Extreme weather aside (in both Summer and Winter), if you're an outdoorsman, Minnesota is just about the perfect place to move to. It's absolutely covered in natural, beautiful lakes and hunting grounds.

Late northern region snow melts was actually part of the problem with the Missouri River flooding, or am I wrong?

Depends where in Minnesota you're talking about :) Minnesota has Lake Superior to worry about. Though, the worst snow I've ever personally witnessed from the great lake effect has been in Michigan. Maybe it has something to do with being nestled in between or something. I don't know, I'm not a meteorologist. But back to Minnesota... pretty much the entire state gets a shit ton (like most of the other midwest states).

Agreed. It's normally just the upper east coast that acts like the world is ending when they receive the slightest bit of weather. While there were a few areas that really did receive large amounts of snow (over 30 inches is definitely high), the biggest whiners I heard of are from the usual places. Like NYC. What'd they get, a few inches? Center of the world, ya know.

Listen, just because it's free doesn't mean we can't voice an opinion. That argument is just as bad as saying "If you have nothing to hide, then surely you won't mind the cops rummaging through your stuff for no reason." There's nothing wrong with saying we don't like it. Unless you're a developer, the only way to improve it is to voice how it can improve.

You are exactly right. Why the hell would I want to use Unity which often requires me to move my hands between my keyboard and mouse, click extra times to do the same action, or look for another one of those hidden features that were implemented in order to save 10px of space on my 1980x1200 resolution screen.

I like seeing exactly what windows I have open and ungrouped. I like using my horizontal space to display these things. I like not having my file menu potentially hundreds of pixels away when I could normally access it a very short distance away. I liked dedicating launcher menus on a separate bar from my task bar. I like visible scroll bars and I most definitely like having dedicated buttons visible at all times just one click away from me minimizing and maximizing my windows. In my opinion, Beryl/Compiz/Fusion alone offered enough eye-candy mixed with the right options to enhance my productivity while making the experience pretty.

There are very good reasons why I preferred the old Gnome 2.x desktop UI over OSX, KDE, Windows, or anything like that.

Here's a tip Shuttleworth: Don't be a Jobs. Don't think that just because we don't agree with you 100% that we're enemies or a bunch of whiners who are whining for no good reason. You have many users who know what they want, who know what they like, and who know the reasons why. Don't insult us by acting like The King of Hipster Club.

Oh God. Really? Can we get into any GUI without claiming it somehow copied something Apple? And did you even use Unity? For one, like it or not, it really is radically different than anything else I've ever used. It is also very tablet-centric with it's crazy large icons and more mobile looking interface (as compared to traditional desktop UI).

PS - I can't stand Unity.

I also didn't use present tense. So I didn't say they'e selling shit on a cracker, I said they could have.

Geez, people read too much into that. I've never been up-down moderated so much for 1 phrase that was fairly accurate and a compliment to Apple's great marketing department. Goes to show how emotional people get about brands.

That statement said nothing about the quality of their products. Yes, marketing is only a factor, but the product is also only a factor. Without good marketing it's just a toy. With good marketing it becomes gold. If Apple didn't market their products they way they do now, I doubt it would have achieved the same cult status it has now, and it especially wouldn't be the same kind of social status symbol they somehow inserted into millions of peoples' brains.

Anything else people have inferred from my statement kind of proves my point.

See? I told you they had a great marketing department.

Not necessarily. The point of marketing is to make you want it. It doesn't have to be great, you just have to believe it's great.

I feel your entire post was only trying to say "People buy Apple because 'it just works!'(TM)".

So do everyone else's. It's why I purchase a lot of Asus. I have good experiences with their hardware and they make what I like. But as you pointed out, everyone has their own stuff that they actually care about. To some it's the raw power. To others it's the trackpad. Past experiences contribute as well. Raw power cannot be subjective. Software is (which can make the raw power seem different depending on the person). Even history with the company is subjective to each individual. Trackpads? It depends on the software sometimes, but sure, other times there are clear differences between IO peripherals. Am I going to give the whole thing a better rating for build quality because of a trackpad? Probably not.

Well said, sir/madam.

Yes, yes they do. You're just being ignorant.

Listen, you like what you like and we all have reasons for buying what we do. I'm not going to judge you if you buy it because you truly like it. That's fine. But justifying your purchase by asserting higher build quality is bunk. First, you personally do not have the resources to prove that. The people who do don't find any brand consistently higher than everyone else. That is fact. It's evident in regular tear downs and reviews. Need I remind you that much of the equipment is shared across brands? Grow up.