"CNET had 'direct participation in massive copyright infringement on peer-to-peer systems"
Also FTA, "They provided the guns"
So CNET let people download the software, and the users used it for infringing purposes. Isn't that the definition of INDIRECT participation? How does he claim their part in it was direct?
This really should be at the discretion of the Professors at the University/College.
1. If students are screwing around in class instead of paying attention, that's their prerogative. I see it little different from simply not paying attention (sleeping, doing homework for other classes, writing notes, etc etc) or even playing on their phones.
2. Distracting other students is nothing new, either, in regards to talking/snickering with nearby students.... hell, even someone with an obnoxious hat or hairdo that's hard to see over is enough to get on my nerves.
3. From an "honest" student's point of view, I find handwriting to be somewhat painful depending on the class/situation. I had one class (Statistical Thermodynamics) where I would *easily* fill 3 pages of notebook paper, front and back, with writing, sometimes spilling onto a 4th page or rarely a 5th. This was all in one hour-long (well, 50 minutes to be exact) class, and that was the 2nd class of 3 in a row. Needless to say, my hand HURT after that one. Then my 3rd class was programming, where the professor would typically type some sample code (with easy-to-make errors) and run them to show us where our bugs came from and how to spot them.
I found that approach very useful, but it was very tough to keep up with myself writing vs. him typing, and a lot of times, if I didn't get some exact pieces of code down, it'd be difficult for me to reproduce later, as it was never fresh in my head by the time I got to try it.
4. My father is a professor, and is no stranger to the laptops-in-class concept. Believe me, your professor can tell when you're not paying attention, laptop or not.
Basically, laptops can be a distraction or a big help, but for that matter, so can other students. Rather than call to spoil laptops in class for everyone, 'good' students can move away from the students that are a bother to themselves and others. I'm not exactly a "front row" kinda guy, but you shouldn't have to worry about someone's screen saver bothering you there. I typically only used my laptop for one or two classes per semester, but I found it to help out a lot in those.
One of my best professors held a little discussion/forum on the last day of class every semester, evaluating students' opinions on the usefulness or lack thereof in the class, and he used that to help his decision. That's a good enough system, so why would the decision need to come from four levels up at the Dean/Provost level of the College/University?
I am impressed with the insightfulness of your comments. Most of the (few) slashdotters that rip on the "anti-MAFIAA" crowd usually say something along the lines of "stop stealing from the artists you hooligans!!" I have to commend you for showing restraint. Here is my explanation of the blatant hostility toward the "MAFIAA":
1. The RIAA and MPAA (as trade organizations) are evil. They (themselves) don't actually "make" any music, so you don't see them in the news for (directly) producing good artists. You see Sony-BMG, or EMI. The "bad" stuff, such as suing people, all gets pointed to these guys. And when I say they're evil, I mean it. They're taking huge, unnecessary percentages of record sales, they're crippling the industry trying to preserve old business models, they killed the digital-audio magnetic tape format, and they've been trying to kill online music for years. They're horrible for their industry, highly monopolized (well, cartel-ized), and the whole music industry would be a LOT better off if they were (hypothetically) disbanded or lost much of their lobbying power. The exploit and destroy fair use: trying to plug the analog hole in video players, the rootkit disaster preventing you from transferring songs to your ipod, Viacom ripping down short, minute-long samples of their shows... I could go on for hours.
2. People feel that copyrights are too strong. Or more clearly stated, people think that copyrights should be a in a state of lesser power than they are currrently at. Maybe that's missing the target a little bit. How about, the holders of the copyrights (RIAA) have too much power, so the copyrights appear to be stronger than they are. Also, the holders of the copyrights don't have the same interests as the actual artists (such as the RIAA suing for takedowns of the purposely leaked songs in the recent NIN concert).
3. You're not "paying the artists", you're paying a big 'evil' organization. Who gives a small percentage to the artist. By buying a CD (as opposed to going to a concert), you're funding the 'evil' giant.
