| Thursday, February 20, 2003 |
09:55 - It's funny, so it must be true
http://216.170.67.34/demo/bitch.mpg
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Marcus sent me a copy of this "Switch" parody video. It's 48MB, so beware.
It's funny, I'll give it that. But... well, to put it charitably, it's confused.
The guy never seems clear about which version of the Mac OS he's making fun of. Sometimes it's OS 9, sometimes it's 10.2, sometimes it's the Public Beta ("the top is reserved for the mighty blue Apple!").
I know it's ultimately futile for me to try to point out all the flaws in the video; I saw a message-board discussion where someone actually told a Mac user preemptively "Don't bother pointing out all the flaws". Others watched it over and over again, ultimately concluding "Boy, Macs sure do suck."
But I'm stupid that way. So here goes.
First of all, every anecdote ends with a complaint about the Mac crashing. Since when has this been the case? I'm sure the video-editing guys in the audience can attest that OS X just doesn't crash-- certainly no more than Windows does these days. The era of making fun of how much a computer crashes is over; it's joined the likes of mocking Windows 95's memory requirements or the iMac's candy colors as completely irrelevant now. If the guy's able to make his editing rig crash as much as he claims, he's a better man than I.
I'm bewildered by his statement that if you drag files from a mounted disk onto the desktop and then eject the disk, the files all vanish. This is not the case in OS X. In the old days (before the Desktop was just a folder in your home directory), you could put in a floppy disk, drag files off it and onto the Desktop, and "Put Away" to put them back into the disk. This is because each disk had a hidden "Desktop" folder; each disk had files which were on its own "Desktop", and if you inserted that disk, files which were on its Desktop appeared on the overall machine's Desktop, and went away when you ejected the disk. It was a cool idea, and a sensible one too if you thought of disks a certain way, albeit undeniably confusing the first time you see it, if you don't understand what's going on. And it doesn't happen that way in OS X, even with writable media.
But it was never the case with CDs, which is the example the guy is using. Drag a file off the CD, and see that little green + sign? That means it's copying the file, doofus. Just like you intend. Oh, you mean you're not describing a real phenomenon after all? Well, smack my ass and call me Rosy Cheeks.
"It's the only operating system I know of where click and drag does not mean you actually copy or move anything; no, you're just making shortcuts on your desktop." Oh, you mean like Windows, possibly? Like where if you click on an .exe file and drag it from one disk to another, it creates a shortcut rather than actually copying the file, unless you hold down Alt or Ctrl or Shift or something? Sheesh.
He's also complaining about auto-running CDs. Since when has that been a problem? Windows has had the same "problem" for years; developers for either platform can create CDs that auto-run. And OS X handles other kinds of media in a way that lets you control it completely. Blank CDs pop up a window that lets you select whether to prepare it for MP3s, data, whatever, or to open a program. MP3 CDs and audio CDs open iTunes. Photo CDs open iPhoto. And it's all configurable. In OS 9, if you inserted an audio CD, it would auto-play (by default). True, it can be unexpected to have a window pop up after you've inserted a CD; maybe you expect it to just gobble it up and not give you any signal that you've added media to the system, or introduced a disc that's designed to launch a program without your having to do anything. But if you're going to complain about an OS that autoruns inserted CDs, you would have found a more receptive audience circa 1995.
He bitches about the "Update Manager" icon "jumping up and down at the bottom of the screen like a Jack Russell fucking Terrier"-- and he responds to this by searching manually through the system for the applications it wants him to update (and getting pissed off when he clicks on filenames and accidentally renames them, which a) you can do in Windows too, and b) requires a pretty amazing lack of manual dexterity-- not something to be proud of and crow about, if you ask me). Hello? You're supposed to click on the bouncing icon to activate the Software Update. How is this not clear? He's shuffling through folders trying to compare version numbers while this icon is bouncing in the corner of the screen, and it never once occurs to him to click on it like it's begging him to do?
He makes fun of the Dock that comes up when you move your mouse to the bottom of the screen-- yeah, you mean like Windows' taskbar? You can hide both, you can adjust or disable the magnification on the Dock, you can move it around-- oh, he admits that, but then complains that you can't move the Dock to the top (where the Mighty Blue Apple is)... what, he honestly wants to have it sitting right below his menu bar? Fine, there are third-party or command-line hacks that allow that. A half-assed solution, but it's only a quarter-assed problem, so we still come out ahead.
And where does his guffaw about deleted files being irretrievably gone come from? What, does UNIX scribble all over the disk surface when you delete a file? Neeeuuuu, Norton-style undeletion works the same way whether you're using FAT32 or HFS+. Unless you've got some kind of third-party privacy tool installed that makes damned sure your deleted files are unrecoverable. In which case it's your own bloody fault.
Finally-- and this is just a philosophical little nitpick, but-- Command-Period to stop a running task. Yes? This unnatural but ultimately useless interrupt key! he yells, twisting his arms around as though pressing the Command key and the period key simultaneously involves prodding at a deeply countersunk button in the back of the monitor with a paperclip while at the same time licking the inside of the mouse and pressing six keys at once with your chin. Um... 'scuse me, but the Command key and the period key are contiguous on my keyboard here. Right next to each other. You can press them with one finger if you want to. And think about it: Command.... Period. Command.... stop. Get it? Sigh. Never mind.
Oh well. I'm sure this will get passed gleefully around everybody's office, and I'm sure a million managers will use it to deflate any gradually built-up friendliness to the idea of buying Macs that they'd accumulated over the past three years. Thanks a lot, "Happy Nowhere". I hope you're happy. Oh, wait. I guess you are. Nowhere.
The physical comedy was fun, though.
Just one question, though: Why in the hell does a 3-minute MPEG have to be 48MB?
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