Let's all look at why Muslims are upset:
First of all, in the Muslim religion, you're not allowed to have what?
Sex. Good.
There's no sex until marriage in the Muslim world.
Now, this would be fine except that in the Muslim religion you also can't, Anybody? Jack off.
Okay, jacking it is strictly forbidden in the Muslim religion. And what do we know about the places Muslims live? They live in? Good, sand.
Now put yourself in the shoes of a Muslim. It's Friday night, but you can't have sex, and you can't jack off. There's sand in your eyes and probably in the crack of your ass, and then some cartoon comes along from a country where people are getting laid, and mocks your prophet. Well you know what? I'd be pretty pissed off too!
You know, i realize that these hacks are just trying to sell a book, and are probably laughing all the way to the bank at all the ignorant people who actually take it seriously, but given that they have a PHD, they might try to make it bit more convincing that South Park. Not to degrade South Park, it is one of the most insightful shows on TV. And it gains points because it admits it basic worthlessness rather than trying to wrap itself in the facade of respectability.
This is the problem with soft science. One can come up with a hypothesis, even a mechanism of why the theories might be true, but there is often little means to prove the model as the best one to predict future outcomes. This, in science, is the key. Can it be used to make reasonable predictions of what will happen given certain initial values.
What a real scientist does is not only come up with personally preferred models, but also comes up solicits competing models, and searches for deficiencies in the preferred model. This is why at the end of so many peer reviewed finding one sees the list of disclaimers and the need for future work. In this case, for instance, what might be the other reasons for differences noted in the gender ration based on income. A real scientist does not whine that no one agrees with hypothesis, at least not in print. They wait to the to gloat one they win the nobel prize.
Here is the point. There is nothing wrong with ideas stated in the article. The PC angle merely identified Pych Today as the pop culture tabloid that it is. It exists to sell advertising, and has little positive scientific or social value. I recall my psychology teacher specifically banning it from the reading list, and such a statement from such a soft science is significant. The issue is that these are presented as stipulate truths rather than works in progress, and have no critical thinking attached. For instance, while it is true that certain body shapes in women do have easier time delivering babies, it is likely untrue that anything other than age is a general predictor of fertility. As many boys have discovered, there is no one more fertile than a teen aged girl. Many of them get pregnant just looking at sperm. And as many a delivery nurse will tell you, those babies tend to pop out of the girls, no matter what the shape.
So what we have here is a collection of ideas that people wish were true, and to some extent are. However, just stopping at these "truths" limit the discovery of deeper and more complete truths. Is the big breasted girl really the ultimate treasure, or is more than a mouthful a waste? Do certain income ranges foster certain genders, and if so, why do I know so many wealthy families, at least in developed countries, with all girls? Are frat boys who engage in innocent date rape just following their evolutionary calling, or are they just socialized to be assholes?
To complicate matters, we also have the issue of how much of science is objective, and how much is created by the researcher. On interesting thing I find in my reading is the more I see the word "truth" used, the less objective the science is. My hypothesis is that this happens because in softer research where "truth" is acceptable, the research is cherry picking data and studies to support a pre existing notion. The outcome of the "research" is a foregone conclusion, and any negative input is ignored. OTOH, in harder research, while most of the time may be spent trying to prove a preexisting idea, there is at least the realization of other points of view, so the outcome is more of a defensible argument for rationality rather than a truth.
And because so many cheap shots were taken in this article, let me end with another. I expect very soon to be reading why dark skin people are not evolutionary suited for television or film or high level executive positions. or why women, which much research has shown to be stronger workers, caring for babies, and the fields, and the mate, are nevertheless the weaker sex.
In the end this appears to be cherry picked research with no attention paid to the statistical contribution of other factors. I am sure that if any of the writers ever had a methods course, the slept through it. In the end, these appear to be hacks trying to sell a book, capitalizing on the neocon movement I can see it now, some guy wants to divorce the wife who put him through school, and marry some young girl, goes to court and says judge, it is not my fault, my first wife never gave me any boys, how could I possible lover her? And to add to that, she was not a naturall blonde and her boobs were fake. I was entrapped!
Which is precisely why i use it. I need to get work done, not be wowed by new gadgets. Actually, key elements like master documents, version compatibility that goes back more than two versions, automatic PDF generation, support for nearly every format out there, and lack of licensing makes it perfect for someone who is looking for a work tool.
I can get my work done without being interrogated if I own the product. I can download updates without downloading ancillary spyware. I don't have to worry if upgrades to my hardware will mean that I am unable to work due to licensing issues. Coming from someone whose efficiency not only translates into money but also increase in leisure time, I cannot image ever using MS products a my primary mission-critical tools.
Since it has widely been reported that Applecare, if it arrives, would cost $79, I was expected the battery replacement charge to be higher. Given that the battery replacement costs and the predicted Applecare costs the same, we might infer some good news.
Here is the reasoning. I have seen iPods just being swapped out for battery issues. No down time, just resync the music. Now, if applecare is available for the phone, and if they treat the same as the iPod, then this could be a very good thing for users. Instead of spending almost $120, and doing two resync, I wonder if the sales pitch for applecare is going to spend $80 and just leaving with a phone.
Clearly, this is not as good as paying $50 for a spare battery, but if it happens, it will certainly be ok.
Of course,they may just not supply applecare for this product, which means this is another reason not to buy it. I don't want to be stuck with a two year contract, and have the device fail 14 months in. This is exactly how the cell companies keep customers on perpetual contract.
