A short guide to people's character.

Sometimes you will find yourself in a class full of people, merrily tapping away at their laptops, while the professor tries to explain something very profound and useful. At that same juncture, you may begin to wonder about the personalities of your classmates. What kind of people are they? Do they like Thai food? Are they fun at parties?

I want to suggest that you can gather quite a bit about someone's personality by looking at the laptop that they are using.

Basically, I break people up into three categories, as follows:

• The people who are using Macs are fun, funny, and creative. They are very artistic, and hate the establishment. They have voted for Ralph Nader, and will gladly do it again. They have given money to PBS or the public library (and have a tote bag to prove it). They like to go to art gallery openings. They really want to make the world a better place. They are fantastic at parties, and during lunch.

• The people who are using IBM Thinkpads are very intelligent and very practical. They care a lot about efficiency, and are very much function over form. They probably hold at least one engineering degree. They are also the people who tend to "accidentally" drop their laptops, a lot. They are the folks who will break the ice at the party with "have you seen the latest post on slashdot?"

• The people who are using Dell/HP laptops are idiots.

I hope that this will be helpful to you, in your daily interactions.