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O'Reilly: no fact checking in c|net commentary piece

updated 01:25 pm EST, Sat January 17, 2004

O\'Reilly takes on c|net

O'Reilly's Alan Graham, documenting the Virginia Tech Apple Supercomputer Cluster, : "The c|net piece was nothing but spurious speculation and Mac bashing from a publisher who has a history of negative press about the Apple platform. Shame on anyone who assumes that this solution cannot be duplicated again with less money than competitive solutions, and shame on c|net for implying that this was all a worthless exercise and corporate clients would be smart to seek their solutions from a more reliable hardware company."

by MacNN Staff

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01/17, 01:36pm | report spam | close Reply |
about time

someone stood up to C|net and their Apple smashing. I am still hopping mad about this c***. So, when they grow this cluster to being the number one supercomputer in the world, will they then get the props? I doubt it. I take some solice in the fact that if you aren't on top, then you aren't worth bashing, so they are doing something right!

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01/17, 01:40pm | report spam | close Reply |
Excellent

Good for Alan! More people stand up for the truth.

Paul Thurrott has no business publishing articles - he clearly does not have the objectivity, nor the knowledge to advise the general public on any technology. Perhaps Paul should seek a job in Microsoft's marketing department, although I doubt even they would want him.

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01/17, 02:14pm | report spam | close Reply |
What a surprise.

C|Net is the most biased, least credible internet news source, ever.

They give the most negative slant possible to positive Apple news, and if that proves too hard they more or less completely fabricate negative things.

And then they run an article about how viruses cost businesses 55 BILLION DOLLARS in 2003, *without* mentioning "Microsoft" or "Windows" in the article text.

One day they'll go too far even for Apple to ignore, and hopefully Apple Legal will unload on them for it.

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01/17, 02:36pm | report spam | close Reply |
Alan Graham

Thanks Alan, Enjoyed your article about the facts concerning the third fastest SUPERCOMPUTER on earth. Al Moser

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01/17, 03:45pm | report spam | close Reply |
smart

corporate clients would be smart to seek their NEWS solutions from a more reliable SITE

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01/17, 04:12pm | report spam | close Reply |
The Media

Guys,

No point in getting all worked up. I am a Mac user but why so much passion. If you were a shareholder, maybe. If it was your baby, great. But who cares - the media is corrupt. And all corporate interests have one goal. So unless you get paid to be a cheerleader, focus your efforts on worthier pursuits.

This media slam with Apple is no different than the 'media illusion' about the Atkins-diet being rich in bacon/eggs and nothing more. It's an example of people with great influence not performing basic research or READING the most obvious thing they should be reading - the book.

It's really sad. Trust no one and only trust yourself based on lots of research.

Apple never made me any money - I buy their goods at the depreciated rate because I can't handle price premium for the sake of image.

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01/17, 06:12pm | report spam | close Reply |
Seriously...

Asking C|Net about supercomputing is like asking Britney Spears about music.

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01/17, 06:58pm | report spam | close Reply |
A suggestion:

If everyone reading this who thinks c|net does an overall bad job covering Apple and in particular that Paul Thurott is a biased, unprofessional hack with rather obvious ties to MS would just CUT AND PASTE the O'Reilly article into a letter to the editor with the subject "This speaks for me" I think they'd get the message PRETTY DAMN QUICK. Feel free to flood their message boards with it as well.

A little civil disobedience can go a long way ...

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01/17, 06:59pm | report spam | close Reply |
OK, so I"m not alone

OK, so I"m not alone in thinking c|net is one big propaganda organ for Intel; a large stakeholder in c|net.

" ... they run an article about how viruses cost businesses 55 BILLION DOLLARS in 2003, *without* mentioning "Microsoft" or "Windows" in the article text." Well said!

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01/17, 07:12pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: The Media

Ok...I am a stockholder, so I will get worked up...To often I see these interenet "News" sites write a commentary that too any people take to heart as fact. Normally I don't pay much heed to what C|Net saws, but this particualr commentary was by far the worst. The writer of that commentary had nothing he said correct. Only the total advertised cost of the machines. C|Net seems to be taking more and more liberty at what they are writing, proving that so many think that if they have a web presence that they have all of the answers.

