Microsoft's Windows is falling apart, says Google (and Bill Nye)
We often resist change, because it's so hard to find change we can believe in.
But change is a pithy essential of life, there to teach us that, however strong we (might think we) are, we change, too.
You, though, have been struggling with Windows since long before Bill Gates became a nice man.
You desperately want to escape the ugly clutches of an operating system that constantly seems in need of an operating table.
You can do something about this.
These, please understand, aren't my feelings. They're ones expressed by Google through the mouth and kindly features of Bill Nye in a new ad.
For almost three minutes, Nye regales the audience with, yes, science, but also entreaties to buy a Chromebook.
"Sometimes, it's hard to let go of a bad decision," intones Nye. This, he explains, is called the Sunk Cost Fallacy. At least, by behavioral economists.
Windows 10
It takes Nye nigh on two minutes to expose his real point. Which is that Windows is a sad jalopy that should be dispatched to the dump.
No, he doesn't quite say that. Instead, he says he that he, too, suffered from the Status Quo Bias, another fancy, quasi-scientific term for resisting change.
Then he walks over to a sad old sports car that's being held together with tape.
"We've been through a lot together," he says of the car. Then he pats the hood and disintegration occurs.
How do I know that this miserable old vehicle represents Windows? Because the extremely subtle license plate reads WNDWS.
Are you ready for Nye's hard Chromebook sell, oh Windows die-hard?
No more constant updates, patches, and interminable start-up periods. And the Science Guy promises that freezing will be a humorous part of your past.
I have no wish to sway you. You must decide whether a Chromebook could ever match your definition of productivity.
I can mutter in passing that Windows and Chromebooks seem to be finding some level of rapport.
I observe, too, that in this ad that Google would like you to buy a Dell Inspiron Chromebook 2-in-1, an HP Chromebook 15 G1, or a Samsung Chromebook Plus.
Which suggests that Google doesn't want you to buy, say, anything made by Google, such as a Pixel Slate.
If that isn't true Googlie, (almost) scientific objectivity, I don't know what is.