I’ve experienced a rather excellent week, and next week promises to be equally excellent, as it is Regents, meaning two days lacking anything related to school, and two short and relatively painless tests.
After a full 2 weeks (approximately 150 hours of downloading) I got the first 31 episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist downloaded (I uploaded over 50 gb worth of data), and I’ve watched them all (it only took me 3 days), and the next 29 episodes only have 43 hours more left to go (keep in mind, each episode is 175 megs, it makes for 9 gigs total for the series). I introduced it to Daniel last night when he was over (he strolled in as I was watching it) and he ended up watching 12 episodes (remember that these things are 25 minutes each). I have deduced this to be the best anime, and even show ever created. The unique and creative genius of the plot, characters, and the world is astounding. The animation style and quality is akin to Trigun (which I should also download). Sick of the parenthesis yet?
I’ve also gotten around to playing Rome: Total War, and it is, to my delight, the best strategy game ever created. Ben and I keep talking about playing online, but we never get around to it, but it isn’t as if I don’t have things to keep me occupied. I still have yet to beat Neverwinter Nights, and all those SNES games.
In the mean time, I’ve also been tracking Splinter Cell 3 and Elder Scrolls IV (three new screens came out today, in fact). I had been on the look out for Jade Empire and KotOR II, but after having played KotOR and NwN, I’m not sure if the same formula of game would still be all that fun, as I tend to get over-manipulative of the system. I’ll stop talking about games now.
I was thinking to myself earlier about Macs in general – and why they’ve become comparable to PCs in the recent year. I did myself a Google, and discovered a number of things, from reading the most intelligently disguised Mac-PC flamewar, on a Linux forum.
I have long argued over the inferiority of Macs compared to PCs, but recently much of my argument has blown up in my face, due to the de-retardation of Macs. It still hasn’t answered as to why I find them so awful (I use G4’s at school on a daily basis, just so my experience is not in doubt EDIT: apparantly my experience is in doubt. i’ve also used powerbooks on multiple occasions, and OS9’s fairly regularly, but i admit that i have not used a G5). A number of posters on the previously stated site brought up extremely valid points as to why the experience varies.
- Macs are preferred for the software capabilities. PCs are preferred for the hardware capabilities.
An owner of a server put it quite well. His needs do not revolve around multimedia. His three PCs don’t even have sound cards, and use very low end video cards. In place of those, he needs massive storage. PCs allow you to do that infinitely, they don’t have a cap on how much of what you need. Macs cannot be built from scratch (technically it IS possible, but the amount of work and experience involved surpasses that required for a PC by far), you have to buy a pre-made from Apple. You CAN upgrade it, but that does not allow you to specialize in certain areas, but not sacrifice economics. Macs simply have superior software. Some of their formats have better, faster, higher quality compressions and decompressions (for video or pictures). That’s always been true.
- Macs are inevitably more expensive for those who have special wants or needs.
Because you cannot just sacrifice in one area to add to another, you have to go for the more expensive package. PCs end up being cheaper for those with special needs. PCs may or may not be expensive when it comes to a rounded-out machine. Generally, if you build a PC from scratch, it’ll be cheaper than an equivelant Mac or pre-built PC. Macs have been known to be more expensive since the beginning – this has been studied dozens of times, results are neutral according to bias, but for the standard machine, Macs will cost more.
- Benchmarks and power comparisons are inconclusive.
I’ve had several people tell me that the newest Macs would rip apart a Pentium 4 – this is meaningless, as the power of a P4 can range immensely, from < 1.0 to 5.0, and the clock cycles per operation between mac and PC procs vary as well. This also doesn't consider that AMD chipsets are far faster the P4's, (I have the evidence to back me up), and most benchmarks are run on Dells, which certainly do not run high quality hardware. Anyways.
Skiing was cold. It was about 5, possible 0 degrees out, with a wind chill of like -5 or -10. Fun, but cold. The bus rides to and fro (the irony has just now struck me) are actually one of my favorite parts, I have to say. I was wearing so many layers – I had 6 on my body, three on legs, two pairs of socks, two pairs of gloves, two goods, a turtleneck, and earwarmers. I still froze. I had no goggles, so every snowblower was like “OH SWEET HEAVEN THE PAIN! AHHHHHHHHH!”, but was otherwise, just cold.