Fanboys miss the point

Saw this pic on Gizmodo. It’s some guy dressed up in a costume which looks like an iPhone. Reading the commentary most of the Apple fanboys seem to be focused on the comedic value of the costume (ie. ‘typeface and icons’) rather than the actual point. The guy is trying to make the loyal Apple consumer aware of the non-union workers Apple employs. Just some union construction guys who want Apple to use them instead of cheaper non-union workers.

Now I’m actually against unions. I think they make companies worse. But I’m even more against fanboys. Blinded by love for a company (or product in this case) warps all sense of reality. I mean pointing out the look of the poor interface? I guess if the costume was more precise the message might have gotten through. My first thought was, ‘what’s he protesting about?’ Considering the fact that he was dedicated enough to make a full sized costume and go out in public merits some attention to his message.

I guess I’m not ready to devote my life worshiping a company for it’s trendy success. Isn’t that what a fanboy is all about? Excuse me while I got watch some Star Trek.

‘fanboy’ now a ‘real’ word

Geek culture is once again showing its influence over the mainstream lexicon in the latest version of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, which includes word additions such as webinar, malware, netroots, pretexting (thank you Hewlett-Packard), and fanboy (thank you Apple).

Webinar is “one more example of the significant ongoing trend for electronic technologies to add words to the language,” Merriam-Webster publisher John Morse said in a Monday press release about the 100 or so new words in the 2008 edition of the influential reference guide.

That’s in line with Merriam-Webster’s choice of the term “wOOt”–with its roots in video game culture–as the word of the year for 2007. (link)

Why fanboys hate tech reporters?

Mossberg’s column ran for about 900 words; just 70 of them, or 8 percent, by my count, suggested anything even approaching negative criticism. Apple loved the review so much that it excerpted it in advertisements. Apple CEO Steve Jobs quoted it in his speeches. But Mossberg says that his mailbox told a different story. Several Apple fans felt slighted. What did he have against Apple? they wanted to know.

There are many tribes in the tech world: TiVo lovers, Blackberry addicts, Palm Treo fanatics, and people who exhibit unhealthy affection for their Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners. But there is no bigger tribe, and none more zealous, than fans of Apple, who are infamous for their sensitivity to slams, real or imagined, against the beloved company. “It’s funny — even if I write a generally positive piece about Apple, I still get more complaints from Apple partisans” than from opponents, Mossberg says. He has even coined a term for the effect. “I call it the Doctrine of Insufficient Adulation.”

In my years as a tech reporter, I’ve dealt first-hand with Mossberg’s doctrine — as well as its opposite, the PC fans who see a pro-Apple press bias in my work (a few years ago, Salon’s customer service department informed me that a reader called to cancel a subscription in response to my piece, “Hallelujah, the Mac Is Back.”) (link)

Star Wars Last Supper redone … crazy

What’s the definition of insanity? Not this, but it’s definitely one hardcore Star Wars fanboy. I’m not sure what the end result accomplishes, other than 15 seconds of Internet fame. Is this what really smart people do? Waste time on tedious personal projects?

“This is what you get when you capture 69,550 full resolution frames from the six Star Wars movies and combine them with a version of DaVinci’s Last Supper on a PC with mosaic-making software and a custom matlab-based algorithm. The 262-megapixel mosaic (24,168 x 10,864 pixels) took two weeks to complete, including 30 hours of computing power and manual retouching for the final version. Avinash Arora, the guy who did it, tells us about the process.” Gizmodo

Apple fanboy toilet mod … unnecessary

Remember that toilet you threw out last week? Yeah, that one. Some Apple fanboy turned it into the latest Apple mod. iToilet? Complete with gallery and a video. When your taking a dump … or how about “dump that PC and go with the iToilet”? Now you can spend even more time with your Apple products, while sitting … doing your business … you can DO YOUR BUSINESS. (no it does not wipe) This reminds me of that MadTV Apple i-rack spoof. Geez, is this the kind of society we’re building? An Apple nation? God, kill me now.