[sigh] One of the things that drives me nuts about Randroids is the way they try to redefine perfectly good words to fit their own ends. (They remind me, in this as in a lot of ways, of Marxists. Actually.) "Greed" and "self-interest" do not have the same meaning; they are similar but distinct concepts, and everyone but fanatics understands this.
Greed: taking everything you can get your hands on.
Self-interest: acting in the way that most benefits you.
Is this too hard to understand?
Splitting hairs. It most benifits Bill Gates to own and hold as much as he can. This is either greed or self interest. In most situations they are the same. Only in some border cases is there a difference.
But Pure capatalism would eat itself, and people would revolt. Because as Communism makes overly optimistic assumptions about human nature, Capatalism makes a few too many pessimistic assumptions as well and assuming markets will be free and manaipulations does not occur. Both are flawed systems. There will eventually be better alternatives.
actually socialism will fail because it's based on false premises about human psychology.
the interesting question to me is whether that psychology is innate, or manufactured; and whether it's obsolete, and if so, if it can be changed.
Actually socialism works just fine. Thanks you very much. Observe that most og western europe and Canada have a form of socialism. And their stable well off countries. Some work better then others, and there is a varing degree of free markets but their all idealogically socialists.
That's not the only reason socialism fails. People are more productive with incentives to encourage them, and capitalism results in many more incentives for the average person to be productive. (note that incentives are not necessarily rewards; negative consequences are incentives too...) Since incentives and equality are mutually exclusive, a socialist society dedicated to equality won't be as productive as a capitalist society, and it will fall behind.
Idealistic yes. Communism can have the same things, rewards for qoutas met ect.. like a unionized job. There is nothing inherintly better about capitalism. It has as much to do with circumstances, leaders, population behavioral patterns as it does the system.
Capatalism won, because computers happened along the scene and gave the capatalists a huge production increase, while the communists didn't anticipate this and didn't gear their production in a similiar fashion. They aimed for gaols that become superflous. They aimed to outprodous the US in steel. Which in the early and mid industrial era, meant they'd have more tanks, more guns, more eveything. The communists centralized planning methods failed to properly incorporate electronics and they become fell behind. The US had a decentralized system, so when they came along, they switched productions.
But the soviets accomplished a lot. So did the Americans. In no way did communism fail. No more then Democracy can fail. They are just idealogical systems. They are never implemented ideally and thus never behave ideally. The russians stopped supporting that system, and it is no longe rin use. But the achievements of the soviets is just as stagering as the achivements of the Americans, who both stole much of the base of these achivements formt he germans.
Capatalism is just an idea. There is no pure capatalist system because people will not stand for a purely greed driven society. Even the most capatalistic societies have some provisions for the poor and ample regulations. Marx was a interesting but idealistic hippie, and Smith was a idealistic moron. If you want a true economic system that works, try Keynes. As Nixon put it "We're all keynsians now".
Interesting, but I'd say capitalism works because it relies on human greed. Communism failed because it was/is inefficient, which somebody "greedy" would not tolerate.
Interetsing.. it really depends on what you mean by works. If you eman it's self-sustaining? then no Both Capatalism and Communism are not self sustaining. They have enourmouse points of failure. Communism has a top heavy architecture and if you have poor plannign up top, the thing collapses. Capatalism is mroe resiliant but since it is a system built on greed, it consumes itself. Tell me, what happens when a large portion of the populace of the USA works in the service industry? It's happening now. Manufacturing and technology is being outsourced so, soon the US will be mostly a service industry work force. That means they'll mostly be making a small wage doing menial work. You start having a diminshed quality of life. Keep this trend goign long enough, of lowest cost manufacturing, lowest cost labour. And who will be your consumers? McJobs only pay so much.
You need a more balanced system pure anything doesn't work because nothign is ideal.
To conquer people in the modern world, you don't need guns. don't need violence. All you need is the ability to convice the people that some things that are opposed to their interests are reasonable, and some tyranny is acceptable. Eventually we will all be slaves without knowing it. Why fight your populaous when you can pacify them and rule without opposition. In Canada, regaurdless of the government the beuracrats are the same. In the US regaurdless of the administration, certain unelected individuals weild an ungodly amount of influence.
