MACS ON THE PRAIRIE

"Leave them alone, they're not coming!"

That's what Dr. Christiane Northrup shouted to her PBS audience the other night. She was speaking about the futility of trying to convert friends and relatives to new ways of thinking. The idea was that some people are afraid to go outside the boundaries of conventional belief systems, afraid to leave the "box." In such cases it's pointless and even cruel to badger and harangue. They're not coming, so why waste time and energy trying to drag them along?

I've often been guilty of doing just that, however. Especially when it comes to extolling the power and the glory of the great American plains. The bias and prejudice of the supposedly educated classes in the East is quite incredible in this regard (and probably always has been). But after 24 years in my ancestral Mid-Atlantic homeland, I now believe that most people are just too busy to care. And they couldn't care less about being in a box! As boxes go, there's a lot to like.

It's really frustrating, however. People to whom a "road trip" means four hours on the freeway have trouble getting their minds around the notion of four days in a car, much less understanding why I think it's so wonderful. But it is, at least if you're heading toward the wide open spaces. There's a tension on the coasts, a swirling psychic undercurrent that equals life for some of us. But whenever I travel west and leave the crowds behind, the top of my head lifts clean off! The feeling is so sweet, so glorious. It's my religion.

Rand McNally white space is what we're after here. (More on that in a moment.) Landscape mostly unmarked by the works of man. Emptiness that scares you, at first. A box with no sides! And you know what I learned recently?

"There's Macs in them thar hills!"

This came to me as a result of my commenting on an unfortunate remark by a certain marketing bigwig. Speaking of the "free PC" business model, he said it was wonderful because now "John Doe in Podunk, Nebraska" would be able to get on the Internet! Oh Lordy. I commented as calmly as I could that farmers in Nebraska have probably been online longer than that guy or his kids! I really can't emphasize this enough: besides having to compete in a world market, farmers, ranchers, and everyone in places like Nebraska want and need that window to the outside world. A lot of these folks were hip to the Internet a long time ago, in Internet years. One correspondent from Kansas said his mother had been online since 1995!

Another laid a bombshell on me, though, because the email came from Sidney, Nebraska (elevation 4,085 ft.), a place I'm somewhat familiar with. This town of 6,000 is home to the flagship store of Cabela's, Inc., a major marketer of outdoor and hunting gear. You've probably seen the catalogs. The store itself is a wonder and can't possibly be described adequately in words, but take it from me, there ain't nothin' like it in Glen Burnie or Silver Spring.

To feel the full impact of the location you need to be driving west on Interstate 80 on the way to Wyoming. ("White space! White space!") After leaving the Platte, the highway begins to climb, and each successive rise on the horizon is a little higher and a few miles farther away. . . at some point you might notice you haven't seen a tree for a while, and a little farther along you'll probably wonder how anyone back home could ever have gotten the idea this country was flat! (It's what you call "rolling," which means there are serious wrinkles. . .*)

Cabela's stands grandly beside the Interstate on the top of a hill behind a huge parking lot. Besides showcasing every conceivable item of outdoor gear you could ever want, the store boasts what must be one of the largest collection of hunting trophies ever assembled under one roof: virtually every bird, mammal, reptile, fish, or bug ever been hunted is on display. Whether you like that sort of thing or not, it's impressive as hell. The critters are arranged naturally, for the most part, and greatly admired: "Boy, I'd like to shoot me one o' those!" The buffalo burgers are pretty good, too. (I think I had a "buffalo bratwurst" the last time I was there.) Did I mention that the interior is large enough to garage a blimp? This is a seriously interesting place, and Cabela's also thinks different!

