Memorandum to Tim Cook and Apple, Inc.

MEMORANDUM

To: Tim Cook, CEO, Apple Inc.

re: Creating Windows Users

Hi, Tim, I hope the day is treating you well. I just needed a moment for a brief setup and question.

I’m a Linux user. The main reason for this came about for a circumstantial nexus by which I loathe Microsoft Windows but cannot afford much for Apple gear. An iPhone, sure. A Mac? No, not really. And it’s also true that since abandoning the Macintosh Way, Apple has been reducing the value of its desktop computers as marketplace tools, which is one way of saying that I can’t afford to buy the desktop that doesn’t feel one generation too slow.

My point being that a cheap PC and Linux are my best option.

Still, I’m just back from a couple weeks abroad and this time around I traveled as lightly as I could on this point. Then again, only owning one laptop at present, I didn’t feel like carrying the thing overseas.

To the other, a friend recently decided an inexpensive Nextbook device she had was not sufficient for her work purposes and picked up a Lenovo Yoga. She gave the Nextbook to my mother, actually, but the point is that there is now an up-to-date Windows device in my proximity.

And I have several hundred photos to transfer from my iPhone.

Do you understand the implication, Mr. Cook? I’m sorry; that’s patronizing: Of course you recognize the implication.

It Is Enough If You Just Skip This One ….

It’s a problematic proposition, and normally one I actually enjoy examining and unraveling. It is, of course, less amusing for those living in the moment. Meanwhile, it is very easy to see how this works:

• A does not appreciate the behavior of B.

• Behavior of B is observably a reaction to behavior of A.

• As A attempts to engage discussion of B behavior, B responds that the discussion cannot take place without consideration of A behavior.

• A walks away from the discussion.

To sum it up in a very juvenile manner, A wants to continue to offend B through recognizably offensive behavior patterns, and expects B to simply shut up and behave. That A and B are allegedly mature adults is interesting, exasperating, and probably largely irrelevant, of course, unless A wants to make this about B being childish.

We might also include or disregard, according to wont, the suggestion that it is rather quite silly, and even pathetic, that such circumstances occur so regularly in our lives.

Bush on the road

For most people who telecommute, or work from home … oh, never mind. On to the numbers. Sheryl Gay Stolberg, responding to reader questions at the New York Times

… Mark Knoller, the CBS News radio correspondent, who has covered the White House since 1976, keeps meticulous records and is a veritable encyclopedia of presidential facts and figures, which he freely shares with colleagues. The Bush administration takes issue with his statistics, because he counts partial days as days away, but here are his latest figures, as of Tuesday, Nov. 11:

Crawford ranch: 76 visits totaling all or part of 483 days
Camp David: 132 visits totaling all or part of 461 days
Kennebunkport: 11 visits totaling all or part of 43 days.

By Mark’s calculations, the president has been at one of these three locations for all or part of 987 days, and has been in office for 2920 days. That’s 33.8 percent.