"Speeding and running reds rarely gets you there faster."
So your contention is that two objects travelling the same route, one going faster than the other, are likely to arrive at their destination at the same time?
I understand that you are probably referring to the effect of red lights stopping all vehicles regularly and allowing the slower car to catch up, but they also have a corresponding inverse effect - if the faster car goes through a few seconds before a red light and the slower car has to stop, the faster car gets a huge boost as it now has up to 30 seconds or so where it is still moving but the other vehicle is stopped.
I used to think that speeding wouldn't really help, but testing around my city to and from numerous destinations (admittedly without very good light synchronisation) has convinced me that speeding does pay. At the very least, you end up no worse off than a slower driver, except maybe in terms of stress levels and speeding fines... and the fact that noone wants to ride with you... and engine wear... and the chances of having an accident.
But apart from those minor drawbacks, consistently driving 5-10 km/h above the limit certainly can get you to a destination quicker in my opinion.
Nonetheless, planning a decent route is definitely the most effective way to go, I totally agree. Minimising turns across traffic and lighted intersections and maximising give ways, roundabouts and turns away from traffic can all make a huge difference.
"20-30 cents a track would put apple right out of business."
You don't know that. Neither does Apple, unless 20-30c is lower than the actual unit cost to them of selling a track, which I strongly doubt.
If they lowered it to 25c a track they might find they have 50 million users downloading 10 tracks a week. Even if their profit was only 1c a track they could make $5 million a week.
Obviously I just made those numbers up, but I don't believe that it is necessarily unprofitable to lower prices because of the nature of the demand for on-line music. My point with saying they were competing with free was meant to be that the closer you get to free the more of the millions of Kazaa users are going to be willing to pay for the service.
And they DO have to compete with Kazaa, even if it's illegal. Illegal does not mean 'not real.'
Good point - I guess I was looking at it from the perspective of someone who would never dream of buying a single. Most of the music I listen to would be worthless to me as a bunch of single tracks.
Maybe they just need to add better discounting for albums or larger volume purchases. I mean, $4-8 for an album is much more reasonable than $10-$20 depending on the number of tracks.
Second, they are competing with free. Just because it's illegal doesn't mean people don't do it.
Third, I do run a business, pal. But don't let that worry you. I'm sure it's obvious to a business savant like yourself that the *only* effective price level for selling music on-line is in the well known '99 cents or above' category.
1/ Does anyone know if iTunes communicates information about your music collection to Apple or anyone else (e.g. the RIAA)?
2/ When you buy a song can you download it again the future if it gets deleted somehow? Can you download it in multiple formats?
3/ How does the ripping quality compare to CDEx and co?
4/ Do you have to install Quicktime (personally I hate QT because it doesn't behave like a windows app and it comandeers my web browsers and file formats, stupid POS)?
5/ What's the deal with AAC on Windows?
6/ Do you have to wear a black turtleneck and jeans to make it work correctly?
Hey, those 'applications' don't even behave correctly on a Windows machine:(
I think anyone who is actually keen on the Windows system as a serious environment will have replaced iExplorer with Mozilla and replaced Media Player with Winamp 2.7x in about 2 seconds flat.
Instead, why don't we (a) blame Apple for making an app that behaves like a Mac app even though it's NOT RUNNING ON A MAC and (b) blame Apple some more for needlessly screwing around with directory structures etc. when this is totally pointless. If you are all correct in claiming that iTunes will abstract over the actual file organisation then what is the point of this, anyway?
I hate to say it but it is very rare that a Windows program will make changes outside of the directory where it is installed, temporary storage and the system registry without asking for express permission, usually for every file it plans to mess with. But I'm sure the Apple way is better... I better learn to think different... different... different... Steve is my lord and master... different... I have no ability to question the judgement of the almighty Steve... different... different...
"Stop being such a control freak and you'll learn much more about good software"
Ahem... 'good software' wouldn't make major (unneccesary) changes to a file system as a default option IMHO. And if it were about to do so on an OS where such behaviour is quite out of the ordinary, it would need to go to extraordinary lengths to make it clear to users that this is what is about to happen. I think it would be a characteristic of 'good software' that the bigger the amount of fcuking around with a system you are about to do, the louder you ask for permission to do so.
