Sourcework
Jerk is right. Wikipedia is addictive. It can be dangerous, though. Only mildly, but still. Given that it's an interactive community supported encyclopedia, it's to be expected that some specious information may creep in here and there, although it's said (by Wikipedia) that it's a far more reliable information source now that they are monitoring input before publication. But I have run across some bits and pieces that are definitely wrong. The worst so far claimed that Phil Hartman designed the original album cover for the first Poco album, and the cover for Steely Dan's album Gaucho. I am pretty sure both those claims are false, but I didn't get far investigating after pulling out my copy of Gaucho and reading the credits.
Then there's the propagandists. The first one I ran across was at the head of an article about imperialism. In the middle of a paragraph detailing how the phrase "capitalist imperialism" had been concocted by Lenin, as opposed to Marx, there appeared the text "don't read wikipedia! it's false information!" (That has now been fixed, although KARL MARX now appears as KARL MAHOO, who did a fine caberet act, but not so much with the economic theory.)
The example I ran across today, well, almost serves me right. Twice in a row, last night and the night before, after watching the latest Apple computer, where they claim (rightly) that there are things Macs do that you have to install separately on Windows machines (this is the one where the "Windows PC" guy is having a tech support guy tape a web cam to his head), I said "The people who advertise for Macintosh are every bit as sanctimonious as Mac users themselves." Now, while this is partly true, I say it because it's funny on about seven different levels. Not the least of which is that it's very difficult to imagine that the people who are making the commercials are actual Mac users, but only because it's hard to believe advertisers aren't habitual liars.
Now, understand, I cut my teeth on a Mac. I was a Mac user back when Windows didn't work. And I mean really really didn't work, back before Microsoft out and out stole everything about the Mac that was useful and attractive and then reverse engineered their operating system to support those features (and then claim to have invented the whole lot, a claim that I still find stupidly insulting to the entire computer using community to this day). But it never ceases to amuse me how insulted Mac users get when they are asked to use Windows machines. Windows machines do work. Yes they do. Just don't break them.*
So anyways, today when I clicked into Wikipedia, one of the articles was on the introduction of the Mac back in 1984, with the stupidest commercial anyone has ever seen, and went on to sell a gagillion machines in the space of a nanosecond (presenting one of the most compelling arguments for the fact that commercials do not sell products), and I thought, Hey, why not go see what they have to say about the history of the Mac.
So here's what I found:
"The Macintosh project started in early 1979 with Jef Raskin, (which is a stupid idea, and its still a stupid idea, its worse than linux) an Apple employee, who envisioned an easy-to-use, low-cost computer for the average consumer."
Of course, they cleaned it up between the time I started writing this and the time I went to look up "imperialism." But the the juxtaposition was stunning. It said 2 things to me immediately. 1. There are Windows snobs out there, and 2. They're stupider than Mac snobs. Which I'd guess you ought to expect.
*In my previous career, we had a Mac user in one of the outposts who was fine using the dumb terminal attached to the UNIX box and LAN/WAN server, but once they gave her a PC, she kept disabling the Outlook e-mail and dumping programs until they finally gave her a Mac. And then she quit because the tech guys were ordered to stop supporting her Mac by a Veep who thought it was morally wrong for a single employee to be supported differently than the rest of the company and wanted to convert her to a Windows user.
Then there's the propagandists. The first one I ran across was at the head of an article about imperialism. In the middle of a paragraph detailing how the phrase "capitalist imperialism" had been concocted by Lenin, as opposed to Marx, there appeared the text "don't read wikipedia! it's false information!" (That has now been fixed, although KARL MARX now appears as KARL MAHOO, who did a fine caberet act, but not so much with the economic theory.)
The example I ran across today, well, almost serves me right. Twice in a row, last night and the night before, after watching the latest Apple computer, where they claim (rightly) that there are things Macs do that you have to install separately on Windows machines (this is the one where the "Windows PC" guy is having a tech support guy tape a web cam to his head), I said "The people who advertise for Macintosh are every bit as sanctimonious as Mac users themselves." Now, while this is partly true, I say it because it's funny on about seven different levels. Not the least of which is that it's very difficult to imagine that the people who are making the commercials are actual Mac users, but only because it's hard to believe advertisers aren't habitual liars.
Now, understand, I cut my teeth on a Mac. I was a Mac user back when Windows didn't work. And I mean really really didn't work, back before Microsoft out and out stole everything about the Mac that was useful and attractive and then reverse engineered their operating system to support those features (and then claim to have invented the whole lot, a claim that I still find stupidly insulting to the entire computer using community to this day). But it never ceases to amuse me how insulted Mac users get when they are asked to use Windows machines. Windows machines do work. Yes they do. Just don't break them.*
So anyways, today when I clicked into Wikipedia, one of the articles was on the introduction of the Mac back in 1984, with the stupidest commercial anyone has ever seen, and went on to sell a gagillion machines in the space of a nanosecond (presenting one of the most compelling arguments for the fact that commercials do not sell products), and I thought, Hey, why not go see what they have to say about the history of the Mac.
So here's what I found:
"The Macintosh project started in early 1979 with Jef Raskin, (which is a stupid idea, and its still a stupid idea, its worse than linux) an Apple employee, who envisioned an easy-to-use, low-cost computer for the average consumer."
Of course, they cleaned it up between the time I started writing this and the time I went to look up "imperialism." But the the juxtaposition was stunning. It said 2 things to me immediately. 1. There are Windows snobs out there, and 2. They're stupider than Mac snobs. Which I'd guess you ought to expect.
*In my previous career, we had a Mac user in one of the outposts who was fine using the dumb terminal attached to the UNIX box and LAN/WAN server, but once they gave her a PC, she kept disabling the Outlook e-mail and dumping programs until they finally gave her a Mac. And then she quit because the tech guys were ordered to stop supporting her Mac by a Veep who thought it was morally wrong for a single employee to be supported differently than the rest of the company and wanted to convert her to a Windows user.
posted by Bobo the Wandering Pallbearer at 1:27 PM
2 Comments:
Open source is as open source does, I suppose.
What's funny, (to me), is that Mac is strange and off-putting to a native Windows (or do I dare say DOS?) user. I used a Mac, once, for a job. It was upsetting and frustrating. Of course the clouds cleared, eventually, but I still wonder why Macs only have one mouse button... I just don't get it.
A little off subject, I've recently removed "Mac-experienced" from my resume. No one cares - and that speaks volumes.
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