Invent

Computer manufacturers crack me up sometimes. They exist purely because the general public doesn't want to take the time to learn how to assemble the separate components into a working computer. However, they often sport an attitude as if they are responsible for each separate component, meticulously designing each piece, as opposed to buying the same wholesale parts everyone else does and then slapping their name on the finished product.
There's retarded Dell commercials where they are physically shoving a purple cartoon gorilla into a tower. There's retarded Gateway commercials where people are delivering computers by foot by running across a grassy plain. However, one company has the attitude to beat them all. HP: Invent.
Invent? I might buy this for their digital cameras and printers, but when you see it on the screen during a Pavilion's boot process, it's just insane. By that logic, I invented the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I ate earlier. I guess HP just figures its users aren't the brightest bunch. They figure that they can cut costs by giving them a restore disc instead of an OS disc. They lock down the second hard drive partition (where the driver installers are stored) so that the "dumb user" won't do something stupid like delete the files or try to reinstall the sound card driver 14 consecutive times. This becomes a pain for techs who want to reinstall the operating system because we can't access these driver installers from within the current OS before we wipe it, and therefore have to waste our time going online to download the same drivers that are already occupying room on the hard drive.
Further proof that HP takes the customer base for fools (and the inspiration for today's rant) comes from something I got in the mail the other day. On the front, it says:

GET READY FOR A LOT OF EXTRA ATTENTION!

WTF? Why did HP just declare they are going to prove I'm a retard?

I guess they think their users need supervision.
Inside, it goes on to say:

We think you're special.
And we can prove it.

Do you see what they did there? They not only called the user stupid, but did it while using a sentence fragment starting with a conjunction. Oh, you crafty, crafty "inventors."
As every good carnival worker knows, the dumb are also the best marks. Therefore, the HP tilt-a-whirl continues with:

We created HP Print Extras to say thanks to our best customers, like you.

(HP pats you on the head, and wipes the drool from your chin.)

You can start taking advantage of these fun and free rewards by registering at [web address I'm not going to endorse]. To welcome you, once you've registered you'll save $5 off a minimum purchase of $50 from HP Home and Home Office Store*, at [another web address I'm not going to endorse].

So, HP calls me "special," and then "rewards" me by telling me to spend money at their online store. That's like rewarding good driving with a speeding ticket.
I also came across a little scrap of paper put out by HP at Wal-Mart. It's entitled "Future Friendly" and is regarding the upgrade path to Vista. Here's an excerpt:

HP and Wal-Mart have made upgrading to Windows Vista easy by creating a web site exclusively for Wal-Mart customers.

So, it's not just HP customers that HP thinks are dumb. Apparently, anyone who shops at Wal-Mart is so completely incompetent that they need their own "special" website. I wonder if it will be all pictures.
It continues:

At [yet another web address I'm not going to endorse] you'll find everything you need to know to get up and running with the breakthrough new Windows operating system.

Breakthrough? This is not a cure for cancer. It is a new version of an operating system. It will have a few new bells and whistles, a massive amount of new paranoid anti-piracy measures, and, knowing Microsoft, a brand new "now even butt-uglier than before" interface, but never in Bill Gates' wildest wet dream should it be referred to as a breakthrough. I guess HP is desperate to keep up that magical mystique surrounding technology. That's how they keep their "special" users. I'm wondering if eventually they'll go as far as having a custom version of Windows made just for their "special" users. It would be called "Windows Short Bus." Now that's inventing!
Let me leave you with an experience I had with HP about a year ago. I got into an argument with an HP tech support person over the design of one of their machines. After giving him the machine serial number, he insisted that the power supply was mounted using the standard 4 screws, and there was no bracket involved. However, I was staring at this machine, and it obviously had a non-standard mount and required some kind of bracket (that was missing, which was the problem.) I took pictures of the chassis for him, and he still could not grasp this concept, sending me links to instructions on how to install a power supply with a standard 4 screw mount, and still firmly insisting that there was no bracket. After a good hour of back and forth, I told him to look at the picture of the chassis, notice the lack of 4 correctly positioned holes, and to tell me exactly how one would manage to mount the power supply with 4 screws when there was only a single hole, and it didn't line up with anything. He responded by saying that was what I'd need the bracket for. I was stunned. He said there's a bracket! So, I asked him why he had been saying there wasn't a bracket all this time. To this he responded that there isn't a bracket. My brain began to hurt, and I think a little part of me died that day. I told him that I would just have to fabricate my own bracket for it, to which he shockingly replied "ok." If HP's customers are "special," it's because HP has made (invented?) them that way.
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Big Cray: Accept No Substitute