tekHedd – the blog

My new old Macbook

I don’t want to own an Apple computer. Well, technically that is a lie. I want to own one of everything, two of most things. I like toys.  I’ve wanted a Mac for a long time: light, good power management, an easy to use interface with a very UNIX-y hacker-friendly underbelly. So, as a toy.

But, as an actual user of computers, I’ve always been put off by the very poor price/performance ratio of Apple’s products. For half the money you can buy the same hardware and run, you know, Windows. Or Linux, but that’s very limited when you want to play games or make music. So,.. Windows.

Apple has run its customer relations to encourage a very nasty little clique, or even a cult–it’s a closed ecosystem that doesn’t like standards. I hate that. In contrast, Microsoft has traditionally given me quite a lot of power and control over my hardware. Oh, Microsoft wants control over my hardware, but whenever they forget that they can’t have it, they are reminded by their customers that “openness” is the only thing they do better than Apple, really.

As a result, I have a large investment in Windows-specific application software, and it’s just too much work to move all of my projects over to Apple to make it worth the investment of both time and money. Sure, 100% of my audio apps and 99% of my plugins are cross-licensed and I don’t even have to do anything but reinstall, but that’s a lot of work. And I have a perfectly good quad core i7 gaming laptop that crunches video beautifully and has a lovely 17″ screen (hooray Samsung). Why would I pay more money for half the cores and a siginficant downgrade?

Well, I have a reason, now. Microsoft.

Microsoft’s mid-life crisis

Every year I say “I really should move to Apple, it’s better for pro audio.” But I never do, because Windows is good enough and Microsoft doesn’t try to tell me how to compute, well, not very hard.

And then, something terrible happened. The Microsoft Surface turned out to be really good and moderately successful. And Microsoft realizes that this is their last chance to be relevant in the appliance and cloud based world. There is a strictly limited amount of time left where “which OS you run” will still be relevant, and “Microsoft Office is the only option for businesses.” They don’t have much time left, the way they’re doing things. This is Microsoft’s mid-life crisis. And they’ve decided to actually take a risk, and go all in on Windows 10.

Microsoft, metaphorically speaking, decided this would be a good time to get a divorce, buy a Corvette[*], and try to pick up high school girls.

Yes, in the process of pushing windows 10, Microsoft became assholes. Oh sure, Vista was lame and Windows 8’s app store was annoying, but upgrading to those was a choice, and in fact in the end I decided 8 was OK. (Yes, really!) But Microsoft in their middle aged insecurity started pushing nag windows via Windows Update, and lost my trust. When Microsoft started treating my computer as their computer, they willingly abandoned the only high ground they had, their only real advantage.

A service business is based on trust.

Microsoft’s decision to treat my computer as their computer made me really, really mad. It’s not just that I hate being pushed. Yes, push me for a decision and you will get a big fat no, with a side order of attitude and maybe a couple of Jager shots because that stuff is just gross. But, no, being pushed is just part of the problem. The larger issue is that we-the-customers trusted them-the-vendor to push updates onto our computers, and they pushed advertising and nag windows. Microsoft made my gaming computer, that I spent hours building and optimizing nag me. Think about it for a second. My dedicated gaming computer nagged me.

Fuck that.

Trust is important. A service business is based on trust. I own, I don’t even know the count any more, something like 100 games in the Steam store. I now have close to 20 on gog.com. If Valve decides to change their business practices, I am so totally hosed, I know. But Steam has built trust over years. They know better than to throw away that relationship and all future sales. You can’t sell Anything-As-A-Service (AAS) if your customers think you’re an ass. (Something Oracle should think about.)

Thanks, Microsoft–you finally managed to tip the scales, something you weren’t able to do with any previous version of the OS, something that not even Vista or ME could accomplish. And I now own a nice Macbook, have the audio migration planned, and will be selling off hardware that runs Windows (or running Linux and Bitwig).

Yeah, I’m pissed.

[*] – Note: Corvette, also a thing I would love to have two of

Upon experiencing This List Of Dance Rock Songs I’m Totally Sick Of, I realized that I could look at every song and think immediately of another song by the same artist that I’d prefer to hear.

Several bands have no better songs and should obviously be skipped entirely. One or two bands I am sure have better songs in their back catalogs but I am not a fan so I don’t know what they would be. In one rare case I actaully agree with the list. And in the case of Toto, well, you can’t really lose–they have better but whatever. In every other case I’d rather hear anything else, or nothing.

