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Cynic
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Post by Cynic » Wed Dec 10, 2008 12:02 am

> Crissa wrote:That you have some unstated difficulty with the ... Some unstated aspect of the Mac OS (unknown version) you used; the GUI by which Windows was based upon; and have no ability to point out a single flaw (which probably would be laughed at) that you had trouble with... yeah, okay.
> Comprendo.
> -Crissa

OS X is what i'm using currently.
And I had not gone into specifics because the situation had not warranted specifics. And now I must ask, seriously, what the fvck is your problem? All I did was state what my experience with the system was and why it had left me unsatisfied.
if you really want to convert me to the mac or change my opinion on the subject, I think Passive-aggressive ad hominem attacks aren't the best way to go. I did state in my original post that while I didn't lean towards any of the OS choices with untoward zeal, MAC was probably the tertiary of my choices.
I am tempted to put in a french ending to the post to go through the Romance languages but my french is rather rusty so we shall just let it be said while being unsaid.
~
Cynic.

> Ancient History wrote:We were working on Street Magic, and Frank asked me if a houngan had run over my dog.

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Crissa
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Post by Crissa » Wed Dec 10, 2008 12:06 am

OS X... Panther? Tiger? Leopard? Jaguar? Cheetah? Puma?
So, just posting that you hate an operating system because, "Mac just tries very hard to be counter-intuitive."
That's so totally helpful and adds alot to the conversation.
-Crissa
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cthulhu
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Post by cthulhu » Wed Dec 10, 2008 12:55 am

> Crissa wrote:
> No computer is uncrashable. But Macs are far more resilient. *shrug*
> -Crissa

This is partly because Mac's have a much tighter controller over the complete stack. Its much easier to full assure control when you can constrain actors end to end across the platform. Consider mainframes which are highly stable with much higher degrees of control.
It also drives up the capital cost. Macs are much more expensive, hence the popularity of hackintoshes.. which crash all the time.
Last edited by cthulhu on Wed Dec 10, 2008 12:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Crissa
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Post by Crissa » Wed Dec 10, 2008 1:18 am

Except, of course, given the same capital cost and user time, Macs aren't more expensive.
Ugh, I hate to have to fight that all the time. Of course, this being a recession year, this is the first year in which Mac retail prices have not dipped below PC retail prices for the same hardware in ten years.
And the software? Costs less, too. Look at the price tag on any version of Windows vs the price tag on Mac OS X.
Macs are only more crash resistant in the was Linux and Unix machines are more resilient...
-Crissa
Macs also have resale value from that hardware investment. Of course, how do you think it makes me feel I can get an AppleTV for less than the video card for a '99 Mac Cube?
Last edited by Crissa on Wed Dec 10, 2008 1:22 am, edited 3 times in total.
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cthulhu
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Post by cthulhu » Wed Dec 10, 2008 1:35 am

What do you mean, same prices.
http://store.apple.com/au/browse/home/s ... co=MTE4MTQ
Well, I brought a PC recently, specced for Vista.
Got much the same spec, but with
A) 4 gbs of ram
B) HD4870 instead of the shit apple is selling
C) a 30" monitor from dell
D) more hard drive space
E) Faster processor (3.2 Ghz quad core
And total shipped invoiced cost including setup, installation and a legit copy of vista...
2400, about a grand cheaper.
Epic fail.
Of course, I got that for gaming which the mac won;t even run unless I pay for an install a copy of windows, but purely on hardware for same price the Mac is shit.
If you want to talk about Enterprise, we can talk about the enterprise, but you'll need to flop out any indication at all that Macs are a viable contender in the office space except where specalist aps are required.
Last edited by cthulhu on Wed Dec 10, 2008 1:55 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Crissa
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Post by Crissa » Wed Dec 10, 2008 1:40 am

