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Well, I'm two days late (US time) to whimper my felicitations, but: why not; after all, them was fuzzy (and hirsute) times back in 1984 in the Valley that $ilicon made [^].
That January of Orwell's year I was running a computer program for children at the French-American Bi-lingual school in San Francisco; it would be more correct to say that, with 200+ children per week warming the seats around our sixteen-or-so Apple II's, the program was running me ... ragged.
Around March (I think) of that year I escorted a group of the elite (International IB) upper-school students over to Oakland to see the first incarnation of the Mac (128k, 68000 cpu at 8mhz.) at an Apple dealer's shop. US $2500 for the little critter seemed (and was, in those days) a very high price.
The de rigeur demo of MacPaint didn't do much for me, but MacWrite and MacDraw were eye-openers. I had seen WYSIWYG word-processing and vector-drawing programs in demos on the Xerox PARC machines, but never thought mere mortals would have them.
It was a year later, sometime in the spring of 1985, I was able to buy my first Mac: at one of the bay area's geek flea-markets: a talented hardware-wizard, a Jamaican named Robert from Berkeley, had somehow gotten hold of Macs that had failed qa and were headed for the junk-bin, and somehow ... uhhh ... "rescued" them ... salvaged them into kind-of working machines.
So for US $600 I had a 128k Mac with a keyboard with the entire bottom row of characters transposed one character over. Learning to type fluently on that machine was to give me problems for years.
My first-wife went Krakatoa on me when I came home with my prize (she was an actress, and play director, and epic explosions were her specialty).
A year later, when (I believe) the first Apple LaserWriter to be rented to the public was available at Krishna Copy in Berkeley, I started my first company, Technical Document Design. I would whip-out custom graphics for technical companies, print them, have them turned into negatives on film by a local print shop: voila instant overhead-projection slides with high-resolution (compared to what was the then standard).
And, the Mac and LaserWriter combination led me to specialize in PostScript, which turned out, in the long run, to be a very lucky choice of obsessions.
So, I can say of the Mac, as Pele said of soccer: "been very good to me."
Thanks, Mac !
p.s. The small room (upstairs) where the first LaserWriter for rent was available at Krishna Copy was something of a circus. Which, given Berkeley's latter-days of the counter-culture hive identity, could be expected. People would bring their dogs, and children. The scent of patchouli and sandalwood as likely as proto-yuppie cologne, and human sweat.
One of my first paying clients was a self-anointed "spiritual master" with wonderfully luminous eyes, and massive dreadlocks, who claimed to have reached enlightenment in Afghanistan after being sent to live alone in a small hut for four years in total silence, never going outside the hut.
He said that once a year his "guru" would summon him for an audience, and ask him a single question: "what have you learned this year?"
The first year he replied: "the food is terrible." His guru said: "excellent, now back to the hut."
The second year he replied: "I'm so bored I might as well be dead." His guru said: "excellent, now back to the hut."
The third year he replied with a single word: "fark." His guru said: "excellent, now back to the hut."
The fourth year he replied: "This is a total waste of time !" His guru said: "excellent, now get out of here, and go teach."
I was definitely sucker-punched by the punch-line, but after I had recovered from laughing, I asked him if he didn't feel, at times, angry with his teacher. He said: "no the other disciple had to stay in the hut seven years."
The Prophet hired me to do a brochure for a dating service that supposedly matched, using what he claimed to be ancient Vedic astrology, high-rolling gamblers going on trips to Las Vegas with a selection from a bevy of female escorts whose compatible signs would render them "shaktis" for said punters, thus increasing their luck exponentially.
To say that the virtue of these ladies available for cosmic escortage was beyond anything but lucky ... would be a stretch.
I am not making this up !
“But I don't want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can't help that,” said the Cat: “we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.”
“How do you know I'm mad?” said Alice.
“You must be," said the Cat, or you wouldn't have come here.” Lewis Carroll
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BillWoodruff wrote: My first-wife went Krakatoa on me
Mine still does once in a while. I'm not saying I married a super-volcano but once in a while I can feel the vibrations in my toes at which time, it's better to turn and run. 
BillWoodruff wrote: The scent of patchouli and sandalwood as likely as proto-yuppie cologne, and human sweat.
Ronald Reagan apparently said, after losing a hippy vote in California: "what can you say about people who look like Jane, walk like Tarzan, and smell like Cheetah."
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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Septimus Hedgehog wrote: .... smell like Cheetah
Well, that shows Reagan can crack a better joke. Or maybe my sense of humor was dead when I read about the guru
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http://howdovaccinescauseautism.com/[^]
Well fads they come and fads they go.
