Capitalism would mean someone (or increasingly, some corporation) would *own* the software. With Free Software, nobody really owns it (although the original authors do maintain their copyright, that ownership is *outside* of the Free Software side of things).
Communism would be a central agency owning the software. The GNU software of the FSF could be called Communism, since they have contributors assign copyright to them.
Socialism would be where the people own the software. This seems most in line with what Free Software promotes. Each user owns the software. This also highlights a difference between GPL and BSD licenses. BSD allows one to take the software from the Socialistic system and move it to the Capitalistic (or even Communistic) system. The GPL locks the code into the Socialistic system.
You're right. How dare everyone else in the world use the term "Capitalism" to mean something counter to your invented definition.
Here's a clue:
Capitalism is *not* an economic system with zero government intervention. Communism is *not* an economic system where the government owns the means of production. Socialism is *not* an economic system where the workers own the factories.
Those are all just arbitrary definitions which were invented, after the fact, to try to divvy up economic systems into neat little baskets. It would be more accurate to state that:
Capitalism is an economic system which focuses on the free market. Communism is an economic system which focuses on central government control. Socialism is an economic system which focuses on the welfare of the people.
If you go by the Econ 101 textbook definitions (of which you cited the Capitalism definition), you'll find you end up with a completely worthless definition, as there has never been an ideologically pure example of *any* of those systems, and there never will be. All those definitions do is circumvent any actual ability to assess the economies of the real world, fostering ideologies which are logically internally consistent, but which, lacking any basis in the real world, lead to absurd policies which harm the very economies they are meant to promote.
When someone says they hate Capitalism, they aren't saying they hate the econ 101 definition, they are usually saying they hate a system which promotes antisocial activities which offend their sense of justice, often having some specific example in mind.
Well, to be fair, one is *supposed* to "embrace and extend" their own formats. The problem is when MS embraces some open standard, then extends it in a way that breaks the actual *open* version of the standard.
This is still a bad idea, but not because of "embrace and extend".
Yeah, I'd be fine with that so long as I can still readily buy Cokes elsewhere, or even if I preferred Pepsi in the first place. What I *wouldn't* be fine with is having to buy a Pepsi-opener in order to view publicly-funded archives of my nation's history (er, to drink the free soda my government is entrusted with preserving for the benefit of all humankind--hey, it was *your* analogy!).
Can you think of any reason why someone would want to enter into a discussion with you? You *are* a major jackass, that *is* a personal attack, but it's *not* the ad hominem fallacy (read the wikipedia article, the ad hominem fallacy is when you attack the person *instead* of attacking their argument).
Do you think that just because you have an opinion that gives you free reign to be a complete asshole? And to expect you or your posts to be given any respect? I have nothing to gain by continuing to argue with you, and only my momentary temper to lose.
Reply if you wish, any response will go unread by me. I've better things to do with my time.
You can argue this the other way round - Microsoft support Windows running on any hardware, whilst Apple only support OS X running in their own machines (and might even claim it's illegal to do otherwise). It's not clear to me why Apple are getting the credit here. Because that's an entirely different issue. People *do* complain about Apple not allowing OS X to be installed on non-Macs.
There seems to be some confusion about my earlier post.
I was talking ONLY about dual-booting Apple MacOS 10 and Microsoft Windows XP on Apple hardware using BootCamp. No confusion whatsoever. I was referring to Boot Camp as well (in fact, I even used that exact term).
In this scenario, and this scenario only, there is NO WAY you can get first-party support for the Windows install. Apple will not support it and Microsoft will not.
Based on these FACTS I consider it disingenuous to state "Running Windows (32-bit) on a Mac is supported." because it isn't. Again, you do not seem to understand the difference between supporting Windows the software, and supporting Windows on the hardware. Apple will not support Windows the software (i.e., if you get a BSoD, Apple won't help. If you flash player doesn't work in IE, Apple won't help. etc.). This is no different from Apple not supporting Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Word. If those programs aren't working properly, Apple won't fix them for you.
However, Apple *will* support you installing those programs, Apple *will* make efforts to be sure that it's not OS X that's causing the problem. Similarly, Apple *does* support you installing Windows on your Mac, and Apple *does* make efforts (including full hardware driver support) to make sure it's not the Mac that's keeping Windows from working.
I'm fairly confident that if you were to go to an Apple Store with your Mac and ask for help installing Windows, they would help. They would run the Boot Camp Assistant, they would put the Windows CD in for you, and they would watch it install. Once that's done, they would probably even install the drivers for you. After that, they would leave the rest up to you. If it fails, however, I doubt they'd do anything unless it was clearly a Mac issue and not a Windows issue. They won't troubleshoot Windows itself, just Boot Camp.
