If Scientist Are So Smart.......

[layman]

......then why do they all use apple laptops?

 

there is no good reason for it, unless they get different prices and even then it's still dubious.

 

 

[sanctus]

Why are macs worse for science than linux or even Windows?

 

I personally hate windows, I work with both linux and macs, both have terminals :-) But even with windows you can do most of the same...actually if you manage all with windows then you have to be smarter since it is much more complicated;-) (although you would be better of using your resources for science instead of for figuring out ways how to do it on a win-machine).

[layman]

Why are macs worse for science than linux or even Windows?

 

I personally hate windows, I work with both linux and macs, both have terminals :-) But even with windows you can do most of the same...actually if you manage all with windows then you have to be smarter since it is much more complicated;-) (although you would be better of using your resources for science instead of for figuring out ways how to do it on a win-machine).

 

 

pretty much for the reasons you gave. a scientiist knows they are both the same. so why pay more?

 

for the average person i understand, some people want a certain status so funtction comes second, they're happy to overpay.

 

when you break it down into parts, windows gives more for the money.

[North]

I think the Mac vs Windows debate is quite old now and one's choice of computer simply comes down to what one prefers within their financial range.

[Maine farmer]

Yep, price has a lot to do with it!  I am growing weary of having everything becoming obsolete so fast.  I want my equipment to be good for at least 20 years, and I want it to be able to fall in cow manure, get stepped on by a cow, and still work!  Is that really so much to ask?  We have a tractor on the farm that was new in 1974, and it is more reliable than our newest that we got in 2010.  One bad wire can leave the new one dead in it's tracks, but the old one will still run even if you remove the batteries!  

[sanctus]

Farming guy, from a capitalist point of view why would you want to make something that lasts longer then the guarantee? And all the producers of laptops are, sadly, purely about money.
Btw, I think I drove a tractor from the 50s (around 10 years ago, but quite sure the farmer still has it), one of those which you had to roll a rope manually around some spinning wheel at the front and then pull with the proper technique in order to turn the motor on!!

[Maine farmer]

From a capitalist point of view, you can charge a premium if your product is actually worth the extra cost.  I would pay more for reliability and durability.  For example, I typically go through 4 to 5 pairs of gloves every winter, but I would happily pay 5 times the price for one pair of gloves that would last one entire winter.  Sadly, I have yet to find any that can stand up to daily farm work.  

[CraigD]

I am growing weary of having everything becoming obsolete so fast. I want my equipment to be good for at least 20 years, and I want it to be able to fall in cow manure, get stepped on by a cow, and still work!

I’m thinking about computers, not farm tools, so surviving cow stompings is a bit outside of the usual requirements, but I think a lot about how quickly computers obsolesce.

 

Unlike machines that suffer a lot of wear and tear, computers obsolesce mostly because new software needs more memory, storage, processor speed, and sometimes new kinds of hardware. A car built in, say, 1976, is as capable of ordinary functions as a one built in 2016, but in 1976, only a few experimental computers were capable of supporting the internet protocols that let the internet exist, and none were capable of running a program like a typical 21st century 1st person perspective video game. By analogy, if the 1976 cars were to 2016 cars as 1976 computer are to 2016 computers, they’d be slower than walking speed.

 

Old computers, like the TS2068 I still take out and use occasionally, are almost impossible to wear out. Their low power components don’t get very hot, and since they don’t having moving parts other than power and keyboard switches, about the only thing that wears on them are the keyboards. Modern personal computers, with their hot, cooling system-requiring parts and the moving parts in their storage devices (though SSDDs are becoming an increasingly affordable alternative), are much less sturdy - I’ve have had a few die on me.

 

There’s some business sense to the short obsolescence life of computers – it drives a multi-billion dollar economy. From an engineering POV, a computer that would last 20+ years is a thing of beauty, but from a business POV, it would be a catastrophy.

 

Some deep moral and political implications here.

[Maine farmer]

Well now, computers are increasingly becoming farming tools.  We got our first electronic cow grain feeder back in the 1970's, which was quite rudimentary and we could only separate the cows into high and low.  Then in the late 1980's we got one that allowed us to assign each individual cow their own grain ration.  That gave out a little over two years ago and we were forced to buy the newest that accomplishes the same task, but offers more management tools.  The new system has more glitches, and has a much more complex way of doing  relatively simple things.  (I must admit, however, that I am impressed with the longevity of the rfid readers on our grain feeders, two of which are the original ones!)

 

A short obsolescence life of computers may drive a multi-billion dollar economy, but it is also quite a drain on the economy of consumers who have been fooled into thinking that they need the latest and most powerful of everything.  How much credit card debt is the result of people buying stuff destined for the recycling bin?

[nullspaceM]

Now that Apple has stopped making their computers upgradable, I won't ever buy another one. I do however currently have a 2012 Macbook Pro that I've upgraded to 16GB RAM and an SSD and its like a whole new computer. Short of major damage or loss, i expect it to last me another 5-10 years. So Apple hasn't always been bad. 

In addition, I've found that the combination of a unix based system as well as complete hardware uniformity makes OS X significantly more stable, and much faster than Windows.