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Cult of Apple
Posted on: August 1, 2010 - 5:53am
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Cult of Apple
Here's a tongue in cheek article about correlating Apple to religion.... http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/07/the-varieties-of-religious-experience-how-apple-stays-divine/60271/
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
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Dear sweet FSM,
Apple is a a religion. Nobody wants to deal with the fact but there it is.
Where I work, we are a closed shop microsoft deal. I may not care for that but when asked for advice, I give what makes sense under the paradigm.
Anyway, a few years ago, we hired a mac junkie and he was so into the deal that he refused to use a real computer. Since we are a non-profit organization, he was able to talk some church into giving up the cash.
His stated reason was that a mac is “a computer for the rest of us”. Give me a fucking break.
Later on, we needed to get some new stuff, which included a scanner. For reference, this was in the early days of scanners. I had already been scanning stuff by faxing pics to the company modem.
So I was given a credit card and I bought a scanner. I selected the windows option because that is the way that we roll.
When it arrived, mac guy unboxed it and started to try to connect it to the mac, on the grounds that only macs can ever have scanners. I told him that it was a windows scanner and he was so disappointed that he lodged a complaint over the deal.
Of course administration was not really on board with the idea that it is possible to buy something that will work with all of our computers but the one that they were forced into dealing with.
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Apple fans have always struck me as a bit excessively devoted...
I like your "black hole sun" avatar btw.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
Linux fans are even worse.
Wait a minute...that's me!
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
Signature ? How ?
Well, if I have not been playing a game recently, I am usually in Ubuntu Studio myself (that does not happen be right now though, I am in XP media center ATM). One of the reasons why I like it is because of the support for old hardware. Not that I have much old hardware but I do like my sound card that has not had a driver update from the manufacturer since win/2k. The drivers do work in XP but from what I understand, microsnot has decided that old drivers are a bad thing and if you try to use them in Vista you will not get anywhere.
On the other hand, if ALSA even uses drivers, I am not aware of it. Shit works and that is the beginning and end of the deal.
But yah, linux people can be a handful. I got my start with Mandrake and ran into a problem fairly quickly. Firefox did not have a current version of flash right out of the box. When I did the upgrade, my network card stopped working. What one has to do with the other, I never did get to the bottom of.
Anyway, I could only post from work for several days. When I asked my questions on a computer forum, I got shit on. Whatever the linux equivalent of plug-n-pray is should be something I can do from a command line, right? How about telling me how to do that?
The forum that I was on felt that that would be too simple. I got a bunch of command lines that would test my system and I was directed to report back. Come on! The situation is: broken computer at home, computer I can post from at work. I would rather have wiped the install and redone it. Then everything would have worked except for flash.
When I said that much I was rudely informed that “it must be understood what the specific nature of the problem is”. Fuck you very much, I would rather go back to windows.
Not you personally UbubtuAnyone. The ass who told me that crap.
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Apple is religion of the rich. As such, it can not spread far.
But as for the rest of us, mere mortals, is there such a person as Windows fan? I started to love Windows XP, since the moment I really understood it and mastered it. The moment came when all bugs and glitches vanished and the system now works smoothly. It was marked by two major events, I purged the background processes, which fixed the system's permanent hangup when I tried to shut it down.
The second major event was, when I discovered Tweak UI, Microsoft's gift to mankind. It allowed me to change the Documents folder from some deep asshole on system partition to where I needed, from C:\users\settings\yaddayaddayadda.................. to D:\.
Now there is no obstacle between me and my computer. It starts in less than 30 seconds, because I don't shut it down, I let it HIBERNATE. It works, after all these years. I take care and clean my Windows with love, about 100 registry errors per month, defragmenting disk, throwing up the bin, and so on. I don't need Tamagotchi or Farmville, I've got Windows XP already
OK, there are things I envy Linux. It is the rumor, that Linux doesn't noticeably fragment files, as long as there is about 1/3 of free space on HDD. It is reputedly because it has a smarter way of saving the files and managing disk space overall.
