Advice on Macintosh Purchasing

[marcusmarcusrc]

In which I beat a dead metaphor into the ground in order to ask for advice in the most roundabout way ever:



Once Upon a Time Adam and Eve wandered a garden of paradise unfettered by the demands of clothing. It was a time of freedom, but also a time of ignorance. One day, Eve came upon the tree of Knowledge in the middle of the garden. She took from this tree an Apple, ripe and tempting. And in the moment she bit into it, innocence was lost forever. “And they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons”

But really, fig leaf clothing just didn’t cut it. So one day Abel took it upon himself to design superior garb. He lavished care and time upon the clothing he made, and it was fine. Abel was lauded for his advances, especially for his Mackintoshes which did a great job of keeping the rain off, and for a time all was good. But Cain watched his brother’s success, and grew jealous. And so Cain started his own line of clothing. It was far inferior, uncomfortable, easily ripped, and sometimes, inexplicably, the clothing would lock-up, and it would have to be removed and redonned before it would move again. But Cain let many manufacturers make his clothing. And often he would sell socks together with pants, and bundle mittens with parkas, so that the people would find it easiest to just buy all their clothing from Cain. And Cain’s clothing did take over the marketplace.

Now, Cain used one brand of thread, whereas Abel used another. Oddly, Cain’s brand was actually better for some applications. And therefore Abel asked his agent, Job, to resolve this problem. And Job created a press release, announcing the Abel line clothing would soon be all made with this new thread.

But what about those of us who have 5 year old clothing, and want to buy new clothes now because our current clothes don’t even have the cool OS X label? Is it worth waiting a year? How long a wait will it be (At the Abel store they said that they didn’t know, but “by this time next year everything should be running on Intel”)? If I buy a computer... er, set of clothing... today, will I be sorry 4 years from now? (Given that I own computers on average 5 years before upgrading) I’ll take advice, discussion, or general computer wanking. =)

Comments

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

Heh. I have somewhat patchy sewing skills (both in real sewing and metaphorical sewing). But having my own linux box would help me learn the system maintenance stuff that sometimes I feel I'm lacking (but don't have the incentive to learn). And a linux box would be ideal for running work code on. And probably be less dangerous for temptations like buying commercial computer games (which admittedly I haven't done for ages, but there were various tempting items in the Mac Store which I was protected from by their OS X requirements).

But I _like_ rhinestones and sequins!

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

Also, you're getting a doctorate.

let's rate for a moment the worth of your time vs the time spend tweaking your linux box. Then be happy to get a mac. ;)