They've conquered us. and theres not a damend thign you can do about it with a gun.
.... at least attempt to have a long term view of problems.
People defending DDT usage are eminent short termists, which could not care less about future generations as long as they are OK during their lifetimes.
And Enviromentalists tend to be equally short sighted alarmsists who are about as educated as their detractors. ie: cause: Save the old groth/boreal forests in NA. Effect: All the companies go to other countries ot get wood pulp decimating important tropical species. Blame: Dumb ass College art degree enviromentalists.
Re:chance of getting rich vs chance of getting poo
on
Education Via Video Games
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Why not take the SAFE way, the prudent way, as they do in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, Canada, etc etc, and RAISE TAXES ON THE RICH.
gee tax $0 net income hmm... The rich are rich because they know how to dodge taxes legitimatly. How can you tax me if I make nothing and my corporation buys me a house? I can't give you 60% of the house so you must be SOL.
Thos ewho make 40k -100k shoulder most of the burden of social services whiel those who actually make 100k plus, evade liek crazy.
Progressive taxation isn't "one law for the rich". It's "Same law for everyone." Everyone pays a portion of their income in tax. We already have a gradation of income tax percentage, increasing as you make more money; skewing the percentages is hardly creating seperate laws.
Nowhere in that post is it advocated to do anything except change the relative taxation percentages.
The problem is, the very rich has a $0 net income. Their corporatiosn don't but they do. Honestly. I know a handfull of real millionares and they don't make a dime personally, but have tightly controlled corps. A luxury tax would tax these people more then any income tax. Max all luxury items liek sux's have a 40% feed the poor tax and you'll get more revenue then a 100% tax baracket for 150k +.
Half the cars across the street have fucking rims that literally cost more then my entire car. My car doesn't have rims, the wheel bolting is exposed.
Thats because their drug dealers and that building is where they happen to ply their trade. I doubt any welfar person coudl afford rims like that. I can't afford rims liek that and I am not on welfare.
Bah! Amatures! When I was unemployed last summer I had a month where I probably spent over $100 a week on alcohol. Anybody that spends less than that just isn't trying hard enough.
I spent $150 friday night alone. In a week I expend the same as my salary for 2. it works out somehow.
Part of the reason so many hostile countries have sympathetic Governments to the US is the fact that the US has a large portion of th eworld by the balls. Without food aid, countries like Egypt would starve. their pop. exceeds their ability to feed it.
I would say that it is who you are that will make you poor. Not the circumstances around you. Those who stay poor lack life skills. They often can't budget and spedn on things like "cheetos". If it's not that, it's addiction. FAS also is a common factor.
The other catagory is those who make very little money. My family falls within this catagory. The combined income of both of my parents were $33k cnd. according to This Site We qualify as living below the poverty line.
But We live in a 250k house. with 3 cars and 1 kid done University(me) and 1 kid currently attending. It's about budgettign and knowing what your priorities are.
My childhood outright sucked. I had nothing. But I went through University without debt and now, while my friends all complain about huge student loans, while drinking 4.50 lattes, I came out debt free.
The poor are that way, sometimes through circumstances but often through poor upbringings and lack of work ethic.
I can relate in some way. But my parents can relate more so. When We came to canada we were Canadian poor. Bare minimium of daily esssentials. No shampoo just soap. 1 TV from a junk shop. 1 table. 4 chairs. 1 bed (between the 3 of us) in a small 2 room partment in the scummy area of town witht he prostitutes, other imigrants, and very bad people.
Which was all a step up form my parents, who grew up not knowing a full belly 90% of the time. They survived as the children of rich merchants during the red revolution. they experienced bullying and persecution that few north americans can appriciate short of blacks form the 60's/50's and immigrants.
My dad lived in a hovel for most of his life. seeing his father for 10 min when he was 13. My mum worked hard at school. then had to work hard at a farm to get money to buy school supplies and her own clothing since my grand parents had no money to get those for her (family of 12, my mom was 5th oldest).
