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Look, I know I don’t count

So anything I say is just screaming into the wind—no one hears it, no one cares, go find something else to do. So when I tell you I am an adult, cross streets by myself, drive over the speed limit with the full understanding I may get a ticket and my insurance rates may be increased, I do it with ...

Robert Dow

So anything I say is just screaming into the wind—no one hears it, no one cares, go find something else to do.

So when I tell you I am an adult, cross streets by myself, drive over the speed limit with the full understanding I may get a ticket and my insurance rates may be increased, I do it with the conscious decision of an of an adult.

I dress myself and am prepared to accept the snide remarks about my lack of fashion awareness, and I eat the foods I like without regard to dietary regard or fish endangerment

I don’t need, nor do I want Microsoft as my guardian.

I am perfectly willing to accept the consequences of a viral attack, a worm, a zombie and any other multitude of evil dangerous thing out there lurking, just waiting for an opportunity to attack and exploit me.

I take the same chances in train stations in Europe, in bazaars in Africa, and in the down towns of most U.S., Asian, and European cities. I am an adult.

So when I turn on my computer I want the goddamn thing to turn on just like I expect my car to start or my TV to turn on. I don’t want to be protected. I want to do something, otherwise I wouldn’t have turned the damn thing on.

Get the hell out of my life Vista, McAfee and Norton I don’t want you, I don’t need you and I am constantly pissed off by your obtrusion interference in protecting me.

Let me opt out.

Give me one of your famous and insidious popup dialog boxes—do you indemnify and hold your totally irresponsibility (Microsoft, McAfee, whoever) and willfully consent to proceed at your own risk? Yes. No.

And I will select yes if it will let me get something done.

I also want an opt out on indexing. I don’t need that much help—I grew up with Unix and DOS, I can find things on a computer. I can even drive a stick shift car—amazing isn’t it, it’s called being an adult.

And here’s the biggest surprise—I won’t sue you if I screw up. That’s right, you better sit down for this, but I take full, total, and complete responsibility for the things I do.

I know I don’t count in the great marketing demographic analysis of things, I’m just one remnant of a dying breed of adults who take personal responsibility and actually knows how a computer works. And I’d like to get a little work done on that computer that now requires four friggin 3+ GHz processors to do word processing because of all the software condoms and
indexing.

Do I have to go to Linux and give up dot.net, DirectX and media player? Look, let’s be honest, Microsoft has some great stuff, and I enjoy using it. Don’t penalize me for the pleasure by making my system some kind of homeland security maze that only a tech support guy in Mumbai can figure out.