The point being, Boot Camp is a fully supported feature of Mac OS X Leopard.
Once you've got Windows installed you're on your own. Even if you CAN'T get it installed you're on your own because Apple doesn't support Windows installation problems. This is no different from saying "Running Ubuntu on a Mac is supported." (I'm assuming BootCamp supports OS' other than Windows). Once you've got Windows installed you're on your own. Even if you CAN'T get it installed you're on your own because Apple doesn't support Windows installation problems. This is no different from saying "Running Ubuntu on a Mac is supported." (I'm assuming BootCamp supports OS' other than Windows). Actually, Apple does *not* support Ubuntu at all in any way whatsoever. Ubuntu doesn't work with Boot Camp. Apple does not provide a way to install Ubuntu. Apple does not provide any drivers for Ubuntu (or Linux in general).
How about we stick to the argument instead of attacking me? (Or if you prefer latin snobbery cut out the ad hominem). All I said was your tone is caustic, which you readily admitted to. That's not the ad hominem fallacy, which is when you attack the person and then use that to claim their point invalid in lieu of actual argument. I never said the reason you were wrong about the MacBook Air is because your posts are caustic.
But sure, let's avoid ad hominem, shall we?
- Or if you prefer latin snobbery - Mac apologist - pompous - You've been drinking Steve Job's cool-aid haven't you!? - Dude you're reminding me of this South Park episode [the Smug Alert episode] - The blind devotion Mac users show is one reason I avoid the whole Mac cult-ure. Hrm... Well, removing all the personal attacks, you really only seem to make two arguments. One is that people want the MacBook Air because their current computer is "too heavy" (or too hot, too thick, whatever). That's not the case at all. The reason they want the MacBook Air is because it's *less* heavy. In my t-shirt analogy, the thicker t-shirt isn't *too* thick. It's perfectly fine. But a *thinner* one which is more comfortable is *better*. Or to use a computer analogy, if someone buys a faster computer, that doesn't mean their old one was too slow. Their old one may have been just fine, but the new one is faster, and therefore *more* desirable (sufficiently so that they decided to upgrade).
Your other argument is that the MacBook Air is crippled.
A laptop that's only good for word processing is damaged/crippled junk. The MacBook Air is more powerful than a large percentage of PC notebooks sold *today*. Taking into account that you are being hyperbolic about word processing, there are *very* few tasks which cannot be done comfortably on the MacBook Air. High end gaming is the only one that a significant number of people would notice (it will play WoW just fine, btw). The only other situation where the MacBook Air would feel limited in power is for certain professional users (i.e., HD video editing, heavy Photoshop work, scientific simulation), and even then I can't think of a single task, even among those users, for which the MacBook Air cannot be used. It is vastly more powerful than the computers those very professionals were using two years ago, and somehow they managed.
How does it know? It measures the amount of time the key is held down and uses that to determine whether the key press was deliberate or accidental. The amount of time required to count as deliberate is fast enough that the user doesn't have to consciously hold the key down longer, the hardware is just taking advantage of the natural difference in timings of deliberate vs. accidental pressings of the caps lock key.
You're right that the hardware is what ignores accidental presses, but you're wrong that "any sensible person" would remap the key. Such an absolutely *miniscule* number of users would even *remotely* consider remapping the key that they can be safely ignored.
I mean, think about it for a moment. On the one hand, you have >99% of people benefiting from the delayed key, and instead of helping them, you'd rather help the <1% of people who would remap it? I understand you must be in that <1%, so you have a vested interest, but even with that vested interest, surely you can see which is the most beneficial case.
And if you intentionally hit it? Then it makes all your alpha characters upper case, as expected.
I don't "notice" my computer either in the way that you describe, btw. That's fine, if true, although I suspect it's not actually true.
What I suspect is that you notice your computer a lot, but you enjoy it, so you don't get annoyed by the act of noticing it. And what I mean by noticing it is sort of like when you're watching a movie, then someone makes a noise and all of the sudden you notice you're in a theater. A few moments later and you're back into the movie. The Mac tends to get out of the way such that you can focus on the task at hand, while PCs tend to "make a noise" (metaphorically, although sometimes literally) often enough to remind you that you're working on a computer, and not just focusing on a specific task.
With Windows, those "noises" tend to be more annoying (especially when accompanied by that Windows "stop" beep, or "alert" ding). Linux is *extremely* less annoying with its "noises" (again, metaphorical, and far less literally than with Windows). With Linux, it's more about instructing a computer to do tasks, and some people prefer it that way. Think of shell scripting and a long chain of Unix pipes as epitomes of this. When doing that, from the point of view of the specific task, this is almost pure "noise" (i.e., you are very much aware of the computer, and not the "doing" of the task). Quite literally, you are not doing the task, but are giving the computer detailed instructions for doing the task[*].
