fine, and he got to use that PC for at least a year more.

  • (cs) in reply to Steve The Cynic
    Steve The Cynic:
    DrPepper:
    but I remember the old days when you built your own.
    So the "old days" were less than two years ago? That's when I last built a PC, two of them in fact, for home use. The last time I *bought* a PC was 2000 if you insist on counting laptops, or 1997 for desktop type machines.

    Now I'm going to go off and cry, because I feel old.

    I don't feel old, and I still build my own computers. In fact, I've never bought a prebuilt desktop system. (Laptops, sure, because you can't really build those. But my first desktop PC and every one after that has been one I built. They work better that way. No crapware, etc.)

  • Sanhadrin (unregistered) in reply to Steve The Cynic
    Steve The Cynic:
    ubersoldat:
    I would laugh if I haven't seen this before, except this guy used the thermal on EVERY SOCKET he found:

    AGP (video card fucked) PCI (USB card fucked) CPU (fucked) RAM (fucked all four 500MB DIMM's)

    He thought that it would protect all components from heat.

    Man, I laughed and cried so hard.

    You know that thermal paste is actually a good thermal insulator, right? You use it to make sure that there aren't air spaces between the CPU and the heatsink, because those air spaces are an even better insulator.

    Uh, graphics cards and RAM don't heat up because of signal voltage (unless you want to get pedantic). They heat up because components on them generate heat. Thermal paste could be a perfect insulator, and it wouldn't protect components from heating up.

  • (cs) in reply to Mason Wheeler
    Mason Wheeler:
    I don't feel old, and I still build my own computers. In fact, I've never *bought* a prebuilt desktop system. (Laptops, sure, because you can't really build those. But my first desktop PC and every one after that has been one I built. They work better that way. No crapware, etc.)

    Same here. It's so easy to build one if you know what you're doing, and live within 100 miles of a Frys.

  • (cs) in reply to Steve The Cynic
    Steve The Cynic:
    ubersoldat:
    I would laugh if I haven't seen this before, except this guy used the thermal on EVERY SOCKET he found:

    AGP (video card fucked) PCI (USB card fucked) CPU (fucked) RAM (fucked all four 500MB DIMM's)

    He thought that it would protect all components from heat.

    Man, I laughed and cried so hard.

    You know that thermal paste is actually a good thermal insulator, right? You use it to make sure that there aren't air spaces between the CPU and the heatsink, because those air spaces are an even better insulator.

    This guy did put the thermal between the CPU and the heatsink. The problem is he also put it on every single port he could find in the motherboard, including (as it happened to the poster) to the CPU socket.

    And no, this is not a good idea.

  • (cs)

    Ahhh, nepotism...

    While you will often get the "relative of the boss" who is a know-it-all, it is worse when the "relative of the boss" actually DOES know more than the boss. Then the "relative of the boss" has a difficult time persuading the boss that there ARE better ways of doing things.

    Yes, there are bosses who won't even listen to their relatives. Usually the argument turns to something like "but that is the way I've always done it". Insert in your minds eye, the putting of a printout on the wooden desk and taking a picture of it then OCRing it to get it back into a spreadsheet (or something similar).

    Been there, done that (SIGH). He is still a pretty good brother!

  • (cs) in reply to Callin
    Callin:
    “Can you frist it?” Nicholas asked.

    Alexander looked at the first comment. “No.”

    The accumulated grease of all their CPUs and sockets will foam up on their fingers and all the cousins and bosses will look up and shout "Fix it!"... and I'll look down and whisper "No."

  • Old Fart (unregistered) in reply to A developer
    A developer:
    I'm sure Alexander learned a valuable lesson from this experience... Make sure the blame falls onto the right person who fucked it up. I would have not touched it until the idiot owner came over and I showed him EXACTLY what his moronic cousin did. After that if he blamed me I would tlel him to go fuck himself.

    You don't know what the problem is until you look at it, so you can't "show" the idiot owner anything until AFTER you touched the machine.

    Let's say you are psychic: You realize what happened without touching it. The idiot owner would not have come to look at the computer. He would have told you "do what your supervisor tells you, or you're fired".

    Let's say you are psychic and very persuasive. The idiot owner comes over, does not know what he is looking at, and says "get back to work".

    And in any scenario where you tell the idiot owner to go fuck himself, you get fired anyway.

    Alexander was screwed no matter what.

  • eric76 (unregistered) in reply to herby
    herby:
    Ahhh, nepotism...

    While you will often get the "relative of the boss" who is a know-it-all, it is worse when the "relative of the boss" actually DOES know more than the boss. Then the "relative of the boss" has a difficult time persuading the boss that there ARE better ways of doing things.

    Yes, there are bosses who won't even listen to their relatives. Usually the argument turns to something like "but that is the way I've always done it". Insert in your minds eye, the putting of a printout on the wooden desk and taking a picture of it then OCRing it to get it back into a spreadsheet (or something similar).

    Been there, done that (SIGH). He is still a pretty good brother!

    You sure have that right.

    I work for a family company. My next to the oldest brother was the owner until he passed away. He had some really crazy beliefs.

    For example, since he had read that Macintoshes used ascii, he refused to believe that PCs used ascii. No amount of argument ever convinced him otherwise. He wasn't sure what PC's used, but it sure wasn't ascii.

  • pcfan (unregistered)

    Actually PCs use extended ASCII, not regular ASCII...

  • Martin (unregistered) in reply to pcfan
    pcfan:
    Actually PCs use extended ASCII, not regular ASCII...

    Windows-1252.

    Because ISO-8859-1 is too standardized.

  • Noah (unregistered)

    I wish I had fun computer building stories that went awry, but they've all turned out pretty good. I've been building computers for 16 years, and some people have had them for 8-10 years with no problems (other than technology obsolescence. Building by hand can yield quite a lot higher quality than the factory.

  • the beholder (unregistered) in reply to Mason Wheeler
    Mason Wheeler:
    Steve The Cynic:
    DrPepper:
    but I remember the old days when you built your own.
    So the "old days" were less than two years ago? That's when I last built a PC, two of them in fact, for home use. The last time I *bought* a PC was 2000 if you insist on counting laptops, or 1997 for desktop type machines.

    Now I'm going to go off and cry, because I feel old.

    I don't feel old, and I still build my own computers. In fact, I've never bought a prebuilt desktop system. (Laptops, sure, because you can't really build those. But my first desktop PC and every one after that has been one I built. They work better that way. No crapware, etc.)

    I didn't build my first computer. Instead my father paid one of his friends to do it. It was okay except for my feeling that we paid the price of a Ferrari and received a Prius, but I was only eleven and had zero computer skills back then, so that was alright.

    I didn't build my second computer either. My older brother did it, he was already starting on the field while I was green behind my ears. But time passed and I bought two computers in the last two years. I did all the spec'ing and assemble myself. It is so much cheaper and easy that I see no reason to pay anyone to do it or come up with a very expensive pile of junk, at least until I'm very old (by then I hope my kids will be able to do it for me)

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