For them, currently working 12h a day 7 days a week 365 days a year and making less then 36k together (less now, my mom lost her job) is a step up. BEcause we now live in a 250k house, have 3 cars and 3 TV's. We can do it because we can budget well and little frills like "vacation" and time off aren't on their minds.
We buy generic. I wear 20 panst and 20 dollar dress shirts. They forgo a lot of thigns. But they put 2 kids so far through univsersity and made a good life for us. It's doable. they worked 5 years as dish washers and then another 15 as a cook and a seemstress in a factory. For them it's whats they had to do. they still wear cloths they bought in china 20 years ago. I might groan when they go out but I have nothign but the deepest respect for what they did with their lives.
Now compare that to the decisions the poor make, and you'll know why they stay poor. IT's not just circumstances but also the lack of any type of critical thinking skills and other life skills that make them poor. You can start with nothing, and live in garbage and have a horribel min. wage job and still put 3 kids into college and get out of the slums. Thats the great thing about the US and Canada. All you need not to be trash is the will to work you ass off.
I'm sorry if I come accross as sayign PC are better. What I mean is don't write it off. MAc's are no more "work" machines then a PC is so his argument about them on that quality is what I objected to. PC does some work. Macs do others. You don't do print design on a Unix box. You don't do Phone relay control on a Mac. the tools aren't there.
MACs are great machines. On the rare occasions I do photo work or video work I wish I had one. but thats rare. I mostly code for the web so I'm fairly agnostic on wether I do it on a linux box or on a Wintel box. however I don't do it on a Mac because of the reason why I wish I had a Mac for Print work. Wintel does a different color system then MAc.
Long ago, an early Mac ad compared itself to the IBM PC by dropping the corresponding manuals next to each machine. The Mac manual was light as a feather, the PC manual pile was 2 feet high. It was of course an exaggeration, but the point was valid.
Wouldn't that be more of inadaquete documentation then ease of use.
For the same 10.5 h bill she can buy a Pc with xp. and XP can be made to look and behave liek win 98 with little trouble. As a good tech I'd also help her patch and add a firewall for about 3h worht of work on top. Total bill.
$399 cnd comp (no monitor) $100 cnd XP (OEM fromt he shop) $130 cnd (work) __________ $629 cnd
New stable comp, with fw, spybot/ad aware and a much better experience.
Consider my post in the context of discussing gaming machines. No one buys a Mac as a gaming machine.
very true. and only a small portion of the computer using populace buy a PC as a gaming platform. Most people buy it for other reasons. The fact that Dell sells most of it's PC's Without a decent card tells that PC's generally aren't gaming machines.
1. Mac aren't for most work. 2. Unix is for some other work 3. Mac != OSX all the time. although thats a technicality. 3. 2 and 1 is not mutually exclusive.
How many programers do you know. how many use OSX. I know 20 odd programmers. 0 of them use OSX. I'm sure it's non zero percentage of the over all pop. but I doubt it's significant. His point was Macs are for work PC's are not. Well, no PC's are for most work. Mac is for some specific work. And often, it's used for other thigns too because there is a population of mac users who do nothing but browse the net and play break out on a mac. This pop. just doesn't want to relearn stuff for a PC. I know about 4 teachers who are this way.
Macs are for people who work and might occasionally play a game. PCs are for gamers. No one is gonna argue that point. But there really aren't that many hard-core gamers, and there are a hell of a lot of people who need to get work done.
Err. PC's represent 99% of most offices. I work as a web dev on a PC. I garentee at least 95% of all web devs use a PC. Pc's include linux boxes so most of the net, most programmers, and most people who work with a Comp. use a PC. Mac is used for some very specific very niche applpications. Macs are for print work, because additive color looks off. Macs are for video editing because a lot of film edtors use macs and there is some very mature tools for it on the Mac. Macs aren't for work. Unix is for work. Macs are for certain types of graphic artists and vedeo editing.
err. For the same "price" and nto the same "hardware" you can get a PC that does more then just a "few" frames more. For the price of a g5 and a radeon 9600 xt in it you can get 3 P4 3.0 gzh HT with a radeon 9600 xt. or a system with a dual p4 design and a 9800 pro and have some spare change.
