There are posts for and against the efficacy/necessity for these drugs but isn't the real issue that most of these things people are trying to feel stimulated by, and interested in, esoteric ideas that don't fit nicely into the range of stimuli the hunter/gatherer homo-sapiens evolved to get excited about.
Does it not seem entirely obvious that a hunter/gatherer would rather be shooting zombies than searching for binary bugs in code, or a missing file in an archive?
Use the drugs if they help you and you feel confident that you aren't screwing up your liver but the diagnosis that these kids are diseased because they'd rather be catching frogs than parrot learning the menu commands of Microsoft Office, or a list of the Monarchs of Britain is sadly misguided.
Let me throw up a few other revelations: There is less psychological illness in populations that live near parks. People who get to walk in parks recover quicker from illness. There is a statistical link between suicide and strong electro-magnetic fields. Humans generally feel pleasantly excited when visiting an expansive wilderness.
Surprise surprise!
You can take a human out of the wild but don't expect him enthusiastically conform to the needs of industry or the propaganda of elites who follow Edward Bernays' view:
"The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest."
We humans were engineered by the eco-system we evolved in. We obviously struggle to conform to the engineering of 'progress'. Conform if needs must, just don't accept the labels: sick, lazy, delinquent, trouble maker.
"They don't innovate. They scrape the internet looking for ideas, making products that are "just different enough" to avoid existing patents, and they buy up startup companies just as you describe."
On what basis is this insightful? Surely some facts to go with the opinion are necessary?
Here is a fact: In the last 25 years Apple has bought 25 companies. That's one a year.
Here's another: In the last 4 years Microsoft has bought 45 companies. That's just over 11 a year.
Here's another: In the last 4 years Google has bought 40 companies. That's 10 a year.
And a final one: "Apple is not an exception -- stop dodging this just to please the fanboys" , aside from the bad manners, is not insightful and is not borne out by the facts.
With regard to Thatcher's austerity measures the amazing thing is that she managed to prevent investment in:
social housing schools and universities National Health System sewers and sewage treatment railways post office
sold off public assets like:
public housing British Coal British Petroleum British Airways British Airports Authority British Sugar National Freight Corp British Ports National Bus Co. British Leyland Rolls Royce Rover Group Girobank British Steel British Shipbuilders British Gas National Electricity Grid Regional Water Authorities British Telecom
received the bulk of the receipts from North Sea oil during the years of highest output...
and STILL was collecting more in taxes at the end of her three terms in office than when she first came to power. Despite that enormous level of subsidy she failed to reduce the cost of UK government by even a single pound.
This can be partly explained by her belief that 7 million unemployed, on benefits was a good way of curbing inflation. Though her government took the time to reinvent how to count them (to hide a few). She also believed in educating the minimum number of people necessary since graduates on benefits were, in her opinion, no more productive than uneducated oiks, and perhaps even more dejected. She clearly didn't understand the concept of wealth generation by a vigorous, educated middle class.
Essentially she was a middle class snob... a would be Victorian... a hankerer after an entitled elite sitting comfortably atop a competitively inhibited middle class. Her vision of the future was 1900.
The one thing she did that benefitted the middle class was to increase the availability of capital but she did it in a demand driven property market... which then swallowed (and continues to do so) every single disposable middle class pound in a desperate bidding process for a roof over one's head.
For those who don't know the English property market the UK has not contained immigration (the principle cause of population growth there) while at the same time they have constrained the building of property. A policy of protecting farmland around cities, the 'green belt', prevents horizontal growth, while another policy of historical conservation prevents vertical growth which would spoil the traditional skyline.
The result is that the British, and particularly those of the South East, have had to chop up existing property into ever smaller rabbit hutches. Margaret Thatcher's Victorian vision did not extend to noticing that her peers were now living in the servant's basements, mews cottages and converted stables. A time travelling Victorian arriving today would be 'horrified'.
Teeth regrow in healthy individuals, too. The larger species are thought to live 70 to 100 years, and the animal isn't known to suffer unduly from cancer.
It does have an awful time in the everglades working out what sex it is. (Oestrogenic pollutants)
Google do not want a privacy bill in the US as it would inhibit data-mining. The obvious strategy for them is to encourage government to allow data accumulation for national security reasons.
Though currently Google is just playing the politics of the situation to its advantage as it becomes more invasive it will become more important/dangerous to government.
Google is growing into a big problem for US/world citizens: either the US gets a strong privacy bill or Google gets clandestinely plugged into government.
"By all metrics, the US healthcare system is delivering comparable medical outcomes to other industrialized nations at about 2 times the cost."
The UK system uses collective bargaining (the NHS areas collectively) to purchase lower cost drugs. That is illegal in the US.
The NHS bill then includes many drugs subsidised and sold at the price of a prescription... about £6, I believe. US patients' insurance often does not cover drugs, or all drugs, and those drugs are more expensive than the UK due to that big-pharma favouring ban on collective bargaining.
Factoring in US patients' drug bills the UK savings are greater than 2 times.
How about considering that the press has been portraying the Android/iPhone competition as Open vs Closed platform and, thus, is spinning this exploit as a good thing? I have seen the anti-Apple rhetoric rise to such dizzy heights as to suggest that this mirrors the Windows/Mac competition of the 90s... conveniently forgetting that both platforms were proprietary and that Microsoft was the arch proponent of domination through proprietary technology, working diligently to pervert open standards with proprietary code and even going as far as cramming the ISO with customers to railroad through the new, proprietary code dependent, Word doc format as an 'open' standard.
Here's a well respected Apple blogger commenting more accurately on the misrepresentation of this exploit:
"Yikes. It’s odd how the press is mostly covering this as “jailbreaking now more convenient” rather than “remote code exploit now in the wild”. John Gruber of Daring Fireball.