I'm just glad I became aware of this now, before I installed this software and let it eat my MP3s.
Actually there are a whole bunch of programs that will do this on Windows. And yes, there are a lot of Windows apps that you can't get on Mac, so cram it with walnuts, ugly.
I think the original poster had a valid point anyway - as a long time Windows user I also would be might pissed off to have some upstart program frigging around with my carefully organised file system.
I'm not going to pay 99c per track for no album art and no physical disc. Plus let's not forget that the distribution cost to Apple is relatively miniscule compared to the cost of shipping a bunch of physical objects around the world. Nonetheless, for a reasonable length CD - 10-12 tracks - this doesn't really work out any cheaper.
I think something in the order of 20-30c a track would be reasonable. Let's also remember they're trying to compete with free.
And it lets us windows lusers 'bounce between applications' just as readily as any Mac user.
Frankly I prefer a GUI that let's ME decide if I want an app to fill the whole screen or not. If I want things to be tiled or cascading or whatever then *I* can make that choice. Think different, yall.
I also kinda feel Apple should conform to the Windows standard if they want to release Windows programs. Everyone else does, it's not about conforming to the Evil Empire's laws, it's about usability. Why do I need 99 applications that behave one way and 1 that does it's own thing simply because people on another system with a different version of the program like it to be different.
Let's put it this way - would you like it if someone released a major app for OS X that was forcibly skinned to look like Windows 2000 and only allowed Windows-style document handling? Or would you choke on your lattes with rage and indignation?
...there is no stopping them. The Taikonauts will soon be here.
And I for one welcome our new Chinese overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground rice caves.
Well, I was actually referring to ordinary desktops and laptops. Apple have not offered anything even vaguely competitive for years on that front. For instance, I can either get an 800MHz iBook or a 2GHz IBM laptop. I can either get a 1GHz iMac with a GeForce4 MX and 256 MB of RAM or a 3GHz+ Intel with 512 Megs of RAM and still have change to by a GeForce FX or a Radeon 9800.
So, IMHO, if I bought an Apple I would be paying for little more than image and I would be getting about half as much actual system for my dollar. As a serious computer user I care way more about what's under the hood than image, plus if I bought a Mac I wouldn't have enough money left to buy a black turtleneck and a beret anyway so it would be pointless.
As for the price comparison, in $A since I'm not in the States I have found after a quick scan around:
- dual opteron motherboard: $1100 - opteron 242: $930 (x2) - RAM: $300 - Case and PSU: $350 - 120 GB SATA HDD: $250 (x2 for RAID) - Radeon 9600: $500 (same as for G5)
So... that all adds up to about A$4500. The G5, meanwhile, comes to A$5,600. Even if we factor in a bit of extra cash to buy Opteron 244s (or alternatively we could wait a month or two and the price will start plummeting like it always does for PC processors) the Opteron system is looking pretty reasonable. But anyway...
I assure you my PC is made from only the finest parts. ASUS motherboard, ATi manufactured video card, Corsair RAM, Western Digital hard drives, Sony disc drives and a diamond encrusted keyboard coated with mink fur and hand carved elephant tusks.
I am *so sick* of the myth propagated by Mac users that PC parts are low quality. They aren't, and if they break you can get them replaced. I have three newish PCs and none of them has had a significant hardware failure at any stage. I went in to an Apple store to buy an iPod for PC the other day and the Applebot there warned me ominously that PC firewire cards were 'generally pretty low quality.' I asked him what he based this on and what brands were meant to be problematic and he had no idea whatsoever - but at least he was happy in his little world o' assumptions.
Anyway, enjoy paying large sums for the peace of mind of knowing that you have been told by the company that makes your product that it is good quality!
I wonder if anyone's done a serious test to see, for example, what is the best number crunching performance you can get for $6000. I guess the intricacies of setting up a distributed system would be rather prohibitive. It would also be cool to see how different types of application would go - even though overall the memory would be slower on the P3s there would be a heck of a lot of cache if you add it all together, which counts for something.
Blades would be nice... plus your geek-cool would be through the roof with those things. Nice to see IBM still making serious computers IMHO, evil super-corporation or not.
Just making the point that if Microsoft launched a similar service people would howl with derision and claim that it was all a plot to get hold of your personal data, lock you into yearly contracts etc. etc. etc.
