A rant… Time to defenestrate!!!

I was was one  of many  first purchasers of the Apple Mac 128k in 1984 (I think it was 1984).  I have used Macs all my professional life. They are excellent.   I bought a Sony Vaio PC three months ago because I felt I needed a PC laptop – simply because the world works on PC.  (OK.. I also wanted to play shoot em up games in quiet moments). I am a fan of Sony.  I have had Sony televisions, Sony television cameras and Sony digital cameras.  Unfortunately, the Sony Vaio is a PC and it uses WINDOWS Vista.

Mac users multi-task. Creative people use Macs.  When I try to open Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Audacity, Firefox, Word and ‘Winfail’ on the Sony Vaio PC all at the same time – it doesn’t like it.  The Mac would drink a bottle of wine, smoke a cigar, phone the prime minister, solve the fucking global credit crunch AND allow the user to use all these programmes at the same time, if need be.  BUT… not Windows.  it slows up. It does weird things.  I get WinFAIL error messages and it refuses to send emails. Add Norton 360 into the recipe (Macs don”t need anti-virus software) and multi-tasking on a PC became a Friday 13th nightmare and I just know that a virtual Jack Nicholson is inside this bloody computer… waiting with an axe to chop up the registry files and crash the entire fiasco.

So… when my PC reads this… if it doesn’t behave… I am going to buy a shotgun and shoot it… and then I’ll go out and buy a computer that does the business…. and go back to Macs!

Note to commenters with PCs: Yes I know you are all beside yourselves with how good PCs are… but you don’t know you have a problem… because you haven’t used Macs and if you start giving me advice….  I may just send the virtual Jack Nicholson with his axe, who is lurking in my Sony Vaio,  over to your computer!

The doctor is coming soon with my Rioja injection.  I’ll be OK soon.

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Burqa not welcome in France….

News, law reports update on Insite Law

Nicolas Sarkozy: burqa not welcome in France Telegraph: President Nicolas Sarkozy has said that the Islamic burqa is ‘not welcome’ in France.

In a speech at the Palace of Versailles, Mr Sarkozy said that the head-to-toe Islamic garment for women was not a symbol of religion but a sign of subservience for women. “The burka is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience,” he told members of both parliamentary houses gathered for his speech. He added: “It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic.”

While I find the burqa distasteful if it is ‘required’ to be worn, the difficulty with this statement by the president of France is that it undermines the freedom of those who choose to wear it. By choice, of course, I mean free choice.

The French are concerned that the wearing of any religious symbols undermines the secular tradition. The irony with that position is that it places secularism in the same position as religions which feel threatened or undermined by non-believers. Perhaps no religions should be recognised by the state – or supported by the state? – for therein would lie equality before the law and removal of ‘discrimination’. For my own part if people choose to believe in something, they should be free to do so provided it does not cause harm to or impinge on the rights and freedoms of others. That, however, is another problem with religions – they just can’t help themselves. They have to convert, they have to interfere, they have to control. This is why I am an atheist.

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