I think they have discrened that they only need to be concerned with a law if they do not have the money to go through the legal process and influence public officials. Let not forget that they bought the Bush administration to get out of the Monopoly pickle they found themselves in, when they could have simply released APIs like we have asking them to do for 20 years. Let us not forget that they are spending, allegedly, 1 billion dollars to repair the defective Xbox line, instead of going the likley cheaper route of a class action suite. Let us not forget that they are in all likelihood paying off Linux companies to validate the MS IP claims.
What do all these have in common. It uses current cash to cover up misdeeds and protect future profits. Who in this world has a billion dollars to sue MS for violating the GPL. Do I see any hands? Then it does not apply to them right now. Perhaps in 5 or 10 years, if someone actually finds the money to sue, it will. But then it probably won't make difference.
The oil companies must compensate us from losses due the energy fluctuations in their products due to weather. They must sell us gasoline by the energy it contains, not gallons. Not only that, they must take into account the differences of effeciency. So if we buy gas when it is 60F, with a maximum carnot efficiency of 75%, then we should pay at most 75% of the stated price. When the temperature is 100F, we should only pay 50 cents on the dollar.
But lets not waste time on all these diversionary tactics and go straight for what people really want: a per mile charge. Lets say that everyone jsut pays 25 cents for each mile they drive. This will save the junk-status american car company executive from having to come up with an original idea in exchange for their 8 figure incomes. The populous can get what it want, huge cars that they can't afford to maintain, and oil companies can get what they really want, direct huge no-string subsidies and the right to drill anywhere they want, also at the taxpayers expense.
Or we could just keep the entire thing simple. We could drive cars and distances that are within our means. The US congress could rescind the dole payments given to the oil companies by so-called conservative politicians. The added tax receipts could be used to hold down the deficiet instead of buying yachts and servants, servants, who, BTW, are evidently better paid than the average American, for the uber-wealthy. Really, in my dream world, we would not be owned by the Chinese, and have the ability to set trade policy on our own terms, and not fight these proxy battles to keep them from dumping out dollars of decreasing worth in favor of euros.
I sm sure that it is just more creative accounting. $250 million in real costs, $750 million in manufactured expenses, all deducted from the tax bill. At the end of the day, this recall may actually prove to be a profit center, courtesy of the american tax payer.
It reminds me of this. It is very important that when you lie, you lie very specifically. That way, not only do people believe you, but fanbois will have some basis to defend you later. After all, if you were so specific, you must have had some reason to believe you were telling the truth. Or, in this case, they can merely say you were misquoted. After all, why would say such a specific thing that was so easily verifiable as incorrect.
And it really is so apropos on this day of forgiving acts against the country. Is 200 so far from 205. And let us not forget that it is better to lie, knowing full well that the letter was phony, but also knowing that your fanbois will defend you to the end. And one can also take solace that one can just become incompetent during the presidency, and not recall any matter of importanct, and people will just forgive you for anything, even dooming a generation to drug addiction.
So kids, take it from your national leaders, when you lie, lie big. If Bill had said he had never taken drugs after a certain date, a lie that your current president made, he would have been off the hook. But he decided to only make little lies, which is why he got into trouble.
And this is the at least the third suspected or convicted terrorist, during the Bush administration, that has been allowed to live without the punishment that would otherwise be expected. Eric Rudolph killed a police officer in one incident and killed one person and injured at least 100 others when he bombed the Atlanta Olympics. He also was guilty of bombing untold number of other public buildings. He was arrested in 2003 and was the recipient of an amazing lovefest as the FBI tried their best to negotiate a guilty plea that allowed him to escape the death penalty. OTOH, a sniper attack that killed more people, but not a police officer, and was not an terrorist attack per se on any public building, resulted in the federal prosecutors falling over themselves trying to get these guys killed ASAP.
Then of course there is the Alleged Cuban Terrorist that is wanted in Venezuela for downing a plane that was let go by the Bush courts. It seems that if we can lock a limo driver for terrorism based on his acquaintances, we could keep a guy who probably blew up a plane from the opportunity of doing it again. And then the republican dude has the audacity to claim that new cuban terrorists are the issue?
I think it is official. The rule of law is over, and know we are back to the times of royal favor. I suspect in the next year we will see the supreme court transfer the power of execution to the President, and he will, just like his namesake King George. Perhaps he can bring the US back into that time with a state religion, and then persecute everyone who disagrees.
Obviously, the memory and airport are accessible as user upgradable parts. In the later powerbooks, I do not know if the airport slot is accesible, as all these come with airport cards installed.
In my experience, the most unreliable part of the powerbook is the cd/dvd drive and the screen. This is an imporvement over the older Apple laptops when the most unreliable parts were the power input, which was practically guaranteed to fail in 2 or 3 years.
I have not had a harddrive fail, thank god, on any mac, at least not in the last several years. This, I hope, implies that the MTBF of 10+ years is a serious number. In any case, what is accessible and not tends to be random in the machine. On my TiPB, the memory and harddisk was quite easily accessible. On older machines, we actually had the luxury of a slot for options of drives. In any case, what has made the powrbook reliable is applecare, which means that Apple will fix any problems for three years.
I also must say that i do not like computer to be too easily worked on. For instance, my Compaq has many things that can be removed very easily, which means that I am a little worried about the computer getting stripped down. I also wonder why everything has to so easily accessible. Is it because the components are so unreliable? I do like the fact that the Powermacs open with a simple latch, revealing everything(compared to most other computers I work on, this is a dream), but then the latch can be locked so the inside of the computer is secure.
On the screw issue this is my take. The factory installed screws seems to stay in. However, after I get a computer back from service, the screws tend to be loose and often will fall out. I am sure there is a proper torque to prevent this, but the repair people do not seem to respect this.