The second object of envy are registers, or rather absence of them. Registers are something like dark, scary woods which only the bravest and wisest can enter and leave unscathed.
I've never had any problem cleaning them, but... the idea that your system is getting dirty just because you move files around, that's crazy. One day I got to my hands some very old laptop which the owner was only using for accounting. It wasn't cleaned for 10 years I guess... So I ran CCleaner there and got about 10 000 of registry errors. I had to delete them several times, because the program got seemingly stuck while searching for them. If you know CCleaner you also know that it won't find almost anything, so I also used Eusing Free Registry Cleaner and found another 10 000 registry errors.
Yeah, Windows is a fucking Tamagotchi!
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Well Luminon, if your friend was compiling an operating system then he must have had one already working or the compiler would not be able to run in the first place.
You should ask him which distro he was using. That is typically something that Gentoo users do. The main reason is that if you do it right, it will compile an OS that is specific to your hardware. It will be the leanest and meanest OS on the planet.
As far as leaving your computer on hibernate, knock yourself out. Long before anything from microshaft could manage that, the watchword was that in linux, rebooting is something that you do when you add new hardware. It is just that good.
Then too, if you ever want to see what linux can do, just download a copy of ubuntu and burn it to a CD. Boot your computer with the CD in the drive and you will be on linux. I assure you that it will not install anything at all when you do that. You have to specifically tell it to install stuff or it will never do that.
If you decide that you can handle it, then let it install itself. It will ask you how much of your hard drive to use. I would recommend that you let it have about 30GB. BTW, linux comes with firefox and open office (which I use even in windows) and it only takes about 15 minutes to install.
The only thing that I can say bad about the deal is that playing windows games in linux tends to be hit or miss. Some of them work fine and some will never work even if you offer the soul of your first born to Linus Torvalds.
That being said, there are thousands of great games for linux and you can get all of them for free on sourceforge.net.
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Linux=Linus Torvalds's water-downed version of unix.
Kthx
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
*Blood-curdling scream*
Get it away! Get it away! Get it away! Ewwwww! Bugspray!
Unless my memory is failing me, it has been established fully that Linus has never even been in the same room as a print out of the unix source code.
That being said, for anyone who wants to try linux, remember that you can use it straight from a CD without actually installing it, like I told Luminon.
If you do want to install it, I would say that it is best to do any windows install that you want first and install liunx last.
That is certainly not a rule in the religious sense but it will make your life a tad bit easier. The deal is that whenever you have two (or more) operating systems on a computer, you need a program to switch between them.
All operating systems come with a program that does that and when you install a second OS, it will be put on your system by default.
Personally, I use one called “The GRUB” because that is what you get with Ubuntu normally. I have seen nearly religious discussions on software forums where people will defend LILO over The GRUB and vice-versa. I really can't find it in mtself to give a shit about the matter as whatever you use only runs on your system foe about ten seconds before you are in whatever OS you choose for that session.
The main reason for installing linux last is because it will automatically install some bootloader. So will any windows install. However, with windows, microshit makes the assumption that any OS that they do not have a cash investment in simply does not exist and can't be added to the boot loader later on.
If you did install linux before windows, there are ways to get LILO of The GRUB working (there are ways to do everything in linux). But if you always install linus last, the process is automatic and you will never have to worry about anything.
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Linux is 100% POSIX compatible, meaning that it implemented the command set used by UNIX. But Linux (generically speaking that is) is much more than the kernel written by the prophet Linus (PBUM)....
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
If you want to try Linux without a CD, Download VMware Player (http://www.vmware.com/products/player/) and get an image from here (http://chrysaor.info/?page=images&filter=Ubuntu) . Use VMWare player to boot the VMWare image, and you can play with it as a virtual machine...That is Windows will be running a virtual computer that will boot Linux from within windows.
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
Drivers have always been an issue with Linux, but this is not a problem unique to Linux.
I'm generally reluctant to try it on newer hardware, unless I can find a manufacturer that builds machines for Linux. As a rule of thumb though, most any Intel based laptop with an nVidia graphics card will run rather well. My last laptop was a Dell 1420, and it ran Ubuntu without a hitch. It had some esoteric issues, but nothing I didn't eventually fix. I've seen more stubborn Windows install before...
