Well, I do think education has something to do with knowledge. I have no degree, but work at the largest nuclear power station in the U.S. with instrumentation and controls. My work often involves PLCs (ladder logic programming, as well as computer control systems). I also worked in aerospace, materials research, and worked with analytical instrumentation. I worked with computers since the DEC PDP-11 LSI series, Modcomp, tape readers, drum memory, etc..

So do I get lambasted because I've been a science geek most of my life?

The integrated Macs are not so hot for the $$, but the Mac Pro is entirely different. It's a rendering monster, and is built with an aluminum chassis that is about twice as thick as the Chinese stuff sold all over the web. The keyboard is solid aluminum, but I don't like the feel of the keys. The mouse is...a stupid, but "cool" design. Overall, the computer is the best built PC box I've ever owned. And, the Mac OS is much nicer, albiet, lacking a 64-bit version of Vue. Using Bootcamp to run a Vue sesion is no big deal for me.