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> Yeah. Buying a Mac to run Debian is about like buying a Porsche and putt= ing > an American engine into it or something ridiculous. this analogy makes me cry for the poor hypothetical car. speaking of cars, software, and hate all in one tidy bundle: last year i took a road trip of roughly 3400 miles, nearly all interstate highway but some two-lane highway. i averaged about 33.5 miles to the gallon, which i was reasonably pleased with. i had it serviced directly after. four months later i took another road trip, much shorter, only about 720 miles, all four- and more-lane highway (on clear roads), doing approximately the same speed, and i got 29 miles to the gallon. well, maybe it was a fluke. a month later, the same roadtrip again, and the mileage didn't crack 30. i was *very* unhappy about that, so i called my dealer mechanic to ask about them checking it, asking if the timing could be off and confirming that they had replaced all my spark plugs as part of the previous maintenance (they had), and asking if they had done anything to the ECM during maintenance. the mechanic informed me, rather smarmily, that the timing is quite unadjustable in my car as it's all controlled by "the computer" and they cannot have accidentally changed "the computer." the ECM, the magical all-seeing, all-knowing engine control module, is omnibenevolent and perfectly predictable and if i've magically lost four miles to the gallon it's certainly somehow my fault as the operator. perhaps i just forgot i had upper gears. THE COMPUTER CANNOT BE WRONG. he never actually came out and said "it is not possible that the ECM is malfunctioning or we got it out of whack accidentally," but that was certainly the impression he conveyed. i really, really, really, really, really wanted to say "listen, bub, i work with computers and trust me, they are full of lies," but he probably wouldn't have believed me. because the ECM cannot be wrong. how could it be -- it's software, isn't it! (the really fun part about all his "it's impossible to mess up the ECM!" protestations is that five minutes with google turns up horror stories of people screwing up their VW ECMs ridiculously easily -- like, by replacing a stock stereo with an aftermarket model. i ask you, WHY ON EARTH should the gadget that's in charge of my fuel injectors have anything at all to do with my stereo? could you not afford *two* NVRAM chips? you redesigned the cupholders to fit Starbucks cups, for chrissakes -- i swear to you, the salesman pitched that as a feature improvement in my particular model year -- but you can't separate essential from nonessential electronics?) still incredulous (and hateful), --s.There's stuff above here
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