Phil Cook <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote:
> Actually I do, and by that measure making the iPhone the invention of the  
> year doesn't necessarily make it any good, or popular, or used.

  I'm not saying you are this kind of person, but I have noticed that
there are many people who, for whatever reason I cannot really comprehend,
vehemently oppose Apple and its innovations by principle.

  When I made a comment about Apple's new laptop in an IRC channel,
immediately one person jumped out with completely negative responses
about it. When I presented some innovative and cool features of that
laptop and other Apple products, he attacked each one of them ferociously
and vehemently, trying to diminish every single feature and innovation.
And mind you, this was *not* a Windows user or Microsoft fan.

  In my experience this kind of negative attitude towards Apple and most
of its products and innovations seems rather puzzling. It raises the big
question of why. The amount of opposition against Apple and its products
with these people even surpasses the amount and strength of the opposition
against Microsoft's products by the most fanatic linux advocates. Not even
the most fanatic of them care to go through Microsoft's products and point
by point crush anything that could be good or innovative about them (but
the more typical behavior is to simply bash Microsoft's products in a way
more general way).

  In my experience it's more usual that precisely *linux* people oppose
Apple more vehemently than Windows people (the latter usually have more
of an attitude like "yeah, sounds cool, but I'm not really interested",
aside from the typical myths which are no longer true).

  I just can't understand why this is. Is it bad that another company
besides Microsoft is getting some market share? Is it bad that there's
a company which really tries to make a difference, which tries to be
innovative? Is it bad that Microsoft is getting serious competition?

  I get the feeling that in some cases these people seem to think that
linux (and open source software in general) should have the exclusive
right to compete against Microsoft.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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And lo on Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:00:28 -0000, scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> did  
spake, saying:

>> but I have no idea what the name of the PM of the UK is...
>
> Now there really is no excuse for that one...

Especially when it makes such a good song

Gordon Brown taxes us all. Sets us up to take the fall. Throughout the  
night. No way to fight. We'll all just drown with Gordon Brown.

Okay without cheating (honest)

UK: Brown himself duh.
US: Bush duh.
Veneuzala: Chavez
Zimbabwe: Mugabe
Pakistan: Moustachio er Musharaf
North Korea: Kim in Pajamas, oo I am so on his list now. Kim Jong Il
France: Um yeah, bloke who beat the women in the election, met Bush. S...?  
No sorry
Russia: Pooty Putin.
Iran: I could pick his face out of a line-up, but as to name...? Nope.

Okay not good, but a) I'm really not good with names anyway, and b) If you  
said how could you not know ? was the head of ? I'd be thumping my  
forehead and saying yes of course it is for quite a few others.

Then again I do know who Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Richard Stallman, and Tim  
Berners-Lee are.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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>  I'm not saying you are this kind of person, but I have noticed that
> there are many people who, for whatever reason I cannot really comprehend,
> vehemently oppose Apple and its innovations by principle.

I see lots of people say "well the iPhone/Pod/Mac/Book is really expensive 
for what it is".  These people seem to think that everything should be sold 
for the absolute minimum price, even if the public are quite happy to pay 
more for it.

Good for Apple I say, they manage to sell a product for a relatively large 
profit compared to others - just like Nintendo has done with the Wii.

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4790b842@news.povray.org...
> Phil Cook <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote:
>> Actually I do, and by that measure making the iPhone the invention of the
>> year doesn't necessarily make it any good, or popular, or used.
>
>  I'm not saying you are this kind of person, but I have noticed that
> there are many people who, for whatever reason I cannot really comprehend,
> vehemently oppose Apple and its innovations by principle.

It has less to do with Apple itself than with its fanboys. I've known a 
couple of Apple fanboys and girls, and while they're adorable, they'd make 
anyone want to bash Apple by principle. Apple is just another company making 
hardware and software, certainly good and innovative, but the way the 
fanboys talk it sounds like a freaking religion with Jobs as a prophet, and 
the Apple marketing plays right into that. There was one Apple commercial 
that compared Apple to Gandhi and Martin Luther King, for instance, and my 
Apple friends just loved it in spite of the appalling stupidity of the 
comparison. Linux fanboys are a different kind of annoying and somehow 
cultish too, but at least they don't swoon over buttons and colour schemes.