Office: leveraged the Windows monopoly to break Lotus. Even if the "DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run" myth isn't true Lotus inevitably was late out of the gate for new versions of Windows, and the secret API accusation persists.
IE: leveraged Windows again. Microsoft won this battle by giving away the product free, and then perverting HTML and Java.
Outlook/Exchange server: free front end, proprietary back end... they're leveraging Windows again with great results.
Windows Mobile: The many versions over the years have had to stand on their own merits. The current situation is that market share is shrinking and reputation is poor. Microsoft are in full shameless post-ME, post-Vista advertising mode: the next one's gonna be great!
Zune: Without the Windows monopoly coming to the aid of another product Microsoft failed to catch up. The Plays for Sure DRM debacle didn't do their reputation with the music industry much good so the plan of domination through a proprietary format (WMA) failed to provide the anti-competitive leg-up on which Microsoft had previously relied.
Xbox: No Windows leverage possible with this stand alone product so Microsoft go for brute force to beat Sony. $10 billion dollars lost and a decade later some people consider that they have done a great job. Others wonder if a company that relies on squandering a sum the size of the GDP of oil rich Brunei should be allowed to exist to batter into submission more competent companies with fewer resources. Last quarter the Xbox made $165 million... so in about 15 years it should break even.
Ramming through a subsidised product with the result that profitability takes almost 3 decades isn't a business strategy, it's a pissing war. "My steam last longer than yours'. Microsoft's record developing products that cannot leverage Windows is pitiful.
I don't understand the decision not to, at the very least, release a model with the keyboard & trackpad combined. In what situation will it be more practical to have them separate? For people with four arms, perhaps? Drummers with complete limb coordination independence?
There is the rationale that keyboard and trackpad can fail independently but I don't think that justifies the inconvenience of their separation in a wireless, mobile product.
Should we consider a modular design for cars? Hey, let's separate the steering wheel from the pedals and strap the customer into both halves to keep them together!
The problem with this debate is that it is characterised, particularly within the US, as ID (or Creationism) vs Evolution. It is not.
The debate is Superstition vs. Empiricism. Supporters of I.D. appear to believe that they can throw out the 'Theory of Evolution' but maintain the science that goes into making the soles of their shoes. One cannot. If one abandons the empirical method for evolution you introduce that as a concept.
Tuning into your hackles to gain a sense of reality becomes a valid method of research. Blind faith in old books becomes a valid method. Obedience to the political machinations of a popular religious hierarchy becomes a valid method.
I.D. attempts to portray itself as valid scientific scepticism but that is a disreputably small fig leaf to hide Creationism behind. Advocates of I.D. display a wilful ignorance of Evolution and a contentment with schoolboy errors. Risible misrepresentations of the definition of the word 'theory' and 'proof', for example. Abuse of the scientific method of construction of hypotheses based ONLY upon best empirical evidence.
What I.D. proponents will not face up to is that when you abandon Empiricism you embrace the politics of religion. In embracing the politics of religion you put all of science at the mercy of the political ambitions of charlatans.
Religion is essentially a protection racket for the gullible, and a mafia politically active against the intelligentsia. As the political power of whatever superstition rises it MUST suppress the intellectual development of society. The only difference between the Taliban, or Spanish Inquisition and a Southern Baptist Church is the level of political control actionable.
The implementation of a false reality always results in tyranny: whether than be the tyranny of superstition or the tyranny of madness. The attempted mapping of a false reality over true reality results in conflict, and the false reality characterises the friction created as a struggle with some imaginary dark force.
The details of the friction are often arbitrary: they may be the prohibition of eating shellfish, or of education for women. The only guiding influence that reality has over a superstition is that it must be compatible with psychology of the believer. Thus, a male insecurity over female fidelity can translate into a deity's command for women to be covered up in public and kept under house arrest. A superstition must also be compatible with the needs of a controlling elite. So a belief that a deity speaks to everyone personally and no ecclesiastical hierarchy are acceptable will never gain a dominant position in society since the ruling elite cannot adopt a position as leader chosen by 'God', or 'God' himself. A superstition of that type may gain a foothold in some community but it will lose out in any battle for religious supremacy.
In short: when I.D. attempts a selective abandonment of Empiricism it opens the door for the mafioso protection racket power struggle to begin. That door must be held shut by everyone who wishes for the rule of reason.
A good reply, chebucto, but I beg to differ on the ambiguity. Consider the phrases bit by bit. I'll mix the order where that doesn't alter meaning but allows brevity:
"I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare."
and
"I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes."
No ambiguity here: He's in favour of some form of toxic gas as a means of control of 'uncivilised tribes' (there is no controversy over the fact that Churchill was a snob and a pretty unreconstructed Victorian... but back to the issue at hand).
"It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas."
No ambiguity here: Churchill is saying that he sees nothing wrong with the use of tear gas. This phrase defends no other type of gas.
"The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum."
No ambiguity here: Again, Churchill is clearly in favour of non-lethal gas.
"It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses:"
Possible ambiguity? I think not: The issue here is the use of the word 'only', but Churchill is not advocating gas use here, he is describing the spectrum of possibilities. In the light of the great clarity of the three previous quotations this cannot be interpreted to mean something that contradicts immediately the preceding opinions. Not given that we are discussing a highly intelligent individual with a famous talent for the use of the English language.
"gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected."
Possible ambiguity? I think not: Here the issue is the use of the word 'can', but again, Churchill is defining tear gas as existing within the spectrum of gases that could be described as poisonous.
Bearing in mind that tear gas is not usually considered a 'poison gas' but, obviously, as toxicity is dose related, can be considered so it appears to me that Churchill quite liberally labelled tear gas with the more severe term and deemed it, thus, necessary not to ban use of toxic gas in warfare.
