Fire and Knowledge

Charlie Brooker asks “Microsoft’s grinning robots or the Brotherhood of the Mac. Which is worse?” His answer is hilarious — here’s an excerpt:

I admit it: I’m a bigot. A hopeless bigot at that: I know my particular prejudice is absurd, but I just can’t control it. It’s Apple. I don’t like Apple products. And the better-designed and more ubiquitous they become, the more I dislike them. I blame the customers. Awful people. Awful. Stop showing me your iPhone. Stop stroking your Macbook. Stop telling me to get one.

Seriously, stop it. I don’t care if Mac stuff is better. I don’t care if Mac stuff is cool. I don’t care if every Mac product comes equipped a magic button on the side that causes it to piddle gold coins and resurrect the dead and make holographic unicorns dance inside your head. I’m not buying one, so shut up and go home. Go back to your house. I know, you’ve got an iHouse. The walls are brushed aluminum. There’s a glowing Apple logo on the roof. And you love it there. You absolute MONSTER….

I know Windows is awful. Everyone knows Windows is awful… [But] it’s there, and there’s nothing you can do about it. OK, OK: I know other operating systems are available. But their advocates seem even creepier, snootier and more insistent than Mac owners. The harder they try to convince me, the more I’m repelled. To them, I’m a sheep. And they’re right. I’m a helpless, stupid, lazy sheep. I’m also a masochist. And that’s why I continue to use Windows – horrible Windows – even though I hate every second of it. It’s grim, it’s slow, everything’s badly designed and nothing really works properly: using Windows is like living in a communist bloc nation circa 1981. And I wouldn’t change it for the world, because I’m an abject bloody idiot and I hate myself, and this is what I deserve: to be sentenced to Windows for life.

That’s why Windows works for me. But I’d never recommend it to anybody else, ever. This puts me in line with roughly everybody else in the world. No one has ever earnestly turned to a fellow human being and said, “Hey, have you considered Windows?” Not in the real world at any rate.

I called Apple the other day because my Macbook Pro video card died. Thankfully, I had Applecare, so my laptop was fixed in 3 days including shipping. What a wonderful world.

While on the phone with the tech I mentioned that the computer wasn’t usable on a lap for more than 5 minutes, because it got ridiculously hot. I’m not talking oooo-that’s-warm hot. I’m talking oh-my-god-my-lap-is-on-fire hot. If you put your finger on bottom of the laptop for more than a couple seconds, it will actually hurt you.

“That can’t be normal,” I said.

“It probably has to do with the video card issue. But even without that, they do get pretty hot. I don’t recommend using them on laps,” she replied.

“Isn’t that kind of ironic? Shouldn’t a laptop, by the very definition, be able to be used on a lap?”

“Well sir that is why Apple doesn’t call them laptops. They are called notebooks.”

I thought about this for a second, then said, “So where exactly should notebooks be used, if not on your lap?”

“You know, on something where it can be used without burning you.”

“Like on a desk?”

“Exactly.”

“Wouldn’t that make it a desktop?”

Silence.

“Your package will be arriving tomorrow, is there anything else I can help you with today?”

Check out some pictures from “extreme power cabling” in Vietnam:

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I have no idea how I missed a video with 15 million views. However, if you like cats, “The Mean Kitty Song” is worth three minutes of your life:

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