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Spysats Keeping Watch on the U.S.
Anonymous And Slightly Nervous Coward writes "USA Today is carrying an AP story that claims three years' worth of domestic satellite surveillance courtesy of a DoD agecy called the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Their work includes getting cooperation from entities pointing cameras onto private property such as hotels (all you HOPE and Defcon attendees, please wave for the camera). The agency seems to be taking the aw-shucks line on what they know and to what extent they evaluate the data they get, but it's clear that their mandate is seriously overpowering the oversight structures that would normally be watching it."
fp bitch
and to those who'd mention emu ports, the processor in a mac is not as powerful as that in a PC of the same price-range, nor are most emulators that are ported to mac optimized to run on mac. additionally, i don't believe all pc games are really shite these days. some gems are released occasionally... not that the mac gets ports of them most of the time anyway.
seriously, i can't understand why anyone with even rudimentary knowledge of information technology would use a mac, other than the simplicity of use after a hard day's work on a real computer. as for me working on a mac feels almost condescendingly... simple. that's all well and good for someone who desires only to do simple tasks on their [vastly overpriced] computer, but for someone who needs to get into the guts of the machine for either fun, hobby, or simple necessity, macs are clearly not the best computers to get.
the audience for apple products is essentially people who either:
a) are better off not fiddling with the workings of a system [those unskilled when it comes to PCs]
b) people who still believe macs have better video & audio quality or are better for audio/visual editing. generally artfags, sometimes professionally.
c) people who believe the 'think different' ad campaign and the faux-utopian company-manufactured apple 'community' mean apple products make them cool. artfags, trendy college kids, yuppie blogger types.
c2) people too stubborn to switch to PCs because they have been using apple products for years and have developed 'brand loyalty'. these people are just idiots.
d) ipod users. another subclass of c, really, because they are stupid enough to buy a more expensive, less reliable, nigh-featureless product simply because everyone else has one. apple has a near-monopoly on digital music hardware and DRM'd music sales both [a 54% share of the mp3 player market against MANY competitors, plus something like 80-90% of the digital music sale market, i'm not sure about the latter figure, i haven't checked lately]. the ipod is shit hardware with shit support [the battery problem], and the alternatives are cheaper & better.
and worst of all:
e) people who buy the computer because it comes in a prefab cabinet that looks like a lamp and is therefore 'prettier'. these people are the same who hire interior designers and 'feng shui' twats to tell them what to buy and where to put it. yuppies mostly. fucking yuppies.
think boycott.
build your own pc for 1/3-1/2 the price. when it comes to laptops, you can get more powerful machines from other huge companies for a better price because they don't look like massive, colourful clamshell-style BC pillcases. you don't even have to install windows on the fucker if you don't want to. i'm sure some company still sells machines with no OS. go linux if you want to be different and special. or beos. or something that doesn't suck.
fp?
welcome our new spysat freedom-infringing overlords...
YoU FaIl Ii!!! Go CrAwL BaCk UnDeR YoUr RoCk
Of course, 640kB should be enough.
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