...And the fact that the Aussie dollar is low compared to the Taiwanese supplier of the iMacs; or that your computer takes more than four times the space; and five times the electricity; and...
...And you're playing a bug-infested beta game that doesn't run on a Mac?
Why would you do that?
PS, double check your RAM FSB speed vs that on the iMac you just dissed. I mean, aside from Power, Weight, Bluetooth, Boot Speed, and 'yay' you got your operating system installed... What will upgrading that cost you?
-Crissa
...Also, did you even read the 'this year is the first time in ten years that a similar Mac didn't dip below a similar PC' part?
Last edited by Crissa on Wed Dec 10, 2008 1:45 am, edited 2 times in total.
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cthulhu
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Post by cthulhu » Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:01 am

The Aussie dollar is low compared to the taiwanese suppliers of PC parts too.
Bogus excuse.
The fact I'm running a game isn't relevant - I still have a considerably higher specced machine for considerably less money. Buying a 30" apple cinema display (which does have better colour accuracy than the uncalibrated dells, but the dells are pretty competitive once both are calibrated, and certainly accurate for anything short of desktop design) would cost more than my entire machine.
So I'm getting a much higher spec, for not 10 or 15% less, but 33% less. If I try and make an identical spec, lets see how much it costs.
Also this has held for all of time in Australia. So you're still wrong, I just had a handy example to prove it.
Ram excuse is wrong.
My Ram actually has a higher FSB speed because mines 1066, but the timings on both are honestly going to be shit. Not that I care, because I'm quite aware that the differences are marginal except on specalist loads. But I'm still better off.
So overall you're completely wrong.
Incidently, upgrading will be cheaper for me because I can actually buy, say, ATI video cards. Holy jesus mac stores overcharge for video cards.
Last edited by cthulhu on Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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cthulhu
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Post by cthulhu » Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:05 am

Okay I priced an identical machine.
Actually its still worse as mac does not sell a videocard that benchmarks even close to mine, but ignoring that, the identical spec costs:
A$ 7,247.00
Now it does include ECC tested ram, but otherwise is the same.
you think ECC ram is worth 5000 dollars
Well no, as I can buy that too and its worth a couple of hunded bucks.
So the equivelent PC system is like.. 40% of the Mac price.
Stop with the cheaper, it isn't even close to true.
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Crissa
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Post by Crissa » Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:12 am

Yeah, because buying server-level hardware and a monitor that's somehow a thousand dollars difference if you buy it in AU is so the same...
...Because you still haven't mentioned Power, Weight, reliability, repairability, or even FSB/RAM speed. Or why your video card benchmarks higher without being, I dunno, more expensive.
-Crissa
Last edited by Crissa on Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
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cthulhu
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Post by cthulhu » Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:13 am

Just to address the power concern, there is no conceivable usage pattern that I could spend 1000 to 5000 dollars on power for the computer on.
That would be close to my total household electricity bills
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PhoneLobster
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Post by PhoneLobster » Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:17 am

If he is pricing anything in Australia don't expect it to sanely represent anything attributable to justified value or markets out side of Australia.
We are the whipping bitch of all kinds of speciality and import markets. We have pioneered paying for and suffering weird mistreatment from some of the worst and most expensive markets in whole swathes of industry including Internet Service Provision, Books, and Software.
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Crissa
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Post by Crissa » Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:17 am

You'd be surprised. How many years will your PC be on, conceivably?
Anyhow, a solid-state drive uses 20% less power buy costs 2-10x as much. You push for pushing the envelope of technology.
Still haven't mentioned why your motherboard, cooling system, or video card is superior, tho... Why would you tout that your machine is superior to a machine $5K more if it wasn't something to crow about? What kind of warrantee can you get, what's the MTF of your hardware?
And at no point did I say a Mac would be cheaper today, did I?

> PhoneLobster wrote:If he is pricing anything in Australia don't expect it to sanely represent anything attributable to justified value or markets out side of Australia.

I know, that's why his position seems weird to begin with.

> cthulhu wrote:The Aussie dollar is low compared to the taiwanese suppliers of PC parts too.

