{"id":1802,"date":"2012-07-08T20:48:09","date_gmt":"2012-07-09T02:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=1802"},"modified":"2012-07-08T20:51:41","modified_gmt":"2012-07-09T02:51:41","slug":"suckers-for-punishment-or-something","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=1802","title":{"rendered":"Suckers for punishment… or something"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday on Reddit, I saw a post titled “How to install Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8 in Linux”.\u00a0 Why would anyone want to do such a thing?\u00a0 Seriously?<\/p>\n

Okay, do something fun… look down at the very next blog post on this very site.\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 All in good fun.\u00a0 Ha ha.\u00a0 I made this computer look like Windows 95.\u00a0 Ha ha.\u00a0 I even made Firefox look a little like IE 4.\u00a0 Ho ho.\u00a0 Back to reality.<\/p>\n

This is actually about installing THE actual fucking windows versions of IE 6, 7 and 8 on your Linux box.\u00a0 Using WINE<\/a> of course, and PlayOnLinux<\/a>.\u00a0 But OH MY GOD WHY???<\/p>\n

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\nThat’s like writing a how-to on how to knock your eyeballs out of their sockets with a rusty spoon you just found sticking out of a dead squirrel.\u00a0 Or giving tips on how to acquire Hepatitis A, B, and C through one unforgettable train ride downtown.<\/p>\n

Granted, some of the comments on the site pointed out that this was for web development, but haven’t we come to the point where the HTML standards we have actually matter and Microsoft’s de-facto-non-standards don’t?<\/p>\n

No?<\/p>\n

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\nFuck.<\/p>\n

Well, sort of related to this brow-furrowing and head shaking WTFedness is a news story my dear old Dad had to tell me about.\u00a0 I didn’t see said news story, but he basically warned be about malware coming from Estonia.<\/p>\n

I then tried to explain to him the differences between Windows and Linux, and what an operating system is.\u00a0 To make my point clearer I settled on a couple of (rather terrible) analogies:<\/p>\n