very strange

I've been watching the Apple/Intel news and speculation recently. Potentially very exciting stuff. Lots of people speculating but I don't think there is enough information to understand what this means yet. Jobs is on stage as I type this. Perhaps he'll give enough information to lend some direction to the ideas.

I read a few forums to see what others were thinking and I came across MacRumors' forums. It was certainly eye-opening to read the comments compared to a generalist tech site. In general I don't read any Mac related websites. I was amazed to find people in general are up in arms about this. Comments like "I'm switching to Linux" and "I hate Intel". I've never seen anything like it. Even when I owned an Audi and read some of the BMW forums it would never get this strange.

Look at this quote,

For some reason, I don't want this to be true. I don't know why, I just don't like or trust Intel... It would be great if Steve negated the rumor on Monday for no other reason than to embarrass CNet. Those assbags have hammered Apple forever since they are a shill for Dell/HP/Microsoft. And like a true, fair weather friend, they got all nice and cozy with Apple after the iPod success. Apple doesn't need friends like that. And I hope CNet gets massive egg on their face. Of course, if it is true, IBM brought it on themselves. No one messes with Jobs.

It's funny - I was going to highlight some of the stranger ideas in that post but realized I'd end up highlighting the whole thing. "Apple doesn't need friends like this?" I've never seen anyone take such a personal view of a business or a product they've owned. Can you imagine if someone felt this way about cooking oil or toilet paper?

You'll have to pry this bottle of Wesson Oil from my cold, dead hands.

I've heard about the 'reality distortion field' but does anyone have a good explanation for why people are so emotionally invested in this? There must be other products or services that invoke this kind of reaction but I can't quite think of any. I remember the Audi/BMW rivalry was intense but it didn't get weird. I'm guessing it has something to do with the amount of money people invest in a product or service and if there is a clear binary choice. To later think you've made a poor decision is probably not the best feeling in the world so you put up a wall of hatred and derision for the other product. To have your product then use something (Intel's CPU) from the competitor's product is probably just too much to handle.