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Mapple
I have the unfortunate tendency to get myself personally involved in debates that actually don’t concern me much. In this case I’m referring to the age old and oft-fought Mac vs. PC. For me personally it started two years ago when I was in the market for a new laptop; it was going to be the single most expensive item I’d bought myself outside of a car, so naturally I did some pretty extensive comparison shopping and researching of specs. Now, needless to say this was just after windows Vista had been released, so pretty much every forum I visited was ablaze with fanboys and self-proclaimed technical gurus from both camps tauting the superiority of one or the other. I was amazed a the sheer vehemence and indignation; it was like somebody had kicked these people’s puppies while simultaneously stabbing their mothers with tuning forks.
Now with the beta release of Windows 7 and a pushed forward timetable to market, I’m seeing the same strife, and once again the self-righteous and ragers are girding their loins for battle. It got me thinking though, in this whole debate that’s not really what’s going on. Mac describes both a specific hardware and OS, while PC is really just a catchall term referencing a computer of any flavor whose size and sale price make it useful for individuals. In point of fact the original IBM PC was actually predated by the Apple I, so it could be argued that Apple WAS the original PC. And it’s not often you hear a straight debate between OSX and a Windows version in a closed environment, it’s always tempered by variations in hardware and marketing. That’s the real difference. Any discussion of Apple vs. Microsoft is pretty much cantaloupe vs. grapefruit. Microsoft makes software. That’s their thing. Then they license it out to whoever wants to put it on whatever kind of hardware, and hoover up the fees while hardware vendors compete over pricing. They’re not in the business of making something tangible. Apple is a computer manufacturer. That’s their calling. True, they write brilliant software (like OSX), but they do that to sell more hardware. They’re not licensing the iphone’s OS, they’re selling the damn handset. And they can charge as much as they do because they make sure that their code will only work on their hardware.
The fact of the matter is that both business models have a well earned placed in the gadget ecology. MS’s is designed for scalability, ubiquity, and market penetration. Apple’s is designed for per unit profit maximization and a narrow but deep slice of the pie.
As it happened I ended up getting a mid-range laptop running Vista, because I really couldn’t justify the price of a Mac. Just like I wouldn’t buy a new game console for the sole purpose of playing one game (no matter how awesome). And to be honest I haven’t had a lick of trouble with it. Well, excepting IE 7 (Goddamn you Bill Gates!).
A computer, like so much else in our lives, is a means not an end. A tool to be used however one may need, and no amount or marketing or branding will ever really change that.
Now stop stabbing my mother with that tuning fork!
Trolling and fanboyism can be found here, here , and pretty much everywhere else you might care to look.
ni·hil·ism
It has recently come to our attention that we have been perceived to be to nihilistic. During a discussion at our last board meeting we have unanimously decided to embrace this stereotype. We stare this ugly world into the face and call it beautiful. In order to combat the ambiguous definition of nihilism we thought some clarification was in order.
ni·hil·ism
- Philosophy
- An extreme form of skepticism that denies all existence.
- A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.
- Rejection of all distinctions in moral or religious value and a willingness to repudiate all previous theories of morality or religious belief.
- The belief that destruction of existing political or social institutions is necessary for future improvement.
- also Nihilism A diffuse, revolutionary movement of mid 19th-century Russia that scorned authority and tradition and believed in reason, materialism, and radical change in society and government through terrorism and assassination.
- Psychiatry A delusion, experienced in some mental disorders, that the world or one’s mind, body, or self does not exist.
On a lighter note…
And thank you XKCD!
Happy New Year!
Because Carbon Neutral is good!
I find that when I am popping along the interwebs I come across some of the funniest things, sometimes they can even qualify as brilliant. It could also depend on my mood at the time. This morning I was researching the Mayan calendar and the prophecies of 2012 and took a slight detour over to youtube for some entertainment.
I came across this great video that just had me giggling and smiling like a Japanese school girl with a machine gun as an arm, who has just taken revenge, heh. So, as I am curled up under the blankets of my warm and toasty bed and watching my laptop battery slowly drain it’s life away for me…I bring to you: the irony that which is our world…
courtesy of: http://www.youtube.com/user/iowahawk
