Mac Humor (sort of)

I spend most of my non-work time online doing things related to politics and/or The Young Turks. But I do sometimes venture outside political Twitter to keep my sanity (or whatever’s left of it).

A site that I’ve read for a long time is MacRumors. Yes, I’m a Mac person. I used be a huge Apple fan(boy). I’m still deep in the Apple ecosystem — I’m typing this on a MacBook Pro, have a six-year-old iPhone 6S Plus, and my daughter’s in class virtually on our iPad Air as I type this. Once you’re in, it’s hard to get out even if you try (all the apps you buy, etc.).

Now, I’m no longer drinking the Kool Aid (or inside Steve Job’s RDF / Reality Distortion Field, like PC fans used to say about us) and know that there are advantages and disadvantages to Macs, Windows, Chromebooks, iPhones, Android… so a lot comes down to personal preferences.

ANYWAY, I went to MacRumors’ site this morning and it was down. Oops. So I went onto their Twitter account to see what was up.

This reminded me of how Apple traditionally has, and still sometimes does, take their whole site down before a keynote event or product launch. Back in the early 2000s it might have been for technical reasons, to make sure a new product didn’t accidentally show up on the site too early (which has happened).

But in 2021, Apple is a trillion-dollar corporation. They must still do it either as a tradition or to still build up suspense.

ANYWAY, MacRumors being down made me think of an old, overused trope so I decided to tweet it

So at least 39 people got it! This used to be a very frequent joke on the MacRumors forums. Apple planned to release a PowerBook (predecessor to the MacBook Pro) with a G5 chip from IBM. The problem was that it ran too hot to go in a laptop, and despite promises by IBM, it never materialized. Which is reportedly part of the reason that Apple switched to Intel chips.

Is this funny to anyone who isn’t a current or former Apple geek? I really doubt it. But it’s encouraging me to explore more beyond just political Twitter and TYTlive — both of which I love, but there is a whole other world out there too.

If you ever want to get really depressed though, check out MacRumors when there’s an Apple related story having to do with politics (for example, pro-LGBTQ+ initiatives). Morals of the story: • I can post about things besides progressive politics • If you want politics, don’t go to a technology rumor site.

🗳 Time to vote for the progressive show or organization that will get February’s $50 donation! And you can sign up for alerts when I post on here or follow me on Twitter.