OSNews

Assuming, of course, the college students have some money to spare. Or the parents can indeed afford the rent/mortgage payments. Assumptions like this are, well, offensive.

The assumption that we can all put aside "just a bit each week" as you can doesn't take into account those from below middle class families with partial scholarships and no other assistance whatsoever. So yes, I agree that MOST college students have self-control issues and could put aside a few dollars a week for a while.

Keep in mind, however, that some of us have outstanding tuition balances, student accounts employees breathing down our necks, and are on a first name basis with the financial aide department.

That being said, my four year plus old Athlon 2000+, Radeon 9000 Pro, and 512mb RAM handles everything I throw at it just fine. Here's hoping nothing happens to it in the next, oh, two years

@ThawkTH

Assuming, of course, the college students have some money to spare. Or the parents can indeed afford the rent/mortgage payments. Assumptions like this are, well, offensive

Only people stuck Poverty Beliefs will find this "offensive". Why? Because it's reality. And sometimes reality hurts.

Keep in mind, however, that some of us have outstanding tuition balances, student accounts employees breathing down our necks, and are on a first name basis with the financial aide department.

Yes. But why do others with average salary can buy themselves a fuel guzzler like an SUV? Again a matter of beliefs.

What in God's name is a poverty belief? And am I not supposed to find your assumption that people can actually afford things like new laptops (particularly blue collar families with students in college) offensive? Oh, you can afford it. Anyone can! Stop believing you can't and you will!


"Yes. But why do others with average salary can buy themselves a fuel guzzler like an SUV? Again a matter of beliefs."

If you actually were to find the average salary in, well, the US...It's probably a lot lower than you think.

Real Median Household Income: $42,228 (2000 US Census).

That's right my friend. Don't go claiming any kind of high ground when it comes to poverty

Do you understand that the average family, in fact, cannot even pray to afford an SUV? Get your facts straight before you shove your elitist drivel down other people's throats to make yourself more comfortable.

Really? Dayam. I make less than that, and I consider myself well-off.

Not brand-new MacBook Pro well-off, but comfortably well-off.

@ThawkTH

What in God's name is a poverty belief? And am I not supposed to find your assumption that people can actually afford things like new laptops (particularly blue collar families with students in college) offensive? Oh, you can afford it. Anyone can! Stop believing you can't and you will!

A poverty belief is a problematic belief concerning money. Concentrate on being poor settling for less and people will always have less in life.

If the situation, a person is in, can't get what they want in life then they need to deal with that first.

Why do you assume that blue collar people are all supposed to be poor? A lot of them have their own house and have one or more kid in college. If one can do it then why can't the other do it also?

Do you understand that the average family, in fact, cannot even pray to afford an SUV? Get your facts straight before you shove your elitist drivel down other people's throats to make yourself more comfortable.

So you're saying my old man and a bucket load of other fathers are just a bunch of elitists?

But why do others with average salary can buy themselves a fuel guzzler like an SUV? Again a matter of beliefs.

Four letters:
D-E-B-T.

That's the lone reason why you see so many new cars around; people go into debt to fund their lifestyle. North Americans are absolutely inept at saving money and buying things with real, tangible dollars - everything is financed or leased or mortgaged or "don't pay for 90 days".

Now, I do agree with your point - but you have to acknowledge that some people simply can't save. For some people, it is impossible. Single mothers, people working from paycheque to paycheque, indebted students - while they would be well-advised to scrimp and scrive some semblance of savings, in many cases there is simply no room in their budget for that. And they may never have the earning power to consider things like retirement investments, new vehicles or computers. They are called the "working poor".

I find your statement offensive, it is not just beliefs that keep people from not being able to afford $40,000 cars, it's debt, commitments, cost of living, number of children, the economy, you name it. Alot of people do not drive SUVs either, please keep your preconceptions to yourself

I am a college student and I do not have money to put aside each week. I've been saving my extra money since new year and I have a grand total of $10, I have been tempted, oh how I've been tempted to waist this money on pop, but I have my eye on a mac mini... There are some things that are out of reach you dolt.

"just because ou stick feathers in your but doesnt make you a chiken"

--Tyler durden

Everybody is missing a major point here. People want to customize and control how their interfaces look, even intermix different OS styles. Imagine just for a minute people are not just imitating Apple/Gnome/E17 (litestep does this a lot) but are controlling how their desktop looks and feels. This is why we have themes and why there are theme artists.

