... except that it uses quite a few more words than should be considered necessary for such a simple proposition. In fact, the entire article can be said somewhat more pithily, to wit:

"Macs may cost more up front, but retain their value much better in the marketplace, and therefore a several year old computer, while nearly worthless if a PC, still has genuine value if a Mac, more than offsetting the original extra outlay."

Does Manjoo's article say anything more than that? Anything at all?

And, if my acting like his editor doesn't show up the need for the man's writing to be edited, let me present this quote as Exhibit B:

"The present article is an attempt to prove to you that, on price alone, the Mac is not the BMW of computers. It is the Ford of computers."

"The present article"? You mean, the thing we're reading right now? What kind of stilted grammar is that?

Besides, in the same quote, he goes on to make a point which is totally at odds with his thesis, which is that the Mac is precisely the BMW of computers. Or the Acura. Meaning, you pay more, but you get that back, and more, in quality and resale value. It has nothing to do with Fords, which most readers would take as a symbol of a cheaper, mediocre, anonymous product that depreciates relatively quickly. In fact, I'm sure Manjoo would agree that he's calling the PCs "Fords", and many users (even PC users) would agree with that characterization.

So we're left with a fluffy, padded article that doesn't really say much. But it's not about Britney, so I suppose we'll have to be grateful for what Salon chooses to bestow upon its readers. For the banner headline.

... put Ubuntu or Knoppix or whatever flavor of Linux floats your boat on it. Free!

Sure it can be an adventure trying to get things like Wine (the Windows emulator) or various pieces of hardware running on it. If that frightens you, go only with vanilla hardware and the simplest distribution you can find.

But it honestly won't take long before you realize that 90% of the things you use a computer for, like reading nonsensical tech-infused rantings from a writer who convinced Salon's higher-ups that he was genuinely savvy about technology, can be done just as easily from a Linux Firefox window as a Windows Firefox window.

I never sell computers. I had to admit to the insurance company that some uneducated thief stole my 10-year old Pentium/150 Tecra, a machine that's worth $30 on a good day. But for me, that was the machine that I could bring out and talk to my car's electronics, and I didn't care how much danger it was in.

... (or a BMW) is the fact that Mac owners are compelled to beat back arguments against the One True Computer, and are blind to any possible limitations of the One True Computer. There is a total and complete suspension of all critical judgment.

That's why you don't get a push from Mac users for Apple to sell their OS to run on commodity hardware. Gates didn't make computers cheap; Taiwan and the free market and a huge worldwide PC base did that. They're not permitted to think that Jobs is getting fantastically wealthy charging a 100% markup for the same hardware that everybody else gets a 10% markup on.

To suggest that is to come up against the huge brick wall of Faith. And anybody who's ever tried talking a die-hard Bush supporter down from their weird, fact-free "reasoning" knows how pointless an exercise that can be.

So go on. Give Jobs huge amounts of your money, and I'll choke back my revulsion and give Gates a good deal less. But if you start selling all your other worldly possessions in order to make Jobs happy, you might start to rethink just what the "Mac community" is all about.

Just a suggestion.

BTW, someone a few letters back suggested that Macs are the ONLY computer you can make money owning. That may be the single stupidest sentence I've seen all year, as many of us making our livings on PCs can instantly attest.

that Macs are for girls:

"I've never heard a Windows user say they love their PC."

That someone can stand in wonder that people don't have a deep, personal bond with a pile of circuitry and metal is why Mac users tend not to be taken terribly seriously. When "which flavor do I get? I kind of like grape!" became foremost in the Mac shopper's mind, all was lost.

There's nothing wrong with the machines. Apple's industrial design is legendary, and the machines tend to be put together a bit more solidly (for twice the money, they'd better be). And if you can control which hardware is used (and charge a ludicrous premium for taking that choice away from consumers), you can spend a lot more energy making sure the system works end-to-end with that hardware.

That's a believable model for building a set of computers. The other model is to make everything interchangeable and hope that the 2000 different organizations building drivers and whatnot all work in perfect harmony. Chaotic, but that's capitalism for you.

It's the latter that's driven price drops all over the marketplace, a price drop which Apple is only too happy to exploit. You people don't think they make their own, special "Apple" disk drives, do you?