randomness | (no subject)

From http://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/tech/SocialProblemsMatter:

There is a widespread attitude among computer people that it is a great pity that their beautiful solutions to difficult technical challenges are being prevented from working merely by some pesky social issues, and that the problem is solved once the technical work is done. This attitude misses the point, especially in system administration: broadly speaking, the technical challenges are the easy problems.

Social engineering is a much more difficult field than computer engineering; it is much easier to build something that works than to build something that people want to use.

(His techblog, devoted to system administration and associated issues is also syndicated at

cks_techblog.)