It’s very tempting for the mainstream press to extract simpler quotes out of more complex-sounding rants. They try to quote several people, and glue it up together with some larger meaning, and it doesn’t always work out too well.

While most readers with half a brain are accustomed to this and are able to read between the lines to paint themselves a more accurate picture, a couple of nerds with too much time on their hands and a vengeful bone to pick, find it more constructive to unleash a litany of personal attacks at the quoted authors. I hear it’s some sort of required pre-pubescent right of passage, such as having the ugliest page possible on myspace, negative karma on slashdot, and a fark account. :/

“But it’s just fanatics performing their usual Windows hatred mania. In the past, they ranted about the release of iTunes for the PC, too.”

When in actual fact I said the following:

“You’ll see a lot of opposition to the concept of Boot Camp – and this will probably look like ‘hell has frozen over’ as you put it. But in fact it’s mostly just mac fanatics performing their usual windows hatred mantra – and it’s a well practised one. This is no different than before, it’s just that they have something new to rant about. In the past, they ranted about the release of iTunes for the PC, the loss of Firewire for iPods, and recently the move from IBM chip-sets to Intel ones.”

If you look carefully I said mantra, and he quoted me as saying mania. Cheeky.

That quote was pulled a little out of context, as can happen. I had been talking about virtualization providing a WINE-like ability for OS X, where you could run Windows applications without having to actually need to run Windows. That ability doesn’t currently exist on OS X, but it is being worked on by the Darwine project folks. If that ability is developed, that would give you the ability to run Windows apps on OS X without the Windows OS needing to run and allowing you to skip the virii and spyware. In fairness to Jefferson Graham, the reporter I corresponded with, I didn’t mention WINE or Darwine by name.

A national newspaper, and a news site read by the entire English speaking world. If Yahoo translated this story to French and Spanish then 80% of the world would be able to go online and learn how stupid you are.

Definitely make sure you get a copy of that article. You want to be able to show your grandkids, that at one point, you embarassed yourself to the whole world.

Your quotation was also used in a story from yahoo found here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060406/tc_usatoday/appleopensitselftowindows

However they get someone in that doesn’t have his head up his ass to refute your studidity:

But Rich Trouton, a Mac fan who blogs about Apple at the unaffiliated theappleblog.com, says they should. Apple Macs are known to be virtually virus free. If users could run Microsoft programs, he says, “but be able to skip the viruses and the spyware, that’d be a huge support burden that would be substantially lessened.”

That could change with Mac users putting Windows on their computers, say security experts. Macs have been generally safe because there are so few that hackers haven’t focused on them.

“When you’re running Windows on a Mac, you’re as vulnerable as any Windows user,” says Larry Seltzer, security center editor at news site eWeek.com. “An interesting question is, would a malicious Windows program affect Mac files on the same computer? It’s theoretically possible but extremely difficult to pull off and would reach a very small audience in the Mac market.”

Thank you Larry Setzer for telling this moron what’s up. By running Windows on a Mac you aren’t making your Windows environment more stable… just making your OSX environment less stable.

I’ll send you a copy hot off the newstand. Email me your address.

I’d imagine you could get a copy at the US Embassy, but otherwise send your particulars to quidire at gmail dot com and I’d be happy to ship you one.

It’s a widespread newspaper in hotels, but it is not one of the Big Three (Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal) in terms of investigative credibility. It has lower subscription circulation than the big three, but is the only newspaper that you can assume you will be able to get anywhere (any news stand, home delivery no matter where you are, etc) in the US. It is well known for it’s conservative bias and somewhat cartoonish approach to conveying news.

All the same, it is quite high-profile as a mention, you should be proud!

-RS