This is part of the reason I still awestruck by those who are willing to take this extreme risk.
Let's see, there have been 3 major accidents with the US space program for 45 years. Lets say those 15 or so people represent 5% of all space travelers. Thats a 5% mortality rate. no big deal. Rig workers have a higher fatality. So you can be awe struck at how rig workers risk their lives.... It's sorta silly. you shoudl expect deaths when you deal with the amoutn of exstremes that space travel entail. The juvinile "American Public" can't cope with a few peopel dying and thats the bigger tragedy. It limits yrou ability to explore and advance, it's the current american generations (baby boomers and down) inability to stomach death of any kind that makes you 1) pansies in war 2) over reacting drama queens 3) soon to be #2 to some other super power (Russia/china/india (3rd world yes but sigificant technological growth is occuring and American are generally payign for it)).
Perhaps your sysadmin skills are lacking. I've never had an issue with using 'emerge --pretend -uD world' to see what will be changed, looking at the release notes for the new versions, and emerging the things I should upgrade. Not only that, but I imagine you're one of those people who like to auto-merge the/etc files. If you make any config changes, that's a big no-no..
I'm a novice linux/unix user. it takes me 2 hours to install emacs. 3 if the box lacks gcc. Most of this is due to having to read docs, tryign to compile, reading more docs and tryign again. The problem is, being a linux admin is not my job so why should I have to go through that to install a friggin text editor ( and I will not use hand crippling VI). Sys admin skills are uniform either and you know nothing about his problems. Refering the the release note only help if you have experience with them. If you don't it's like reading up on how to do brain surgery in hebrew upside down while operating on yourself.
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[sigh] One of the things that drives me nuts about Randroids is the way they try to redefine perfectly good words to fit their own ends. (They remind me, in this as in a lot of ways, of Marxists. Actually.) "Greed" and "self-interest" do not have the same meaning; they are similar but distinct concepts, and everyone but fanatics understands this.
Greed: taking everything you can get your hands on.
Self-interest: acting in the way that most benefits you.
Is this too hard to understand?
Splitting hairs. It most benifits Bill Gates to own and hold as much as he can. This is either greed or self interest. In most situations they are the same. Only in some border cases is there a difference.
But Pure capatalism would eat itself, and people would revolt. Because as Communism makes overly optimistic assumptions about human nature, Capatalism makes a few too many pessimistic assumptions as well and assuming markets will be free and manaipulations does not occur. Both are flawed systems. There will eventually be better alternatives.
actually socialism will fail because it's based on false premises about human psychology.
the interesting question to me is whether that psychology is innate, or manufactured; and whether it's obsolete, and if so, if it can be changed.
Actually socialism works just fine. Thanks you very much. Observe that most og western europe and Canada have a form of socialism. And their stable well off countries. Some work better then others, and there is a varing degree of free markets but their all idealogically socialists.
That's not the only reason socialism fails. People are more productive with incentives to encourage them, and capitalism results in many more incentives for the average person to be productive. (note that incentives are not necessarily rewards; negative consequences are incentives too...) Since incentives and equality are mutually exclusive, a socialist society dedicated to equality won't be as productive as a capitalist society, and it will fall behind.
Idealistic yes. Communism can have the same things, rewards for qoutas met ect.. like a unionized job. There is nothing inherintly better about capitalism. It has as much to do with circumstances, leaders, population behavioral patterns as it does the system.
Capatalism won, because computers happened along the scene and gave the capatalists a huge production increase, while the communists didn't anticipate this and didn't gear their production in a similiar fashion. They aimed for gaols that become superflous. They aimed to outprodous the US in steel. Which in the early and mid industrial era, meant they'd have more tanks, more guns, more eveything. The communists centralized planning methods failed to properly incorporate electronics and they become fell behind. The US had a decentralized system, so when they came along, they switched productions.
But the soviets accomplished a lot. So did the Americans. In no way did communism fail. No more then Democracy can fail. They are just idealogical systems. They are never implemented ideally and thus never behave ideally. The russians stopped supporting that system, and it is no longe rin use. But the achievements of the soviets is just as stagering as the achivements of the Americans, who both stole much of the base of these achivements formt he germans.