America, Most of Europe, Japan, Taiwan, etc..

Just have to stop making excuses and do it.

Edited 2006-02-26 20:18

No Monaco. I think they have a sign with a picture of that car at the border : "You must be at least this rich to enter" :-)

I modded you back up for de-trolling you comment ;-)

Edited 2006-02-26 20:21

No Monaco. I think they have a sign with a picture of that car at the border : "You must be at least this rich to enter" :-)

hahaha +1 funny

I modded you back up for de-trolling you comment ;-)

You're an OSNews moderator?

I modded you back up for de-trolling you comment ;-)

You're an OSNews moderator?

No, I just modded you up after someone else modded you down. Who wants to be a moderator here - they get all kinds of lunatics screaming for their head on a pike.

Man, thanks for telling me I could afford a Jag, I thought it was my empty bank account and debt that was keeping me from buying one, this is wicked

If there exists a country wherin "everyone" can afford a 40000 euro car, please, I'd like to move there...

Everyone was meant in a relative sense. 40000 Euros is a more than reasonable price for i.e. a company lease car. As a lease car, and even as a personally owned car, 40000 is very accesible when compared to the 120000 Euros for the Aston V8 Vantage, or 202000 Euros for the DB9. Also remember that these are Dutch prices; and we have the highest car prices in the world due to an insane amount of taxes... i.e. the Bently Continental GT is little over $100000 in the US, but costs well over 300000 EUR here.

On a sidenote, the DB9 is the one you'd want. You don't want the V8 Vantage because it just screams "I actually wanted the DB9 but I'm too poor to" (much like the Porsche Boxter compared to the 911), and you don't want the 300000+ Euro Aston Martin Vanquish because it is basically the same as the DB9 (they carry almost the same engine and have the same performance), but only without the stunning DB9's interior.

Sigh, I need to get rich. Seriously.

Edited 2006-02-26 20:29

Thom, as far as I am aware, the 'current' Vanquish is still based on the older pre-DB9 Aston. Apparently there is a new updated DB9 based Vanquish on it's way.

Also, the V8 Vantage is - to my mind - not a 'I couldn't afford a DB9' car at all. It was bought into production by Ford-owned Aston to:

A) Be a 911 competitor
B) Help Aston continue to make money through selling in higher numbers through being a little more affordable and targeting a slightly different demographic.

The V8 Vantage is a more 'pure' sports car model to the DB9's grand touring focus. Aston haven't had a V8 model for quite some number of years being exclusively V12 based (except for the awful V6 DB7's that somehow made it into existence!).

I read somewhere that Aston made a profit last year, for the first time in a few decades. Long may they stay around I say.

...both the Aston and the Jag are a mere Ford Mondeo underneath, just with different switchgear and price tags

Oversimplification, but yeah, *ouch*.

As a true Aston (and British cars in general) fan, that just hurts .

>> ...both the Aston and the Jag are a mere Ford Mondeo underneath, just with different switchgear and price tags
> Oversimplification, but yeah, *ouch*.
> As a true Aston (and British cars in general) fan, that just hurts .

...and also not true. I work supporting CAD systems at Jagaur & know (as in used to sit at the desk next to & get occasional calls from) people doing the same role at Aston Martin. Though there may be odd switches and vents from Ford which may have been reused there aren't many in recent Astons or the XK. They certainly aren't based on the same platform as the Mondeo!

...both the Aston and the Jag are a mere Ford Mondeo underneath, just with different switchgear and price tags

Although I know which I'd rather be driving...

I bet I can guess ...

The Ford!

;-)

sigh

Ford owns Volvo as well, but Volvo's cars are definitely not based on any Ford platform. The only Jaguar car I'm aware of that's based on a Ford platform is the X-type, which is an upscale Taurus. The other ones are still Jaguar's designs.

Volvo's latest cars (V50/S40) are indeed built on a Ford developed platform that also underpins the Mazda3 and the new Ford Focus.

The Jaguar X-type was actually built on the same platform as the European Mondeo rather than the US Taurus. I'm not sure whether the Taurus also shared the Mondeo platform or not. I know their [duratec] engines were similar but of different capacity (2.5 in the Mondeo and 3.0 in the Taurus) so they may well have.

