John Dvorak is an idiot [Archive] - Quarter To Three Forums

XPav

10-05-2003, 05:51 PM

http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,4148,30,00.asp

IDLE-TIME PROCESS. Once in a while the system will go into an idle mode, requiring from five minutes to half an hour to unwind. It's weird, and I almost always have to reboot. When I hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete, I see that the System Idle Process is hogging all the resources and chewing up 95 percent of the processor's cycles. Doing what? Doing nothing?

SpoofyChop

10-05-2003, 05:59 PM

He's been writing crap ever since we were in diapers XPav.

Timemaster Tim

10-05-2003, 08:20 PM

I demand that my system stop idling. I paid good money for this computer and I demand that it get off it's lazy ass and stop spending all its time idling! Dvorak is, like, so totally right! ;)

Jason McCullough

10-05-2003, 08:30 PM

My god, what a moron.

Brad Grenz

10-05-2003, 09:08 PM

That has to be a joke.

Lunch of Kong

10-05-2003, 09:22 PM

This is upsetting on many levels. If my childhood hero, Dvorak, can lose his clue, what chance do I have?

Warlord of Mars

10-06-2003, 12:03 AM

Dvorak used to be really good at keeping up with the technology, but I haven't read his articles in a year since he said blu ray was going to storm the market.

Chris Nahr

10-06-2003, 01:19 AM

Dvorak does make a really nice single-file home page (www.dvorak.org/home.htm) that you can download and set as your browser's home page.

Other than that, he's been talking shit for at least ten years now.

Midnight Son

10-06-2003, 06:23 AM

I met him once way back at an industry get together. He seemed, uh, very "sure" of himself. Full of, himself, to be exact.

DennyA

10-06-2003, 06:26 AM

The first Google-able reference to Dvorak being called an idiot on the Internet was apparently 15 years ago:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=dvorak+idiot&start=700&hl=en&lr=lang_en|lang_de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&scoring=d&selm=73405%40sun.uucp&rnum=732

Talk about old news. :-)

Bub, Andrew

10-06-2003, 07:36 AM

Ok, I'm just going to stop nodding and smiling with the rest of you. I can sense why what he done wrote is dumb but I'm too much of a JessicaM described Football geek (see other thread) and not enough of a PC geek to really grok his transgression. Dig?

Somebody fill me in on, not what's wrong (I think I've figgered that out) but why it's outrageous. And if it's outrageous, why hasn't anyone at PCMag corrected or edited it?

Lunch of Kong

10-06-2003, 07:47 AM

The idle process is something the computer does when it has nothing else to do.

Dvorak doesn't know this, and that makes him an idiot.

He's blaming a computer problem on the idle process. The truth of the matter is that his computer just isn't launching any programs. Since there is nothing for the processor to do, it just sits at idle.

He's substituting the symptom for the cause. (I'm sure there's some fancy Latin phrase for this).

Timemaster Tim

10-06-2003, 08:22 AM

(I'm sure there's some fancy Latin phrase for this).

As done on the Roadrunner cartoons:

John Dvorak (idioticus rex)

SpoofyChop

10-06-2003, 08:42 AM

The obvious issue here is that if Dvorak doesn't understand an intermediate level concept in Windows XP, then why the hell should I trust him to understand anything complex about computing with Windows?

He's supposed to be an expert.

Guido Jones

10-06-2003, 09:31 AM

You know, I sort of skimmed the article the first time through and thought it was a joke when reading ones like this:

REBOOT DISABLED. Starting some months ago, hitting Ctrl-Alt-Delete twice would no longer reboot my system. Now I get a dialog box and have to reboot from inside that or not at all.

and this one

TRACEROUTE NOT WORKING. Traceroute, or TRACERT on my machine, now goes three hops and times out. I can't trace anything.

But reading through the whole thing he's actually serious. WTF?

Alan Dunkin

10-06-2003, 12:48 PM

The issue is that Dvorak doesn't seem to grasp what the hell it means.