4. People don't understand copyrights very well, so their interpretation of (2) is "copyrights are bad".
5. Downloading movies/music is SO much better than buying recorded versions, for a number of reasons. I wrote a whole editorial on this, you can read it here.
6. Some copyright law is crappy: The DMCA. It's poorly worded, ambiguous (in favor of the 'evil' ones), and easy to exploit for personal gain. It was written before anyone knew what would the "digital millenium" meant, by people that don't understand computers or the internet at all. Funny I had to use the original speech and not the Daily Show clip, because Viacom made Youtube take it down. Quoting or using a diagram from a book is ok, even without permission from the original artist, so long as it's a small sampling. But since it's in video format, it's all of a sudden wrong to take a minute out of a half-hour show?
7. They're crippling their market trying to preserve old business models. I touched on this already. Why is there so much talk that they have to "invest" (oh how much this word is so horribly misused, but I can't justify that here) large amounts in these productions? Please. This concept is archaic as all hell. The model was created when recording and editing equipment was extremely expensive. You HAD to throw a lot of money into an album or movie to get ANYTHING out of it. Fast-forward to the year 2007, you can get decent recording equipment now for less than your car costs (as opposed to 1960, where it probably cost more than your house), and editing and mixing you can do with nondescript software that you don't even need a new computer for. What's left? Obviously getting good art (for editing/produc
Hm... I think I almost have to apologize for some blatant sarcasm not coming through in my comment... it really was a joke. I was ripping on Jack Thompson for claiming that the VA Tech student "trained" for his shooting by playing counterstrike in high school.
I play counterstrike all the time. I know how to handle pistols, SMGs, Rifles, even Miniguns and grenades. How does yout training plan incorporate such simulation games into the training?
Well, kind of. Except for the fact that you need a proprietary OS to access it. And proprietary hardware to go with it. It seems if you do not have the correct hardware and try to run this, Apple will sue the shit out of you. Why don't they make this compatable with all versions of FreeBSD, then call it unrestricted?
"why don't you just make it illegal to get hit by a vehicle while crossing the street and using an electronic gadget"
I agree. FTA: "Government has an obligation to protect its citizenry,". So they're "protecting" them by charging them money. My buddy got in a car accident a while ago (he was driving "Vaay Too Fost"), and after getting injured and more or less totalling his car, he got a speeding ticket to top it all off. How is this protecting him? What's next? What if someone gets in a car crash without wearing a seat belt? Do we bill the ticket to his/her next of kin? It's only for their "protection".
The only people that really need protecting here are the innocent drivers that are subject to these whack-a-moles popping up in the middle of the street listening to their crappy music. Fines are a terrible idea; probably a moron policitian's idea for a new "revenue stream" for the government.
If anything, make the mobile-electronic-device user liable for the accident (as they should be). Fines and tickets aren't going to help anybody. At best, they'll probably just end up giving the money toward developing new crappy programs like this one.
Actually, check that. What do I care, I don't live in New York. Shoot yourself in the foot morons. At least you don't have to do it in the dark.
I don't think I'm the first to say, but it really isn't supply vs. demand at all.
"Supply & Demand" implies a free market, ie, one with (theoretically) infinite suppliers and infinite consumers. In practice, we just say "many" suppliers and consumers, both of whom are price takers. Emphasis on takers.
Even with the concept of monopoly pricing "creating a shortage", that is more like OPEC (a large group acting as a monopoly). OPEC, believe it or not, is a price taker. They do not say "ok I will sell you this many barrels of oil at, say $60/barrel. They can only set a goal price of $60 by restricting supply.
Retails sales are a completely different ball game. Of course, by the definition of copyright, and the fact that the record label holds it (as opposed to the artist), that label has a monopoly on selling that artist's music. To prevent competition from similar artists, they have a cartel going for them.
