So a guy puts up a hoax where a Mac G5 is gutted and PC parts are substituted. For this he receives death threats?
Say it with me now, everybody…
It’s.
Just.
A.
Computer.
A Mac does the same stuff as a PC. They both do graphics, they both do word-processing, they both play games. Both play music. Both allow you to download stuff. Neither one of them will threaten to kill you. However, based upon the above, their users will. How pathetic.
Oh, I’m very familiar with this one.
I participate in a Mac community that got whiff of this before we knew it was a hoax. Some of the fanboys were really upset, but no one made death threats, for crying out loud.
Most of us thought it was a waste of money, and moreover, a slap in this kid’s parents’ face. (The premise was that the guy’s parents had given him a G5, but he was too chickenshit to tell them that he didn’t like it, so he gutted it and put PC parts inside it to fool them.)
Looking at a PC message board responding to the same hoax (before they knew it was a hoax) garnered a similar response. They prefaced their comments with, “I’m no Mac fan, but . . .” and then they started in with a tirade about what a dick this guy was to piss away a $3000 computer. “Why not sell it and get a really good PC?” they asked. And most of us Mac people were asking the same thing. The story was upsetting, and annoying. I remember commenting that I hope this guy’s parents never gave him anything nice again. That’s where my mind was.
So, sure. A few nutcases got all wound up. But most of us were upset by how wasteful and disrespectful this guy had been of his parents’ gift. So, let’s not go assuming that the vast majority of Mac people were flipping out over this in an over-the-top way. We weren’t. Not any more than the PC people were, anyway.
I wonder if it’s possible to do the reverse. I happen to have an old desktop box acting as a monitor stand, could it be converted to a Mac?
This is about as bad as making a death threat over someone filling an empty Pepsi bottle with Coke.
I suspect the more outrageous “emails” are part of the hoax. But I’d kill ****** a dual processor G5. Okay, maybe not kill, but maim. 
I always knew those mac zealots were nuts.
:::d&r:::
This is the problem with the internet. Some 14 year old weenie can write “if you were in front of me I’d pop a corn-born Teflon bullet from my Glock in your fucking face.” and other such nonsense without fear of reprisal. Drop the feds on his doorstep asking about the ‘death threats’ he’s been making, that’ll shut his trap right quick.
:rolleyes
I’d kill for a dual processor G5 …
Prepositions make a difference.
The guy lied about gutting a G5. Why should we believe he’s telling the truth about these “death threats”?
What probably happened is that he got some flames from some folks who wondered about the stupidity of gutting a perfectly good computer, and he reported those as “death threats” to play up the “kooky Mac users” angle. After all, we already know how gullible Windows folks are… 
What?! You callin’ me nuts?! Get back here, you little shit!!!
:: chases World Eater with a club dressed like the yeti from Penguin Swing ::
Other than he used a G5, how is what this guy did new?
There is some Company (“Rotten Apple”, IIRC) that has been doing this for a long time now. They use the case of a G4 and put in PC innards.
I’m sure it’s easy to do the reverse. All you have to do is put Apple guts into a PC case… but why oh WHY would you want to do that?!
I have a G4 and I run an emulater on it because I need a program that isn’t mac compatable. There is just something really odd about seeing the XP desk top on my Apple. Thank goodness this only happens when I use the emulater!
Put “Rotten Apple” G4 in Google and you get [H]ard|Forum.
To be different, of course! 
Touché.
What’s wrong with that? If the computer was a gift, then it’s his to do as he pleases with it, within any rules the parents make of course. I can’t see how gutting the G5 is any different from, say, replacing an old video card with a new one because it’s needed for a new game, except in scale. Granted, it probably would’ve been more prudent to return the Mac and buy a PC, but he probably felt it was worth it so not to let his parents know he didn’t like the gift. I certianly can’t see how this is “a slap in this kid’s parent’s faces”.
And I know it’s a hoax. Just assume I was speaking hypothetically in my last post.
Bearing in mind that this hypothetical kid’s situation with his parents is none of my business, and bearing in mind that even if it is none of my business I can still form an opinion about the fellow, “what’s wrong” with what this kid did (had it not been a hoax) is this:
It’s crappy to do that to someone. It’s like if someone were to give you a beautiful sculpture that cost $3000 and you paint it avocado green because you want it to match the curtains. Sure, you can do that, because it’s your gift. You are perfectly entitled to do that to something that now belongs to you.
But speaking for myself, if I gave something that beautiful and that valuable to someone, and they basically ruined it and ruined its value, then I’d think they were a tasteless dolt and I’d never give them anything nice again.
It would be like emptying out the contents of a very old and very rare bottle of wine—pouring this wine in the sink—just so you could put flowers in the “pretty bottle.” Sure, you can do it. But it’s so wasteful and stupid and assinine. Gifts are not always given in a vacuum. If someone gives you something really valuable and you basically piss on it, then they very well may never give you anything nice again. Why bother? It’s wasted on you.
If, however, you decide that fine wine is not your thing so you sell it and buy something of equal value, well, the gift giver may still have their feathers ruffled, but at least they know that you didn’t piss the money away. The monetary value of the gift was retained, and the actual integrity of the gift was also retained—it was now in the hands of someone who would appreciate it, instead of being poured down the sink.
No, it’s not like that at all.
The original premise was that this guy took out the guts of a new, $3000 machine and replaced it with (according to some of the geeks who know about this stuff) substandard PC parts that were worth maybe $400 or something. So, it would be more like replacing a newer and more valuable (in monetary terms) video card and replacing it with an old and crappy video card that you have hanging around the house. And then just “giving away” the new, more expensive video card, rather than selling it and recovering all the money that was spent on it. And you do all of this, not because there is some desperate, pressing need to use that old crappy video card, but because you are too spineless and gutless to simply tell the person who bought you the expensive video card that it wasn’t your preference in expensive video cards.
It was (or would have been, had it not been a hoax) a complete and utter waste of money. Money that someone else gave to him.
Gutlessness is certainly a slap in their faces. Instead of just owning up to how he felt about their well-meaning and expensive gift, he pissed it all away. Most people don’t spend $3000 on a gift just so their kid could basically piss that money away. For $3000 he could have gotten a killer PC system, not the piece of old crap that he (hypothetically) put in there. Most parents would have wanted him to enjoy that $3000 investment, in one form or another, either Mac or PC. They wouldn’t want him to ruin this investment, just because he was too much of a chickenshit to tell them what he really wanted. Besides, in the original article, it sounded as if the kid already had a PC, or maybe more than one. It wasn’t as if he had no computer at all and he was going to be “stuck” with only that sole computer—a Mac that he didn’t like.
But it’s all hypothetical, of course, since it was a hoax.
Me, I’m still wondering if he’s going to “pop” that “corn-born” bullet with or without salt and butter…
(IIRC, Cor-Bon is a brand of ammunition. “Corn-born” means growing in the middle of Iowa)
You forget that $400 worth of PC parts perform just as well as $3000 worth of Mac parts.
That’s the downside of being a Mac user: you’re surrounded by rabid, irrational Mac users.
That said, I’d also kill a dual-processor G5.
True enough. Of course, PC users have their share of wackos as well. The ones who cannot bear that we spend our money “differently,” on a different computer. As if it is some personal slam against them. They get so worked up about it too . . .