@Eliot I think I have to agree . . .
I have been a Macstrovert for 30 years. Since the Mac Plus was introduced in 1986. Sure I have taken side roads and dabbled with the UNIX command line on work stations and clunked my way through several flavors of Linux. As for poor Bill, his derivations never had a look-in. But after all the highways and byways I seem always to return to the tree.
But, not so much now. With soldered RAM and significant middle age institutionalised bloat I have found myself thinking the unthinkable. Maybe it’s time for a Hackintosh. This spectre is raised by the seamless usability of OS X, probably the eighth wonder of the world. It is its simplicity and functionality I am addicted to . . . it seems impossible to leave it behind, and what for . . . ??
I want to be able to play with the hardware, swap stuff in and out. Upgrade without replacing an entire machine. Sure it can be sent to the third world or something. But that’s not the point. I don’t want more stuff.
Against all odds, I want to be able to resurrect the bourbon-soaked “logic board” (why am I laughing??) of a 17" Mac Book Pro after ten months on the shelf with nothing more than a tooth brush, a glass of water, determination, and a firm belief in the invincibility of Apple.
That is the Apple I want to remember, not the one with the hidden worm . . .
One of the great features of the Mac was that you could make an industrially manufactured item your own. Pretend to fashion it in your own image or at least to your own requirements. Distinguish it from all others, Personalize it. Not by stickers on the case, but by internal surgery.
Such possibility gives a sense of personal control of the technology that at best ever encroaches and organizes, at worst circumscribes and dictates. The walled garden is no simulacra of Paradise.
The recent directions of Apple is almost bearable when accompanied by the mirage of the personal. But the developing trajectory (likely the clearest symbol of the future we are encouraging) seems just plain no fun at all . . .
