Then comes accessories like car chargers and USB cables -- which most people already have for their iPods -- that will increase the overall total cost of the other "smart" phones. Oh, and the iphone2 configuration, since it's 8GB in capacity, while equal in price to the Cingular and Treo smartphones, is actually the better deal.
Personally, I'm interested in getting an iPhone, but I have an issue with being too tied to my phone, which I currently use only minimally anyway. (less than 30 minutes per month.) I have about 6 people in my phone's memory, use my 60GB iPod photo for appointment reminders and contact lookup, and my Newton MessagePad 2100 for note taking. (In addition, I have plenty of extra space on the iPod that I frequently use it to shuttle & backup files from Point A to Point B.) For me, it works fine, so no need to upgrade. My wife, on the other hand, will probably be getting one.
Download a copy of Female Alert System. This lovely piece of software has kept me from going nuts trying to figure out why one day my wife is all over me and I can do no wrong, to the next day she wants nothing to do with me and I can do no right. Seriously, this little freeware from Heaven is a Godsend. All you do is plug in her last start date and cycle length and it calculates what mood she's in for any given day. Ridiculously accurate, so you know what days to suggest that you need to buy a new MacPro and 1TB RAID, and what days to "work late" (fragging.)
...is that Apple will sell even more iPods. Since they make more money on iPods than selling music anyway, their profits will get fatter, their stock price will go up, and my IRA will get bigger.
My guess is also that people will still use iTunes to manage the music that's on their iPod. And if people have to use something else to download their music, and then put it into iTunes anyway, my guess is also that the majority of people will stick with buying from the iTunes Store.
When was the last time the press published something classified that actually harmed this country as opposed to bringing to light some kind of power grab by the administration?
Ummmm..... the NYT publishing how we were tracking Osama bin Laden via his satellite phone comes to mind. And then there's the NSA wiretaps (which are completely legal, and there's precedent set by every administration since Carter). Seems like every time the US figures out a way to track/spy on terrorists, the NYT spills the info to the press. It's almost as if they want the terrorists to win.
The Newton was far to big for a address book and calendar device.
As the popular Newt-owner saying goes: "Palms & PocketPCs are the right size when you're not using them, but too small when you are, whereas the Newton is too big when you're not using it, but perfectly-sized when you are." As an avid user of both (and I have an eMate 300, too), I can say that this statement hold absolutely true.
I do agree with you, though, that there's not much that Apple would have to do to improve the Newt: give it about 4GB of flash memory, a faster processor, built-in Bluetooth, WiFi, and USB, and get the syncing working with iCal/Address Book/etc. Throw in a WebKit-based browser, QuickTime support, and a VGA video-out dongle and you're done. (And I only added the last two so that you can use it for presenting Keynote-created presentations on LCD projectors.)
And yes, I agree with keeping the screen monochrome so you can still power the thing with cheap AAs for 20 hours continuous.
The shift is in perception and not in real production or consumption (which is gradually increasing). That shift is caused by warmongering which makes people worry about supply without actually reducing it in reality.
Did you forget the hurricanes last year and how gas prices spiked then? Oh wait, I guess bush caused the hurricanes, too. My point is this: Regardless of the cause, whenever you're at a max production point (thus constraining supply) and demand is on the rise, *any* perceived negative influence on supply will cause a spike in price. Regardless of the market.... oil, fish, Xboxes, it doesn't matter. And the reason we're at a constrained supply point is because China and India have both increased demand. Duh.
Oil prices have gone up and oil company profits have gone with them. You are implying (nay: stating) that there is no connection. That is nonsense.
Let's see here.... oil companies' profit margins have remained constant over the past 15+ years, production costs have gone up, but they make more money. In essence, they make the same amount per gallon sold regardless of the price at the pump. Hmmm. I guess their profits couldn't be because they have increased number of gallons sold, could it? Oh heavens no. That would be too simplistic an explanation.
While back in the 1950's the CIA supported the Ba'athists, it did not "hire" Saddam directly. He was part of the overthrow plot, yes, but he was not a hired hitman. Neither was he "installed". And there is plenty of evidence -- like Richard Clarke's "boogie to Baghdad" assessment -- that shows they were not enemies. The recently translated tapes & documents seized from Saddam's palaces add further proof. So watch the History channel. Read a book. Or read this or these or this. But whatever you do, get educated before spouting off nonsense like this again.
maybe they outsource it to companies like Exxon and Haliburton. Most oil extraction in Venezuela, for example, is carried out by Exxon.
LOL I don't know where you get your information, but since I personally know several people who have worked in the oil & gas industry for 15+ years and who have spent time in the middle east I can tell you for a fact that oil extraction is not outsourced. Unlike what was portrayed in Clooney's bit-o-fiction Syriana, no western company owns or operates any facility in the Gulf. The majority are nationally-owned companies; the rest have a nationally-owned company as the major shareholder, meaning any outside company -- or country -- plays second-fiddle to the national interest. As for Venezuela.... their continued tax increases on the extraction companies mean companies like Exxon make about $10 per-barrel profit, which is the same as what they were making 10 years ago.
but in real life the price of oil has been fluctuating far more rapidly than a simplistic demand/supply model would allow
Then you don't understand supply and demand very well, do you? We spent about 15 years at an equilibrium price, so I can understand why you forgot some of the economics lessions. Like this one: When supply is at a maximum production point and demand is high, prices will fluctuate within the the envelope of elasticity when there is a perceived shift with suppliers or consumers. Look at Xbox 360 prices on eBay last Christmas. Look at current Alaskan salmon prices. Look at seafood market prices around Lent. Hell, look at any of the commodities markets. I could cite example after example. What's happening in the oil markets isn't anything new, nor is it anything out of the ordinary.
the US's insane support for Iran's hardliners
We're supporting those nuts? Riiiiiight. Don't know what news you've been watching, but time to come back to the really-real world: we've been at odds with Iran since the fall of the Shah in 1979. Or are you too young to remember the whole hostage crisis thing?
7th grade economics and 5th grade politics
Actually, I'm personally way beyond that, but I had to backtrack for you since you needed a refresher in the basics.
As for wealth.... you're oblivious to the fact that your argument does not and cannot support itself. Your argument goes something like: "Bush/Cheney/etc are doing all this to get rich." But they already are rich. "Well, they're doing this to get more rich." Why do they need to get more rich? They have plenty, and give bunches of it away to charity anyway. "Because they're greedy. And they want to help their buddies!" Aren't their buddies already rich, too? "But they want to get more rich!" and on and on and on.
Saddam was not a "US-installed secular dictator". If yo so much as watch the History channel you'd know that he was part of the Ba'ath party revolutionaries, and has spent his entire adult life involved in the violent seizing of power.
Osama and Saddam did not hate each other, and they are far from "incompatible." While not exactly the bestest of buddies, there was a common enemy: The Great Satan, a.k.a. the US of A. I could provide you with a laundry list of links confirming this fact so you could go educate yourself and not come across like a moron, but you'd just call them "spurious" and ignore them anyway. Geeze, you left-heads are all alike... even use the same words like "spurious" and refuse to admit that anything you say has any semblance of being incorrect. Arguing with one of you is like arguing with all of you.
You need to lay off the Michael Moore conspiracy theory kool-aid. It's rotting your brain. Go do some research for yourself as opposed to blindly eating whatever Fat Boy and his pals in the MSM are feeding you.
But profit for whom? Look at the financials of the "big oil" companies and you'll see their profit margins are only around 6.5-7%, and that hasn't changed. (For a frame of reference, Apple's profit margin on the iPod is well into the 20% range.) So Exxon et al are not making any extra money. The retailers aren't making any extra money. So who's making the extra money? The nations of OPEC. They set the price per barrel. So the "oil men" you refer to as being greedy are not people with ties to eeeevil Halliburton and Exxon and BP, but the nations of OPEC.
Oh, and just a refresher from 7th grade sociology class: when demand increases but supply stays level, prices increase. China and India are going through a boost in their economy right now and their demand has soared, while the US stayed flat for a while during the early 2000's as we went through a recession that started in August 2000 and didn't start showing signs of relief until late '04/early '05. So global demand has increased, while global production has stayed flat. Yes, the price per barrel has gone up due to simple economics that a 7th grader could understand and explain more easily than someone who is too busy paying attention to conspiracy theories and Michael Moore to grasp the basic concepts of supply and demand.
But he is in it up to his neck for the same reason Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld are: he's an oil man. Nothing more and nothing less. Oil and oil shares are the only things he cares about and he's as happy as the rest of them to kill a few hundred or thousands (especially if they are foreigners) to get them.
Erm, you're guilty of logical fallacy, namely argumentum ad crumenam or "an appeal to wealth". Essentially it boils down to "so-and-so is rich, therefore my statement is correct." Your entire argument -- both points one and two -- are guilty of this.
Not to mention that your theory doesn't address the fact that we went after Afghanistan first, despite the fact that as time goes on, there are increasingamounts of evidence that Iraq was tied to 9/11 (if not also the original WTC bombing in 1993) and Saddam'sintent made him next on the War on Terror hit list, and rightly so. Oh, and a reminder: Afghanistan has no oil reserves. If this economic foundation argument of yours is to hold any water, explain that to me, please.
... it will be the perfect platform for running the Einstein Project on. For those who haven't heard of it, the Einstein Project is the Newton OS running in emulation on Linux PDAs, so you can ditch that klunky designed-for-the-desktop Windows OS and replace it with something better. Photos and more info here.
Apple did the right thing by switching to Intel. For all its crunchy 64-bit vector-processing goodness, the G5 was a niche product for IBM. Their bread and butter is now game consoles. They'll lose about a million processor sales per quarter, which they can easily make up for by concentrating on their core market: consoles. The equipment and personnel gets re-tasked to console chip development, and they don't even notice the blip on their balance sheet. They had their opportunity to provide processors at higher MHz and lower power (for laptops) and gave Apple the Heisman. Apple (rightly) walked.
I mean shit, how long could they sit there with their laptops throttled (thanks, Freescale) and the dual-proc dual-core G5s barely keeping up with the latest-and-greatest silicon coming out of Intel's fabs?
So now Apple can stop wasting time & breath fighting "the Megahertz Myth" and stop wasting resources developing their own mobos and interconnect chips and whatnot, and turn all that over to Intel. The EE's that used to work on mobos and interconnect chips can then be re-tasked to develop other cool gadgetry... like a home theater Mac mini, a Newton replacement, a killer cellphone, an iPod with 3D holographic display, teleportation device, etc.
Oh look-ee here! Another uh dem dagum Commies! Ma! Git da shotgun from outta da back winder of mah truck!
Out of all the people proclaiming the greatness of socialism that I've ever talked to, they've either A) Never lived in a socialist country, or B) Lived there but moved here because they wanted more opportunity. (Incidentally, the last group I find wildly amusing. "So you lived in _______?" "Yes!" "Aren't they socialist?" "Yes! It was wonderful! America should be more like that!" "Then why did you move here?" "I wanted more opportunities.")
Seriously, pinhead. If you think that socialism is "putting people first", then pack your bags and move to France. There, you can eat croissants and live a nice comfey lifestyle on the government dole while you look for work amongst the other poor schleps living in a country with an unemployment rate of over 12% and climbing.
Socialism is good only in theory. If you paid attention or read some history, you'd know this. But obviously that would confuse the two brain cells you have rattling around in that empty skull of yours.
Socialism putting people first. [snort] That's the funniest thing I've heard all week.
Just clarify - are you saying this is a good thing?
Hell no! I was just illustrating the reason for the work-work-work go-go-go lifestyle that has evolved here in the states. I fell into that trap for the first 5 years of my post-college career, and once I realized the problem I've been spending the past ten years correcting my mistake. Trust me when I say that I will ensure my kids don't make the same mistakes.
Socialism, communism... for all their minor differences, they're the same damn thing, and they both suck. The reason the common workplace environment is work-work-work go-go-go is because today in the land of capitalist pigs (of which I'm proud to be one,) everyone wants more and they want it now. "Sure I'm driving a 3-series Beemer, but I want to upgrade to the 5-series." No one is satisfied with what they have, and in America if you work hard you can get what you want now as opposed to saving for 10 years. If you don't want to work hard, if you want to be lazy and complacent, then be satisfied driving an 8-year-old beater and watching Friends reruns on basic cable on your non-TiVo'ed 20" CRT TV set. Otherwise, buckle up and work for it.
Things are different from just a few generations ago. They left work at work, but then again they were content to save for a few years to buy that new TV set in cash. Today, most people work hard to make enough money to pay off their debts, which continue to increase as they make more money. Kids ring up a few grand on a credit card right out of college because they want stuff and they want it now. Then their $12-an-hour job doesn't afford them the lifestyle they want with the credit card bill and all, so they work long hours to make more money to live better. They get more money and their credit card company raises the credit limit, which is promptly used buying more stuff. But now the bill is higher, so they have to work harder still to get back to the fun lifestyle again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat for 40 years.
What we need is to get rid of the socialism here in America, you twit! What's an incredible insult to human intelligence is that you think you know what you're talking about. First off, socialized healthcare has been a disaster everywhere it's been tried. Look at Canada. People there who have the bucks come to the US to get their surgeries done. England is no better off. Second, even in Communist states -- the so called "worker's paradise" -- there was (annd is) still a high amount of greed and corruption within organizations. Finally, if you knew a single thing about business, you'd know that the incentive for a company to treat its employees better than the shop down the street is because if all your employees leave to go work somewhere else, your company will fail. Kinda hard to stay in business without any employees.
It's naiive commentary and attitudes like yours that cause all the damn problems in this country. If you think socialism is so great, why don't you move to a socialist country?
Haven't heard anyone mention this yet. With the standing water and humid conditions, mosquitos will be breeding like crazy.
There are other posts about footwear and hardhats and gloves and whatnot, so I'll throw in my two cents with what else I'd take:
* Assorted shovels
* Assorted prybars
* Strong rope (50' of kernmantel climber's rope ought to do)
* Many, many, many water containers. Filled. With the heat and vigorous activity, plan on 10 quarts
per day per person. Well-stocked military surplus stores should have hard plastic 5-gallon jugs.
* Speaking of surplus stores, you may want to pick up a web belt, some canteens & canteen carriers, and some accessory pouches for holding stuff.
* Large zip ties
* Waterproof flashlight and a couple sets of batteries. I like the 4 D-cell Maglites, myself. Also may want to consider a headlamp in addition to a "normal" flashlight.
* Wet wipes. Forget the soap, you won't be showering, and it's a waste of water anyway.
* Duct tape. 'nuff said.
* Gasoline. Enough to get your vehicle out of the disaster area to a place you can buy more. Guard your gas supply in your vehicle and in any containers as if it was gold.
* Clothes made with a durable, breathable fabric, preferably ripstop. Oh, and the more pockets the better.
* High-energy "handy foods" like beef jerky, trail mix, and protein bars that won't melt, require no preparation and no
refrigeration.
* A sturdy lockback knife or three. A swiss army knife is good to have stashed away in a pocket, but you'll want a good sized (3-4" blade) lockback for serious cutting chores.
* FRS/GMRS radios and either a shitton of batteries or an auto charger.
Gee, thanks for making all of us graphic artists (and hence a load of Mac users) seem like idiots. Great stereotype.
The fact of the matter is there are idiot users regardless of their platform and regardless of their profession, not just Mac users, and not just graphic artits. So it'd be nice if you stopped generalizing and stereotyping, because it makes you seem like the moron.
One vote per person, majority rules... sounds fair. Sounds American. But the framers of the Constitution were students of history, and from history comes this reminder: pure democracy it failed in Greece, it failed in Rome, and it almost brought down America under the Articles of Confederation.
It's all checks and balances. You've got the people's representatives in Congress (the House) balanced by the state's representatives (Senate). If the president was elected by sheer majority vote only, winning, in essence, only one victory (the popular vote of the people), that would render the Senate's check on the House null and void. Just as Congress is a representative democracy, so is the election of the President.
