Eternal Damnation For Joking About Gutting A Mac
from the emotional-attachment dept
Most people know that Mac-owners tend to have more of an emotional connection with their computers than PC owners, but apparently that bond extends past their own Macs. Last week, you may have seen the page at Overclockers.com (now down) about some kid who claimed his parents gave him a brand new G5 Mac when he really just wanted a Dell PC. So, he claims he ripped out the insides and replaced it with standard PC parts - and includes pictures of the entire operation. I saw it last week and thought it was mildly amusing (especially considering the price differential of what he'd put in the machine compared to what he'd taken out). However, the Mac faithful reacted with absolute horror, and started filling his inbox with angry hate mail of all kinds. The kid eventually admitted that it was just a hoax, though some don't necessarily believe him. Still, it does show the emotional attachment some people have towards their Macs.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Wow
Mac Users, however, are oddballs. I've only met a few Mac users who I wouldn't classify as zealots... they're a whole different kind of computer user.
I used to date a Mac user. She bought a 3.5" floppy of shareware/freeware fonts. It had a virus on it and part of the virus's role was to keep the disk in the drive - the other part was to keep the Mac from operating.
Since there's no actual physical eject button, it wasn't terribly difficult. She was unable to use her Mac for almost an entire day until she could figure out how to get the disk out and since her Mac was her business, that was a whole day's potential money making lost.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Wow
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Wow
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Apple, the new Al-Queda?
Sick joke I know, but those Mac users are starting to look like religious nuts....
Praise the Prophet Jobs
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Wow
I remember back in my windows days (this was win95/win98) one of my close friends at the time was a Mac User and as zealot as they come.
We'd be at my place doing something on my computer and it would crash (this was 95 after all) and I'd reboot...). When this would happen, I'd be subjected to derision and scorn from him ("Here's a nickel kid get a better computer" or my favorite "Macs don't crash, mine never crashes...you should get a Mac")
Then we'd be at his place using his Mac and it would freeze, he'd wait a bit and reboot the thing..this would happen at about the same frequency as it would happen on mine. When I mentionned "I thought you said Macs don't crash", his ANGRY response was "That was NOT a crash..its a freeze and that's NORMAL..but it wasn't a CRASH.."
If I tried to get him to explain the difference between his "freeze" and my "crash", he'd get angry and say "You just don't want to see Macs are better".
I hate that attitude...from any zealots even linux ones (even though Linux is the only I use these days and I much prefer it to windows)
[ link to this | view in thread ]