Yep, you knew it was going to happen. News about Monday’s Virginia Tech shooting has officially leaked into every other domain. How do I know? Well, the blogger at Habla Mierda has begun speculation that killer Cho Seung-Hui… might be a Mac user:
I was reading the article and found this line pretty interesting.
Among the materials are 23 QuickTime video files showing Cho talking directly to the camera, Capus said. He does not name anyone specifically, but he talks at length about religion and his hatred of the wealthy.
Quicktime Video? Talking directly to camera?
Let’s check Apple’s site real quick.
<snip>
<sigh>
I don’t even know what to make of this. The guy over at Mierda is pretty juvenile about all this — he wouldn’t throw ethnic terms around casually otherwise — but I don’t think he’s suggesting Mac use as playing a role in Cho’s attack. Give it a rest, everyone. Sometimes, people just do horrible things, and we can’t blame an external forces. A few dozen people are dead right now not because of gun control (or lack of it), video games, terrorism, video games, illegal immigration, conservatism or liberalism. They lost their lives because one very mentally ill individual chose to do something incredibly destructive.
Habla Mierda. VT Killer probably a Mac User
Via Digg.
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Pete Mortensen is a design strategist for consulting firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete’s particular Apple avocations are both around design–interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!
8 responses to “Blogger Hysteria: Virginia Tech Killer a Mac User?”
CNN released the search warrant of his dorm room a couple of days ago, and it listed the items taken, including: a Compaq computer (unclear what type, but did list the serial number) and a Dell Latitude (including the service code). No Macs. Many, many digicams shoot video in QuickTime.
And the US military uses Motorola, Compaq, Dell and Apple systems and they kill thousands more than an alienated teenager.
… and then we wonder why PC users call us defensive all the time.
But I can’t help thinking that, of your list above, sorting out the gun control bit is the thing most likely to reduce the body count when mentally ill people do chose to do destructive things.