In response to tOdd's purchasing a MacBook:

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I have to laugh at people like you that get all dramatic over your computer. It shows the power of marketing and the relative stupidity of people.

I started on an Apple long before they narrowed down the flavor to just Macintosh and along the way I have used just about every computer available including Unix, Xenix, IBM 34, everything ever made by Commodore, dozens of PCs and at least a dozen forms of Macs. I was using these things before most of you were born or out of diapers and on a daily basis I push these things more than you latte-sipping little girls could ever imagine. They are nothing but tools and I could care less about the douchebag spokesman of the season that is being paid cash by the bushel basket to convince you that the only way you can be cool is if your laptop has customizable exterior panels or has a twirly wheel instead of an hourglass.

I can tell you with 100% certainty that there is no appreciable difference between a Mac and a PC. There are minor this-and-thats on how you get around the operating systems but they both do the same things and in the same amount of time. I do it all the time so if you disagree with me, you dont know what you are talking about and it is time for you to sit down and shut up.

Being of the curly-haired ovine variety, you do not want a Mac because it will increase your productivity (it wont) or because it is the superior choice (it isnt). You want a Mac because a room full of people that refer to themselves as creatives (creative is not a fucking NOUN!) sit around ideating at a combined billable rate of a few thousand dollars per hour. They think of ways to get you, the ovine, to desire a product. Last week they were convincing people that the best way to go horseback riding on the beach was to use tampons. This week they are working on ways of getting millions of you to line up around the block in anticipation for the newest phone, now with reception all the time.

If you have ever felt that people were snickering like you pulled up in a Yugo when you pulled out your laptop, you dont need a Mac. You need a shrink to help you with some serious self-esteem issues. Your need for a Mac is so you can feel you are now as cool as all the people on TV that use one. Cool by association. It is that drive that will cause you to buy a Mac (or any other trendy BS) and basic psychology will dictate that although you will tell yourself you made the purchase because the product was cool, the reality is because you bought the product your ego requires it to be viewed as cool.

You want to be successful and creative? Stop concerning yourself with what the unemployed hacks that hang out at Starbucks think and stop spending so much time worrying about your tools. Do you think Ernest Hemingway worried about what people thought about his pen? Did Samuel Clemens spend his day wondering if we could write a better story if he had a different typewriter?

Now I am sure a lot of you have your panties all in a bundle to that I can only laugh. I would love to stay around and laugh at each one of you individually but I have computers to torture and large amounts of cash to make.

blah blah blah blah blah

Sent from my iPhone.

I heart Jiggy!

YES. I ABSOLUTELY DO THINK ERNESTO HEMINGWAY WAS CONCERNED ABOUT PUBLIC OPINION ON HIS FUCKING PEN. THAT FUCKING NEUROTIC COCKSMOKER ! I WANT DO GO DIG UP HIS CORPSE AND FUCK HIS DUSTY BONES.

I'm with you, Nerd!

I really liked this article and Apple can go get fucked.

http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2011/11/30_zittrain-the-personal-computer-is-dead.html


"We need some angry nerds."

Nice rant, Uppity Nerd!

At the risk of you labeling me an ovine, I agree with pretty much everything you said.Perhaps with a little less venom, but I am in agreeance, nonetheless.

I will add that there are times where I despair for the species, most often when I see how easily many people are led by the nose through the rampant and omnipresent marketing machinery we are subjected to every day. I really dont think Im imagining that the world is noticeably worse off now than, say, 25 years back or more. To be sure, there were problems with media led, nonsensical frenzies (remember moms beating each other senseless for a cabbage patch doll?), but I think the constant bombardment or media hyped advertising, thought policing, and general BS is beyond even Orwell could come up with in his juiciest wet dream.

I do feel that we are living in a matrix like construct, put together to keep the average joe running on a hamster wheel, going nowhere but providing the power for others to run the world.
Oh, well. Gotta run out and buy an iPhone 4s, for reasons that were implanted rather than understood. But hey, it supports the new i-Gina app, so now we can all consummate the carnal relationship we have all seemed to develop with fad technology!

This line:

"I was using these things before most of you were born or out of diapers and on a daily basis I push these things more than you latte-sipping little girls could ever imagine."

Made me think that rant was plagarized from somewhere. Pretty much 90% of the demographic of this board were alive and old enough to use a TRS-80.

For me the difference is: do you like to get under the hood of your own computer or not? Apple won't let you at all. For that reason, I'll never buy one. If my power supply fails, I want to put a new one in myself, not hand it to some smarmy Apple fuck in some store. A new, better graphics card hits the market? I KIN DO EEEET!

When I worked at Dell (WAAAY before Apple's resurgence and the iPhone), I was part of a new crop of employees getting a speech from the then COO. Someone asked, "What do we do about Apple's 6% of the market?" He said, "Ignore them. They're a cult, led by an inscrutable leader, and they can have their tiny slice of the PC market. Let's work on HP and Compaq."

I joined the cult for the phones, no question. No company lets me open up and work on my own phone. So there, I'll go with the iPhone for the same reason I stayed with the PC - most of the cool stuff you want is written for it.

I've never owned a Mac so, I have basis for comparison.

I stick with PCs because that's what I've always had and I build PCs with Intel processors because I never bothered trying to learn about AMD's processor line.

Gigabyte boards
Crucial memory
Intel processors
Any and every brand of hard drive (I've never had one fail)
Windows or Linux

I am a creature of habit.

If what you say if true Squid, does that mean Macs were made for stupid people?

I think Apple thinks that way.
They build machines for "creative" people.
In other words, don't worry your pretty little head about how computers actually work, let us take care of that for you. We know better than you what you really want and that is what we will allow you to have.
So twirl! Twirl around in your chemical induced mania, snapping 10,000 pictures with your digital camera set on auto. We will display them all and let you pick the 3 cool ones that will prove to the world that you are an artist!

You're comparing apples and exceptionally bad taste -DJ

I'm in agreement with Jonathan Zittrain. We do need some angry nerds.

Uppity Nerd makes some good points, but I could still kick his ass flat-footed.

The universe is indifferent, my man.

Those this need that Todd is a girlie man?

Appy? Or, did you type that with your buttcheeks?