My correspondent, whom we'll call Mike, reports that the company has 150 Power Macintosh G3s there in Sidney. He manages the systems for the Imaging & Quality Department and sounds justifiably proud:

"We run over a Gigabit ethernet backbone. We have over 3 terrabytes of RAID storage and 6 terrabytes of near-line storage. Everyone has their own 100 Base T full duplex switched port and a uplink to the Internet via a T3 connection! Not impressive enough? Each G3 has over 300 megs of RAM, top of the line ATI video cards, Jaz drives, Zip drives, 22" Mitsubishi monitors, shall I go on? On staff I have three Apple certified techs, 14 people who program Java for fun, and a guy who worked for the government and helped write the standards for SGML. We develop web sites for a number of our companies and we have one of the most cutting edge publishing groups any graphic artist could dream of working for."

Mike estimates that there are over 200 more Macs in the general community, not a huge number, but remember where we are. What's more, Sidney, NE, population 6,000, county seat of Cheyenne Co. (population 9.494), has three ISPs! I live 90 miles from the nation's capital and can't top that. And then there's this:

"We laugh at the contempt the media and city folks (had to use the words) have for us, we enjoy very low crime, lots of open spaces, great sunsets, fresh food, clean air, and zero commuting. I live 3 minutes from work!"

I'm not urging everyone to go to Sidney, though I have to say the thought has crossed my mind. To me the thought that a person can go out there under those glorious western skies and find a nice little town with three ISPs and a community of Mac users, not to mention possible Mac-related employment, is just fantastic. All that nature and not a mall in sight.

If western Nebraska doesn't ring your chimes, remember that there are a number of places out that way with cheap housing and decent Internet access, good locations for a person with a Web-based business. As I've often said before, there are lots of empty buildings in some of these little towns and villages. If you can make at least a minimum wage for yourself on the Internet, you could rent or buy a place to live and survive quite nicely. (There are also vast areas where 'Net access is damned awful, so do your homework!.)

You won't, of course, because you won't go. A few of you will, like those Cabela's folks mentioned above, but most of you won't. Your kids are in school, all your contacts are in the city, it's too far away for you to even imagine, whatever. Sooner or later I'll realize you're not coming, and then I'll stop preaching. But if you wanted to change, if you had what it takes to be a pioneer, you could step right out of that box you're in and change your life. This technology empowers people. You don't think all that computing power is changing Sidney, Nebraska? It has to be, one way or the other. Three ISPs! Hundreds of high-end Macs on the high plains!

I'll tell you this: getting a Power Macintosh and writing on the Internet has changed my life. Before I was just your average weirdo artiste, living harmlessly in the country and minding my own business, but now I get birthday greetings from Australia and shake hands with scientists! (Well, one or two. :-)

The last time I was at Cabela's, there was quite a line in the men's room (in more ways than one). These guys were major meat eaters: elk hunters, Indians, and the like. At 6 feet tall I was the shortest and lightest of the bunch! The thing was, while we were all lined up at the urinals, three stalls stood vacant. I was sorely tempted by their promise of privacy and relief, but my manly intuition told me to stay where I was. The line moved slowly, too slowly, and still no one opted for the empty stalls! I realized suddenly that something special was happening: I was witnessing the "Code of the West," i.e. real men don't pee in the toilet! Little boys and old men, perhaps, but not the linebacker-sized gent in front of me with a thick braided ponytail down to his ass.

In this context the nearby G3s make even more sense, don't they? Out there you better have the best shootin' irons you can get. And if you run into an argument, just head for the sunset and keep ridin'. . . Remember, if they're not coming, they're not coming!

The truth is out there, somewhere where the antelope play. . .

John H. Farr also edits the Apple Computer News for Applelinks.com and invites your comments.

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Farr Site Tip o' the Week: isn't it incredible how you can so often tell the difference between Web sites produced on a PC and those made on a Mac? Go ahead and argue, it's still true. Compare the Cabela's site to this one. "It's the software, it's the designer, etc." Yes, I know, but nonetheless. Maybe BobRob has an opinion. . . :-)

* Looking at that picture will fool you. The scale of the landscape emphasizes the horizontal, all right, but there's a lot more to it than that.

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January 08, 2009