Happy 25th, Macintosh! 296
bradgoodman writes to tell us that tomorrow will mark the 25th anniversary of the first Macintosh, debuting just 2 days after the famous Super Bowl XVIII commercial. "'The Macintosh demonstrated that it was possible and profitable to create a machine to be used by millions and millions of people,' said Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, research director for the Institute for the Future, a Palo Alto, California, think tank, and chief force behind 'Making the Macintosh: Technology and Culture in Silicon Valley,' an online historical exhibit. 'The gold standard now for personal electronics is, "Is it easy enough for my grandmother to use it?" People on the Macintosh project were the first people to talk about a product in that way.'"
Mac World (Score:2, Funny)
I'm a PC. I've always been a PC at heart.
Not like the rest, the others. Everyone around me. I was at odds with my society and knew it early since birth. Unlike them, I did not "Think Different!"--the mantra of the Macs around me, the phrase on all the billboards in the city that served as a reminder to its citizenry. Sameness pervaded the essence of my being and no amount of self-conditioning I did could change that. Eventually, I gave up and isolated myself emotionally from society.
I gaze at the faces going by, the white earphones contrasting their black turtlenecks, connecting their ears to their pockets, their blank faces engrossed in hip Indie rock music and various garage bands. I envied them for their perfection against my flaws and my compulsive nature to expand, to burden my life with troubles instead of remaining, like them, simple and easy to deal with. The grandest of virtues, simplicity... the philosophy by our loyal benefactor Steve Jobs, who descended from the heavens, creating the Earth, the iron, the wind and the rain. Steve Jobs, who defined the parameters of existence, the one who set about the patterns of reality, the constants, the variables. He who made gravity, electromagnetic energy, and shaped atomic structures and brought forth motion. From these things, he crafted the elements, processed them, refined them, and from these things engineered Apple products through the purity of his mind. Each Apple product was individually crafted by his own hands with the programming code used to run each device having being compiled in his brain and uploaded to each device telepathically, breathing life and perfection into each and every unit.
Except, it seems, for me, for I was not among the many. I was a PC. They were Macs. I've always been a cold, stiff person. I got by, disguising myself by keeping my non-Ipod music player safely out of sight, which I use because of my depraved nature demanding more functionality than the simple and easy-to-use Ipods have to offer... In the safety of my own home, behind locked doors, I ran a Forbidden, a contraband computer from more depraved, earlier days that was not given the love and blessing of being birthed by Steve Jobs. I dual booted, out of the great sin of curiosity. Curiosity, a shameful value of a PC, as curiosity has no place where simplicity matters most. I used two of the great unutterable blasphemies--something called "Windows Vista" and something else called "Linux." Although, as I mentioned before, although my tendency to be a PC and towards conformity has always been inherent to me, I was truly transformed when I found these old things in a hidden cache of computer parts predating The Purging. Perhaps the greatest sin of all, the single evil that, if discovered, would damn me forever, was the fact that my mouse had more than one button.
As I walked on among the Macs on the streets, passing the Starbuckses as I went along, I wondered how it all came to this. I glanced at The Holy Marks on the foreheads as the people wandered down the streets, the Bitten Apple tattooed on all our of us at birth, and wondered if, perhaps, there could be something more to life. But again, this was a PC's thought, and not, like everyone elses', a Mac's. We were to hold ourselves to the philosophy of Steve Jobs--so as his products were designed for idiots, so too were we to be idiots. But I was not a Mac--I was not an idiot. I was simply too complicated to be a worthwhile person.
Nature called. I found a nearby public iPoo--squeaky clean and sparkly white, things weren't all bad--and let myself go, expelling the waste that had accumulated inside me. After relieving myself and committing the overly-complicated and thus illegal act of wiping my ass (I did not flush as iPoos, designed to be idiot-proof, did not flush) I left and once again wandered the streets aimlessly, hoping to find some meaning in a world where I simply did not belong, a world where if my true nature was discovered, I would be endlessly persecuted by smug, self-righteous sons of bitches.
I remember it well... (Score:5, Funny)
It was the last day I showered or left the basement.
It was a ridiculous failure (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mac World (Score:3, Funny)
Pleather! [youtube.com]
It's Okay. We're all friends here. [youtube.com]
Re:1984 was not like 1984 (Score:3, Funny)
</TinFoil>
Presents (Score:2, Funny)
Re:1984 was not like 1984 (Score:3, Funny)
That's simply not true. I'm sending the Thought Police over to your house to explain to you how mistaken you are.
Re:1984 was not like 1984 (Score:5, Funny)
There was no 1984. We have always lived in 2009.
Re:Computer with a mouse AT HOME?! (Score:2, Funny)
You have a 5 digit ID and this is your first post? You've really been lurking for a decade?
Re:Macs boot quickly (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Apple is dying (Score:5, Funny)
Heh. They've been dying since 1977 according to most industry analysts.
It's not easy enough for my grandmother to use (Score:4, Funny)
OT: Sig (Score:5, Funny)
[ My car's odometer reads in pentaparsecs. My speedometer in parsecs/hour. ]
Does your car appear blue from the front, and red from behind?
Re:I remember it well... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Memory Lane... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not my Grandmother (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not the first... (Score:3, Funny)
I know that at this point, "RTFA" has become a running joke ... but you're the first person I've seen who hasn't even bothered to read the comment which he's replying to! Way to set a new bar for other slashdotters to meet ...
Re:Presents (Score:2, Funny)
It might be a nice gesture for Apple to buy Xerox with some of their pocket change and take it out back and shoot it.
Re:Not the first... (Score:5, Funny)
I know that at this point, "RTFA" has become a running joke ... but you're the first person I've seen who hasn't even bothered to read the comment which he's replying to! Way to set a new bar for other slashdotters to meet ...
The really funny part is that he didn't even read the comment which he was replying to!
Re:Mac World (Score:2, Funny)
I'm guessing brother.
Re:Mac World (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, my choice of stylish, premium priced consumer electronics proves I am better than the hoi polloi too.
Re:OT: Sig (Score:2, Funny)