Madison was overtly in support of states' rights. We have a "federal" government not a "national" government because Madison (and Jefferson, and a bunch of the other delegates) saw the government as a federation of the states. So the electoral college system is both a manner of checks and balances, but its also a means by which the states elect the president.
The entire purpose of the electoral college was to ensure that the President has broad support across the land, rather than simply support in only the big cities with large populations. And while big cities attract wealth, they also are home to more poor and more who are on welfare. (How many welfare recipients as a percentage of population, do you think there are in Boise as opposed to New York City?) As a result, a system whereby "majority rules" is a recipe for socialism: a candidate would only have to appeal to the poor and uneducated to win; want to keep winning? Keep the poor and uneducated poor and uneducated, keep them on the government dole (welfare) and they'll keep voting you into office as long as they're getting their welfare check. (Ask yourself this: Which party pushes the hardest for social programs, taxing "the rich", and redistribution of wealth?) If you look at a map, color-coded county by county, of the 2000 election, Bush had broad appeal across the country... Gore had pockets of appeal in high-population centers. A straight popular vote would mean a candidate would just have to hit the northeast, the west coast, and a couple states in the south; then the votes of people in states like Idaho and Nebraska wouldn't matter.
It all boils down to this: the founding fathers were smart enough to learn from history and they implemented the electoral college as a system to prevent the US from plunging into socialism or communism. (Not that the left isn't trying its hardest.)
As for the two-party system.... presuming a Bush victory this year, I predict we'll have three major parties by 2020. By 2012, the Democratic party will begin to splinter as fractional radical groups (like MoveOn.org) become disillusioned with the "ineffectiveness" of the party and pull away. Since these special interest groups that the Democrats have been playing to for the past 30 years don't normally play nice with each other, the party will not hold together as we know it today.
The Republican party will grow more moderate as figures like Giuliani and McCain come into the forefront. Hard-line conservatives, fundamental Constitutionalists, and NeoCons will start going towards the Libertarian party unless they can "anchor" the party and prevent the Giuliani's and McCain's from gaining strong positions of power. Younger moderate and conservative Democrats will jump ship and join forces with the more moderate-leaning Republican party, which will win landslide victories for about four more presidential election cycles after 2012. By this point the more "mainstream" Republican party will see challengers on both sides as strength in the Libertarian party grows, and the kook fringe (made up of MoveOn.org followers, the Hollywood left, etc) grows on the other side.
I average a total of about 35-50 spams a day across 6 email accounts. Mail.app's built-in junk filtering got it down to maybe 3 a day. When I added in JunkMatcher, it's now down to about 3 a week. And you can't beat the price!
Of course, having half of those accounts on an Xserve G5 running OS X Server 10.3.3 and referencing about a half-dozen blacklists helps, too.:)
First off, the handwriting recognition is fabulous. And the assistant is just too cool for words. Write "lunch next Wednesday with Connie" and it'll ask you to pick which Connie is in your address book if there's more than one, then schedule an appointment next Wednesday from noon to 1pm with her. Make a long to-do list of things like "Call Jim". As you're going through your list ticking things off, highlight "Call Jim" and activate the Assistant, which will ask which Jim you want to call from your address book and dial the number through the built-in speaker or PCMCIA modem card, then pull up a call log app with call timer and notepad. Speech synthesis. Audio recording and playback. I've got my Newt MP2100 synced to OS X's iCal and Address Book already. (My wife has her's synced to Outlook at work.) I can connect it into any network (via ethernet or WiFi) and print directly to any networked printer, surf the net, or send an email. I can swap the network card for a modem card and fax or dial in to an ISP. The only problem with the Newton is its size: too big when you're not using it but just right when you are. I have a Palm Vx that I carry with me so I have quick access to phone numbers and (most importantly) my checkbook. But if it wasn't for the checkbook software, I would have ditched the Palm completely in favor of the Newt.