Except PC parts are also made, sourced in Singapore, India, Malaysia. Why argue, if you don't feel inferior somehow?
-Crissa
Last edited by Crissa on Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:21 am, edited 3 times in total.
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cthulhu
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Post by cthulhu » Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:41 am

Sure, but this pricing situation has held in Australia for the last 7 years where I have been buying my own computers. For reference, our home environment is a mix of WinXP, Vista and Ubuntu across 7 PCs. I considered appleTV for the media PC, but the linux solution won out because of the more effective capabilities to tie into XBMC on say Xboxes at the time.

> Except PC parts are also made, sourced in Singapore, India, Malaysia. Why argue, if you don't feel inferior somehow?

The aussie dollar has slumped compared to all these countries.
re: my specs - as I said in the first post, my Video card is a Radeon HD 4870, and I had a 3.2 ghz quad core
I'm arguing because I call people on bullshit. What the fuck is you calling me inferior when you are manifestly wrong.
I am looking forward to your evidence that Macs are cheaper for personal or enterprise use.
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Crissa
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Post by Crissa » Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:43 am

Those specs mean nothing, honestly.
They mean you have a couple nice parts.
They don't mean you have nice important parts.
-Crissa
...Though pointing out that you have this year's video card (which happens to be a technology jump, new memory chips) and the Apple come with last year's video card seems sorta... Well, silly.
PS, you're wrong about 'all those currencies...'
Last edited by Crissa on Wed Dec 10, 2008 3:10 am, edited 2 times in total.
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zeruslord
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Post by zeruslord » Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:46 am

What part of "All Aussie technology pricing is bullshit" do you not understand?
Your experience is not representative of anybody anywhere else and is influenced by a totally arbitrary markup.
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PhoneLobster
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Post by PhoneLobster » Wed Dec 10, 2008 3:29 am

> cthulhu wrote:Sure, but this pricing situation has held in Australia for the last 7 years.

...
Internet service provision in Australia was paid by data AND BY TIME right up until the advent of broad band. NO ONE ELSE DID THAT. It was "unlimited" plans that were the international standard. If you aren't careful in Australia you can STILL end up on a "limited" plan.
The Australian retail book industry has been selling us literally the left over scraps of books from the UK that were also left over books before that from the US at insanely high prices with no choice and limited ability to order any kind of selection since FOREVER (and still do so).
The Australian retail video game market is one of the most expensive, limited, late, and incomplete in the world, and has been ever since we stopped making the Microbee (yeah take that you Mac heads, MICROBEE FOREVER 2K of RAM bitches 2 FUCKING K!)
Last edited by PhoneLobster on Wed Dec 10, 2008 3:32 am, edited 2 times in total.
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cthulhu
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Post by cthulhu » Wed Dec 10, 2008 4:20 am

Okay, aside from specs, what possible basis are we going to compare pricing on?
Ethereal feel?
Seriously, no other basis exists for a comparison.
Edit: Oh god, sorry for using a country as the basis for pricing. I know there is an entirely arbitary markup - its the one apple applies to all its products.
Weeee!
PC pricing is actually fairly competitive.
Last edited by cthulhu on Wed Dec 10, 2008 4:23 am, edited 2 times in total.
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cthulhu
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Post by cthulhu » Wed Dec 10, 2008 4:25 am

> PhoneLobster wrote:

> > cthulhu wrote:Sure, but this pricing situation has held in Australia for the last 7 years.

> Internet service provision in Australia was paid by data AND BY TIME right up until the advent of broad band. NO ONE ELSE DID THAT. It was "unlimited" plans that were the international standard. If you aren't careful in Australia you can STILL end up on a "limited" plan.

Man, I had an unlimited connection that was unmetered by data or time for years until ADSL was availible in my area (ISDN doesn't count, I live in a metro region, but not sydney of melbourne!)
Incidently, you know how we have the data caps plan with on peak and off peak limits - thats changing in other jurisdictions, looks like Ofcom is going to move UK to that basis too.
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Crissa
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Post by Crissa » Wed Dec 10, 2008 4:43 am

> cthulhu wrote:Edit: Oh god, sorry for using a country as the basis for pricing. I know there is an entirely arbitary markup - its the one apple applies to all its products.