Whereas when Apple does it it's a lifestyle thing...
Interesting comparison. What networking infrastructure is there between the intel hardware? And how is the work distributed? I've done a fair bit of distributed/parallel computing and the differences you can get out of a set of hardware by changing the structure is unbelievable. Likewise, what is the memory speed, bus speed and hard disk speed in the P3 set up? IO costs alone on that number of machines might cause them to get slaughtered.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but it is possible that a bunch of dirt cheap AMD's with Gigabit LAN, fast HDDs and high-speed memory subsystems would do a *lot* better.
Plus let us not forget the principle that having a whole pile of really big computers is obviously way cooler in terms of geek chic than having some fancy pants little silver box on your desk:)
Of course, everything you say is pure speculation and Apple could do quite the opposite.
They could not realistically hope to do anything worthwhile in the x86 market without giving people who *already own computers* the chance to 'switch.' If they somehow linked it to proprietary hardware they would just get the same customers they already have taking advantage of the cheaper systems - and they ain't making a lot of money right now. The other market segment they might get with this kind of move would be Linux users who want Darwin - again, not exactly making inroads into mainstream desktop computing. Ergo, Apple will probably NOT do what you suggest.
What I want to know is: is Apple ready for the kind of hardcore piracy that x86 software developers have become used to battling? I predict that the day an OSX port hits the market it would become one of the most pirated pieces of software in history.
Furthermore, is Apple ready for a more anonymous, amorphous, cantakerous group of users than it has ever experienced? Whereas us Windows users rebel violently against Microsoft's every attempt to integrate its software with on-line services of various kinds, as far as I can tell Apple fanboys and fangirls are frantically lining up for.mac and iCal en masse.
You know, you can buy a supercomputer that's even faster than a G5, and even more expensive too!
Until Apple can release decent spec machines at vaguely realistic prices there is no merit whatsoever in the claim that "Apple has surpassed WinTel". At the moment here in Australia I could buy 4 or 5 very quick AMD based boxes for the price of one shiny metal G5, and I am guessing the situation is the same in the US.
I am no Intel/Windows apologist - I have been itching to buy an Apple for a couple of years now. Sadly, there's just no way I can justify springing A$3000 for the equivalent of an A$1500 PC.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is - even if the current Apple lineup is 'faster' (whatever that means) that the Intel crop, (a) it won't last longer than 6 months tops before Intel and AMD have shot past again and (b) I'm sure if Intel and AMD produced hardware aimed at the same prince-point as Apple it would be twice as quick. Fortunately for their stockholders they prefer to aim at the price-point that people are actually going to buy products at.
civilisation syndicate transport tycoon UFO: enemy unknown/XCOM civilisation II syndicate wars railroad tycoon microprose grand prix 2 quake quake 3 unreal tournament command and conquer: red alert total annihilation red alert 2 (Many PC gamers cite this as the best real time strategy game ever) deus ex civilisation III sam and max hit the road indiana jones and the fate of atlantis rainbow six and r6:rogue spear x-wing system shock
And that's just off the top of my head. To put that in perspective, I own a gamecube and I really like Pikmin and Monkey Ball because they have that hard-to-define playability that is missing from sooo many games. I have also played through Halo on an X-Box (unimpressed), played Tony Hawk 2 and GTA 3 on a PS2 extensively (very unimpressed), and I own a game boy and an Nintendo 64. Of the many, many console games I have played I would say probably only Goldeneye on N64 really makes it into any top ten I would compile, and of course Tetris on whatever platform so long as it's a good version.
The point I am trying to make is: I'm not a PC games fanboy. I own consoles, I play console games, and I still think that the best that a Gamecube, PS2 or XBox has to offer is still far inferior to a game like Deus Ex or Civilisation III on PC. I have watched with bemusement the orgasmic praise that console gamers have heaped on Halo - which to me is like a relatively mediocre PC shooter - and Metroid Prime which, while very cool, only has the complexity of an early PC RPG hybrid like System Shock.