This is really the problem we have right now. People are scared, people are not well off, and the elite really do not care. When someone speaks up, and asks why, the elite cannot fight against the obvious facts, so they play the man not the ball. Instead of looking at the stated facts, they call the man a pinko, or terrorist, or, in past days, a jew. Who knows if Sicko is an accurate movie. The issue is not to be accurate, but to promote questioning of norms. If someone comes out of that movie, and asks deep critical questions, and thinks it is wrong, that is fine. But if someone just attacks the man, or pushes an ad campaign to discredit the movie on the basis of well chosen data, then that is evil.
When things like this happen, I always think back to The Jungle and Sinclair. this a book that a congressional hearing found to be largely accurate, and had a law written to correct the more egragreious crimes, and yet to this day, due to the careful manipulation of reality, intellegent people still believe that the meat packing industry is safe, and the laws were put into place only to calm the populace.. I mean we look around even today and see that meat packing jobs are one most dangerous jobs in America, and yet we are told by the apologist not only that there is nothing to worry about, but that the conditions were better in the time of The Jungle.
The thing with google is that it is, at present, one of the most liberating constructs ever created. It allows the access to relatively unfiltered information, and allows the reader to infer what is real and what is not. However, google is primarily a advertising egent, and therefore has the power to influence reality. If every ad for the search Sicko is an attack on the movie, then the reality will be shifted to the idea that the movie has no basis in reality. And this is why what google is doing is evil. If what the industry is saying is valid, then people will point to those finding and those finding will move up in rank. By offering to package ads, google is no better than the link farms that are increasingly making the search engine useless.
I do believe that corporations in the US expect to be treated as a "person" under national and international law. The problem with this assumption is that if a person, even a head of state, murders 100 people, or even destroys massive property, such in the case Exxon Valdez, that person can be significantly inconvenienced, while corporation can evade punishment for ever. And if the corporation is given the ultimate punishment, as in the case of Arthur Anderson, the political reprecusions tend to much more significant than when the equivalent human thug is punished by state sponsored killing.
On the other side of the argument there are persons who believe corporations should have no rights at all. These people believe that they can say the Microsoft sponsors the mass killing of anyone who disagrees with them. This is ok a the accusation is so extreme that no one would believe, so it is clearly satire. The problem, of course, is where to draw the line. Is it ok to say that MS regularly sanctions threats of any medium ranking figure who threatens their monopoly? Where does satire end and stock manipulation begin?
Ultimately, I think we get into the nature of satire, and the death of the art form. Traditional satire abstracts some tyranical figure that is simply to dangerous to attack directly, and cleverly illustrates the tyranny and negative impact of the figure. Or satire highlights some social policy, and then proposes a ridiculous solution to it. Satire is useless when launched at figures that can be attacked directly or when is simply attributes characteristics that the figure probably does not possess.
It saddens me that meaningless verbal attack is put forth as satire. In this case the article could have proposed that ExxonMobile convert the people into a product. Such a modest proposal would not be original, but at least would be an attempt at satire, rather than just the ranting of thugs. Or they could have attributed the action to Butthole Petrol Incompentated(BPI), or EXpat Oil Nation MOBlized , or whatever. Just make it interesting satire, not school house insults.
You would be amazed at how long an Mac can last. Macs tend to be designed for power and durability, not to meet some arbitrary low price point. This means that Apple can pay suppliers for first pick parts, and not just settle for the parts that fell off the truck.
So I have an Apple cube running a smartboard, a powerbook from around 2000 that is my home entertainment setup, a powermac from around 1998 that isn't used much but still works very well, not to mention sundry mac classics, etc, that had to go away because they were not OS X capable.
My ipods still work, though I never was impressed with the battery life in them, nor do I like the Apple replacement policy, which is why I am hesitant about the iPhone. But the still work, compared to my Nomad, which has little plastic pieces broken off, which means that I paid about the same amount of money for a device that does not work.
The same applies to my high price phone. Battery lasted a year, then had to charge it every day if I used it, then had to pay $50 for a new one. OTOH, a few years on, my iPod battery is still tolerable. Hopefully, like the iPod, I can send in the iPhone for a battery swap. I think the issue is not going to be the value of the phone, but the value of the time to wait to swap out the phone. If one can't be without a phone for a couple days, and I know many people, even children, who can't, then those will be the ones who will have the new phone. The rest of us, trying to get the full value out of the product, will just eventually have two phones. One for every day, and one for sunday best.
'The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behavior like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores.
That should be formally aveilable in record stores that are now closed. Does anyone actually go to a record store, or does everyone go to wal mart or buy off amazon. And if there are no places where on can go for music, and the radio stations are paid to play, and aggressive ad campaigns are not open, then what is an artist to do? And the music associations do not seem to be doing anything. They negotiated with the likes of walmart and made the widely commercially available stuff most similar to state controlled chinese television.
Prince has music that is very well made. Good lyrics, good rhythms, just not always accessible. So if he is going to get new fans, when the reality is that most radio will not play him, then this is a good option. Not to mention the free publicity. His albums are usually pretty well put together, with minimal filler, so many will enjoy it.
OTOH, I see images of AOL, with many CDs in the landfill.
Except that profits on the $525 are insignificant compared to the profits generated on the machines sold by Sun and Apple.
Add to this that MS has consistently shown that it cannot produce a complex hardware product that people will pay a real premium for, and we see another effort to flood a market with intentions of creating a monopoly.
We know that the export laws work perfectly, and no third party sources will ever resell. This is why we never see any American made weapons in these countries. And this is why we never see any cuban cigars, especially among the so called patriots, in America.