95% idle processes means they're IDLE, as in not doing anything. He seems to think it is actually doing something - though calling it an "idle process", which is making him angry.

"Idle process" is a bit of a contradiction - something that is idle yet processing - but how Dvorak could be such a retard is beyond me. It's gotta be a joke. God I hope so.

I used to respect him and Jerry Pournelle, but Pournelle a few months back thought it was easy to go outside of the space shuttle and fix tiles with a space suit.

--- Alan

Sean Tudor

10-06-2003, 03:20 PM

Surely this has to be a joke.

nutsak

10-07-2003, 02:01 AM

You'd hope so. What a freaking retarded thing to say. I wonder if this Idle process causes his machine to behave poorly... actually.. I wonder if he's tried to kill the process.

XPav

10-07-2003, 09:01 AM

He was given this expensive computer, perhaps he doesn't want it to sit around doing nothing?

Jazar

10-07-2003, 09:27 AM

Are you saying this cup holder is actually a CD drive?

TimElhajj

10-07-2003, 09:33 AM

Are you saying this cup holder is actually a CD drive?

Sure hope so. It keeps shearing off my paper cups!

XPav

10-09-2003, 06:27 PM

I swear to god, this entire column (www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1320781,00.asp) can be boiled down to "Computers are too hard, he's my magic way that I made up in 5 minutes on the can and have done no usability testing at all to make eveything easy."

Worthless column. Completely.

Chris Nahr

10-10-2003, 02:37 AM

"We need an approach in which everything is all on one big page—a form."

Everything. All Windows configuration settings. On one big form. Right.

Apparently Dvorak doesn't get why hierarchical options were invented in the first place.

nutsak

10-10-2003, 06:00 AM

I think he want the form idea instead of having advanced tabs so that more people that are 97% computer illiterate can fuck over their systems quicker thus giving tech support more work to do...

This guy is a fucking idiot. If he attended Certificate 2 of I.T* , where they teach you to use a mouse, most of the class would probably think he needed to be in special Education due to him being such a dumb arse (*which is at TAFE -the dumb/poor version of university in Australia).

I fully expect his next comments to be on the next line of

"Why do they call it a 'start' button? it hardley starts anything. In fact, I had to go throuigh multiple layers of confusing menus to get any of my programs to begin at all - this is terrible."

Qenan

10-10-2003, 04:57 PM

Well, actually, it is pretty lousy UI design.

XPav

10-20-2003, 04:39 PM

Still an idiot:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1358153,00.asp

All the hobbyists in computing are gone!

Chris Nahr

10-21-2003, 09:04 AM

Dvorak really can't get over the fact that he doesn't know how to use modern computers, can he? WordStar was easier to use than Word? WTF?

Machfive

10-21-2003, 01:16 PM

To make matters worse, products such as Photoshop change radically from release to release, making casual use almost impossible except for the most fundamental chores

It takes me about, oh, I dunno, 30 seconds for me to acquaint myself with a newer version of Photoshop. Given, I won't fully realize the new capabilities the extra features allow me to do for a few weeks, but it's not like the interface changes radically with each new version. Ever since Photoshop 5, they've retained the exact same toolbar layout, and all that happens is some buttons get shuffled around. They only add about 2 to 5 new filters every release, and it takes a version or two before a new tool is created.

Dvorak needs to suck down some hemlock, STAT. The man is a nutbag.

Ergo

10-21-2003, 03:32 PM

Still an idiot:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1358153,00.asp

All the hobbyists in computing are gone!
That is, without a doubt, one of the stupidest articles I've ever read.

"Boo hoo! Computers aren't dominated by beardy-men any more!"

Anders Hallin

10-21-2003, 04:39 PM

Unbelievably out of touch. Hell, I can't seem to go that many posts on Shacknews et al without "here's a tool for this-or-that I/some random person created" or case mods or whatever. They don't all smell bad and are social failures anymore, though.

