Let me keep this brief: I spilt a cup of tea on my laptop this afternoon. It’s now in intensive care. It’s 18 months since I last bought and then set up a new pc. I bring tidings of discomfort and killjoy: Bill’s megalomanic monopolous invention has got a lot worse. Microsoft is now full-on Hal the Computer…..a command economy marketing fascist – and trust me, the maon to your left drew up the blueprints. It’s not just Microshit that needs breaking and casting to the four winds…..Gates should be hung, drawn and quartered in front of the biggest audience possible.
Think about this for a second or two….and then ask yourselves what you’re going to say when your grandchildren ask, “Opah…..when the billionaire fart-balloon Gates was stuffing his rivals, his former partners, his employees, the distributors and above all the consumer, what were you doing about it?” In my case, my pretty limp reply will be, “I was writing blogposts explaining how turning a blind eye to restraint of trade would eventually lead to every ‘unimportant’ human on the planet being restrained”.
Think about how you went to buy €330 worth of hardware, only to discover that all your choices about how to use that pc had been stolen by the greed of an awkward gargoyle whose operating system is little more than a computer virus.
‘Do you want to give us your location and telephone number so we can help you get more out Microsoft?’
‘No’.
‘If you don’t give us those details, your guarantee won’t be valid. So, make it easy on yourself, and just tell us what we want to know’
‘No’
This process continues via making Microsoft Edge your default browser, blocking every attempt to use Firefox, steadfast refusal to let you tap ‘Next’ or Skip’ to anything you don’t want, and refusal to accept any landline as a contact number.
“You don’t want to download Firefox. Microsoft Edge has all you need”
“I don’t like Edge….it sucks”
‘That is not required information’.
Accept, comply, avoid unpleasantness, obey, submit, give way, cooperate, carry out, implement.
The steamrolling , insistent arrogance of the organisation this onanist created has spawned the demand from other unelected corporatists like Zuckerberg and Bezos that we must believe in the all-conquering power of hitech based on insane complexity, a black widow spider’s web of hidden agendas, and the question, “Have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?”
Bill Gates is – people keep telling me – not at the centre of events now unfolding….or unravelling, depending on your viewpoint. My only response to that is to ask, “If this man devoid of any moral compass or human compassion is Second Division, then what TF are the Premier League players like?”
I will not be impressed by wiseasses telling me how “easy” it is to avoid the long, gnarled, cold and creepy fingers of this modern-day Nosforatu: of course we, the lucky few born with a resourceful approach to avoiding the foul designs of ethical cripples will always be better placed to survive.
Right across the world, there are people who think that just running to escape is enough. It isn’t, and it never will be: for sure, the need to relocate far from the wisdom of crowds is important – but it has to be an escape – the better to regroup and continue the fight. Anything less is merely narcissistic cowardice.
The Slog 