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In The Village
Aug. 25th, 2010 06:11 pm
I was catching my breath at work today when it occurred to me that the communities of different computer operating systems were like dystopian science fiction cities.
Linux is Mad Max's Bartertown, with self-made barbarians wearing whatever they could make or steal wandering around from campfire to campfire in the vast electronic hobo jungle, trading .tar files. Windows is more like The City in The Matrix. Factory workers and cubicle rats labor day and night to appease unseen, unknown forces in a rundown, half-functional world full of cruelty, crime, and hackers.
And then there's Apple.
Apple is The Village. It is the ultimate gated community, which is ironic since there's no Gates in it.
Everything in The Village is polished, manicured, and oh so safe. Your neat little home is like everyone else's neat little home. The Leader, known as Number 2 (or maybe he's just full of Number 2, I don't know) sees to it that you are provided with everything you really need. Just be sure not to ask, not to look to find what's outside the walls.
Apple products even LOOK like something from The Village. Apple sites and literature even use the same FONTS.
My new Ipad introduced me to the World of Apple. I don't know why I bought it, really-- just too cool to resist, I suppose.
Theoretically, it can do anything I'd want it to do, or any reasonable thing (as defined by The Leader) anyway. But there are always these WALLS around you. And a million fellow Villagers to smile and smile and tell you why the walls are GOOD FOR YOU.
You can't just drag a file from your desktop machine to the Ipad. Oh no, much too dangerous. You have to synchronize it in through the Itunes music and software store program, of all things. And there has to be an application on the Ipad that actually uses that kind of file, since you synchronize the file to the program that uses it, not to the file system of the Ipad itself.
What's wrong with that? Why would I want a file on the Ipad that I can't use there? Well, because I might want to use the Ipad to carry files I wanted to give to somebody else during my travels. And because it is MY storage space, and I want to use it however I want-- no matter how silly that way may be.
The Ipad can't run Flash, so about half the web sites out there don't work properly on it. Never mind, the fellow Villagers say, and smile and smile; if the Leader doesn't provide Flash, you must not really need it. Besides, we in The Village know Flash is bad. I'm not sure why, exactly, but that's what the Leader says, so it must be true.
Then there's that fiasco about data plans. AT&T and Apple advertised this thing up the wazoo for its unlimited data plan, which was supposedly about 5gb a month-- not so unlimited after all-- for $30. But as soon as Ipad 3gs started to become available, AT&T improved the plan to 2 gb per month, fixed, for $25. The Villagers say this is all for the best, that they're looking out for my best interests and saving me five bucks a month. I can't see how this change benefits me, but the sun is so bright and pretty here, and the hedges are all perfectly manicured.
The Villagers smile and smile, and point out that the average smartphone user doesn't go through 2gb a month. Well, yeah, but a smartphone is not an Ipad. The Ipad is really a media consumption device, not a phone and not really a computer. It is the first portable device I've encountered which is meant to stream stuff-- movies, TV, music-- almost as its primary purpose. You think you start using this thing as it was meant to be used, when streaming a movie is a gig or so, and you might burn through a couple of gigs a month? Seems pretty likely to me, anyway.
Never mind; the Village Nurse just gave me my medication, and I swallowed it down without checking to see what it was. Now I need to go to the Itunes store and buy another $30 or $40 worth of software accessories. Funny how this is the most expensive computing device I have in the house and also the only one that didn't have things like a calculator installed when I got it, for free.
But look how beautifully everything works. Delete a spam email and the message shrinks, curls up at the edges, gets blown across the electronic desktop by an electronic breeze, shrinking and fading as it goes until it dissolves into a scattering of photons as it reaches the edge of the screen. Lovely.
Yes, everything is beautiful here in The Village. And I don't care what's outside the walls. In fact, I don't think there IS anything outside them.
Be seeing you.
Linux is Mad Max's Bartertown, with self-made barbarians wearing whatever they could make or steal wandering around from campfire to campfire in the vast electronic hobo jungle, trading .tar files. Windows is more like The City in The Matrix. Factory workers and cubicle rats labor day and night to appease unseen, unknown forces in a rundown, half-functional world full of cruelty, crime, and hackers.
And then there's Apple.
Apple is The Village. It is the ultimate gated community, which is ironic since there's no Gates in it.
Everything in The Village is polished, manicured, and oh so safe. Your neat little home is like everyone else's neat little home. The Leader, known as Number 2 (or maybe he's just full of Number 2, I don't know) sees to it that you are provided with everything you really need. Just be sure not to ask, not to look to find what's outside the walls.
Apple products even LOOK like something from The Village. Apple sites and literature even use the same FONTS.
My new Ipad introduced me to the World of Apple. I don't know why I bought it, really-- just too cool to resist, I suppose.
Theoretically, it can do anything I'd want it to do, or any reasonable thing (as defined by The Leader) anyway. But there are always these WALLS around you. And a million fellow Villagers to smile and smile and tell you why the walls are GOOD FOR YOU.
You can't just drag a file from your desktop machine to the Ipad. Oh no, much too dangerous. You have to synchronize it in through the Itunes music and software store program, of all things. And there has to be an application on the Ipad that actually uses that kind of file, since you synchronize the file to the program that uses it, not to the file system of the Ipad itself.
What's wrong with that? Why would I want a file on the Ipad that I can't use there? Well, because I might want to use the Ipad to carry files I wanted to give to somebody else during my travels. And because it is MY storage space, and I want to use it however I want-- no matter how silly that way may be.
The Ipad can't run Flash, so about half the web sites out there don't work properly on it. Never mind, the fellow Villagers say, and smile and smile; if the Leader doesn't provide Flash, you must not really need it. Besides, we in The Village know Flash is bad. I'm not sure why, exactly, but that's what the Leader says, so it must be true.
Then there's that fiasco about data plans. AT&T and Apple advertised this thing up the wazoo for its unlimited data plan, which was supposedly about 5gb a month-- not so unlimited after all-- for $30. But as soon as Ipad 3gs started to become available, AT&T improved the plan to 2 gb per month, fixed, for $25. The Villagers say this is all for the best, that they're looking out for my best interests and saving me five bucks a month. I can't see how this change benefits me, but the sun is so bright and pretty here, and the hedges are all perfectly manicured.
The Villagers smile and smile, and point out that the average smartphone user doesn't go through 2gb a month. Well, yeah, but a smartphone is not an Ipad. The Ipad is really a media consumption device, not a phone and not really a computer. It is the first portable device I've encountered which is meant to stream stuff-- movies, TV, music-- almost as its primary purpose. You think you start using this thing as it was meant to be used, when streaming a movie is a gig or so, and you might burn through a couple of gigs a month? Seems pretty likely to me, anyway.
Never mind; the Village Nurse just gave me my medication, and I swallowed it down without checking to see what it was. Now I need to go to the Itunes store and buy another $30 or $40 worth of software accessories. Funny how this is the most expensive computing device I have in the house and also the only one that didn't have things like a calculator installed when I got it, for free.
But look how beautifully everything works. Delete a spam email and the message shrinks, curls up at the edges, gets blown across the electronic desktop by an electronic breeze, shrinking and fading as it goes until it dissolves into a scattering of photons as it reaches the edge of the screen. Lovely.
Yes, everything is beautiful here in The Village. And I don't care what's outside the walls. In fact, I don't think there IS anything outside them.
Be seeing you.