But it is rarely the case when some actually buys a computer to run Linux....
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
Interesting. I mean, I knew there was some sort Linux-Unix overlap, and that the best students in Computer Science majors tend to be linux/unix geeks. (As I'm not an IT nerd, I'm not 100% sure why, only that was what I was told. I imagine it has something to do with Telecommunications and Internet Protocol and how easily open source OSes -and Unix, of course- tend to interact with these types of subject matter.)
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
Oh dear, I've just done just that for my toy HTPC.
I suspect I'll be installing Windows soon enough as I've not used Linux before.
Try MythBuntu for your HTPC...it's a specialized Ubuntu distribution for HTPC's
http://www.mythbuntu.org/
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
Excellent. I'll give it a go.
Lol. I am typing this on an Apple Macbook, but I don't feel like I'm really 'devoted' to Apple. I mean, the main reason I got Apple instead of a PC several years ago is because I had some pretty bad experiences with Windows Vista *shiver shudder*. But, I heard Windows 7 is better, so if I could, I wouldn't mind exchanging this laptop for a Sony Vaio with Windows 7 or something.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Butter, please consider avoiding all things Sony. They are notorious for having issues where one division has no idea what the rest of the corporation is doing. Hence the exploding laptops from about 3~4 years ago. Hence the root kits that can destroy your nice expensive Vaio included in certain Sony CDs from a couple of years ago, Hence the current issue with their TVs that mysteriously turn to crap just after the warranty expires (that last is a current one).
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Vista was a POS on every machine I ever used it on, but 7 seems MUCH more stable is actually rather quick, even on netbooks. Hats off to Microsoft for once....
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Almost every computer with a Windows operating system that I've used extensively had a habit of claiming that whatever program I was using was performing an “illegal operation” and had to be shut down. My dad's Windows Vista, in particular, also enjoyed succumbing to the blue screen of death or spontaneously restarting by itself. I don’t understand it. I’m not a programmer; I just want something fast and reliable. And......Vista was neither of those.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Am I the only person that has had zero issues with Vista? Seriously, never had compatibility issues, never has it done a blue screen of death or rebooting by itself.....ok after an update and I forgot about automatic update things, but seriously never had an issue with it. As for Mac's I won't touch them because they are not compatible with most of the security software that I use for my business (we do security installations) and as such, to make to make it work on an imac cost way way to much for the hassle.
However I have noticed that many of my apple user friends are very religious about apple, I don't get it, i find their stuff to be way overpriced, especially in the accessory department, it's just not worth it. I mean sure if I was more into the media side of business, but for every day use.....forget that.
I have zero issues with Vista.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
I think software is a choice, and Linux is one of those choices. While I'm a big fan of open source, I don't mind paying for software either. It's hard to beat titles like StarCraft in terms of quality and breadth.
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
Really? I'm glad to hear that!
Damn. I'm both.
I learned to program when the Apple ][ was new. I've watched Microsoft fuck up the entire computing industry, and set us back over a decade. I started using Linux in 1993.
I'm writing this on a Mac. In a Linux VM.
Fuck.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
I've got a VM for half a dozen OS's...Oh dear me.
Is one of them OS/2? If so, I'm gonna have to marry you. Whether you like it or not.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
OK Nigel, I have to ask this: How much would you spend on a mac? And what kind of performance would you expect?
Right now, you can buy a core unlocking mobo and an AMD X4 proc for about $300. If you do it right, you will end up with an X6 proc and, if you take some time to understand your gear, get it over 4Ghz. With the right HSF, you should be able to reach 4.5Ghz.
Of course, you still have to get all of the other stuff but you gotta do that with Apple anyway.
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HA! Yes...OS/2....and Window 3.1 too. They are practically useless, but exist for nostolgia.
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
Performance ain't the issue. Dependability is.
I bought a Dell laptop for about $1000. It was a mid-level, fairly-decent machine.
It lasted about 9 months. Then the audio gave out. And soon after that, the video started flaking.
