Thursday, April 17, 2008

exhibit 937

One of the most frustrating things about practicing law is the industry's stubborn embrace of Windows. PC-only legal programs are legion, and I wish to Jobs that I were exaggerating when I say that they all kinda look like DOS Shell. I will conceded that they are powerful programs, but you don't get any credit for dropping a Ferrari engine into an Edsel.

Today, as I was hand-cranking my way through one of these programs, I stepped away from my desk. When I returned, I found that Windows had decided that it needed to install some updates, and then restart my computer. It decided this without any regard for what programs I might have open or what unsaved data I might be working with. I returned to find my data replaced by an empty desktop and a chipper little dialog box, explaining that updates had been installed.

And people sometimes think I'm ridiculous because maybe I want to use an operating system that doesn't do stuff like that.