The problem isn't that Communism doesn't work, the problem is that people are still thinking in terms of Westphalian nation-states. Communism may be difficult to impossible to implement on a large scale, but it's been successfully done many times on a small scale. There are successful intentional communities run on communist principles all over the world. Just look at the kibbutzim in Israel - they held all property in common, and even raised children communally. It was only outside economic forces from a fiercely anti-communist society that finally broke most trditional kibbutzim (there's an "urban kibbutz" movement that's building momentum in Israeli cities, but they are more akin to modern cooperatives than the traditional kibbutz). In less hostile environments, communist communities can last up to a century (the Harmony Society, which lost membership only because it was started by a religious movement where many members took vows of celibacy). Imyself live in an intentional community of students run on communist principles that has been going since 1974.
Facebook is an identity service too. Everything that claims to be "social media" is really just a way for companies to get your data. I don't see how this is news.
Idon't see anything in that comment saying you hate Microsoft because of limited user freedom. In fact, Iwas referring to Apple's use of the same slimy business methods that MS uses. Vendor Lock-in, SLAPP suits and patent litigation to quash competition, corporate secrecy and spying on/interrogating their own employees, using sweatshop labour - Apple does all the slimy, sleazy shit MS does.
Just because it's optional or proprietary doesn't make it not a standard. If all standards were mandatory then the iPhone would have a microUSB port instead of that weird proprietary dock port. Flash is *the* standard for browser games and online video players. You asked for an example of Apple making a unilateral decision on web technology, I gave you one.
The pentalobular screw drive is far from standard. Apple is the only company that uses it. I wasn't talking about the iPhone at all when I brought up the pentalobes. They use it on the battery compartment on Macbook Pro and Air lines, and have been doing so since mid 2009. Logic boards on small portable devices are one thing, the battery on a laptop is another since it inevitably wears out before the rest of the computer, and it is a consumer serviceable part. The pentalobe was chosen specifically for its scarcity compared to other screwdriver shapes. It doesn't matter that the screwdrivers are now easier to find. The intent of the change was to lock consumers out of their own hardware and to require them to take the devices in and pay Apple for a repair that could be easily and cheaply done at home. This is called Vendor Lock-in, and it is at least piss-poor ethics, if not an outright violation of consumer rights.
Please don't put words into my mouth. Inever said you choose Apple products because they're shiny or trendy. Why you like Apple products is irrelevant here. What I was referencing was the fact that you were moved enough by my comparison of Apple with Microsoft to comment about it on the internets.
The comparison still stands. They're both entirely motivated by greed. Ethics takes a back-seat to profit. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the main reason we all hate Microsoft? Why call one company out on their ethics violations and not another?
Yes, Flash is a proprietary multimedia format. That doesn't change the fact that by not allowing Flash on iOS, Apple is preventing iOS users from accessing a lot of online content. That has forced many sites (YouTube, for example) to stop using Flash so iOS devices can view their content. It doesn't matter that Flash is annoying, slow, and proprietary, this is still a clear-cut case of Apple making a unilateral decision on web technology. Apple also disabled Google Voice on iPhones so
As for the interrogations, sources are here, and here, and here. If that isn't a totalitarian management strategy, Idon't know what is.
BTW just because Microsoft uses tamper resistant screws doesn't mean it's not a violation of consumer rights. If you can't fix it, you don't really own it.
Wow. It's almost as if you take my dislike of Apple personally. You're like some Knight in Glossy Plastic Armour come to defend the honour of his greedy corporate Lady.
Anyway let's start off with:
When has apple demanded OEMs ship their OS or else?
First off, Apple is their own OEM, and their products obviously only ship with their own software. You can't buy a Mac with Linux or Windows on it. However, Apple's gone one further and said if you want to use OSX, you *must* to buy one of their overpriced machines. The EULA prohibits you from putting OSX on anything not made by Apple, and the OS is designed to not work with non-Apple computer architecture. There is the Hackintosh, but those don't count because most people don't have the time or skills to build one. Next!
When has apple tried to unilaterally decide on web technologies?
Like anon said above, Apple refuses to allow flash on iOS.