Qenan

10-21-2003, 04:43 PM

I must live on a different planet from the rest of you. Most of what Dvorak said rang true to me:

Throughout the 1980s there were dozens and dozens of word processors. Aside from the definitive program of its day, WordStar, there soon emerged WordPerfect and XyWrite, Volkswriter, Perfect Writer, and on and on. Microsoft Word was a distant tenth in the race. Most of these programs fell by the wayside as the market went to the Windows GUI, with Microsoft greasing its own skids in the process.

The computing ecology is not as diverse and the products tend to be a lot more complex. This makes it less fun and more like work. The result is that fewer and fewer folks find computers, per se, fun to play with anymore. In a way it reminds me of cars. My dad was a physicist and my uncle was a chemist. They both used to spend untold hours tuning cars, nominally to save money but in reality because it was kind of fun. Pollution control equipment made it expensive and difficult to do that sort of thing, and they stopped. The same sort of thing is happening in computing.

Some of those folks have moved over to Linux, but it's pretty complex in its own right and doesn't really provide an equivalent to the DOS world of 1988. Sure, we've gained functionality since then. But some of the fun is gone.

Dvorak isn't much of a technologist, but when he's on he is fun to read. Which, honestly, is all I expect of a columnist... it isn't as though I turn to PC Magazine for sage computing advice.

Machfive

10-21-2003, 04:56 PM

That's funny, because I giggle with glee every time a new PC component arrives and I get to install it. I'm sorry, but PC enthusiasts exist, and there's more of them than ever. They're just not the kind of PC enthusiasts Dvorak knew.

Big surprise. The man is out of touch with reality, what can you expect?

XPav

10-21-2003, 05:02 PM

I think that's the thing -- the change in technology has changed the nature of hobbyists.

Before they'd write assembler -- now they'll write .Net or something. Before, they'd wire up their own computer, now they spend their time making it run faster, run cooler, run quieter, run with neon lights, or whatever. Before, hobbyists would write some code and share it with their local user group, now they make a flash animation and share it with the world.

The other thing to realize is that hobbyists are probably a smaller percentage of people using computers at home nowadays, even if their numbers have grown.

I mean, its also crazy to claim that there are no car hobbyists any more. What else are you going to call those people that put homemade spoilers on their Civic EX (besides idiots, that is)?

Qenan

10-21-2003, 08:11 PM

XPav

10-21-2003, 10:13 PM

Different kind of hobbyist. The number of car nuts who can rebuild an engine has dropped dramatically in the last quarter century... it's too expensive and tedious to learn these days. Engines used to be simpler.

You're right -- they've changed. My boss has restored old Pontiac GTOs and VW Beetles -- you should have HEARD the bitching when he had to fix the fuel pump on a recent Pontiac Firebird.

Hobbys that rely on technology change as the years go on. Nature of the beast.

Alan Dunkin

10-22-2003, 09:26 AM

Sure, the nature of the hobby changes.

Old gearheads - rebuild old engines, trany, etc. Do own modifications, exhaust, everything.

New gearheads - install mod chips, stereo systems, neon lights, some tuning, etc.

Old computer geeks - build your own computer hobby kits, program in ASM or punchcard, have fun user group hobby meetings, play pong

New computer geeks - build mod boxes from anything, gawk over the latest new cards, go to LAN parties, make everything run on PHP scripts, and play CS until 6 in the morning

Old amateur radio enthusiasts - build your own hobby kit radios, scan frequencies manually, use CW (morse) or voice across 4 or 5 sets of frequencies

New amateur radio enthusiasts - make your computer the amateur radio, scan with software, have packet radio BBS's, and use frequencies previously reserved for satellite communication.

Most hobbies remain the same, but those based on technology of one kind or another will always change, and the hobbyists will change with it. Obvously there are diehards and retreads in any group - Monster Garage is a pretty good indicator of that - but it's the nature of the beast I think.

Dvorak, is of course, an idiot.

--- Alan

Moore

10-23-2003, 12:44 AM

XPav

10-25-2003, 12:26 PM

Dvorak wasn't an idiot this week.