As for a system built from the ground up for gaming, you will no doubt have noticed that a Gamecube is basically an IBM CPU with an ATi graphics card in a little box, while an X-Box is an Intel Celeron (worst gaming CPU ever) with a custom nVidia chipset (I think). In other words, consoles are increasingly mimicking PCs when it comes to hardware. Meanwhile I am running a fairly mediocre games PC with a decent ATi Radeon and a 2 GHz AMD processor and it totally and utterly wallops the cube or x-box for graphics quality and resolution.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, and it greatly disturbs me that I am somehow becoming part of the class of people who think the world stopped when they turned 18, as it were. One thing that really strikes me about both the lists you presented is that the vast bulk of the games there are from 2002/2003. This seems to imply that graphics is what it's all about, when I would argue that in fact cool graphics is slowly killing games as there are far too many pretty but poorly designed console games flooding the market.
Anyway, I am confident that if you get yourself a copy of pretty much any of the games that I listed above you will not be disappointed. If you can get a copy of Deus Ex and a reasonably recent (i.e. post 1999) PC to play it on then the experience will say a lot more than I can about why PC games deserve serious respect.
Hmm... sorry about the rant. I'm supposed to be writing about Corporate Law reform, but writing about games is so much more interesting!
I can't believe the moderation in this thread by 'patriot' idiots seeking to enforce a pro-USA-at-all-costs agenda. Americans need to learn that they should never take the attitude that the President is exempt from criticism. Just because someone criticises Bush doesn't mean they are attacking the US, or the American way or life, or whatever else you would like to think they are attacking. In fact criticising Bush is itself quite a patriotic act, especially with you fools baying like a pack of blood hounds when you get the scent of a dissenter in your midst.
People with interesting views have been shouted down here and treated as irrelevant because those views are anti-Bush. Personally I think this is like torturing someone for saying that the Earth goes around the Sun and not the other way round, but hey...
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"Speeding and running reds rarely gets you there faster."
So your contention is that two objects travelling the same route, one going faster than the other, are likely to arrive at their destination at the same time?
I understand that you are probably referring to the effect of red lights stopping all vehicles regularly and allowing the slower car to catch up, but they also have a corresponding inverse effect - if the faster car goes through a few seconds before a red light and the slower car has to stop, the faster car gets a huge boost as it now has up to 30 seconds or so where it is still moving but the other vehicle is stopped.
I used to think that speeding wouldn't really help, but testing around my city to and from numerous destinations (admittedly without very good light synchronisation) has convinced me that speeding does pay. At the very least, you end up no worse off than a slower driver, except maybe in terms of stress levels and speeding fines... and the fact that noone wants to ride with you... and engine wear... and the chances of having an accident.
But apart from those minor drawbacks, consistently driving 5-10 km/h above the limit certainly can get you to a destination quicker in my opinion.
Nonetheless, planning a decent route is definitely the most effective way to go, I totally agree. Minimising turns across traffic and lighted intersections and maximising give ways, roundabouts and turns away from traffic can all make a huge difference.
"20-30 cents a track would put apple right out of business."
You don't know that. Neither does Apple, unless 20-30c is lower than the actual unit cost to them of selling a track, which I strongly doubt.
If they lowered it to 25c a track they might find they have 50 million users downloading 10 tracks a week. Even if their profit was only 1c a track they could make $5 million a week.
Obviously I just made those numbers up, but I don't believe that it is necessarily unprofitable to lower prices because of the nature of the demand for on-line music. My point with saying they were competing with free was meant to be that the closer you get to free the more of the millions of Kazaa users are going to be willing to pay for the service.
And they DO have to compete with Kazaa, even if it's illegal. Illegal does not mean 'not real.'
"A copy of coffee in New York costs me 1.10"
Using the cost of living in NY as the basis of a realistic discussion about pricing is not a good start IMHO.
"So how much does a track cost you, when you buy a whole CD for only the couple of tracks you really want?"
Well, I would say you should be looking for better music if you have this problem.
Good point - I guess I was looking at it from the perspective of someone who would never dream of buying a single. Most of the music I listen to would be worthless to me as a bunch of single tracks.
Maybe they just need to add better discounting for albums or larger volume purchases. I mean, $4-8 for an album is much more reasonable than $10-$20 depending on the number of tracks.
First, let's remember you're a big jerk.
Second, they are competing with free. Just because it's illegal doesn't mean people don't do it.