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01/17, 07:20pm | report spam | close Reply |
The Media

Okay I agree with you on CNet and the article. Bottom-line - it's all BULLSHIT. In fact, a buddy and I plan on a subscription site with support from subscribers only to allow us to sift through the bullshit of corporate America and their techno-babble.

No influence except from subscribers. Enough with the BULLSHIT from Wall Street and CNBC. I can already see the 'sharks' and dogs frothing at the mouth with a slight uptick in tech.

b*******.

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01/17, 07:48pm | report spam | close Reply |
Microsoft

One of the funniest lines I've ever seen.

"He named the company after his d***."

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01/17, 08:22pm | report spam | close Reply |
yeah

Mmmmm... bacon and eggs.

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01/17, 08:57pm | report spam | close Reply |
paul is a joke

regardless if he wrote this or not, he is a joke and no matter ho much he pretends to like macs by saying he owns some, HE IS A JOKE. I mean damn, what kind of idiot writes things by just getting information from others that he cannot nor has not the skill to justify it? He reminds me of those kinds of people that dont know s***, but walk around thinking they do becaus ethey can quote otehrs well. Paul is an IDIOT and an ignorant loser who cant stand on his own two feet if he had to when it came down to REAL tech. Any putz can review windows and give opinions , but he is just nothing. I hope he realises that he is a complete FAILURE one of these days (just cuz M$ has their dicks in his a** dont maie him successfull.)

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01/17, 08:59pm | report spam | close Reply |
Cahones

Um . . cnet's article is "commentary", which is like an editorial . . . That way they can get away with saying whatever they want and not even worry about inaccuracies . . . At least if cnet had the balls to put the author's name on the article, that would show an ounce of journalistic integrity . . . nawwwww.

C'mon . . . c/net has a higher employee turnover that most companies in the SF Bay Area. Any connection? Hmmm....

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01/17, 09:23pm | report spam | close Reply |
FUD You

MS is getting VERY worried. Their media (control) campaigns are getting more and more targeted at getting folks to disbelieve what they see with their own eyes nowadays. Before the FUD was directed at making folks worry about what MIGHT happen if they picked a non-MS "solution". Now, they're doing their best to convince folks that these other proven, stable, cost-effective systems built by experts which actually EXIST outside of Redmond are gross aberrations, deviations and exceptions to reality.

The days of MS FUD are over. The new plans calls for them attack and attempt to discredit any non-MS product on the market/available in the market that is proven to do a job better than any MS product. Which is pretty much everything.

So we need a new acronym or term for this tactic. The "Microsoft Gas Cloud" could work. I'm also quite in favor of throwing the "Bill Gates Reality Distortion Field" back in their faces. How about "Bullshit Out Of Gates Enterprise in Redmond" (BOOGER)? Or "Deny Information Not Gates-Loving Every Blessed Entity Rips Redmond Yes-men" (DINGLEBERRY)?

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01/17, 10:01pm | report spam | close Reply |
Tine to market

I like to point out something else sort of mentioned. The original commentary said:
So the Apple project at Virginia Tech may be a wonderful educational project, but commercial customers who have less interest in experimentation are more likely to pay specialists at Linux Networx, RLX Technologies, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Dell or Hewlett-Packard to plan the plumbing, package the software and plug in the cables. And those companies aren't going to rely on Macs.

Well maybe someone should let 'Paul' know that the Mac cluster went from purchase to 3rd on the list in THREE MONTHS! The machines started coming in starting the middle of August, if I'm not mistaken, and the testing results for the top 500 list were submitted in early november. And they were pretty much starting from scratch on this one.

How long would it take Dell to get one up, that's what I want to know.

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01/17, 10:03pm | report spam | close Reply |
Great Idea!

Here is the address you want to use:

Dan.Farber@cnet.com
Dan Farber, senior vice president, ZDNet.com,

"If everyone reading this who thinks c|net does an overall bad job covering Apple and in particular that Paul Thurott is a biased, unprofessional hack with rather obvious ties to MS would just CUT AND PASTE the O'Reilly article into a letter to the editor with the subject "This speaks for me" I think they'd get the message PRETTY DAMN QUICK. Feel free to flood their message boards with it as well.

