I see this with all of my peers. They are either oblivious as to why girls pick certain things and boys others, or they believe they know why and use their children for their confirmation bias. All the while, I see every single one of them pushing their children into the predefined sexual roles that society has dictated. Even when they don't think they are doing it themselves, all of the people around them are doing it. Their relatives. The schools. The TVs. It is unavoidable.

Part of that gender message that gets ground into children day in and day out is that males MUST get a good job if they want a good life. females CAN get a good job if they want a good life. As soon as little girls begin to interact with the rest of society, it is made absolutely clear to them that they do not need to provide for themselves. There is always someone else who will do it for them.

Irrelevant of gender, you will get a lower percentage of people that have been told they don't have to work, working hard and taking less than desirable jobs. The fact that women as a group tend to gravitate towards jobs that pay less and require less sacrifice is not surprising. They are not underrepresented in these jobs because of their gender. It is because their gender is under represented in the group that is raised to believe that no one is going to pay their way through life.

It isn't a genetic problem, and the solution for under representation of women in IT isn't to do more of what caused the under representation in the first place.

If you want to see this whole thing really laid bare, look at plumbing. In IT it could be argued that everybody is equal, and thus it must be discrimination. When you look at plumbing, there are jobs were particular genders have a distinct advantage. While there are some jobs that require physical strength so a men as a group have a genetic advantage, in residential plumbing, it is incredibly common for the plumber to need to squeeze through small places. Many houses do not have enough clearance under them for an average sized man to fit. This is a field where equally competent little petite women should really shine. Every plumbing company in the country should have tiny little size 0 women working for them. Do we see this? No. Because tiny little size 0 women don't need to crawl around under dank insect infested crawlspaces. They don't need to literally crawl through human feces. So, they don't.

Again. This isn't a genetic problem, and it isn't an industry problem. It is a cultural problem that starts before the kids can even walk. (Of course, that is only if one considers it a problem at all)

Because with "cyber" bullying, the nerds are on equal or better footing. We can't have that.

That I will agree with. For most people, once you get past a certain point of software availability, more doesn't matter. I would say that OSX has all the software that most non-technical people need.

In the context of giving them to a non-technical person, it is entirely true. Telling a non-technical person that they can run a Windows only app on their Mac via emulation or dual boot is in practice telling them that they can't do it at all.

For a non-technical person, Mac is more limited in software choices than Windows.

Dual boot is WAY worse for a non-techie than Parallels. Dual boot is a complete non-starter.

Which is why it is a shame that MS hasn't jumped on this. Of course, people are already getting to where they accept non-MS software on their phones and tablets.

Actually, it is to stop people from setting up businesses that use barter for the express purpose of avoiding taxes. Exactly what these schools seem to be doing.

You get 13 years of Gen ed classes before entering college. If you haven't been able to get educated in 13 years, a few more years are not going to change things. The only reasonable rational for colleges is for specialization.

I don't sell them, and I have found Toshiba to be a very good brand. Acer have worked pretty well for me too. I have never owned a Dell laptop, but HP and Gateway suck.

Both my laptop (Acer) and my wife's (Toshiba) are i5 with Intel graphics. They are fine for casual gaming and more than adequate for everything else.

We are well past the point that the OS is the limiting factor in computer usage, and for most people (which includes the poster's description of his sister) we are well past the point that hardware is the limiting factor. If his sister has money to burn (which it sounds like she just might) she may find the extra cost of a Mac worthwhile. Otherwise, he could just take her down to a Staples and have her pick pretty much any laptop that she likes the look of. It will run fine. It will have all of the drivers pre-installed, and she will be good to go.

This is not for a techie. As much as I love emulation/visualization, it isn't the right choice for most non-technical people. If his sister emulates Windows on OSX he isn't removing Windows problems, he is adding OSX problems.