You Have Two Cows: OS Edition
Everyone has heard the “You have two cows” economic breakdown. I feel that this can also be applied to Operating systems.
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Atari DOS: You have two cows, if you knew anything about chickens you could get some milk out of the cows. |
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Windows 2000: You have two cows, you have to hunt down for the associated gear for the cows so much that you don’t like doing anything but the basics. Every once and awhile the cows fall asleep and play dead (some stay that way). |
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Windows XP: You have two cows, they are pretty reliable and produce decent milk. Most gear, even the fun stuff, fits on them well. There are hopes that the rancher you bought them from will improve their training for the next cows. |
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OS 9: You have two cows. Your cows are special in so many ways. They are bright colored and don’t warn you when they suddenly decide to take a nap. Their milk isn’t acceptable to so of your clientele. You become embittered against the rancher that sold them to you. |
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Vista: You have two cows, you must sacrifice one to the “gods” to make the other one look pretty. You get milk that no one likes. |
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OS 10.5/Leopard: You have two cows . . . but do you? You’ve refused the cows outright due to being embittered from OS 9 but some respectable ranchers recommend them. You are still skeptical. (Or maybe it is just me.) Oh, and the cows are pretty. |
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Ubuntu: You have two cows. They are exceptionally trained to help pump as much as they can by farmers just like you, but if you aren’t familiar with them, they can be intimidating. Some gear doesn’t fit on them. |
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Embedded Linux: You have one cow. People shouldn’t expect two cows’ worth of milk from one cow. |
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Windows CE: See Windows 2000. |
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Palm OS: You have two cows. They work great and can stay awake. They are so cutting edge that the other farmers don’t understand you. If you feed them, they’ll give you good milk. |
That’s all I have. All trademarks are owned by their respective owners. All the pictures are linked to where I found them!
My Generation
I look forward to the days of my generations’ “Golden years,” where:
- Rap is “Old peoples’” music
- Nursing homes are set up for LAN parties
- One is considered “hard core” for NOT having a tatoo
- Hearing aides have IP addresses and serve a webpage
- One of my generation can look at a young un’ and say “When I was your age, Pluto was a planet!”
- IPv6 is finally implemented
- My generation is judged by a standard that would seem unrealistic today (eg. “You touched a cigarette! How barbaric!”)
- Cursive handwriting is a lost art
- Children don’t know what pennies are
We’ll see what happens! Let me know if I missed any glaring ones!
Tryouts
Every once and awhile I think of funny scenes that would be interesting to see acted out. They strike me as funny, let’s see what you think.
Scene: Tryouts
Several families are lined up outside of a sky scrapper in downtown New York City. All of the families seem unusual in their own ways except for one that is “normal”. Kids are all over but the perfect family’s kids are right near their parents and are looking at other kids parents with a plea in their eyes. As the scene unravels you find out that they are all there to try-out for the next reality tv family series. Arguments erupt between the families over whose family is “exciting” enough to have a whole show devoted to them and the “perfect family” keeps the arguments from getting physically destructive. Lastly, the unusual families turn on the perfect family and all demand what about them would make them special enough to go on television. The scene closes with the line “People are used to the wild and crazy, they’ve never seen normal before.”
Paraprosdokian and Oscar Wilde
Inspired by Firewallender’s post on “Keep Calm and Carry On: The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon“ I feel like I’m getting a little bit of that since I StumbledUpon’d the word Paraprosdokian:
Paraprosdokian: a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe the first part.
I’ve also been reading a bit of Oscar Wilde who uses these quite a bit (and more since I am suffering from the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon). Here are some gems for your reading pleasure:
Nothing is so aggravating as calmness.
~A Woman of No Importance Act II
I love talking about nothing . . . it is the only thing I know anything about.
~An Ideal Husband Act I
Wonderful woman, … talks more and says less than anybody I ever met. She is made to be a public speaker.
~An Ideal Husband Act II
How pale you are looking, Gertrude! It is most becoming!
~An Ideal Husband Act IV
Ah, now-a-days we are all of us so hard up, that the only pleasant thing to pay are compliments.
~Lady Windermere’s Fan Act I
I believe it [marriage] is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young woman.
~Importance of Being Earnest Act I
More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.
~Importance of Being Earnest Act I
To speak frankly, I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s character before marriage, which I think is never advisable.
~Importance of Being Earnest Act III
Needless to say, I’ve been very much enjoying Oscar Wilde. To quote Reading Railroad, “If you can’t take my word for it . . .” check out the book The Best of Oscar Wilde; Selected Plays and Writings.