Capatalism is just an idea. There is no pure capatalist system because people will not stand for a purely greed driven society. Even the most capatalistic societies have some provisions for the poor and ample regulations. Marx was a interesting but idealistic hippie, and Smith was a idealistic moron. If you want a true economic system that works, try Keynes. As Nixon put it "We're all keynsians now".
Interesting, but I'd say capitalism works because it relies on human greed. Communism failed because it was/is inefficient, which somebody "greedy" would not tolerate.
Interetsing.. it really depends on what you mean by works. If you eman it's self-sustaining? then no Both Capatalism and Communism are not self sustaining. They have enourmouse points of failure. Communism has a top heavy architecture and if you have poor plannign up top, the thing collapses. Capatalism is mroe resiliant but since it is a system built on greed, it consumes itself. Tell me, what happens when a large portion of the populace of the USA works in the service industry? It's happening now. Manufacturing and technology is being outsourced so, soon the US will be mostly a service industry work force. That means they'll mostly be making a small wage doing menial work. You start having a diminshed quality of life. Keep this trend goign long enough, of lowest cost manufacturing, lowest cost labour. And who will be your consumers? McJobs only pay so much.
You need a more balanced system pure anything doesn't work because nothign is ideal.
To conquer people in the modern world, you don't need guns. don't need violence. All you need is the ability to convice the people that some things that are opposed to their interests are reasonable, and some tyranny is acceptable. Eventually we will all be slaves without knowing it. Why fight your populaous when you can pacify them and rule without opposition. In Canada, regaurdless of the government the beuracrats are the same. In the US regaurdless of the administration, certain unelected individuals weild an ungodly amount of influence.
They've conquered us. and theres not a damend thign you can do about it with a gun.
(a.k.a. the hard core Anybody-But-Bush crowd)
Which is now everyone on eart except 20% of isreal and 30% of the US.FPOMA(figures pulled out my ass).
.... at least attempt to have a long term view of problems.
People defending DDT usage are eminent short termists, which could not care less about future generations as long as they are OK during their lifetimes.
And Enviromentalists tend to be equally short sighted alarmsists who are about as educated as their detractors.
ie:
cause: Save the old groth/boreal forests in NA.
Effect: All the companies go to other countries ot get wood pulp decimating important tropical species.
Blame: Dumb ass College art degree enviromentalists.
Why not take the SAFE way, the prudent way, as they do in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, Canada, etc etc, and RAISE TAXES ON THE RICH.
gee tax $0 net income hmm... The rich are rich because they know how to dodge taxes legitimatly. How can you tax me if I make nothing and my corporation buys me a house? I can't give you 60% of the house so you must be SOL.
Thos ewho make 40k -100k shoulder most of the burden of social services whiel those who actually make 100k plus, evade liek crazy.
Progressive taxation isn't "one law for the rich". It's "Same law for everyone." Everyone pays a portion of their income in tax. We already have a gradation of income tax percentage, increasing as you make more money; skewing the percentages is hardly creating seperate laws.
Nowhere in that post is it advocated to do anything except change the relative taxation percentages.
The problem is, the very rich has a $0 net income. Their corporatiosn don't but they do. Honestly. I know a handfull of real millionares and they don't make a dime personally, but have tightly controlled corps. A luxury tax would tax these people more then any income tax. Max all luxury items liek sux's have a 40% feed the poor tax and you'll get more revenue then a 100% tax baracket for 150k +.
Half the cars across the street have fucking rims that literally cost more then my entire car. My car doesn't have rims, the wheel bolting is exposed.
Thats because their drug dealers and that building is where they happen to ply their trade. I doubt any welfar person coudl afford rims like that. I can't afford rims liek that and I am not on welfare.
Bah! Amatures! When I was unemployed last summer I had a month where I probably spent over $100 a week on alcohol. Anybody that spends less than that just isn't trying hard enough.
I spent $150 friday night alone. In a week I expend the same as my salary for 2. it works out somehow.
Part of the reason so many hostile countries have sympathetic Governments to the US is the fact that the US has a large portion of th eworld by the balls. Without food aid, countries like Egypt would starve. their pop. exceeds their ability to feed it.