This Mac I'm working on? Already over a year. And it keeps humming. I can run OS X with both a Linux and XP VM, and it just fucking works.
I bought my wife a Mac mini for $600 over a year ago. It's a fucking terminator. It just won't die. This is after I tried to fucking poison the PPC Mac mini she had before it; that took me almost two years after its expiration date. Which lasted several years. What finally killed it? The performance of SuperPoke Pets.
Why do you think I purchased a Mac to run fucking Linux? The Apple hardware is better than what Dell sells at the same price. It ain't the performance. It's the physical hardware. Performance don't mean shit, unless you're a gamer, in which case you don't want Apple anyway.
And don't even get me started over the superiority of OS X over MS-anything. (But then, don't get me started on the superiority of Linux or BSD or Solaris over OS X.)
I've been fucking living computers since I was 12 years old, and the Apple ][ was the apex of technology. I programmed using the Sweet-16 assembler, fer cryin' out loud. I've programmed the PDP-8, PDP-11, DEC VMS systems, HP MPE and HPUX, MS-DOS, OS/2, VxWorks, NeXT, and probably a dozen others. I know computers. This whole argument about "Oh, Apple sells their botique computers at a premium!" argument just falls flat. Yes, they can't compete on price for the entry-level hardware. That's not the point. What they sell is worth the price in production quality. It's like arguing over the niceties of Arrogant Bastard vs. Bud Light.
I primarily program for Linux and VxWorks these days. While I think OS X is a fine OS, I don't bow to the false idol of Steve Jobs. (Actually, it was always Woz that I idolized, and for good reason. Steve Jobs was about equivalent to Bill Gates -- technologically inclined, but a fuckin' asshole, and relying on better people to pull them through.) But that doesn't stop me from recognizing quality products.
Sorry about the rant. I'm just so fucking tired of this whole Mac==Religion meme. It's stupid. It's counterproductive. It doesn't help a damned thing, especially when Apple really does do evil things.
And for gaming, I'm a PS3 guy, with an XBox 360 backup for my friends that aren't enlightened.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
Okay. While I don't love love you, I love you.
I finally dumped my Win 3.1 partition about two years ago. But I still got my OS/2. And my SLS 1.04 image. (Yeah. That's me, all blog-whoring and stuff.)
You deserve your nym.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
Dude...you should really consider becoming a TV preacher. I mean, some of those wind bags (not that you are one...there's at least some substance here
) make big bucks with rants like this.
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
Maybe I'm just unlucky? I've had really, really bad experiences with Vista and Windows operating systems, in general. If I see "This program has performed an illegal operation and needs to be shut down" one more time....
I've had my Mac OS X for several years now, and I never experience all the stability issues that I used to get with Windows. That's good enough for me.
Lol. It's my Mac that I'm having compatibility issues with. Sometimes, it seems like all the software on the market was made for Windows....which maybe wasn't far from the truth at one point.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
OK dude, when I want a straw man, I will ask for one.
Since you are not willing to reveal the ugly truth, let me see what is on the apple web site.
Well, the cheapest mac pro that they have is $2,500. What do you get for that?
A whole bunch of stuff that was current like a year ago and even then is underpowered. Well, it is of course true that you really are paying for the mac and not for the otherwise discontinued hardware. If that is not true, then it is also possible to buy a copy of OSX on CD at a price point comparable with a copy of windows.
Oh, wait. You can't. Apple refuses to sell that CD at any price. If you want an apple OS, you have to buy the overpriced hardware to get at it.
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Even if apple didn't treat their factory workers so poorly that they frequently commit suicide.
http://gizmodo.com/5542527/undercover-report-from-foxconns-hell-factory
Even if their products weren't defective.
mashable.com/2010/07/12/iphone-4-consumer-reports/
Even if their policies weren't anti-competitive and anti-consumer-rights to an obscene degree.
www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ebooks-20100803,0,5448421.storywww.mercurynews.com/business-headlines/ci_15607135?nclick_check=1
You still shouldn't purchase their crap because they are fucking you in the butt-hole over the price.
news.softpedia.com/news/iSuppli-Computes-the-Costs-for-the-Video-iPod-10896.shtml
But hey, if you like being fucked in the butt-hole that's your business.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
That's not a strawman. You put this in terms of price. You are right -- I did not respond with the price I paid for my Mac ($2500). You presented this as an issue of price/performance, and that's not even close to the reason to get a Mac. The reason I bought a Mac was the same reason I buy Fat Tire or Mac & Jack's instead of Budweiser. It's because I'm tired of putting up with shitty products.
