Posted on Sunday, January 8, 2006 - 9:20 pm:

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Understanding Mac Geeks: The Week Before Keynote

This is the first of an occasional series that tries to explain just why it is Mac Geeks are like we are. I know that some people Just Don't Get people like us, but I figure if you're trying to understand a certain Mac person in your life, this might be a place to start.

This week, Mac Geeks everywhere are oscillating ever so slightly. It's as if the implanted navigational chip in our aqua-hued brain has activated and we're awaiting instructions.

Okay, so it's not like that.

But we know something is coming. Steve is coming. We've read on various Mac Websites that something's about to Happen™. This year, it's most likely the switch to the Intel CoreDuo architecture, iLife '06 and something else that many people are surmising to be a home entertainment Mac.

What CES is to many other electronics geeks, Macworld San Francisco is to Mac Geeks. It's the show where Apple announces new gear in a flashy keynote with Steve Jobs telling us about Apple's Health, what they've been up to, and what we can look forward to. Generally it works something like this. In a darkened theatre at the Moscone Center, popular music will play while the masses assemble. Usually the masses work out to something like 8,000 people, all excited, all having paid upwards of $600 for their ticket. There's also a conference that happens that week, so most folks aren't just going to the keynote, they're going to the workshops and seminars and hands-on labs as well, so it's not as big of a waste of money as you just thought it was.

The lights on the stage come up, Steve Jobs comes out in jeans and a black turtleneck, and greets the assembled faithful. He's usually in some state of unshaven, which just makes him look like he forgot to get new razor blades. This is cool to everyone in the audience. Remember, Steve is our hero. He makes geek into chic.

There's a section on the health of Apple, how many iPods and Macs they sold, what the trend's looking like, where the OS is going, and some other basic data about the company. This is to remind people that Apple is A) doing really well and B) not going anywhere anytime soon.

Think of this as the opening hymn and greeting in Church. At the Vatican. With the Pope himself presiding.

Now that Steve's got the audience warmed up, it's time to launch into the new things that Apple has coming. This will include software first, and new hardware second. This is like the readings from the Old Testament, and the New Testament. Steve will invite some outside companies and some inside staff to testify demonstrate the new technologies and hardware items. The audience will pay rapt attention, laugh at Steve's jokes, ooh and aah. There may even be some shouting of "Amen," and "Preach it, brother." This is what we've been waiting for.

So, Steve will go on and tell us why it is that these new things are wonderful, how well they compare to other products, and then also what they will set us back. The former makes the latter palatable. Everyone in the room will create a reason why the new prices are A) acceptable and B) worth taking out a second mortgage or a home equity line of credit. It's not that we're brainwashed, it's just that the pitch is so good. Steve could sell rollerskates to velociraptors. It's what he does. Generally, though, he's on the ball. He wouldn't do this if he didn't believe it himself. It's why Apple is still here.

Apple makes technology cool. They make computing cool. This is why they hold such high esteem with many geeks. They make what we do into something that can get us laid. I realize this is trite, I realize this is clichéd, but it's also true. Windows guys are boring. I'm sorry Scoble, you just are. You try to think you're cool, by pointing out all our flaws, about how you're so much better than we are, about how you're in more places, and doing more things. But really, all it does is make you look bad, and us look oppressed and "dangerous" to the womenfolk.

Girls love Rebels. Steve Jobs could have so many many many more chicks than Bill. This is our version of Our God Can Kick Your God's •••. Side note: Apple launches the iTMS with Bono and U2. Bill launches "Urge" with post-Janet post-Britney Justin Timberlake. JT may get nominated for Grammies, but Bono gets nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

At the end of the Keynote, Steve gives the blessing, er, I mean, thanks us for coming and sets us loose on the show floor, where everyone spends at least an hour coveting everything in the Apple booth and listening to various pitches from various other Mac-minded software and hardware purveyors. It's a great day. It's a great week. And sadly, this year, I can't go. I will instead stay at my office computer, refreshing Safari like a madman on the homepage of the news sites that will cover the event for those of us who won't be there. And that's why many Mac users will be sad this weekend. So, hug your Mac Geek if they can't be there. They'll feel like they're missing something.

[Update] How could I forget the Sacred Idiom™?! Steve usually closes his Keynote with a section devoted to "...and one more thing..." which usually is a surprise for the Mac faithful, sometimes an iSight camera, sometimes it's Keynote (the software) itself. This is usually the climax of the event, leading to applause and shouts from the audience. And it's also another thing that Bill could never carry.

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Posted on Monday, January 9, 2006 - 7:56 am:

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Folklore.org is a web site devoted to collective historical storytelling. It captures and presents sets of related stories that describe interesting events from multiple perspectives, allowing groups of people to recount their shared history in the form of interlinked anecdotes.

The site is structured as a series of projects containing related, interlinked stories. The stories are indexed by their characters and the topics they cover, and may be sorted by various criteria. Readers can rate the stories, and add comments, or other stories.
Folklore is still incomplete, and undergoing active development. There may be more than the usual amount of bugs, especially if you catch it on a bad day. Please report any problems that you encounter to bugs@folklore.org.

Currently, the Folklore site only supports a single project, about the development of the original Macintosh, but that will be changing soon.

Reality is subjective, and memory is shaped by both prior and subsequent experience, so two witnesses of the same incident may disagree about what transpired. Often participants have axes to grind, and they sometimes distort events to suit their needs, perhaps without even realizing it. The best way to see an event clearly is to view it from multiple perspectives.

The Folklore site allows anyone with an opinion to comment on a story, or to submit a story of their own. This should allow the truth to emerge more clearly through the intersection of multiple perspectives. Project editors are responsible for providing default views that eliminate irrelevant or offensive posts, but it's possible for the curious reader to see everything if they want.

Folklore uses lots of relatively short anecdotes rather than a longer, monolithic narrative because anecdotes are inherently modular and extensible, so the story can be elaborated indefinitely by multiple authors, without compromising their individual voices. Interlinked anecdotes also leverage the definitive characteristic of the web, the link, to form little webs of their own, and be stitched into the greater tapestry of the web itself, in a fashion that's not possible on the printed page.

Folklore maintains an RSS feed for tracking the latest stories. The url for the feed is http://www.folklore.org/folklore.xml.

The code behind the Folklore website is a set of CGI scripts written in Python by Andy Hertzfeld. The Folklore scripts are free software, and will be licensed under the GPL, so anyone can use and modify them. Susan Kare helped with lots of images and the overall look of the site.

It seems appropriate to use the web to document the development of computing technologies. Most of the principals involved are still alive and kicking, so it's possible to collect first person accounts from the people involved, if they're willing. I decided to get the ball rolling by using the most important event that I played a part in - the development of Apple's original Macintosh computer - as the subject of the first set of Folklore stories. I hope they are as much fun to read as they were to write.

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