Now for the rest of the comparison. Both Apple and Microsoft take out patents on things that are not legally patentable (tell me how can you patent form factor? because that's what Apple is suing Samsung over). Both Apple and Microsoft also use costly court battles over those patents to quash competition. They both outsource production of hardware to sweatshops (Apple's actually worse than MS here; Foxconn, the factory that makes iPhones, had 14 suicides and 4 more attempts between January and November 2010 due to poor working conditions. The factory was also the epicentre for the Chinese worker strikes of 2010).
There are also some pretty awful things Apple does that Microsoft doesn't do. MS never kept employees locked up while they interrogated them individually for hours at a time over leaks like Apple did over the iPhone 4. MS doesn't switch phillips with tamper-resistant screws when they repair your electronics to keep you from changing batteries yourself. MS doesn't track your every movement with their smartphones. And MS doesn't try to pass its products off as a lifestyle like Apple does.
You're fooling yourself if you think Apple is anything but a giant corporation which cares about nothing but money.
Apple under Jobs was a totalitarian regime with really good PR. The cult of personality Jobs built around himself and the trendy image they associated with their products made people ignore that Apple was doing the same things for which we all hate Microsoft and more.
There are a lot of problems with the study such as a small sample size, cherry-picking malware that IE does well against, lack of peer review, complete denial of the existence of layered security in the form of extensions or sandboxing, the complete lack of credibility of NSS labs, and the fact that Microsoft paid for the study. The versions used are not one of those problems. FF4 and Chrome 12 were the current releases at the time they tested the browsers. FF4 actually came out a few days after IE9. It's just that IE's "once every few years" release schedule can't compete with the versatility afforded by Firefox and Chrome's monthly major releases.
I'm glad you asked. "Adept" implies skill, which can be learned regardless of intelligence. Anyone who spends enough time working at something can become skilled. Knowledge is merely information acquired by memorisation. Anyone with access to information can become knowledgeable.
Intelligence is a much more nebulous concept. Philosophers have been trying to figure out how to define intelligence for millennia, but a good working definition is the ability to use reasoning and abstract thought to solve problems. Intelligence can be put towards learning a skill or memorising information, but it is not a prerequisite for either. So while the concepts are connected, they are by no means the same thing.
To put it in computer terms: intelligence is processing power, knowledge is the amount of data on the hard drive, and skill is the programs installed. Processing power makes programs run faster and the drive more useful. Processing power makes it easier to run programs and deal with lots of data, but a full HDD and lots of programs do not a powerful computer make.
Wrong. Geeks are definitely more adept with technology. Geeks are very knowledgeable and fiercely opinionated about things most people know little about. Those things do not equal more intelligence, and thinking that they do is elitism.
Well looky looky. Everyone got so caught up in the anti-MS circle jerk that they don't even realise the whole thing is fake. Of course has this been a study that concluded IE users were the smartest, slashdotters would have pointed out the inconsistencies right away.
The Kinect was intended as a Wii killer and did quite well, but that was only because of Microsoft embracing the maker community that found brilliant alternative uses for it. In the end it was far more effective when separated from the awful excuse for a console platform it was designed for.
Iuse Ubuntu, and I've been disappointed by the quality of recent releases. The focus on "usability" is most concerning since functionality and user control are being removed to achieve it. They're trying to make it user friendly, but Canonical is forgetting who its users are.
The Yahoo! deal disgusts me as well, and things like it are why Idon't use the Firefox build bundled with Ubuntu (Ubuntuzilla is a wonderful thing). Matt claims that you can easily switch the default search engine back to Google, but he left out that you have to do this every time Ubuntu releases updates for its Firefox build.
Every new Ubuntu release brings me closer and closer to switching distros.
Slashdot Mirror
That's a big part of it. Thing is, usually the pilots try not to crash into the crowd.
Only airshow I ever went to I saw a biplane smash right into the ground.
why would you add a middleman?
That said, it's been shown that cell phone radiation can cause brain activity.
[citation needed]
Capitalism is a shitty economic system.
