24/02/04 Doug McAdam : >Can this be true, that there are professionals, ITs who do not care for >Macs.
Of course, specially ITs since those are either totally ignorant of the mac (most are) or see it as a threat to their jobs, resulting in them acting the same way: no acknowledgement that the damn thing exists. Very similar to the mainframe vs personal computer blacklisting by ITs of that era. >How do I answer this? You don't: the whole issue is bogus and there's no way to discuss it without hitting psychological walls that anti- or pro- whatever build to justify their choices to their own eyes and avoid DOUBT. Doubt is a sin, see? That's what causes some of them to advocate "tolerance" for "personal choice" similarly to religion as if there was nothing anyone could ever say to prove anything about computers (and incidentally imply that *your* arguments can't have stronger grounds than religious beliefs, which brings to light what theirs are made of and the kind of attention you'd get if you tried to explain anything). This would be stupid about refrigerators, it's no less stupid about computers. Just another way to ignore disturbing information. Windows has been trying to look like Mac OS from day 1 and Linux desktop environments are trying to look like windows, as their users will regularly confirm by explaining macs are *now* irrelevant since that goal has been reached, which they would know is absurd if they ever tried to verify (they've been saying that since Windows 3.1 when they ceased to treat the whole concept of graphical interface as irrelevant), but then again you must realize there's no point in proving them wrong because they're not trying to convince YOU (or else they would back their arguments by doing some research, which wouldn't work, end of story), they're really in the process of convincing themselves. You're actually causing them psychological distress. Don't do that. Nobody likes you for that, I don't know many people who are naturally thankful to those who prove them wrong even among scientists of whom it's part of the job. Or first make sure that person is able to consider the possibility of being wrong (few are on matters that imply the kind of personal involvement attached to computers, especially those who are in the process of denying any such feeling for machines even though they cost them more time, money, effort and frusration than almost anything else). Took me a while to realize that. When I finally did it all made sense. I finally understood how they could actually NOT BELIEVE not only what I explained or teached of the workings and history of computing, but also what I would *demo* to their very eyes (they look away, shift the conversation to anything else or become aggressive, pretend that's impossible/useless/insignificant etc. -- and can often be seen 5 years later explaining how their platform is now so brilliantly superior because of some similar feeature, and then sincerely can't remember you showed them that or better long before, because they couldn't stick it in their inner reality without breaking it). There are good arguments to support PCs, it's just that nobody uses them: most PC advocates don't know why they're PC users and those who do out of informed choice don't argue with us because they simply agree. >Where is there a comparison of technical >information I can submit? This is a very different question: almost all tech and cost researches show exactly what we know (macs better simpler stronger and cheaper than PCs for most uses), but this belongs to an entirely different reality from that of most ITs since it would be disruptive of theirs. There are a few tech guys who saw the light, earn their living managing PCs and use macs at home, but they keep a low profile at work since most of them learned from their own behavior that the barrier can only be pulled down from inside. Here are some references anyway, and the reactions you'd get for each if you tried to pass the links. If you do, keep in mind that those answers have nothing to do with their intelligence but are mostly defense mechanisms AGAINST understanding. I've heard the exact same from very bright people and complete morons. It's not that they can't understand or don't want to, it's just that doing so would be bad for them. If you look into yourself you may discover you act similarly in some occasions, we all tend to, it's our brain refusing the effort of reworking it's representation of reality when the facts don't fit in. We have to force the beast in us to acknowledge new information and when that info contradicts what we teached it before it hates us for that. The beast changes from a curious cat to an aggressive dog when we exit childhood, and learning becomes harder. In French "stupidity" is "b�tise", which could translate etymologically as "beastness": there's nothing wrong about stupidity, it's a kind of natural state, the idle mode of intelligence. Functional comparison of Mac OS X and Windows XP http://www.xvsxp.com/ -> standard reaction: about anything good said of XP "told you so", about anything good said of Mac OS "minor details, useless in REAL world" (you see, us mac users don't live in the real world, that's why we're so much happier about our computers: we've been in heaven all along) Many old but very interesting analysis of the functionning of Macs/PCs, interfaces, myths, press bias (press bias is changing, probably as much because Apple is coming into fashion as from actual research) http://www.mackido.com/ -> standard reaction: "propaganda, too long, insignificant details, my PC suits me perfectly" Price comparison of retail systems: http://www.macobserver.com/shootouts/ (the tables show enough detail to also support the claims that the ackowledged superior internal expansion of PCs is bullshit too, as I can confirm based on years of use of a maxed out 6400 and now 9600 that both had absolutely no comparable PC counterparts, even at higher cost) -> standard reaction: "not true, biased, don't care, MY PC I got from the chinese shop around the corner isn't there" More "independant" papers taking account of maintenance, renewal and learning cost are issued from time to time by research firms for various organisations and ignored or denied outside the mac-centric news sources because they always contradict mainstream prejudices on that matter. Performance comparisons are mainly irrelevant since advantages in that area flip sides nearly each time a new processor comes out and you would inevitably hit the argument that *my* programs runs better on my platform, which is obvious. Motorola and IBM processors have always been more efficient than Intel and clones but those compensate through brute force. AMD procs being smarter than Intel achieve better performance at lower clock speeds, PowerPC procs also, and MIPS processors (in better designed SGI workstations) run at such low clock speeds that PC advocates would refuse to believe it. Virginia Tech's Big Mac cluster of G5 macs recently made big news by becoming at the same time and in 4 monthes from scratch the 3rd most powerful supercomputer in the world, the 3rd supercomputer ever to exceed 10 TFlops, the most powerfull academic supercomputer, the first such attempt based on macs (and running Mac OS X), the better price/performance ratio of all times, but all this can't translate directly to desktop use of the same boxes since its more than 30 fold better price/performance compared to other supercomputers of that class obviously relates to more than the boxes themselves. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3862 http://www.top500.org/list/2003/11/ I wrote a performance comparison between clusters from Virginia Tech and NCSA (3rd and 4th supercoputers of the list) for a french website after top500.org released the results and I got lazy when came time to translate it. The tables might still be understandable (there are several because I discovered that NCSA apparently "omitted" 400 processors when submitting its specs to top500.org by distinguishing those dedicated to processing from those dedicated to in/out operations, making the cluster look much better optimized by their team than it is, which looked supicious compared to other clusters). Briefly put the 2200 G5 2GHz cluster is faster than the 2500 P4 Xeon 3.06GHz cluster which actually has 2900 of those processors (in setups that have much more differences than just processors and individual computer nodes), and according to the proc raw specs (unaffected by setup and real use) the G5 is 2 times faster per clock cycle and still more than 1.3 times faster at retail speeds despite the Xeon being clocked much highher. http://www.cuk.ch/articles/humeur/affhumeur.php3?aff=833 Now that's a long post. ---- VRic ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