Not sure where you get your information, but that's just plain not true. You can buy used Apple stuff off Ebay and get a new copy of OS X for $120. That's quite a bit cheaper than the equivalent version of MS-Windows. And not that I'd suggest this (hear that, Apple? I'm not suggesting it) but if you wanted, you can also build a Hackintosh fairly cheaply and buy the OS from Apple.
And I won't run MS-Windows for any price. (Not entirely true -- I have to run an XP VM to run the VxWorks dev environment, damn them.) Microsoft has set the computer industry back over a decade with their shitty OS and anti-competitive practices.
Yeah, Apple's started veering off into that territory, too. On the plus side, they negotiated DRM-free music for iTunes, something the music industry was fighting tooth and nail. On the other hand, there's this bullshit with the lost iPhone (though the guy who found it did not make a good-faith effort to get it back to its owner, the heavy-handed tactics were very gestapo.) Then they're taking the gaming console path with the iPhone and iPad, and controlling the software available.
On that, though, I also have a PS3 and an XBox 360. (The XBox was a gift, damnit.) I use them, too, and buy the games willingly. So I figure I must not mind that model too much. If I don't boycott Sony's or Microsoft's gaming systems, I don't see any reason to hold Apple to a different standard in that regard.
Anyway, like I said. Sorry about the rant. I didn't realize I was being so aggressive in my response. I let my emotions get the better of me, and I always enjoy going off on a rant.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
Dude, don't worry about the rant. We all do it from time to time. It can be fun and it can be a really important way to blow off steam.
Past that, don't get me wrong. I really hate microshit with a passion. If they had not become dominant, would we really have to deal with viruses the way that we do today? Without such as easy target, the ID10T crowd would not so easily spread what amounts to digital graffiti.
Past that, I am not really into the console thing but did you hear that microsnot recently figured out how to make sure that nobody ever has to deal with the infamous red ring of death? The thing is that the next batch of Xboxes are going to have green LEDs. I am not kidding you, google news had that about two weeks ago.
Also, I agree with you that a certain level of windows is a necessary evil. For me it happens to be gaming (although there are many really good linux games out there). However, for anything that can possibly be done without microshaft, I use FOSS.
I am writing this post in Open Office.
I will be posting it through Mozilla.
I rip my CDs with CDEX.
I play all of my non flash media with VLC.
I plan my telescope sessions with Stellarium.
And you should get the general idea. If there is a FOSS program that will do what I want/need, you can be assured that I have it.
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I likes mes some OO, FF, and VLC.
As a development platform, Mozilla is rather nice because it offers something that will run on about 99.99% of all computers with a GUI. The other .01 are Commodore 64 hold outs.
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
Thanks. I actually felt kinda bad when I went back and re-read how much of an asshole I was being. Sorry about that. I thought I was on slashdot or something.
No fucking way. This is the first belly-laugh of the day.
Excellent. I do get evangelical about FOSS in general, and Linux specifically.
Just to actually answer your question about price/performance, the Mac is generally a bit faster than a standard Wintel machine, even with the same CPU. That also went into my decision to go to Mac. Though the CPU is often slower, the IO is generally a bit faster (including things like faster L3 cache, memory access, and disk IO). Directly comparing CPUs to judge performance is always a bit dodgy. In the end, you can spend less on a Wintel machine and get higher performance, but the difference in price/performance isn't as great as a direct CPU GHz comparison might indicate.
