Mac Vs PC

December 22, 2008 7:51 PM

Mac Vs. PC. Inspired by Transformers, this short visual effects piece shows us what would happen if our home computers could turn into robots and started beating each other up.
posted by Effigy2000 (48 comments total)

Finally.
posted by turgid dahlia at 7:56 PM on December 22, 2008

I don't mean to snark, but besides being a school project featuring several over-exhausted memes set to a Terminator soundtrack, is there anything good about this video?
posted by furtive at 7:57 PM on December 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

MEGATRON: We meet again, Prime! Rah!

OPTIMUS PRIME: At the end of this day, one shall stand, one sha-[A FATAL EXCEPTION HAS OCCURED AT 0028:C0031C6C]
posted by turgid dahlia at 8:04 PM on December 22, 2008 [3 favorites]

"I noticed you're battling to the death. Would you like some help with that?"
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:05 PM on December 22, 2008 [12 favorites]

Not realistic enough. A real Mac vs. PC battle would involve more sissy slap-fighting.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:06 PM on December 22, 2008 [8 favorites]

Mac vs. PC battles remind me of McDonald's vs. Burger King, or "less filling" vs. "tastes great".
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:09 PM on December 22, 2008

A Mac vs. PC battle should be accompanied by a shot where they zoom the camera out to show that it's all taking place underneath a gigantic table at which i5/OS and AIX are having tea.
posted by sonic meat machine at 8:10 PM on December 22, 2008 [4 favorites]

Who's behind the camera? That's right, an Amiga!
posted by hellojed at 8:18 PM on December 22, 2008 [5 favorites]

Meanwhile, Linux is off somewhere in the guise of Dairugger XV.
posted by drezdn at 8:21 PM on December 22, 2008

I'm surprised the PC's defense didn't include a spinning beach ball of doom.
posted by iamkimiam at 8:23 PM on December 22, 2008

But where are the lawyers?
posted by terranova at 8:24 PM on December 22, 2008

Weak. Took a WHOLE LAB FULL of Macs to beat one low cost PC laptop.

Frankly, I really think that was not what they meant to say.

And, sonic, a VAX is serving the tea.
posted by Samizdata at 8:27 PM on December 22, 2008

Meanwhile, Linux is in the next room IMing her boyfriend. She pauses a moment when Mac and PC, grappling each other in a death embrace, stumble past her doorway. She then shrugs, and goes back to having fun.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:27 PM on December 22, 2008

(Posted from a PC running Linux sitting right next to a Mac (albeit an old one)...)
posted by Samizdata at 8:28 PM on December 22, 2008

Meanwhile, Linux is in the next room IMing her boyfriend.

Maybe, but he'll soon learn how high maintenance she is.

OH SNAP
posted by middleclasstool at 8:31 PM on December 22, 2008 [40 favorites]

Yeah, but at least she can resolve her own dependencies.
posted by Samizdata at 8:33 PM on December 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

Yes and she sure knows how to unpack a tarball amirite
posted by middleclasstool at 8:37 PM on December 22, 2008

Maybe, but he'll soon learn how high maintenance she is.

My character was raised by easy-going Debian-based parents, not some strict, witholding Gentoos.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:40 PM on December 22, 2008 [3 favorites]

No, strict and witholding parents would be those Redhats down the street.

The real questions is how much she likes packages, amirite?
posted by Samizdata at 8:46 PM on December 22, 2008

Ummmmm, the real question, even.
posted by Samizdata at 8:50 PM on December 22, 2008

Hold up hold up! My guys are getting ready.

    **** COMMODORE 64 BASIC V2 ***
 64K RAM SYSTEM 38911 BASIC BYTES FREE
 
READY.
LOAD "*",8,1

SEARCHING FOR *
LOADING
READY.
RUN

Awesome! Another couple minutes and just you wait . . .
posted by barnacles at 8:51 PM on December 22, 2008 [11 favorites]

Like we're scared of your plastic case...
posted by Samizdata at 9:02 PM on December 22, 2008

That didn't seem particularly realistic:

The girl was cute with a nice figure and the dude wasn't agreeing with her or otherwise indicating that he really thought about a PC and almost got one and if he got another computer it definitely would be a cheap PC laptop, that's really smart, and, hey, pixel art is pretty hip these days--is that heart ironic or just an example of outsider art, which is so much more "real" than the crap you see hanging in museums, and the clunky laptop is actually pretty neat and shows you're just not into a computer as a fashion accessory and I can't tell you how cool that is, it's totally amazing to talk to someone who is so authentic.
posted by maxwelton at 9:12 PM on December 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

Like we're scared of your plastic case...

You won't be laughing when he uses his International Karate on you.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 9:12 PM on December 22, 2008

I think the whole thing was settled with the retort "That's what she said." The fighting part was totally unnecessary.
posted by dammitjim at 9:30 PM on December 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

Like we're scared of your plastic case...

You won't be laughing when he uses his International Karate on you.

Yeah?

That's what SHE said!
posted by Samizdata at 9:45 PM on December 22, 2008

Well, the motion capture was pretty fantastic, and the models looked great. But there was zero distinction between them.

