Simple Thoughts: Holding the door

I get a small kick over the awkward confused shuffle that occurs as people are entering or exiting a building, stumbling to hold the door for the next person, or the person going the opposite direction. Sometimes this results in holding the doors in the most uncomfortable ways, or with extreme feats of strength, or in ways that aren't actually at all helpful, just to maintain the social courtesy of holding the door for others. It makes me smile to see people putting this much effort into simply trying to be polite to a stranger. Makes you wonder what it would be like if the same people were proportionately as willing to make awkward strides to help strangers with bigger problems.

Walking a fine line with Apple fans this week

The tech world is in mourning this week, and that's fine. We (and I do mean we, despite what's coming) lost a great, visionary leader in our world who had a major, profound impact on the shape of technology. No, he wasn't much of a designer himself, and he wasn't the messiah he was made out to be, but his drive was very, very much responsible for pushing the industry in some major directions.

The iPhone alone has been profoundly impactful on my life, even though I've never owned one. Although Android was in development well before its release, and other smartphones existed, and ALL of the technology that was put into the iPhone existed before it (plus plenty that didn't hit it for months or years after), Apple managed to make it visible, usable, and accessible to the consumers. They also had the balls to use hardware that drove the cost of the phone up to 2-3 times what people expected to pay for a phone, knowing their hardcore fanbase would buy it, and allowing them to bring the cost of these parts down for the rest of the tech community. The need and the availability made the other smartphones that many of us prefer a feasible option.

Out of respect this week I've tried to hold my tongue in places I normally don't. I try to avoid the Mac vs Windows (Macs are PCs, which even Steve referred to them as before their marketing decided to try to brand them as some other class) debate as much as possible, and more importantly I try very, very hard to avoid expressing a biased, fanboyish angle on it. I try to be fair, and I cede a ton of points in Apple's favor despite my personal conclusions. But this week I've tried to avoid even that out of respect.

But the hyperbole the fanboys are spouting right now has reached a level that I just have to speak up on one thing that's the most common issue I deal with here, and the most ridiculous one of all. And it comes down simply to this:

Windows users are not merely unenlightened.

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See, I find consistently that the Apple-fanatical seems to believe that the only reason I, or anyone else still uses Windows is merely because we haven't TRIED a Mac, and if we did we'd instantly see just how infinitely better it is. This attitude even spreads out to non-savvy users of Windows who assume that they, also, would probably make the switch the moment they can try it and see how amazing it is, assuming they can afford it. When I work on their computers, I constantly get asked, "so you of course own a Mac at home, right?" because as what they view as a computer expert, I would obviously use only the best for myself. They seem shocked that I run exclusively Windows computers despite my advanced (from their angle) knowledge.

But here's the reality: I'm not unenlightened. In my company I'm one of the few users with plenty of hands-on experience with Macs, having working full-time in Mac-only offices, having had loaner MacBooks for projects, and being the most-dispatched person for clients with Mac issues. But this is due not to some deep-seated love for Macs, it's due to my love of technology, and ability to quickly pick up new tech skills on the fly. And so when I've gotten real, hands-on time with Macs, I've gotten to understand the interface, and dig through help files and online tips and forums and figure out the workarounds for the things I don't like or don't understand or that work differently, and I can grow comfortable enough with them to work efficiently.

But despite all that familiarity, when I return home at the end of the day, I sit down in front of my self-built Windows 7 PC with a sense of relief. I get to sit in front of a computer that works the way I do. That doesn't fight me, or try to get me to conform to doing everything the one, official, ordained way, but lets me do it MY way. A computer that has all the buttons I want that Mac users can't seem to figure out why I would use, yet let me work at a pace I rarely see them achieve. The one that I'm comfortable with, and that works PERFECTLY and RELIABLY.

Yes, that's right, my Windows 7 computers "just work." I know the less-informed Mac users may be surprised by that notion, assuming that those two words were trademarked by Apple because they only apply to Apple, but the reality is they apply beautifully to Windows 7, and especially to users who know how to use their computers. Now I know many people may then argue that obviously it requires someone tech-savvy to do it, while Macs don't. That's not necessarily true on either count. I see Windows 7 run this smoothly for many of my more clueless clients, and I watch Mac users run their computers as badly into the ground as I see some Windows machines. Clueless users can kill the best system, and skilled users can make any OS sing.

Now I know another thing you (unspecified Mac lover who's reading this) are thinking right now: Yeah, but I don't get viruses! To which I respond: Yeah, I don't get viruses, either. What's your point? The truth is I've had one. In the two decades or so I've been running Windows I've had ONE virus. And it was my own stupid fault for running something I had good reason to be suspicious of. And I was able to wipe it out. Outside of that, I often run my systems completely without antivirus software for months at a time, but I still get nothing on my system, because I know what I'm doing. Meanwhile Macs of course aren't immune, and just as I've predicted for quite some time, infections are on the rise. Will they ever be as bad as they were on Windows? Probably not. But viruses on Windows aren't as bad as they were before on Windows, either. And 8's going to make them even rarer.

My point here, after all the rambling, isn't to try to claim the superiority of Windows. I don't think it's superior at all. I just think it's fantastic, and exactly the operating system I want to run, despite having plenty of experience with both OS X and variations of Linux. It works the way I want to, supports the widest range of software, and really does just work. But that only makes it better than OS X for me as well as many, many other people. OS X is a beautiful, well-designed OS that is also better, for others. I don't and won't begrudge them that, and I respect it. All I ask is that they remember that operating systems aren't religions. There's no right or wrong in them. There's only personal preference.

A question I didn't get to answer on Ardent Atheist

On last night's Ardent Atheist live stream and podcast, Emery passed to me to follow up a topic Heather was discussing, on just how to handle the believers who won't stop arguing, won't stop yelling (in written form), and won't listen to reason. The question, simply enough, is about when to stop. Should you stop? When do we decide they're a lost cause?

For me, it's not a question of the believer being a lost cause or not. In fact, that's not even relevant to me. When I'm debating someone who's coming across possibly as stupid, foolish, willfully ignorant, or exceptionally dense, I'm not debating to change their minds. I don't deny the possibility that I could, as I have friends who were once quite committed believers, but at a certain point I stop expecting to make a difference to them. So why do I keep it up?

For one simple reason: the Internet is public, and close to eternal. The arguments you post online are visible to essentially anyone, and can have a major impact. A person who's sitting on the fence, or even someone who thinks they're set in their belief can stumble across your debate and quite possibly see something fresh and new to them. They can find the attitude you project, and your willingness to actually speak openly and honestly about your opinions, and gain perspective from it that they wouldn't otherwise have. Creationists have been de-converted by people willing to actually bother to keep up the debates against all odds.

There are plenty of good reasons to give up on an endless, failing argument. Exhaustion, frustration, sanity, and lack of time are all solid ones, and it seems fair to state them and move on. But the mere fact that the person you're arguing with is beyond the ability to change their mind is, in my opinion, not good enough. They're not the ones most likely to learn from your efforts, and if you're willing to keep it up, it's worth it.

Minor updates

I just did the excellent Ardent Atheist podcast tonight. Since there'll be a link back from there to my site, I thought it was time to make some quick changes/improvements to the site, one of which was a simple cleanup of the theme. The old one was slow to load and overstyled. This one I picked in a hurry, but it's clean and easy to customize and will probably change over time. It's still an improvement, though. I hope you appreciate the amount of effort I go through for you at 2AM on a work night.