I have a Windows VM on My Mac mini, so I can run whatever I need. The exorbitant price? 500 dollars. And the M4 Chip is a lot faster than my recently bought Lenovo.

You really don't need to understand my enthusiasm. I use all three major OS', I can make my own decisions as to which one I use at any given time. Mostly MacOS, mainly because I like it best, the Linux machines because they are fun. and the nice shiny Windows machine so I keep current on the myriad of fixes needed that I might need to address.

But out of curiosity, you hate MacOS, UNIX based, while liking Linux, which is Unixy. Interesting. They are brothers, OS wise.

As I noted in a post above, I was not an IT guy, but I was assigned support for Macs at my institution. Almost no issues. And when there was, it was usually a drive going bad, maybe a broken mouse. UNIX FTW

Interesting, I was somehow assigned IT for our institutions Macs, several hundred of them. I got perhaps 2 calls a month, many months with no calls.

Meanwhile, Windows support had an entire division of support people who we busy 8 hours a day, even performing digital triage at times.

Now that's a comparison that's just a comparison, if you are correct about Chromebooks needing less IT than Macs, perhaps the IT departments could just disband. If a kid has a computer problem, just buy them a new one - cheaper than pay and benefits for IT peeps.

Exactly. In a student environment the devices need to be as close to identical as possible, Which BTW, in my recent classes, W11 machines supposedly on the same computers, are not the same.

Indeed: what does it matter if the kids are running google docs or Office-365 on a Macbook Neo?

I'd be surprised if the Macs do not allow local use. Of course, they could always use Apache Office, and trim some more costs.

Might be time for that Apple Domination. W11 is an anti-user disaster, even Microsoft admits it. It is regressing, and having a working W11 computer is becoming anomalous.

We had it, then Microsoft took it away.

And much less need for IT. Although Chromebooks didn't need as much IT staff as say - Windows.

And now with Windows 11, the Windows devices stretch the "useable" concept.

And I have teaching classes to verify that. Multiple classes where no class had everything working at the same time. Spent every class "fixing" multiple computers. I even went to running the software involvedon my Mac after I got nuked by an update that moved files to onedrive that had to be on the laptop. I deactivated onedrive, Windows activated it again. Had a lot of pissed off students, and they wanted me to teach a linux version of the same class. I did, and the class took a hiatus after something like 5 sessions because everyone's setup worked, and they were good to go. Ran out of syllabus. The classes were RF communications using various codec software, interfaced with SDR and conventional radios. W11 failed miserably, the main culprit was the update process nuking the setup, and the difficulty of installing some perfectly innocuous software.

And yes, I could get my W11 laptop running after an update wrecked it. Two things wrong with that MacOS and Linux don't do that often if ever, and these students are all very smart, but with a whole lot less experience than I have.

Except his complaint is not.

Yes, it literally was. The main public complaint of the weavers was that they spent their entire life learning their art, and then their bosses come in with a machine that they teach to replicate the patterns that they developed, churn out cheap "slop" versions of them, and fire them.

I likewise have no issues with Google Workplace on My Macs. I'd rather not use them, but a couple people I work with like to use them. I do a fair number of Google Forms as well. Works perfectly.

I freaking hate zsh. Funny how they have instructions after you go bash to "update" to zsh, but not the other way around. I look at zsh as Apple's version of powershell, at least in terms of being a pain in the backside.

Guess I ventured OT here,

And here we're talking about profits, despite their huge scaleup expenditure. Theirs and OpenAI's margins on serving inference are ~40%.

It's almost impossible for a company undergoing a massive scaleup rate to turn a profit, let alone growing 10X annualized for 3 1/2 years running, but Anthropic pulled it off.

While I wouldn't say that everyone could benefit, I have long been in the habit of taking copious longhand notes, then putting them away, because I remember what I wrote.

When I have not, the intel doesn't "stick" quite as much. Or at least it doesn't seem so to me.

Maybe I should do an experiment to see, because I know with note taking with pencil and paper seems to work. I have an eidetic memory, not perfect, but pretty good - perhaps I am an outlier?

I made someone big mad by suggesting we could discuss topics related to the primary subject as we were already doing in this thread. Rent free!

Mic drop. Cymbal crash!

The guy you are arguing with will move the goalposts with every post you make. He'll be pissed at the Apple one button mouse by the time you're done with him.

And while I don't have completely up to date knowledge on the Chromebooks, I do know that MacBooks have a marked tendency to run reliably

Your goalpost not only has wheels, it's got a hemi in it.