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Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets
  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.


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Wednesday, July 10, 2002
22:11 - Nyah nyah nyah! <punch> Uuughh...
http://www.denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/07/MacWorldRumors.shtml

(top) link
Yeah, I knew I was going to hell with that last post.

Lots of good observations about the Mac community; lots of facts and lots of numbers to address, and I'm not going to. I will say that a number of the things he quotes are half-truths (the iMac is not a dog, not by any standards; the "slower than the eMachine it replaced" quote comes from an article specifically about Internet Explorer speed, which is an optimized kernel process in Windows and very much non-optimized in OS X, though that's the biggest thing the MacBU is addressing for the upcoming IE6), and some are speculation that can be addressed with more quotations (sales have been disappointing in the entire computer sector lately, not just for Apple-- and the current Power Mac G4 series has been listed as EOL-- which means that it will be updated soon).

I'm not going to take personal exception to any of it, though-- because more and more people I know have switched to Macs over the past two or three years, and not one of them has regretted it for an instant. Not one. They range from the silently satisfied to the giddy, but they all believe they have made a good move.

True, there are disadvantages. There aren't as many games. Certain tasks are slower. You find yourself marginalized, and must resort to either vociferous defense of your position, or meek cowering from the interrogation lights of IT departments and raucous PC-using friends.

But-- well, I'll let Paul Summers take it:

Sorry Steve. For the first time in a GREAT many years, I like my laptop. I haven't sworn at it or hit it once. First. Time. Ever.

What is the greater measure of a computer, which is basically a tool? That one runs faster by strictly raw factoids, or that one runs *Better* by any *human* measure of success?

Yeah. I don't usually like to reference my own older posts, but...


I never know whether I'm doing more harm than good by writing these things here-- whether people who might have had tolerant or fence-sitting sorts of views on the Apple issue have now, thanks to me, been driven into fierce defensive mode, something that I consider a major failing on my part even if I have managed to convince a few other people to give Apple a break.

I like to imagine I'm not, and hence I'll keep doing it, in particular attempting to demystify the mentality behind Mac evangelism and somehow combat the sense that those who trumpet Apple's achievements are crying wolf. It may well be an impossible undertaking, and the ground on which I stand isn't the firmest kind of bedrock I'd like.

But it is something I believe in.



UPDATE: Steven tells me he was already busy writing his article before he noticed mine; so all's well in this little corner of Lower Blogovia.




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