The Macalope Weekly: The Build, the Brick and the Dock

News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

October 10, 2008

The Macalope Weekly: The Build, the Brick and the Dock

Posted Oct. 10, ’08, 2:03 PM PT by The Macalope

Category | Macalope

And This Was The Turning Point

Let’s lead off with the big news of the week. Now, this is HUGE, people. It has the potential to crack the desktop computer market wide open for the Mac. You know what the Macalope’s talking about. That’s right, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl “the Build” Bildt has converted to the Mac.

Carl, as you know, is not so much a trend setter as a trend maker in Sweden, so it’s just a matter of time before the Mac OS startup bong is heard echoing through the fjords. And you know the old saying: as goes Scandinavia, so goes the world.

You haven’t heard that? Oh.

Lasers!

The Macalope’s dear, sweet, behorned mother always told him two things:

1) Never run with scissors.
2) Never believe what you read on an Apple rumor site. Particularly when the rumor involves lasers.

But 9 to 5 Mac’s report that the new MacBook Pros will be carved out of solid bricks of aluminum has everyone abuzz and, let’s face it, it sure sounds like something Apple would do, doesn’t it? “Reinvent how laptops are made? No problem. What do you want us to do with the rest of the afternoon?”

Certainly strange things are afoot at the Infinite Loop, as Apple’s announced a laptop-themed event for next Tuesday, so you’re in for some MacBooky goodness one way or another.

Sure, laptops etched from solid bricks of aluminum using lasers might sound cool, but the Macalope’s going to wait and see what Carl Bildt thinks of them.

Be Careful What You File and Wait 9 Years For

Hurray! After 9 long years of waiting, Apple has received a patent for perhaps the most maligned feature of OS X—the Dock. This may seem like good news to some, but think about the consequences, people. Now Microsoft will now be forced to come up with something on their own. Can you imagine what an eyesore that’s going to be? Do we really wish that kind of pain on even our Windows-using brethren?

Ha-ha! Of course we do. But, still, this just drags the overall state of operating system competition further into the gutter. Mark the Macalope’s words, soon we’ll be launching applications by hooting and throwing bones at the screen.

Kind of like Linux users do now.

11 Comments

Lars said:

It´s the geography, stupid. You'll find fjords in Norway, not in Sweden.

October 10, 2008 3:40 PM

EJ said:

I'm not sure why "laptops etched from solid bricks of aluminum using lasers" sound desirable. (Except for, you know, LASERS.)

It sounds to me like it would just make it a pain to upgrade RAM or switch out the battery.

October 10, 2008 4:59 PM

Kiwi said:

We'll just note, in passing, that Norway is the country with the fjords (poetic license and all that)

October 10, 2008 11:57 PM

Stian said:

Sweeden does not have fjords :)

October 11, 2008 2:47 AM

Hans Karlsson said:

About your comment on Sweden: The fact that your mixing up Norway and Sweden (which doesn't have any fjords) reminds me of Sarah Palin, your foreign policy expert. Are you related in any way?

October 11, 2008 5:16 AM

The Macalope said:

A comment about fjords: Sweden *does* have fjords, at least according to the interwebs, it's just that Norway has most of them. The Macalope did check this particular point before posting.

Besides, don't be such a Bildt-doubter. Part of the point in mentioning fjords was to indicate that Carl's influence extends *beyond* the Swedish border to the rest of Scandinavia.

October 11, 2008 7:05 AM

B said:

Haha, Carl is nerdy-cool and one of the early adopters to write online among politicians... Sure, it might make some mid-age voters to switch.

Anyway, I bet he got a macbook, not a desktop.

October 11, 2008 1:01 PM

EJ said:

Okay, watched the video.

Lasers. I get it now. Cool.

This is totally something that Apple does -- getting a broad range of people excited about a manufacturing process -- that I don't think too many other companies do right now.

October 14, 2008 2:00 PM

jonricmd

said: