I would also be happy to pay Apple more to not preload my laptop with crapware, which is a large part of the reason certain OEMs can offer higher spec'd parts for cheaper.
That all assumes that the voting is legitimate, there are plenty of reasons to just assume they steal elections anyway.
Now, that isn't a reason to not vote, but its enough reason to believe voting alone isn't going to prevent stuff like this from happening, because for issues these groups in power really care about, they are probably quite willing to rig elections, in which case it doesn't really matter who you vote for, and it doesn't really matter what these people say in public, because they no longer have to worry about losing voter support.
Actually, I did in fact say you can't compare laptops with different features, especially the ones with Celeron processors, those are the ones that are hundreds of dollars cheaper.
I don't even fucking care any more, my original point was, the Macbook isn't twice as expensive or massively overpriced.
I would however be happy to give up those things that come on the Dells to stay the fuck away from Dell.
Those things were examples, i brought them up because you can't make comparisons between laptops with different features, that's all. Taking all this crap in to account, the differences in price aren't even that significant.
I don't even like Apple all that much, but I'm fucking tired of Dell and their bargain basement crap. Even Apple fucks things up constantly it seems, just like the rest of them. They all make cheap shit.
btw, macbooks haven't used the GMA950 for a long time now, and the Intel chips seem to use less power, which is a design goal I'm guessing, one far more important than the few people who want to play games.
Expandability isn't a bad thing, its just not required most of the time.
Everything you can do with Expresscard you can do with USB, there isn't anything that home users buying the entry level macbook are going to need pci-e speeds on a laptop for.
Yea the MBP is in fact overpriced, but then again its an aluminum case, and they used to be made of other metals as well, not sure how much that crap costs but i suspect it helps case flexing.
Those are still Dell machines, every dell laptop i have ever seen was horribly designed and manufactured.
It's quite clear you don't understand any of this enough to comment....
iTunes sells iPods. Period. The app itself doesn't do much other than manage music and video to put on devices, mostly the iPod, but also random other 3rd party players in the OS X version. The store has no purpose whatsoever but to provide content for the hardware they sell, which in turn helps sell more of it.
OS X isn't even close to being "just BSD", the windowing system is a complete replacement, the toolkits are 100% in house developed, they aren't even using BSD init, nor inetd or cron, because they developed launchd to replace them all.
They use FBSD code in the kernel for the network stack, for POSIX syscall behavior, sysv IPC and some other low level stuff. The majority of the code running in the kernel space is not from the FBSD project though, and much of it predates FBSDs existence entirely. The majority of the software running on an OS X machine has nothing to do with BSD, if you were to rip out all the Apple developed stuff you aren't left with a BSD system, you are left with a non-functional bunch of code.
Safari is not Konqueror in any way, at all, it is another in-house application that happens to use WebKit as a rendering engine, which Apple seems to have done better developing than the original developers had in the first place.
In short, you have no clue what you are talking about.
Expresscard is not really a feature at this point, the only thing most people used PCMCIA for was wireless, and that's not an add-on anymore, so PCMCIAs successor isn't all that useful, and the cards are more expensive than USB versions of the same things, like TV tuners etc.
My point is, there are a lot of things Dells don't have by default, you can add some of them, others you can't, like target disk mode in the firmware, or the ability to boot from firewire devices.
I'm also guessing the 13.3" screen on the macbook is more expensive due to the fact it is the same resolution, but the pixels are closer together. Again, this isn't a valid comparison, they have different screens of different sizes.
BTW, those laptops you posted both started life at a much higher price than the Macbook, by a few hundred dollars in fact, so either Dell is knocking off $300 after ADDING $300 to appear cheaper to the consumer, or this is a fluke, because I have compared them before a number of times and Dell was never cheaper, nor were HP, Acer, or Sony.
Apple charges outrageous prices for ram there is no question about that.
Its then clear that if you start adding stuff to the Macbook the price goes WAY up, but if you compare the standard line to other notebooks they compare favorably.
Not to mention the laptops you posted are already missing a lot of things all macbooks have, like DVI output, camera, 802.11n standard, etc.
You can argue that you don't want these things, but a laptop that doesn't have these things and is therefor cheaper isn't a real comparison.
That assumes that all Apple wants to do is get their platform out their to a wide audience.
