The Mass Network Communications Council held its annual awards ceremony tonight at the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge. The festivities opened with a hysterical PowerPoint presentation by comedian (and Harvard graduate) Baratunde Rafiq Thurston who poked fun at the way Apple fans summarily dismiss anyone who finds flaws in Apples products by accusing them of not being sufficiently aligned with the Macintosh Way. An exceprt:
I'm a black dude who grew up in Washington, D.C. with its hometown "redskins" football team. That name is horribly racist and derogatory,
at least according to many Native American tribes who have protested
its use for some time now. I remember bringing this up in high school,
and many of my friends would say, "no, it's not racist." Uh, excuse me,
but the Native people say it is. "No, it's not."
Women are sadly familiar with this routine. If a woman is
sexually harassed or even raped, often the first questions challenge
what she was wearing or "doing there." The implication is that she
either brought it on herself, or it didn't happen. "I got raped." "No,
you didn't."
This is denying the validity of someone's experience, and I've
come across it all too often on lighter issues involving technology.
The Palm Treo is a fine example. Search the treocentral.com discussion board
for people having problems. If you don't tow the party line, people
actually personally attack you and claim that either what you said
didn't happen or that it was all your fault. The "redskins" can't be
racist, and that woman just misunderstood, and Apple isn't smug at all.
The comments I got on that piece were something else. I'll share:
The ads are what David does to Goliath. If you're with Goliath's crew,
you'll find the ads annoying. We David's cheer when they come on.
As for your install, sorry. Macs are computers and sometimes they
do fail and sometimes they do frustrate. If you're coming from the PC
world, as I suspect you are, you may not yet understand the Macintosh
way, which is to not overthink things.
A cross-upgrade? Does this require FCP to recognize the program
you're replacing it with? I suggest reinstall the original program,
then install FCP.
Best wishes,
Richard Taylor
Oh, now I get it. I'm with Goliath's
crew. That completely explains why my installation didn't work. Clearly
my mind is not yet prepared, and I must continue to study "the
Macintosh Way" until I figure out how to not "overthink things." I
would love for you to explain to me just how I overthought things.
Seriously. I've been trying to figure it out, but I'm afraid I may be
overthinking how I overthought the situation. Richard Taylor, I
respectfully ask you to STFU. Are you kidding me? I follow the
instructions, insert the DVDs as told, and the process fails. Somehow
this is a reflection of my spiritual unworthiness. Oh please STFU!!
I love the smugness of Apple.
I'll go further, I love the ARROGANCE of Apple - that's what it is most of the time.
When things don't work - you're fairly certain it's your own fault,
and it's up to you to figure out the solution - rather than screaming
to the heavens that the people who sold you the machine screwed it all
up.
So much of my ego is wrapped up in the elite cloud of Mac Zealotry
that surrounds me that I REFUSE to let something not work on my Mac. I
will make it work (or just declare that it isn't worth doing).
With Windows, I'm usually convinced it's a bug right away and give
up because I don't have the slightest bit of my self-image wrapped up
in whether or not Windows "just works".
- Steve
You really have to read the entire post on his blog.