So, one could say that the labels have at least a partial monopoly. But here's the kicker: they are price makers. In a market (such as the market for futures, where you get quote "oil prices"), a monopoly would set supply. In retail/wholesale, the label sets prices (well, wholesale prices). There is no market to buy whatever's there at whatever price will make it move.
Rather, the labels set a price (at least a wholesale price), and the public buys however many units they feel like. The supply is theoretically infinite... it'd be a tough case to argue that they would stop printing additional CDs as long as they keep selling. Basically, they set the price (retail is $12.75 IIRC), and the public buys or does not buy.
Speaking of Xeroxing your ass, do you have to give two weeks notice if you're trying to quit before you get fired, say from an office prank gone wrong?
I do not believe the move to censor was bad overall for Google. It's not like they were faced with the choice of (a) censor or (b) not censor. The choice was (1) present censored material, or (2) abandon ship. No heads are rolling on account of Google, which is more than can be said for their competitors. And it's not like they're selling them Nukes or anything I very strongly disagree with the statement that they abandoned their 'policy of "Don't Be Evil". They're not. Bull shit. China's demands of a censored search engine are evil. Google is not being evil. China is evil. I think you would have to be really shortsighted to actually blame Google for this [1]. I do not think any less of Google. I think less of china. And I applaud Google for making at least something available there.
That aside, I think their decision to go into China was definitely good for society/the world as a whole. Besides the obvious benefits of Chinese people having more information (albeit biased) available, I think it was good to draw more attention to (a) their censorship program, (b) the censored material, and (c) the evilness of the Chinese government.
(a) The rest of the world can see that it exists, and to what extent. It's easier to find out what material is being censored. (b) There are obviously loopholes. I don't know of any in particular, but I'm sure a large amount of information slips through. There's no way you can get a bullet-proof censor of the whole internet. Also, the rest of the world can see actual content that was censored (what really happened/why was it censored anyway?) (c) This should be self-explanatory. At least it increases awareness of what they're doing. I had a friend that did a semester abroad in China (Univ of Beijing). He said it was bad there. Really bad. Apparently "George Washington" is an unacceptable name there. The problem was, he wanted to go to (God forbid) George Washington University for grad school. The problem was, he couldn't access anything from there online, he said his mail was checked. It was such a pain that he ended up giving up applying there because the name of the university was so hard to get through their shit political system. I think the censorship program just makes situations like this come under more fire. And rightfully so. Go Google!
[1] Maybe that's the problem. People will believe any mumbo jumbo you throw at them. My parents are no exception. "Oh Google is censoring/ They shouldn't do that". That's not even half of the story. People are idiots. If this actually did/will hurt Google, that will be the only reason.
I've used both. And plenty. I'm certainly not a fanboy for either side. In fact, I have a lot of complaints about both. What I think it all comes down to is this:
1. The reason that Windows sucks is because the whole system is broken and MS can't fix it.
2. The reason that OS X sucks is because of annoying crap that Apple does on purpose.
Perhaps I should justify myself better than that. Here are my gripes about windows:
~ Everything is bundled, which makes using it bloated and overly complex. WMP 10, Internet Explorer.... if I don't like them, it's practically impossible to get rid of them.
~ Purposely incompatible formats. Annoying. Specifically locks competitors out of Office file formats, particularly Access files. I suppose this is MS more so than Windows, but it still counts.
~ BSOD. I used Windows 98 for a long time, and miserably so. I got a new computer that had Windows ME on it, hoping it would be better. Boy was I wrong.
~ Security, Security, Security. Need I say more? I thought MS was going to get better over the years, but after the rootkit disaster, it's clearly gotten worse. Now with Vista's core open to HDCP downgrading, etc, it's DEFINITELY gotten worse. Bleh. Just what I need bundled into an OS. DRM, and lots of it.
Here are my gripes about Apple:
~ Everything is disabled. Cutting/Pasting in Finder. Writing files to ftp servers with integrated client.