What is true is that none of these machines will be sold directly to such a country, and therefore will not be as prevalent as other countries, assuming that these machines are going to prevalent anywhere. What it also means is that extraneous third parties are going to cut off the sale of these machines.
Of course if we believe that these countries are lawless and without manners, then why do they need the OLPC anyway? All the computers are made in China, a fellow red label state, and if the chinese are willing to ship poisoned food to the States, I see no reason why they would not ship reliable computers to cuba. Likewise, if cuba or syria or any of these countries run unlicensed copies of windows and other software, who is going to stop them. The copyright people are notorious about preferring soft target hard targets, so they are unlikely to mount an offensive against so-called renegade countries.
So, in the end, given their outlaw status, I bet these countries could get a fully loaded MS Windows PC cheaper than they could an stripped down OLPC.
My experience is that ATT does not insure new phones, at least phones in the iPhone price range. I assume we will still have applecare for warranty issues. Accidental stuff, that so often happens to a phone, will probably not have coverage. Which is why a one year contract is so necessary for this phone.
In an idealistic world, yes. But in the real world power trumps the truth. Sticking to the facts is suicide. Power is achieved through the manipulation of the facts. If one is smart, that manipulation is defensible, as it is in this case. Based on patterns of past behaviors, it is reasonable that the FBI is using this as a leading edge to gain more power. We see this in the unauthorized wire tapping. We see this in the reduction of privacy of library records. We see this in the continued commercials encouraging kids to report their parents.
But even if the lie is not defensible, it is still too useful to give up. Joe Mccarthy lied right to the american public, and was rewarded with the power of life and death over every american citizen. Our current president lied right to the american people and was rewarded with a reelection and the power to evesdrop on any citizen he wishes, with no oversight, not to mention the power to kill as many people as he wishes. Rush does not even pretend to factual, and the drug addict is rewarded with huge sums of money.
Facts are only of concern to people who care more about process than success, and in most cases over-caring of process does not bring power. True, it was the higher morality of our founding fathers that made the US great, the morality that caused them not to torture no matter what the enemy did, the morality that made enemies into friends, the morality that lead to the first recorded peaceful turnover of powers in the world. But such morality is clearly gone, replaced with a drive for unmitigated power.
And how can we respond when people say that oil is too high because the towel heads are too stupid to accept our help? Or when the state of the economy is due to the unfair competition of the yellows? Or when we can't get a loan because fo the five jew bankers? Pr that they gayness of new york lead god to smite the citizens through the power of the jet airplane? By trying to push liberal guilt or pc rhetoric? I think not. When someone wants to tap my phone, or enter my house, or infinge on my right to educate myself or practice my religion in the privacy of my own home or private sacred space, or for that matte own a missile, I bring up the trump card. We have enshrined these freedoms in our constitution because this country is founded on the proposition that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. And damn if I am going to let another King George take away these rights, that are my birth right as a birth citizen of the US, just because a few losers prefer fascism to freedom.
So yes, one can soft shoe the FBI's infringement of the right of every person in the US to pursue happiness and become educated, and one can say that a little infringement is not really going to hurt anyone. But to believe it is to live in a state of fear that I have no use for.
While the article is certainly biased, it pose a reasonable question. Why are highly paid professionals begging people not buy iPhones? What is the huge threat to civilization?
Is it like walmart, in which every mom and pop shop is going to have close, adn the big guys, like target, are going to have find innovative ways to compete?
Is it like SUVs, in which individuals are unfairly taking advantages that were meant to for farmers and laborers, thus forcing those that choose not to take advantage of the tax code to subsidize their lifestyle?
Is it like the american automaker, refusing to put put profits into R&D, seeing it's stock turn to junk.
Or is it as simple as the wackos on street corners who scream at people as the walk or drive past, imploring them not to visit a particular place because they will be putting their immortal souls in jeopardy.
I may not get an iPhone, but given the amount of money that has been spent begging people not to buy it, I look forward to how it will transform the US mobil phone market as well as the Blackberry/MS fight over the enterprise mobile market. Given the level of fear, I expect that transformation to be significant. I see IT personal having to go to training, kickbacks disappearing, and perhaps, in a perfect world, more webpages that can be read by browsers other than IE.
The windows machines as typewriter is an interesting analogy. Certainly for the majority or the population, it is a best a typewriter, while in reality it has become a way to download pron, either pictures of cats or pictures of naked people, depending on what floats your boat. But for business, mostly it just types memos, or enter sales orders, or the like. A few people use a vertical application like Autocad or some other historical MS only tool.
What I find most interesting about the analogy though, is how much more accessible a typewriter was. I could go to the library and for a few quarters type a paper. Ray Bradbury say he wrote a book on the library typewriter. Now, you can go to the library and use a computer for free, for a limited amount of time, if you find one that is not being used to download cat pictures, but where is the typewriter? If the machine is so useful, why can't we have dedicated computers that can be used for $1 an hour, for the purpose of real research and writing. Where is todays creative person going to get their start. Surely video cameras and the like are more accessible than ever, but are we going to be doomed to a world full of reality shows and cookie cutter books because no one will know how to write?
One point in the article alleges tha MS knows that it must no cooperate with Linux. This is a silly notion. From what I can tell, the major reason that corporate does not have experience with other OS is because MS sets up the playing field so that it is expensive to do so. For instance, I believe that a customer has to pay for each machine at the location, even if it runs no MS products. Likewise, your agreement to non optional audits insures that any non MS hardware must be defended, and MS can put pressure through the draconian fines for any infringement.
