Flutterby™! : iPhone is Disney, Android is Six Flags 2010-06-22 15:35:16.113627+00

iPhone is Disney, Android is Six Flags

2010-06-22 15:35:16.113627+00 by Dan Lyke 6 comments

Gonna drop a bunch of emails from a Chugalug thread in the comments... A tweet from Twitter user "invalidname" got me free-associating on "iPhone is Disney, Android is Six Flags".

#Comment Re: made: 2010-06-22 15:40:16.433708+00 by: Dan Lyke [edit history]

When you're a kid, Disney is great. Bright colors, sing-songy music. After a while, though, ya notice that the world has started to diverge from the fantasy, and though it's fun to go to Disneyland it feels a bit restrictive to have to do everything on Walt's terms. There's no chance to be a rebel, no chance to work on someone else's script.

Besides, at some point you notice that although the first time you used two fingers was exciting, after a bit of that you wonder what else is possible.

Who knows, maybe you get stopped in the "It's A Small World After All" ride, or in some other list of approved apps, and after 6 hours of that you snap and stuff Goofy into a urinal and leave the park before they catch you, knowing it'll be a while before you can go back.

So you find the exciting chick who's flying all... uh... Six Flags. Hang out with her for a while, eventually realize that though, yes, adults drink Java, it isn't the end-all, be-all. And eventually you realize that she's just kinda Looney Tunes. So you leave her.

And end up doing "the responsible societal thing". A house in the 'burbs, in a relationship with WinCE. Things are going along fine, but occasionally you find yourself sneaking out to take a hit off the bash pipe, just to get by.

Maybe you're even sneaking out at night for a little "man find" (DON'T JUDGE ME! Sometimes you need to do that to discover that you were really looking for "-type f"!)

So the Windows crowd out in the burbs doesn't really... uh... have it "in the back end". And you discover that, although Windows lets you try a lot, there's a lot of things you can't do. Furthermore, you discover that, in fact, Windows lets pretty much anyone try those things, and you start to worry about what you might catch.

So you end up hanging out with Linux on the sly. Not terribly presentable, can't show Linux around to your friends, but Linux will let you try anything, even the things Windows will do, although with a little WINEing. And Linux uses protection, so you feel safer.

Although, occasionally, you do notice the raised eyebrow and subtle note of disapproval when she catches you "...using the 'non-free' repository" (*cough*).

So at some point you discover that behind the scenes, Disney ... who's calling herself "Mac" now, or maybe Mac is Disney's younger sibling or niece, they've got at least one family member in common, and is experimenting with calling herself iOS, some Greek goddess reference or something, has been ... uh... "hitting the bash pipe" ... too. And, yeah, you can show Mac around to your friends, and she'll let you do most of the things that Linux will do, although it takes quite a bit more negotiation to make that stuff happens and she puts a lot of things in freaky places...

And you've kinda gotta make a choice: Do you stick with the controlling one who puts things in strange places and seems to be trending towards letting you do less and less of what you want to do, but who you can show off to your friends, who's popular and hip (to be fair, is now experimenting with even more fingers), or do you go with the outcast who'll let you do anything, even if sometimes you hurt yourself with some of the contortions?

Anyway, just some pre-coffee post morning-run rambling on topics I should let quietly die.

(Relatedly, this thread got me to cue up "Mule Variations" on the Windows machine, and... ya when you right click and add to the playlist, it doesn't seem to add in any particular order, and that album doesn't sound right if it's not in order.)

#Comment Re: made: 2010-06-22 15:39:09.52177+00 by: Dan Lyke [edit history]

That server doesn't know what "sleep mode" is. The GUI calls you "Hon" while it asks if you want your coffee freshened up, and wears too much mascara. The hard drives may screech horribly while the heads crash, but they keep soldiering on and carrying the data because sometimes you've gotta do what you were born to do, because if we don't keep on carrying that load, what the hell is there?

It's angst and regret and missed opportunity and blinking neon signs and air horns, all hopped up on amphetamines and slowed down on alcohol, running in parallel on the (information) superhighway at two thirty in the morning.

It's life, son, and either you an make the best of it or not, and it ain't pretty, but sometimes you've gotta stare face to face into what actually gets it done.

Come to think of it, there's probably a pretty good analogy here with old Country, real heartbroken criminal-on-the-lam mah-women-done-me-wrong Country, as the progenitor of Miley Cyrus, and BSD spawning Apple iOS.

#Comment Re: made: 2010-06-22 15:38:28.547504+00 by: Dan Lyke [edit history]

We've got a family we've... well, the story is too long, so let's just say they're underprivileged and we've "adopted" them. We gave them season tickets to the local Six Flags, and we take 'em occasionally. We'd also love to take 'em to Disneyland, but that's a long trip with a couple of overnights and ... well ... LA, SoCal and the OC.

If you go to Disneyland, they believe. You could easily wink and sneer at "It's A Small World", but they don't. There is no post-modern cynicism, every fiber of Disneyland, every cast member, carries off the feeling that you're in the happiest place on earth. They may roll their eyes off-stage, but in the park it's on. If the photographers at the park entrance see you have your own camera, they'll ask if they can use your camera first.

Six Flags, on the other hand, is the surly teen: Their mascot is the old guy who still dances and parties down. There's your pomo irony, right off the bat. They serve alcohol. Copious amounts of it. They use their cameras first.

Both of them charge you way too much for your soda, but at Disney it's in a themed cup, probably with a sit down that's also themed to the ride. At Six Flags you're buying from a brand that exists outside of the park, and you're sitting at the same tables that the other brands (ie: Subway, Taco Bell, etc) of the food court all share.

Are the rides any different? Probably not. Disney's the place for the childlike wonder that parents want to expose their children to, Six Flags is the place for rebellious teens and cynical twenty-somethings.

In Disney, you go experience the Matterhorn ride. In Six Flags, you ride the roller coaster.

And then there's some of us who go off and climb the freakin' mountain our own damned selves, but that's not nearly as big a market.