Slashdot Mirror
Return of the Mac
Ben Gutierrez writes "Paul Graham has posted a new essay on the Return of the Mac which begins with: 'All the best hackers I know are gradually switching to Macs.' Tim O'Reilly said some similar things in Watching Alpha Geeks . From the article: "My friend Robert said his whole research group at MIT recently bought themselves Powerbooks. These guys are not the graphic designers and grandmas who were buying Macs at Apple's low point in the mid 1990s. They're about as hardcore OS hackers as you can get."
That said... BSD is dy^H^Hthriving.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Since around 1993 I've been messing with Unix. SCO, Slackware (1.0-ish), RedHat (pre 4.0...on Sparc!), Caldera, Irix, SunOS, etc.... both in userland, on the desktop, on my own servers, and a professional sysadmin.
I've got a mac now. The first of my life, from someone who wasn't ever a mac guy (and was probably more 'anti-mac' than most.) My g/f has one too -- more than once I was like 'just open a terminal and do....'
The fact that she doesn't need to know what the terminal.app is? That's the best part..... I get what I need, she gets what she needs.
In other news, open source fanatics dislike Microsoft.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
...as this is the first time I read slashdot on my new Mac Mini.
You can.
Albuquerque PC
I would switch if games didn't come out until a year after the PC version does.
"TK-421, why aren't you at your post?"
It's UNIX-based! What hacker doesn't want something that uses UNIX. Besides... Linux is sooooooo 90s.
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
get a g3 ibook. runs all but the greediest of os x apps just fine and i picked one up from a guy at work fro $100....they go for about 3-400 on ebay.
no i have not shot my gun in the air and gone 'Ahh!'
Last year's Usenix conference was full of Powerbooks. Most of the top dogs in the industry. That prompted me to buy a PowerMac. It's the best computing decision I've ever made.
What's your point? I don't like Dell laptops... IBM sold their laptop division to some no-name, can't be yet trusted for quality company over seas... what's that leave us? Yes, Powerbooks... they're great hardware... I'm not a Mac lover... but I have had to work on PPC hardware, and I do like the power it has over similiar x86 based laptops... and OSX is a nice unix environment with a pretty shell... now if the powerbooks still had OS9 on them, there would be no way I would buy one...
That's the seller, an OS that's stable and powerful, on hardware that's powerful... Less to do with it being Apple, more to do with being better than Dell and HP and the rest of the crap out there.
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
well that accounts for 0.0000001% of the worlds population, whooo revolution, in your face Amiga !!!
Self-righteous Apple fanboys in one corner.
Foaming-at-the-mouth Linux zealots in another.
This could get ugly, folks. I'm sure the *BSD crowd would chime in too, except that a judge recently orderd the feeding tube to be removed.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
at least at my university, it seems as if apple have changed their image. No longer for graphic designers - it's for people who wanna 'get stuff done' with their computers
Also, their laptops are pretty much class dominant, and compare favourably on price with the high-end thinkpads in the powerbook range.
Business Voyeur
But it's true - all my friends form Unix/Linux years who can afford it buy Macs. Especially Powerbooks.
I have an iBook, and love it, however I run Linux on it, Gentoo before, Ubuntu currently. All funcitions are supported, it's a perfect match in my opinion. Ppl that gripe "why would you run Linux instead of OSX, OSX is BSD!" just don't understand the diff, and that's fine, OSX is a fine OS for most, but for me Linux is the only way to go to have complete freedom.
bo
bad_outlook
--
Is this vague enough for you?
I'm sure we'll see a sharp decline in the number of ingenious hacks out there as these developers spend their days holding shift and watching expose in slow motion.
That statement would defintely hold more water if they actually had numbers from five years ago to compare to. Even though their site didn't exist five years ago, maybe check out a similar site that DID exist way back then...
Please this argument is old and false.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
My favorite part of his essay:
"If you want to know what ordinary people will be doing with computers in ten years, just walk around the CS department at a good university. Whatever they're doing, you'll be doing."
Seriously, this guy lives in fantasy land. It's been a long long time since universities have done anything that has influence the software industry.
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
I'm at university, and I know a lot of computer scientists (particularly of the theoretical sort) and scientists of various other disciplines around here that love OS X. Just like using a functional language like Lisp versus using assembly, using OS X takes some of the responsibility for mundane, largely unnecessary tasks out of your hands and frees you to do the computing work that you need to do.
Sure someone well versed in systems or operating system design would be able to get more out of Linux if they took the time to optimize it, but most "hardcore hackers" I know around here sure don't have that sort of time.
In soviet russia, You ask not what country do for you, but what you do for country!
Oh wait...
I haven't seen people making the server switch... only using Macs as fileservers for Mac-heavy networks. I'm not aware of any large businesses using them, nor popular websites outside of Apple.
Obviously there are some clusters of them that make the news all the time. I'm not trying to troll, just wondering if there's a future for Xserve beyond niche markets.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Most /. advocacy seems to stem from the following:
Macs aren't Microsoft (unless you used Word or something on them)
You can install Linux on them (not that you can't even an electric toothbrush these days)
They were an underdog, which made those really cool Apple ][ computers back in the day (some of us have the emulators installed on our PC's and still fiddle with them.)
They had a sense of style, which the monolithic PC companies still can't seem to get (PC's, seen them lately? Was Dell/HP styling inspired by pinching a loaf?)
They were evolving, which always inspires some hope.
did I miss anything?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I used to have 3 or 4 computers to be able to do everthing I needed, and now I have "The ONE"
I noticed this trend (geeks switching to OS X) a few years ago. Most of the alpha geeks at Seattle Wireless were using iBooks around 2002. At that point, I knew Apple had a bright future ahead. Not only have I switched my main computer to a 12" PowerBook, but I also invested in AAPL stock. Now most of my roommates have iPods, more than half have PowerBooks, and the rest want a PowerBook. Many of my friends are switching, and it will be only a matter of time before lots of the general population does as well.
He said one, not half of one.
Here's the obligatory rebuttal. You're forgetting the software. You can put Linux on it for free, but you're not getting nearly the user experience you get with a Mac. Or you can pay for Windows and the software that runs on it. That will bring up the cost of that $450US system. Still, not the same user experience. With a Mac, it's the compete system your paying for, not just the hardware.
