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by Mike Masnick


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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.

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  1. Wow

    by Oliver Wendell Jones - Feb 4th, 2004 @ 10:19am

    Macs are okay, nothing special in my book. Every time I try to use one they just don't feel right, but that's probably just me. I've used Amiga OS, GEOS, Linux KDE and other graphical user interfaces and for some reason I just don't "get" the Mac.

    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.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. Re: Wow

    by August Jackson - Feb 4th, 2004 @ 11:36am

    This girl never heard of a paper clip?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. Re: Wow

    by Anonymous Coward - Feb 4th, 2004 @ 11:51am

    She just thought it was an animated character in MS-Office!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  4. Apple, the new Al-Queda?

    by Annomenous Coward (For Good Reason) - Feb 4th, 2004 @ 12:54pm

    Just think about it, instead of carbombs, we have desktop bombs.

    Sick joke I know, but those Mac users are starting to look like religious nuts....

    Praise the Prophet Jobs

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  5. Re: Wow

    by thecaptain - Feb 5th, 2004 @ 6:38am

    "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 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)

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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