G.

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> 
> I'm curios about Apple hardware and software. [Altough I've never 
> actually met any.] I'm aware their current OS is based on Unix, and that 
> their hardware was originally M68k, then PPC, and now plain Intel Core 
> 2. [But with custom chipsets, BIOS, etc.] And I'm aware that Apple is 
> rare but has a niche following in some parts. I just don't know who this 
> Steve Jobs person is... (Does it matter?)

Yes, it matters.  Having read a (rather neutral, it seems) biography of
Steve Jobs some time ago, I can tell you that his own personality explains
a lot about Apple's products, and a lot about people who use these.
Might have very practical implications.

I have a biography of Bill Gates waiting on my bookshelf to be read :-)
(I buy many books on flea markets, and I'm especially interested in
"computing history" items)

Fabien.

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Fa3ien <fab### [at] yourshoesskynetbe> wrote:
> I have a biography of Bill Gates waiting on my bookshelf to be read :-)

  I bet Gates is not such an evil person as most people want to depict
him. While he does have some opinions which grinds the gears of some
people (especially open source software advocates), I don't remember
ever hearing anything nearly as bad as for example from Steve Ballmer
(who, for all I know, is psychotic).

  If I'm not mistaken, Gates was a 70's - early 80's programming nerd
who had some talent and some business ideas, and who, along with a few
others, won the jackpot with his company, by being in the right place at
the right time (and, perhaps, sometimes using some slightly dubious tactics).
I really don't know how much he advocates the "you will be assimilated,
OSS is a cancer" ideology Ballmer does. Perhaps he just silently concedes,
while Ballmer does all the antics.

  Speaking of programmer nerds, there's one person in that field who
I admire: John Carmack.

  How many famous programmers (pure programmers, not people who are for
example computing scientists and who do some programming along the way)
can you remember? I can only list two right now: John Romero and John
Carmack. From those two the former is remembered only by his fiascos
with Ion Storm, while the latter is well known from his successes at ID.

  The vast majority of computer programmers are more or less anonymous.
You never hear, for example, *who* was the lead programmer of the team
who developed, let's say, the Source engine or the Unreal engine. You
just hear the company which developed it. Carmack is rather unique in
this regard, as he is quite well known for his role in the ongoing
development of the doom/quake engines. Not many programmers reach that
level of celebrity.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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And lo on Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:31:30 -0000, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> did  
spake, saying:

> Phil Cook <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote:
>> Actually I do, and by that measure making the iPhone the invention of  
>> the
>> year doesn't necessarily make it any good, or popular, or used.
>
>   I'm not saying you are this kind of person,

Thank you

> but I have noticed that
> there are many people who, for whatever reason I cannot really  
> comprehend, vehemently oppose Apple and its innovations by principle.

Apple do some really good things, and some really dumb things. Unlike with  
Microsoft though it seems you're supposed to ignore the dumbness, look at  
the shiny shiny.

You may recall a thread a while back where I pointed out one show that  
listed the plus points of the Macbook being that all the software (movie  
editing etc.) came with and was integrated into the OS, which were all  
points that Microsoft have been beaten over the head with time and time  
again.

I'm with Gilles in that the fanboys annoy; hell the fanboys of any product  
annoy, but the Macboys seem to combine that aura of worship and smugness  
more.

I just wonder how many people bought the iPhone because of its  
functionality and how many people bought it because it's an iPhone?

