The OS wars are over

[Cain]

Charlie Brooker has spoken:

Using Windows is like living in a communist bloc nation circa 1981. And don't change it.

I admit it: I'm a bigot. A hopeless bigot at that: I know my particular prejudice is absurd, but I just can't control it. It's Apple. I don't like Apple products. And the better-designed and more ubiquitous they become, the more I dislike them. I blame the customers. Awful people. Awful. Stop showing me your iPhone. Stop stroking your Macbook. Stop telling me to get one.

Seriously, stop it. I don't care if Mac stuff is better. I don't care if Mac stuff is cool. I don't care if every Mac product comes equipped with a magic button on the side that causes it to piddle gold coins and resurrect the dead and make holographic unicorns dance inside your head. I'm not buying one, so shut up and go home. Go back to your house. I know, you've got an iHouse. The walls are brushed aluminum. There's a glowing Apple logo on the roof. And you love it there. You absolute monster.

Of course, it's safe to assume Mac products are indeed as brilliant as their owners make out. Why else would they spend so much time trying to convert non-believers? They're not getting paid. They simply want to spread their happiness, like religious crusaders.

Consequently, nothing pleases them more than watching a PC owner struggle with a slab of non-Mac machinery. Recently I sat in a room trying to write something on a Sony Vaio PC laptop which seemed to be running a special slow-motion edition of Windows Vista specifically designed to infuriate human beings as much as possible. Trying to get it to do anything was like issuing instructions to a depressed employee over a sluggish satellite feed. When I clicked on an application it spent a small eternity contemplating the philosophical implications of opening it, begrudgingly complying with my request several months later. I called it a bastard and worse. At one point I punched a table.

This drew the attention of two nearby Mac owners. They hovered over and stood beside me, like placid monks.

"Ah: the delights of Vista," said one.

"It really is time you got a Mac," said the other.

"They're just better," sang the first monk.

"You won't regret it," whispered the second.

Leave me alone, I thought. I don't care if you're right. I just want you to die.

I know Windows is awful. Everyone knows Windows is awful. Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's grim, it's slow, everything's badly designed and nothing works properly: using Windows is like living in a communist bloc nation circa 1981. And I wouldn't change it for the world, because I'm an abject bloody idiot and I hate myself, and this is what I deserve: to be sentenced to Windows for life.

That's why Windows works for me. But I'd never recommend it to anybody else, ever. This puts me in line with roughly everybody else in the world. No one has ever earnestly turned to a fellow human being and said, "Hey, have you considered Windows?"

Until now. Microsoft, hell-bent on tackling the conspicuous lack of word-of-mouth recommendation, is encouraging people — real people — to host "Windows 7 launch parties" to celebrate the release of, er, Windows 7.

To assist the party-hosting massive, they've uploaded a series of spectacularly cringeworthy videos to YouTube, in which the four most desperate actors in the world stand around in a kitchen sharing tips on how best to indoctrinate guests in the wonder of Windows. If they were staring straight down the lens reading hints off a card it might be acceptable; instead, they have been instructed to pretend to be friends. The result is the most nauseating display of artificial camaraderie since the horrific Doritos "Friendchips" TV campaign (which caused 50,000 people to kill themselves in 2003, or should have done).

It's so terrible, it induces an entirely new emotion: a blend of vertigo, disgust, anger and embarrassment that I like to call "shitasmia". It not only creates this emotion: it defines it. It's the most shitasmic cultural artefact in history. Watch it for yourself.

Still, bad though it is, I vaguely prefer the clumping, clueless, uncool, crappiness of Microsoft's bland Stepford gang to the creepy assurance of the average Mac evangelist. At least the grinning dildos in the Windows video are fictional, whereas eerie replicant Mac monks really are everywhere, standing over your shoulder in their charcoal pullovers, smirking at your hopelessly inferior OS, knowing they're better than you because they use Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard. I don't care if you're right.

I just want you to die.

[the other anonymous]

I use Windows Me, and I'm never upgrading! I configured this slow ass piece of shit to crash only once a week.

Now, if only I could get FF3 to compile...

-toa,
jquery is slow!

[Kai]

The linuxspags are just as bad.

Kai,

a linuxspag.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The Linuxspags are WORSE, because you can just tell a Mac-whore that you can't afford a new computer/phone/whatever, but you can install Linux on ANYTHING.

Macs are kind of like having sex. Windows is more like masturbating with sandpaper. Whenever you see someone chafing their genitals off with sandpaper, it's really hard not to say "Have you tried sex? Because, I swear to god, it's a lot better than what you're inflicting on yourself right now. Oh god, please stop, I can't watch this."

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh my god, it really is that bad! 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cX4t5-YpHQ

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh. Oh my god. It's just painful.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The "home movie" style videography is uniquely unconvincing. It makes me want to kill myself.

[Kai]

Oh my god, it really is that bad! 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cX4t5-YpHQ

That hurts to watch. A mutibillion dollar corporation put out an advertisement that poor? 

[rygD]

I still think Linux or BSD is the way to go.  And if my hardware is cheaper, but I get better performance and reliability, while it still looks nicer, fuck it.  Plus it's free.  Oh and no viruses.  I do occasionally tell people they should give it a try, but I usually tell them to try it out on a partition.  Some people seem stuck in this "if it is free it can't be good" state of mind,but fuck them too.  Those who try see.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh my god, it really is that bad! 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cX4t5-YpHQ

That hurts to watch. A mutibillion dollar corporation put out an advertisement that poor? 

Luckily, my friend Cabel made some small improvements:
http://www.cabel.name/2009/09/windows-7-party.html

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I still think Linux or BSD is the way to go.  And if my hardware is cheaper, but I get better performance and reliability, while it still looks nicer, fuck it.  Plus it's free.  Oh and no viruses.  I do occasionally tell people they should give it a try, but I usually tell them to try it out on a partition.  Some people seem stuck in this "if it is free it can't be good" state of mind,but fuck them too.  Those who try see.

See what I mean?

[The Johnny]

:cringes:

What im really surprised about, is that there are no asians in the video.

[The Johnny]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZV6UCOzEyI&feature=channel

OH NEVERMIND SHES OVER HERE

[Roaring Biscuit!]

Oh my god, it really is that bad! 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cX4t5-YpHQ

i tries.. i tried so hard, but i couldn not stand 6 minutes of that...

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZV6UCOzEyI&feature=channel

OH NEVERMIND SHES OVER HERE

If I ever had a party that was like that I would leave it and drive my car into the river.