As I said above, it's totally fine if you prefer to "notice" your computer. I know for the longest time *I* did, and at times I still do. But now my focus is different and prefer to spend my time on the doing of the tasks and not the operating of the computer. Although I stated above that I suspect what you've said isn't true, I'd be interested to hear if (after reading my clarification of what I mean by "notice") it really is true.
[*] I realize that no matter *what* you're doing on a computer, and no matter *how* you interact with it, you are giving it detailed instructions, but there's something quite different about using a command-line utility to resize a photo, and dragging a photo to resize it. One is deliberately instructing the computer, the other has the feel of directly manipulating the image.
W T F? it's statements like these that keep me from switching to mac That's alright. Some people like noticing their computers.
I'll give you a small (and relatively random) example. The Caps Lock key on all new Macs has a feature such that it won't toggle if you accidentally hit it. PCs don't do this, and sometimes (not terribly often, but now and then, and it's definitely happened to all of us) your text will be aLL CAPS AFTER TYPING AN A. No big deal. It's easy to undo, just hit the Caps Lock key again and all is well.
The Mac (both the hardware and system software) is designed with countless little touches like this. After using a Mac for a while, at some point you notice it and think to yourself how *un*frustrating the computer is, sort of like how at some point you notice after you move away from the freeway that that background noise of traffic is gone.
Some people seem to need those little reminders that they're using a computer, just like some people find comfort in the sounds of traffic. You may be one of those people. Or you may just be uncomfortable with mushy, subjective, non-concrete metrics. A lot of geek-types are like that. They need everything to be easily measured and compared. Unfortunately, a large swath of human experience is not easily categorized. This makes it difficult for companies like HP and Microsoft to make products which truly appealing at a fundamentally human level.
It's this attention to the humanity of a product that made the iPod the success that it is, *even with the inferior feature-set as compared to other players at the time*.
He said "running Windows (32-bit) on a Mac is supported", not "Windows, running on a Mac, is supported". The difference is the latter implies Apple (or Microsoft or someone) will support Windows itself on the Mac. The former implies Apple (or someone) will support running Windows on your Mac.
Basically, they *fully* and *with in-store, in-person assistance*, support everything you need hardware-wise (including drivers for Windows, EFI software and OS X setup software) for installing and getting Windows up-and-running. After that, any support of Windows itself, they won't generally do.
So, in practice, Windows on MacOS is really in the same boat as OSX86. This is not even remotely true, and shows a complete lack of understanding of Boot Camp.
Dude, if you're getting modded down "troll" or "flamebait" enough to inspire your sig, maybe it's because your posts are caustic.
Comfort? Fucking hell. Is 2 kg and a bit of warmth on your lap really THAT uncomfortable??? As for the actual topic, those seemingly miniscule differences in weight and thickness and temperature really do make a difference. Think about how, on a hot day, different a thin t-shirt and a thick t-shirt feel. Surely, the weight and the temperature differences are so minimal that "even most slashdotters would call a guy who can't handle [it] a wuss!!!" But that doesn't mean one is more comfortable (and therefore, all else remaining equal, more desirable) than the other.
In other words, it's not about being able to "handle it", but about preferring one over the other.
As far as weight is concerned, when I'm on the couch with my MacBook on my lap, it's not so heavy that I wish it were lighter. But when it comes time to set the MacBook aside (e.g. to get up) the weight is noticeable. Not so heavy that I have difficulty setting the MacBook aside, but heavy enough that I notice the action. The MacBook Air seems light enough that when it comes time to set it aside, I *won't* notice it.
You sound like a PC user, so you are probably used to constantly noticing your computer. The Mac experience is generally one of *not* noticing your computer, so those few times when it's noticed, it can be annoying (this is partly why, I think, Macs are so design-oriented, so that when you notice them physically, the experience is more enjoyable than it would be otherwise).
I suspect that the crux of the dilemma you bring up is the assumption or implication that things are black-and-white. Sometimes things are fairly clear (although, beyond pure math and logic, I suggest that *nothing* is truly black-and-white, but there are plenty of situations where things are so overwhelmingly black or white that treating it as such is much simpler and overall more rational than pointing out every little infinitesimal shade of grey). But there are cases where things aren't clearly black or white, and by the very nature of the thing involved, one cannot extract either just the black or the white from the thing in question without destroying it.
It's those all-too-common shades of grey situations that cause us so many problems. Once one comes to the realization that there are shades of grey, one no longer tries to force things into either the black or white category, and accepts that some laws and choices are going to be mushy. This leads to laws and choices which are not quite perfect, but close enough, and listed with an asterisk which notes that "this is not an absolute, but the best choice we made at the time, and fully subject to alteration as needed".