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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And lo on Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:29:28 -0000, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> did  
spake, saying:

> Fa3ien <fab### [at] yourshoesskynetbe> wrote:
>> I have a biography of Bill Gates waiting on my bookshelf to be read :-)
>
>   I bet Gates is not such an evil person as most people want to depict
> him. While he does have some opinions which grinds the gears of some
> people (especially open source software advocates), I don't remember
> ever hearing anything nearly as bad as for example from Steve Ballmer
> (who, for all I know, is psychotic).
>
>   If I'm not mistaken, Gates was a 70's - early 80's programming nerd
> who had some talent and some business ideas, and who, along with a few
> others, won the jackpot with his company, by being in the right place at
> the right time (and, perhaps, sometimes using some slightly dubious  
> tactics).
> I really don't know how much he advocates the "you will be assimilated,
> OSS is a cancer" ideology Ballmer does. Perhaps he just silently  
> concedes,
> while Ballmer does all the antics.
>
>   Speaking of programmer nerds, there's one person in that field who
> I admire: John Carmack.
>
>   How many famous programmers (pure programmers, not people who are for
> example computing scientists and who do some programming along the way)
> can you remember? I can only list two right now: John Romero and John
> Carmack. From those two the former is remembered only by his fiascos
> with Ion Storm, while the latter is well known from his successes at ID.

Warren Spector?

>   The vast majority of computer programmers are more or less anonymous.
> You never hear, for example, *who* was the lead programmer of the team
> who developed, let's say, the Source engine or the Unreal engine. You
> just hear the company which developed it. Carmack is rather unique in
> this regard, as he is quite well known for his role in the ongoing
> development of the doom/quake engines. Not many programmers reach that
> level of celebrity.

But as you mention that's not always a good thing, if you take the recent  
example of Jade Raymond as a case in point.
http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/2007/07/how-to-identify-jade-raymond-assassins.html

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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news: op.t44wadiyc3xi7v@news.povray.org...
> I'm with Gilles in that the fanboys annoy; hell the fanboys of any product 
> annoy, but the Macboys seem to combine that aura of worship and smugness 
> more.
>

True story: some time ago a person was showing me one very specialised 
program he had been developing for almost 20 years. He had 2 gorgeous Macs 
and a non-descript Windows machine. During all the time I was there, he'd 
rant non-stop against Microsoft. Macs were fantastic, Microsoft incompetent 
and evil, yada yada.

Indeed, his XP machine could barely start and kept crashing. I could see 
however that
the machine was underpowered and, as usual, preloaded with OEM crapware 
(including Norton): a thorough clean-up and some RAM would have fixed it, 
but for him that was all Microsoft's fault. He didn't even run updates for 
fear of getting viruses.

So why did he work on the crappy Windows machine instead of his magnificent 
Macs?

Well, he used to develop his software for Macs, using Hypercard. People 
started asking for a Windows version so he had to develop this also. In 
2000, Apple stopped supporting Hypercard, and when OSX appeared, he 
discovered that his software could no longer run on modern Apple machines. 
Basically, he had just gotten shafted big time by Apple. His little business 
was able to survive thanks to the Windows version.

But that didn't stop him from praising Apple and calling Microsoft lots of 
dirty names. Yeah, fanboys.

G.

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Gilles Tran wrote:

> 479008ec$1@news.povray.org...
>> Gilles Tran wrote:
>>> Of course if you want to keep saying the darnest things, just do it.
>> It can be helpful to learn how to BS on a topic you know virtually nothing 
>> about. Then you spend an hour reading a half-dozen wikipedia pages, and 
>> now you can sound like an expert in them too. ;-)
> 
> It sometimes happens that I have someone on the phone asking me stuff that 
> I'm mostly ignorant about, while I'm frantically googling about it in real 
> time and providing answers as they appear on screen. There's no point trying 
> to hide it (people can hear the clicking anyway) but as a rule, answering 
> "uh, dude, what are you talking about, never heard about that" is not an 
> option.
IMHO this is not a good example. People know that you are exceptionally 
good with google. Given the choice of either calling a real expert (that 
might be unable to communicate) or calling Googles Tran I'd know what I 
do.  ;)

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