Cepstral: Quality TTS for OS X, Linux, Windows
> Last year's Usenix conference was full of Powerbooks.
This is an example of Principle of Similarity and Principle of Social Proof including "The Number of Sources" Effect.
> Most of the top dogs in the industry.
This is an example of influence using authority, including High Status
> That prompted me to buy a PowerMac.
Aha! The requested target action!
> It's the best computing decision I've ever made.
Principle of Consistency
p.s., I'm not mocking you. I just noticed a bunch of statements that match the midterm I have Thursday night. Thus, this post counts as "studying"
p.p.s., I love my PowerBook
p.p.p.s., Please note, reading the above post qualifies you to place out of a graduate level Consumer Behavior marketing class.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
The hardware is beautiful. It's well thought out, well laid out, lasts forever (battery wise and durability) and *gets girls to come over to your table look at it*. The alternative, at least for laptops, is IBM... at twice the price.
Now they even have a working scroll implimentation (which was a crippling omission, my NEC had a scroll stub for ~3 years before Apple thought of something).
And yes, your brand new very pretty computer will work well with Linux just fine, so there seems to be little downside at all*.
*Apart from lack of 3D card support, and for some reason Apple use crappy propriatery 802.11g cards with no Linux drivers. Mystifying.
Beep beep.
My kid brother can aforde a mac mini on lunch money...
Tell your kid brother that I and all my geeky friends would like our lunch money from the last six months back, uh... please?
I was at CodeCon this year and almost everybody had Mac laptops.
However, I disagree that this portends a wave of Mac specific software. Hackers are using these computers to write cross platform software that will run on the whole range of free Unix systems, the BSDs, and Linux. They're not writing in Objective C or putting in Mac specific code, because they know that limits their audience to the few percent who have Macs.
They get the benefit of a good looking, easy to use development platform while developing code that can run anywhere (except Windows). It's the best of both worlds.
But, as enjoyable as those debates are, I just want to make a point about one thing Graham said:
I think this is only very slightly true, or maybe it depends on your definition of "ordinary". To me, "ordinary" implies "total newbie." Not to mean that in a negative way, it's just how it is.Most people in this world don't care quite as much about computers and tech as much as we do (gasp! - sacrilege!). Sad but true.
So honestly, I can't see the vast majority of "ordinary people" wanting to learn any of the things that people like /.ers would enjoy, like programming for instance.
Your average Joe is *not* going to be a stylin' C++ wizard in 10 years. He's going to be using fancier machines than we're using now, of course, but he's going to want to have stuff that works without knowing HOW or WHY it works. That's how it's always been, and I can't see that changing.
I work at a development house that makes network security products. Three years ago there were a couple people with powerbooks running OS X. Today it is about half of the company. Last week a senior developer was talking to me about our latest hire. He's an experienced, professional coder. It had taken him a week to get the thinkpad we gave him up and running the Linux distro of his choice and configured to work with all our servers and testbeds. Thats 40-60 hours of work gone. How many powerbooks could we have bought him with a corresponding amount of cash. He was considering mandating powerbooks for all new hires unless they had a good reason to use something else.
OS X is making some huge inroads into the computer security field. It has certainly gained a huge amount of penetration here in just 3 years. Even some of the the managers have switched after looking over a developer's shoulder for a bit. You'd never guess Apple had a 5% market share from a walk around this office.
Odds are you already own a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. The keyboard and mouse are USB, and the monitor output requires a $20 dongle. The machine itself is $499, and the dongle kicks the price up over $500, but it's still close.
That of course assumes you're retiring some computer recent enough to have a USB keyboard and mouse, a computer which is still probably usable for most purposes. So it may take another two or three years before it's time for a new computer for you. At that time you can get a brand-new keyboard and brand-new mouse and brand-new monitor, or you can increase the Wife Acceptance Factor by claiming you're saving a few hundred bucks by reusing the old pieces.
Monitors in particular haven't improved much lately. You probably even have a CRT sitting around gathering dust. Unless you have a particular sensitivity, remember that people used CRTs for years without too many ill effects. LCD screens were a luxury until really recently.
I wish *Step was more popular. Learning Objective-C is a snap if you know C already. GNUStep makes an amazing range of functionality available to apps 'for free'. On OS X it's even better. For example, Tiger will give every app an undo function, automagicly. The included tools, and overall design of the OS, make developing on the platform a pleasure.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Should be
I for one welcome the prophet Steve Jobs Mac Overlord, For he calleth out in dessert "a computer for everyone and good music, but it'll cost you"
__________ Leave me alone I'm compiling a RPG II program on my S/36...Thanks to metamucil I'm a Regular Meta Moderator
I bet you also voted for whoever your favorite actor told you to.
Sheep. Baaaaaaa! B-a-a-a-a!
Sometimes taking unspoken advise from those whom you respect is a conscious choice, not mindless groupthink. There are developers out there who are better than I am, and when they speak, I listen. I also pay attention to what tools they use. This is neither blind nor foolish, when not taken to an extreme.
So, I was a die hard Windows user, been that way since 3.0 (3.11 and 2k were my favorite releases), but 18 months ago I switched to Linux (first SuSE and more recently FC3). And now I'm thinking of a PowerBook.
Leaving Windows wasn't a problem, but sticking with Linux is. Sure it's very fast on my machine, and I have all the familiar Unix tools from the GNU chain, but so much doesn't work right. Linux on the desktop is close to a joke. I've tried both GNOME and KDE and neither is bug free (cf. Win2K which was very, very stable), and there are so many hardware incompatibilities that it's a pain.
Ultimately, I want to support F/OSS, but I may have to switch because it's a productivity drain for me to discover that gnome-panel has crashed something and now Evolution can't open the File dialog. Ugh. Or figure out why gaim's icon disappears in the tray some of the time, or have gdesklets eat the CPU for no apparent reason, or...
John.
I can get an on-site service contract for IBM gear here no problem but Apple (Siemens) will only show up if you're within 100 miles of ~ 10 major US cities.
That's a deal breaker for local businesses, even those who use Mac desktops.
Too bad - Tiger Server is nearly what I turn Linux boxes into but you have to run your business on hardware you can support.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Please note that the Mac Mini isn't really usuable at the $499 price point. A bump to 512mb is required and I don't think I would own one without a superdrive.
Powerbooks are very pricey. Worse the superdrive is a $150.00 option on most of them which further increases the pricing.
