(Rooters Wired Service) April 29, 2005 Washington DC
The US Economy was brought temporarily to a standstill today by what some analysts are calling "the Perfect Storm" of the information technology management professions. Apple Computers allowed pre-purchases of its highly-touted new "Tiger" operating system, all scheduled for delivery of late-afternoon Thursday the 28th, and no later than noon of Friday April 29. The "Tiger" operating system is a major enhancement upgrade of the popular Mac OS X system which powers all modern Apple computers. IT industry analysts had predicted that campus-wide deployments of the popular operating system, on a nationwide basis, would somewhat slow business operations in general until the deployment was completed, which was expected to take probably no longer than all day Friday. However, it seems that someone somewhere online pointed out to fellow IT workers that it was also opening day for a movie adapting a series of science-fiction comedy novels known together as "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". "It was complete pandemonium," said one witness. "You couldn't drag me anywhere back near the place, not until this is all sorted out and over and done with," she said, speaking of her firm's IT department. "It was as if they'd gone mad with indecision, half of them, and the other half was divided neatly down the middle and pressing their cases on the undecided half. Stay and do a campus-wide deployment of a new Mac OS X when delivered at noon, or play hooky and catch the opening show at noon." In the meantime, nothing was getting done at all, anywhere where there were Macs in abundance. Our reporter bravely ventured into one such office, but decided that it was a bit too risky after hearing what appeared to be a chorus of dozens of voices chanting what sounded like "when all you've got is AppleTalk, everything looks like a nail". One ordinarily expects engineers and technicians to behave extremely rationally, not mill about like a panic of lost sheep. Apparently it was quite obvious that the dispute was settling into two camps, one of which was "see the movie first, deploy later" and the other camp which had the opposite view. The problem was that there appeared to be a rather exactly even split over which would be the proper solution. Predictably, in retrospect, someone invariably raised the question of why couldn't half of the staff run off to see the movie while the other half stayed and deployed. By 11 in the morning, across the US, ominous reports began to circulate of what appeared to be a widespread epidemic of gambling amongst the IT staffers who appeared to have been (to outsiders) inexplicably seized by an urge to dice at craps. By 11:30, cursing lone engineers were seen in offices across the States, loosely tied to chairs in otherwise empty offices, working their way free of their bonds. At noon, astonished FedEx deliverymen arrived to free the engineers and deliver their operating system upgrades. Nationally, the noon rush hour was described as "a catastrophe." One shocked witness asked rhetorically, "have you ever seen engineers directing traffic? Oy gevalt." One parking-lot attendant remarked, "it was a sign and a caution. They dragged me out of my booth and stuffed money in my pockets, told me to shut up and learn how parking's done. Went and really showed me, too." In most theaters, the second showing had to be delayed while baffled staff cleaned up piles of what appeared to be thin plastic wallets, all empty, and hundreds of mechanical pencils per theater. Police reported thousands of arrests of IT personnel apparently brought to blows by the combination of stress and remarks such as "You know, I'd have thought that they'd have picked a hotter actress to play Trillian", or "I don't think they played Marvin as mopey enough. And what were they thinking about the way they did Beeblebrox?" Evening rush hour was also dicey at best across the nation, as crowds seemed to react rather badly to the presence in lines of clearly-irate engineers and techs all sporting various degrees of rope burns on their wrists. Frequently such persons had to be dragged away after screaming at persons exiting the theater "not a word, dammit, I want to see this for myself". By midnight, it seemed to be all over and done with. -- Unsupported OS X is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Unsupported OS X list info <http://lowendmac.com/lists/unsupported.html> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[email protected]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive <http://www.mail-archive.com/unsupportedosx%40mail.maclaunch.com/> iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com
