Originally posted by Flipper
Slippery Mongoose:
I know that must seem like the SAT for a Mac User, but yes, we understand. I can only assume these instructions probably act as triage between those potential Mac users who still have enough higher brain functions to use a computer and those too neurologically burned out to manage it. Either way, both groups are likely to be baffled by the cooking instructions on ramen noodle packets.
However, rugged-yet-sophisticated PC users aren't daunted by such instructions. Sure, we might enjoy and admire simplicity but we're not prepared to sacrifice more money for it than necessary. Nor do we wish to make a miserable Faustian bargain, exchanging performance, choice and flexibility for mere simplicity.
Although a mac user might think it better if everyone drove a volkswagen beetle (perhaps paid for by the state), it is the PC user who believes that a wide range of choice and customization is more indicative of the human spirit.
The PC user is unafraid of learning new things, getting his hands dirty, mastering additional complexity and gaining new understanding in return. We are willing to prise open the secrets of the BIOS and mold our hardware (and software in many cases) to our will. We can upgrade and repurpose our systems at will, choosing from a vast range of components and packages that Mac users could only dream about following a particularly severe opium binge.
Complexity is nothing to be afraid of. Sculpting marble with a chisel and hammer is more complex than making sandcastles in the sand pit. An Athlon-64 processor is more complex than an abacus. But both the sculpting tools and the processor have the potential to enable extraordinary achievements. All you have to do is `think different'.
Macs do have great design on their side. But remember, Soviet Russia also had great graphic designers and artists. Nevertheless, I have never hankered to own soviet goods.
Look around you, Comrade Mac User, and open your eyes. Is your tool also not the choice of the weak-minded leftist? The liberal beardy-weirdy? Steve Jobs's "useful idiots" - the computer illiterate underclass?
Perhaps you say that you do not support the socialist and liberal beliefs of your Mac using fellows. Perhaps you are different from them - an aficionado of their tools and symbols, not their ideology?
It may be so. Nevertheless, if I came to your house and found a massive Hammer and Sickle flag hanging over your desk (or, more probably, a giant swastika) above your Imac, I might believe your protestations that you were only obsessed with collecting the symbols of Stalinism or the 3rd Reich; that you are not a communist or a Nazi. Nevertheless, most of us would consider your hobby creepy and would find you disquieting.
No, the above average PC user is not content to merely plug things in and press buttons like some drug-addled laboratory mouse. The PC user makes his technology work for him exactly as he would like it to. He co-opts it to meet his specific requirements while simultaneously learning more about how it works.
The Mac user is content to do the computing equivalent of lotus-eating, but they should acknowledge those who choose instead to be pioneers and adventurers with the appropriate respect, if they can lift their nerveless fingers long enough from the pipe to salute their betters.
Simplicity. Pah.
A true Mac user should seek real simplicity by selling their computer, joining a commune and using their own filth to fertilize the Mung Beans. This will feel strangely familiar and comforting to the Apple user, as it is little different to their typical output when they owned a computer.