For instance, if I start with a Dell Precision M6500 and upgrade it to match of the spec of the 17" Macbook Pro (which retails for $2300), I end up with a price of $2254. That's upgrading the CPU to match the 2.53 GHz i5, upgrading the memory to 4G, upgrading the screen to more-or-less match the Macbook Pro, and upgrading the hard drive to 500Gb. This doesn't upgrade the video, which seems to be about the same (the ATI 8720, but with 1G (don't know the speed) on the Dell, vs NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M with 512MB GDDR3 memory for the Macbook Pro).
When I got mine, it was about the same kind of deal. By the time I put together a comparable package, the Mac was usually only about $100 more. The two things that swayed me were the longer battery life on the Mac, and the better case design. (Yes, I admit I'm a little bit shallow that way. Or maybe a lot bit.
)
Anyway, all that's just to answer the question you actually asked to start. What I got for my $2500 (I upgraded memory to 4G, just before that became standard -- d'oh!) was about what I would've gotten for about $100 less from Dell or HP. I could've spent far less and gotten similar specs, but not a similar machine.
I have a bit of fondness left over from the old Apple days, when they built the Apple ][. That's where I started with computers, and that time is always gonna be extremely special memories for me.
The new Apple, I'm not sure. As Gauche pointed out, they are becoming assholes. They've done some good (as locked-down as the iPhone is, it's not nearly as locked down as phones used to be, and negotiating for DRM-free music on the iTunes store while the rest of the industry was pushing DRM was a good thing). They've done bad (not monitoring their overseas sweatshops, for instance, and that bit with the leaked iPhone was ill-done). They've done things that I don't like (locking down the iPhone, the iPad, and the iTunes store), but aren't necessarily any different than all the other companies are doing. Not that a argumentum ad populum argument is rational. All I mean is, it's hard to purchase only from corporations that don't do shit like that.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
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But but but... it's the "Computer for the rest of us"
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
For the 5% that hate/dislike their PC's or work in the publishing graphics industries.
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
I've used a variety of systems over the years.
Once was a strong believer in ICL versus IBM mainframes, as the ICL OS (VME) was clearly superior; but ICL lost market share.
So, I learned to work with IBM. Messy, but it wasn't that hard to work out.
Windows was used too, so that had to be learnt.
They weren't necessarily the best products, but they generally worked. More importantly, they were everywhere.
Not being a hardcore computer person, there wasn't much time to learn other systems. If it didn't help me in my job, I didn't spend too much time on it.
So, I can safely say that it is obvious that Windows is successful because Microsoft was the successful business organism.
Also, I'm taking the liberty of believing that this thread permits an extra dollop of ramble.
It is perhaps a bit like how some see their religion. I lived with and depended on Windows, but I knew it wasn't the messiah. It got things done for me, so I went along with it.
Everyone else went along with it, but didn't really care about it much. I didn't believe in it.
Vista annoyed me a bit, but a lot of that was due to the need for the UAC. I got over it. Vista generally worked for me, but I wasn't tinkering with anything too exotic. I probably had as much trouble with XP.
Windows 7 has been very good, relatively, I reckon.
I had almost decided not to bother learning too much new in computers: too old.
But I've got the urge of late; so, what the hell. I will have a proper go at Ubuntu.
Apple?
Too expensive and too much to learn. It probably is a lot better, but it's too late now.
Largely because I don't care. Gasp! you work in IT! Yeah, well..
You have a job, you walk in to work and you deal with what you've got. Management decides to switch to something else - you learn and you switch. It isn't your idea of the best system around, but management doesn't care what IT thinks. Costs? Yeah, right, it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to switch to what management wants to have - no problem. Suggest a switch or change that will save hundreds of thousands and if they haven't sold themselves already on it already, it costs too much.
Color me cynical.
At home I have an old Dell I bought used running XP. I'm not thrilled with the graphics, but I'll survive. I use it mostly to surf the net, post resumes and run games. Fortunately, I enjoy puzzles more than action games so it works fine for the most part. I haven't upgraded to Win 7 because I don't want to spend the money and I don't want a pirated copy. I did download Ubuntu and will play round with it running in VMWare. One way to kill some time.
Color me apathetic.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
WOW. Really?