The North American built S Type shares a platform with the Lincoln LS.

The analogy, for me, only holds water when you are discussing skinning Windows to look like OS X, or Linux to look like OS X or BeOS.

When people come up with original, clean, or stunning themes that do not resemble anything else available - then Thom's analogy fails.

He'd have to extend it to include something like the TVR Tuscan for unique cases.

http://www.fastcoolcars.com/images/wallpaper7/tvr_tuscan.jpg

*grin* Indeed, if only.

While both Aston and Jaguar are Ford owned (as are Volvo, Land Rover and Mazda), they do have different focuses (pun not intended). Also, as far as I am aware, Aston's are still hand built where the Jaguars arent't - hence the price difference. Whereas Jaguar is using the Aluminium body as their point of difference.

While the new XK and the DB9 do share some common components, one is definetely not a more up or down market version of the other.

Here in the USA, folks put big muffler pipes, wings, ground effects, spinner hub caps, and all kinds of hideous adornments on their Honda Civics et. al. so that they have something "special". Is it a waste of time and money? Some would say yes. The owners would say heck no!

Extend that to turbo chargers and nitrous in those Civics and you got Gentoo ricers.

Extend that to turbo chargers and nitrous in those Civics and you got Gentoo ricers.

Yeah - here in Toronto the kids street race them late at night on the urban expressways. Hairy and I guess they do the same in the states.

Kewl - someone else who knows about cars like me.

Hey Brad, did you hear that remour about Ford selling off Jaguar and Land Rover as a package this year?

Fully agreed, it's easy to read between the lines and know this is about Windows looking like OSX and how it's better to have the real thing. It must hurt that "the real thing" can be ran on every computer more or less which supports sse2 with osx86.

Mac a luxury vehicle?

I have had 3 ibooks all suffering from logic board problems and broken inverterboards (backgroundlight). This all in a periode of 1,5 years. There are stories on the net of people that have had their logic boards replaced 5 or 6 times. My count was at 2 replacements.
After the last repair i was so fed up with it that i told myself never to buy an ibook again and sold it. I now own a more cheaper asus, standard warranty of 2 years and it's been running here for almost a year now. Just performing his "dull little tasks" as apple likes to call it.
And i'm certainly not the only one, a friend of mine bought a powerbook a while back and has had problems with it from the start. Luckily for him he got a refund from apple, ofcourse after being on the phone for hours.

I'm still an apple fan, still own an ipod, still own a few older macs which seem to run without problems. But comparing them with an expensive car. No..
BTW ever heard of the steve jobs reality distortion field? Seems someone is suffering from that

Edited 2006-02-27 12:17

Fully agreed, it's easy to read between the lines and know this is about Windows looking like OSX and how it's better to have the real thing.

I think it speaks volmes about YOU that you see hidden messages between the lines. I clearly and specifically was talking about a) myself, and b) about copying ANY operating system-- because yes, I used to turn KDE into Tracker/Deskbar, OSX into OS9 as well as Tracker/Deskbar, etc.

The fact that YOU only think about Explorer => Aqua/Finder has nothing to do with how *I* used to skin.

I'm still an apple fan, still own an ipod, still own a few older macs which seem to run without problems. But comparing them with an expensive car. No.

Neither did I. Please point me to where I compared any Mac to an expensive sportscar in this article or in one of my comments on the article.

BTW ever heard of the steve jobs reality distortion field? Seems someone is suffering from that

Heh tell that to this guy [1] [2].

No, it's not that. You might see messages between the lines, but that might just say more about you than about me.

[1] http://cogscanthink.blogsome.com/2005/09/12/explanation/
[2] http://cogscanthink.blogsome.com/2006/01/05/kelly-mcneil-nailed-and...

Quote: In other words-- everyone can own a Jag. Few can own an Aston.
And the same goes for operating systems.
=================
You are talking about an operating system being exclusive. The only operating system which i can think of being exclusive and which looks are copied all the time is mac osx and the operating system that everyone owns is windows. The " just get the real thing" is a verb which is spoken by (new) mac users all the time when some windows dude on a forum is trying to skin his machine to look like osx.

