Quotes from the office

There is this fun side to working in the office – you get to listen to all those small talks, little arguments and what not. Here are some quotes from the recent discussions. I’ll remove the names to protect the innocent.

– I don’t like football!
– What do you mean you don’t like football? How is that even possible for you not to like football. You do.
– No I don’t!
– Even you kid loves football. Look at his pictures, he’s always with the ball and in football clothes…
– Dude, the kid is just a couple of years old. He doesn’t know what he likes and what he doesn’t. He’ll play with whatever you throw at him…

– If I remember correctly, you were married and now you are divorced, right?
– Yes. I was married twice.
– Some people… they never learn…

– Are you going to eat with us?
– I’m on a diet.
– Again?!!
– Still…

– What are you planning to do then?
– I will be a teacher in the public school.
– Teaching what?
– Computers.
– Listen, if I will ever know that you are teaching computers in school, I’ll come over and personally kill you.
– Why? You think I am alone like this? Other teachers aren’t much better anyway.
– I don’t care. I warned you. And you know what?
– What?
– I don’t have a limit of killing just one person. If there is more like you, I’ll take care of all of you…

A blessing and a curse

Quoting comment in Slashdot discussion:

The truth is both a blessing and a curse. It takes a lot of work to realize the truth and most people will not challenge themselves. Once you learn the truth, however, you are cursed with trying to explain it to others.

This clearly explains the high density of Open Source advocates, as well as many experiences of my own.

By the way -  happy birthday, Open Source!

On predictive text

Here is a funny quote from the comment on predictive text (think: T9) in the discussion about Android and mobile devices on Slashdot:

Predictive text helps a bit but sometimes it gets things so ducking wrong that I am sure the people who program it are a deliberately unhelpful bunch of ducking aunts.

Maybe I should adopt some sort of predictive text plugin for WordPress for those times when I feel like swearing…

On years of experience

Caught this excellent quote in gaping void post:

A lot of people in business say they have twenty years experience, when in fact all the really have is one year’s experience, repeated twenty times.

Well said, indeed. I’m working with computers for 15 years or so.  I’d say I have only about five years of experience with these damn things.

On the battles of the software industry

Here is a quote from Scott Rosenberg’s insightful post, titled “Clash of titanic business-press cliches”  (emphasis is mine):

Are Microsoft and Google in conflict? Of course. They have fundamentally different visions of where computing’s headed — visions that the Times article, by Steve Lohr and Miguel Helft, ably lays out. But it’s not as if they are feudal fiefdoms fighting over some fixed patch of ground. Their conflict will play out as each company builds its next generation of software and services, and the next one after that, and people make choices about what to buy and what to use.

Those choices are the key to the outcome. In a battle, civilians are mostly bystanders or casualties. In the software business, civilians — users — determine who wins.