He talked about super expensive digital cameras.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1360232,00.asp

and

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1360233,00.asp

Which is basically, "duh", except for the idea that Nvidia has a CPU design lying around and should merge with Transmeta. Not idiotic, but it is rather pulled out of his ass, with nothing to back it up.

XPav

10-28-2003, 05:36 PM

This week,

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1364486,00.asp

we learn that everyone in America is bland.

Yet, when you read the column, what he tells you is that its companies which are boring and afraid to toe the line, because when these non-bland products show up, people like them.

Qenan

10-28-2003, 05:47 PM

I read it and thought "slow news week".

nutsak

10-28-2003, 09:06 PM

that's funny Qenan cuz when I read it I think "slow news writer"

XPav

11-04-2003, 12:46 PM

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1371073,00.asp

Hey! Not too bad this week!

Of course, his coments on gaming...

GAMING. Gab fests are OUT, and LAN parties are IN. Does anyone find the concept of a LAN party rather peculiar? When I was a teen, we used to get in cars and cruise around in a predefined circle socializing with others. (See the movie American Graffiti for reference.) Now kids sit in a darkened room eating pizza and shoot at each other in virtual space over an elaborate network. Does anyone but me think this is a fundamental change or a reflection of a fundamental change in society?

Damn these crazy kids.

Timemaster Tim

11-04-2003, 12:59 PM

"Beige is OUT and case mod is IN."

This is from the same guy who was lamenting the demise of the computer hobbyist?

Case

11-04-2003, 01:02 PM

GAMING. Gab fests are OUT, and LAN parties are IN. Does anyone find the concept of a LAN party rather peculiar? When I was a teen, we used to get in cars and cruise around in a predefined circle socializing with others. (See the movie American Graffiti for reference.) Now kids sit in a darkened room eating pizza and shoot at each other in virtual space over an elaborate network. Does anyone but me think this is a fundamental change or a reflection of a fundamental change in society?

Damn these crazy kids.

Is it just me, or is John beginning to sound like the last generation talking about his generation? :roll:

It's not like John and I are that different in our ages. But we're an age apart.

Bub, Andrew

11-04-2003, 01:19 PM

GAMING. Gab fests are OUT, and LAN parties are IN. Does anyone find the concept of a LAN party rather peculiar? When I was a teen, we used to get in cars and cruise around in a predefined circle socializing with others. (See the movie American Graffiti for reference.) Now kids sit in a darkened room eating pizza and shoot at each other in virtual space over an elaborate network. Does anyone but me think this is a fundamental change or a reflection of a fundamental change in society?

Ok. American Graffiti takes place in the 50's. Maybe he didn't notice the haircuts. I'm, um, guessing he's actually talking about the 70's or 80's? Doesn't he realize that the whole car-hydrolic/bass radio/Lowrider Magazine movement replaced "50's cruising" and that LAN parties... what could be the 70's-80's equivalent of LAN parties with pizza?

D&D with pizza?

Fundamental change? My ass.

XPav

11-06-2003, 04:11 PM

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1372374,00.asp
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1372375,00.asp

Little idiocy this week! Nothing for me to latch onto and call him an idiot.

nutsak

11-07-2003, 11:50 PM

Call him one anyway... it's pretty obvious this guy hasn't got a clue, I'd e-mail him and tell him to search for it on Google, but he'd probably write back and complain what a stupid idea a search engine is.

XPav

11-18-2003, 05:54 PM

Not too bad today.

http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,4148,30,00.asp

Dual rant.

1) Interviews with top tech people are stupid.
2) Bill Gates says some really strange things in interviews like...

Gates, when talking about software, says, "That's the great thing about software. After you've recouped the initial cost, you can sit there and use it for free." That one had my head spinning. It's like saying that the great thing about PC Magazine is that once you buy it you get to read it for free. The great thing about your car is that once you pay it off you get to drive it for free. What is he saying? What is the point of this weird comment? You tell me.

Chris Nahr

11-19-2003, 04:49 AM

Or how about Gates' claim that he needs an hour to figure out how to open a file in OpenOffice. :shock:

Maybe it's because OO doesn't feature a talking paperclip?