Thus, one must consider whether Churchill did this in order to leave space for more toxic, lethal gases to exist within the law or in order that the benign use of tear gas not be outlawed? On this matter he offers only one opinion:
"The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a MINIMUM."
That is as clear a statement as one could wish for from the English language.
We should represent our greatest heros with care. Churchill was by no means perfect but he was one of the best of us and is still held in the highest regard in Britain. There's no reason to sully his reputation with truncated quotations:
“I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes,”...
let our hero continue:... “making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory [i.e., tear] gas.”
The theme is concluded thus:
“The moral effect should be so good as to keep loss of life reduced to a minimum” and “Gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror yet would leave no serious permanent effect on most of those affected.”
I think you'll agree that the full text befits his reputation as Britain's visionary saviour, whereas the person who first sought to sully his reputation by offering up into popular currency the truncated misrepresentation of his view deserves shame.
The problem with judging politicians is that you only see the action they could accomplish... not what they would do had they enjoyed free reign.
Had Ronald Reagan and his superstitious wife, who insisted that Ronald delay acting until auspicious dates, had that liberty I don't think his racist and anti-civil rights tendencies would have achieved the respect the 'circumvented Reagan' we know currently enjoys.
Just Google Reagan and racism... you'll find the campaign speech with a historical aside for racists, the tax breaks for racist schools, and the attempted repeal of civil rights law.
"It also proves that Apple follows a wrong path selling hardware. It has some nice software in its hands, and it could become an alternative to Microsoft/Google if they wanted to."
This old chestnut is marked 5 insightful?
The usual estimate is that 50% of Windows installations worldwide are pirated. That represents a demand (for a free product).
It is easier to pirate Mac OS X. It is not protected by a serial number or internet authentication. There is a site offering information on how to do it and a name has been coined: Hackintosh.
Now, according to you, Apple's going down the wrong path, selling to the subsection of the computer market interested in an 'It Just Works' box, because were Apple to sell Mac OS X alone more people would pay for it than are currently interested in stealing it... unpoliced as it is.
hmmm... OS 2 failed, Next failed, Linux failed, Free BSD... they all failed to gain significant market share(yes Next OS = Free BSD = Mac OS X... but these all represent attempts to popularise OSs independent of hardware).
Apple succeeded because, when faced with the herd mentality one has to take attention away from the fact that you aren't following the herd... it's just a box... forget what flavour it is... It Just Works. That way you enter to market as white goods, just like buying a toaster... and, if the OS is good enough, you get the a few sales to the discerning too.
President Lula of Brazil last week signed an act of Parliament that will give legal title to squatters in the Amazon to an area roughly the size of France.
Brazilian law (Uso Campeao) gives property ownership to squatters in just 5 years. All they have to do is show they have used the area. The way they do that is burn the trees down and put cows on it. A single cow gives you control of a hectare.
Should you try to buy the land to replant trees you will find that your neighbours' annual habit of uncontrolled burning to 'clean' their pasture of saplings puts paid to your investment.
Burning rainforest produces more CO2 than all transport combined.
Brazil has shown no serious intent to put an end to this burning. Brazil's 5 biggest land owners all stole their land through land registration fraud. None of them have been investigated. The two largest land fraudsters stole over 12 million hectares each... so each now 'owns' an area the size of Germany.
Pressure needs to be brought to bear on governments that do not take this problem seriously.
Prince Charles has started a petition:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boEDMVNAPk4
Sign here:
http://www.rainforestsos.org/
"I'm actually surprised that as many as 6% of respondents identified themselves as Republicans."
That's what they teach us to say at the KKK these days.
As far as I understand it that's, like, the difference between a gorilla penis and a human penis.
No?
Come ON... there has to be some evolution... so you blame women. It isn't God's fault! That'd be gross!
1 out of 10 scientists don't accept evolution?
I didn't realise my alma mater, Bob Jones University of the KKK, produced so many graduate 'scientists'.
By the way, did anyone else who went there notice... no squirrels on campus?
Strange... do you think they evolved to recognise a semi-automatic or God just wised 'em up?
"1. Low depreciation Probably true but who really re-sells PC's/Mac's? PC's are democratic. Anybody with $400 can buy a reasonably good PC that does everything they need - surf the web, write letters, listen to music, rip CD's etc. Who cares about depreciation of a $400 machine? "
The choice is yours. A $15,000 house is cheap... trash it and it becomes expensive. A $100,000 Morgan sports car is expensive but the waiting list is so long that they actually appreciate... so reselling it for more than your paid for it makes them the cheapest cars you can buy. Who resells $400 PCs? Sure, no one wants them second hand. They can't run XP fast, or Vista at all. Who resells Macs? There is very high demand for them. I have an 800MHz G4 iMac I bought for £750 5 years ago. They sell on eBay for £380. I think you would sell your PCs too if they kept that much value.
"4. No exploits Blatantly not true."
This is a constant refrain from PC enthusiasts: because there have been half-baked attempts at exploits and the odd macro that just might run in Office for Mac there is an insistence that there is no reason to choose a Mac on the grounds of safety, or Macs are no safer than PCs, or some other self-serving semantic argument. It really strikes me how strange this is. It is sort of like the denial one heard from smokers: "I know someone who smoked like a chimney and lived to 110 so smoking does you on harm".
The fact is this, I have wasted months of my life maintaining PCs for stubborn relatives who refused to just buy a Mac. Browser hijacks, viruses, trojans, spyware... I've seen the lot... but in 8 years I have NEVER come across anything on Macs. Nothing! 8 years of browsing the internet with no security software on the Macs I support and the 5 or so belonging to the more forward thinking of my relatives who let me chose them a Mac. More than that, I have never had to reinstall from OS 8 to OS X 10.4 for reasons of malware on a Mac ever. My grandfather's iMac has been running OS 8.5 for 7 years now... no reinstalls and no Norton.