News flash: its already out to a wide audience, perhaps if they were still struggling like 8 years ago they would need to establish their platform, but at this point apple wants to sell hardware to an already established and growing marketplace.
Bargain basement stuff from Apple would end up being a loss leader for something else, because to do that they would have to get rid of all the stuff they use now, like custom designed cases that use real aluminum and not sharp sheet metal.
And its quite clear to anyone paying attention that Apple sets up other products as loss leaders to sell their hardware, not the other way around.
I have yet to see Apple laptops cost more than comparable ones from Dell etc.
The cheaper ones i have seen typically use Celeron processors, or older P-M procs, they aren't comparable at all.
It pissed me off at one point, i was trying to convince a friend NOT to get a Macbook and i spent quite a bit of time custom configuring laptops from Dell and HP and could never get one comparable to a Macbook for cheaper.
It may not be, but they can do any number of technological restrictions in the name of preventing piracy.
Encrypted binaries fit in there, especially since the key is sitting in the SMC chip, which only real macs have.
Eventually breaking those restrictions, whatever they may be in the future if anything, may run afoul of the DMCA, in which case it is no longer a license issue. Somewhat like breaking DRM to use music on the device of your choice, this would be breaking locks on the OS to use it on the hardware of your choice, and both would technically violate the DMCA...right?
You ignored the point. This sort of action by the government, if they actually do it, indicates they DON'T CARE what the people think, regardless of how many letters you write, how you vote, how loudly you scream about it in public.
You tried to be funny suggesting people do nothing, while i was suggesting people do way more than writing letters.
Its worth pointing out that if these people really do want such a database, writing letters to them isn't going to do much to stop it from happening:
"Mr Prime Minister sir, we were going to start collecting data on everyone, but Mrs. Bugglesby from 3593 Pettycoat lane wrote us a letter....and well, we're just going to call the whole thing off."
"The danger is that if the kernel ABI was stable, then the hardware manufacturers would think they were able to get away with releasing drivers only as binary blobs, without Source Code."
Wow. So, you do realize the LICENSE the code is under prohibits this from happening, right? As in, they are already not supposed to do this, and distributing the kernel with binary only drivers breaks the license.
Are you saying the license isn't enough, that its necessary to also cripple the driver interface so that anyone who wants to release binary drivers must play whack-a-mole? Talk about getting your priorities backwards.
"Recompiling something occasionally is a price I'm quite willing to pay for software freedom."
This isn't about your software freedom, this is about design decisions which make the platform difficult to use and support. "Just recompile the kernel" is not a valid answer to the driver problem.
No, this is not a monolithic vs micro kernel argument at all, this is about upgrading drivers and what that requires in Linux. The Linux kernel already has the architecture for adding drivers at runtime as modules, just like OS X, just like Windows, etc. The difference is, on Linux you can't install new drivers easily if at all without backporting large amounts of code, like Red Hat apparently does for their customers.
Your only options are to try to compile new driver code against the running kernel headers, which doesn't usually work because whole subsystems have changed or are entirely missing, or you can rip out the entire kernel for a new one, which doesn't happen unless you do it yourself, by compiling mainline from source, something IT shops aren't likely to do.
Look at the example i quoted, they are saying new drivers got added to the newest kernel but because of the way the kernel works, large amounts of developer time are needed to get new drivers working on existing systems.
This is quite obviously a problem, but the kernel devs seem opposed to the idea of a stable module ABI, there is even a file in the source tree which says something like "you think you want a stable module ABI, but you really don't" its like a jedi mind trick. I understand perfectly well the implications of supporting a stable module ABI, but its necessary in some cases.
"we're always scratching our heads, trying to figure out how to make the latest hardware work in a supported way now when the SW vendors are saying "Yeah, that's available in the kernel now, but it'll be a while before we officially release & support it.""
This is a kernel architecture deficiency, it shouldn't be necessary to recompile a kernel just to use new hardware, ever.
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How many software companies and crapware vendors do you suppose paid Dell to get the price down?
Macs have plenty of options, Apple just likes to charge 500% of market value to add shit, like ram.
I would also be happy to pay Apple more to not preload my laptop with crapware, which is a large part of the reason certain OEMs can offer higher spec'd parts for cheaper.
That all assumes that the voting is legitimate, there are plenty of reasons to just assume they steal elections anyway.