The key issue is relevance. People will have a hard time swallowing the price of any MAC when they can see a similar looking and peforming machine running windows for a lot less; in some cases half.
I priced a 15" powerbook recently with a superdrive and the cost was over $2100.00. While the OS is technically superior to Windows that does not excuse the cost. I am curious which major manufacturer actually makes the powerbooks.
On a side note instead of a mac mini I would recommend a iMac to people new to the mac experience. The all in one, comes with all needed items, is a much better option.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Linux is not Windows
Compared to Mac OS X, both NEXTSTEP and OpenStep were half-assed pieces of junk. Seriously. Both of them gave you about a third of what you really needed to write top-shelf application software.
When Apple took NEXTSTEP and wedded it with Core Foundation and QuickTime and OpenGL and the other vital APIs, then and only then did it become a complete development environment.
Of course with things like Key-Value introspection and Cocoa Bindings and Core Data, we're really moving beyond what a traditional application development environment it and getting closer to a data-abstraction environment. While some applications won't benefit from that at all, of course, some will be able to be completely refactored in ways that make them a hell of a lot simpler.
Where I work, we have one hard core Mac user. He convinced 6 people to try out Mac's. It was a mix of mini-Mac's and powerbooks, and only one kept it more than a month before taking it back. Personnally, I haven't tried one out yet as running Linux with Fluxbox as the WM just rocks, plus the whole OSS ( GPL ) philosophy is something I don't want to compromise on ( assuming I would be running OS X, and not Linux on the Mac ).
These guys ( and gal ) are all security engineers with CISSP/etc certs whose job is to protect the company's assets ( which are 90% digital, billions a year ), so I would say they're pretty l337, too.
Anyhow, I didn't want there to be some rosy picture of everyone switching to Mac's when that is not the case I think it is a strong trend just like Java applets, dot coms, and other fads once were, but how long will it last?
On the other hand, I haven't seen anyone who was unhappy with their iPod or miniPod.
I can't afford a sig!
..how am I gonna convince my wife that I should.. - why, refuse her sex for a change! *smirk*
Unable to read configuration file '/bigassraid/htdig//conf/14229.conf'
Geocrawler error message.
Gainful employment is reserved for the elite now? Wow, the American dream really HAS died.
That was classic intercourse!
Three years ago I bought a Powerbook, my main environment before then was Debian on a desktop (running KDE). Although I certainly enjoyed my mac, and it did get the job done, in the end the incredible lag in hardware (in portable systems) has led me back to Linux.
The sad thing is that three years later, my powerbook (G4 800) isn't really all that much slower than the top of the line powerbooks today. On the other hand, for half the price I bought a new laptop that is as thin, runs a resolution that blows away my old mac and is at least 3-5 times faster. (HP NC8230)
Linux on the desktop has come a long way since I left, and I must admit I'm thoroughly enjoying Gnome, especially hacking away on the new, very excellent Mono apps now coming out. (F-Spot even at it's young age beats iPhoto in my book)
I'm really flabbergasted at just how good the desktop now is on Linux. One huge contributing factor to that is Firefox, three years ago all we had was an aging Netscape that was horrid. Thunderbird also fills the roll for a great e-mail client. Good old emacs is my editor of choice (with a dab of Eclipse running at warp speed compared to my powerbook) and having the source for my photo viewer makes life so much better.
In short, my predicting is that the pendulum is going to swing the other way again, Mac portable hardware is no longer cutting edge by any regard, and the Linux desktop is now fantastic.
I can honestly say I'm not missing Mac OS X one bit.
-Nic
Although the deal expired a couple days ago, you could have gotten a Dell 4700 desktop system with a 2.8Ghz P4, 512mb memory, 40gb hard drive, 17' LCD, keyboard, mouse, etc. for $499 with free shipping. Price to performance for most peoples needs the dell would pretty much destroy the Mac Mini.
If the extra cost is worthwhile then certainly, go ahead, but to some people $500 is a significant amount of money.
This trend may finally give Apple an opening in the business world. A very common objection to using Macs in the workplace is "We only know how to support PCs." By "subverting" the techies themselves, they are influencing the people the decision-makers will consult for the next upgrade cycle. It may still be true that nobody ever got fired for choosing Microsoft/IBM/etc, but at least Apple will be considered a real possibility now.
Most PC users don't care about style, they care about price/performance. It's silly to assume that a company like Dell can't afford to hire industrial designers just as good as any who work for Apple. There's just no ROI in doing it because Apple is "cool" and Dell isn't.
It just turns out that being "cool" is less profitable in the personal computer market.
isn't so much the Linux to Mac switch. That's not a very big jump, especially with OSX being Unix-based.
The big thing is the Windows to Mac switchers and, more importantly, the role that the iPod plays in influencing that switch.
Windows users who buy an iPod to use on their Windows machines end up getting a slight taste of what it's like to use a Mac. iTunes is presented in the OSX GUI style, and the iPod itself is a fine example of Apple's signature simplistic beauty.
Once their curiosity has been raised and they see the almost cult-like enthusiasm that Mac users have for Apple and its products (and you know it's true), they start looking at Macs to see what all the fuss is about.
Then, after playing with one in their local CompUSA, they're hooked like a heroin junkie. (but I mean that in the nicest way.)
GET FREE APPLE STUFF!
What amazes me most is how short of a time it took for OS X to get put together. Most everyone agrees that the first release was more of a public beta, but even X.0 was an amazingly mature product for something completely new that had been started mere years earlier. I heard a report that as many as 10,000 engineers had worked on OS X at some point in the course of its development years.
I'm sure it didn't hurt to have NextStep to build off of.
Hey, what are you using right now to read my post? A monitor? Wow, there's that problem solved.
What are you using to click on the Reply button. A mouse? Good! Two down, one to go.
Now, what are you using to make the letters appear on your monitor. A keyboard? Brilliant!
What were you complaining about again?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
It's great that Apple has added so much to NeXTStep but the fact is that NeXTStep was an incredibly powerful system from a variety of viewpoints, it didn't take Apple long to extend it and given what a crapfest some of the older versions of MacOS were (like 7-9.x, IMO, though there is a case to be made for 9 having its uses I guess) I suspect that anyone could have done it if they started with the same code, that is to say NeXTStep.
