Enter one Bill Palmer. Like many of us who watch the Mac world, Bill has his own web site. Click Here for a view. As is typical, opinions get voiced when we own our own barrels of ink.
When the $500 Mac rumor hit the streets recently, Bill penned a few sharply constructed phrases that left little doubt of his opinion on the matter.
Bill said the $500 Mac rumor was a fake and Apple would NEVER build such a machine. Ever. Ever. Never. Or, something like that but with many, many, many more words.
Click Here to get started but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Here are a few choice excerpts.
From January 1, 2004.
“So what if someone crafts an obviously false rumor about their favorite pet fantasy product and throws it out there for everyone to once again scoff at? Hey it must be late December again, right? It’s not as if anyone’s going to buy into something to laughably off the wall as the tired old “headless iMac” nonsense. So why one earth did I go and get so upset about the whole thing the other day?”
“In other words, this false rumor has quite possibly already destroyed any chance that Apple had of making a splash at MacWorld Expo.”
Hmmm. Maybe it’s just me, but it looks as if Bill didn’t think that Apple would ship a $500 Mac. I didn’t count all the words as to why but there had to be a few thousand of them.
Here’s more:
“Headless iMac rumor is just as phony as it ever was. Well, let’s see now, Apple has filed a lawsuit against the rumor site that broke the “news” about the impending release of the fabled headless iMac, so that definitely means that the product is for real, doesn’t it? Apple wouldn’t go to such great lengths to protect its secrets if they weren’t even real, would it?
I mean, you don’t sue a site that published rumors that didn’t even come from inside Apple, so the rumors have to be true…right?”
As of Friday, January 7, Bill was adamant that no such box would ever see the light of day. Get on the soapbox, Bill.
No, I’m not Bill bashing. I don’t know Bill from anyone else I’ve never met but whose web site I read from time to time. Bill’s a Mac guy so how bad can he be? And, as I said, we’re all entitled to an opinion (even entitled to a web site).
Sometimes our opinions are wrong (so my significant other often points out). When an opinion is as pronounced and forceful as Bill’s was on the $500 Mac, it gets undue attention. When said opinion is as wrong as Bill’s was, it gets, and deserves additional attention.
That is especially so when the traditional eating of crow is denied. What was Bill’s response to Apple’s $500 Mac? Sorry? Nope. I blew it? Nope. Wow, I’m impressed they even had the guts to launch it? Nope. Read on:
“Apple can take its idiot box and stick it where the sun don’t shine. For the love of God, it doesn’t even come with a keyboard or mouse. You have just got to be kidding me. This just might turn out to be the darkest day in Macintosh history. And yeah, I’m as aware as anyone just what a bloody history it’s been. But this, I think, might top all of it.
Let me get one thing out of the way right off the bat. A bad idea deserves to be exposed for what it is, and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing for the past week. Those who spend years spreading around a bad idea deserve to be called out for it, so no apologies for anyone who needed to be put in their place in the process.”
Whoa. No crow? I was hoping for a little crow. Something to indicate that Bill is honest, sincere, a bit humble, and human. Nope. Guess not. What it looks like is that Bill has another opinion (this time in 3,563 words). And that’s the point.
Tera has suggested we develop an Idiot of the Week, or a Jackass Award to be handed out to the utterly deserving. I’m for that.
Sometimes an opinion is expressed solely to obtain a reaction. It’s a self gratification thing, I suppose. Oh, and it gets people to memorialize the Howard Cosell Syndrome™. Remember him? He was the lawyer turned sportscaster that everyone loved to hate.
Few would admit to actually liking Howard and his ascerbic, overly-worded opinions (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but they all tuned in each week to hear what he had to say.
So it is with Bill. Without knowing the details, I have no doubt that his web site (and “opinions”) were hit by Mac readers heavily the past couple of weeks. We were suckered in, folks. Now we’ll have to deal with it.
Some folks can dish it out in thousands of words but can’t handle a bite of crow.
