Also, I agree with udders here that you really didn’t do a good job of picking out true “fanboys”. Try MacFixit, MacWorld, etc. instead of Fortune, Bloomberg or whatever.

This post reminds me of all those people that go around saying there’s a ton of Mac people that keep saying their Macs are “invulnerable”. I’ve been waiting for years to see this mythic beast.

Please, if you are a Mac user that thinks your machine is invulnerable to all security threats… please speak up here. It would be amazing to finally meet one of you.

You sound angry and frustrated… maybe you should get a mac?

And you know what? WinXP machines work really, really well. I haven’t had an OS crash in years, and the only system-level problems I ever seem to have are in the hardware, not the OS.

I’d like to meet these mythical people who have WinXP installs that don’t suffer the classic slow but inevitable degradation over time (like fish going bad) that every Windows install ever has had.

Plus, Windows requires anti-malware software such as Kaspersky (KIS) just so it’s not assimilated into a botnet swarm within hours of connecting to the Internet.

I like OSX because it’s an easy to use and stable UNIX. I like Mac laptops because they’re easy to repair (thanks to online guides such as those by iFixIt.)

OsX *is* UNIX. It is UNIX certified just like AIX or Solaris.

“No company is so defined by one man and for the most part Ceos are constantly being replaced but it will be impossible to find a brilliant mind or an ego the size of Jobs.”

Unless you drive a whole 22 miles from Cupertino to Redwood Shores and introduce yourself to Larry Ellison, jrkwd.

Linux and OSX are much like UNIX, and more or less inspired by UNIX, but calling OSX “an easy to use and stable UNIX” is like calling a giraffe “a very long necked spotty horse”.

VMS was just as POSIX-compliant as XNU/Darwin is, incidentally, and nobody considers VMS with DECwindows to be a unix, although I am sure most people would find them indistinguishable.

Personally, for a desktop, I prefer OSX to any true UNIX. I prefer linux to OSX, but that’s probably because I dumpster-dive most of my hardware.

I don’t really see the self-centered anger alluded to in this story.

I’ve always had Windows, currently XP. I’ve managed to keep each computer that I’ve had for six years with no crises. And, as is obvious, I work online and use my computer all day every day, including checking out all the suspicious links that we get through the comment system. I find Windows easier to use than Mac, which I think is purely a matter of personal workstyle. It’s the user who screws up a computer, not the OS.

The responses from the Mac fans have been delightful as well, each confused, baffled and occasionally angry response being like a slice of dark chocolate for the soul.

Oooh, wank harder for me Mac fans, I’m almost there.

I’ll recommend Macs to people who are very, very computer illiterate and can’t perform even the most basic configurations, virus protection or installations, sure. They’re great for that section of the population, since they’re close to idiot-proof. But god forbid you want to get in there and mess around, or need to fix something that’s broken. It’s like trying to change the oil on a car that’s had its hood welded shut.

On the other hand, I’ve had nothing but good experiences with XP (Vista is a different story) and actually enjoy working with the OS.

I think Rushkoff made some excellent points, which are illustrated in realtime every day at my job. The products have lovely aesthetics, are very expensive, and are marketed as status symbols more than functioning tools. It’s a cult of personality, and when the leader of the cult wavers, it’s no surprise that the followers get uneasy.

Judging from Mr. David Crosby’s case, and others, people can keep ticking a long time after having this procedure. According to this link , it’s at about 58% survival after fifteen years – not bad at all for a major organ transplant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liver_transplant

Get well Steve.

The portrayal of OS X as exclusively for computer illiterates is flawed. There are extensive geeky nether-regions to be explored in AppleScript and the Unix dungeons which lurk below.

(Anonymous #25, Leopard is a certified Unix when running on Intel. )

I have loved every OS I’ve tried this century. XP is great, stable and wonderfully tweakable; the Linuxes offer a magnificent buffet of perverse delights; Windows 7 is shiny and exciting. OS X is my favourite, but the best thing of all is this: I don’t have to pick one.

As things have stood for the last several years, none of the three major platforms suck. Why some people display such a deep commitment to pretending otherwise, I have no idea. But then, I use a Mac, so I’m obviously not very bright.

Maybe the problem is that he’s looking for “fanboys” at places like Fortune and Bloomberg, certainly not where *I’d* go to find the “Apple community.” People concerned with Apple’s stock price and people who admire Apple’s products are not identical groups.

But I’d agree that the people he quotes in this peculiar essay do, indeed, sound like cretins.

As the PC proved popular with consumers and businesses, it was actually Microsoft that sought to develop a computer-literate user capable of issuing the commands that make a computer operate, while Apple worked toward the simplified world of icons, metaphors, and clicking. Users didn’t know how any of it worked; Steve just made it so.

Stone the motherfucking crows, he’s praising MSDOS. Never mind that the Apple ][ had a command-line interface, or that MS rolled out Windows just as soon as they could bolt it onto MSDOS. Oh, and in Doug’s world, the endless hassle of getting Windows to talk to devices was actually a virtue. Honestly, this is the weirdest, most-Bizarro-world thing that I’ve seen from a BB guest blogger since Rudy Rucker’s neck wrinkle rant.

Barlow: “Sideshow Bob, councilman Les Whinen says that you’re not experienced enough to be mayor. Sir, what do you have to say about that?”
Bob: “I’d say that Les Whinen ought to do more thinking and less whining!”
[audience laughs and claps]
Lisa: “There’s no councilman Les Whinen.”
Bart: “[chuckling] Good line, though.”

But! Rushkoff’s historical analysis is mostly fantasy and the whole piece jam-packed with mean-spirited and unnecessary attributional insults:

“But Apple’s products and policies have always been biased toward childish, whiny, and self-centered behavior”

“Steve Jobs’ personality more than compensated for any fear of corporate fascism. ”

“Jobs’ narcissistic personality disorder”

What is the point of all this? And why would I want to see it on the front of BB?

That’s a particular funny one, since I had Apple Inc in the piece I turned in and the copyeditor changed it to Apple Computers Inc! They must be using an old style guide.

You know, @rocky69rhodes, if you’re going to wish death on someone (hardly ever a good idea) I’m sure there are better candidates.
2:30 PM Jun 20th from web

RT @rocky69rhodes hope the bastard dies he shldn’t b able 2 get a liver when others r dying because the wait is so long-Wow. And I’m angry?
2:24 PM Jun 20th from web

Congratulations to Steve Jobs! Live long and…well, I guess I don’t need to say that part.
12:04 PM Jun 20th from web

Part of the reason the transplant was done here in Tennessee is that we have one of (if not _the_) shortest waiting lists in the US. We also have two of the top liver transplant teams in the world at Vanderbilt and Methodist in Memphis.

1. Apple Inc is Steve and the two have become inseparable.

2. This leads to finance guys worrying about the stock value and fans worrying about products in a post Jobs world !!

No company is so defined by one man and for the most part Ceos are constantly being replaced but it will be impossible to find a brilliant mind or an ego the size of Jobs.