Sandra Porter may love Macs and PC's ... but Linux is funnier

Macs are PCs.

Thanks Greg! Those are great!!! Very clever!

And, it's Mac and PC, not Macs and PCs.

Well, they were clever when Apple did them first. Now they're just derivative and unoriginal.

So is the message here that Linux lacks creativity?

PZ: It is interesting that you say that. I was just thinking about something along these lines.

I'm sure there is a lot of creativity in the Linux world. Just look at Beryl. But at the same time there is a conservatism, and almost an anti-creativity at work as well, which is actually one of the reasons Linux (*nix and BSD etc.) work so well. Completely reinventing the wheel can be a very creative process, and that rarely happens in the Linux world.

You are a Mac user, and you believe Mac's are great. I agree with that. (Speaking here only of System X ... prior versions are so different they need to be addressed as separate). I personally don't like Macs because of two things: 1) the paradigm for desktop operations don't suit me. With respect to Windows, Windows 2000 was in my view the best desktop for my tastes, and my Linux is actually a lot like that in terms of user interface, the way I have it set up. The Mac approach is great for those it suits, but not for me, for a dozen reasons or so; and 2) The way graphics and text is unsuitable for me. I find that working on a Mac for a while to be very uncomfortable.

One of the things that makes System X so good for those who like it is the power of Carbon and Quartz, etc. with the very creative Aqua GUI on top of it, and the OS core, Darwin, which is built around a Linux-like system.

Some will jump in and say "It's not Linux, it's BSD!!!" but let's get real about this. Linux, BSD, Unix, are philosophically and technologically very very similar. If these were organisms, they would all be in the same genus with several subspecies in each species, while Windows would be in a different order or suborder.

The reason that the *nix core of a Mac is so good is because it is very efficient, very stable, and very secure. These features come from the conservative, non-creative premise of *nix development: Break problems into small bits, solve each one the best way you can, and string the solutions together as efficiently as possible.

Windows, on the other hand, reinvents the wheel over and over, and worse yet, keeps all the old wheels attached to the metaphorical vehicle after adding new ones.

By the way, regarding the discussion on my other post regarding "why Linux is better" (regarding APIs): I don't think anyone has mentioned yet that the ultimate example of scrapping the old API is Mac System X!

If the first video was really representative of Linux, she would have had to stitch the jacket together herself and the zipper wouldn't work with the shoes she is wearing.

I'm not even arguing with you on the substance -- all I'm saying is that these ads, no matter how cute they are, are sending a meta-message to me, that linux is an also-ran and copycat.

Well, on Youtube they're explicitly labelled "spoof ads", so it would have been a bit odd if they had been completely unrelated to all prior adverts.

If you're after something more innovative, a two-minute search got me this video. In this case, the freedom to innovate has possibly become the freedom to be very weird, but I kinda like it anyway.

Linux, fortunately, is a copy-cat. I don't want glitzy hammer and saw; I want reliable tools with time-tested designs. Adding creativity is my responsibility, not theirs.