And God I love that rock and roll!
Well the point was fast but it was too blunt to miss.
Life handed us a paycheck, we said, "We worked harder than this!"
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I think that's more of a soapbox post as the page it points to is definitely NSFW. 
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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And drinking cow urine cures cancer. So a win for everyone.
And for anyone else - clicking on the link really is required to get the idea of what the post means.
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Based on what evidence?
Speaking scientifically you cannot make that statement.
Currently there is no evidece, but that does not mean that there is no connection.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
I cannot say if there is or isn't a link, but I can say that the chance of there being a link is still a possibility.
Sorry about pissing on the parade, but being somewhat aspergic I can't help it.
---------------------------------
Obscurum per obscurius.
Ad astra per alas porci.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur .
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Given a sufficient amount of data you can draw nearly any conclusion you want.
For example, its proven that 100% of people killed in car accidents walked through a door earlier in the day.
Or there is a very compelling link between breathing air and every known disease on earth.
100% of people who drink water will die.
Etc..
Its impossible to do a 100% sterile study on humans since its pretty much illegal to birth one, keep it in a test box, and submit them to a single stimulus and study the response.
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Dalek Dave wrote: Sorry about pissing on the parade, but being somewhat aspergic I can't help it.
What vaccination do you blame for your condition?
What percentage of people who receive this vaccine are harmed?
How do you know this? 
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He didn’t, if you read his reply, what he said was he couldn't rule out a link, in which he is right, in these cases it is impossible to rule out anything as being contributory to the problem, however on the flipside can you say it is a factor?
the current medical understanding is that is has no measurable effect
so basically whilst you caanot at present say is has no link it can be said that a link is highly unlikely
and taht same argument can be said for most things including vegatables
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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Bergholt Stuttley Johnson wrote: and taht same argument can be said for most things including vegatables
I'm glad you mentioned vegetables.
That was going to be my next question; did he eat vegetables as a child? 
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You really should have checked the link, go on I'll wait, before you answered. 
speramus in juniperus
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There is no evidence that you sitting down is not causing the death of 1000 people each day so you should no longer sit.
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More pointless than this post.
Peter Wasser
Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.
Frank Zappa
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It's all the Dihydrogen Monoxide[^] in the vaccines I tells ya!
=========================================================
I'm an optoholic - my glass is always half full of vodka.
=========================================================
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I was about write a load of blurb on why I hate that subject then I clicked the link.
very good 
Every day, thousands of innocent plants are killed by vegetarians.
Help end the violence EAT BACON
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A passenger in a taxi leaned over to ask the driver a question and tapped him on the shoulder. The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus, drove up over the curb, and stopped just inches from a large plate glass window. For a few moments everything was silent in the cab, and then the still shaking driver said, "I'm sorry but you scared the daylights out of me."
The frightened passenger apologized and said he didn't realize a mere tap on the shoulder could frighten him so much. The driver replied, "No, no, I'm sorry, it's entirely my fault. Today is my first day driving a cab. I've been driving a hearse for the last 25 years."
/ravi
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He'd be caught dead before tapping that 
Loading signature...
. . . Please Wait . . .
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I'm reading Simon Garfield's excellent book On The Map. I'm reading about the early origins of maps made of London and came upon these somewhat prosaic streets and areas called: Hooker's Court, The Fiery Pillar, Scummer Alley, Dagger Alley, Pickaxe Alley, Dark Entry, and Slaughter Yard. All of them give an insight into what went on within their confines. But none more so than one called, yes, Gropecunt Lane. 
They don't give names to streets like that anymore.
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
modified 26-Jan-14 11:43am.
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I checked the last lane in Wikipedia[^] (possibly not SFW) and found that the name "appears to have been derived as a compound of the words grope and ****"
No sh*t Shylock! I would never, ever, have guessed that...
Sometimes names are less obvious, but more interesting: there is a Dogflud Way in Farnham, Surrey (named after a non-longer-extant suburb called "Dogflud") which makes you wonder just what went on there...
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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I should have marked the thread NSFW. Have done so.
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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its obvious
flud is a derrivative dasfluddenkoptdechoppenwiggeblottannowmenchan
dasfluddenkoptdechoppenwiggeblottannowmenchan is high german for haircut, so it was the area of town renowned for its pet grooming shops
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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I think you should go to Hell[^]
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That was on the BBC news recently when the freezing conditions in the US endorsed the old adage "when hell freezes over", something the weather presenters were quick to take up on. I feel sorry for you folk that had to endure that icy blast. It must have been awful to get about in. Then add power cuts and you have conditions that no number of willy-warmers can protect you against. Brrrrrr.
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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