In fact, I have never met a Mac users who has been infected by a virus. Yes, they are possible. No, you don't see them. All that spam out there... all those compromised bots out there... they're all running Windows. You'll probably say "one day...", well yes it may well happen, but it's 8 years and counting.
Look at it this way: typical staffing levels for Windows PC techs is 1:20. That's absurd! the University of Basel has 2500 Macs and 2 techs! If you think that's impressive take a look at the Isle of Man. 3800 Macs on 400 different networks throughout government, libraries and schools... 2 techs. That's a hundred times lower than PC tech levels in a school system connected to the internet. Try and get them to use PCs instead. Come out with that stuff about Macs not being invulnerable... or face the reality of the situation. For whatever reason you chose to believe, Mac computing had been a whole lot safer and a whole lot less hassle for the vast majority. Not "blatantly false", patently obvious!
"5. OS stability Seems to be true but I haven't had a crash of my Windows XP machine in a couple of years and not one on my newer Windows Vista machine which was running pre-release versions."
Yes, I have heard that Windows is getting better... but try to match my grandfather's iMac. That's OS is 8 years old, and no reinstalls. I have two PCs here at home. They both accumulate junkware all the time as less than expert geeks use them. The Windows 2000 machine had to be reinstalled recently because of a trojan trying to steal bank details. The XP needed reinstalling twice last year, once because of an MSN worm and the other time because of Logitec webcam drivers! There is no way I am going to waste my life becoming a Windows open heart surgeon and playing around in the registry. I want a tool that works!
Vista still has that registry. It will still have to m
Things that are nice about the Mac you forgot to mention:
1. Low depreciation 2. Really classy software from small companies like Omni Group and Delicious Monster 3. Consistency between apps 4. No exploits 5. OS stability 6. Intuitive ease of use (drag in and out of dock; drag text off internet; drag internet page straight into Text Edit) 7. The helpful good manners of other Mac users 8. Consistent GUI metaphors (no confusing window closing with quitting; different window configurations which actually work as alternative methods [try turning off the browser type back buttons on both OSes and see the results: Mac becomes multiple window while Windows leads you in via a single window down a blind alley with no way back!]; Windows My Computer throws a sense of file system hierarchy out the window; double tab lines jumping position confuse in Windows) 9. CDs and DVDs appear on the desktop needing no auto-run 10. No registry hell 11. No inaccurate warnings like the delete warning that doesn't empty the trash/recycle bin or "illegal operation" bad manners 12. Good English unlike the infuriating My Little Pony language of Windows 12. No juvenilia: yellow dogs, telly tubby styling, talking paper clips 13. Clean minimalist GUI unlike the Windows garrulousness of endless notification, comments down the left side of windows and poorly thought out repetitive layouts (count the duplication in Windows Media Player of 'Artist' & 'Library' - I think it is three each) 14. Easy, consistent working with drag and drop between windows and apps 15. Not just a couple of bundled iApps, the whole integrated iLife suite. 16. It just works
So you downloaded disc images and didn't notice that they were not installers. Then you mounted the disc image and ignored the sign saying "Drop this app in your apps folder". Then you didn't understand why the app you hadn't dropped in your apps folder was not in your apps folder. hmmm
Safari is faster to open that Firefox on a Mac. It works for every site I know and text looks better than Firefox. I prefer Mac scrolling (higher def) to Windows (lower Def) smooth scrolling which makes me feel a little queasy to watch but the Windows browsing experience is faster. Given the exploits which affect Windows I would say that the sense of security on a Mac is much higher. I would not bank online on a PC.
You say: "The overall "polish" of the Mac UI is nice-ish but not really "better" than the Mac unless you're a designer weenie."
Aside from the unnecessary dig at designers I think you mean that you see no difference in the quality of the Windows and Mac GUIs. Perhaps that is why you have a go at designers: because they can see what you can't. The Mac interface is much more mature. It achieves more with less. Vista continues with the tradition of cluttered over-helpfulness which characterised earlier versions of Windows. That is why Windows users are so keen on that maximise window button (or as Mac users call it: The waste my nice big 30" LCD button). They need to hide the clutter to be able to focus. Mac users work happily with multiple open windows and use their "Optimise my window size button" so they can see more, not less.
Giving credit where it is due, Vista has removed the juvenilia. The possessive language is gone, as is the dog. It still makes serious design errors. Why transparency in windows? To confuse their edges? Why only a touch of red on the close button to signify the current window? Why the child's graffiti like inconsistent shapes to buttons. Count the lines of menu options in Windows Media Player... including the title bar I think it is nine! The number of shutdown options: 9!
If you can't see these things as clearly as Mac users can then that explains your opinion of Windows, however, I think that, though few can design, many can recognise good design when they see it. What Microsoft's Vista demonstrates is that, like you, they believe good design is just pretty colours, shadows, shapes and transparency. Apple, like good car designers, know that design is actually how it works.
Slashdot Mirror
There are posts for and against the efficacy/necessity for these drugs but isn't the real issue that most of these things people are trying to feel stimulated by, and interested in, esoteric ideas that don't fit nicely into the range of stimuli the hunter/gatherer homo-sapiens evolved to get excited about.
Does it not seem entirely obvious that a hunter/gatherer would rather be shooting zombies than searching for binary bugs in code, or a missing file in an archive?
