I miss Left 4 Dead.
I must say, the Mac Mini is a nice little machine. In the end, the thing that infuriates me most about Apple isn’t their hardware; their hardware is well put together.
It’s that they charge double the normal profit margins on their devices and then get people to buy into their “cult of personality” to justify paying that much.
And their “Mac vs. PC” commercials absolutely infuriate me because they use a debating tactic called “scripting your opposition”. What PC says in those commercials isn’t written by Microsoft or Dell or HP. It’s written by Apple.
The potential computer buyer says, “I want a computer that just works, without thousands of bugs and viruses and crashes.”
(Let’s not even mention that the biggest problems facing computer users today aren’t viruses or bugs, but browser-based phishing, malicious tracking cookies or snooping of private data, all of which a Mac is just as susceptible to as a PC.)
PC should then say “Microsoft operating systems have been inherently stable since Windows NT 4, and the most rudimentary virus/malware protection like AVG Free will ensure that you never have those problems.”
But no, he acts like an idiot and says “Every PC is going to have those problems.” Which is a bald-faced lie. Why? Because he’s scripted by Apple, the opposition.
(This was why I eventually gave up on the TV show The West Wing. Despite the likable characters, snappy dialog and interesting plots, in the end the show was written by Democrats. And the writers would always, always, always misrepresent non-Democrat views in order to easily dismiss them.)
So I hereby present the “Mac vs. PC” commercial I’d most like to see. I must admit I didn’t come up with this, I saw it in someone’s sig.
Mac: “Hi, I’m a Mac!”
PC: “And I’m a PC.”
Mac: “Hey, whatcha doin’ over there, PC?”
PC: “Playing a game.”
Mac: “Oh yeah? Which one?”
PC: “All of them.”
And then PC slugs Mac in the stomach.
I may have added that last part myself.
“And the writers would always, always, always misrepresent non-Democrat views in order to easily dismiss them.”
Wow, really? My absolute bar-none favorite character on that show was Ainslee Hayes. I thought she was stupendous.
Even though I didn’t always agree with her, which is kind of the point.
I’m pretty happy with my Macbook Pro. When I want to play L4D, I reboot it. I’d rather that Valve do a Steam client for Mac, but considering they’re joined at the hip to Microsoft I don’t see that happening.
But WoW works just fine. : )
I’m a competent computer operator, but I still don’t like how much time and effort it takes to troubleshoot Windows problems, and in my fifteen years of using Macs (whoa, that’s a scary number), they have been much less troublesome.
Your mileage may vary.
And, re: advertising, it’s all lies. That’s why they call it advertising.
That is what dual booting is for.
I can play everything on my apple in windows. In fact, my computer kicks Ryan’s thinkpad’s butt when it comes to games. They run far more smoothly and my computer does not get nearly as hot.
And actually, I feel that the hardware and OS are worth the price markup. Apples are just made a lot better than most PC computers and come with great service.
Every port on Ryan’s Dell broke within 2 years. The keyboard was floppy and hard to type on and we had to replace it because it stopped working. And it was always hard to get parts, because Dell contracted out many different manufacturers for things. The only PC that we have that stood Ryan’s abuse was the toughbook and that is advertised to take damage.
Plus, whenever I have had an adapter fray (that is what seems to die on our Apples), we can go to the mall and get a new one right away. I do not have to have any computer separation anxiety.
Apparently snow leopard drops rosetta (although it can be installed separately), so ppc macs are now pretty much history. Which means, if I ever want to do mac devel again, I’d have to buy a new toy. *sigh*
In all fairness, I haven’t ever owned a Mac (we did have an Apple IIgs when those were hot crap). I’ve always thought of Macs as being to computers what AOL was to Internet browsing. Expensive but easy peasy. Maybe the service really is worth the price, but I am reminded of a Mac-Ad spoof that Roosterteeth put out way back when. The Mac customer said something I found funny: “Another great thing about the Mac is upgrades. On a PC you have to open up your case, swap out your video card, change jumpers… On a Mac when its time to upgrade you just pick it up, throw it away, and go buy another one. Now THAT is convenience.”
The interesting thing about Mac commercials is they are comparing themselves with Windows. When you have to compare yourself with Microsoft in order to look good something is wrong, the obvious competitor to Mac is Ubuntu. Ubuntu ruuuuules!
Mac: “Hi, I’m Mac, and I have to compete against retards”
Pc: (*crash*), “explorer is retarded, I mean restarted!”
Mac: “See, I’m better than that peice of trash over there 🙂 !”
Linux: “You both peices of trash can shut yo holes over there…”
Linux: “I am the best and I don’t cost lots of money”
Seriously, I was previewing thumbnails in Explorer, now the thumbnails were already created and then suddenly for no reason they dissapeared and had to be recreated. And the bad thing is that the thumbnails wasn’t retrieved from meta data but by reading the whole image and then scaling. That’s just one of many retarded Microsoft moments, now I don’t hate Microsoft because everyone who played Warlords 1 should know that I loathe Microsoft. I will send my hero with the Staff of Ruling against them! No, seriously, the only reason I have a retarded Microsoft catastrophe computer is to play Doom 3! I have just arrived at the Delta Labs! “Marine you need to pick up some pace!” Ah, wacking a zoombie with a flash light is about the only productive work you can perform on a crap computer, that’s why I’m typing this in Mozilla Firefox on linux. IE is the worst web browser ever. And my language is Java, so it’s not exactly like it matters where I’m sitting. Well, gota get working!
Btw, I’m glad you started posting more often, nice staying up on what’s happening over there in Texas!
I’m going to have to agree with Lee about the West Wing’s portrayal of Republicans. Yes, Democrats wrote the show, but Republicans weren’t scripted to say things that were easy to dismiss by a long shot.
In fact, the final couple of seasons had Alan Alda portraying a Republican who had more integrity than most of the Democrats vying for the primaries.
One of my favorite jokes was when Donna was starting to date someone who turned out to be a Republican. She asked him why he was one, and he said, “Because I hate poor people. They’re just so…poor.” For the record, this was a tongue-in-cheek answer, and it was very clearly not meant to portray Republicans in a bad light.
As far as I know, a number of conservatives actually found the show admirable, even if it was left-leaning.
As for the “every PC is going to have these problems” line, I agree that Apple is scripting it and biasing the speech, but the argument that you can put a bandage (anti-virus) on a system that allows viruses in through cracks in the armor doesn’t inspire confidence. Why not just fix the armor?
Another absurd thing is how a Mac vs PC commercial was all about the cord popping out if you trip on it. WOW! I’m going out to buy a Mac laptop right now!
I’ve had a Dell desktop replacement for over three years, and it still works like a champ. I was sure that the cat hairs getting in would cause problems, but I hope when I finally do replace it that the next machine is also this reliable.
Oh, and no viruses. I use Ubuntu. B-)