Sat, Apr 14, 2001 05:35PM -0600

I've found myself railing against everything that bugs me in the world today. I posted a whole bunch of crap on Slashdot as an Anonymous Coward on the posting about the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley [ Slashdot post][Archive at Cal]. I guess I'll always have a soft spot for my alma mater. And because I've been talking with my sister about this a lot, I've begun to see correlations with the current movement to try to reinstate affirmative action on the UC campuses. Who knows what sort of crisis the Regents might precipitate this time? All I know is that they should be grateful that the protest at Royce Hall was nowhere near like the protests on Sproul Plaza three decades ago.

On to less weighty matters, I've also been pondering Macintoshes, and Apple in general. They released Darwin yesterday for the x86 platform. (That's the "PC" to all you Macheads.) It seems really counter to the trend of Apple's closed-hardware policy (which has had the side-effect of preventing many Mac afficianados from appreciating the separation of hardware and software).

<rant> I guess I've gotten pretty tired of the elitism of the Mac crowd. It really made me sick when they co-opted all these icons of the counterculture in order to market their product. The Mac is supposed to make you different. Even better. Just because you own it?!?!

I remember having endless debates with my college roommate--he was an unrepentant Machead, and I had been brainwashed to believe in Wintel. Well, now that I'm a raving Linux zealot, I still think some of my arguments hold water.

Macintoshes are expensive. Cheapest Mac system I've seen is about $999. Cheapest x86 machine I've seen is $299. I don't care if you feel like a persecuted minority--you actually paid membership to be part of this exclusive club. And if you can't migrate from the Macintosh because you'll lose your sense of superiority, you need serious help.

But I guess what irritates me the most is when Mac users refer to Wintel as the "PC" platform. As if Macintoshes weren't personal computers. What in the hell are they, then? Now that I've gone apostate from the Church of Bill, I too decry the horrificness of Winblows, but I think the x86 way is true freedom.

Note that Intel is no longer uncontested in it's own home turf--witness the emergence of AMD. And you can buy hardware from whoever you want to. Mix and match. Fuck elitism.

Sure, the x86 is inferior to every modern architecture around, saddled with legacy features from over two decades ago, but this is freedom of choice we're talking about. The decoupling of the OS from the architecture for machines that you and I can afford. Possibly the very thing that allowed the Open Source Movement to take off.

So while I do admire MacOS and it's eye-candirifficness and Apple's technological superiority and the burgeoning creative community it has allowed to flourish, I cannot stomach the elitism.

Open Everything.„¢

</rant>

Finally, I want to rant briefly about those stupid essentialist lists of "Filipino" or "Filipino-American" characteristics. Do we really need these? What the hell is the point? Maybe if they actually did provide insight into the psyche of someone who is part of a post-post-post-colonial global culture. Instead, they're just empty stereotypes that might be funny once (Have you ever eaten dog?), but get stale really fast. In fact they're really pissing me off these days. And they even perpetuate some uncalled-for prejudices. (Like all Ilocanos are cheap bastards and all Visayans are full of shit. What's the point of that?)

So there. The world sucks and is filled with ugly stupid people. I hope they all nuke each other.

l i n k s