Category: Apple Community

While Apple is currently enjoying an increased incidence of users switching to the Mac platform from Windows, some prominent users are switching away from the Mac…

…to Linux.

Long-time Mac user Mark Pilgrim announced recently that he was switching to Linux (link via Daring Fireball) due to concerns over Apple’s proprietary data formats.

In response, Mac users rushed to defend the platform against Pilgrim’s wild assertions concerning his own personal requirements.

“Who does this guy think he is?” shot back Panic’s Steven Frank. “What, Lord Pilgrim needs his precious data in a format that he’ll be able to access in perpetuity?

“Actually, you know what? That doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.”

Others questioned whether Pilgrim had ulterior motives in switching.

“He’s totally in the pocket of big Linux,” said Jay Curtis of Your Mac Life. “There’s a lot of money out there to be made in switching to Linux. Big Linux is practically throwing money at prominent Mac bloggers, trying to get them to switch. He’s been paid off by the man.”

“You’re way off base,” said Shawn King. “Linux users are all a bunch of Islamo-fascist communists. Mark’s obviously switching because he was captured by Jihado-terrorist troll patchers as a child and programmed to go off like a bomb thirty years later… and switch to Linux. It’s all part of their insidious plot to destroy our liberties by making us spend all out time compiling various Linux distros.

“It’s the only rational explanation.”

Pilgrim probably maintains that none of these is the reason, but who the hell gives a crap. The guy’s obviously just a kook.

As many may have seen over the weekend, Dave Winer managed to tape John C. Dvorak (links via Daring Fireball) revealing his formula for ginning up hits from angry Macintosh users.

In short, Dvorak admitted that he deliberately writes incendiary columns that he doesn’t believe solely to increase traffic, and then backs off or feigns innocence when flamed.

The staff at Crazy Apple Rumors Site takes its responsibility as journalists very seriously. Apparently much more seriously than Mr. Dvorak. For this reason, we convened a panel of Apple pundits – Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, Ars Technica’s John Siracusa, and the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg – to discuss Dvorak’s lack of journalistic integrity.

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CRAZY APPLE RUMORS SITE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF JOHN MOLTZ: Gentlemen, thank you for coming all the way to Tacoma for this fifteen minute panel. In the days since the posting of this video, Dvorak has been reviled throughout the Macintosh community once again. He’s been called everything from a douche bag to an ass clown. So… John Dvorak…

Douche bag or ass clown?

John Gruber?

GRUBER: Douche bag.

SIRACUSA: I disagree. The douche bag monicker just implies that he’s a jerk. The ass clown, on the other hand, also lacks integrity. It’s one of the hallmarks of the ass clown.

GRUBER: No. No. No. You’re pigeon-holing “douche bag.”

SIRACUSA: No, I’m not. That’s the standard usage. Check the AP Style Guide. I’m very careful about things like that.

GRUBER: Oooh, excuse me, princess.

SIRACUSA: … What is that supposed to mean?

GRUBER: I don’t know. What do you think it means?

MOLTZ: Hmm. OK, good debate. Walt Mossberg, you’re the only one whose first name is not John and you’ve been quiet throughout this. Coincidence? Which do you think Dvorak is, ass clown or douche bag?

MOSSBERG: This is completely infantile and I won’t be drawn into such a childish debate. I’m here to talk about one thing and one thing only. The only thing that is salient to Dvorak’s legitimacy as a technology pundit: his well-documented addiction to lesbian dwarf porn.

MOLTZ: Lesbian dwarf porn. Indeed. John Siracusa?

SIRACUSA: Well, I…

GRUBER: Can I just say that I was blogging about Dvorak’s lesbian dwarf porn addiction three years ago?

MOLTZ: That’s swell. But, what does this say about PC Magazine that they’ll hire a columnist who’s addicted to lesbian dwarf porn?

SIRACUSA: Wait, doesn’t he write for Windows World?

GRUBER: I thought it was PC User.

MOSSBERG: I know he writes for Lesbian Dwarf Porn Weekly under the pseudonym “Randy Dick.”

SIRACUSA: Well, whatever he writes for, I think it’s one thing to hire someone who’s looked at lesbian dwarf porn and something else to hire someone addicted to lesbian dwarf porn. I mean, we’ve all had that moment we wish we could take back where we’ve followed those links just a little too far and found a loved one engaged in goatse. Am I right?

GRUBER: Um… no.

MOSSBERG: Engaged in what?

MOLTZ: Yes. No. No.

Um…

Define “loved one.”

SIRACUSA: That was hyperbole. Anyway, you know what I mean.

MOLTZ: More of an acquaintance, really.

MOSSBERG: …

GRUBER: …

SIRACUSA: …

MOLTZ: Well, gentlemen, thank you for coming. I think we’ve learned a lot today about the state of technology punditry.