A little civil disobedience can go a long way ... ""

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01/17, 10:44pm | report spam | close Reply |
Civil disobedience

DONE.

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01/17, 10:46pm | report spam | close Reply |
Conflict of Interests

When CNN writes an article about a movie by a Time/Warner studio, they have to mention that Time/Warner owns both CNN and that studio. This is especially the case if the article compares a Time/Warner movie with another movie.

When C|Net writes an article about PC versus Macintosh, they don't mention how many companies with an interest in the WinTel architecture own chunks of C|Net, including Intel. Why is that?

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01/17, 11:42pm | report spam | close Reply |
good vs evil

"No point in getting all worked up. I am a Mac user but why so much passion. If you were a shareholder, maybe. If it was your baby, great. But who cares - the media is corrupt. And all corporate interests have one goal. So unless you get paid to be a cheerleader, focus your efforts on worthier pursuits."

Your advice sucks.

It is WRONG to willingly allow such things to go unchecked. Whether you are a shareholder or not. Whether you have any connection Virginia Tech or not. Whether you use a Mac or not. Everyone should be opposed to corruption in any form.

�All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.�

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01/17, 11:44pm | report spam | close Reply |
QuestionTheirCredibility

If everyone went to a half dozen sites and made comments about what a load of BS CNET's articles are, that would eventually get their attention. Whether they would rein in their rogue writers, or fact check any of their articles is another story, but sooner or later they would need to address their credibility.

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01/17, 11:53pm | report spam | close Reply |
clueless??

"No point in getting all worked up. I am a Mac user but why so much passion.
. . .
Apple never made me any money - I buy their goods at the depreciated rate because I can't handle price premium for the sake of image."

FREE CLUE FOR YOU :

If it were not for the spread of FUD by these Microsoft biased news organizations, Macs would cost less.

Apple has to spend millions every year just trying to constantly fight the FUD and inform the public about the truth about Macs.

Without all of the ignorant c*** being spread by cnet and others, Apple would sell more Macs. If the media just reported the facts then Apple would sell more Macs while spending less on advertising. If you ever complain about the price of Macs then you should be angrily complaining about the extremely negative media bias going on against Apple.

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01/18, 12:43am | report spam | close Reply |
Very lame article.

Even to the lay person, this article is very lame. There is no journalistic integrity and no one is willing to actually sign their name to the article anyway. Sometimes c|net has unbiased reporting, but this article is the prime example simply of whining from a very biased reporter or group of reporters, with no basis in fact.

The ironic part is that some criticisms of the VT cluster that have appeared around the net are valid, but none of these real criticisms are even mentioned in the c|net piece.

In other words, it really sounds like c|net doesn't have a clue what it's talking about here.

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01/18, 12:47am | report spam | close Reply |
What I posted at O'Reill

Let's see, in my work as a consultant, I charge $115/hr for these services...

So, if it took me 8 hours to unpack, setup, and configure each of the 1,100 G5's (I'm being *really* generous here, just for a round number--if it ever actually took me 8 hours to setup a Mac, I'd be out of business very quickly!), that would add a grand total of 8800 hours @ $115/hr, or $1, 012,000 in my labor to build this system.

I figure the 8 hour estimate contains enough fudge to also install the Infiniband cards, and unpack, setup, and configure the Infiniband routers/switches/what-have-you.

But these units still have to live somewhere...so let's build racks, at a rate of 8 hours per (again, being *really* generous). Looking at the pictures on the web site, it looks like they have 12 G5's per rack unit, so that's 92 racks * 8 hrs, or 736 hours * $115/hr, or $86,640 to build the racks. That ought to include wiring the racks for power and all the network cables.

So, to sum up, I make the estimated actual cost to build this thing about $5,200,000 + $1,012,000, + $86,640, or $6,298,640, or about 6.3 million dollars US.

Even if you counted housing me in a swanky hotel for 1192 days at $400/night, and gave me some pocket money to the tune of 200/day, that would still only add $715,200 to the cost. Oh , and I'll need a rental car at 1000/week, so tack on another $170,285.70 to the total.

