Victory over Macintosh

[Zenon M. Feszczak]

At 9:49 AM -0700 4/24/98, you wrote:


>Well, we can't leave that alone now, can we?

Apparently not!  I wonder why?

>I would like to explain that we are discussing tools here, not cultural
>systems.

There's the rub:
Mac users often do consider their computers to be much more than a tool.
Hence the passionate defenses...and the cultural divide.

>I made the mistake of considering, for a bare moment, that
>language was a tool one could use to accomplish something. I, more than
>many, am aware that a tool is only one of the things a language can be.
>PCs and Macs are not cultural systems, they are mere tools.

A computer, along with its operating system, is in fact a "cultural
system", both emobodying and conveying cultural values, just as natural
language.
As such, the Mac and Wintel schools represent different (although
converging of late) cultural systems.

Where are our Wittgensteins and McLuhans when we need them to clarify (so
to speak) the issues?
The medium is at least part of the message.
Is it a coincidence that the term "programming language" is used?
Furthermore, the modern computer interface is, far beyond low-level
computer languages, an evolving human language; the artificial/natural
divide becomes as useless as the debates over artificial ingredients.

> As such
>they should make communication easier, not more difficult. I recommend
>he try editing PC stuff on his Mac. And get the Russian and English
>fonts right.  As the Mac dies, grimly clutching its academics.

...dies?
Luckily untrue.

Nevertheless:
Be careful what you wish for.
If not for the Mac, we'd all still be using DOS.
Or rather, not be using computers much at all.
I myself would resort to an abacus.
I'll have to work on a version of the ER Fonts for AOS (Abacus Operating
System).

Even our modern Gogolian hero of the nouveau riche, Lord Gates, knows a
good thing when he sees it.
He's not about to let his unpaid Research and Development division go under.
Besides, an Appless world would certainly lead to a rerun of the telephone
company Ma Bell Balkanization into Baby Bells courtesy of the Department of
Justice, with viscious and bratty Baby Bills running about, slapping each
other with lawsuits and pies, while the mute and mutant consumers get
splattered and pay the Bills.

Vive le Mac!!!

(Oh, yes, and might as well let that Wintel thing stay around as well.
Freedom of choice and all that.)

Vs'oho najkrashchoho -

Zenon M. Feszczak
Brotherhood of Saints Cyrillic and Postscript