Nosce te ipsum

Slashdot along with just about everyone else on the web featured a piece about the (then) soon to be released 10.4 Tiger OS entitled: Rave Reviews for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, which by itself is nothing remarkable but like most things Slashdot, the real fun is always found deep inside the comments.

These comments provided the typical PC vs Mac rhetoric that can be found in just about every Mac related article that appears on Slashdot, however there was a comment posted by Rihahn that eloquently put into words the type of things that many long time Mac users intuitively understand and it's the first thing that comes to mind whenever we are drawn into the inevitable discussion with PC users who proudly proclaim "..but I can build a PC myself for less $$$..." Rihahn states it clearly and to the point.

"I keep seeing all of these posts where someone mentions they can get a PC with 'X' ram, 'X' HD, 'X' CPU for 'X' cheaper than a Mac... You can also go buy a $1000 Honda and add all sorts of ground effects, spoilers, lights, and other 'performance' mods and have a pretty quick little car that will beat a BMW 740il soundly... But it's still a Honda. And unless you're stupid, you'll wind up going down the road at the exact same speed as that Beemer.

The only difference is that you added all of that stuff to your car, you know every rattle and squeak, tolerate the lousy ride because you can corner like no ones business, have bass that can make your neighbors evaporate, and you can fix any of it easily or upgrade it...

Meanwhile the guy with the Beemer has a 10-year warrantee that covers tears in the upholstery and doesn't have to think about the car, he just drives it. He gets to spend his weekends out playing with his kids rather than tweaking a new intake manifold, can drive the car from Denver to L.A. without worrying about the radiator being two sizes too small for the type-R motor that has been shoehorned into the car, and his stock sound system is pretty nice because he doesn't need 3000 watts to overcome the #10 coffee can exhaust system. Of course the average /.'er drives a VW Thing that was hand built by everyone he/she knows, only runs on methanol that he/she makes in the back yard, has the steering wheel on the wrong side, and requires three keys to start. ;)"

Full story + comments

As a side note - obviously there is nothing wrong with building your own PC by hand - something I've done entirely too many times over the last two decades (these days of course they only run Linux!). The point made here is simply that when using the build your own PC is far cheaper than buying a Mac just really doesn't hold a lot of water. Can it be done cheaper? Absolutely! Are they even remotely close to being the same as a brand new Macintosh? Do I really have to answer that?

Federal Appeals Court Scraps FCC's Broadcast Flag Mandate - Ruling Is a Victory for Innovation, Fair Use

Why this matters?

Recently MAKE Magazine did a great podcast where Cory Doctorow explains the significance of Fridays court victory.

It's almost surreal that in this day and age where it seems the US Government can do just about any thing their heart desires and get away with it unquestioned by the masses yet thanks to the efforts of the EFF (among others), Hollywood and the major studios were handed a huge slice of humble pie when the court told them in no uncertain terms that they were not going to be given any legal authority to preside over the design and implementation of media technology. In listening to the arguments on both sides, the theme of extreme arrogance on the sides of the studios is just despicable. They were so confident that this legislation was an utter shoe-in for them that they were just going through the motions in order to make it official.

I would love to have been a fly on the wall in that courtroom just to see the look on their faces when the order was handed down - priceless. Considerable appreciation goes out to the EFF for all that they've done to make this happen. If you are someone who enjoys media technologies and more importantly, someone who values their freedom (and your eyes are open wide enough to see just how quickly our freedom is being restricted these days), consider sending the EFF a charitable contribution. They've got a lot of work ahead of them on a variety of fronts at the moment and can use any support you can send them.