Anyway, don't count openstep out. It's not good for much now, except extending openstep, but with the proper development it could provide everything OSX does today and more. The biggest problem openstep faces is the lack of interest in development - it seems to have come a long way, but it's been a long time as well. I was excited about it so long ago I forgot I was excited.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Nobody has mentioned fink (http://fink.sourceforge.net). They are a "Linux" distribution to run on top of OS X. I quoted "Linux" because they have almost everything but the kernel (it uses the OS X kernel). Fink was the reason I decided it was time to use OS X as a Free/OPen source friendly laptop. None of the two authors even mentioned it!
Fink uses a packaging system similar to Debian, and it includes most of the apps people use under Linux. Many of them require X11, which is now distributed with OS X 10.3
there's no way I would plop down $1500 for a powermac when I could get an equivilant PC for 2/3 of the price
You can get a Mac for 2/3 the price, and while it's maybe half again as expensive as a comparable PC running Windows it's all made of good solid stuff. You're paying a bit of a premium for OS X, but it's not an insane one any more.
I would certainly consider his advice...if I were studying acting.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I think the hardcore OS-loyalty is coming to an end. It's comparable to adolescence. First, the computer industry and those who used the products it produced were "immature" about certain things. It was nothing more than simple brand loyalty (except in this case the brands were operating systems and varying hardware set-ups). Now, as the computing community grows up (we all know the first major computing generation, and most of the people reading this article are Generation-X) their aged attitudes are reflected in what they buy. The old days of fighting about what's better in forums are getting old to most people. I think the time has about come where people are going to find what they like and use it, Mac, Linux, Winblows, etc. So, it shouldn't be surprising that people are going to switch to Mac. Slowly but surely the compatibility barriers are breaking like a contemporary Berlin Wall. And soon Mac, Linux, and Winblows people are going to live in the same metaphorical computing Germany. Two things: 1. There were a lot of analogies in that, I'm sorry. 2. While spell checking, I learned that Microsoft Word will not let you add Winblows to its dictionary. I'm sure there's a technical reason why, I don't care, let me have my fun.
They're about as hardcore OS hackers as you can get.
That's great for OS hackers, but what about us hardware hackers on a budget? The only thing keeping me from switching to OS X is that it only works on PPC, and there's relatively no custom aftermarket for that. If you could buy your own PPC parts and build your own kit, then buy OS X for it, I'd switch in a heartbeat. What I wouldn't give for a dual G5 nForce4 mobo... Granted, nothing compares to the coolness of Apple hardware, yet even that isn't enough make me give up the joys of building my own kit, and with a limited budget that precludes me from buying both a Mac and a custom rig, I'll always go with the latter.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
The anti-Apple trolls are out in full force in this article, and getting modded up for it.
It's trickle-down effect. If the top industry players are using them, universities are using them (remember how most people used UNIX in college and so tried out Linux as a result?), and the media industry is using them, then chances are that everyone else will take a look to see what the fuss is about.
The worst thing about OS 9 (and earlier) was system extensions. In theory, they provided some great functionality as a type of OS plugin. In practice, they were a pain in the ass, and led to most of the instabilities of OS 9 (and earlier). At least this was my experience.
My bread and butter is video, and to run FCP under 8.6 or 9, I had to run with a very trim extension set. If I wanted to do anything else, I had to reboot the machine with a different set of extensions. Major PITA.
Once you took the time to do all the tweaking, OS 9 could be pretty good if you were doing one thing at a time. It was what it was. However, I really don't want to go back. For it's shortcomings (which I find few and far between, YMMV), it is miles ahead of OS 9.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
When OS X came, everyone in the Linux/BSD camp said "Cool, the best and smartest thing to do for a vendor - take OSS and build and polish it around your plattform." And everyone said they'd wait until OS X has lost it's glitches and matured. This has happend with Panther. That's why everyone who needs to get 'computer stuff done' with zero hassle and no hardware compatibility problems is flocking towards Apples OS X. Including me.
... Now if you excuse me, I gotta get going and try out frame skimming on Blender with my new Griffin Powermate I just got for my iBook today. :-)
x86 Linux is gaining ground here in germany. Corporations are pondering the alternatives to MS left, right and center, while just the other day a guy at Saturn, a german mass market electronics chain, told me that the mac mini is selling like hot cakes with iMacs going away in its wake and that they'll stock up seriously on mac games within the next few weeks because of that. They currently have two mac compliant games in stock and plan to have 30 in stock by the end of next month!
It's as I've said earler: Linux from below, OS X from above. We have some interesting times ahead of us in IT.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Maybe you can sell your wife the same way I did. She hated how our old windows box slowed to a crawl frequently due to malware, adware, etc. I'm sure I could have kept up on all the service patches and updates and adware programs and virus protectors, but screw it. My mac works. Always. With no complaints and no effort on my part.
By the way. Virus protectors are as bad as the viruses themselves. Does any body else complain about these pieces of crap?
Jack
Went from OS X server on a crotchety old blue G3 (upgraded to a g4/500 w/ a gig of ram) and a pile of firewire hard drives to debian on a cheapass x86 box with a 1tb SATA RAID. The box runs netatalk 2 and doesn't need to do anything else. Works perfectly.... and the PC and drives (with a stupid amount of ram, gigeth, etc) cost less than a base XServe.
I've been using macs daily since '98, and with the move to OS X, file sharing went from ACLs to unix permissions and suddenly there was no essential difference between using linux and using macos to the end user.... Since X came out and netatalk got useable, I've never had a compelling reason to use OS X on the server - but then, a server is (ime) a thing you set up once, lock up, and leave sitting in a rack until hardware dies. It probably helps that I'm a lot more comfortable with debian on the command line- it's easier to update and maintain a debian system without having to be at the box, in my experience.
But my job has no call for Serious Computers. So, YMMV.
Linus doesn't like Mach, he says it is inheritly slower than "his" kernel. I think he is probably right, but not by an amount that really matters. Apple has been focusing on "micro-locking" critical sections in Mach for Tiger (and I assume even more for the next rev). This trend started as FreeBSD 5 tried to catch up with Linux 2.6, enough though the FreeBSD 5 kernel is unrelated to Mach. Why are they doing this? They are preparing for the day when there will be n cores, for n = 4, 6, 8... I remember an statement (was it Minsky?) that an n-way multiprocessor sysstem has performance of order n/log n. This does not have to be true in the future, and even if it is - we still win.