Please don't be a stupid ass.
All your prices at 30% to 200% what they are in the US.
...And somehow you still seem willing to compare a last year's server-class pre-built machine vs a piecemeal who-the-heck-knows no-resale-value uses-5x-the-electricity fits-in-more-than-thrice-the-foot-print no-name PC that you don't even seem to know any of the throughput numbers of.
-Crissa
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cthulhu
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Post by cthulhu » Wed Dec 10, 2008 4:56 am

I'm not even sure what you mean by throughput numbers.
If you mean that I didn't know ram timings, its 5-5-5-12 @ 1066. Powersupply is an Antec 650w greenpower PSU, motherboard is by DFI, cannot remember who did the HD4870, but they just cloned the ATI reference board so I am unconcerned,
Wee! The all our prices argument doesn't fly incidentally. Its not like something effects ATI video cards that I can buy OEM or in a dell that doesn't effect ATI videocards I buy from Apple.
But okay! I surrender, lets compare to a dell machine.
Okay this is going to take a while, as Dell doesn't appear to ship any machines with a video card as old and crap as the mac, but you're much more price competitive! Early look is the dell is about 500 dollars cheaper for equivelent spec.
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Cynic
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Post by Cynic » Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:01 am

> Crissa wrote:

> > cthulhu wrote:Edit: Oh god, sorry for using a country as the basis for pricing. I know there is an entirely arbitary markup - its the one apple applies to all its products.

> Please don't be a stupid ass.
> All your prices at 30% to 200% what they are in the US.
> -Crissa

I'm sorry. He's comparing his pc priced in australia to an apple machine priced in australia. It's the apple australia site. Am I missing something in this whole currency debate? Someone explain that to me.

> Ancient History wrote:We were working on Street Magic, and Frank asked me if a houngan had run over my dog.

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cthulhu
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Post by cthulhu » Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:03 am

Okay with a bit of shopping around, I cannot get an exactly equivalent machine, but we can get pretty close captain! Dell is first in all difference listings, dell.com.au for the dell machine, http://store.apple.com/au for the apple machine.
Differences: 2.83 ghz quad core vs 3.06 ghz dual core. Synthetic benches the quad core is of course, ludiciously faster, but 'real world' benches it varies by application between the two.
9800 GT vs 8800 GS - The dell wins hands down, the benches on the 9800 GT are considerably better.
Ram: Dell is packing 1333FSB vs 800 on the Apple, but really I doubt the difference will be material, and niether site lists timings. The apple's will be better obviously as it is running at a lower FSB.
Otherwise same spec. Apple of course looks nicer
Price differences
$2,429.90 for a Dell XPS 420 desktop
$3,238.99 for the Mac desktop.
You can do much better with the dell with some shopping or using the specials- some of the models are running a 10% discount offer.
Thats a pretty big difference! Of course the dell is not as pretty, nor as small footprint, and may very well use more power (not sure why, but there you go), but it is 900 bucks cheaper.
Last edited by cthulhu on Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Crissa
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Post by Crissa » Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:05 am

Yeah, I bet if you priced other computer resellers you might find a bad deal, too.
...Kinda like I said in the beginning.
-Crissa
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cthulhu
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Post by cthulhu » Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:09 am

Err, okay, which major supplier would you like me to check? HP come out much the same pricing as dell (unsurprisingly)
I also said I deliberately did not take advantage of the specials. The problem is finding something with a GPU as decrepit as the iMac which is now three generations old.
Okay so in conclusion, macs are more expensive on a like for like comparison to major computer sellers by 30% or more. In Australia.
Clearly there is an arbitrary 'I hate Australians' markup being applied by steve jobs if the other major computer sellers are the same price in the US.
If so, fuck him.
Last edited by cthulhu on Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Crissa
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Post by Crissa » Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:21 am

...Because there's obviously some personal animosity to you, and their computers are 'decrepit' because they save money by not upgrading something that gives a tiny boost and instead doing that less often, choosing a more mature chip.
Stop being an ass, it's nothing personal, but you're making it so. For no reason.
-Crissa
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