~ Slow slow slow. Not really in a performance sense of the word, but annoying crap. Window animations, while nice-looking, take too long; when you point to a slide-open menu, you have to hover over it for too long before it actually opens up (then has an animation).
~ Changing annoying defaults is a pain. For instance, to show hidden files, you have to type (in terminal): "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE". How the hell am I supposed to just know that? Thank god for Google.
~ I got about 100 more gripes like this... I could go on all day.
~ Annoying priss-ass fanboys. Everywhere. Practically everyone that has a Mac is a walking billboard. Apple is a company that makes money off of you. They're not paying you to advertise, and I probably don't even like your computer. Shut up.
~ Apple and the courtroom. Everything has to be proprietary and exclusive. Realplayer music compatible with iTunes? God forbid. Some smart programmers do some serious leg work porting OS X over to standard x86 hardware. Thank them and credit them, like Google would probably do? Nah, let's sue the shit out of them.
As I said before, the key difference here is how easily the problem would be remedied. The windows problems.... well, it's taken generations to fix, and they still don't have it right. Even with the largest pool of programmers and arguably some of the best. Sucks.
Apple's problems are rather trivial, but extremely annoying. Not so much that they're as much of a problem as BSOD's, but it's so irritating that they could fix all of these problems and just... don't. Again, God forbid we could get an advanced device like a mouse with a 2nd button and a wheel shipped with the rest of the computer. Go figure.
There you have it. One of the less biased reviews of Windows and OS X you'll see for a while. Take it or leave it.
Slashdot Mirror
"CNET had 'direct participation in massive copyright infringement on peer-to-peer systems"
Also FTA, "They provided the guns"
So CNET let people download the software, and the users used it for infringing purposes. Isn't that the definition of INDIRECT participation? How does he claim their part in it was direct?
This really should be at the discretion of the Professors at the University/College.
1. If students are screwing around in class instead of paying attention, that's their prerogative. I see it little different from simply not paying attention (sleeping, doing homework for other classes, writing notes, etc etc) or even playing on their phones.
2. Distracting other students is nothing new, either, in regards to talking/snickering with nearby students.... hell, even someone with an obnoxious hat or hairdo that's hard to see over is enough to get on my nerves.
3. From an "honest" student's point of view, I find handwriting to be somewhat painful depending on the class/situation. I had one class (Statistical Thermodynamics) where I would *easily* fill 3 pages of notebook paper, front and back, with writing, sometimes spilling onto a 4th page or rarely a 5th. This was all in one hour-long (well, 50 minutes to be exact) class, and that was the 2nd class of 3 in a row. Needless to say, my hand HURT after that one. Then my 3rd class was programming, where the professor would typically type some sample code (with easy-to-make errors) and run them to show us where our bugs came from and how to spot them.
I found that approach very useful, but it was very tough to keep up with myself writing vs. him typing, and a lot of times, if I didn't get some exact pieces of code down, it'd be difficult for me to reproduce later, as it was never fresh in my head by the time I got to try it.
4. My father is a professor, and is no stranger to the laptops-in-class concept. Believe me, your professor can tell when you're not paying attention, laptop or not.
Basically, laptops can be a distraction or a big help, but for that matter, so can other students. Rather than call to spoil laptops in class for everyone, 'good' students can move away from the students that are a bother to themselves and others. I'm not exactly a "front row" kinda guy, but you shouldn't have to worry about someone's screen saver bothering you there. I typically only used my laptop for one or two classes per semester, but I found it to help out a lot in those.
One of my best professors held a little discussion/forum on the last day of class every semester, evaluating students' opinions on the usefulness or lack thereof in the class, and he used that to help his decision. That's a good enough system, so why would the decision need to come from four levels up at the Dean/Provost level of the College/University?
The game Leisure Suit Larry seems to fit your description perfectly. Enjoy!