Also Apple has IOKit and "prebinding" which remove the need to keep multiple old copies of the *nix libraries for every binary you don't want to rebuild with every new release, and every device driver as well. Even Windows has this to some extent, this was an esssential feature for the non-hacker to use MacOS X, and damn nice convenience for hackers, too!
And you can only buy Coca-Cola from the Coca-Cola Company. And don't expect to buy Windows from Sun Microsystems.
- For-And-Not-Against-Almost-Any-OS, but the company would not be Apple and would not give people what they bought if it were Open as in Buy-Your-Computer-With-Questionable-and-Lowest-Bid der-Parts-At-Crazy-Mike's. You can be cheap, you can be a zealot, or you can buy one computer, install what you like, get your work done, and go home.
Your argument makes little sense. What most people who know their UNIX have learned is that Apple's operating system, unlike Windows, and like most *Nixes, doesn't get in the way. They can have as much OSS on their computer as they want to install, living concurrently and working just fine (even ditching the GUI if necessary).
Apple is Open as in Install-What-You-Like-On-Hardware-We-Make-To-Work
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
One reason Apple is more streamlined than Windows is that it refuses to keep backwards compatability.
...
... have you even used a Mac in this century? Or are you just busting on them because people are migrating from the platform you like and you don't: understand why, fear change, fear being a follower or that you just plain like what you're using and get a funny feeling when others find something they like better.
Not flaming you (although I think that's what you want). Most anti-Mac folks I run into these days haven't touched a Mac since the System 7 days and continue to carry that prejudice.
Stating that Apple refused to adopt backward compatibility is ignoring the fact that you can still run ancient software in Classic layer and will be able to for some time.
Can't use a floppy?
I haven't missed it, but I can go buy a USB external for peanuts.
No two-button mouse?
Never mind, I'm not going there
Seriously
Anyway, I guess I don't understand where you get "Apple thinks it's customers are idiots" out of any of this.
All I can say is fear not, there is enough room in this town for two OS's.
They can switch. I'll stick with *nix and free updates, and save myself $140 every other year in upgrade costs.
Too bad, those $140 (sic) upgrades are friggin' awesome.
Four weeks, Twenty papers, that's two dollars
Hey, if Linux Torvalds thinks that a mac is good enough for him, its definitely good enough for me.
Does that 450USD system have onboard or dedicated gfx?
Does it use shared ram or dedicated VRam?
Does it include any software similar to iLife?
Does it include Windows XP Pro?
Does it include a DVD-Combo drive?
Does it include CD Burning software?
Does it include a USB Keyboard with USB ports?
Does it include Firewire ports?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
I'm sure the Apple guys are perfectly happy as they've got the money off me all the same... rather than seeing it go out the country to some nameless beige box shifters...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
whats your point? that the mac mini isnt upgradable but these cut rate PCs are?
they have the same target market... the low end. sure, you can put a bad ass card in that cut rate PC and you will have a cut rate PC with a bad ass video card... still not a good gaming PC for a variety of reasons. yes... you could keep upgrading it but by the time you are done it wont look very much like the computer you started with.
the mac mini trumps similar PCs with its video hardware and that is all there is to it. Its not fair to compare the mini to computers that are in a totally different class. The mini is not meant to be a gaming powerhouse but it does have pretty darn good video hardware.
you simply cant say that about cut rate PCs
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Personally I don't find NeoOffice/J, the Mac version of OpenOffice, very good, but a lot of people seem to like it. I went for a word processor called Mellel, which is rather inexpensive and which I find works quite nicely.
Bít, zabít, jen proto, ze su liska!
why do you even need word perfect?
one can type fine looking letters with wordpad.
windows does not however come with iTunes (sure it includes "disappearing border" WMP), iMovie (as opposed to "how many times can i crash a 299 Dell Box" Movie Maker), GarageBand (hmm Recorder?) a calendar, cron, webserver, ssh server, perl interpreter, and let's not forget the secure and tabbed browser (Yikes!!!).
However the 299 windows box does include a 2 button mouse and probably an evaluation copy of Norton antivirus.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Anonymous-Cowarding doubtless in admission that this is a troll.
I run OSX 10.3 on a 366mhz G3 iBook with 192mb of RAM, it's fine for wordprocessing, surfing, and multimedia use and isn't any slower than Windows XP on a Pentium-2 366.. which most people would agree is a workable pairing.
10.1 and 10.2 were slow on G3s. 10.3 is fine. As a Windows-refugee I'm still puzzled by an OS that gets faster on older hardware with every release...
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
You're mistaken. If you want a two or more button mouse, you can buy one or use just about any pc usb mouse. I'm using a three button mouse as I write this. All three work.
Secondly, even with the old mice, you just had to control click to get the same functionality.
It'd be nice if you had actually used a Mac in the last four years before you state categorically that you can't right click one.
- dj
1. Buy a two button USB mouse. (i.e. kensington, microsoft) OR
2. The CONTROL key acts as the right mouse button. Handy for those that need it. Unobtrusive for those that don't.
This is not here.
There's a better way. And I think the marketing types at Apple should pester some of their techies to make it happen.
I want to install a new program on my work computer (running WinXP Pro) that will track every program I run for two weeks or so. At the end of that period it should report to me how much of what I ran is available under Mac OS X.
I've written more details (same from google cache) on this, but some key points are that it can show alternatives even if the same program exists (e.g. Office), it must be open source, it must be honest about the mac capabilities (e.g. "program X will work for most users, but may not be compatible with a corporate server environment because of blah blah").
Of course, this might work to convince people to switch to a linux desktop as well, but the linux desktop has bigger issues to cover than just application compatibility.
___
Cognitive Overflow
more than yo
Sue fan sites
Tried to use the DMCA to remove content from source forge
Promise upgrades but never follow through(ibook,performa)
Use DRM to lock product(itunes) to device(ipod) and threaten to use the DMCA to protect the lock in
Reciever of numerous customer lawsuits from selling used products as new, and to lie about about the battery life on ipods
For a company with only less than 3% market share, they sure seem to get sued a lot for shoddy products or unethical business behavior.