In the end, the best prices go to MS only shops. Which is perfectly reasonable. The fact that this leads to employees only seeing MS, and therefore not realizing that other choices exist, is an coincidence. OTOH, It can be said that any subsidizes, in the same that MS subsidizes the xBox, is worthwhile to maintain the desktop monopoly.
Then we have the terms of Vista use that restrict the virtualization of the product. If MS were competing, it would develop and OS that was the best base for virtualization. Instead, it merely licesnses the product as non virtual. If MS is not the OS that everyone sees on startup, then people might start to believe that MS is not the best choice.
It kind of reminds of hummers, and the assumption of others on the road, that wow, that person can afford to buy a hummer. People in the know realize that for many hummer drivers, the US taxpayer is paying for large percentage of the Hummer. In fact, some figure suggest that if you bought a new hummer, and took all the tax breaks, and sold it after 5 years, your total cost of ownership would be zero, thanks to the goodness of the conservative government.
MS products are the same way. A good deal if you can get, but not such a good deal if you won't play ball.
I will support the Masters idea. The value of bachelors degree has been declining rapidly. Even 40 years ago, it often made a significant difference. Now that everyone has a bachelors, the masters is the often the discriminating factor. And it is not just the value of the degree. When there are 50 applicants for every job, there must be some trivial mechanism to make the initial cuts.
I would also recommend continuing to work, but work only in the field in which you wish to make your career. It seems to me that surveys increasingly show that graduates who have appropriate work experience are the graduates that get the jobs.
I seldom complain about mods, but this post is indicative of why the mod system does not work well. It seems many people on/. mod to protect corporate stock prices, rather than promote realistic discussion.
I don't know how stacks are going to work. I suspect that I will not like them, in the same way I ddi not like dock. I still have issues with the dock, but have made it work for me. Any changes they make to the dock, might be to the better.
I am not sure what is happening with menus. What I do know is that the fix menu is not working well for large screens. I actually like the fact that I go into x-windows for my office applications. I don't want to go the random order and tiny icon route that MS seems to favor, as I live by the expectations that certain menu items will be in a certain spot, just like I live by the fact that the keys on my keyboard will be in a certain spot. In any case, menus can be improved.
Back to stacks, it this not the piles motif that has been floating around for years? Things kind of come and go with the Apple OS. If people use it, and it is reliable, it stays. If not, it goes. Sort of like the location option for various settings.
I am not in hurry for this version of Mac OS. I think it will mostly be of interest to those who have the new Intel macs and want to run MS Windows. I will likely acquire with my next Mac, and see if it is worth upgrading the other machines.
If it was a employee doing this, I suppose MS can argue in court that they suffered from sabotage and can't be held responsible. Is that a valid legal defense? Or are companies always bound by the actions of their employees, with their only recourse being to fire the employee?
So, when MS comes in and does a surprise mandatory audits, and finds a single install of unlicensed MS software, or finds a single machine that does not have proper documentation for MS WIndows, the firm can say, hey, sorry, it was an employees fault, and that employee will be fired. That would certainly be a good things, as the alternative is to be at risk of owing MS 200K per incident.
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Let's all look at why Muslims are upset:
First of all, in the Muslim religion, you're not allowed to have what?
Sex. Good.
There's no sex until marriage in the Muslim world.
Now, this would be fine except that in the Muslim religion you also can't, Anybody? Jack off.
Okay, jacking it is strictly forbidden in the Muslim religion. And what do we know about the places Muslims live? They live in? Good, sand.
Now put yourself in the shoes of a Muslim. It's Friday night, but you can't have sex, and you can't jack off. There's sand in your eyes and probably in the crack of your ass, and then some cartoon comes along from a country where people are getting laid, and mocks your prophet. Well you know what? I'd be pretty pissed off too!
You know, i realize that these hacks are just trying to sell a book, and are probably laughing all the way to the bank at all the ignorant people who actually take it seriously, but given that they have a PHD, they might try to make it bit more convincing that South Park. Not to degrade South Park, it is one of the most insightful shows on TV. And it gains points because it admits it basic worthlessness rather than trying to wrap itself in the facade of respectability.
What a real scientist does is not only come up with personally preferred models, but also comes up solicits competing models, and searches for deficiencies in the preferred model. This is why at the end of so many peer reviewed finding one sees the list of disclaimers and the need for future work. In this case, for instance, what might be the other reasons for differences noted in the gender ration based on income. A real scientist does not whine that no one agrees with hypothesis, at least not in print. They wait to the to gloat one they win the nobel prize.
Here is the point. There is nothing wrong with ideas stated in the article. The PC angle merely identified Pych Today as the pop culture tabloid that it is. It exists to sell advertising, and has little positive scientific or social value. I recall my psychology teacher specifically banning it from the reading list, and such a statement from such a soft science is significant. The issue is that these are presented as stipulate truths rather than works in progress, and have no critical thinking attached. For instance, while it is true that certain body shapes in women do have easier time delivering babies, it is likely untrue that anything other than age is a general predictor of fertility. As many boys have discovered, there is no one more fertile than a teen aged girl. Many of them get pregnant just looking at sperm. And as many a delivery nurse will tell you, those babies tend to pop out of the girls, no matter what the shape.
So what we have here is a collection of ideas that people wish were true, and to some extent are. However, just stopping at these "truths" limit the discovery of deeper and more complete truths. Is the big breasted girl really the ultimate treasure, or is more than a mouthful a waste? Do certain income ranges foster certain genders, and if so, why do I know so many wealthy families, at least in developed countries, with all girls? Are frat boys who engage in innocent date rape just following their evolutionary calling, or are they just socialized to be assholes?
