Slashdot Mirror
Ground Rules for the Windows vs. Mac War
FreshlyShornBalls writes "The New York Times is running a story that I think needs to be seen by everyone on both sides of the on-going Macintosh vs. Windows debate (i.e. just about everyone who posts on Slashdot): Some ground rules for the Windows vs. Mac War." From the article: "Last week, I wrote about some of the changes Microsoft has in store for the next version of Windows, which is slated for the end of 2006. Interestingly, very few of you responded to that column, probably because so much may change in the next 19 months. But a few of you fired off diatribes about how I'm either a Microsoft 'shill' or an Apple 'apologist' (or maybe it was the other way around). It's not just me, either; it's a running sardonic joke among tech columnists that you can't even USE the word 'Apple' or 'Microsoft' without getting hate mail from somebody or other."
You're describing zealots of all kinds there. Swap "Mac" for "Windows", "Linux", "GNU", "closed source", "open source", "Java", "C", etc etc and you can have exactly the same kind of story.
Zealots are the problem, not Mac zealots.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
If everyone abided by this idea, about 95 percent of all the Windows-Macintosh diatribes would evaporate overnight. But here it is: If you haven't tried something, then you really have no basis to comment.
That 95% -- probably more like 99% -- of Windows fanboys have never tried a Mac, I can well believe. But the reverse? Uh-uh.
Windows is everywhere, and unavoidable. Anyone who uses a Mac, or Linux, or any other OS that's not Windows, almost certainly has made an informed decision to do so based on harsh experience with Microsoft's crap.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I don't know anyone who's ever claimed to pick a favorite platform just to stick it to another platform's fans. Sure - people get offended or puzzled by zealotry. But who puts down chunks of cash just to upset that know-it-all fat kid?
I never went down the Mac road because I liked the commodity hardware direction happening with the IBM PC compatible crowd. And I think you'll find that is the same reason that Macs ended up in a niche market.
Great point. Keep in mind that, as others have pointed out, this should be applied to anywhere there is a coroporation (and even where corporations aren't directly involved). No specific platform or technology has a monopoly on zealotry (whether you call it that or not). And nobody is beyond criticism.
Irony: you're currently modded insightful.
;))
(Now, anyone who mods me insightful, don't - it's funny
Well, as a fairly laid back apple fan boy, it's been my observation that Apple's fans are also some of its harshest critics. For example, when Aqua was first announced, plenty of hardcore apple websites were nitpicking it to death, despite the fact that their own exposure to it was a webcast of a demo that Steve Jobs did for a half hour.
.doc compatibility issues, and a million other things seemed to be doing their best to take the fun out of computing, even when I consciously avoid MS software.
They just tend to get really defensive when "outsiders"(meaning windows users) start criticising the mac. Partially because windows has been such a POS operating system. It's like someone driving an old rusty noisy car driving up to my cleaner, well kept vehicle and giving me crap because he doesn't like my hubcaps. Maybe my hubcaps could be better, but if you're not offering me something superior, then you're wasting my time.
Secondly, there's been a lot of bitterness because MS and their windows monopoly has made things a lot tougher for other OS'es. Their breaking HTML,
One time I threw a brick at a duck.