And this post will probably last 5 minutes before apple fanboys troll, or flamebait it even though i just posted facts.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
windows does not however come with iTunes (sure it includes "disappearing border" WMP), iMovie (as opposed to "how many times can i crash a 299 Dell Box" Movie Maker), GarageBand (hmm Recorder?) a calendar, cron, webserver, ssh server, perl interpreter, and let's not forget the secure and tabbed browser (Yikes!!!).
Considering you can get stuff similar to all all of that software (with the exception of GarageBand & iMovie) for *free*, I wouldn't see that as an issue.
Even then, not everyone is in a band.. I don't really see why GarageBand is part of iLife, IMHO. It seems like something only 10% of people would really use.
I never really understood why everyone always salivates over iTunes. Unless you own an iPod, it's just a pretty ram-sucking jukebox program.
Foobar2000 + ColumnsUI gives you all the same features, with 1/4 the RAM usage.
I bought the x86 machine I was speaking of and saved about $350 on a machine that has more horsepower and generally is better in everyway execpt power consumption.
Your mistake is thinking that Apple is a hardware company. They're not. They're a software company that sells hardware with their software. They're not alone there, Cisco has a similar business model.
You saved $350 on the machine, and didn't get the most important part... Mac OS X. If that's not the part you wanted, if you're satisfied with Windows or Linux, then you probably shouldn't have been looking at Macs in the first place.
Me, when I switched from the PC to the Mac, a couple of years ago, I "upgraded" from a P4-1.7 and 4x AGP graphics to a used G3-400 and a PCi Rage 128. The "Mac Tax" to get a machine comparable with my PC would have been about $650, not $350, even if I bought a used Mac... so I got something slower and less capable.
In the intervening time the "Mac Tax" has dropped from a factor of two or more, to about 50% more. I think you're just a wee bit churlish to complain that it's "insanely expensive". It's not... Macs are still expensive, but at least they're not completely unaffordable for the ordinary joe any more.
But lets be honest, if I can get an AMD system with a 15inch LCD screen, Sempron 2200 proc, and half a gig of ram for about 450usd
Show us this marvelous machine that costs $450 and includes a complete operating system and equivalent software to match iLife and AppleWorks (or iWork for another $80), and an LCD monitor that won't make your eyes bleed, and 512MB of RAM that's worth having. Seriously, show us this machine. You were talking about something with no software, right?
how am I gonna convince my wife that I should buy a 600usd mac mini
That's easy, just sit her down in front of one for a few minutes.
, plus 250usd for the monitor, plus the keyboard and the silly one button mouse?
(1) Odds are you already have a perfectly good CRT monitor at home or you can get one for $120. If you want a decent LCD, you'll pay for it whether you get a Mac or a PC. Any monitor with a standard VGA or DVI connector will work with the Mac mini.
(2) Odds are you already have a keyboard. If not, USB keyboards go for about $25. You do not need to buy one from Apple. Any USB keyboard will work with the Mac mini.
(3) OS X has been around for what, five years now? And for five years now, OS X has had context menus and support for mouses with two or more buttons. Mine has 5 buttons including the scroll wheel/button. You do not need to buy a "silly one button mouse" from Apple. Any USB two-button scroll mouse will work with the Mac mini.
In the end, as so many of us have realized already, the cost is now very low, and very well justified.
Dell sells $299 all-inclusive systems with Windows and WordPerfect included. Try again.
Does that include DVD mastering software? Movie editing software? A music creation program? When people talk about the Mac experience, they're not talking about word processing.
your academic and corporate environments.
They are raking it in doing their own stuff for their own reasons and doing such a great job of it that everything and everybody else looks, well, a little green at the gills in comparison.
Tha fact that it works for you and what you need is entirely imaterial to Jobs.
Now if only Gates would cotton on to the fact that Apple's starting to eat his lunch by NOT even trying to compete with Microsoft but by putting out by putting out great stuff that's really usable.
I'm sure that "How Apple Won The War By Not Fighting It" will make great reading in my dotage.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I would be careful about purchasing g3 iBooks. I have owned two g3 iBooks and they both have had logic board issues that are not covered under Apple's logic board repair program. The overall quality of g3 iBook's are suspect in my book and you may just want to save a bit and just buy a g4 instead.
OS X runs great on the g3 iBooks provided you have 256 MB of RAM. 128 MB runs OS X but not much more. I could keep a browser of varying flavor open, iTunes, and one other app (Mathematica, et cetera) open before experiencing significant slow down. I really like iBooks but "caveat emptor" if you seek to buy an older model.
Anyone who says "But it only has a one button mouse" has effectively held up a big flashing sign saying "Hi, I'm ignorant and have no clue what I'm talking about but feel the need to say something anyway."
Add those people to your foes list because it's doubtful they've got anything useful to say on any other tech subject as well.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
...My process has always been one of upgrade...
So throw out your old big, noisy Windoes box and UPGRADE to a small, quiet Mini. By the time you do all the upgrading you are taking about you will have spent as much or more, especially if your time is worth even minimum wages, than what the Mini costs. In the end you will still have a big, noisy, ugly PC box with a lot of outdated software. Guys like you would complain if Apple gave their computer away for free!
All theory is gray
Oh the shock and horror. Apple is a "corporation" which has to protect its IP and trade secrets from being leaked to the competition.
# Tried to use the DMCA to remove content from source forge
See above.
# Use DRM to lock product(itunes) to device(ipod) and threaten to use the DMCA to protect the lock in
I have news for you, the labels want and demand DRM. But it can be easily circumvented legally with a thing called a CD-R disk.
# Reciever of numerous customer lawsuits from selling used products as new, and to lie about about the battery life on ipods
Those lawsuits are being pushed by disgruntled resellers, not consumers. Have those cases been proven?
Does the competition speak honestly about their battery life? No. Companies like Dell and Sony forget to mention that their "numbers" are based on testing using the lowest bandwidth settings with no user interaction.
YMMV but I've experienced battery life on my 2nd generation iPod which exceeds Apples claims for battery life but then again, I don't use the backlight and I'm not deaf. What this means is I usually listen on Shuffle mode and my volume is less than a fifth of full volume.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
So Abreu sez:
/. right this instant? (Assuming you're not using a laptop.)
"But lets be honest, if I can get an AMD system with a 15inch LCD screen, Sempron 2200 proc, and half a gig of ram for about 450usd, how am I gonna convince my wife that I should buy a 600usd mac mini, plus 250usd for the monitor, plus the keyboard and the silly one button mouse?"
