The Hipness Threshold
I was amazed to find that Charles was the most requested sketch at the Ubercon. Why does the East love him so? I have no idea. At any rate, after our recent experience at the Apple Store it seemed like a good opportunity to utilize the character and (potentially) bring pleasure to an entire coast.
If you want to coexist with different breeds of geeks, you need to adopt a value-neutral approach to the platforms. So, while there are many conversations one can have regarding different computing methods, I typically do not choose to have them. Gabriel and I no longer discuss God for the same reason - people express themselves via means as divergent as spirituality and operating systems, so as soon as the topic starts to get interesting it invariably becomes personal. Obviously, that has a tendency to occlude rational dialogue. There might have been a point where I had a surplus of energy to invest in philosophical cul-de-sacs. I no longer remember it.
The way Apple projects its brand, however, has nothing to do with the underlying technology. It could not be more divorced from it. So if they want to create largely empty stores staffed exclusively by young hardbodies in ill-fitting t-shirts, it’s open season. Its possible that each manifestation of this chain does not resemble the others, that each one is not populated with the scrubbed, tousled young things of the sort one sees in serious teen dramas. You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe that. I’d say it’s far more likely that there is a single Apple Store, connected by a series of geographically distinct portals.
I don’t put this out there to imply that the places I have to go to get technology or software are somehow superior, because they aren’t. They’re horrid. But at least I never feel underdressed.
the skin is white