Stroker Ace

11-19-2003, 07:45 AM

Jakub

11-19-2003, 09:27 AM

This thread, I think, will go on forever, or at least until Dvorak stops writing.

You guys take too much perverse pleasure in mocking the man :)

XPav

11-20-2003, 01:57 PM

Today!

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1387724,00.asp

Blogs will die! People that write blogs are being used! (How people that write their own blogs are using themselves confuses me).

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1387725,00.asp

Sony is stupid for not making a PC! (WTF?) The PSX will suck. Various other ramblings.

Robert Sharp

11-21-2003, 02:53 PM

I think the idea is that people who write blogs are being used by the medium. They are being pressured/extolled/whatever into revealing personal and intimate details without getting anything for it. It's a kind of voyeurism. They are being used in the way that prostitutes are being used, even when they "choose" to become prostitutes.

Now, I am not saying I agree with him (I hope not to agree with Dvorak, generally) but I think that is his point.

Does anyone remember when Dvorak was on TechTV (or Znet or whatever it was then) doing those panels on technology? I found the panelists interesting, but Dvorak was like a lesser (MUCH lesser) version of Bill Maher. He was always pompous, never admitted anyone else was right and he was wrong, but he wasn't ever funny.

Mark Asher

11-21-2003, 04:02 PM

I disagree with the "being used" part, but it doesn't surprise me that many blogs are abandoned. I'm sure people get tired of updating them sooner or later. It's difficult to do any kind of work on a sustained basis without receiving some form of compensation.

Dr Fear

11-22-2003, 11:08 AM

I think the idea is that people who write blogs are being used by the medium. They are being pressured/extolled/whatever into revealing personal and intimate details without getting anything for it. It's a kind of voyeurism. They are being used in the way that prostitutes are being used, even when they "choose" to become prostitutes.
It's ludicrous to say that they are being used "by the medium" since "the medium" has no ill intentions or motives and "the medium" gets nothing out of it. As for the bloggers not "getting anything for it," they most certainly are - most of the blogs with painfully personal details are probably cathartic for the people writing them, and the people writing probably get some affirmation of their feelings by the feedback they get. Not to say that they aren't embarrassing or disturbing, but obviously the people doing it have to be getting something since being used involves an exchange, or the perception of one.

Timemaster Tim

11-22-2003, 08:58 PM

People blog because that is the current "in" thing to do on the Internet. We've seen it before with personal web pages and blogs are the current version of the personal web page. And blogs are being abandoned just like personal web pages.

Chris Nahr

11-23-2003, 01:45 AM

Personal web pages were the first thing I thought of when reading Dvorak's latest rant. Has he somehow missed those? Many people enjoy putting random stuff on the web, for a while. Then they get bored and move on. Blogs are just the latest fad.

Stroker Ace

11-23-2003, 01:35 PM

it looks to me that many of the people posting here are seeing blogs as personal web pages with a diary theme... this is how they're used by people who are vying for a chunk of national press.

the reason most blogs are actually fun is because they are only a small part of a larger community... the only reason i keep a blog is so that i can have a centralized location to view my friends' blog posts. (www.livejournal.com) the site provids a simple framework to automatically aggregate the latest posts to all of my friends' blogs. that's what i'm there for.

i don't really post often, but i can be assured that when i do, 20+ of my friends (real life and otherwise) will see it. i'm really not trying to revolutionize publishing.

these pundits have it all wrong.

Shawn Metcalf

11-25-2003, 10:55 AM

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1387725,00.asp

Sony is stupid for not making a PC! (WTF?)

Dvorak has been talking about this for years. His point is that since Sony makes many superb consumer electronic devices, and since for many people PCs are just that, a Sony PC would be really great. I think there's something to that - they'd certainly be worth a look.

XPav

11-25-2003, 11:00 AM

You mean like a VAIO?

Shawn Metcalf

11-25-2003, 12:42 PM

Well, shit.