The problem isn't that Communism doesn't work, the problem is that people are still thinking in terms of Westphalian nation-states. Communism may be difficult to impossible to implement on a large scale, but it's been successfully done many times on a small scale. There are successful intentional communities run on communist principles all over the world. Just look at the kibbutzim in Israel - they held all property in common, and even raised children communally. It was only outside economic forces from a fiercely anti-communist society that finally broke most trditional kibbutzim (there's an "urban kibbutz" movement that's building momentum in Israeli cities, but they are more akin to modern cooperatives than the traditional kibbutz). In less hostile environments, communist communities can last up to a century (the Harmony Society, which lost membership only because it was started by a religious movement where many members took vows of celibacy). Imyself live in an intentional community of students run on communist principles that has been going since 1974.
Facebook is an identity service too. Everything that claims to be "social media" is really just a way for companies to get your data. I don't see how this is news.
So basically, yes it is too hard to admit Apple has shitty business practices.
That's all I need to know.
There's also a big difference between preferring one product to another, and being a fanatic about a brand.
Is it really that hard to admit that Apple has the same shitty business practices as every other tech company?
Idon't see anything in that comment saying you hate Microsoft because of limited user freedom. In fact, Iwas referring to Apple's use of the same slimy business methods that MS uses. Vendor Lock-in, SLAPP suits and patent litigation to quash competition, corporate secrecy and spying on/interrogating their own employees, using sweatshop labour - Apple does all the slimy, sleazy shit MS does.
Just because it's optional or proprietary doesn't make it not a standard. If all standards were mandatory then the iPhone would have a microUSB port instead of that weird proprietary dock port. Flash is *the* standard for browser games and online video players. You asked for an example of Apple making a unilateral decision on web technology, I gave you one.
The pentalobular screw drive is far from standard. Apple is the only company that uses it.
I wasn't talking about the iPhone at all when I brought up the pentalobes. They use it on the battery compartment on Macbook Pro and Air lines, and have been doing so since mid 2009. Logic boards on small portable devices are one thing, the battery on a laptop is another since it inevitably wears out before the rest of the computer, and it is a consumer serviceable part. The pentalobe was chosen specifically for its scarcity compared to other screwdriver shapes. It doesn't matter that the screwdrivers are now easier to find. The intent of the change was to lock consumers out of their own hardware and to require them to take the devices in and pay Apple for a repair that could be easily and cheaply done at home. This is called Vendor Lock-in, and it is at least piss-poor ethics, if not an outright violation of consumer rights.
Please don't put words into my mouth. Inever said you choose Apple products because they're shiny or trendy. Why you like Apple products is irrelevant here. What I was referencing was the fact that you were moved enough by my comparison of Apple with Microsoft to comment about it on the internets.
The comparison still stands. They're both entirely motivated by greed. Ethics takes a back-seat to profit. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the main reason we all hate Microsoft? Why call one company out on their ethics violations and not another?
Yes, Flash is a proprietary multimedia format. That doesn't change the fact that by not allowing Flash on iOS, Apple is preventing iOS users from accessing a lot of online content. That has forced many sites (YouTube, for example) to stop using Flash so iOS devices can view their content. It doesn't matter that Flash is annoying, slow, and proprietary, this is still a clear-cut case of Apple making a unilateral decision on web technology. Apple also disabled Google Voice on iPhones so
As for the interrogations, sources are here, and here, and here. If that isn't a totalitarian management strategy, Idon't know what is.
BTW just because Microsoft uses tamper resistant screws doesn't mean it's not a violation of consumer rights. If you can't fix it, you don't really own it.
Wow. It's almost as if you take my dislike of Apple personally. You're like some Knight in Glossy Plastic Armour come to defend the honour of his greedy corporate Lady.
Anyway let's start off with:
When has apple demanded OEMs ship their OS or else?
First off, Apple is their own OEM, and their products obviously only ship with their own software. You can't buy a Mac with Linux or Windows on it. However, Apple's gone one further and said if you want to use OSX, you *must* to buy one of their overpriced machines. The EULA prohibits you from putting OSX on anything not made by Apple, and the OS is designed to not work with non-Apple computer architecture. There is the Hackintosh, but those don't count because most people don't have the time or skills to build one. Next!
When has apple tried to unilaterally decide on web technologies?
Like anon said above, Apple refuses to allow flash on iOS.