To complicate matters, we also have the issue of how much of science is objective, and how much is created by the researcher. On interesting thing I find in my reading is the more I see the word "truth" used, the less objective the science is. My hypothesis is that this happens because in softer research where "truth" is acceptable, the research is cherry picking data and studies to support a pre existing notion. The outcome of the "research" is a foregone conclusion, and any negative input is ignored. OTOH, in harder research, while most of the time may be spent trying to prove a preexisting idea, there is at least the realization of other points of view, so the outcome is more of a defensible argument for rationality rather than a truth.
And because so many cheap shots were taken in this article, let me end with another. I expect very soon to be reading why dark skin people are not evolutionary suited for television or film or high level executive positions. or why women, which much research has shown to be stronger workers, caring for babies, and the fields, and the mate, are nevertheless the weaker sex.
In the end this appears to be cherry picked research with no attention paid to the statistical contribution of other factors. I am sure that if any of the writers ever had a methods course, the slept through it. In the end, these appear to be hacks trying to sell a book, capitalizing on the neocon movement I can see it now, some guy wants to divorce the wife who put him through school, and marry some young girl, goes to court and says judge, it is not my fault, my first wife never gave me any boys, how could I possible lover her? And to add to that, she was not a naturall blonde and her boobs were fake. I was entrapped!
I can get my work done without being interrogated if I own the product. I can download updates without downloading ancillary spyware. I don't have to worry if upgrades to my hardware will mean that I am unable to work due to licensing issues. Coming from someone whose efficiency not only translates into money but also increase in leisure time, I cannot image ever using MS products a my primary mission-critical tools.
Here is the reasoning. I have seen iPods just being swapped out for battery issues. No down time, just resync the music. Now, if applecare is available for the phone, and if they treat the same as the iPod, then this could be a very good thing for users. Instead of spending almost $120, and doing two resync, I wonder if the sales pitch for applecare is going to spend $80 and just leaving with a phone.
Clearly, this is not as good as paying $50 for a spare battery, but if it happens, it will certainly be ok.
Of course,they may just not supply applecare for this product, which means this is another reason not to buy it. I don't want to be stuck with a two year contract, and have the device fail 14 months in. This is exactly how the cell companies keep customers on perpetual contract.
What do all these have in common. It uses current cash to cover up misdeeds and protect future profits. Who in this world has a billion dollars to sue MS for violating the GPL. Do I see any hands? Then it does not apply to them right now. Perhaps in 5 or 10 years, if someone actually finds the money to sue, it will. But then it probably won't make difference.
But lets not waste time on all these diversionary tactics and go straight for what people really want: a per mile charge. Lets say that everyone jsut pays 25 cents for each mile they drive. This will save the junk-status american car company executive from having to come up with an original idea in exchange for their 8 figure incomes. The populous can get what it want, huge cars that they can't afford to maintain, and oil companies can get what they really want, direct huge no-string subsidies and the right to drill anywhere they want, also at the taxpayers expense.
Or we could just keep the entire thing simple. We could drive cars and distances that are within our means. The US congress could rescind the dole payments given to the oil companies by so-called conservative politicians. The added tax receipts could be used to hold down the deficiet instead of buying yachts and servants, servants, who, BTW, are evidently better paid than the average American, for the uber-wealthy. Really, in my dream world, we would not be owned by the Chinese, and have the ability to set trade policy on our own terms, and not fight these proxy battles to keep them from dumping out dollars of decreasing worth in favor of euros.
I sm sure that it is just more creative accounting. $250 million in real costs, $750 million in manufactured expenses, all deducted from the tax bill. At the end of the day, this recall may actually prove to be a profit center, courtesy of the american tax payer.
So pretty much like any other camp. Of course you forgot the obligatory loss of virginity.
And it really is so apropos on this day of forgiving acts against the country. Is 200 so far from 205. And let us not forget that it is better to lie, knowing full well that the letter was phony, but also knowing that your fanbois will defend you to the end. And one can also take solace that one can just become incompetent during the presidency, and not recall any matter of importanct, and people will just forgive you for anything, even dooming a generation to drug addiction.
So kids, take it from your national leaders, when you lie, lie big. If Bill had said he had never taken drugs after a certain date, a lie that your current president made, he would have been off the hook. But he decided to only make little lies, which is why he got into trouble.
And this is the at least the third suspected or convicted terrorist, during the Bush administration, that has been allowed to live without the punishment that would otherwise be expected. Eric Rudolph killed a police officer in one incident and killed one person and injured at least 100 others when he bombed the Atlanta Olympics. He also was guilty of bombing untold number of other public buildings. He was arrested in 2003 and was the recipient of an amazing lovefest as the FBI tried their best to negotiate a guilty plea that allowed him to escape the death penalty. OTOH, a sniper attack that killed more people, but not a police officer, and was not an terrorist attack per se on any public building, resulted in the federal prosecutors falling over themselves trying to get these guys killed ASAP.
Then of course there is the Alleged Cuban Terrorist that is wanted in Venezuela for downing a plane that was let go by the Bush courts. It seems that if we can lock a limo driver for terrorism based on his acquaintances, we could keep a guy who probably blew up a plane from the opportunity of doing it again. And then the republican dude has the audacity to claim that new cuban terrorists are the issue?
I think it is official. The rule of law is over, and know we are back to the times of royal favor. I suspect in the next year we will see the supreme court transfer the power of execution to the President, and he will, just like his namesake King George. Perhaps he can bring the US back into that time with a state religion, and then persecute everyone who disagrees.
In my experience, the most unreliable part of the powerbook is the cd/dvd drive and the screen. This is an imporvement over the older Apple laptops when the most unreliable parts were the power input, which was practically guaranteed to fail in 2 or 3 years.
