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And let's face it Anything you can do on a Mac you can do on any PC (Lin/WIN).

What's the Lin/WIN equivalent to iMovie? I mean, really, from unpacking an iMac box to finishing your first home movie in under an hour -- only Apple has that.

The closest you may get is Windows Movie Maker, and that thing's a joke.

--R.J.
Monopoly XP T-shirts!

The thing is that you have to be a moron before you find that thing "visually appealing." Thus with the huge number of morons in the world, Apple is assured of decent sales.

Hey, it worked for Microsoft...

--R.J.
Monopoly XP T-shirts!

One advantage to making the iPod Mac-only -- and leaving Windows support to third parties -- is that Apple cannot be held responsible if glitches occur.

"Oh, you lost all your music? Ask MediaPlay. Sorry, but this is why we made the iPod Mac-only, so you can get the best user experience possible."

I always find it amusing how folks who dismiss Apple as "irrelevant" are also the same ones lusting after Apple's hardware and software...

--R.J.
Monopoly XP T-shirts!

Maybe the UPS person handling this package was a raving Microsoftie, and couldn't resist the chance to beat up some perfectly harmless Macs?

--R.J.
Monopoly XP T-shirts!

Since Steve Jobs often plugs Pixar's stuff at the MacWorld keynotes (he used the Monsters poster for the last Photoshop "bake off", and the Toy Story 2 DVD to show DVD playback), I think it's fair. Heck, if I were him, I'd probably do the same thing.

--R.J.
Monopoly XP T-shirts!

> The Republicans wanted the game played by the
> rules, the Democrats wanted the game rules
> amended. The court, in this case, recognized
> that its job is not to legislate.

The Republicans stonewalled legal hand recounts -- the EXACT thing they demanded in OTHER states. Why was Florida different? The Democrats wanted established law to take it's due course. It was the Republicans who sought to legislate from the bench via a tortured re-interpretation of the protection clause that (incredibly) they said ONLY PERTAINED TO BUSH v. GORE.

And again -- there is no way in hell they would have stopped the recount if they thought Gore would benefit. Scalia SPECIFICALLY STATED that part of his reasoning was adverse effect a Gore vote-majority would have on a Bush presidency. O'Connor (hearing that Gore was ahead early on) rolled her eyes and complained that she wouldn't be able to retire.

I'd like to see George Lucas sue me for this "Attack of the Clones" merchandise... Satire is still protected by the first amendment, n'est pas?

Speaking of X-crashes...

Well, Steve Jobs did say at the end of the presentation that they're considering writing some Windows software for the iPod pretty soon. Probably won't be as feature-loaded as iTunes, but it'd give you some access.

--R.J.
Monopoly XP T-shirts!

MacOS Rumors can't find the dirt on a new Apple project if their lives depended on it. As http://www.mosr.net/ shows, most of the time they make up total BS that can be easily disproved by anyone with some halfway decent technical knowledge. Why anyone considers them a credible Mac rumor site is beyond me.

--R.J.
Monopoly XP T-shirts!

Nolan Bushnell hires Steve Jobs to create Breakout. Jobs joins with Steve Wozniak and design the game in five days. Bushnell pays Jobs $5,000; Jobs pays $350 to Wozniak, and takes sole credit for Breakout.

taken from The Atari Timeline

I'll catch up l8tr...goin for pizza...;-()

Didn't Bill bought out the Legion of Doom three years ago? I mean, just look at Steve Ballmer -- it's obvious he's the victim of one of the Scarecrow's failed experiments...

--R.J.
Monopoly XP T-shirts!

I'll settle for having her be as smart as Judge Jackson.

--R.J.
Monopoly XP T-shirts!

Now can we get the new judge overseeing the remedy phase to put a breakup back on the table? And maybe spank Microsoft a bit for the crud they're pulling with Windows XP? We want justice, dammit!

--R.J.
Monopoly XP T-shirts!

I would imagine the seawater did a lot of erosion on the bodies...

--R.J.
Monopoly XP T-shirts!

Does this mean nerds adept at playing video games and computer flight simulators will be operating the fighter jets from remote controls in the future, instead of the kinds of brave, tough men who fought conventional wars in the past?

The US Army being involved with a special edition of the ground-breaking arcade game Battlezone probably just added to the story.

I think its a rediculous idea. Sure, having generations comfortable and able to instinctively absorb technology would provide the raw material to train soldiers adept with new weapons systems. But being able to defeat the Boss on Level 32 of Super Mario Bros, or even surviving some period of time in Battlezone, doesn't make a soldier.

A bit of background. I work in the Electric Utility industry, so take my comments knowing that bias and that I might have a clue about this stuff. In any event, my comments are my own. My employer doesn't even know I read Slashdot.

• But the construction of new power-generating plants and transmission lines to meet that demand has virtually ground to a standstill in the same period as companies wait to understand the effects of deregulation of the electric utility industry.

Not surprising, actually. However, the reasons for the delays are different for power plants than transmission lines. Power plants are being built these days, as companies react to the incredibly high prices of two summers ago. The market price for energy spiked at about $7-10k/MWh in summer of 1998, in part due to sellers defaulting on energy sales. Transmission lines are very hard to get built, in large part due to the "Not in my back yard" syndrome mentioned by another poster.

• The imbalance threatens to grow even larger in coming months amid projections that electricity demand will grow 17 percent by 2007 as transmission capacity rises only 4 percent.

This is the real problem. There has been and continues to be very little incentive to build new transmission lines. Remember that in nearly all states (perhaps all, I am only aware of the states where we do business) the Transmission system is not being deregulated. As a result, the owners of transmission systems will only be compensated for their investment via the regulatory process.

Finally, I have to comment on this:

• Byron noted that utilities can promise only 99.9 percent reliability--a figure that translates to about eight hours of blackouts a year--while high-tech firms stand to lose millions of dollars from a blackout lasting just a minute.

  "We need 99.9999 percent reliability for e-commerce, and we need more flexibility from regulation to achieve that," he said.

Some (hopefully) useful links:

NERC NERC was formed following the 1966 Northeast US blackout.

Public Utility Home Page

The misc.industry.utilities.electric newsgroup homepage.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Milalwi

(First time poster, long time reader.)

I now record ER as we watch it in case of just such a situation.