Now, that isn't a reason to not vote, but its enough reason to believe voting alone isn't going to prevent stuff like this from happening, because for issues these groups in power really care about, they are probably quite willing to rig elections, in which case it doesn't really matter who you vote for, and it doesn't really matter what these people say in public, because they no longer have to worry about losing voter support.
Actually, I did in fact say you can't compare laptops with different features, especially the ones with Celeron processors, those are the ones that are hundreds of dollars cheaper.
I don't even fucking care any more, my original point was, the Macbook isn't twice as expensive or massively overpriced.
I would however be happy to give up those things that come on the Dells to stay the fuck away from Dell.
Those things were examples, i brought them up because you can't make comparisons between laptops with different features, that's all. Taking all this crap in to account, the differences in price aren't even that significant.
I don't even like Apple all that much, but I'm fucking tired of Dell and their bargain basement crap. Even Apple fucks things up constantly it seems, just like the rest of them. They all make cheap shit.
btw, macbooks haven't used the GMA950 for a long time now, and the Intel chips seem to use less power, which is a design goal I'm guessing, one far more important than the few people who want to play games.
Those are things that make working on the machines easier, especially fixing them or getting data off a machine if the OS is trashed.
Those are examples of the firmware not being completely worthless, there are others.
Expresscard on the other hand is useless for *EVERYONE*
Expandability isn't a bad thing, its just not required most of the time.
Everything you can do with Expresscard you can do with USB, there isn't anything that home users buying the entry level macbook are going to need pci-e speeds on a laptop for.
Yea the MBP is in fact overpriced, but then again its an aluminum case, and they used to be made of other metals as well, not sure how much that crap costs but i suspect it helps case flexing.
Those are still Dell machines, every dell laptop i have ever seen was horribly designed and manufactured.
BTW you want an example of a loss leader, Apple pays more for iTunes movies than they actually get back from customers.
It's quite clear you don't understand any of this enough to comment....
iTunes sells iPods. Period. The app itself doesn't do much other than manage music and video to put on devices, mostly the iPod, but also random other 3rd party players in the OS X version. The store has no purpose whatsoever but to provide content for the hardware they sell, which in turn helps sell more of it.
OS X isn't even close to being "just BSD", the windowing system is a complete replacement, the toolkits are 100% in house developed, they aren't even using BSD init, nor inetd or cron, because they developed launchd to replace them all.
They use FBSD code in the kernel for the network stack, for POSIX syscall behavior, sysv IPC and some other low level stuff. The majority of the code running in the kernel space is not from the FBSD project though, and much of it predates FBSDs existence entirely. The majority of the software running on an OS X machine has nothing to do with BSD, if you were to rip out all the Apple developed stuff you aren't left with a BSD system, you are left with a non-functional bunch of code.
Safari is not Konqueror in any way, at all, it is another in-house application that happens to use WebKit as a rendering engine, which Apple seems to have done better developing than the original developers had in the first place.
In short, you have no clue what you are talking about.
Expresscard is not really a feature at this point, the only thing most people used PCMCIA for was wireless, and that's not an add-on anymore, so PCMCIAs successor isn't all that useful, and the cards are more expensive than USB versions of the same things, like TV tuners etc.
My point is, there are a lot of things Dells don't have by default, you can add some of them, others you can't, like target disk mode in the firmware, or the ability to boot from firewire devices.
I'm also guessing the 13.3" screen on the macbook is more expensive due to the fact it is the same resolution, but the pixels are closer together. Again, this isn't a valid comparison, they have different screens of different sizes.
BTW, those laptops you posted both started life at a much higher price than the Macbook, by a few hundred dollars in fact, so either Dell is knocking off $300 after ADDING $300 to appear cheaper to the consumer, or this is a fluke, because I have compared them before a number of times and Dell was never cheaper, nor were HP, Acer, or Sony.
I never said that, i said you can't compare 2 laptops with completely different features.
Apple charges outrageous prices for ram there is no question about that.
Its then clear that if you start adding stuff to the Macbook the price goes WAY up, but if you compare the standard line to other notebooks they compare favorably.
Not to mention the laptops you posted are already missing a lot of things all macbooks have, like DVI output, camera, 802.11n standard, etc.
You can argue that you don't want these things, but a laptop that doesn't have these things and is therefor cheaper isn't a real comparison.