Now for the rest of the comparison. Both Apple and Microsoft take out patents on things that are not legally patentable (tell me how can you patent form factor? because that's what Apple is suing Samsung over). Both Apple and Microsoft also use costly court battles over those patents to quash competition. They both outsource production of hardware to sweatshops (Apple's actually worse than MS here; Foxconn, the factory that makes iPhones, had 14 suicides and 4 more attempts between January and November 2010 due to poor working conditions. The factory was also the epicentre for the Chinese worker strikes of 2010).
There are also some pretty awful things Apple does that Microsoft doesn't do. MS never kept employees locked up while they interrogated them individually for hours at a time over leaks like Apple did over the iPhone 4. MS doesn't switch phillips with tamper-resistant screws when they repair your electronics to keep you from changing batteries yourself. MS doesn't track your every movement with their smartphones. And MS doesn't try to pass its products off as a lifestyle like Apple does.
You're fooling yourself if you think Apple is anything but a giant corporation which cares about nothing but money.
Apple under Jobs was a totalitarian regime with really good PR. The cult of personality Jobs built around himself and the trendy image they associated with their products made people ignore that Apple was doing the same things for which we all hate Microsoft and more.
There are a lot of problems with the study such as a small sample size, cherry-picking malware that IE does well against, lack of peer review, complete denial of the existence of layered security in the form of extensions or sandboxing, the complete lack of credibility of NSS labs, and the fact that Microsoft paid for the study. The versions used are not one of those problems. FF4 and Chrome 12 were the current releases at the time they tested the browsers. FF4 actually came out a few days after IE9. It's just that IE's "once every few years" release schedule can't compete with the versatility afforded by Firefox and Chrome's monthly major releases.
I'm glad you asked. "Adept" implies skill, which can be learned regardless of intelligence. Anyone who spends enough time working at something can become skilled. Knowledge is merely information acquired by memorisation. Anyone with access to information can become knowledgeable.
Intelligence is a much more nebulous concept. Philosophers have been trying to figure out how to define intelligence for millennia, but a good working definition is the ability to use reasoning and abstract thought to solve problems. Intelligence can be put towards learning a skill or memorising information, but it is not a prerequisite for either. So while the concepts are connected, they are by no means the same thing.
To put it in computer terms: intelligence is processing power, knowledge is the amount of data on the hard drive, and skill is the programs installed. Processing power makes programs run faster and the drive more useful. Processing power makes it easier to run programs and deal with lots of data, but a full HDD and lots of programs do not a powerful computer make.
Geeks. They're smarter.
Wrong. Geeks are definitely more adept with technology. Geeks are very knowledgeable and fiercely opinionated about things most people know little about. Those things do not equal more intelligence, and thinking that they do is elitism.
Well looky looky. Everyone got so caught up in the anti-MS circle jerk that they don't even realise the whole thing is fake. Of course has this been a study that concluded IE users were the smartest, slashdotters would have pointed out the inconsistencies right away.
That's selection bias for you, folks.
It's okay to dislike something, but don't let that hatred get in the way of your critical reasoning skills.
and people that posted comments saying that it was a waste of time got modded down as trolls.
The Kinect was intended as a Wii killer and did quite well, but that was only because of Microsoft embracing the maker community that found brilliant alternative uses for it. In the end it was far more effective when separated from the awful excuse for a console platform it was designed for.
So Iguess the answer is no.
In other news, sky is blue, water wet. Film at 11.
This isn't news, it's intellectual masturbation.
Your sarcasm detector must be waaaaaaay off.
what about those of us using https for google searches? I'm fine without instant search but this new feature seems really useful.
Extremely happy with it too. Everything works nearly seamlessly. It's a big change from the disappointment I felt at 9.10.
The Apple-style button layout was a pain in the ass when it affected all themes, but it wasn't too much trouble to fix.
substance, and less dodging of questions.
Iuse Ubuntu, and I've been disappointed by the quality of recent releases. The focus on "usability" is most concerning since functionality and user control are being removed to achieve it. They're trying to make it user friendly, but Canonical is forgetting who its users are.
The Yahoo! deal disgusts me as well, and things like it are why Idon't use the Firefox build bundled with Ubuntu (Ubuntuzilla is a wonderful thing). Matt claims that you can easily switch the default search engine back to Google, but he left out that you have to do this every time Ubuntu releases updates for its Firefox build.
Every new Ubuntu release brings me closer and closer to switching distros.