I am impressed with the insightfulness of your comments. Most of the (few) slashdotters that rip on the "anti-MAFIAA" crowd usually say something along the lines of "stop stealing from the artists you hooligans!!" I have to commend you for showing restraint. Here is my explanation of the blatant hostility toward the "MAFIAA":
1. The RIAA and MPAA (as trade organizations) are evil. They (themselves) don't actually "make" any music, so you don't see them in the news for (directly) producing good artists. You see Sony-BMG, or EMI. The "bad" stuff, such as suing people, all gets pointed to these guys. And when I say they're evil, I mean it. They're taking huge, unnecessary percentages of record sales, they're crippling the industry trying to preserve old business models, they killed the digital-audio magnetic tape format, and they've been trying to kill online music for years. They're horrible for their industry, highly monopolized (well, cartel-ized), and the whole music industry would be a LOT better off if they were (hypothetically) disbanded or lost much of their lobbying power. The exploit and destroy fair use: trying to plug the analog hole in video players, the rootkit disaster preventing you from transferring songs to your ipod, Viacom ripping down short, minute-long samples of their shows... I could go on for hours.
2. People feel that copyrights are too strong. Or more clearly stated, people think that copyrights should be a in a state of lesser power than they are currrently at. Maybe that's missing the target a little bit. How about, the holders of the copyrights (RIAA) have too much power, so the copyrights appear to be stronger than they are. Also, the holders of the copyrights don't have the same interests as the actual artists (such as the RIAA suing for takedowns of the purposely leaked songs in the recent NIN concert).
3. You're not "paying the artists", you're paying a big 'evil' organization. Who gives a small percentage to the artist. By buying a CD (as opposed to going to a concert), you're funding the 'evil' giant.
4. People don't understand copyrights very well, so their interpretation of (2) is "copyrights are bad".
5. Downloading movies/music is SO much better than buying recorded versions, for a number of reasons. I wrote a whole editorial on this, you can read it here.
6. Some copyright law is crappy: The DMCA. It's poorly worded, ambiguous (in favor of the 'evil' ones), and easy to exploit for personal gain. It was written before anyone knew what would the "digital millenium" meant, by people that don't understand computers or the internet at all. Funny I had to use the original speech and not the Daily Show clip, because Viacom made Youtube take it down. Quoting or using a diagram from a book is ok, even without permission from the original artist, so long as it's a small sampling. But since it's in video format, it's all of a sudden wrong to take a minute out of a half-hour show?
7. They're crippling their market trying to preserve old business models. I touched on this already. Why is there so much talk that they have to "invest" (oh how much this word is so horribly misused, but I can't justify that here) large amounts in these productions? Please. This concept is archaic as all hell. The model was created when recording and editing equipment was extremely expensive. You HAD to throw a lot of money into an album or movie to get ANYTHING out of it. Fast-forward to the year 2007, you can get decent recording equipment now for less than your car costs (as opposed to 1960, where it probably cost more than your house), and editing and mixing you can do with nondescript software that you don't even need a new computer for. What's left? Obviously getting good art (for editing/produc
Hm... I think I almost have to apologize for some blatant sarcasm not coming through in my comment... it really was a joke. I was ripping on Jack Thompson for claiming that the VA Tech student "trained" for his shooting by playing counterstrike in high school.
a test of knowledge and proper handling skills,
I play counterstrike all the time. I know how to handle pistols, SMGs, Rifles, even Miniguns and grenades. How does yout training plan incorporate such simulation games into the training?
MCDonalds made a TurdBurger and nobody bought it
They did make make a TurdBurger. And nobody bought it. They called it the McRib. In all fairness, they planned for it to fail "for a Limited Time".
That wasn't meant to be a literal calculation. More of a reference to bad telecom service. Guess I should have included link in original post.
8 million bucks. That should come out to just about .002 cents per person. Or maybe .002 dollars. Whatever, same thing.