Third, I do run a business, pal. But don't let that worry you. I'm sure it's obvious to a business savant like yourself that the *only* effective price level for selling music on-line is in the well known '99 cents or above' category.
They have made a remarkable number of sales, but as I understand it the numbers are falling quite alarmingly.
We'll see how iTunes is faring in 12 months, I think that will give a fairer picture of whether they have a good model in place.
1/ Does anyone know if iTunes communicates information about your music collection to Apple or anyone else (e.g. the RIAA)?
2/ When you buy a song can you download it again the future if it gets deleted somehow? Can you download it in multiple formats?
3/ How does the ripping quality compare to CDEx and co?
4/ Do you have to install Quicktime (personally I hate QT because it doesn't behave like a windows app and it comandeers my web browsers and file formats, stupid POS)?
5/ What's the deal with AAC on Windows?
6/ Do you have to wear a black turtleneck and jeans to make it work correctly?
Hey, those 'applications' don't even behave correctly on a Windows machine :(
I think anyone who is actually keen on the Windows system as a serious environment will have replaced iExplorer with Mozilla and replaced Media Player with Winamp 2.7x in about 2 seconds flat.
Instead, why don't we (a) blame Apple for making an app that behaves like a Mac app even though it's NOT RUNNING ON A MAC and (b) blame Apple some more for needlessly screwing around with directory structures etc. when this is totally pointless. If you are all correct in claiming that iTunes will abstract over the actual file organisation then what is the point of this, anyway?
I hate to say it but it is very rare that a Windows program will make changes outside of the directory where it is installed, temporary storage and the system registry without asking for express permission, usually for every file it plans to mess with. But I'm sure the Apple way is better... I better learn to think different... different... different... Steve is my lord and master... different... I have no ability to question the judgement of the almighty Steve... different... different...
"Stop being such a control freak and you'll learn much more about good software"
Ahem... 'good software' wouldn't make major (unneccesary) changes to a file system as a default option IMHO. And if it were about to do so on an OS where such behaviour is quite out of the ordinary, it would need to go to extraordinary lengths to make it clear to users that this is what is about to happen. I think it would be a characteristic of 'good software' that the bigger the amount of fcuking around with a system you are about to do, the louder you ask for permission to do so.
I'm just glad I became aware of this now, before I installed this software and let it eat my MP3s.
Actually there are a whole bunch of programs that will do this on Windows. And yes, there are a lot of Windows apps that you can't get on Mac, so cram it with walnuts, ugly.
I think the original poster had a valid point anyway - as a long time Windows user I also would be might pissed off to have some upstart program frigging around with my carefully organised file system.
I'm not going to pay 99c per track for no album art and no physical disc. Plus let's not forget that the distribution cost to Apple is relatively miniscule compared to the cost of shipping a bunch of physical objects around the world. Nonetheless, for a reasonable length CD - 10-12 tracks - this doesn't really work out any cheaper.
I think something in the order of 20-30c a track would be reasonable. Let's also remember they're trying to compete with free.
And it lets us windows lusers 'bounce between applications' just as readily as any Mac user.
Frankly I prefer a GUI that let's ME decide if I want an app to fill the whole screen or not. If I want things to be tiled or cascading or whatever then *I* can make that choice. Think different, yall.
I also kinda feel Apple should conform to the Windows standard if they want to release Windows programs. Everyone else does, it's not about conforming to the Evil Empire's laws, it's about usability. Why do I need 99 applications that behave one way and 1 that does it's own thing simply because people on another system with a different version of the program like it to be different.
Let's put it this way - would you like it if someone released a major app for OS X that was forcibly skinned to look like Windows 2000 and only allowed Windows-style document handling? Or would you choke on your lattes with rage and indignation?
...there is no stopping them. The Taikonauts will soon be here.
And I for one welcome our new Chinese overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground rice caves.
Well, I was actually referring to ordinary desktops and laptops. Apple have not offered anything even vaguely competitive for years on that front. For instance, I can either get an 800MHz iBook or a 2GHz IBM laptop. I can either get a 1GHz iMac with a GeForce4 MX and 256 MB of RAM or a 3GHz+ Intel with 512 Megs of RAM and still have change to by a GeForce FX or a Radeon 9800.