The Mac should have been all stylish and sleek, perhaps a bit wimpy. The PC should have been brutish and crude... maybe clumsy or farting a lot.
posted by LordSludge at 9:51 PM on December 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

Yeah, or at least it should have been obvious that the PC was made by thirty different designers with contradictory design goals. And its biggest weapon is some kind of huge, bloated, club/flame thrower/grenade launcher that is nigh-impossible to lift and jams half the time anyways.
posted by kaibutsu at 10:01 PM on December 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

furtive: I don't mean to snark, but besides being a school project featuring several over-exhausted memes set to a Terminator soundtrack, is there anything good about this video?

I think you're snarking far too harshly: as a student project, as an exercise, this is a demonstration of considerable technical skill. No, the story is not especially deep, but the story-telling is pretty good, actually.
posted by funkbrain at 10:20 PM on December 22, 2008

I want to see a version that happens at middle earth.
posted by funkbrain at 10:31 PM on December 22, 2008

Yeah, it sucks that they're just differently skinned versions of the same model. That really detracts from the Transformery-ness of it. It'd be like watching Buzzsaw fight Laserbeak, or Frenzy fight Rumble, or Sunstreaker fight Sideswipe and Red Alert, or Ratchet and Ironhide go at it, or Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp duke it out.

Ridiculous!
posted by aubilenon at 10:45 PM on December 22, 2008

Wow I guess all Ai schools look the same. Besides the good animation there was no real ending, nobody won, nobody lost.
posted by lilkeith07 at 11:02 PM on December 22, 2008

Actual robots fighting.
posted by euphorb at 11:16 PM on December 22, 2008 [4 favorites]

Well, the motion capture was pretty fantastic, and the models looked great. But there was zero distinction between them.

I guess "Inspired by Transformers" means the Spielberg/Bay version, not the original.
posted by Gary at 12:23 AM on December 23, 2008

...Besides the good animation there was no real ending, nobody won, nobody lost. posted by lilkeith07 at 11:02 PM on December 22

The only winning move is not to play
posted by blueberry at 1:10 AM on December 23, 2008

The PC-robot upgraded to XP without a reboot. Now that's comic genius.
posted by mr. strange at 1:22 AM on December 23, 2008 [1 favorite]

Nice camera tracking.

So was it rendered on Macs or PC's?
posted by jfrancis at 1:55 AM on December 23, 2008

Actual robots fighting.

Woah. Where can I get me one of them little dudes?
posted by Happy Dave at 4:10 AM on December 23, 2008

Was it really PC vs Mac? The ending looked more like SCO vs. everyone.
posted by ubiquity at 4:15 AM on December 23, 2008 [1 favorite]

I never understand the antipathy of Mac vs "PC" (i.e. Windows) users. Bill Gates envies the hell out of Steve Jobs' ability to charge twice as much for software that does about a tenth of what it should while Jobs only wishes he had Gates' dominion over the Earth.

Free your computer and the rest will follow.
posted by DU at 4:21 AM on December 23, 2008

I never understand the antipathy of Mac vs "PC" (i.e. Windows) users.

I love how you say this, and then in the very next sentence hit us with a massive anti-Mac troll. Nice moves!
posted by fungible at 5:24 AM on December 23, 2008

Twice as much for the software? On Amazon, Windows Vista Home Premium with SP1 Upgrade costs $101.99 ($129.95) vs. Mac OS X Version 10.5.4 Leopard $109.99 ($129.99). Apple's mark-up is factored into its "whole widget" manufacturing scheme, which even now people still refuse to understand and confuse with Microsoft's business model. (The control-freaky Jobs would of course love to have the de facto monopoly Windows enjoys, even if its market share is slipping.)

That said, how is a student project, no matter how well executed technically, supposed to capture the entrenched battle lines of OS Holy Wars?

This pedantic post was Made on a Mac (tm).
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:40 AM on December 23, 2008

I thought the models were pretty uninspired. I suppose they followed the Bay Transformers film design aesthetic of "robot looks nothing like original vehicle/computer/item".

It was a fun idea, though.
posted by Fleebnork at 6:32 AM on December 23, 2008

All I can say is for some reason thesaurus.com doesn't have entries for either "shitshow" or "shit," which kind of pisses me off.
posted by zach4000 at 10:33 AM on December 23, 2008

the "actual robots fighting" link is the funniest thing I've seen in weeks. it needs its own post.
posted by tehloki at 2:57 PM on December 23, 2008 [1 favorite]

This thread is geeky.
posted by paisley henosis at 7:48 PM on December 23, 2008

the "actual robots fighting" link is the funniest thing I've seen in weeks. it needs its own post.

Why not just attend in 2009? And if you're really sweet I'll put you on the list.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 9:41 PM on December 23, 2008

Doktor Zed: But that's the upgrade version of Vista. For $110 you get a full install of OS X. And since OS X doesn't have a "piece of shit" edition and a "the one you really wanna buy" edition, you're basically getting their top shelf OS. Amazon has Vista Ultimate for about $250.

And widgets? Do people seriously use more than two or three? Ever? I don't know, and I honestly know nothing about any sort of scheme/licensing/whatever related to them. *shrug*

OP: pretty cool video. Thanks.
posted by triolus at 8:49 PM on December 25, 2008