Strange the only thing that keeps me off Macs is that they're overpriced.

If Bill the Gates does go to rental.  I will simply reload Linux and take a
class..or get a job with him. :oD

Fortunately my vanagon (obligatory content) already has a LNX sticker.

JT
Idiot Savant "All OS's Suck"

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com]On Behalf
Of David Brodbeck
Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2003 3:58 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: It's a Beatiful Day in America!...

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003, Aristotle Sagan wrote:

> Do you know how many times Apple has been 'on to something'? I've worked
on
> Apple II's, Apple III's, the first Macs, etc. I have used Mac OS6, OS7,
etc,
> etc. What a pain in the ass if you really want to get anything done. They
> are always going to be the minor leagues.

Seems to be mostly a personal preference thing.  Personally I don't use a
Mac, but I'm glad there's someone out there providing at least minor
competition to Microsoft.  I shudder to think what MS is going to do to us
when they own 100% of the market instead of 95%.  I think right now
they're just waiting for the other shoe to drop before they really tighten
the screws.  They've already talked about going to a rental model for
software -- you'll have to pay rent every month on your copy of MS Office,
or all your documents will become unreadable.

> Part of the issue is, they don't understand that the majority of the
country
> could care less about 7500 songs on some dinky little compubox. I can't
> think of more than a couple hundred songs I want to hear more than once.

Maybe you could care less, but there are a lot of people who do care.
It's not just Apple that thinks so -- IIRC an MP3 player is included in
the *standard* stereo system of the Ford Focus, now.  I installed one in
my Honda that plays off CD-R discs, and it's great being able to carry
around 60 or so of my favorite albums in one 10-CD wallet.  (Plus if it
gets stolen, I still have the original CDs at home.)

It's a bit like the Walkman -- the first miniaturized, portable tape
player was created by a Sony engineer as a fun little side project to
fritter away spare time in the lab.  They were sure there was no market
for it -- after all, who'd want a tape player that couldn't record?

David Brodbeck, N8SRE
'82 Diesel Westfalia
'94 Honda Civic Si