Use the drugs if they help you and you feel confident that you aren't screwing up your liver but the diagnosis that these kids are diseased because they'd rather be catching frogs than parrot learning the menu commands of Microsoft Office, or a list of the Monarchs of Britain is sadly misguided.
Let me throw up a few other revelations:
There is less psychological illness in populations that live near parks.
People who get to walk in parks recover quicker from illness.
There is a statistical link between suicide and strong electro-magnetic fields.
Humans generally feel pleasantly excited when visiting an expansive wilderness.
Surprise surprise!
You can take a human out of the wild but don't expect him enthusiastically conform to the needs of industry or the propaganda of elites who follow Edward Bernays' view:
"The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest."
We humans were engineered by the eco-system we evolved in. We obviously struggle to conform to the engineering of 'progress'. Conform if needs must, just don't accept the labels: sick, lazy, delinquent, trouble maker.
We are humans: this stuff IS boring!
"They don't innovate. They scrape the internet looking for ideas, making products that are "just different enough" to avoid existing patents, and they buy up startup companies just as you describe."
On what basis is this insightful? Surely some facts to go with the opinion are necessary?
Here is a fact:
In the last 25 years Apple has bought 25 companies. That's one a year.
Here's another:
In the last 4 years Microsoft has bought 45 companies. That's just over 11 a year.
Here's another:
In the last 4 years Google has bought 40 companies. That's 10 a year.
And a final one:
"Apple is not an exception -- stop dodging this just to please the fanboys" , aside from the bad manners, is not insightful and is not borne out by the facts.
"I must make myself available weeks or months after the fact to provide passwords"
My those are very secure passwords. I thought 10 characters was enough! ...(ducks) ;-)
With regard to Thatcher's austerity measures the amazing thing is that she managed to prevent investment in:
social housing
schools and universities
National Health System
sewers and sewage treatment
railways
post office
sold off public assets like:
public housing
British Coal
British Petroleum
British Airways
British Airports Authority
British Sugar
National Freight Corp
British Ports
National Bus Co.
British Leyland
Rolls Royce
Rover Group
Girobank
British Steel
British Shipbuilders
British Gas
National Electricity Grid
Regional Water Authorities
British Telecom
received the bulk of the receipts from North Sea oil during the years of highest output...
and STILL was collecting more in taxes at the end of her three terms in office than when she first came to power. Despite that enormous level of subsidy she failed to reduce the cost of UK government by even a single pound.
This can be partly explained by her belief that 7 million unemployed, on benefits was a good way of curbing inflation. Though her government took the time to reinvent how to count them (to hide a few). She also believed in educating the minimum number of people necessary since graduates on benefits were, in her opinion, no more productive than uneducated oiks, and perhaps even more dejected. She clearly didn't understand the concept of wealth generation by a vigorous, educated middle class.
Essentially she was a middle class snob... a would be Victorian... a hankerer after an entitled elite sitting comfortably atop a competitively inhibited middle class. Her vision of the future was 1900.
The one thing she did that benefitted the middle class was to increase the availability of capital but she did it in a demand driven property market... which then swallowed (and continues to do so) every single disposable middle class pound in a desperate bidding process for a roof over one's head.
For those who don't know the English property market the UK has not contained immigration (the principle cause of population growth there) while at the same time they have constrained the building of property. A policy of protecting farmland around cities, the 'green belt', prevents horizontal growth, while another policy of historical conservation prevents vertical growth which would spoil the traditional skyline.
The result is that the British, and particularly those of the South East, have had to chop up existing property into ever smaller rabbit hutches. Margaret Thatcher's Victorian vision did not extend to noticing that her peers were now living in the servant's basements, mews cottages and converted stables. A time travelling Victorian arriving today would be 'horrified'.
Crocodiles show some ability to regenerate certain tissues:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1563441
Teeth regrow in healthy individuals, too. The larger species are thought to live 70 to 100 years, and the animal isn't known to suffer unduly from cancer.
It does have an awful time in the everglades working out what sex it is. (Oestrogenic pollutants)
Google do not want a privacy bill in the US as it would inhibit data-mining.
The obvious strategy for them is to encourage government to allow data accumulation for national security reasons.
Though currently Google is just playing the politics of the situation to its advantage as it becomes more invasive it will become more important/dangerous to government.
Google is growing into a big problem for US/world citizens: either the US gets a strong privacy bill or Google gets clandestinely plugged into government.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/07/exclusive-google-cia/
This comparison isn't like for like.
"By all metrics, the US healthcare system is delivering comparable medical outcomes to other industrialized nations at about 2 times the cost."
The UK system uses collective bargaining (the NHS areas collectively) to purchase lower cost drugs. That is illegal in the US.
The NHS bill then includes many drugs subsidised and sold at the price of a prescription... about £6, I believe. US patients' insurance often does not cover drugs, or all drugs, and those drugs are more expensive than the UK due to that big-pharma favouring ban on collective bargaining.
Factoring in US patients' drug bills the UK savings are greater than 2 times.
Apple user bashing is insightful?
How about considering that the press has been portraying the Android/iPhone competition as Open vs Closed platform and, thus, is spinning this exploit as a good thing? I have seen the anti-Apple rhetoric rise to such dizzy heights as to suggest that this mirrors the Windows/Mac competition of the 90s... conveniently forgetting that both platforms were proprietary and that Microsoft was the arch proponent of domination through proprietary technology, working diligently to pervert open standards with proprietary code and even going as far as cramming the ISO with customers to railroad through the new, proprietary code dependent, Word doc format as an 'open' standard.
Here's a well respected Apple blogger commenting more accurately on the misrepresentation of this exploit:
"Yikes. It’s odd how the press is mostly covering this as “jailbreaking now more convenient” rather than “remote code exploit now in the wild”.
John Gruber of Daring Fireball.