Politics are the *last* place black-and-white thinking is needed. Sadly, in America at least, such thinking seems to have a significant following.
I mean the logical conclusion of your argument is that... This is an absolutely moronic argument. No one is arguing going to the so-called "logical conclusion". That's just a straw-man. The "logical conclusion" of you drinking from a water-fountain is that you'll drink so much water that your cells will dissolve. Somehow this very rarely happens. Why is that? Because once the need that brought about your water-drinking episode has been met, you stop. Maybe you drink a little too much, or not quite enough, but you never seem to drink to the "logical conclusion".
Same thing here with consumer protection laws. There's a need, and a rational amount of government intervention. At some point, the need is met and it becomes rational to stop. The argument should be about where to stop, not whether there should be *no* laws or a totalitarian extreme of laws. I (and most people) would argue for a balance somewhere in-between.
I absolutely and fully agree that adults should have the right to engage in self-destructive behavior. This is not what we're talking about here (and fuck me, does no one know that seat-belts were not required on cars for half-a-century?). I'm talking about placing obstacles in the way so that if someone is going to harm themselves, it's because *they truly want to engage in that behavior* and not simply because they've been tricked or directed into such behavior by those who stand to make money of their self-destruction.
If you place no restriction on marketing and selling self-destruction to people, corporations are going to devise ways to most efficiently get people hooked on their product. This completely bypasses rational self-determination and it seems quite reasonable for the government to help protect people from being exploited, while still allowing them the freedom to willingly and knowingly walk into self-destruction, if they so desire.
Some people believe that the role of the government is to protect citizens from themselves. That is a complete misrepresentation of the other side of the argument (and the rest of your post is based on this false representation). I think your argument is based on how you honestly see it, though. Just that you've got it wrong.
It's not that I think the government should protect *me* from *me*, but that when there's something undesirable in our society, there are cases where a small amount of change can have a large amount of benefit, and in some of those cases, the only way to bring about those changes on any reasonable timeframe is via government intervention. These cases seem to fall into at least two categories.
One is where corporations pass on costs to the consumer or a third-party in extreme excess of the money such a passing-off saves (or makes for) them. For example, the Ford Pinto recall formula. Ford *absolutely knew* that the design flaw of the Pinto would kill people in excess of what's normal for a car, but it turned out to be cheaper to sell the car and settle the resulting lawsuits than recall the car altogether. There are countless other examples, but I'll trust you get the idea. This is not "saving me from myself", it's "saving me from Ford's deliberate endangering of my life". This is a situation which absolutely needs government involvement of some sort. It could be as little as requiring Ford to publicly, freely and fully disclose the problem and let the consumer decide (I would not be satisfied with it, but it's at least *something* and allows the car buyer to knowingly make the choice, although there are problems, for example, many people who *already* bought the car would now not be able to sell it, and could not afford to replace it, thereby being in the situation where their only reasonable choice is to play russian roulette every time they need to go somewhere). My preferred solution would be the threat of a government forced recall, with potential punitive fines and even criminal charges for failure to act, but allowing Ford the chance to make things right first.
The other common case where the free market breaks down is extreme cases where corporations exploit people's natural flaws. The most notable example here would be the tobacco companies making more addictive cigarettes and targeting them at children. While I agree that people need to be responsible for their own actions, the tobacco companies really only need to trick someone a few times to get them addicted for life (and targeting children makes the tricking all the easier).
Now, I fully agree that there is potential for going overboard. In fact, I'll assert that going overboard is inevitable. People are flawed, and sometimes the laws won't go far enough, and sometimes they will go to far. That's a risk I'm willing to take because the alternative, no such laws at all, would be worse. I think the founding fathers of the US did a fairly good job of placing safeguards to help mitigate the risks of tyranny, as well as making correcting from tyranny fairly easy and quick.
I'm not talking about forcing people to *use* seat-belts. Although I am ambivalent on that particular topic.
My point about seat-belts was laws requiring car manufacturers to include them. Up until that point, car makers would rather save those few dollars per car (which amounts to an extremely small percentage of the overall car) and leave the seat-belts out. This is one example of the failure of the free market, where government intervention is extremely beneficial.
Oh please, big government, save us from ourselves by outlawing more things! We don't need to be personally accountable for our own actions! Personal accountability requires information. What's being discussed here is not outlawing things, but providing information.
How is that bad, let alone "worse"? Sometimes only the government (or other regulatory organization) can counter certain actions, at least on any reasonable timeframe. The most obvious example is seat-belts.
That's not to say that government intervention is always good or desirable, but sometimes *it's absolutely crucial*.