So, IMHO, if I bought an Apple I would be paying for little more than image and I would be getting about half as much actual system for my dollar. As a serious computer user I care way more about what's under the hood than image, plus if I bought a Mac I wouldn't have enough money left to buy a black turtleneck and a beret anyway so it would be pointless.
As for the price comparison, in $A since I'm not in the States I have found after a quick scan around:
- dual opteron motherboard: $1100
- opteron 242: $930 (x2)
- RAM: $300
- Case and PSU: $350
- 120 GB SATA HDD: $250 (x2 for RAID)
- Radeon 9600: $500 (same as for G5)
So... that all adds up to about A$4500. The G5, meanwhile, comes to A$5,600. Even if we factor in a bit of extra cash to buy Opteron 244s (or alternatively we could wait a month or two and the price will start plummeting like it always does for PC processors) the Opteron system is looking pretty reasonable. But anyway...
You sir, are a sucker.
I assure you my PC is made from only the finest parts. ASUS motherboard, ATi manufactured video card, Corsair RAM, Western Digital hard drives, Sony disc drives and a diamond encrusted keyboard coated with mink fur and hand carved elephant tusks.
I am *so sick* of the myth propagated by Mac users that PC parts are low quality. They aren't, and if they break you can get them replaced. I have three newish PCs and none of them has had a significant hardware failure at any stage. I went in to an Apple store to buy an iPod for PC the other day and the Applebot there warned me ominously that PC firewire cards were 'generally pretty low quality.' I asked him what he based this on and what brands were meant to be problematic and he had no idea whatsoever - but at least he was happy in his little world o' assumptions.
Anyway, enjoy paying large sums for the peace of mind of knowing that you have been told by the company that makes your product that it is good quality!
I agree, it is impressive.
I wonder if anyone's done a serious test to see, for example, what is the best number crunching performance you can get for $6000. I guess the intricacies of setting up a distributed system would be rather prohibitive. It would also be cool to see how different types of application would go - even though overall the memory would be slower on the P3s there would be a heck of a lot of cache if you add it all together, which counts for something.
Blades would be nice... plus your geek-cool would be through the roof with those things. Nice to see IBM still making serious computers IMHO, evil super-corporation or not.
Just making the point that if Microsoft launched a similar service people would howl with derision and claim that it was all a plot to get hold of your personal data, lock you into yearly contracts etc. etc. etc.
Whereas when Apple does it it's a lifestyle thing...
Interesting comparison. What networking infrastructure is there between the intel hardware? And how is the work distributed? I've done a fair bit of distributed/parallel computing and the differences you can get out of a set of hardware by changing the structure is unbelievable. Likewise, what is the memory speed, bus speed and hard disk speed in the P3 set up? IO costs alone on that number of machines might cause them to get slaughtered.
:)
I'm not saying you're wrong, but it is possible that a bunch of dirt cheap AMD's with Gigabit LAN, fast HDDs and high-speed memory subsystems would do a *lot* better.
Plus let us not forget the principle that having a whole pile of really big computers is obviously way cooler in terms of geek chic than having some fancy pants little silver box on your desk
"They could do this by requiring the licensees to only produce machines that ran at 1/2 the speed of current machines."
You mean iMacs?
Of course, everything you say is pure speculation and Apple could do quite the opposite.
.mac and iCal en masse.
They could not realistically hope to do anything worthwhile in the x86 market without giving people who *already own computers* the chance to 'switch.' If they somehow linked it to proprietary hardware they would just get the same customers they already have taking advantage of the cheaper systems - and they ain't making a lot of money right now. The other market segment they might get with this kind of move would be Linux users who want Darwin - again, not exactly making inroads into mainstream desktop computing. Ergo, Apple will probably NOT do what you suggest.
What I want to know is: is Apple ready for the kind of hardcore piracy that x86 software developers have become used to battling? I predict that the day an OSX port hits the market it would become one of the most pirated pieces of software in history.
Furthermore, is Apple ready for a more anonymous, amorphous, cantakerous group of users than it has ever experienced? Whereas us Windows users rebel violently against Microsoft's every attempt to integrate its software with on-line services of various kinds, as far as I can tell Apple fanboys and fangirls are frantically lining up for
Well, time will tell.
You know, you can buy a supercomputer that's even faster than a G5, and even more expensive too!