"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
hmm...
"As an online discussion grows sooner or later it's going to attract Glenn Beck."
Fixed it. ;-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1s4fj-5zlk
Office: leveraged the Windows monopoly to break Lotus. Even if the "DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run" myth isn't true Lotus inevitably was late out of the gate for new versions of Windows, and the secret API accusation persists.
IE: leveraged Windows again. Microsoft won this battle by giving away the product free, and then perverting HTML and Java.
Outlook/Exchange server: free front end, proprietary back end... they're leveraging Windows again with great results.
Windows Mobile: The many versions over the years have had to stand on their own merits. The current situation is that market share is shrinking and reputation is poor. Microsoft are in full shameless post-ME, post-Vista advertising mode: the next one's gonna be great!
Zune: Without the Windows monopoly coming to the aid of another product Microsoft failed to catch up. The Plays for Sure DRM debacle didn't do their reputation with the music industry much good so the plan of domination through a proprietary format (WMA) failed to provide the anti-competitive leg-up on which Microsoft had previously relied.
Xbox: No Windows leverage possible with this stand alone product so Microsoft go for brute force to beat Sony. $10 billion dollars lost and a decade later some people consider that they have done a great job. Others wonder if a company that relies on squandering a sum the size of the GDP of oil rich Brunei should be allowed to exist to batter into submission more competent companies with fewer resources. Last quarter the Xbox made $165 million... so in about 15 years it should break even.
Ramming through a subsidised product with the result that profitability takes almost 3 decades isn't a business strategy, it's a pissing war. "My steam last longer than yours'. Microsoft's record developing products that cannot leverage Windows is pitiful.
I screen printed my face on the driver's door.
The near-side passenger door has a cartoon dialogue bubble: "My pedophile step-father keeps stealing my keys for his hunting trips"
I don't understand the decision not to, at the very least, release a model with the keyboard & trackpad combined. In what situation will it be more practical to have them separate? For people with four arms, perhaps? Drummers with complete limb coordination independence?
There is the rationale that keyboard and trackpad can fail independently but I don't think that justifies the inconvenience of their separation in a wireless, mobile product.
Should we consider a modular design for cars? Hey, let's separate the steering wheel from the pedals and strap the customer into both halves to keep them together!
The problem with this debate is that it is characterised, particularly within the US, as ID (or Creationism) vs Evolution. It is not.
The debate is Superstition vs. Empiricism.
Supporters of I.D. appear to believe that they can throw out the 'Theory of Evolution' but maintain the science that goes into making the soles of their shoes. One cannot. If one abandons the empirical method for evolution you introduce that as a concept.
Tuning into your hackles to gain a sense of reality becomes a valid method of research.
Blind faith in old books becomes a valid method.
Obedience to the political machinations of a popular religious hierarchy becomes a valid method.
I.D. attempts to portray itself as valid scientific scepticism but that is a disreputably small fig leaf to hide Creationism behind. Advocates of I.D. display a wilful ignorance of Evolution and a contentment with schoolboy errors. Risible misrepresentations of the definition of the word 'theory' and 'proof', for example. Abuse of the scientific method of construction of hypotheses based ONLY upon best empirical evidence.
What I.D. proponents will not face up to is that when you abandon Empiricism you embrace the politics of religion. In embracing the politics of religion you put all of science at the mercy of the political ambitions of charlatans.
Religion is essentially a protection racket for the gullible, and a mafia politically active against the intelligentsia. As the political power of whatever superstition rises it MUST suppress the intellectual development of society. The only difference between the Taliban, or Spanish Inquisition and a Southern Baptist Church is the level of political control actionable.
The implementation of a false reality always results in tyranny: whether than be the tyranny of superstition or the tyranny of madness. The attempted mapping of a false reality over true reality results in conflict, and the false reality characterises the friction created as a struggle with some imaginary dark force.
The details of the friction are often arbitrary: they may be the prohibition of eating shellfish, or of education for women. The only guiding influence that reality has over a superstition is that it must be compatible with psychology of the believer. Thus, a male insecurity over female fidelity can translate into a deity's command for women to be covered up in public and kept under house arrest. A superstition must also be compatible with the needs of a controlling elite. So a belief that a deity speaks to everyone personally and no ecclesiastical hierarchy are acceptable will never gain a dominant position in society since the ruling elite cannot adopt a position as leader chosen by 'God', or 'God' himself. A superstition of that type may gain a foothold in some community but it will lose out in any battle for religious supremacy.
In short: when I.D. attempts a selective abandonment of Empiricism it opens the door for the mafioso protection racket power struggle to begin. That door must be held shut by everyone who wishes for the rule of reason.
A good reply, chebucto, but I beg to differ on the ambiguity. Consider the phrases bit by bit. I'll mix the order where that doesn't alter meaning but allows brevity:
"I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare."
and
"I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes."
No ambiguity here:
He's in favour of some form of toxic gas as a means of control of 'uncivilised tribes' (there is no controversy over the fact that Churchill was a snob and a pretty unreconstructed Victorian... but back to the issue at hand).
"It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas."
No ambiguity here:
Churchill is saying that he sees nothing wrong with the use of tear gas. This phrase defends no other type of gas.
"The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum."
No ambiguity here:
Again, Churchill is clearly in favour of non-lethal gas.
"It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses:"
Possible ambiguity? I think not:
The issue here is the use of the word 'only', but Churchill is not advocating gas use here, he is describing the spectrum of possibilities. In the light of the great clarity of the three previous quotations this cannot be interpreted to mean something that contradicts immediately the preceding opinions. Not given that we are discussing a highly intelligent individual with a famous talent for the use of the English language.
"gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected."