Pardon my French, but what the goddamn fucking fuck are you using to access
You obviously HAVE a keyboard. You OBVIOUSLY have a monitor. Odds are that you have SOME kind of input device akin to a mouse or a trackball.
That's whay the Mini is sold without all that other stuff. If you're upgrading from a Windows desktop, you already have the peripherals.
And, frankly, unless the Apple Enforcement Gundams are pointing guns at you, you are not being forced to even contemplate buying a Mac Mini, no more than you are being prevented from buying that AMD system you mentioned.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
Please name one other company that sues their fan sites.
# I have news for you, the labels want and demand DRM.
So so why does apple threaten to use the anti cirumenvention part the DMCA against real if real goes ahead with their harmony project thats allows ipod owners to play real media files? Sure sounds like using DMCA and DRM to hold a lock on a market. I don't think labels would care if ipods ran real media files, nor do i think customers would mind the abililty to run real media files on their ipods and would actually prefer a choice in their online store selection. And choice is the keyword, apple doesn't want their customers to have a choice.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Heck, it's even attractive to those of us whose background in C is more of the "int" variety.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
I just bought a $470 computer from Staples for my mom's shop. It's got 512MB ram, a 2.8ghz Celeron, 80gb HD, Windows XP Home, an 8x DVD RW drive, 8-in-1 card reader, monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers. None of it is exceptionally high quality stuff, but it's a quick machine and it does everything she needs it to. No, it's not as slick and cool as a Mac, but slick and cool were not her top priority, price was.
Gaming is the only real reason to stay away from Macs
I played game a lot on my previous PCs. So much so that one reason for me recently getting my first Mac, albeit a minor one, was that, I thought that since the Mac has so few games written for it that I won't be able to find games to play on it. Therefore I wouldn't be playing computer games as much as I would be on a PC. I needed to curtail the time I was spending gamin on my computer.
Wrong!
It turns out that more and more games are being written for Macs. Like Blizzard's World of Warcraft. Talk about stealing my life away. And on a Mac too!
Rich
However, my powerbook purchase brought the joy of computing back into my life. I frequently read the comments of those who decry the overpriced Mac when compared to constructing your own box (which I used to do - and I still believe that a Mac is equivalently priced with Dell/Gateway/IBM hardware, when all things are factored in properly) and while true on one level, it misses the mark on the total picture. That is depending on your interests and usage desires:
Life got a lot simpler when I replaced my wife's Win XP box with an iMac. No more weekly degunk sessions, antivirus, malware consternation and constant admonitions for her to be vigilant about keeping her machine clean were necessary. And she took to it like a charm -- things were unfamiliar (and still sometimes she stumbles on a Win -> Mac how-to-do question) but she is enthralled with it now and spends more time on email/web browsing than she ever did on the Win box. The iLife/iPod deal is just gravy and really we've experienced firsthand on how much more hassle-free life became after the Mac switch.
So, I'm not swayed by saving a couple hundred dollars. Just like I wouldn't buy a Kia or a Yugo, I'm not going to opt for a bargain basement PC over a quality machine like a Mac. No, it's not perfect and presents its own set of flaws, but at this juncture, it seems to be the product of greater quality for me.
AZspot
I don't know how much you value your time, but mine is worth more than pennies an hour. Given the amount of nit-picking you're doing about $50 worth of hardware, given the far superior software package, security, and visual appeal, you aren't someone who will be swayed.
My god, people will come up with all sorts of excuses. You can pay $500 for something you want that will work as advertised, or paying 80+% of that cost for something that won't.
And sure, I can come up with some freeware crap-fest software to install on a Windows box to make it sorta work if I wanted. But that's just pathetic... I'd spend hours doing it, the software would be anemic, and my OS would be crippled.
Where's the comparison again?
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
Of course with things like Key-Value introspection and Cocoa Bindings and Core Data, we're really moving beyond what a traditional application development environment it and getting closer to a data-abstraction environment.
Yes. And note that Next/OpenStep had very similar technologies in a different form with Enterprise Objects Framework.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
So you are just itching to buy yet another keyboard, mouse and monitor? With iMacs that force one to acquire the built-in monitor there were complaints about the forced bundling. Now that Apple has an option that doesn't require you to buy a new monitor we still hear nothing but whiny complaints.
For anyone who has owned a computer the cost of upgrading to Mac OS X is no more than $600. The excuse that it costs too much is gone. Find another one.
Show us this marvelous machine that costs $450 and includes a complete operating system and equivalent software to match iLife and AppleWorks (or iWork for another $80), and an LCD monitor that won't make your eyes bleed, and 512MB of RAM that's worth having. Seriously, show us this machine.
S EARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
c ription=20-161-615&depa=1
c ription=24-160-137&depa=1
I'm not him, but whatever.
http://shop1.outpost.com/product/4199563?site=sr:
Plus this:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?des
And this:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?des
Computer: $280
RAM: $35
Monitor: $176
Total: $491 (So maybe the guy quoting $450 was pushing it a little, but not much)
Comes with Linspire, OpenOffice, Gimp, etc. For the sort of person who'd be buying this, it's a LOT better software package than Windows XP (good ease of use, virus / spyware immunity, already has an office suite, etc).
I've seen this very computer in the Sunday ads for $180, which with the RAM and Monitor would come out at $391.
But...the Mac mini looks cooler, you can install Linux on it like a PC if you want to, fits in smaller spaces, can run OSX (probably it's biggest attraction), and mac people won't look down on you if you have it.
You might want something with a DVD player...I couldn't load iLife w/ garageband when I wnet that route.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
That's impressive, by in my opinion Linux (which I have used various flavors of for several years for desktops and servers) still doesn't cut it for the average home user. Many users want a few simple apps like Photoshop Elements, and of course they can't have that on Linux. Instead, a bunch of idiots like you and me point them at something called "the GIMP". We say, "Look, it's free!" They say, "I don't care, it sucks, I want Photoshop Elements." We are not necessarily smarter than them.
/dev/hda3 thing instead of translating all that garbage into something a normal person can understand, like a drive icon on the desktop with the volume label displayed under it. What a concept, huh? Of all things, KDE still displays the device name and mount path on the desktop under the drive icon, as if that would actually be useful to the common user! I like KDE in general, but give me a break. "/mnt/storagedrive3 [/dev/sdb2]"? How is that useful to the average person? Volume labels have been around forever. Why aren't we using them, like every other sensible desktop OS?
