{"id":31982,"date":"2013-05-08T01:23:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-08T00:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/fred-reed-ditched-his-pc-for-a-mac\/31982\/"},"modified":"2013-05-08T01:23:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-08T00:23:00","slug":"fred-reed-ditched-his-pc-for-a-mac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/fred-reed-ditched-his-pc-for-a-mac\/","title":{"rendered":"Fred Reed Ditched His PC for a Mac"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by Fred Reed<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Recently by Fred Reed: Terrorism in Boston<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Every farm boy and columnist learns early on what not to step in. Some subjects are too sensitive to write about unless you have a hidden bunker in Patagonia. The two most explosive, oddly enough, are not race, feminism, or Israel. They are Star Trek, and the Macintosh computer. Play with these, and you play with death.<\/p>\n

I used PCs more or less contentedly until my wife bought me a back-up computer with Windows 8, which I thought would be an upgrade of Win 7. No. It is a vile marketing platform aimed at illiterate adolescents with cell phones \u2014 malign, an affront to civilization, probably designed by misanthropic garden slugs.<\/p>\n

Having paid for this monstrosity, I decided that there was nothing wrong with Microsoft Corp. that couldn\u2019t be cured by blowing it up. If you think this extreme, try Windows 8.<\/p>\n

In high dudgeon, and all intermediate altitudes of dudgeon, I bethought me of Apple. Extreme times call for extreme measures. Whatever crimes Cupertino might have committed, or not have committed, I was sure that it didn\u2019t foist Windows 8 on the innocent.<\/p>\n

I had no particular feelings about the Mac, for or against. I knew that people who had them also had a peculiar emotional attachment to them. It worried me, about the people, not the computer. I mean, a carpenter doesn\u2019t bond with his claw hammer. A friend once described the MacIntosh as \u201ca fashion accessory for the conforming nonconformist.\u201d Well, yeah. On the other hand, Mac-heads were usually well on the bright side.<\/p>\n

I was not interested in abnormal psychology, but in computers, so I resolved to ask practical-minded friends, not Mac-heads, about these fructiform machines. Actual Mac-users had the chill objectivity I associate with Salafi terrorists. I started with a buddy who does networking and database manage for medium-sized companies. I knew he had a MacBook Pro. Did he like it?<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cIt\u2019s cute, well-designed, and I\u2019d buy another one, but when I have work to do, I need a PC.\u201d Ah. Why? \u201cBecause the network analysis software I need doesn\u2019t exist for the Mac, and their database and spreadsheet applications are toys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hmmm. I didn\u2019t want to analyze networks or fiddle with data bases, which left \u201ccute and well-designed.\u201d Nothing wrong with that.<\/p>\n

Next I asked a friend who is webmaster for a major site. He had started with Apple and migrated to PCs \u201cfor practical reasons.\u201d Well, he said, if you want to do really heavy-duty graphics or edit major films, the Mac is probably still better. And the operating system is more robust. Other than that, you pay a lot more for not much.<\/p>\n

Hmmm. \u201cA lot more\u201d meant a few hundred green ones, which are getting cheaper fast. \u201cRobust operating system\u201d had its appeal. Windows 7 is a wonderful operating system, except that it doesn\u2019t work very well. I wearied of getting \u201cInternet Explorer has stopped working,\u201d and \u201cEdit add-ons to speed up browsing\u201d messages that I couldn\u2019t turn off. Further, when I used the otherwise admirable Magnifier, whenever I changed web pages the font often whooped up to pixilated enormousness for five seconds, dropped to normal size, then did it again. Did Bill Gates personally hate me? What had I done to him?<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I talked to a few more of the Salafi terrorists. It didn\u2019t help. If you want intelligent thoughts regarding the Mac, it is better to talk to people who don\u2019t have one. Attempts to probe the consciousness of Mac-heads usually went like this:<\/p>\n

Mac-head: \u201cMac is better.\u201d Me: OK, how is it better? \u201cIt just is.\u201d Ah, I see. How is it just is? \u201cIt\u2019s easier to use.\u201d How is it easier to use? \u201cIt just is.\u201d \u201cHow is it just is?\u201d Round and round the mulberry bush.<\/p>\n