Possible ambiguity? I think not:
Here the issue is the use of the word 'can', but again, Churchill is defining tear gas as existing within the spectrum of gases that could be described as poisonous.
Bearing in mind that tear gas is not usually considered a 'poison gas' but, obviously, as toxicity is dose related, can be considered so it appears to me that Churchill quite liberally labelled tear gas with the more severe term and deemed it, thus, necessary not to ban use of toxic gas in warfare.
Thus, one must consider whether Churchill did this in order to leave space for more toxic, lethal gases to exist within the law or in order that the benign use of tear gas not be outlawed? On this matter he offers only one opinion:
"The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a MINIMUM."
That is as clear a statement as one could wish for from the English language.
We should represent our greatest heros with care. Churchill was by no means perfect but he was one of the best of us and is still held in the highest regard in Britain. There's no reason to sully his reputation with truncated quotations:
“I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes,”...
let our hero continue: ... “making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory [i.e., tear] gas.”
The theme is concluded thus:
“The moral effect should be so good as to keep loss of life reduced to a minimum” and “Gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror yet would leave no serious permanent effect on most of those affected.”
I think you'll agree that the full text befits his reputation as Britain's visionary saviour, whereas the person who first sought to sully his reputation by offering up into popular currency the truncated misrepresentation of his view deserves shame.
"And seriously, "M$"? Is anyone still using that in 2009?" ...only component manufacturers for the Xbox...
ducks... ;-)
The problem with judging politicians is that you only see the action they could accomplish... not what they would do had they enjoyed free reign. Had Ronald Reagan and his superstitious wife, who insisted that Ronald delay acting until auspicious dates, had that liberty I don't think his racist and anti-civil rights tendencies would have achieved the respect the 'circumvented Reagan' we know currently enjoys. Just Google Reagan and racism... you'll find the campaign speech with a historical aside for racists, the tax breaks for racist schools, and the attempted repeal of civil rights law.
Yeah, but it doesnt matter. everyone knows that apples are immume to viruses and malware. and they look better than ordinary Pcs.
After a decade and a half of this someone is still laughing?
"It also proves that Apple follows a wrong path selling hardware. It has some nice software in its hands, and it could become an alternative to Microsoft/Google if they wanted to." This old chestnut is marked 5 insightful? The usual estimate is that 50% of Windows installations worldwide are pirated. That represents a demand (for a free product). It is easier to pirate Mac OS X. It is not protected by a serial number or internet authentication. There is a site offering information on how to do it and a name has been coined: Hackintosh. Now, according to you, Apple's going down the wrong path, selling to the subsection of the computer market interested in an 'It Just Works' box, because were Apple to sell Mac OS X alone more people would pay for it than are currently interested in stealing it... unpoliced as it is. hmmm... OS 2 failed, Next failed, Linux failed, Free BSD... they all failed to gain significant market share(yes Next OS = Free BSD = Mac OS X... but these all represent attempts to popularise OSs independent of hardware). Apple succeeded because, when faced with the herd mentality one has to take attention away from the fact that you aren't following the herd... it's just a box... forget what flavour it is... It Just Works. That way you enter to market as white goods, just like buying a toaster... and, if the OS is good enough, you get the a few sales to the discerning too.
President Lula of Brazil last week signed an act of Parliament that will give legal title to squatters in the Amazon to an area roughly the size of France. Brazilian law (Uso Campeao) gives property ownership to squatters in just 5 years. All they have to do is show they have used the area. The way they do that is burn the trees down and put cows on it. A single cow gives you control of a hectare. Should you try to buy the land to replant trees you will find that your neighbours' annual habit of uncontrolled burning to 'clean' their pasture of saplings puts paid to your investment. Burning rainforest produces more CO2 than all transport combined. Brazil has shown no serious intent to put an end to this burning. Brazil's 5 biggest land owners all stole their land through land registration fraud. None of them have been investigated. The two largest land fraudsters stole over 12 million hectares each... so each now 'owns' an area the size of Germany. Pressure needs to be brought to bear on governments that do not take this problem seriously. Prince Charles has started a petition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boEDMVNAPk4 Sign here: http://www.rainforestsos.org/
"I'm actually surprised that as many as 6% of respondents identified themselves as Republicans." That's what they teach us to say at the KKK these days.
As far as I understand it that's, like, the difference between a gorilla penis and a human penis. No? Come ON... there has to be some evolution... so you blame women. It isn't God's fault! That'd be gross!
1 out of 10 scientists don't accept evolution? I didn't realise my alma mater, Bob Jones University of the KKK, produced so many graduate 'scientists'. By the way, did anyone else who went there notice... no squirrels on campus? Strange... do you think they evolved to recognise a semi-automatic or God just wised 'em up?
I'll quote you and then offer comments:
"1. Low depreciation Probably true but who really re-sells PC's/Mac's? PC's are democratic. Anybody with $400 can buy a reasonably good PC that does everything they need - surf the web, write letters, listen to music, rip CD's etc. Who cares about depreciation of a $400 machine? "
The choice is yours. A $15,000 house is cheap... trash it and it becomes expensive. A $100,000 Morgan sports car is expensive but the waiting list is so long that they actually appreciate... so reselling it for more than your paid for it makes them the cheapest cars you can buy. Who resells $400 PCs? Sure, no one wants them second hand. They can't run XP fast, or Vista at all. Who resells Macs? There is very high demand for them. I have an 800MHz G4 iMac I bought for £750 5 years ago. They sell on eBay for £380. I think you would sell your PCs too if they kept that much value.
"4. No exploits Blatantly not true."