Almost 100 Songs I’d Prefer To Hear Instead Of This Overplayed Dance Rock Song

Journey – Wheel in the Sky
AC/DC – For Those About To Rock (alt: Dirty Deeds)
Aerosmith – Back In The Saddle
Rolling Stones – Paint it Black
Bob Segar – Strut (it’s “Seger”)
Def Leppard – Die Hard the Hunter
Lynyrd Skynyrd – [Anything but Sweet Home Alabama]
Doobie Brothers – China Grove
Bon Jovi – Bad Medicine
John Mellencamp – Hurts So Good (the only thing I agree on)
The Beatles – Ticket To Ride (alt: Dear Prudence)
Outfield – Taking My Chances (alt: Voices of Babylon)
Talking Heads – Life During Wartime
Kid Rock – You Never Met A Motherfucker Quite Like Me
Romantics – Talking In Your Sleep (if you really must)
Rick Springfield – Human Touch (must be performed with keytar)
Dexy’s Midnight Runners – (Skip)
Queen – Killer Queen
BTO – Let it Ride
Rusted Root – (Skip) (Seriously, nobody really wants to hear rusted root WTF)
Dave Mathews – Best of what’s around (alt: Skip)
CCR – Run through the jungle (alt: Fortunate son)
Rolling Stones – Dancing with Mr. D (Please, anything but Brown Sugar)
Joan Jett – Hate myself for loving you (alt: Skip)
Bruce Springsteen – Thunder Road
ZZ Top – Precious and Grace
Black Crowes – Jealous Again
Commitments – (Skip) (Also, did not write “Mustang Sally”.)
Grand Funk RailRoad – I’m Your Captain (alt: American Band)
The Clash – London Calling (alt: anything by The Clash)
Stevie Ray Vaughn – Texas Flood (alt: Skip)
Ike & Tina Turner – (SKIP!) (alt: “Proud Mary” is CCR; pick a second CCR song at random)
Rod Stewart – (Skip) (“Hot Legs” is OK but you can’t cover Rod Stewart without Rod Stewart.)
Bad Company – Rock N Roll Fantasy
Kiss – Heaven’s On Fire (alt: Lick it Up)
Van Morrison – Wild Night
Guns N Roses – Sweet Child o Mine (alt: Skip)
Metallica – For Whom The Bell Tolls (alt: any early track except Enter Sandman)
311 – (Skip)
The Beatles – Dear Prudence (alt: Skip the beatles in a dance-rock set; all their good stuff is lyrical)
Dropkick Murphy’s – (Skip) (WTF please no)
Robert Palmer – I didn’t mean to turn you on
Free – (Skip)
Queen – Bicycle Race (I get to pick a second Queen song hooray!)
Doobie Brothers – Listen To The Music
Van Halen – Top Jimmy (alt: Panama/Hang em High/Diver Down album side)
AC/DC – Shoot To Thrill
Ram Jam – (Skip)
Billy Squire – Emotions in Motion (it’s “Squier”)
Guns N Roses – (Skip) (one gnr song was more than enough thank you)
Billy Idol – Rebel Yell (alt: Skip)
Rolling Stones – Connection
Steve Miller Band – Wild Mountain Honey
Bon Jovi – (Skip.) (TWO Bon Jovi songs? Seriously?)
Men Without Hats – (Skip)
Meatloaf – Paradise By The Dashboard Light (uncertain)
B52’s – Channel Z
The Beatles – (Skip) (Enough Beatles Already)
Blur – Girls and Boys
Cars – My Best Friend’s Girl
Nirvana – In Bloom
Aerosmith – Eat the Rich (alt: Spaced/Dream On)
Billy Idol – (Skip) (One Billy Idol song only please)
Bruce Springsteen – The River (alt: Skip)
David Bowie – Diamond Dogs
Eddie Money – Shakin’
Elton John – Bennie and the Jets
Georgia Satellites – Hippy Hippy Shake
J. Geils Band – Love Stinks
Jimmy Buffet – Pirate looks at 40
Muddy Waters – Mannish Boy (alt: Catfish Blues/I Want To Be Loved)
Norman Greenbaum – Canned Ham
Whitesnake – Still of the Night (alt: Slow and Easy/Bad Boys)
Kings Of Leon – (Skip) (Just no)
Peter Frampton – (Skip) (also, that’s a Stevie Wonder song)
Pink Floyd – Pigs
Poison – Talk dirty to me (alt: Skip)
Queen – Who wants to live forever
Robert Palmer – Addicted to love
Rod Stewart – Do Ya Think I’m Sexy (Skip, because you can’t do it if you’re not Rod Stewart)
Rolling Stones – Under my thumb
Scorpions – Raised on rock
Smash Mouth – I can’t get enough of you baby (alt: Why can’t we be friends)
Steppenwolf – Magic carpet ride (alt: The Pusher)
Steve Miller – Sweet Maree (also, it’s “Steve Miller Band”)
Stray Cats – Rock this town
Survivor – (Skip) (Just for the love of god no)
Kid Rock – Don’t tell me you love me
The Beatles – (Skip) (No really. One beatles song is plenty.)
The Standells – (tbd but definitely not THAT song)
Toto – Hold The Line (KEEP! Did toto ever do anything bad? alt: any Toto song)
Van Morrison – (Skip) (one Van Morrison song is too many)
Warrant – (Skip)
ZZ Top – Shiek (alt: Waitin for the bus/Jesus just left medley)
Bare Naked Ladies – (…suck utterly. Skip)
Beastie Boys – No Sleep Till Brooklyn (alt: Brass Monkey or Paul’s Boutique era stuff)
Bush – (Skip)
EMF – (Skip)
Duran Duran – Hungry like the wolf/New Religion/New moon on monday/anything else really

I notice that I apologize or explain myself when I say “Skip” for Van Morrison, but no explanation is necessary when I “Skip” Warrant. Hehe.

Failure to plan is sometimes bad

You don’t have to plan every moment of your life. I don’t map out every trip to the store. Sometimes it is fun to wander.

The general sentiment of the standard version of this aphorism is good, but the execution chooses cleverness over correctness, and does not even have the advantage of being shorter. It just comes across as preachy and superior; people telling you that you were “planning to fail” usually really mean “I told you so,” or occasionally “don’t blame me when it all goes wrong,” both more annoying than helpful. My updated version is more helpful and less annoying.

Obsolete saying:

Failure to plan is planning to fail