A simple "aqua buy a real mac" google search brought me to:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=7596

In this you say yourself the aqua community is biggest, is it so weird that i think you are talking about windows looking like macosx?

Edited 2006-02-27 16:08

In this you say yourself the aqua community is biggest, is it so weird that i think you are talking about windows looking like macosx?

No.... But if I specifically say, both in the article AND just now in a comment that I'm talking about ANY conversion... Then why don't you simply trust my words? That just baffles me. That you misunderstood me-- fine, possible, no problem. But even after clarification you INSIST on your own standpoint. That is just, well, 'obnoxious' :/.

The "just get the real thing" is a verb which is spoken by (new) mac users all the time when some windows dude on a forum is trying to skin his machine to look like osx.

'Get the real thing' is a normal, non-specific phrase, not tied to anything. I can understand if personal experience makes you think the column refers to Aquafying only-- but why do you keep on believing that EVEN if I clarify it all?

The problem is that in the rush to reinforce the elitist self-delusion of the Mac user, the kernel of the entire pantheon of skinning motivations is tossed into the corner of shame, and all practical reasons covered over in a thick, multi-paragraph layer of "whatever you're copying the appearance of is just better."

If you want to make Windows look like Motif, well that's just a low-class thing. Nevermind you might be using CDE and a bunch of custom Motif applications on a Windows computer sitting in your office. No one ever claims about the inconsistency of the desktop or anything.

Or maybe you want your Windows XP to look like Windows 2000 and you use the Classic theme. That Windows XP is never going to be a Windows 2000, so just install Windows 2000 instead.

Macs don't cost that much. Their hardware isn't that impressive. People don't like you more for having a Mac. No one cares. If anything, overzealous Mac users repel other computer users because they think their computer is the equivalent of owning a luxury car. Some proverbial kid, if for some reason they actually like the look of Aqua, is going to make their lowly Windows peesee look something like OS X (with included dock and expose functionality no less) and then play all of his video games, download selected titles from the massive library of windows peesee warez with his choice of p2p clients for his choice of p2p networks. He'll encode his music files with his choice of audio codec, and watch his warezed porn with his choice of video codecs.

And everyone else will skin the programs and desktop environments they want for whatever reasons they want, fully aware that their computer is never going to magically transform into a Star Trek ship computer terminal, even if looks like one.

You are operating under the false assumption that everyone who skins their OS wants another OS or is fooling themselves into thinking they are running that other OS.

That's why I was CLEARLY talking about skinning operating systems to make them resemble other OS's-- and NOT about skinning in general.

Seems like you are operating under the false assumption that I'm operating under the false assumption that everyone who skins their OS wants another OS or is fooling themselves into thinking they are running that other OS.

Err...

Ahhh but i am talking about that too. Read carefully I mentioned running Aqua on windows. Of course I can't cover every permutation of running whatever on whatever so I gave an example. And you also misread that sentance you quoted. It means a person can run a ported skin and actually not want the OS it was ported from believe it or not and that is their business.

Seems like you completely missed everything I wrote.

IT'S JUST A SKIN.

Edited 2006-02-27 10:08

The thing is-- I'm not 'offended' if other people are using skins, as you think. All I did in my column was explain why and how *I* found out how useless skinning actually is, FOR ME. If you want to skin, then go ahead, I don't care.

That doesn't stop me from explaining why I find something pointless, though.

And that's a problem for Y. You can hire the same lead designer. You can make a stunning interior. You can even price the Y N Euros cheaper than the cheapest X. But all that means jack. It will never be an X. It will never have the same exclusivity. The inherent Z that comes with every X. And most importantly-- it will never make people like and appreciate you as much as when you own an X.

Please provide the substitutions for variables N,X,Y,Z that makes your comment apply to home computers rather than automobiles. For the sake of preempting the inclusion of CDE, CDE is not an operating system.

You're writing an editorial, aren't you? You're presenting people with an opinion of this behavior, and not simply an anecdote about how you decided to go out and just buy an operating system? Well, which operating system would that be? Did you go out and buy a computer to run OS/2 on? Or did you buy a NeXTstation instead of using WindowMaker/Afterstep in conjunction with neXtaw and a gtk+ theme? What computers even approach an expensive automobile in any of its properties? There's certainly no home computer that is anything similar. Do you have an E25k somewhere that you're controlling with a CDE session?