GRUBER: No we haven’t.

MOLTZ: Shh.

As the realization that their values are being compromised by an inundation of inbred, Windows-using yahoos spread today, the Mac community began to rise up and demand action.

“In order to protect our vital cultural heritage as Mac users, we ask that the Mac community be sealed off until futher notice,” said a statement issued by a collection of commenters on this site.

Recognizing a vital voting bloc in this year’s mid-term election, politicians raced to pander to Mac users.

President Bush today vowed to build a 150 mile collection of fences around Apple Stores in an effort to keep Windows users from migrating to the Macintosh. Republicans in Congress pressed for stricter measures that would require former Windows users to switch back.

House Democrats, meanwhile, proposed a tepid reeducation program that would help Windows users acclimate to the Macintosh community by teaching them some of the basics of good taste.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said, “Many Windows users simply don’t know, for example, that War At Home is really a horrible, horrible show.

“Truly awful. Abysmal. Absolutely unwatchable.”

For most Mac users, however, none of this pandering was satisfactory.

“I won’t be happy until Windows users are shot before they come within thirty feet of a Macintosh,” said columnist Andy Ihnatko.

“I’m kind of a stickler that way.”

Many were concerned that an influx of Windows users would mean fewer Macs for those who bleed six colors.

“Macs for Mac users!” a collection of protestors shouted unironically outside the flagship Fifth Avenue Apple Store.

Apple declined to comment for this story other than to repeat “‘Macs for Mac users’?”

MacNewsWorld reports today that investment banks are bullish on Apple in large part because of the iPod “halo effect”, where customer satisfaction with the iPod results in the purchase of a Mac.

But as more and more people switch from Windows to the Mac, Mac users these days are taking a look around and concluding “There goes the neighborhood.”

An informal survey of the Mac community conducted by Crazy Apple Rumors Site revealed that many feel that the influx of former Windows users has effectively cheapened the overall quality of the Macintosh experience.

“I was in an Apple Store yesterday and I was appalled at the quality of the customers, said the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg. “In the span of five minutes I saw a woman with an ‘I’m the best grandma!’ t-shirt and a grown man with one of those rat tails.

“Frankly, I didn’t even think these people were allowed on Fifth Avenue, let alone the Apple Store.”

But New York is not the only place members of the Mac community were expressing dismay at having to share their favorite platform with slack-jawed mouth breathers just bused in from Windows, USA. Users in Tennessee were likewise sickened.

“Is this the kind of people we want in the Macintosh community?” asked Shawn King of Your Mac Life. “With their polyester stretch pants and their mustaches and their minivans and their According to Jim fan fiction?

“According to Jim fan fiction! I’ve seen it! It’s horrible! I mean, of course it’s horrible, it’s based on According to Jim! It has to be horrible by definition!”

Several law firms have expressed interest in starting a class action lawsuit against Apple to have the influx of former Windows users stopped before more damage is done.

Sources indicate that Randy Foss of the Stateline Macintosh Users Group has repeatedly asked Apple employees when OS 9 will be available on Intel. Much to the embarrassment of other members of his MUG, Foss simply will not let go of his pipe dream of a cooperative processing operating system without protected memory on Intel-based Macs.

“We all know they have the code, Foss said defiantly. “Ever hear of the Star Trek project? Steve Jobs is just trying to make money by forcing people to buy OS X.”

Ironically, Foss is demanding what some experts believe would be a $100-150 million project so he can retain his $200 investment in a 300 DPI scanner the size of an industrial air conditioner.

Stateline MUG president Ted Egner said “It’s hopeless trying to talk to Randy. He bought that scanner in 1995 and there isn’t an OS X driver for it. He refuses to spend the $75 to buy a new one. He just won’t acknowledge the fact that Apple doesn’t owe him an antiquated operating system on modern hardware.”

Egner said the Stateline MUG bylaws prevented him from expelling Foss.

“You know, we go to a lot of trouble to get Apple employees to come to our meetings and I hate to make them field Randy’s questions. But, sadly, we have to take everyone.”

Foss indicated that even if there were an updated driver for his scanner, he “wouldn’t want to switch away from a proven technology just to be on the bleeding edge.”

Foss also repeated the entirely unsupportable claim that “more and more people are switching back to OS 9 every day.”

“There was a big bank in Missouri that just switched back,” Foss said.

“You’ve been saying that for three years,” fellow MUG member Andy Warchowski said “and you can never produce an article about it.”

“The Apple-friendly media won’t report it!” Foss exclaimed, prompting his fellow MUG members to roll their eyes.

A spokesperson for Apple would only groan loudly when asked about Foss’ demand.