[ILUG-Social] Re: [ILUG] Lawbreaker.

[Rob Hill]

Twomey_Mark at emc.com wrote:
> 
> Well could you put that in a page linked by the "I hate Macintosh Banner"?
> Hate is a very strong word...you could at least give reasons. I will not
> tear down anyone if they at least give a reason.
> 
no - there are plenty sites that do that already.

> And without being seen as a "MacFanatic" 

too late ;o)

>(I'll admit though we are worse
> than any other computing group on the face of the planet,

agreed - I remember once posting simply "If I wanted to be treated like an
idiot, I would've bought a Mac" to a Mac news group - the response I got was,
well.....overwhelming. I have never been so personally insulted in my life.
I got emails that literally tore me to shreads on a professional and personal
basis - my mothers honour was even called into question, and several lewd
comments were made concerning her sex life, not to mention my personal hygene.

I've met a few real-life people like that since - they won't go as far in person
as they will in an email, they usuailly wear suits, if they do graphic design
it's crap (the ones who do good graphic design on macs are generally calm,
decorious people who aren't particularily platform dependent).

The flaming seems to be a fear-based reaction (much like NT Zealots) - they
are afraid (I think) that the machine (Mac) that they spent oh-so-much money
on might not be the be-all and end-all of computing that they thought it was,
and the only other option is to switch to another operating system, which is
for some people, extremely difficult - this is where the NT Zealots come in - 
They might know sub-conciously that Linux (for example)is more stable and ex-
tensible, but for someone who's only experience with computing is Win95 at home
and a fresh MCSE, Linux (or the Unix way) is very scary. It's deapth is almost
unfathomable. I know - I've been there.
We laugh at people who get the biggest reddest flashiest fastest speed-stripiest
cars, because it's so obviously a penis-extension. Yet we don't see it in our-
selves, and almost all of us are guilty of it to some degree - the operating
system that we use is our penis-extension (and mine's bigger that yours!!).

That's why Microsoft and Intel make so much money, because they're giving all
the computer users a way to enlarge their ding-dongs. For most of these people
it doesn't matter that the software is expensive, slow and more buggy than the
last version, what matters is that it looks better, and people can say they've
got it. And obtuse mental sparring goes on between upgraders....

Typical conversation:
<john> yeah...I got me one of them whizzBangAXT200PRM cards with 5 Gazillion
mega whoppers of memory the other day....
<not john>Really? I heard there was some Y2K bug in them..
<john (caught off-guard, was expecting jealousy)> er....naw...they fixed that
today....
<not john> but you bought it before today...?
<john> -=tisk=- It's a software thing - you wouldn't understand....what's that
 - are you still running that version of Windows?
<not john> That's the TV you're looking at.

Remember - I'm not just talking about Mac users - Linux users are almost as bad
in thier fanaticism, certainly worse than windows users, and while I take a poke
at Macintoss on my website, it's 95% dedicated to bashing Micro$oft, which didn't
get a single comment from you, and there's probably very few people reading this
that it would bother either.
That said, I would much rather use windows than macs (especially for graphics - 
but that's another story) - ease of use? read on.....

<pause>
ha ha someone just sent me an email containing...

"The reply to the mac question "why doe you hate macs?" is:
They hated me first and although I was patient, the frustration
of using a machine designed by and for stubborn idiots broke me."

I won't comment on that ;o)
</pause>


> you try supporting
> a decaying OS that still has unmatched ease of use and hardware that varies
> from "That's Brilliant" to "What the hell were they thinking!" for 15 years

Why? what would you learn except stubborness?
Although I will admit that the Macintosh hardware was of excellent quality
eg scsi and network cards as standard....until the iMac that is...

> while still not losing the faith, and still knowing that our way is better.

you're pushing it mate ;o)


> ;-) ), no backdoors is the point of the Mac, most Mac users don't need
> backdoors.

Ease of use is not that simple. While you might term 'ease of use' as endless
corridors of big dialog boxes which have one option [OK] so that it takes
many clicks and drags and scrolls and mouse manipulation (point and drool
comes to mind) JUST (for example)to print a file......my definition of the
above is clickity-click-click - job done (note the absence of mouse scraping
sounds in the above). I know that I have saved days of time by avoiding the
mouse.

> The current range of Macs aren't being made for computer Geeks (Well maybe
> the Blue&White G3's are), so therefore they want you to keep your hands out
> of the insides.

I don't believe that Macintosh Ease of use is good for people. At the end of
it all, the users don't know anything more about computing, except for a few
propeirtry (spelling? - that one's got me) Macintosh packages.
They're f**ked if they have to do something in Windows (I've seen it many,
many times), whereas windows users (never mind Linux or Unix users) are
used to using thier brains, used to thinking when they come across something
that they haven't seen on a computer before <eg>

1)	Windows Error message concerning graphics drivers - windose user
	upgrades graphic drivers.
2)	Macintosh Error message....smiley face....er.....Mac user brings it
	back to the shop and pays lots of money......

(these examples are a bit precarious, but you get the idea, and they fit in
with my experience....)

It might be good for say...a 90 year old, who only has a few years to live,
and wants to experience the interenet before he/she dies....

> This however will change with OS X and the G4's.

In writing this, I'm starting to doubt what you say above - In fact, I'm sure
that they will dumb-down the interface as much as possible, and as stability
wasn't a problem with the old MacOS, the only gain here might be speed....
- but they'll be faster machines, so we won't really know, will we??
They might have to slow down the interface so as not to confuse the users....
I'm sure they did that before...;o)

> 
> All the Best,
>               Mark.

All In Fun,
		Rob.

ps these are only my opinions, and I like them the way they are i.e. flames
>/dev/null