I really don't think "pre-installed" the primary barrier to Windows adoption (nor is "free", as this article posits). Windows being pre-installed just means it takes more effort to install Linux, but if people wanted to, *they still would* (which is exactly what virtually every Linux user already does today). The problem is that the demand *for* Linux is very, very low.
The problem is Linux just doesn't do *anything at all whatsoever* for the average user that Windows and Mac don't. Being "free, open, and technically superior" are lowest on the list of things the average user wants, while being at the *top* of the list for the average Linux user. Until that changes (it never will), Linux will be the inferior choice unless MS makes Windows *so* annoying that people would prefer what, for them, would be an inferior system simply to avoid the annoyances they have with Windows (which are not the same annoyances the stereotypical slashdotter has with Windows). Vista is bad. Very bad, but not bad enough to drive users to Linux. Instead, the vast majority of defectors are defecting to the Mac (which is not pre-installed on their PCs either).
If I want free Wi-Fi, I'll check into a hotel. If you want free WiFi, you pay for a hotel room?
Who is John Galt? An imaginary man with impossible traits idealized by people who claim their highest value is objective reality?
From Starbucks: In recognition of the many T-Mobile customers who enjoy visiting Starbucks, the Company is also announcing that T-Mobile HotSpot customers will be able to continue to access Wi-Fi services at no additional cost, through an agreement between AT&T and T-Mobile.
T-Mobile's hardware and network are being removed, and AT&T's are being installed. What's happened is AT&T and T-Mobile have a deal (probably at Starbucks' behest) to allow T-Mobile customers to access the AT&T hotspots in Starbucks.
But why let the facts get in the way of a good headline... Indeed...
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, if anything, it's socialism.
Capitalism would mean someone (or increasingly, some corporation) would *own* the software. With Free Software, nobody really owns it (although the original authors do maintain their copyright, that ownership is *outside* of the Free Software side of things).
Communism would be a central agency owning the software. The GNU software of the FSF could be called Communism, since they have contributors assign copyright to them.
Socialism would be where the people own the software. This seems most in line with what Free Software promotes. Each user owns the software. This also highlights a difference between GPL and BSD licenses. BSD allows one to take the software from the Socialistic system and move it to the Capitalistic (or even Communistic) system. The GPL locks the code into the Socialistic system.
You're right. How dare everyone else in the world use the term "Capitalism" to mean something counter to your invented definition.
Here's a clue:
Capitalism is *not* an economic system with zero government intervention.
Communism is *not* an economic system where the government owns the means of production.
Socialism is *not* an economic system where the workers own the factories.
Those are all just arbitrary definitions which were invented, after the fact, to try to divvy up economic systems into neat little baskets. It would be more accurate to state that:
Capitalism is an economic system which focuses on the free market.
Communism is an economic system which focuses on central government control.
Socialism is an economic system which focuses on the welfare of the people.
If you go by the Econ 101 textbook definitions (of which you cited the Capitalism definition), you'll find you end up with a completely worthless definition, as there has never been an ideologically pure example of *any* of those systems, and there never will be. All those definitions do is circumvent any actual ability to assess the economies of the real world, fostering ideologies which are logically internally consistent, but which, lacking any basis in the real world, lead to absurd policies which harm the very economies they are meant to promote.
When someone says they hate Capitalism, they aren't saying they hate the econ 101 definition, they are usually saying they hate a system which promotes antisocial activities which offend their sense of justice, often having some specific example in mind.
Well, to be fair, one is *supposed* to "embrace and extend" their own formats. The problem is when MS embraces some open standard, then extends it in a way that breaks the actual *open* version of the standard.
This is still a bad idea, but not because of "embrace and extend".
Yeah, I'd be fine with that so long as I can still readily buy Cokes elsewhere, or even if I preferred Pepsi in the first place. What I *wouldn't* be fine with is having to buy a Pepsi-opener in order to view publicly-funded archives of my nation's history (er, to drink the free soda my government is entrusted with preserving for the benefit of all humankind--hey, it was *your* analogy!).
Can you think of any reason why someone would want to enter into a discussion with you? You *are* a major jackass, that *is* a personal attack, but it's *not* the ad hominem fallacy (read the wikipedia article, the ad hominem fallacy is when you attack the person *instead* of attacking their argument).
Do you think that just because you have an opinion that gives you free reign to be a complete asshole? And to expect you or your posts to be given any respect? I have nothing to gain by continuing to argue with you, and only my momentary temper to lose.
Reply if you wish, any response will go unread by me. I've better things to do with my time.
I was talking ONLY about dual-booting Apple MacOS 10 and Microsoft Windows XP on Apple hardware using BootCamp. No confusion whatsoever. I was referring to Boot Camp as well (in fact, I even used that exact term). In this scenario, and this scenario only, there is NO WAY you can get first-party support for the Windows install. Apple will not support it and Microsoft will not.
