"Why I pirate" - Extreme Tech Article

[kingofcrusher]

I don't think anyone really hate Macs, they just hate the annoying vocal Mac fans and project that onto the hardware. Objectively, Apple stuff is very high quality and extremely well-designed. If you can afford the extra cost I think they're well worth it (depending on your needs, of course, you're not going to be running Crysis on a Mac).

As for piracy, it all comes down to convenience for me. I pay for Netflix because it's easy and convenient. I cancelled Hulu because the fuckers make you watch commercials even though you're paying a subscription fee (on devices) which is not convenient. I buy individual songs on iTunes since I can listen to about a minute of them and determine if I like them, they're cheap, and I know that a good chunk of the money is going to the artist if they're not on some major label, but I still pirate most music that's on major labels just because I don't really give a shit if the labels make any money or not; they could all fold tomorrow and a thousand small labels would spring up in their place. I don't pirate movies anymore since I can just wait for them on netflix or rent them on Vudu for a few bucks, but TV shows I generally have to since there's no way in hell I'm paying for cable unless they completely revamp their business model and allow you to only pay for the channels you actually want to watch.

[Talbain]

I don't think anyone really hate Macs, they just hate the annoying vocal Mac fans and project that onto the hardware. Objectively, Apple stuff is very high quality and extremely well-designed. If you can afford the extra cost I think they're well worth it (depending on your needs, of course, you're not going to be running Crysis on a Mac).

No, no they're really not.

[SargeSmash]

The thing is, I have many friends that have Macs, and they work very, very well.  I don't deign to speak about my experience being the norm, of course, but when I have multiple friends that have Macs, and have no problems with Macs outside of the usual computer component failure BS, I find it hard to say that they're all bad pieces of kit.

Besides, I've got my iPhone 3G that's still kicking, and quite well, so there's that.  It's also the only Apple product I've owned, so it's probably a good reason to take my experience with a grain of salt.

[Pennywise]

Back when I was in high school, we had a computer lab full of macs. I never had a problem with them, but I've never owned a mac myself. I have owned a first or second generation Ipod and upgraded to newer generation one like 5 years ago. It's one of my favorite computer devices that I have ever owned, but its days are now numbered. I've only got about 1GB left for pirated music to put on it and I accidentally dropped it a few months ago and cracked the LCD screen. Still works like a charm though.

[I.S.T.]

No, no they're really not.

I'm going to post one quote that stood out at me as utter bullshit and made me immediately distrust this article:

After intricately taking the system apart, I find that the hard drive is none other than a Hitachi Deskstar. Hitachi of course bought the hard drive division of IBM, who of course earned the all-too-deserved name of the "IBM DeathStar".

I can see why, these drives are absolute shit. No doubt only purchased because they were the cheapest thing Apple could find.

1. Only a certain line of Deskstar's had the problem.

2. That was close to a decade ago. In PC hardware terms, that's for fucking ever. Hitachi drives have consistantly gotten high marks in every department possible for years now.

3. The fact that he seems to think eight year old problems automatically translate to newer hardware(The only case I can think of where this is true is AMD/ATi still has not very good OGL drivers) is utter fucking stupidity from someone who really should be smart enough to know better. The fact that he posts this just seals in my mind that byuu is biased and an idiot when his bias turns on. When it's off, we know he's a genius, but damn when it's on...

[Talbain]

The thing is, I have many friends that have Macs, and they work very, very well.  I don't deign to speak about my experience being the norm, of course, but when I have multiple friends that have Macs, and have no problems with Macs outside of the usual computer component failure BS, I find it hard to say that they're all bad pieces of kit.

Besides, I've got my iPhone 3G that's still kicking, and quite well, so there's that.  It's also the only Apple product I've owned, so it's probably a good reason to take my experience with a grain of salt.

I'm currently going to a graduate school that uses Macs almost exclusively.  They are not good computers, and they (the school and my friends who use them) even admit as much.  There's just a peer pressure motive to use them that has been extremely successful with keeping Macs relevant in the tech world.  Even their OS is a royal pain in the ass (they don't even give you a BIOS to boot into... which is insane).

[BRPXQZME]

BIOS still being around is what’s insane.

[MisterJones]

I still can vouch for any good EFI implementation in my experience. Too bad because gpt and all those newly fangled booting option and shit are like very awesome. Good fucking bye grub.

[Panzer88]

BIOS still being around is what’s insane.

Not for long. It'll still be compatible but win8 is ushering in the replacement which consequently will be available to the public with the whole marketplace at the end of February.

[MisterJones]

I love that the arguments in favor of UEFI barely involve "faster boot times" (which is not necesarily true depending on the architecture) and "shiny gui" (same). The whole point of unification gets placed on the side.

[KaioShin]

The whole point of unification gets placed on the side.

You can't sell backend advancements to Joe Bob. He wants something shiny that's advertised in big letters.

[MisterJones]

I should clarify that I meant so called tech journalists who make those claims. which is sad panda.

[KaioShin]

Tech journalists, do you mean those blogs that post pictures of usb-fart-sound-generators?

Good writing on tech articles is hard to come by these days. Few writers really have a clue what they are talking about, most are fully used to capacity just copy and pasting press releases (which are filled with ad buzzwords for Joe Bob) or pressing the start button on a benchmark and writing down the score (easy to measure boot time, hard to put a number on a clean infrastructure).

But yeah, new OS releases also still get advertised with better booting times. It's quite funny because:
a) with SSDs it only takes 10 seconds from cold boot at most anyway
b) more and more people don't shut down their PC and just leave it in standby/hibernate

But apparently that kind of marketing still works. I second the Panda notion.

[SargeSmash]

I usually shut my machine down.  Every time.  Oh well.  (Actually, though, I leave my work machine on.)

I'm definitely looking forward to SSDs taking over the market, I'm a sucker for solid-state electronics.  That it brings such speed increases is just a bonus, albeit a really cool one.

Speaking of cool tech, my brother picked up one of these, it's a pretty sweet combination of a real PC and a tablet (he insists on Wacom for the pressure sensitivity).  It works well for him, at any rate, especially since he can use a stylus for his drawing.  Battery life isn't great, but it's speedy, especially with the SSD.

[Kiyoshi Aman]

Not for long. It'll still be compatible but win8 is ushering in the replacement which consequently will be available to the public with the whole marketplace at the end of February.

* Kiyoshi Aman stares at you.

I already have hardware which uses UEFI.

ETA: I bought it last August.

[Auryn]

@SargeSmash: so this is your dream or your nightmare???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26enkCzkJHQ

[SargeSmash]

@SargeSmash: so this is your dream or your nightmare???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26enkCzkJHQ

I think a bit of both, actually. 

[Panzer88]

* Kiyoshi Aman stares at you.

I already have hardware which uses UEFI.

ETA: I bought it last August.

You bought the Windows 8 Consumer Preview? You've been had sir, its free.

Tip: learn to read.

 I didnt say that UEFI wasn't available, only that most manufacturers will be transitioning Joe blow users with win8, which IS having a consumer preview released at the end of February.

The importance of my initial statement wasn't emphasizing that UEFI was just coming into use, but rather that BIOS en masse is going out of use.

This is what I was replying to.

BIOS still being around is what’s insane.

[BRPXQZME]

I bought hardware with no BIOS and no BIOS emulation 6 years ago AM I COOL YET? *insert image of kid with mouthful of cigarettes here*

[Panzer88]

Of course, all mac kids are cool