I have not had a harddrive fail, thank god, on any mac, at least not in the last several years. This, I hope, implies that the MTBF of 10+ years is a serious number. In any case, what is accessible and not tends to be random in the machine. On my TiPB, the memory and harddisk was quite easily accessible. On older machines, we actually had the luxury of a slot for options of drives. In any case, what has made the powrbook reliable is applecare, which means that Apple will fix any problems for three years.
I also must say that i do not like computer to be too easily worked on. For instance, my Compaq has many things that can be removed very easily, which means that I am a little worried about the computer getting stripped down. I also wonder why everything has to so easily accessible. Is it because the components are so unreliable? I do like the fact that the Powermacs open with a simple latch, revealing everything(compared to most other computers I work on, this is a dream), but then the latch can be locked so the inside of the computer is secure.
On the screw issue this is my take. The factory installed screws seems to stay in. However, after I get a computer back from service, the screws tend to be loose and often will fall out. I am sure there is a proper torque to prevent this, but the repair people do not seem to respect this.
The thing with google is that it is, at present, one of the most liberating constructs ever created. It allows the access to relatively unfiltered information, and allows the reader to infer what is real and what is not. However, google is primarily a advertising egent, and therefore has the power to influence reality. If every ad for the search Sicko is an attack on the movie, then the reality will be shifted to the idea that the movie has no basis in reality. And this is why what google is doing is evil. If what the industry is saying is valid, then people will point to those finding and those finding will move up in rank. By offering to package ads, google is no better than the link farms that are increasingly making the search engine useless.
On the other side of the argument there are persons who believe corporations should have no rights at all. These people believe that they can say the Microsoft sponsors the mass killing of anyone who disagrees with them. This is ok a the accusation is so extreme that no one would believe, so it is clearly satire. The problem, of course, is where to draw the line. Is it ok to say that MS regularly sanctions threats of any medium ranking figure who threatens their monopoly? Where does satire end and stock manipulation begin?
Ultimately, I think we get into the nature of satire, and the death of the art form. Traditional satire abstracts some tyranical figure that is simply to dangerous to attack directly, and cleverly illustrates the tyranny and negative impact of the figure. Or satire highlights some social policy, and then proposes a ridiculous solution to it. Satire is useless when launched at figures that can be attacked directly or when is simply attributes characteristics that the figure probably does not possess.
It saddens me that meaningless verbal attack is put forth as satire. In this case the article could have proposed that ExxonMobile convert the people into a product. Such a modest proposal would not be original, but at least would be an attempt at satire, rather than just the ranting of thugs. Or they could have attributed the action to Butthole Petrol Incompentated(BPI), or EXpat Oil Nation MOBlized , or whatever. Just make it interesting satire, not school house insults.
So I have an Apple cube running a smartboard, a powerbook from around 2000 that is my home entertainment setup, a powermac from around 1998 that isn't used much but still works very well, not to mention sundry mac classics, etc, that had to go away because they were not OS X capable.
My ipods still work, though I never was impressed with the battery life in them, nor do I like the Apple replacement policy, which is why I am hesitant about the iPhone. But the still work, compared to my Nomad, which has little plastic pieces broken off, which means that I paid about the same amount of money for a device that does not work.
The same applies to my high price phone. Battery lasted a year, then had to charge it every day if I used it, then had to pay $50 for a new one. OTOH, a few years on, my iPod battery is still tolerable. Hopefully, like the iPod, I can send in the iPhone for a battery swap. I think the issue is not going to be the value of the phone, but the value of the time to wait to swap out the phone. If one can't be without a phone for a couple days, and I know many people, even children, who can't, then those will be the ones who will have the new phone. The rest of us, trying to get the full value out of the product, will just eventually have two phones. One for every day, and one for sunday best.
That should be formally aveilable in record stores that are now closed. Does anyone actually go to a record store, or does everyone go to wal mart or buy off amazon. And if there are no places where on can go for music, and the radio stations are paid to play, and aggressive ad campaigns are not open, then what is an artist to do? And the music associations do not seem to be doing anything. They negotiated with the likes of walmart and made the widely commercially available stuff most similar to state controlled chinese television.
Prince has music that is very well made. Good lyrics, good rhythms, just not always accessible. So if he is going to get new fans, when the reality is that most radio will not play him, then this is a good option. Not to mention the free publicity. His albums are usually pretty well put together, with minimal filler, so many will enjoy it.
OTOH, I see images of AOL, with many CDs in the landfill.
Add to this that MS has consistently shown that it cannot produce a complex hardware product that people will pay a real premium for, and we see another effort to flood a market with intentions of creating a monopoly.
What is true is that none of these machines will be sold directly to such a country, and therefore will not be as prevalent as other countries, assuming that these machines are going to prevalent anywhere. What it also means is that extraneous third parties are going to cut off the sale of these machines.
Of course if we believe that these countries are lawless and without manners, then why do they need the OLPC anyway? All the computers are made in China, a fellow red label state, and if the chinese are willing to ship poisoned food to the States, I see no reason why they would not ship reliable computers to cuba. Likewise, if cuba or syria or any of these countries run unlicensed copies of windows and other software, who is going to stop them. The copyright people are notorious about preferring soft target hard targets, so they are unlikely to mount an offensive against so-called renegade countries.
So, in the end, given their outlaw status, I bet these countries could get a fully loaded MS Windows PC cheaper than they could an stripped down OLPC.
My experience is that ATT does not insure new phones, at least phones in the iPhone price range. I assume we will still have applecare for warranty issues. Accidental stuff, that so often happens to a phone, will probably not have coverage. Which is why a one year contract is so necessary for this phone.