Uh oh, Here comes "Web 3.0". I wonder... who is going to take credit for this one?
"...and access is unrestricted."
Well, kind of. Except for the fact that you need a proprietary OS to access it. And proprietary hardware to go with it. It seems if you do not have the correct hardware and try to run this, Apple will sue the shit out of you. Why don't they make this compatable with all versions of FreeBSD, then call it unrestricted?
"why don't you just make it illegal to get hit by a vehicle while crossing the street and using an electronic gadget"
I agree. FTA: "Government has an obligation to protect its citizenry,". So they're "protecting" them by charging them money. My buddy got in a car accident a while ago (he was driving "Vaay Too Fost"), and after getting injured and more or less totalling his car, he got a speeding ticket to top it all off. How is this protecting him? What's next? What if someone gets in a car crash without wearing a seat belt? Do we bill the ticket to his/her next of kin? It's only for their "protection".
The only people that really need protecting here are the innocent drivers that are subject to these whack-a-moles popping up in the middle of the street listening to their crappy music. Fines are a terrible idea; probably a moron policitian's idea for a new "revenue stream" for the government.
If anything, make the mobile-electronic-device user liable for the accident (as they should be). Fines and tickets aren't going to help anybody. At best, they'll probably just end up giving the money toward developing new crappy programs like this one.
Actually, check that. What do I care, I don't live in New York. Shoot yourself in the foot morons. At least you don't have to do it in the dark.
"It's simple supply vs demand!"
I don't think I'm the first to say, but it really isn't supply vs. demand at all.
"Supply & Demand" implies a free market, ie, one with (theoretically) infinite suppliers and infinite consumers. In practice, we just say "many" suppliers and consumers, both of whom are price takers. Emphasis on takers.
Even with the concept of monopoly pricing "creating a shortage", that is more like OPEC (a large group acting as a monopoly). OPEC, believe it or not, is a price taker. They do not say "ok I will sell you this many barrels of oil at, say $60/barrel. They can only set a goal price of $60 by restricting supply.
Retails sales are a completely different ball game. Of course, by the definition of copyright, and the fact that the record label holds it (as opposed to the artist), that label has a monopoly on selling that artist's music. To prevent competition from similar artists, they have a cartel going for them.
So, one could say that the labels have at least a partial monopoly. But here's the kicker: they are price makers. In a market (such as the market for futures, where you get quote "oil prices"), a monopoly would set supply. In retail/wholesale, the label sets prices (well, wholesale prices). There is no market to buy whatever's there at whatever price will make it move.
Rather, the labels set a price (at least a wholesale price), and the public buys however many units they feel like. The supply is theoretically infinite... it'd be a tough case to argue that they would stop printing additional CDs as long as they keep selling. Basically, they set the price (retail is $12.75 IIRC), and the public buys or does not buy.
Speaking of Xeroxing your ass, do you have to give two weeks notice if you're trying to quit before you get fired, say from an office prank gone wrong?
he was going to buy Vista just because he thought the box looks cool.
On that note, I know a lot of people that bought a Mac because the box looks cool
(ie, box case)
I do not believe the move to censor was bad overall for Google. It's not like they were faced with the choice of (a) censor or (b) not censor. The choice was (1) present censored material, or (2) abandon ship. No heads are rolling on account of Google, which is more than can be said for their competitors. And it's not like they're selling them Nukes or anything I very strongly disagree with the statement that they abandoned their 'policy of "Don't Be Evil". They're not. Bull shit. China's demands of a censored search engine are evil. Google is not being evil. China is evil. I think you would have to be really shortsighted to actually blame Google for this [1]. I do not think any less of Google. I think less of china. And I applaud Google for making at least something available there.
That aside, I think their decision to go into China was definitely good for society/the world as a whole. Besides the obvious benefits of Chinese people having more information (albeit biased) available, I think it was good to draw more attention to (a) their censorship program, (b) the censored material, and (c) the evilness of the Chinese government.