Now we're up to $7,184,126--I don't know about you, but that supercomputer still looks pretty cheap to me!

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01/18, 12:50pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: What I posted at O'R

You are an idiot if you think it would take 8 hours to set up a machine that is only a node in a cluster. An hour at most but I would suspect under 30 minutes is all it should take. It should take no longer than cloning a hardrive and sticking it back in the machine.

Being willing to piddle around and spend 8 hours per machine is why contractors like you are rarely called upon to do these jobs and give contractors in all fields a bad name.

In addition to upfront cost savings on the whole concept of being able to build a supercompter (cluster) with off the shelf hardware is supposed to give companies and universities the freedom to use their own resources to build and maintain them. There is nothing about the virgina tech installation that should have required any special knowledge beyond what could befound in their current IT staff and students.

As far as the cost of the racks and facilities go. Racks. power and utilities usually are never factored into the total cost. These are soft costs and if anyone took them seriosly windows would have been booted out of the enterprise market years ago just due to support costs alone. Does a $5000 dollar desk make your new G5 cost $5000? No, it just means you have a nice desk to sit at. Becuase in a year or two the desk stays the same and you get to put a new G6 on it.

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01/18, 01:28pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: What I posted at O'R

Way to miss the point.

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01/18, 01:46pm | report spam | close Reply |
stockholder

As a stock holder with a significant investment (ok, by my meager means it's significant) I'm sick of this tired old wheeze against Apple that these b******* pass as journalism. In fact I posted on Macworld's forum that if Dvorak ever appears again (he has a short peice in the 20th anniversay issue) that I won't ever read it again. Believe it or not, people are blasting ME and supporting Dvorak like he's harmless. It's time that the Mac world had a loudmouth to counter these other a*******. Where is he/she? Did anybody read any article about the iPod mini that actually compared it to all the 256mb flash players out there that cost $200? No, they all lambasted it for being overpriced. Compared to...? Sick and tired of it I say.

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01/18, 02:06pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: conflict of interest

When CNN writes an article about a movie by a Time/Warner studio, they have to mention that Time/Warner owns both CNN and that studio. This is especially the case if the article compares a Time/Warner movie with another movie.

Actually, they don't HAVE to mention who owns what. There's no law that says as such. However, any decent media organization will state this to give the reader/viewer as much info as possible to judge for themselves how objective a story is. (Getting caught not doing this destroys an organizations credibility, and its a lot easier to destroy it than it is to create it).

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01/18, 02:50pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: You are an idiot...

Did you even bother to *read* what was written before you spent all that time replying?

The whole point of the post was to show that even given *wild overspending* on the project, the actual cost of building the system would still be *orders of magnitude* cheaper than the competition.

Even if you considered that the whole thing only took about 12 weeks to build, and upped the figures for additional hands (~171 weeks for one person, so div. by 12 = ~15 people do do the job in 12 weeks), you'd have additional costs of only $936,000 (15 guys * 12 weeks * 5200/wk housing+stipend+car rental)...bringing the total to ~7.3 million dollars.

All of this while GROSSLY OVERPAYING for the hired hands.

You, sir, are a jackass with low reading comprehension skills.

And you have no sense of humor whatsoever.

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01/18, 04:59pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: You are an idiot...

The point you have missed both times in your posts is that this is a paradigm shift is super computing. You don't need hired hands to setup a G5 cluster. Existing IT resources in many cases could do this as part of their normal job duties. If it weren�t for the tight deadline VA TECH was working under so that it can be ranked in Linpack's Top 500 Supercomputer list, many of the volunteers would not have been needed. Most of the grunt work was spent preparing there facilities and had nothing to do with setting up and configuring the cluster itself. Part of your cost justification should have included the nearly 600 pizzas ordered for the volunteers.