They said things like \u201cThe Mac\u2019s hardware is better than the PC\u00b4s.\u201d At this point I realized that most Apple cultists didn\u2019t know much about computers. For example, they didn\u2019t understand that the Macintosh is a product, while PC is a specification. Only Apple can make a Mac. Anybody can make a PC. Thus on one hand you have manufacturers on a level with back-alley abortionists who use cheap power supplies that smoke like the audience at a Grateful Dead concert, and hard drives with a Mean Time Between Failure of five minutes or until next Wednesday, whichever comes first. On the other hand, you have solidly built PCs such as Dell\u2019s Latitudes, serious boxes aimed at businessmen.<\/p>\n

Ferret-like, I pursued the questions. I asked a retired computer guy, who now repairs people\u00b4s laptops as a hobby, where Macs stood in reliability. \u201cA bit above mid-pack.\u201d OK.<\/p>\n

A question that came to mind was why, if Macs were as great as their parishioners held, why didn\u2019t everybody use them? Big business, for example. IT guys at Fortune Five Hundred companies were gimlet-eyed cost-benefit types, sentimental as gallstones. There had to be a reason why they didn\u2019t buy Macs.<\/p>\n

There was. One fellow explained that Microsoft was not just Windows but a lot of heavy-duty, forty-weight software for servers and SQL and other things that commerce needs to rob the public efficiently. Apple didn\u00b4t have all this stuff. I resolved that if I wanted to link 10,000 computers in my house, I would definitely go Microsoft. Thing was, I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

He explained further that the earth crawls with Microsoft-certified techs who can fix Uncle Gates\u2019 software. Not true of Apple.<\/p>\n

Hmmm redux. I was beginning to think of the Mac as an intensely personal computer for smart people who didn\u2019t want to know techno-wizzygobble about driver incompatibility and interrupt hierarchies: a computer, not a puzzle.
Nothing wrong with that. It was how I looked at my refrigerator: Shut up, stay cold, and keep your internal workings to yourself.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile I had bought an iPad. It was, as we used to say in Alabama, slicker than snot on a cat\u00b4s ass. Cute, yes, and well-designed, oh yes. For someone who doesn\u2019t see well, it was infinitely better than a Kindle, and intentionally so. So far it hasn\u2019t done anything annoying. Absolutely a fine gadget.<\/p>\n

It seemed to me that, aside from allegedly having an operating system that wouldn\u2019t make me want to rip its guts out, the difference between Mac and PC is that Apple is a closed company, while PC isn\u2019t. With PCs you have flexibility. There is a far wider range of hardware and software available. At my current stage of life, this is exactly what I don\u00b4t want.<\/p>\n

With Apple it\u00b4s apparently a few sizes fit all, but what there is works well with the rest of what there is. Simple machines for technically simple people who, however intellectually demanding their actual work may be, want as little to do with computers as possible. Nothing wrong with that.<\/p>\n

Them\u2019s my thoughts, anyway. Now I gotta run. My flight leaves for Patagonia shortly.<\/p>\n

May 8, 2013<\/em><\/p>\n

Fred Reed is author of<\/em> Nekkid in Austin: Drop Your Inner Child Down a Well,<\/em><\/a> A Brass Pole in Bangkok: A Thing I Aspire to Be<\/a>,<\/em> Curmudgeing Through Paradise: Reports from a Fractal Dung Beetle<\/a>,<\/em> Au Phuc Dup and Nowhere to Go: The Only Really True Book About Viet Nam<\/a>, and<\/em> A Grand Adventure: Wisdom’s Price-Along with Bits and Pieces about Mexico<\/a>. Visit his blog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9\u00a02013 Fred Reed<\/p>\n

The Best of Fred Reed<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This article originally appeared on : Lew Rockwell<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Fred Reed Recently by Fred Reed: Terrorism in Boston Every farm boy and columnist learns early on what not to step in. Some subjects are too sensitive to write about unless you have a hidden bunker in Patagonia. The two most explosive, oddly enough, are not race, feminism, or Israel. They are Star Trek, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-31982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}