Apple Cult is Still Appropriate

It wasn't talking about the entire user base.

The whole Apple Cult thing has to do with a very small subset of their customers who post comments, create blogs, and otherwise worship Apple products. There is pretty much some subset of people like that for most commercial products, but the Apple ones were particularly annoying to most tech geeks, and so received a whole lot of ire.

Things have changed somewhat. The iPhone was for a couple years the best smartphone on the market, and plenty of geeks (who still are likely to see macbooks as a waste of a nice chasis) bought them. But there is still an oddness among many Apple fans that extends to their far more mediocre products, and a reverence for Steve Jobs that is a bit over the top. (I would say that Jobs had a brilliant mind for bringing form and function together, but I don't think there was a single product that didn't have at least one glaring problem, for 90% of their product line it would at the least provide rather poor value.)

LHC Rap...Yes, it Sucks.

Not going to link the video. I mostly want to agree with Thoreau. The rap is bad. Very bad. It would be fine if done for something like Sesame Street, but the concepts are a bit to advanced (even when presented in simple terms as is done) for elementary school and younger children. It would be good as a intro to some high concepts in like a high school or college physics class, if it weren't for the fact that it is a horrible rap.

Many science dorks (myself included) will find it funny and cute. But it is not going to do science or scientists any favors used as general public outreach.

I Find the Similarities Eerie

"Eerie" is a weird word, much like "weird" so I'm appreciative of the opportunity to use it.

The background to the title is the eerie comparison between the description of Asperger syndrome and me (I'm like a hypochondriac, but for ambiguous syndromes that could apply and won't likely land me in a hospital).

Although individuals with Asperger syndrome acquire language skills without significant general delay and their speech typically lacks significant abnormalities, language acquisition and use is often atypical. Abnormalities include verbosity, abrupt transitions, literal interpretations and miscomprehension of nuance, use of metaphor meaningful only to the speaker, auditory perception deficits, unusually pedantic, formal or idiosyncratic speech, and oddities in loudness, pitch, intonation, prosody, and rhythm.

Hmm..Verbositiy check; abrupt transitions, check; literal interpretations, check; miscomprehension of nuance, not sure; use of metaphor [...], check; auditory perception deficits, check; pedantic, check (when not meaning pedestrian); formal/idiosyncratic, check; oddities in [...], check.

People with Asperger syndrome often display behavior, interests, and activities that are restricted and repetitive and are sometimes abnormally intense or focused. They may stick to inflexible routines, move in stereotyped and repetitive ways, or preoccupy themselves with parts of objects.

Oh dear God, yes. Well, not so much the "inflexible routines" part but really, yea.

Of course the big one with Asperger's is the lack of demonstrated empathy. I hesitate on this one, because I don't know exactly how to figure it. But, in the end, I really don't empathize well. Mostly I fake it because I can and do understand well. Really, though, I have to force myself to understand that when a friend is upset about something, she may not be so keen on listening to me bitch about some unrelated thing or that he may not be in the mood to play a game or watch a movie.

Plus, I am a scientist. Autism of some sort is practically a given.

Stating the Obvious but...

Of course geeks make the best boyfriends/spouses! My favorite is #7, and I certainly agree with reason #1, though I'm a bit surprised it's there. There are, of course, other reasons that are not listed, and most geeks also have the good-companion beta male personality (for full discussion read "A Dirty Job").

Geek is a word that tends to refer to specific things like computers, sci fi, anime, and science/math. It is really more general than that, though. Geeks are people who, for reasons passing the understanding of others, love to discover things, and challenge and complexity in that pursuit are enticing things. Male geeks, as such, treasure women (who will have them) above all else. We will never figure you out, but we love to try.

There is, to be fair, a bit of objectivity to that. Of course, geeks tend to objectify all people along similar lines, so it is not inherently sexist. And experimentation--from the kitchen to the bedroom--is not something that everyone is going to enjoy, after all, they don't all produce good results, they just all teach us a little more.

HDMI Cables

Cabling for various components in an entertainment system can be fairly complicated and very pricey. With analog cables the high cost makes sense. Pickup and loss along the length directly affect the signal, so very low resistance wires (heavy gauge copper) with high quality shielding that is separated by the center conductor by a fair distance and preferably driven are very important to signal quality. Good analog signal cables are expensive.

Digital is completely different. Signals are transmitted quickly but are either 1 or 0. No in betweens. Noise pickup is almost irrelevant. This is one of the major advantages to digital signal transmission. It also means that you do NOT need any special care in the cable. This means that digital cables should be much cheaper than analog. I picked up my HDMI cables for about $3 each (including shipping) online. Cheapest I could find at a store: $30 at Radio Shack. Most are over $50 with plenty of them being over $100!

There is zero reason for these cables to cost over $10...or for them to not be included with devices that use them. Zero. It's a rip off. Unfortunately for most (low-info) shoppers, this information is not exactly handed out at anyplace that sells these cables. They make too much money to let people in on the scam.

Apple: Computers for Luddites...Rich Luddites

...because it sounds nicer than "Dummies."

I have an iPhone. I like it well enough. There have been a couple freezing episodes, and in terms of productivity software they are crap compared with other smart phones, but it's an mp3 player, ok camera and phone together, plus the downloadable apps are sometimes fun. It is also very pretty.

Apple computers are great for people who don't have a clue what they are doing when it comes to computers. They are easy to use, trouble free devices. They are also very pretty.

If it was not for two things that they do, Apple would likely be the dominant home computer in this country (and maybe the world). The first was early on. They did not let others produce computers that would run MacOS. This is why, despite the advantage of being first and best for a decade or so, Microsoft, Intel et al. were able to push past and come to dominate to the extent that personal computer is now synonymous with a Microsoft OS system. The resulting market dominance means that new hardware developments and pretty much all software is available on PC's first...and for less.

Which leads us to the other thing Apple does: set prices way higher than comparable Microsoft systems. This has always been a bit of an issue to me as I want to buy the best computer that I can get for the money, and Apple has never been close. In fact, I build my own desktops and that has not been possible if you wanted an Apple...I think this is no longer the case, but it is still much easier to build a PC than it is a Mac.

The security and stability issue is real: people writing viruses and worms want to have as many computers as possible pick it up, so they target Microsoft OS rather than Mac. This has actually lead to Windows being the more secure system, but it is just attacked more often. Because many users do not use security features properly, there are plenty of PC's taken out by viruses, worms, and spyware. Because Mac's are not targeted and because they don't allow the user as much freedom to mess with settings (and cause problems), they are more secure.

Mac's really are good computers for people who just want basic internet and productivity function and don't ever want to fuss with things (most users), but they will never be as popular so long as they are ~1.5-2x+ the cost of a comparable PC. This will enshrine them as toys for people with money and without tech savvy. It's really a pretty narrow market. Value shoppers, bang-for-your-buck types, power gamers, and computer geeks (they may prefer Linux, but most have at least one Windows box...even if it's a switchable one) are all PC types, and they account for most of the market.