Until Apple can release decent spec machines at vaguely realistic prices there is no merit whatsoever in the claim that "Apple has surpassed WinTel". At the moment here in Australia I could buy 4 or 5 very quick AMD based boxes for the price of one shiny metal G5, and I am guessing the situation is the same in the US.
I am no Intel/Windows apologist - I have been itching to buy an Apple for a couple of years now. Sadly, there's just no way I can justify springing A$3000 for the equivalent of an A$1500 PC.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is - even if the current Apple lineup is 'faster' (whatever that means) that the Intel crop, (a) it won't last longer than 6 months tops before Intel and AMD have shot past again and (b) I'm sure if Intel and AMD produced hardware aimed at the same prince-point as Apple it would be twice as quick. Fortunately for their stockholders they prefer to aim at the price-point that people are actually going to buy products at.
Sure, I agree posts on both sides should be higher if they have validity. There are numerous posts that are sitting at 0, however.
We-ell, let's see...
civilisation
syndicate
transport tycoon
UFO: enemy unknown/XCOM
civilisation II
syndicate wars
railroad tycoon
microprose grand prix 2
quake
quake 3
unreal tournament
command and conquer: red alert
total annihilation
red alert 2 (Many PC gamers cite this as the best real time strategy game ever)
deus ex
civilisation III
sam and max hit the road
indiana jones and the fate of atlantis
rainbow six and r6:rogue spear
x-wing
system shock
And that's just off the top of my head. To put that in perspective, I own a gamecube and I really like Pikmin and Monkey Ball because they have that hard-to-define playability that is missing from sooo many games. I have also played through Halo on an X-Box (unimpressed), played Tony Hawk 2 and GTA 3 on a PS2 extensively (very unimpressed), and I own a game boy and an Nintendo 64. Of the many, many console games I have played I would say probably only Goldeneye on N64 really makes it into any top ten I would compile, and of course Tetris on whatever platform so long as it's a good version.
The point I am trying to make is: I'm not a PC games fanboy. I own consoles, I play console games, and I still think that the best that a Gamecube, PS2 or XBox has to offer is still far inferior to a game like Deus Ex or Civilisation III on PC. I have watched with bemusement the orgasmic praise that console gamers have heaped on Halo - which to me is like a relatively mediocre PC shooter - and Metroid Prime which, while very cool, only has the complexity of an early PC RPG hybrid like System Shock.
As for a system built from the ground up for gaming, you will no doubt have noticed that a Gamecube is basically an IBM CPU with an ATi graphics card in a little box, while an X-Box is an Intel Celeron (worst gaming CPU ever) with a custom nVidia chipset (I think). In other words, consoles are increasingly mimicking PCs when it comes to hardware. Meanwhile I am running a fairly mediocre games PC with a decent ATi Radeon and a 2 GHz AMD processor and it totally and utterly wallops the cube or x-box for graphics quality and resolution.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, and it greatly disturbs me that I am somehow becoming part of the class of people who think the world stopped when they turned 18, as it were. One thing that really strikes me about both the lists you presented is that the vast bulk of the games there are from 2002/2003. This seems to imply that graphics is what it's all about, when I would argue that in fact cool graphics is slowly killing games as there are far too many pretty but poorly designed console games flooding the market.
Anyway, I am confident that if you get yourself a copy of pretty much any of the games that I listed above you will not be disappointed. If you can get a copy of Deus Ex and a reasonably recent (i.e. post 1999) PC to play it on then the experience will say a lot more than I can about why PC games deserve serious respect.
Hmm... sorry about the rant. I'm supposed to be writing about Corporate Law reform, but writing about games is so much more interesting!
I can't believe the moderation in this thread by 'patriot' idiots seeking to enforce a pro-USA-at-all-costs agenda. Americans need to learn that they should never take the attitude that the President is exempt from criticism. Just because someone criticises Bush doesn't mean they are attacking the US, or the American way or life, or whatever else you would like to think they are attacking. In fact criticising Bush is itself quite a patriotic act, especially with you fools baying like a pack of blood hounds when you get the scent of a dissenter in your midst.
People with interesting views have been shouted down here and treated as irrelevant because those views are anti-Bush. Personally I think this is like torturing someone for saying that the Earth goes around the Sun and not the other way round, but hey...