Author: Gary

This morning I made an off the cuff remark about getting a Mac. I assumed that the people reading the post would be limited, as usual, to friends and people I know.

Somehow, the thread got its way onto some Apple news site and I got bombarded this morning by Mac zealots. Here is the winner comment so far…:

• Man aren’t we all sick and tired of hearing moronic articles from butt wads like Gary. Hey Gary stop fucking whining and go do a virus scan on your Windows shit box. There is no point correcting these ass holes they are either incapable of learning or too stupid to learn, in any case it isn’t worth any effort.

The thing to remember is that my post was originally about HOW I WANTED TO BUY A MAC. If this is how they treat people who want to buy one, I’d hate to see how they react to people who don’t.

I know you can use a third party mouse on a Mac. The mini doesn’t even come with a mouse and I’ve seen multi-button mice run on Macs. I was making a comment about the company, not actual criteria I need to purchase one.

This is the site where my post found its way to.

I have no problem with people telling me that I’m full of shit. I’ve been involved in academic debate for 20 years and its something I’m pretty used to now. Most of the things I believe I expect people raise objection to……but menu bars??? What a petty and trivial thing to get up in arms about. Its like arguing the moral superiority of Coke over Pepsi. Based on comments, you’d think I made a joke about the Holocaust. (annnnnnnd I thereby invoke Godwin’s Law, beating everyone to the punch)

Why did I want to want a Mac? (note the past tense) Really just as a plaything. Same reason I want to play with Linux more. I used to have a Mac. I currently have an iPod. They’re the underdog. They have good design. You get the picture.

I’m not a fan of Microsoft. I’m not defending Windows or any other Microsoft product (except for their keyboards and mice which I like). I’ve gone out of my way to remove everything Microsoft from my system save for the OS and Media Player.

Mac zealots have the charisma of television evangelists. Its not enough that someone might want to buy a Mac, they require total conversion. To them, Mac OS isn’t just better, its perfect.

I’ve studied rhetoric and persuasion enough to know that if you want someone to come over to your way of thinking, the last thing you want to do is antagonize them. Calling them a sinner probably isn’t the best strategy. If they were smart they would have said “whoo hoo! Good choice! Once you get a Mac you wont even notice the menu bars any more. Welcome to the club!” instead of what you see above.

One of my friends is working at Apple corporate offices in Cupertino this summer. I hope he gets a chance to bring this up in a meeting as an example of how the Mac faithful can be just as much of a liability as an asset.

I’m on spring break this week, so that explains the slew of updates:

• I’ve posted this before, but check this video out. (you need IE. Firefox doesn’t work) Its got everything. Christopher Lee. Long hair. Blistering hot guitar solos. They should come out with a special Bevis and Butthead for this.
• What is the difference between that hot girl you knew in high school and hot celebrities? Nothing.
• I installed Onfolio 2.0 beta this weekend. I tried the 1.0 version awhile ago but didn’t find it too useful and it didn’t work with Firefox. This version does and has an excellent built in RSS reader that works within the browser. This is a product I’ve been wanting to like given its made from all the guys who used to work at Allaire. I assumed they’d get it right with the next version and it appears they did. I do think the best parts might be easily vulnerable to an open source copy of it.
• Things I’d like to do:
  1. Have a deeper understanding of Linux. I have Red Hat installed on a machine at home, but I honestly don’t goof around with it as much as I’d like.
  2. Know how to write code in PHP. Honestly, I haven’t written real code in a long time. Primarily because I had other people to do it for me, who could do it way better than I could.
  3. Make it with a Suicide Girl. Don’t ask. I can’t explain it.
  4. Qualify for membership in the Travelers’ Century Club

  I’m currently at 12.

Et tu Goldie?

I set up an NCAA pool. The league ID is “5396” and the password is “debate”. (which is the default password for a lot of people I know when they aren’t trying to hide the password)

You can use your AIM username and password to log into the site.

I’ve wanted to want an Apple. You read that correctly. I want to want one.

I had Apple computers from my sophomore year of high school till three years after I graduated college. Yet, I don’t haven’t wanted to purchase a Mac for three reasons:

1. They’re expensive. Mac mini has solved that to some extent.
2. The mouse has only one button. It looks like that will be taken care of. ..and seriously, the ability to right click is so superior to the one button thing its not even funny. My mouse has 5 buttons and I use them all.
3. The menu bar isn’t attached to the window so I never know what applications are running. As far as I know this is still an issue.

They are taking steps in the right direction. They need to get off their high horse about how superior the Mac OS is. It was superior, when you had to deal with Windows 3.11 but it isn’t anymore. I think that attitude has prevented them from making necessary changes.

Now if they can only get game developers to port stuff to the Mac in bigger numbers, they’d be set.

Edit: This is my current mouse. I really like it. I should note that I currently use more Microsoft hardware products than software products. If Real didn’t go so far out of their way to make using their product painful, I’d give up Windows Media Player too.