Based on these FACTS I consider it disingenuous to state "Running Windows (32-bit) on a Mac is supported." because it isn't. Again, you do not seem to understand the difference between supporting Windows the software, and supporting Windows on the hardware. Apple will not support Windows the software (i.e., if you get a BSoD, Apple won't help. If you flash player doesn't work in IE, Apple won't help. etc.). This is no different from Apple not supporting Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Word. If those programs aren't working properly, Apple won't fix them for you.
However, Apple *will* support you installing those programs, Apple *will* make efforts to be sure that it's not OS X that's causing the problem. Similarly, Apple *does* support you installing Windows on your Mac, and Apple *does* make efforts (including full hardware driver support) to make sure it's not the Mac that's keeping Windows from working.
I'm fairly confident that if you were to go to an Apple Store with your Mac and ask for help installing Windows, they would help. They would run the Boot Camp Assistant, they would put the Windows CD in for you, and they would watch it install. Once that's done, they would probably even install the drivers for you. After that, they would leave the rest up to you. If it fails, however, I doubt they'd do anything unless it was clearly a Mac issue and not a Windows issue. They won't troubleshoot Windows itself, just Boot Camp.
The point being, Boot Camp is a fully supported feature of Mac OS X Leopard. Once you've got Windows installed you're on your own. Even if you CAN'T get it installed you're on your own because Apple doesn't support Windows installation problems. This is no different from saying "Running Ubuntu on a Mac is supported." (I'm assuming BootCamp supports OS' other than Windows). Once you've got Windows installed you're on your own. Even if you CAN'T get it installed you're on your own because Apple doesn't support Windows installation problems. This is no different from saying "Running Ubuntu on a Mac is supported." (I'm assuming BootCamp supports OS' other than Windows). Actually, Apple does *not* support Ubuntu at all in any way whatsoever. Ubuntu doesn't work with Boot Camp. Apple does not provide a way to install Ubuntu. Apple does not provide any drivers for Ubuntu (or Linux in general).
But sure, let's avoid ad hominem, shall we? - Or if you prefer latin snobbery
- Mac apologist
- pompous
- You've been drinking Steve Job's cool-aid haven't you!?
- Dude you're reminding me of this South Park episode [the Smug Alert episode]
- The blind devotion Mac users show is one reason I avoid the whole Mac cult-ure. Hrm... Well, removing all the personal attacks, you really only seem to make two arguments. One is that people want the MacBook Air because their current computer is "too heavy" (or too hot, too thick, whatever). That's not the case at all. The reason they want the MacBook Air is because it's *less* heavy. In my t-shirt analogy, the thicker t-shirt isn't *too* thick. It's perfectly fine. But a *thinner* one which is more comfortable is *better*. Or to use a computer analogy, if someone buys a faster computer, that doesn't mean their old one was too slow. Their old one may have been just fine, but the new one is faster, and therefore *more* desirable (sufficiently so that they decided to upgrade).
Your other argument is that the MacBook Air is crippled. A laptop that's only good for word processing is damaged/crippled junk. The MacBook Air is more powerful than a large percentage of PC notebooks sold *today*. Taking into account that you are being hyperbolic about word processing, there are *very* few tasks which cannot be done comfortably on the MacBook Air. High end gaming is the only one that a significant number of people would notice (it will play WoW just fine, btw). The only other situation where the MacBook Air would feel limited in power is for certain professional users (i.e., HD video editing, heavy Photoshop work, scientific simulation), and even then I can't think of a single task, even among those users, for which the MacBook Air cannot be used. It is vastly more powerful than the computers those very professionals were using two years ago, and somehow they managed.
You're right that the hardware is what ignores accidental presses, but you're wrong that "any sensible person" would remap the key. Such an absolutely *miniscule* number of users would even *remotely* consider remapping the key that they can be safely ignored.
I mean, think about it for a moment. On the one hand, you have >99% of people benefiting from the delayed key, and instead of helping them, you'd rather help the <1% of people who would remap it? I understand you must be in that <1%, so you have a vested interest, but even with that vested interest, surely you can see which is the most beneficial case.
What I suspect is that you notice your computer a lot, but you enjoy it, so you don't get annoyed by the act of noticing it. And what I mean by noticing it is sort of like when you're watching a movie, then someone makes a noise and all of the sudden you notice you're in a theater. A few moments later and you're back into the movie. The Mac tends to get out of the way such that you can focus on the task at hand, while PCs tend to "make a noise" (metaphorically, although sometimes literally) often enough to remind you that you're working on a computer, and not just focusing on a specific task.
