STFU, OS bigot

I have one thing to say to the people that attempt to belittle or berate me because I run Microsoft Windows on my desktops: I don’t care what you think, so please STFU. I don’t tell you what to run on your desktop, and what I run on mine is not up for debate.

The shock of your learning about my desktop/laptop/home PC OS choice inevitably leads to you trying to enlighten my heathen mind. Mistakenly, I humor you. And my response goes like this: When applications like Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and games like Civilization 4, SimCity 4, and GTA: San Andreas run under Linux I’ll switch. No, vi is not equivalent to Dreamweaver. You’re joking? Ha ha, screw yourself. You have obviously never maintained a web site with more than three pages, or one that looked attractive in a browser. No, the GIMP is not equivalent to Photoshop. The GIMP is a mess, a UI nightmare, and for me software is how I get my job done, not a political agenda. As evidence of this philosophy please observe my email open in Pine on my Linux box. Yes, I play SimCity at work sometimes, especially when I am contemplating a problem. I probably spend less time playing games than you spend on your twice-an-hour smoke breaks.

Oh, here it is! You pull out the tired “you should use Mac OS” comment. Sure, I’ll switch someday when the games I’d like to play are available for the Macintosh. Yes, I know Dreamweaver and Photoshop work on the Mac, but thank you for letting me know again. Yes, I know Mac OS X has a console which you use to SSH to other machines. Surprisingly, I have had that same capability on my Windows PC since before Mac OS had protected memory. You seem shocked at my confession that I’ve been a Mac user since 1991.

Now you’re irritated because your OS bigotry isn’t getting very far with me. You might even be annoyed that I referred to it as bigotry. You aren’t a bigot, how dare I say that! Time to show me: “well, at least with Mac OS/Linux/FreeBSD/etc. you don’t have to reboot all the time.” Give me a break, dipstick. I don’t reboot my Windows PCs for months on end, unless there’s a network-based vulnerability (which your favorite OS gets, too, but you can’t be bothered to watch the security announcements). The PC I’m writing this from has been up for 81 days.

In short, when you stop taking three days to do what I can do in one hour, come back and we’ll have a discussion. Until then just use what works for you and I’ll do the same.