I would say that it is who you are that will make you poor. Not the circumstances around you. Those who stay poor lack life skills. They often can't budget and spedn on things like "cheetos". If it's not that, it's addiction. FAS also is a common factor.
The other catagory is those who make very little money. My family falls within this catagory. The combined income of both of my parents were $33k cnd. according to This Site We qualify as living below the poverty line.
But We live in a 250k house. with 3 cars and 1 kid done University(me) and 1 kid currently attending. It's about budgettign and knowing what your priorities are.
My childhood outright sucked. I had nothing. But I went through University without debt and now, while my friends all complain about huge student loans, while drinking 4.50 lattes, I came out debt free.
The poor are that way, sometimes through circumstances but often through poor upbringings and lack of work ethic.
I can relate in some way. But my parents can relate more so. When We came to canada we were Canadian poor. Bare minimium of daily esssentials. No shampoo just soap. 1 TV from a junk shop. 1 table. 4 chairs. 1 bed (between the 3 of us) in a small 2 room partment in the scummy area of town witht he prostitutes, other imigrants, and very bad people.
Which was all a step up form my parents, who grew up not knowing a full belly 90% of the time. They survived as the children of rich merchants during the red revolution. they experienced bullying and persecution that few north americans can appriciate short of blacks form the 60's/50's and immigrants.
My dad lived in a hovel for most of his life. seeing his father for 10 min when he was 13. My mum worked hard at school. then had to work hard at a farm to get money to buy school supplies and her own clothing since my grand parents had no money to get those for her (family of 12, my mom was 5th oldest).
For them, currently working 12h a day 7 days a week 365 days a year and making less then 36k together (less now, my mom lost her job) is a step up. BEcause we now live in a 250k house, have 3 cars and 3 TV's. We can do it because we can budget well and little frills like "vacation" and time off aren't on their minds.
We buy generic. I wear 20 panst and 20 dollar dress shirts. They forgo a lot of thigns. But they put 2 kids so far through univsersity and made a good life for us. It's doable. they worked 5 years as dish washers and then another 15 as a cook and a seemstress in a factory. For them it's whats they had to do. they still wear cloths they bought in china 20 years ago. I might groan when they go out but I have nothign but the deepest respect for what they did with their lives.
Now compare that to the decisions the poor make, and you'll know why they stay poor. IT's not just circumstances but also the lack of any type of critical thinking skills and other life skills that make them poor. You can start with nothing, and live in garbage and have a horribel min. wage job and still put 3 kids into college and get out of the slums. Thats the great thing about the US and Canada. All you need not to be trash is the will to work you ass off.
I'm sorry if I come accross as sayign PC are better. What I mean is don't write it off. MAc's are no more "work" machines then a PC is so his argument about them on that quality is what I objected to. PC does some work. Macs do others. You don't do print design on a Unix box. You don't do Phone relay control on a Mac. the tools aren't there.
MACs are great machines. On the rare occasions I do photo work or video work I wish I had one. but thats rare. I mostly code for the web so I'm fairly agnostic on wether I do it on a linux box or on a Wintel box. however I don't do it on a Mac because of the reason why I wish I had a Mac for Print work. Wintel does a different color system then MAc.
Long ago, an early Mac ad compared itself to the IBM PC by dropping the corresponding manuals next to each machine. The Mac manual was light as a feather, the PC manual pile was 2 feet high. It was of course an exaggeration, but the point was valid.
Wouldn't that be more of inadaquete documentation then ease of use.
For the same 10.5 h bill she can buy a Pc with xp. and XP can be made to look and behave liek win 98 with little trouble. As a good tech I'd also help her patch and add a firewall for about 3h worht of work on top. Total bill.
$399 cnd comp (no monitor)
$100 cnd XP (OEM fromt he shop)
$130 cnd (work)
__________
$629 cnd
New stable comp, with fw, spybot/ad aware and a much better experience.
4. What? Of course they are. Saying "UNIX is for X" and "Mac isn't for X" is, in fact, mutually exclusive since Mac IS UNIX.
