Nothing good can come of this...

Sorry man, you're posting a comment that just proves you're way too old to be commenting on /.

First, most of the current batch of MCSEs (is that acronym still allowed?) will be replying to you asking for the 800 number for Dr. Dos. I suggest you send them to the Dr. Who site.

Second, your reference to an obscure company called Digital Research will confuse the weenies. DRI.COM now resolves to a site for Colburn's Travels. It appears Mr. Colburn has achieved more mileage from the site than DRI ever did. Check the stats.

Lastly, you're really confusing people with the whole concept of a 'spurious' error. Microsoft has - through the determined, repetitive, and consistent application of "innovation" - eliminated all spurious errors from the code-base. All errors are now completely intentional, rational and self-explanatory. Click here for more information. :)

then the only option is protectionism.

I wouldn't let an AOL address bother me, but I once had a job candidate present his resume to me with his email address pimpboy@h*tm*il.com displayed prominently at the top. Needless to say...

Can't reach _any_ Michael Geist sites (from either my cable and DSL conns). Coincidence? I think not!!!

Our cable company (Rogers) decided to bill us for a non-existent mobile phone account, apparently because the phone subscriber's last name and ours were similar. Spent months talking/fighting/threatening Rogers to get them to cease attributing these bills to us, and we finally succeeded.

Fast forward 6 months, and all of a sudden we're swamped with 5-6 automated voice messages daily (!) from Iqor. They'd obviously bought the bad paper and were trying to collect. I called them back and explained the situation, and the nice, reasonable, well-paid agent said they would clear it up internally and stop contacting us.

Fast forward another year, and we've only recently stopped being harrassed by these dirtbags. It was an unending litany of lies from their agents, off-hour calls, up to a dozen automated calls per day, etc., etc. Only when I asked them for all documentation pertaining to the alleged debt, their legal Canadian address where they could be served, and declared my intent to file suit and/or lodge complaints with every authority I could contemplate did they finally manage to stop the calls.

Rogers and Iqor - a fucking scumbag match made in heaven!

Borland C++... the printed manuals it came with were incredible. DOS, Windows, dBase, WP all had incredible printed manuals too. Man have times changed.

No shit. I just recycled a massive collection of manuals that I found (forgot) in the basement - DOS, SCO Unix 3.2, Turbo C + Pascal, etc. Talk about documentation. Out of this world! Microsoft used to be awesome, but Borland was king!

Now you drop 5 large for a server OS, and get a DVD with half-baked PDFs (or CHMs, even worse) for reference and that's it. Oh, you want API docs. Pay your subscription here. Oh, you wanted _accurate_ docs, well.... Maybe the EU has them :)

Times have certainly changed. Now if you want documentation for a friggin' LANGUAGE you need to BUY it separately. Never saw that one coming...

Thank gawd I'm a child of the 70's: free sex, free (mostly) drugs, and free docs!!!

Ha, that made me laugh. At an old biotech I used to work at the IT department had a standard '3-D' response to any issue.

• D1: DIFFUSE: Yes, we are caring and totally empathize with your situation
• D2: DEFER: But you must understand that that our hands our tied because the (x) has said (y)
• D3: DEFENESTRATE: Therefore, we must decline your request at this time.

It worked like a friggin' charm every time. And we'd gang up on the poor hapless PHB. A senior IT guy would walk in, ready to FIX THE PROBLEM. The first thing he'd ask for was a status update. We'd invariably respond with "Well, it's a D2 right now, but we're still looking into it", and he'd quickly bump it up to a "D3". Then we'd go for a nice extended lunch, and the PHB would be left scratching his head wondering where all his clout had evaporated to.

Fuck, I loved IT before it all caved in and we became computer janitors.