Stardate: 20021020.1915
Word Count: 2,979
Title: A Compulsion to Revisionism
Impetus: Irritation with benighted “Macolytes.”
Thesis: Apple, despite its small market share, acts like a monopoly because Mac users can procure most of their hardware only through Apple. For this and other reasons, the Mac’s hardware is in every way inferior to the PC’s. (Den Beste discusses mostly graphics, Apple’s pride and joy, and detours briefly into RAM.) Apple’s dishonest benchmarking, down to its very choice of Photoshop filters, is designed to hide these facts.
Best Quote: “Apple is presenting itself as a premium brand, but it’s using the cheapest components it can find.”
Word to the Non-Technical: You might enjoy Arnold Kling’s comment more than the piece itself.

(Update: Den Beste runs, or tries to run, some hard disk benchmarks.)