after a few days, the core starts stinking

An old friend of mine asked me about buying an iPad.  My first response to him was this:

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iDon'tknow.  iDon'tEvenCare.  iHateApple.  iThinkJobsStinks

;-)

jokes apart, I don't mind recommending apple to my technically challenged (but financially non-challenged) friends, but I would never use one.  Ever.

I have several reasons.

The vaunted "intuitiveness" was lost on me during my first experience with an Apple in 1996, where I had to finally be told by someone that ejecting a floppy (yeah, those days!) required moving the floppy icon to the trashcan.  How that is intuitive I have never understood.

My real reason is that I hate control freaks like Jobs, who will not let you do what you want with your machine, in general.  That might be OK for a lot of people, but not for me.

I have, when in a facetious mood, said the following: "more money than brains?  use Apple.  more brains than money?  use Linux.  neither money nor brains?  use (pirated) Windows".  clearly applicable mainly in India (and China I guess).

There's a backhanded compliment to Apple in there, if you look hard enough ;-)

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He responded with something about innovation and consumer products and marketing and so on.  Here's my reply:

---------- (2) ----------

My whole point is that a computer (and even an iPad is one, perhaps even an iPhone, arguably) never was, and never will be, a consumer product like a DVD player or a stereo system.  Those things have only one (or a few well-known-in-advance) functions, and no one expects a toaster to even become a microwave via software upgrade.

Looks don't matter to me, so now it's just an expensive piece of hardware you cannot customise or do what you want with.  For the "sheeple" who just take what they've been given, that's fine.  You know me better than that, but I also thought I knew *you* better than that :-)

The bottom line is that if you love the word freedom in *any* sense, you need to think about supporting this joker.  Probably the best comment (though not the funniest) is at http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=963229&cid=24996553 -- which I quote in its entirety because it's short:

I was exclusively a Mac user from 1990 through 1997. >From 1997 through 2000 I was a three platform user. Windows for games, Mac for art and linux for servers. Steve Jobs' return to Apple crushed the core of the spirit that made me a loyal user. My computer is not a status symbol. It's not a lifestyle choice. It's not a part of my image. It's a tool. When Apple shifted back to the current "Image above all else" mode, I went to Win/Lin PCs. I don't have the time of the money to stroke Steve Jobs' ego.

Some more links are below.  Two things I will ask: (1) don't let the tone of the first one fool you into ignoring the others; it was just too funny to let go, and (2) do follow the first level links within those links (one level only) also, even the ones that didn't turn into hyperlinks -- just copy-paste them into your browser.  Some of the comments are really insightful, despite the language used.

http://sitaramc.blogspot.com/2010/03/erm-some-of-my-friends-shouldnt-read.html
http://sitaramc.blogspot.com/2010/03/they-should-however-see-this.html
http://sitaramc.blogspot.com/2008/09/apple-idiocy.html (the Adithya in the comments is a young, NON-techie, nephew of mine who has -- independently it seems, seen the light)

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But the main point I forgot to address was this.  He said, "The business user is not really interested in the gory details of coding".

The correct response is "sure, but shouldn't he care that if his son, or his friend, or his IT dept, can code it up for him, he still cannot use it unless Jobs allows him to?"

LinkedIn going the facebook way?

I got a LinkedIn invite from someone whose name was vaguely familiar,
but did not really recognise. So I asked her "who are you and how do
you know me"?

Her reply:

> sorry sir we dont know each other....i think i have got u from my gmail
> where i usually forward my resume for jobs.

Is this how networks are built up now? Is Linkedin becoming like bloody
facebook?

Is this how some people have hundreds of contacts?

fake job acceptance letters

I just heard of a spate of fake job acceptance letters being sent out in the name of TCS, as well as many other large and small IT companies in India.  Typical phishing-type mails, all sorts of promises, bad spelling and grammar, and a "fee" for the "process" (not exact words; but then do the exact words matter?)

I spoke to a few guys here and there, turns out it's happening to many companies, and quite a few people are getting duped, then filing police complaints.

A friend and I were talking, and he says: "I can understand if a blue-collar worker gets duped looking for a job in Dubai.  But these guys are supposed to have bachelors or masters degrees, often in some branch of Engineering or Science!"

I agree.  My question to anyone who got duped by these guys is: were you *so* desperate for a job that you stopped thinking?

an agnostic's delight

http://www.fullmoon.nu/articles/art.php?id=tal

read the whole thing, but the following was really nice:

Seriously though, species who hold on to religion past its sell-by date tend to be most likely to self destruct. They spend so much energy arguing about my true nature, and invest so much emotion in their wildly erroneous imagery that they end up killing each other over differences in definitions of something they clearly haven't got a clue about. Ludicrous behaviour, but it does weed out the weaklings.

And even though he speaks of "killing each other", I'm not just thinking about the terrorists here. You'll find such people, albeit with far less damage potential, much closer to home than you think. In your family. At work. They're bloody everywhere. All religions seem to be subject to such stupidity, although only a few carry it to extremes.

The next couple of paras after this are very funny, though I can't help feeling the author either caved in to the PC brigade or got scared of a fatwa ;-)

All in all, a very fun read...

a couple of funny ones...

First, on facebook:

Amy Schumer: Facebook Is Weird

via Comedy Central's Jokes.com: Joke of the Day by Comedy Central on 4/2/10

Now every idiot from high school's like, 'I'm back!' We weren't supposed to meet again. Stop poking me and inviting me to your weird vampire parties. No, I don't want to follow you on Twatter. Like, nobody's interested in you. I don't want to see you in real life, why would I want to follow you in the imaginary one?

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Next, on MTV (and book stores these days!)

Daniel Tosh: Not Music Television

via Comedy Central's Jokes.com: Joke of the Day by Comedy Central on 10/29/08

The worst television is MTV. 'Music Television' -- they call it that, they don't even play music. How's that legal? What if everybody did that? 'Hey, thanks for calling New York Pizza.' 'Yeah, give me two large pepperoni pizzas.' 'Oh, we don't sell pizza.' 'What?' 'No, we just have raccoon hats and eye patches. Call a book store if you're hungry.'