This is a constant refrain from PC enthusiasts: because there have been half-baked attempts at exploits and the odd macro that just might run in Office for Mac there is an insistence that there is no reason to choose a Mac on the grounds of safety, or Macs are no safer than PCs, or some other self-serving semantic argument. It really strikes me how strange this is. It is sort of like the denial one heard from smokers: "I know someone who smoked like a chimney and lived to 110 so smoking does you on harm".
The fact is this, I have wasted months of my life maintaining PCs for stubborn relatives who refused to just buy a Mac. Browser hijacks, viruses, trojans, spyware... I've seen the lot... but in 8 years I have NEVER come across anything on Macs. Nothing! 8 years of browsing the internet with no security software on the Macs I support and the 5 or so belonging to the more forward thinking of my relatives who let me chose them a Mac. More than that, I have never had to reinstall from OS 8 to OS X 10.4 for reasons of malware on a Mac ever. My grandfather's iMac has been running OS 8.5 for 7 years now... no reinstalls and no Norton.
In fact, I have never met a Mac users who has been infected by a virus. Yes, they are possible. No, you don't see them. All that spam out there... all those compromised bots out there... they're all running Windows. You'll probably say "one day...", well yes it may well happen, but it's 8 years and counting.
Look at it this way: typical staffing levels for Windows PC techs is 1:20. That's absurd! the University of Basel has 2500 Macs and 2 techs! If you think that's impressive take a look at the Isle of Man. 3800 Macs on 400 different networks throughout government, libraries and schools... 2 techs. That's a hundred times lower than PC tech levels in a school system connected to the internet. Try and get them to use PCs instead. Come out with that stuff about Macs not being invulnerable... or face the reality of the situation. For whatever reason you chose to believe, Mac computing had been a whole lot safer and a whole lot less hassle for the vast majority. Not "blatantly false", patently obvious!
"5. OS stability Seems to be true but I haven't had a crash of my Windows XP machine in a couple of years and not one on my newer Windows Vista machine which was running pre-release versions."
Yes, I have heard that Windows is getting better... but try to match my grandfather's iMac. That's OS is 8 years old, and no reinstalls. I have two PCs here at home. They both accumulate junkware all the time as less than expert geeks use them. The Windows 2000 machine had to be reinstalled recently because of a trojan trying to steal bank details. The XP needed reinstalling twice last year, once because of an MSN worm and the other time because of Logitec webcam drivers! There is no way I am going to waste my life becoming a Windows open heart surgeon and playing around in the registry. I want a tool that works!
Vista still has that registry. It will still have to m
Things that are nice about the Mac you forgot to mention:
1. Low depreciation
2. Really classy software from small companies like Omni Group and Delicious Monster
3. Consistency between apps
4. No exploits
5. OS stability
6. Intuitive ease of use (drag in and out of dock; drag text off internet; drag internet page straight into Text Edit)
7. The helpful good manners of other Mac users
8. Consistent GUI metaphors (no confusing window closing with quitting; different window configurations which actually work as alternative methods [try turning off the browser type back buttons on both OSes and see the results: Mac becomes multiple window while Windows leads you in via a single window down a blind alley with no way back!]; Windows My Computer throws a sense of file system hierarchy out the window; double tab lines jumping position confuse in Windows)
9. CDs and DVDs appear on the desktop needing no auto-run
10. No registry hell
11. No inaccurate warnings like the delete warning that doesn't empty the trash/recycle bin or "illegal operation" bad manners
12. Good English unlike the infuriating My Little Pony language of Windows
12. No juvenilia: yellow dogs, telly tubby styling, talking paper clips
13. Clean minimalist GUI unlike the Windows garrulousness of endless notification, comments down the left side of windows and poorly thought out repetitive layouts (count the duplication in Windows Media Player of 'Artist' & 'Library' - I think it is three each)
14. Easy, consistent working with drag and drop between windows and apps
15. Not just a couple of bundled iApps, the whole integrated iLife suite.
16. It just works
So you downloaded disc images and didn't notice that they were not installers. Then you mounted the disc image and ignored the sign saying "Drop this app in your apps folder". Then you didn't understand why the app you hadn't dropped in your apps folder was not in your apps folder. hmmm
Safari is faster to open that Firefox on a Mac. It works for every site I know and text looks better than Firefox. I prefer Mac scrolling (higher def) to Windows (lower Def) smooth scrolling which makes me feel a little queasy to watch but the Windows browsing experience is faster. Given the exploits which affect Windows I would say that the sense of security on a Mac is much higher. I would not bank online on a PC.
You say: "The overall "polish" of the Mac UI is nice-ish but not really "better" than the Mac unless you're a designer weenie."
Aside from the unnecessary dig at designers I think you mean that you see no difference in the quality of the Windows and Mac GUIs. Perhaps that is why you have a go at designers: because they can see what you can't. The Mac interface is much more mature. It achieves more with less. Vista continues with the tradition of cluttered over-helpfulness which characterised earlier versions of Windows. That is why Windows users are so keen on that maximise window button (or as Mac users call it: The waste my nice big 30" LCD button). They need to hide the clutter to be able to focus. Mac users work happily with multiple open windows and use their "Optimise my window size button" so they can see more, not less.
Giving credit where it is due, Vista has removed the juvenilia. The possessive language is gone, as is the dog. It still makes serious design errors. Why transparency in windows? To confuse their edges? Why only a touch of red on the close button to signify the current window? Why the child's graffiti like inconsistent shapes to buttons. Count the lines of menu options in Windows Media Player... including the title bar I think it is nine! The number of shutdown options: 9!
If you can't see these things as clearly as Mac users can then that explains your opinion of Windows, however, I think that, though few can design, many can recognise good design when they see it. What Microsoft's Vista demonstrates is that, like you, they believe good design is just pretty colours, shadows, shapes and transparency. Apple, like good car designers, know that design is actually how it works.