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PowerBook, Because Lives Are On The Line
WCityMike writes "Major Shawn Weed, an intelligence planner with the Third Infantry Division, eschewed his Panasonic Toughbook because it wasn't fast enough in processing giant satellite and reconnaissance images. He put in a requisition for and received a PowerBook G4, the only Apple currently being used in the entire Middle East theater. 'Frankly, lives are in the balance here, so the quicker I can get stuff done accurately, the better,' Weed says."
The article says it's been fine so far, but sooner or later the lack of military-grade durability is going to be a factor.
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Fortunately, Macs are damn near infinitely easier to figure out how to operate than PC's. Seriously, the chance that a rear eschelon intelligence officer is killed and some random soldier without the wits to launch Photoshop will take over for him is pretty slim. In the mean time, he's going to get his work done quickly enough to save lives (US soldiers and Iraqi innocents.) Any replacement qualified to interpret satallite imagry has their own equipment. In a pinch, anyone qualified to interpret satallite imagry is a little more capable with a computer than your average potato peeler. As a former US Army Ranger and RATT rig operator, I'm not comforted that your platform bigotry extends so far that it has you placing more importance on some tired two button mouse arguement than on people's lives.