The point you were making was valid. It would not cost as much as competing solutions even if you GOSSLY OVERPAID contractors to help. The point I was making went beyond that to point out that this is something that can be done at any scale without outsourcing labor for setup or waiting 18+ months for Hitachi or IBM to custom configure a supercomputer solution. IBM in most cases can�t even deliver a Z-series mainframe in 12 weeks and those are production models. Once it is delivered it sits on the pallet for weeks while your assigned engineer finishes with his other customers and then gets around to setting yours up. Don�t even think about setting it up yourself. That would void your warranty.

This gets back to the paradigm shift and why so many in the industry are reluctant to give it credibility. The fact that any individual, business or government can go out and order 5 or 5,000 macs and assemble a small cluster or supercomputer without contracting and engineer or shelling out millions of dollars at one time, because you can grow into a solution over time, many people somehow think that this cheapens the whole �prestige� in having a super computer. Furthermore, if I were companies like SGI or SUN that sell multi million dollar �Crunch Boxes� for rendering or computation I would feel very threatened by a point and click supercomputer. Yes I realize that the VA Tech Solution required custom applications and that X-grid is still in its infancy, but it won�t be long before many applications are designed to work with it. And that make this solution even more attractive i.e. a supercomputer that can run customized as well as real world applications.

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01/18, 07:37pm | report spam | close Reply |
Why is

Not sure if it was in this article- but why is using grad students for "cheap labor" any different than Dell, Gateway, IBM, Intel etc. farming labor out to children in 3rd world countries to lower the cost of producing an item? Oh yeah- I forgot, Grad Students got pizza and they probably didn't have their water supplies poisoned by PCBs when said companies take advantage of the lax pollution laws in these countries, and have an American company exploit them for profit.

I guess my point is, no one ever gives those companies s*** for having something for cheaper than normal because they took advantage of a situation. VT has grad students- and they used them. I am sure not one of those grad students refused to help out! No one says "Well Dell can provide cheap solutions because they farm out the production and assembly of their servers to Taiwanese slave laborers" maybe someone should....

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01/18, 08:00pm | report spam | close Reply |
Negative comments

I have yet to see one serious negative comment about this story, and I must say it shut those mother-fuckers up! I guess the facts were too much for those pussies. Hey Paul T. where the f*** is your rebuttal? Hmmm? I know you read MacNN.

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01/18, 08:04pm | report spam | close Reply |
How things work

"Bill Gates and the president of General Motors have met for lunch, and Bill is going on and on about computer technology. "If automotive technology had kept pace with computer technology over the past few decades, you would now be driving a V-32 instead of a V-8, and it would have a top speed of 10,000 miles per hour," says Gates. "Or, you could have an economy car that weighs 30 pounds and gets a thousand miles to a gallon of gas. In either case, the sticker price of a new car would be less than $50. Why haven't you guys kept up?"

The president of GM smiles and says, "Because the federal government won't let us build cars that crash four times a day."

http://www.howstuffworks.com/laughter.htm

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01/18, 08:20pm | report spam | close Reply |
IC

Send cnet some feedback and let them know that this kind of nonsense is not acceptable.

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01/18, 08:46pm | report spam | close Reply |
geez

you people need to chill out..

"C|Net is the most biased, least credible internet news source, ever."

I am sure that at some point, in the history of internet, there exists a news source that is at the same time more biased and less credbiel then C|Net. So go easy on your exaggeration there, cowboy.

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01/18, 08:49pm | report spam | close Reply |
geez

"MS is getting VERY worried. Their media (control) campaigns are getting more and more targeted at getting folks to disbelieve what they see with their own eyes nowadays"

Woa, relax there cowboy. Sure MS is worried but I have yet to see people more paranoid (or suffering form self-persecution complex) then fellow Mac users.

Here I am using my iBook and Panther chilling and reading C|Net and rolling my eyes. Here you are some of you foaming at your mouth and rapidly pounding the keyboard and mobilizing your forces. It's a Sunday. Chill all.

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01/18, 08:58pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re:Geez

Yeah right you're just chilling with your ibook....if you're so chill then why are you here attacking "fellow" mac users, yet you simply roll your eyes at the Cnet article? And why do you have to repeatedly assert that you are a "fellow" mac user?? Only a non-mac person has to continually assure people that they are mac user. The rest of us are here because we are and don't need to repeat it over and over again And what's up with the cowboy, cowboy????

