My uncle and I were talking electronics at a family get together and he commented on how Macs are a more feminine computer than traditional PCs like a Dell.

I have an old MacBook and it got me thinking. Is this a wide spread belief I haven’t heard of? Do you consider MacBooks feminine? (Not that it’s a bad thing, I’m just curious).

Not at all. Mac vs. PC is just preference and/or budget.

I suppose, if you consider good design and execution feminine. Steve Jobs said something to the effect that the one unforgivable thing about Windows was that it was so ugly. I’m pretty sure he was referring to more than the physical appearance of the interface.

LMAO! Thank you so much, I really needed a laugh :)

IMO it's the opposite. Most women would be content just to be able to turn things on and off (perhaps with a volume adjustment.) It's the men I know who need multiple dials and remotes.

Thanks for reminding me about Flickr. I have photos on there somewhere from many years ago that I'd love to access. lol

That reminds me. We got a new toaster oven at work. It has the equivalent of that many dials as the bottom one does. It has a screen with twelve options. It has three dials to customize the many options. There is no clear way to know how to turn it on unless you read the manual. People are never sure if it's on.

OUt of forty people about three have figured out how to work it. Me, the old "boomer" is always showing the GenZeers and the Millenials how or they come back and their food is still cold. Of course I'm sure there is an app somewhere to buy for you phone that operates your toaster oven remotely. Then things would be OK. God I want the old toaster oven back.

All this while I complain loudly that I JUST WANT KNOBS. There wasn't anything you couldn't do with knobs. Now about the dryer. . .

So I love the image but would definitely rename the top one Boomer and the bottom one GenZeer/Millenial.

I'm still complaining about automatic windows in cars. The handle with a knob to roll them up and down worked fine. I never had any problem with them. I've had three automatic window repairs because the switch thing didn't work or the window got stuck.

I prefer less complicated stuff! IMO, just because you can add a zillion gizmos doesn't make it better. I have to get out instructions just to change the time on my nightstand clock.

I'm never thrilled when people "assume" they can run stuff without reading the instructions. They come to me when the thing doesn't work.

Get off my lawn!

I once had the brakes go out suddenly while driving fancy expensive car I could barely afford and nearly had a terrible accident before getting stopped somehow.

So the mechanic said the brakes were fine, the brake fluid was full, the lines were good, the brakes themselves were good. Turned out that the computer type thingy that tells them to work had stopped working. So I had to go to the dealer and that part cost $1800 and that was twenty years ago.

Now I have a car with nothing fancy on it. Well as least fancy as you can buy nowadays. Not easy, that.

\
Yes. Get off my lawn. Haha

What?!

If they're considered feminine, is it gay for a man to own one? What does it mean if you adorn your Mac with auto racing accessory stickers? Is it an aggressive power move for a woman to carry a Windows unit on her hip? What if she puts it in a paisley patterned bag? These are the important questions.

Never mind operating systems, processing power, screen resolution, memory, etc. One must first consider lifestyle image projection when buying a tool, right? It is quite obvious that your uncle is a gushing fountain of the highest of wisdoms. You should continue always to heed his counsel.

Ka-Ching! Rung up nicely.

All computers are feminine as are automobiles and if you own one then you are feminine.

You know how some people name their cars? My mom's station wagon when I was a child was, "Betty." Betty sometimes needed a good talking to, especially on snowy days when her traction was less than optimal. Are cars ever named after men? Is the name "Dave" available? :D

The label for my car is POS.

Aww. I have a Toyota Camry, and it's my second one. The last one went to 200K miles, so no complaints. I've been looking at my current car, wondering if it's the last one I will ever buy. It currently has 75K miles on it.

He hates microsoft, as does the ex. All the programs I've ever worked on for my job don't use Apple programs.

All computers are male. It is possible to make them trans i think. I cannot explain why online. It is not politically EEOC acceptable.

Gender isn't the question.

It's tool vs. appliance.

Macs are appliances that other people have set up for you to use.

PCs (and "Personal Computer -- PC" was an IBM marketing name) running Windows are halfway in between a tool and an appliance that you still can do some configuring on.

PCs running Linux are tools that you can do a lot of configuring on and set them up just how you want to.

https://xkcd.com/456/

Friends don’t let friends do Linux. If cars were designed the way Linux/UNIX is, each head and tail light could be turned on individually, and there would be a proc to turn on all four together. Infinite configurability means there are an infinite number of ways to screw up your system unless you are very very careful.

Macs went 15 years with no command line, and Unix and pc people were mystified about how it was possible to write software without a command line. Macs eventually incorporated Unix with OS X, but were careful to keep unix in the catacombs. I suppose characterizing Macs as appliances is fair enough, but there are a lot of places where an appliance is appropriate. You want stuff that “just works”. That’s how Apple got to be the highest market cap corporation on the planet.

I don’t even pay any attention to the software development tools on Linux anymore. I do fiddle with Visual Studio, a windows tool, and I find it pretty respectable - software without command lines or any grep. ;)

Which one has the best mouse?

Wouldn't it be cool to have a mouse for each hand?

Or a mouse for each letter in the alphabet!!!

How soon before I can trade a dozen mice in for a helmet control, where I slip on a special beanie (with a propeller for charging the battery) that reads my mind for instructions, insurrections ... or any other appropriate -ections?

> How soon before I can trade a dozen mice in for a
> helmet control . . . that
> reads my mind . . .

Have you tried taping a 1962 Casio pocket calculator to your baseball cap?

I should mention here that I still have a Palm Pilot in a drawer somewhere. I was given it as a "thank you" by an employer, and then never used it.

Me too. I use a tablet gizmo.

I nearly bought a Cyrillic keyboard, but I use it rarely enough that installing Cyrillic on my tablet, and having a glass Cyrillic keyboard is good enough.

I also used to have a laptop, but since retiring, my need to take a full-blown computer anywhere is negligible. A tablet is good enough, and I have an iMac at home - much more bang for the buck compared to a laptop.

I have a Cyrillic keyboard but for something quick I use this -

https://ukrainian.typeit.org/

I love my MacBook. I love that I can make a video on my iPhone in 4K, send it to my MacBook by airdrop, and then edit that video using Final Cut Pro.

I think I've had 3 MacBooks so far. I've also had multiple PCs. I prefer Mac.

The big difference between Apple users and other systems as far as I can tell is, Apple users ask, "What does it do?" Non-Apple users ask, "What can I make it do?"

There are people who want to tinker with their computer. THey aren't satisfied with Apple because they can't customize things. There are people who want something that helps them do their job, not become a full-time job. Those people gravitate to Apple.

I'm in the camp of, "What does it do?" and "How can it help me be more productive?"

My Windows PC has a touch screen. I'm never going back.

iPad

Well yes, but it's not a laptop or a desktop. When a colleague at work turns her Mac notebook around to me to work on something, my first impulse is to touch the screen. It's 2024! Apple's products need to catch up in that regard. It's time.

If your problem or task already has a solution, then all you need is a device that's already programmed to do it. But what if it doesn't? That's the deal.

If you really are talking about "tinkering," then Arduino is the thing for you :)

https://hackr.io/blog/arduino-projects

I'm afraid to look. It will make my eyes bleed. Finding a product I was kind of impressed with (Visual Studio) on Windows about made my head explode. Sometimes it is a lot of work to maintain prejudices. :)

I have an old pinkish airbook and I love it.
Pink is my favorite color
and if it is considered more feminine that is alright with me.