With Windows, those "noises" tend to be more annoying (especially when accompanied by that Windows "stop" beep, or "alert" ding). Linux is *extremely* less annoying with its "noises" (again, metaphorical, and far less literally than with Windows). With Linux, it's more about instructing a computer to do tasks, and some people prefer it that way. Think of shell scripting and a long chain of Unix pipes as epitomes of this. When doing that, from the point of view of the specific task, this is almost pure "noise" (i.e., you are very much aware of the computer, and not the "doing" of the task). Quite literally, you are not doing the task, but are giving the computer detailed instructions for doing the task[*].
As I said above, it's totally fine if you prefer to "notice" your computer. I know for the longest time *I* did, and at times I still do. But now my focus is different and prefer to spend my time on the doing of the tasks and not the operating of the computer. Although I stated above that I suspect what you've said isn't true, I'd be interested to hear if (after reading my clarification of what I mean by "notice") it really is true.
[*] I realize that no matter *what* you're doing on a computer, and no matter *how* you interact with it, you are giving it detailed instructions, but there's something quite different about using a command-line utility to resize a photo, and dragging a photo to resize it. One is deliberately instructing the computer, the other has the feel of directly manipulating the image.
I'll give you a small (and relatively random) example. The Caps Lock key on all new Macs has a feature such that it won't toggle if you accidentally hit it. PCs don't do this, and sometimes (not terribly often, but now and then, and it's definitely happened to all of us) your text will be aLL CAPS AFTER TYPING AN A. No big deal. It's easy to undo, just hit the Caps Lock key again and all is well.
The Mac (both the hardware and system software) is designed with countless little touches like this. After using a Mac for a while, at some point you notice it and think to yourself how *un*frustrating the computer is, sort of like how at some point you notice after you move away from the freeway that that background noise of traffic is gone.
Some people seem to need those little reminders that they're using a computer, just like some people find comfort in the sounds of traffic. You may be one of those people. Or you may just be uncomfortable with mushy, subjective, non-concrete metrics. A lot of geek-types are like that. They need everything to be easily measured and compared. Unfortunately, a large swath of human experience is not easily categorized. This makes it difficult for companies like HP and Microsoft to make products which truly appealing at a fundamentally human level.
It's this attention to the humanity of a product that made the iPod the success that it is, *even with the inferior feature-set as compared to other players at the time*.
Basically, they *fully* and *with in-store, in-person assistance*, support everything you need hardware-wise (including drivers for Windows, EFI software and OS X setup software) for installing and getting Windows up-and-running. After that, any support of Windows itself, they won't generally do. So, in practice, Windows on MacOS is really in the same boat as OSX86. This is not even remotely true, and shows a complete lack of understanding of Boot Camp.
In other words, it's not about being able to "handle it", but about preferring one over the other.
As far as weight is concerned, when I'm on the couch with my MacBook on my lap, it's not so heavy that I wish it were lighter. But when it comes time to set the MacBook aside (e.g. to get up) the weight is noticeable. Not so heavy that I have difficulty setting the MacBook aside, but heavy enough that I notice the action. The MacBook Air seems light enough that when it comes time to set it aside, I *won't* notice it.
You sound like a PC user, so you are probably used to constantly noticing your computer. The Mac experience is generally one of *not* noticing your computer, so those few times when it's noticed, it can be annoying (this is partly why, I think, Macs are so design-oriented, so that when you notice them physically, the experience is more enjoyable than it would be otherwise).
I suspect that the crux of the dilemma you bring up is the assumption or implication that things are black-and-white. Sometimes things are fairly clear (although, beyond pure math and logic, I suggest that *nothing* is truly black-and-white, but there are plenty of situations where things are so overwhelmingly black or white that treating it as such is much simpler and overall more rational than pointing out every little infinitesimal shade of grey). But there are cases where things aren't clearly black or white, and by the very nature of the thing involved, one cannot extract either just the black or the white from the thing in question without destroying it.
It's those all-too-common shades of grey situations that cause us so many problems. Once one comes to the realization that there are shades of grey, one no longer tries to force things into either the black or white category, and accepts that some laws and choices are going to be mushy. This leads to laws and choices which are not quite perfect, but close enough, and listed with an asterisk which notes that "this is not an absolute, but the best choice we made at the time, and fully subject to alteration as needed".
Politics are the *last* place black-and-white thinking is needed. Sadly, in America at least, such thinking seems to have a significant following.
Same thing here with consumer protection laws. There's a need, and a rational amount of government intervention. At some point, the need is met and it becomes rational to stop. The argument should be about where to stop, not whether there should be *no* laws or a totalitarian extreme of laws. I (and most people) would argue for a balance somewhere in-between.