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01/18, 09:30pm | report spam | close Reply |
re: cowboy

Yeah, I thougth that was funny too. Admit it. You aren't any more a cowboy than I am, and you are probably not even reading C|net are you!, and what's this s*** about mobilizing our forces?

You don't want the record set straight? You some kind of concsiencious objector or something? Kinda strange being a cowboy and all. They usually look for a good fight, to fight. I guess you are one of them there cowboys from Iowa, and we all know what comes outa Iowa, steers and q*****, so which one'r you?

There is no way you are using a Mac, and there is no way you should get away with characterizing your "fellow mac users" as foaming at the mouth, rapidlly pounding the keyboard, without a verbal b**** slap.

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01/18, 09:38pm | report spam | close Reply |
geez...

In response to:

"Not sure if it was in this article- but why is using grad students for "cheap labor" any different than Dell, Gateway, IBM, Intel etc. farming labor out to children in 3rd world countries to lower the cost of producing an item? Oh yeah- I forgot, Grad Students got pizza and they probably didn't have their water supplies poisoned by PCBs when said companies take advantage of the lax pollution laws in these countries, and have an American company exploit them for profit.

I guess my point is, no one ever gives those companies s*** for having something for cheaper than normal because they took advantage of a situation. VT has grad students- and they used them. I am sure not one of those grad students refused to help out! No one says "Well Dell can provide cheap solutions because they farm out the production and assembly of their servers to Taiwanese slave laborers" maybe someone should"

Wow I don't know how to even respond to this other than the VT helpers actually volunteered for the project. They weren't forced.

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01/18, 09:52pm | report spam | close Reply |
???????

I just cannot wait until VT or someone has the top 5 slots filled with only Apple machines. That would get some attention! f*** Microsoft.

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01/19, 09:41am | report spam | close Reply |
Geez, geez ...

"Here I am using my iBook and Panther ..."

Exactly the way a facts-threatened Windows lemming would say it who's guessing how Mac users talk. The fact that you've elected to post here shows how threatened you are and how worried MS and its minions are getting. If we weren't a threat, you'd just ignore us. But I guess you have to have something to do to vent that frustration.

To that end if you're looking for something to do as you chill (seeing as today is Sunday and all) - cowboy - I'm sure I speak for all the real Mac users here when I suggest that you can go do the same thing as the horse you rode in on.

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01/19, 10:10am | report spam | close Reply |
I got it

I figured it out now. c|net's article makes more sense if you realize that those guys are used to the insane amount of costs it takes to set up and configure PCs."It didn't crash on you ten times a day? No way they're telling the truth..."

You have to remember these guys are used to windows ;-)

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01/19, 10:52am | report spam | close Reply |
I'm a former Windows use

me: Hi everyone, my name is Mac and I was a former windows user.
ya'll: Hi mac.

I used to use windows machines for many years, and honestly I must have spent 1/4th the time on hold with tech support.

Tech support from CorelDraw, and every other software manufacture, modem manufacturer, NIC card manufacturer, etc...
AOL, Microsoft.

That is 12 years of this bullshit, and I was the guy who everyone called to fix their computers!

I used to watch the Apple commercials and think, no way! They are just as bad as this PC, and after all I just put out how much money over how many years in the software??? I would have to start over again. Well, got a job where I had to RENT a Mac, because I was using the client's software and it was a remote job, and you know what? It was almost f****** orgasmic. The computer started, I loaded my software, began work, and it was such a joy to use, it was like night and day. I understand the windows user, and their pain, as I was one of them much like many of you. You cannot understand the real joy of working on a computer until you emerse yourself in the culture and environment yourself.

Just like for instance, (off-topic) when you visit another country and emerse yourself in their culture and way of life. You cannot understand it by watching National Geographic, or the Travel channel.

Back on topic.

They are all in denial, and what makes them rebel and become angry at us is the fact they just invested thousands in a machine that supposedly is 4 times faster than our Apples, yet we still happily buy our new Apples and use them instead of going out and buying the latest PC. It irritates them! They think we are the stupid ones. If only they looked beyond the great packaging which is only a part of the whole culture of Apple in providing the best possible computing environment as well.