But even if the lie is not defensible, it is still too useful to give up. Joe Mccarthy lied right to the american public, and was rewarded with the power of life and death over every american citizen. Our current president lied right to the american people and was rewarded with a reelection and the power to evesdrop on any citizen he wishes, with no oversight, not to mention the power to kill as many people as he wishes. Rush does not even pretend to factual, and the drug addict is rewarded with huge sums of money.
Facts are only of concern to people who care more about process than success, and in most cases over-caring of process does not bring power. True, it was the higher morality of our founding fathers that made the US great, the morality that caused them not to torture no matter what the enemy did, the morality that made enemies into friends, the morality that lead to the first recorded peaceful turnover of powers in the world. But such morality is clearly gone, replaced with a drive for unmitigated power.
And how can we respond when people say that oil is too high because the towel heads are too stupid to accept our help? Or when the state of the economy is due to the unfair competition of the yellows? Or when we can't get a loan because fo the five jew bankers? Pr that they gayness of new york lead god to smite the citizens through the power of the jet airplane? By trying to push liberal guilt or pc rhetoric? I think not. When someone wants to tap my phone, or enter my house, or infinge on my right to educate myself or practice my religion in the privacy of my own home or private sacred space, or for that matte own a missile, I bring up the trump card. We have enshrined these freedoms in our constitution because this country is founded on the proposition that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. And damn if I am going to let another King George take away these rights, that are my birth right as a birth citizen of the US, just because a few losers prefer fascism to freedom.
So yes, one can soft shoe the FBI's infringement of the right of every person in the US to pursue happiness and become educated, and one can say that a little infringement is not really going to hurt anyone. But to believe it is to live in a state of fear that I have no use for.
Is it like walmart, in which every mom and pop shop is going to have close, adn the big guys, like target, are going to have find innovative ways to compete?
Is it like SUVs, in which individuals are unfairly taking advantages that were meant to for farmers and laborers, thus forcing those that choose not to take advantage of the tax code to subsidize their lifestyle?
Is it like the american automaker, refusing to put put profits into R&D, seeing it's stock turn to junk.
Or is it as simple as the wackos on street corners who scream at people as the walk or drive past, imploring them not to visit a particular place because they will be putting their immortal souls in jeopardy.
I may not get an iPhone, but given the amount of money that has been spent begging people not to buy it, I look forward to how it will transform the US mobil phone market as well as the Blackberry/MS fight over the enterprise mobile market. Given the level of fear, I expect that transformation to be significant. I see IT personal having to go to training, kickbacks disappearing, and perhaps, in a perfect world, more webpages that can be read by browsers other than IE.
What I find most interesting about the analogy though, is how much more accessible a typewriter was. I could go to the library and for a few quarters type a paper. Ray Bradbury say he wrote a book on the library typewriter. Now, you can go to the library and use a computer for free, for a limited amount of time, if you find one that is not being used to download cat pictures, but where is the typewriter? If the machine is so useful, why can't we have dedicated computers that can be used for $1 an hour, for the purpose of real research and writing. Where is todays creative person going to get their start. Surely video cameras and the like are more accessible than ever, but are we going to be doomed to a world full of reality shows and cookie cutter books because no one will know how to write?
In the end, the best prices go to MS only shops. Which is perfectly reasonable. The fact that this leads to employees only seeing MS, and therefore not realizing that other choices exist, is an coincidence. OTOH, It can be said that any subsidizes, in the same that MS subsidizes the xBox, is worthwhile to maintain the desktop monopoly.
Then we have the terms of Vista use that restrict the virtualization of the product. If MS were competing, it would develop and OS that was the best base for virtualization. Instead, it merely licesnses the product as non virtual. If MS is not the OS that everyone sees on startup, then people might start to believe that MS is not the best choice.
It kind of reminds of hummers, and the assumption of others on the road, that wow, that person can afford to buy a hummer. People in the know realize that for many hummer drivers, the US taxpayer is paying for large percentage of the Hummer. In fact, some figure suggest that if you bought a new hummer, and took all the tax breaks, and sold it after 5 years, your total cost of ownership would be zero, thanks to the goodness of the conservative government.
MS products are the same way. A good deal if you can get, but not such a good deal if you won't play ball.
I would also recommend continuing to work, but work only in the field in which you wish to make your career. It seems to me that surveys increasingly show that graduates who have appropriate work experience are the graduates that get the jobs.
I don't know how stacks are going to work. I suspect that I will not like them, in the same way I ddi not like dock. I still have issues with the dock, but have made it work for me. Any changes they make to the dock, might be to the better.
I am not sure what is happening with menus. What I do know is that the fix menu is not working well for large screens. I actually like the fact that I go into x-windows for my office applications. I don't want to go the random order and tiny icon route that MS seems to favor, as I live by the expectations that certain menu items will be in a certain spot, just like I live by the fact that the keys on my keyboard will be in a certain spot. In any case, menus can be improved.
Back to stacks, it this not the piles motif that has been floating around for years? Things kind of come and go with the Apple OS. If people use it, and it is reliable, it stays. If not, it goes. Sort of like the location option for various settings.
I am not in hurry for this version of Mac OS. I think it will mostly be of interest to those who have the new Intel macs and want to run MS Windows. I will likely acquire with my next Mac, and see if it is worth upgrading the other machines.
So, when MS comes in and does a surprise mandatory audits, and finds a single install of unlicensed MS software, or finds a single machine that does not have proper documentation for MS WIndows, the firm can say, hey, sorry, it was an employees fault, and that employee will be fired. That would certainly be a good things, as the alternative is to be at risk of owing MS 200K per incident.