There's a lot of hyperbolic criticism about the iPad that I don't think is justified. This is a hyperbolic response. In some threads here and elsewhere I have tried to state my ideas rationally, but when you have hundreds of Greater Internet Fuckwads spouting things you run out of steam quickly. This is how I chose to unwind.

I have a beef with the Aspergers-aspiring model of the programmer. Not all computer people are like that. I'm a computer person and I'm not; my friends are computer people and they're not. But there are still some people who pride themselves in how lacking they are socially, in how incapable they are of relating with people, and they're sadly acclaimed by a lot of people. I think it's a damn shame.

Apple draws out the worst in those people, because Apple as a company exists almost to refute their ideas of how computers should work. They focus not on specs and feature sheets but on usability and elegance and things that make people who don't like computers more happy. And I love that! I think it's what's needed to make computers and computer people as mainstream as films and film people are. I'd like to be able to discuss Internet Topics with people without it instantly getting me pegged as one of those nasty Internet People in question.

So, yes, it was critical of people who wear insulting t-shirts. I don't apologize to people here who still do, because I honestly think they've got to mature themselves a bit. Most programmers aren't like that, and I don't have a beef with them, and if theirs were the voices leading this conversation I'd have written something less out-of-orbit.