
The Smell-O-Vision - douche
http://thedailywtf.com/articles/the-smell-o-vision
======
blkhawk
Well this is typical dailywtf - while amusing most of the stories are massaged
to be more entertaining to such a degree it become unrealistic.

While Windows XP will offer to to do a repair when it gets shutdown suddenly
normally doing that won't cause filesystem corruption or even HARDWARE damage
as is implied in the story.

My guess from the description is that the generator power is probably dirty -
the right fix would have been an online UPS here with an app that shuts the
machine down on power loss.

A second factor might be that the PC was set to start automatically when Power
was applied and while booting up it gets turned off again several times I
think a Windows XP (and windows 7) machine will then ask for user interaction.

You can turn this Function off tho and Windows will ignore power loss after
that.

~~~
thatwebdude
> the right fix would have been an online UPS here with an app that shuts the
> machine down on power loss.

That's my thought.

I've done enough end-user work to know I really should try to avoid all
possible issues relating the user, assuming my work allows a timeline to do
so.

------
vijucat
I find the language off-putting. Calling people who don't understand
technology "grunts", and then "facepalm"-ing repeatedly at their failure to
understand what you are an expert at...I believe this is called "Outgroup
derogation":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingroups_and_outgroups#Outgrou...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingroups_and_outgroups#Outgroup_derogation)

Also see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-
group_homogeneity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity)

Put yourself in the place of that "grunt": would you expect a toaster or a
microwave to be carefully shut down first, or expect it to be just fine when
you turn the power off?

IMHO, if their software is expected to be used in real-world, on-the-road
situations by untrained generalists, then it is the failure of the software
firm to have built resilience as a feature.

To suck at requirements elicitation, suck at UX and then blame the user is not
appropriate, IMHO. Did the "grunt" ask you to choose Windows XP as the vehicle
of choice for your implementation? Ironically, it is exactly this kind of
disconnect with paying customers and fellow humans beings that causes
management to view programmers as the "grunt"-workers.

Sorry for the screed. Summary: UX "R" compassion.

~~~
majewsky
> Calling people who don't understand technology "grunts"

Not a native speaker, but since the customer is the military, "grunt" is
likely not meant derogatory, but just is (quoting Wikipedia) "an infantry man,
in military slang".

The repeated facepalming is clearly outgroup derogation, though. That's just
thedailywtf.com; their articles are always like that. I had them in my feed
reader, but got tired of that writing style eventually.