This sentence doesn't make any sense. Is english is your second langauge?
Consider my post in the context of discussing gaming machines. No one buys a Mac as a gaming machine.
very true. and only a small portion of the computer using populace buy a PC as a gaming platform. Most people buy it for other reasons. The fact that Dell sells most of it's PC's Without a decent card tells that PC's generally aren't gaming machines.
1. Mac aren't for most work.
2. Unix is for some other work
3. Mac != OSX all the time. although thats a technicality.
3. 2 and 1 is not mutually exclusive.
How many programers do you know. how many use OSX. I know 20 odd programmers. 0 of them use OSX. I'm sure it's non zero percentage of the over all pop. but I doubt it's significant. His point was Macs are for work PC's are not. Well, no PC's are for most work. Mac is for some specific work. And often, it's used for other thigns too because there is a population of mac users who do nothing but browse the net and play break out on a mac. This pop. just doesn't want to relearn stuff for a PC. I know about 4 teachers who are this way.
Macs are for people who work and might occasionally play a game. PCs are for gamers. No one is gonna argue that point. But there really aren't that many hard-core gamers, and there are a hell of a lot of people who need to get work done.
Err. PC's represent 99% of most offices. I work as a web dev on a PC. I garentee at least 95% of all web devs use a PC. Pc's include linux boxes so most of the net, most programmers, and most people who work with a Comp. use a PC. Mac is used for some very specific very niche applpications. Macs are for print work, because additive color looks off. Macs are for video editing because a lot of film edtors use macs and there is some very mature tools for it on the Mac. Macs aren't for work. Unix is for work. Macs are for certain types of graphic artists and vedeo editing.
err. For the same "price" and nto the same "hardware" you can get a PC that does more then just a "few" frames more. For the price of a g5 and a radeon 9600 xt in it you can get 3 P4 3.0 gzh HT with a radeon 9600 xt. or a system with a dual p4 design and a 9800 pro and have some spare change.
This is part of the reason I still awestruck by those who are willing to take this extreme risk.
Let's see, there have been 3 major accidents with the US space program for 45 years. Lets say those 15 or so people represent 5% of all space travelers. Thats a 5% mortality rate. no big deal. Rig workers have a higher fatality. So you can be awe struck at how rig workers risk their lives.... It's sorta silly. you shoudl expect deaths when you deal with the amoutn of exstremes that space travel entail. The juvinile "American Public" can't cope with a few peopel dying and thats the bigger tragedy. It limits yrou ability to explore and advance, it's the current american generations (baby boomers and down) inability to stomach death of any kind that makes you 1) pansies in war 2) over reacting drama queens 3) soon to be #2 to some other super power (Russia/china/india (3rd world yes but sigificant technological growth is occuring and American are generally payign for it)).
Perhaps your sysadmin skills are lacking. I've never had an issue with using 'emerge --pretend -uD world' to see what will be changed, looking at the release notes for the new versions, and emerging the things I should upgrade. Not only that, but I imagine you're one of those people who like to auto-merge the /etc files. If you make any config changes, that's a big no-no..
I'm a novice linux/unix user. it takes me 2 hours to install emacs. 3 if the box lacks gcc. Most of this is due to having to read docs, tryign to compile, reading more docs and tryign again. The problem is, being a linux admin is not my job so why should I have to go through that to install a friggin text editor ( and I will not use hand crippling VI). Sys admin skills are uniform either and you know nothing about his problems. Refering the the release note only help if you have experience with them. If you don't it's like reading up on how to do brain surgery in hebrew upside down while operating on yourself.
Age of Microsoft: 29 years
7 years as a percentage of Microsoft's age: 24%
Age of Linux: 13 years
7 years as a percentage of Linux's age: 54%
Age of Unix: 34 years (officially)
7 years as a percentage of Unix's Age: 21%
relevance: 0
XP is not NT or 95/98 or DOS. Linux is Linux. If yrou gonna put out a pithy graph then put this one out:
Age of Linux: 13 years
7 years as a percentage of Linux's age: 54%
Age of Windows XP: 3 years
7 years as a percentage of Windows XP's age: 233%
and you'd have a much more relavant table.