Last time I saw a VAIO it just ran WinCE (this was years ago); I didn't know they were full-fledged PCs now.

And hey, they look pretty good! How about that!

XPav

12-08-2003, 02:41 PM

I shall keep this thread alive! ALIVE I say!

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1401520,00.asp

Not bad. Except for the fact that hs still doesn't realize that Linux doesn't need X86s to run. The Microsoft-can't-make-money-on-most-things-they-buy dig seems accurate, the comment on "natual language search engines" makes little sense.

Then he says that he got a cool laptop. Which of course, he probably didn't have to pay for.

His open source article is funny

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1403468,00.asp

"Open source programmers are masochists."

His holiday gift guide

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1406987,00.asp

Seems pretty cool actually.

XPav

12-16-2003, 04:49 PM

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1414322,00.asp

Today, we find out that everyone that writes software for Windows will have to pay money to Microsoft.

Chris Nahr

12-17-2003, 02:12 AM

Is this guy ever hilarious.

This was brought to the fore when Microsoft announced it would cease supporting Windows 98 and Office 2000. Even auto makers support their cars with supplies of parts that last minimally seven years. And they will always fix even older cars with third-party parts.

Because operating systems are exactly the same as cars! Just like cars, they need a regular supply of spare parts if you want to keep using them! Getting a Windows update is just as expensive as buying a new car, too!

Then he goes on fantasizing, without any basis in fact, how Microsoft will surely prevent "the little guy with the small utility" to sell his Windows software unless he pays MS for the privilege.

Finally we revisit his only real and recurrent concern: He can't figure out modern software!

With software we are swapping out too many things. Upgrading too often. Having to learn too many new things and wrestle with too many stupid changes.

Damn, will someone stop this mad thing called "progress" already! Give me back my Apple II! Give the little beardy hacker guy a chance!

XPav

01-15-2004, 10:10 AM

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1438058,00.asp

Shorter Dvorak: Californians are crazy and responsible for every tech fad.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1438059,00.asp

Shorter Dvorak: I know nothing about radio, but I know that The Man is keeping the world down. Plus, I get to play with expensive camera stuff that no one else has.

Jakub

10-27-2004, 10:19 AM

As per the advice of XPav:

"Podcasting is dead! (http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=14519) Probably! And if it does happen, it's Mac's fault!"

Chris Nahr

11-03-2004, 02:38 AM

In the interest of justice and fairness, I feel compelled to link to The Ten Axioms of Computing (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1706572,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03079TX1K0000584) wherein John C. Dvorak is actually quite funny.

Duality

11-14-2004, 11:49 AM

While normally, I'd agree that Dvorak is a blathering fool who's more concerned about his own convenience above all else, I have to say that he's got a point regarding WiFi technologies (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1738&ncid=1293&e=4&u=/zd/20041112/tc_zd/138865).

I don't agree that he advocates not using the security in any situation that doesn't involve supar sekrit documents, but I certainly do agree that the industry and the WiFi Alliance really needs to clamp down on what they want their standard to be and what sort of security its supposed to use.

I realize WPA was only an interim solution to WEP's glaring hole, but are we sure WPA2/RSN will be the end of it for the time being? What about firmware upgradable protection schemes? Is this not possible?

XPav

11-03-2006, 08:45 AM

Arise!

I was listening to the most recent episode of TWiT (www.twit.tv) (tech podcast), which is a "best of" version, and one of the clips they played was Leo Laporte calling up John Dvorak and asking him what he though of the to-be-announced-tomorrow Apple switch to Intel.

Laporte was saying "it was the end of apple", and John, smacked him about and told him he was wrong. In retrospect, was absolutely right about how it was the best thing to happen to the Macs in recent years.

Its funny -- I think the guy is less than an idiot now, because if you listen to him on TWiT, he still says crazy stuff occasionally, but he makes less crazy predictions that some of the other people, and also, admits that he'll write some far out stuff to get people all fired up and telling him that he's an idiot.... because then people remember who he is.