I absolutely and fully agree that adults should have the right to engage in self-destructive behavior. This is not what we're talking about here (and fuck me, does no one know that seat-belts were not required on cars for half-a-century?). I'm talking about placing obstacles in the way so that if someone is going to harm themselves, it's because *they truly want to engage in that behavior* and not simply because they've been tricked or directed into such behavior by those who stand to make money of their self-destruction.
If you place no restriction on marketing and selling self-destruction to people, corporations are going to devise ways to most efficiently get people hooked on their product. This completely bypasses rational self-determination and it seems quite reasonable for the government to help protect people from being exploited, while still allowing them the freedom to willingly and knowingly walk into self-destruction, if they so desire.
It's not that I think the government should protect *me* from *me*, but that when there's something undesirable in our society, there are cases where a small amount of change can have a large amount of benefit, and in some of those cases, the only way to bring about those changes on any reasonable timeframe is via government intervention. These cases seem to fall into at least two categories.
One is where corporations pass on costs to the consumer or a third-party in extreme excess of the money such a passing-off saves (or makes for) them. For example, the Ford Pinto recall formula. Ford *absolutely knew* that the design flaw of the Pinto would kill people in excess of what's normal for a car, but it turned out to be cheaper to sell the car and settle the resulting lawsuits than recall the car altogether. There are countless other examples, but I'll trust you get the idea. This is not "saving me from myself", it's "saving me from Ford's deliberate endangering of my life". This is a situation which absolutely needs government involvement of some sort. It could be as little as requiring Ford to publicly, freely and fully disclose the problem and let the consumer decide (I would not be satisfied with it, but it's at least *something* and allows the car buyer to knowingly make the choice, although there are problems, for example, many people who *already* bought the car would now not be able to sell it, and could not afford to replace it, thereby being in the situation where their only reasonable choice is to play russian roulette every time they need to go somewhere). My preferred solution would be the threat of a government forced recall, with potential punitive fines and even criminal charges for failure to act, but allowing Ford the chance to make things right first.
The other common case where the free market breaks down is extreme cases where corporations exploit people's natural flaws. The most notable example here would be the tobacco companies making more addictive cigarettes and targeting them at children. While I agree that people need to be responsible for their own actions, the tobacco companies really only need to trick someone a few times to get them addicted for life (and targeting children makes the tricking all the easier).
Now, I fully agree that there is potential for going overboard. In fact, I'll assert that going overboard is inevitable. People are flawed, and sometimes the laws won't go far enough, and sometimes they will go to far. That's a risk I'm willing to take because the alternative, no such laws at all, would be worse. I think the founding fathers of the US did a fairly good job of placing safeguards to help mitigate the risks of tyranny, as well as making correcting from tyranny fairly easy and quick.
I'm not talking about forcing people to *use* seat-belts. Although I am ambivalent on that particular topic.
My point about seat-belts was laws requiring car manufacturers to include them. Up until that point, car makers would rather save those few dollars per car (which amounts to an extremely small percentage of the overall car) and leave the seat-belts out. This is one example of the failure of the free market, where government intervention is extremely beneficial.
How is that bad, let alone "worse"? Sometimes only the government (or other regulatory organization) can counter certain actions, at least on any reasonable timeframe. The most obvious example is seat-belts.
That's not to say that government intervention is always good or desirable, but sometimes *it's absolutely crucial*.
I really don't think "pre-installed" the primary barrier to Windows adoption (nor is "free", as this article posits). Windows being pre-installed just means it takes more effort to install Linux, but if people wanted to, *they still would* (which is exactly what virtually every Linux user already does today). The problem is that the demand *for* Linux is very, very low.
The problem is Linux just doesn't do *anything at all whatsoever* for the average user that Windows and Mac don't. Being "free, open, and technically superior" are lowest on the list of things the average user wants, while being at the *top* of the list for the average Linux user. Until that changes (it never will), Linux will be the inferior choice unless MS makes Windows *so* annoying that people would prefer what, for them, would be an inferior system simply to avoid the annoyances they have with Windows (which are not the same annoyances the stereotypical slashdotter has with Windows). Vista is bad. Very bad, but not bad enough to drive users to Linux. Instead, the vast majority of defectors are defecting to the Mac (which is not pre-installed on their PCs either).
From Starbucks:
In recognition of the many T-Mobile customers who enjoy visiting Starbucks, the Company is also announcing that T-Mobile HotSpot customers will be able to continue to access Wi-Fi services at no additional cost, through an agreement between AT&T and T-Mobile.
T-Mobile's hardware and network are being removed, and AT&T's are being installed. What's happened is AT&T and T-Mobile have a deal (probably at Starbucks' behest) to allow T-Mobile customers to access the AT&T hotspots in Starbucks. But why let the facts get in the way of a good headline... Indeed...
Oh, the irony...