There definitely isn't a set of applications for Linux to match iLife/iWork. IPhoto alone has no match on Linux. Besides which, we all know what happens with most of these Linspire machines. People buy it for the hardware and throw a pirated copy of Windows and about $1,000 worth of other pirated software on it. Unfortunate but true.
So, I see the machine, but I don't see the legal software and the usability that goes with it. Of course, that's just my opinion, but it's based on direct observation that tells me Linux still isn't quite ready to compete with OS X except in niche markets (where it usually kicks butt). As a general desktop OS it is sorely lacking. I mean, lately I've tried some of the very newest and most "user friendly" distros like Knoppix, Kubuntu and Mandrake 10.1, and none of them will even auto-mount a simple USB key on the desktop!
And I've never yet met a Linux file manager or desktop environment that made it easy to navigate (or even find) the various drives inside and connected to my computer, at least not in any way similar to how it works in the Windows/Mac/BeOS file managers. Linux still seems to be stuck on the whole
These kind of things should be considered showstopper bugs if we want average people to use Linux as a desktop. We do want that, don't we? So far I haven't really seen any Linux software even going in the right direction.
Carbon was an important part of getting OSX accepted. It was also a reason for delaying its release.
Carbon is a compatibility layer that made it easy to port old Mac programs to the new OS. Considering MacOS 9 is utterly nothing like MacOS X, it was the difference between many App developers updating their programs or just abandoning Apple and going Windows.
It was a transitional thing. Important for the early stages, but now the OS is mature it matters alot less. Like PS2's being able to play PSOne games.
the free software alternatives are good enough to, if not kill, then certainly maim demand for commercial alternatives (witness the death of Corel's Wordperfect for Linux).
The worst enemy of WP2000/Linux was Corel. Throw a buggy suite on the market then never support it. WP/Win had I believe *4* service packs and the Linux one had zilch. I had the thing crash some kind of group of threads so badly, that I could LOOK at my document, but not print, save, or even copy it to the clipboard. Since it was the notes for some public speaking I was going to be doing that evening, I was NOT impressed. That was the last time I used it.
I'm not sure if WP 2000 or Windows ME is more coaster-worthy.
SYS 64738 NO CARRIER
I missed the first two installments of this slashdot story, i.e., The Fellowship of the GUI, and The Two Kernels. I can't find the links. Can anyone help me?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
We're a small business -- less than 100 employees in all, but we have to run a number of servers, some for customers but most for various different employee functions.
We found that the Macs were great for a couple of things: one, they have hot-swappable IDE (older models) and SATA (newer models) hard drives, which is great for backups... set up a mirrored array and then just pop one of the drives out and pop a blank one in, then carry the first one off-site. Or, in another case, when it's the dedicated backup server, we have four IDE drives in there, each one with a different backup from a different day of the week, and then we pop Saturday's one out once a month so we have a monthly offsite. Dell et al had the same thing with SCSI, which costs twice as much. (This was a couple years back, I'm sure Dell is getting to SATA by this time... right?)
Also, we have a server that we were concerned about going down for more than an hour or so, but it's not a big problem if it's down for an hour. We can't really afford redundant servers for EVERYTHING.
So we got the next best thing: we have it set up on an xServe, but all the software, incloding the OS, is on an external firewire hardware RAID box. The xServe started acting up one day (turned out to be a bad power outlet on the power manager, of all things) and I walked in, unplugged it, carried it into our test lab, plugged it into our iMac, and rebooted. Sha-zaam... the iMac is now the server. And it would have worked with any Mac made in the last, oh, five years or so. Well, any Mac with firewire or USB2 that had 256 megs of RAM or more. If necessary, I could have extracted one of the drives from the FW RAID and put it into any of the Macs that didn't have firewire, in an extra 10 minutes or so.
And that server, from soup to nuts, took less than a day to set up.
There really are some things you can do with the xServes that have significant advantages. Sometimes it's just doing things a little easier... sometimes it's doing things you never even thought of. Like a thoroughly portable server. (Heck, I could take that hard drive down to our colo site, attach it to our backup server down there, switch over the IP address, switch the IP address in our DNS, and we'd be up and running in under an hour, even if our HQ were without connectivity or power for days. Of course, I could do that with our main corporate file server, too, but that's just because we happen to have a machine down at the colo site that is the exact same model.)
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Freedom "includes" a freedom of choice. What is wrong with OS X?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
OTOH, I sent in my 3 year old iBook (way out of warranty) for a logic board repair (bad video).
Apple had a box delivered the next morning, and I sent the laptop out same day. Two days later it got to Houston, was diagnosed, repaired, and tested. All in the same day. Then it came back in 1 day.
I got the thing back, and the logic board was never replaced. They replaced my LCD and it now works flawlessly. I can't imagine those LCD panels are cheap, but I thank Apple for replacing my SCREEN under a logic board recall. And they lost themselves some money, because my only reason to replace my zippy 600mhz G3 iBook would be hardware failures. Oh yeah, also, they replaced one of the little rubber feet that fell off a few days ago.
Personally I find it odd that the G3 logic board repair coverage would even extend to a 3 year old laptop. I mean it is a laptop, we expect it to fail eventually, in some way, right?
happy camper.
Please. Communism is an economic ideology, democracy is a means to govern. You could have a communist democracy if you were so inclined, only you should first ensure that all the people that participate in it are ideal. Just as in anarchy.
If you want to compare, go ahead. Only compare items from the same drawer. Capitalism in and of itself is not guaranteed to be democratic. See Pinochet, Franco, Perón etc, all for free trade under the guiding hand of a dictator.
Yes, it is a common misconception that there was ever communism in the Soviet Union. And no, there wasn't. There hasn't been communism anywhere on a scale like this after the hunterers and gatherers. It's an utopia; please, stop mislabelling a noble idea of Plato with the stained record of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was never communist, not even in name. It was an oppressive form of socialism, led from the fifties on by gerontocracy. It may have been striving (in words) to achieve a Marxist state, but even that never came even close.
We could go more in-depth, but one thing must be clear from the beginning: the Soviet Union was never communist. Not even the KPSS. This may, however, not be the best place to discuss this and as usual, there are tons of ways to mince words, so that at the end, everyone feels stupider.