A company with only 27 IT people total has to be doing something very right.

Conclusion:

Apple is opening stores all over, and soon they will be as common as any BestBuy/CompUSA/Circuit City, and it will be hard for those people (windows users) to ignore and next time they are ready to move up in the world, they just may give them a try.

Or, they will just choose to remain in PC h***.

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01/19, 10:58am | report spam | close Reply |
I have seen the devil

Want to know whats funny? He uses a Mac, but he sells PCs.

;O)

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01/19, 12:37pm | report spam | close Reply |
Whoa

Like I said before, you guys need to take a chill pill. As for Mac users attacking Mac users, you guys (the zealots) are famous for it. There are only a few journalist out there who are staunch Mac supports - case in point, Pogue, Haddad, etc. God forbid if they or anyone say something negative about Apple. You guys are on it, like I said before, rabid dogs foaming at the mouth.

You guys cannot accept that their Mac users who are less fanatic then you or Mac users who happen to use other platforms and see that they have their advantages as well.

As for the doubters, go ahead, ask me any question that only a Mac/iBook/iPod user would know. I challenge my Apple credential against any of yours. Sheesh. Talk about persecution. You zealots are no better than religious fundamentalists.

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01/19, 01:31pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Whoa

Ok Cowboy here are some questions for ya....What in the world does this have to do with the Cnet article or your defense of it? Why do you feel the need to come on to mac boards and bash other users while completely avoiding the topic at hand? What difference does it make to you if mac users want to defend their platform of choice? Why do you keep calling people cowboy? And one last question Mr."I'm a mac user", why is it when people are defending the mac they are zealots, but when people bash the mac and the people that use them, they are "normal" mac users? You are so full of s***, it is unbelievable....this thread was about a very misinformed "opinion" posted about the VT Big mac and somehow you've turned it into all you mac zealots suck and I'm better than you cuz I'm just chilling on a sunday afternoon with my iBook....What are you 12....oh wait I'm sorry, a 12 year old could engage in more thoughtful commentary than you have...why don't you go chill somewhere else cowboy and let the rest of us get on with the conversation at hand.

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01/19, 05:31pm | report spam | close Reply |
Some comments

I completely agree that people should send letters with the O'Reilly weblog quoted to the c|net higher ups. They expect it and they deserve it.

Not all media is corrupt. Unfortunately, the most ubiquitous media organizations (c|net, CNN/HNN, Fox News, CBS, NBC, ABC) seem to be more corrupt than most. There was a time when CBS pretty good, but that was like 30 years ago. The New York Times is getting worse, but they were always over-rated. Just read the news with skepticism and try to do some research.

I must say, I am suspicious of the guy who doesn't seem to want to stay on topic, but would rather just tell people to calm down. What's the point of calming down? All it seems to achieve is a strange sort of homosocial reproduction of "mr. calm". Pointless. Part of being a Mac user or anyone who is misrepresented or mistreated is to get upset when the opposition tells lies about you or what you believe in.

Trust me, Mac advocacy is not a religion. If it were, Redmond would be a smoking ruin... and most Mac users would be living in hiding.

By the way, please don't give any credit to Bill Gates for the performance of PCs. The reason until recently PCs were faster than Macs were because of how lame Motorola was/is and how good (if not always fair) Intel was/is at making their CPUs faster. AMD also makes a pretty good product. Your computer doesn't get viruses because you have a PC, it's because you run Windows. Intel is not blameless, but you can't give them all the blame for picking a bad partner.

Back on topic... the VT supercomputer is clearly superior in a cost/performance analysis to almost everything on the supercomputer list. This is why critics have to carefully avoid direct comparisons of cost of anything with the other supercomputing clusters on the list. Its the politics of self-interest, not news.

- Maclectic

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01/19, 08:40pm | report spam | close Reply |
Right...

"until recently PCs were faster than Macs "

OK, what cave have you been in?

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O'Reilly: no fact checking in c|net commentary piece

updated 01:25 pm EST, Sat January 17, 2004

O\'Reilly takes on c|net

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