That assumes that all Apple wants to do is get their platform out their to a wide audience.
News flash: its already out to a wide audience, perhaps if they were still struggling like 8 years ago they would need to establish their platform, but at this point apple wants to sell hardware to an already established and growing marketplace.
Bargain basement stuff from Apple would end up being a loss leader for something else, because to do that they would have to get rid of all the stuff they use now, like custom designed cases that use real aluminum and not sharp sheet metal.
And its quite clear to anyone paying attention that Apple sets up other products as loss leaders to sell their hardware, not the other way around.
I have yet to see Apple laptops cost more than comparable ones from Dell etc.
The cheaper ones i have seen typically use Celeron processors, or older P-M procs, they aren't comparable at all.
It pissed me off at one point, i was trying to convince a friend NOT to get a Macbook and i spent quite a bit of time custom configuring laptops from Dell and HP and could never get one comparable to a Macbook for cheaper.
It may not be, but they can do any number of technological restrictions in the name of preventing piracy.
Encrypted binaries fit in there, especially since the key is sitting in the SMC chip, which only real macs have.
Eventually breaking those restrictions, whatever they may be in the future if anything, may run afoul of the DMCA, in which case it is no longer a license issue. Somewhat like breaking DRM to use music on the device of your choice, this would be breaking locks on the OS to use it on the hardware of your choice, and both would technically violate the DMCA...right?
You ignored the point. This sort of action by the government, if they actually do it, indicates they DON'T CARE what the people think, regardless of how many letters you write, how you vote, how loudly you scream about it in public.
You tried to be funny suggesting people do nothing, while i was suggesting people do way more than writing letters.
Its worth pointing out that if these people really do want such a database, writing letters to them isn't going to do much to stop it from happening:
"Mr Prime Minister sir, we were going to start collecting data on everyone, but Mrs. Bugglesby from 3593 Pettycoat lane wrote us a letter....and well, we're just going to call the whole thing off."
Damn facts...getting in the way of a good rant....fuckers
phone calls are only what like 8khz effective sample rate? thats about all thats worth capturing at least....
You can store a phone call in WAY less than 128kbps per second, which is what 1MB/min amounts to.
"The danger is that if the kernel ABI was stable, then the hardware manufacturers would think they were able to get away with releasing drivers only as binary blobs, without Source Code."
Wow. So, you do realize the LICENSE the code is under prohibits this from happening, right? As in, they are already not supposed to do this, and distributing the kernel with binary only drivers breaks the license.
Are you saying the license isn't enough, that its necessary to also cripple the driver interface so that anyone who wants to release binary drivers must play whack-a-mole? Talk about getting your priorities backwards.
"Recompiling something occasionally is a price I'm quite willing to pay for software freedom."
This isn't about your software freedom, this is about design decisions which make the platform difficult to use and support. "Just recompile the kernel" is not a valid answer to the driver problem.
True, in that case though you are recompiling the entire system.
No, this is not a monolithic vs micro kernel argument at all, this is about upgrading drivers and what that requires in Linux. The Linux kernel already has the architecture for adding drivers at runtime as modules, just like OS X, just like Windows, etc. The difference is, on Linux you can't install new drivers easily if at all without backporting large amounts of code, like Red Hat apparently does for their customers.
Your only options are to try to compile new driver code against the running kernel headers, which doesn't usually work because whole subsystems have changed or are entirely missing, or you can rip out the entire kernel for a new one, which doesn't happen unless you do it yourself, by compiling mainline from source, something IT shops aren't likely to do.
Look at the example i quoted, they are saying new drivers got added to the newest kernel but because of the way the kernel works, large amounts of developer time are needed to get new drivers working on existing systems.
This is quite obviously a problem, but the kernel devs seem opposed to the idea of a stable module ABI, there is even a file in the source tree which says something like "you think you want a stable module ABI, but you really don't" its like a jedi mind trick. I understand perfectly well the implications of supporting a stable module ABI, but its necessary in some cases.
"we're always scratching our heads, trying to figure out how to make the latest hardware work in a supported way now when the SW vendors are saying "Yeah, that's available in the kernel now, but it'll be a while before we officially release & support it.""
This is a kernel architecture deficiency, it shouldn't be necessary to recompile a kernel just to use new hardware, ever.