(a) The rest of the world can see that it exists, and to what extent. It's easier to find out what material is being censored.
(b) There are obviously loopholes. I don't know of any in particular, but I'm sure a large amount of information slips through. There's no way you can get a bullet-proof censor of the whole internet. Also, the rest of the world can see actual content that was censored (what really happened/why was it censored anyway?)
(c) This should be self-explanatory. At least it increases awareness of what they're doing. I had a friend that did a semester abroad in China (Univ of Beijing). He said it was bad there. Really bad. Apparently "George Washington" is an unacceptable name there. The problem was, he wanted to go to (God forbid) George Washington University for grad school. The problem was, he couldn't access anything from there online, he said his mail was checked. It was such a pain that he ended up giving up applying there because the name of the university was so hard to get through their shit political system. I think the censorship program just makes situations like this come under more fire. And rightfully so. Go Google!
[1] Maybe that's the problem. People will believe any mumbo jumbo you throw at them. My parents are no exception. "Oh Google is censoring/ They shouldn't do that". That's not even half of the story. People are idiots. If this actually did/will hurt Google, that will be the only reason.
I've used both. And plenty. I'm certainly not a fanboy for either side. In fact, I have a lot of complaints about both. What I think it all comes down to is this:
1. The reason that Windows sucks is because the whole system is broken and MS can't fix it.
2. The reason that OS X sucks is because of annoying crap that Apple does on purpose.
Perhaps I should justify myself better than that. Here are my gripes about windows:
~ Everything is bundled, which makes using it bloated and overly complex. WMP 10, Internet Explorer.... if I don't like them, it's practically impossible to get rid of them.
~ Purposely incompatible formats. Annoying. Specifically locks competitors out of Office file formats, particularly Access files. I suppose this is MS more so than Windows, but it still counts.
~ BSOD. I used Windows 98 for a long time, and miserably so. I got a new computer that had Windows ME on it, hoping it would be better. Boy was I wrong.
~ Security, Security, Security. Need I say more? I thought MS was going to get better over the years, but after the rootkit disaster, it's clearly gotten worse. Now with Vista's core open to HDCP downgrading, etc, it's DEFINITELY gotten worse. Bleh. Just what I need bundled into an OS. DRM, and lots of it.
Here are my gripes about Apple:
~ Everything is disabled. Cutting/Pasting in Finder. Writing files to ftp servers with integrated client.
~ Slow slow slow. Not really in a performance sense of the word, but annoying crap. Window animations, while nice-looking, take too long; when you point to a slide-open menu, you have to hover over it for too long before it actually opens up (then has an animation).
~ Changing annoying defaults is a pain. For instance, to show hidden files, you have to type (in terminal): "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE". How the hell am I supposed to just know that? Thank god for Google.
~ I got about 100 more gripes like this... I could go on all day.
~ Annoying priss-ass fanboys. Everywhere. Practically everyone that has a Mac is a walking billboard. Apple is a company that makes money off of you. They're not paying you to advertise, and I probably don't even like your computer. Shut up.
~ Apple and the courtroom. Everything has to be proprietary and exclusive. Realplayer music compatible with iTunes? God forbid. Some smart programmers do some serious leg work porting OS X over to standard x86 hardware. Thank them and credit them, like Google would probably do? Nah, let's sue the shit out of them.
As I said before, the key difference here is how easily the problem would be remedied. The windows problems.... well, it's taken generations to fix, and they still don't have it right. Even with the largest pool of programmers and arguably some of the best. Sucks. Apple's problems are rather trivial, but extremely annoying. Not so much that they're as much of a problem as BSOD's, but it's so irritating that they could fix all of these problems and just... don't. Again, God forbid we could get an advanced device like a mouse with a 2nd button and a wheel shipped with the rest of the computer. Go figure. There you have it. One of the less biased reviews of Windows and OS X you'll see for a while. Take it or leave it.