If anyone out there is looking for the best in PDAs, look into getting a MP2100 off eBay... they're only about $100. Once you add a WiFi card, ethernet card, modem card, large-capacity storage card, and a couple pieces of shareware, you'll spend about $250 total, and you'll never regret it. Matter of fact, you'll be wondering why the Newt -- which the last model, the MessagePad 2100, came out in 1997 -- can do so many things that Palms and PocketPCs can't, even today.
True, it's not easy being green. But after using both a Palm Vx and a Newton MessagePad 2100, while it's a bigger thing to cary around, there's no comparison... the Newton rocks.
These damn rumors pop up about every three to six months. Ever since the NeXT acquisition of Apple (or was it the Apple acquisition of NeXT? I always get that confusted:), the "OS X on Intel" rumors have run rampant. Of course, the fact that early developer releases of OS X a.k.a. Rhapsody ran on Intel hardware -- the the NeXTStep parent did -- only serves to perpetuate the myth.
There's three very good reasons that Apple won't release OS X on Intel: 1) Apple is a hardware company. They make the most revenue on hardware sales, not software sales. (Which probably explains the current lack of excruciatingly painful WinXP-like authentication for OS X.) 2) OS X has been heavily optimized for the AltiVec 128-bit SIMD vector processor on the G4. Without that optimization, it's a helluva lot slower, and I don't care how fast your Pentium or Athlon is running... vector processing is a whole other ballgame. 3) The majority of software would either not run at all or be severly broken by switching platforms. Most of the mainstream software for OS X is written in Carbon, the "migration environment". For those of you that don't know, OS X supports five software "environments": "Classic" (OS 9 running inside OS X), "Carbon" (Classic applications that have been tweaked to take advantage of most of OS X's Unix structure so they run native under OS X, but they haven't been completely rewritten), "Cocoa" (completely new Objective C apps, written in the NeXT-based OOP development tools), the terminal/command line applications, and the X Window apps (assuming you have some flavor of X installed on OS X, as it's not installed by Apple.) So, what happens to the Classic and Carbon apps if Apple switches to X86? They break. And what percentage of apps are Carbon apps right now? Oh, I'd venture to guess about 70%.
Telling application developers they have to re-code their software again, after telling them two years ago they'd have to re-code their software, is not a good way of making friends with the developers.
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I went to Cingular's site (partly because I'm already a Cingular subscriber.) And I didn't need a calculator to do the math:
crackberry = ($300 Crackberry with 2 yr contract) + ($200 4GB iPod nano) = $500
treo = ($400 Treo 750 with 2 yr contract) + ($200 4GB iPod nano) = $600
cing = ($400 Cingular 8525 with 2 yr contract) + ($200 4GB iPod nano) = $600
iphone1 = (4GB iPhone with 2 yr contract) = $500
iphone2 = (8GB iPhone with 2 yr contract) = $600
therefore:
crackberry = iphone1
crackberry [lessthan] iphone2
treo > iphone1
treo = iphone2
cing > iphone1
cing = iphone2
Then comes accessories like car chargers and USB cables -- which most people already have for their iPods -- that will increase the overall total cost of the other "smart" phones. Oh, and the iphone2 configuration, since it's 8GB in capacity, while equal in price to the Cingular and Treo smartphones, is actually the better deal.
Personally, I'm interested in getting an iPhone, but I have an issue with being too tied to my phone, which I currently use only minimally anyway. (less than 30 minutes per month.) I have about 6 people in my phone's memory, use my 60GB iPod photo for appointment reminders and contact lookup, and my Newton MessagePad 2100 for note taking. (In addition, I have plenty of extra space on the iPod that I frequently use it to shuttle & backup files from Point A to Point B.) For me, it works fine, so no need to upgrade. My wife, on the other hand, will probably be getting one.
Download a copy of Female Alert System. This lovely piece of software has kept me from going nuts trying to figure out why one day my wife is all over me and I can do no wrong, to the next day she wants nothing to do with me and I can do no right. Seriously, this little freeware from Heaven is a Godsend. All you do is plug in her last start date and cycle length and it calculates what mood she's in for any given day. Ridiculously accurate, so you know what days to suggest that you need to buy a new MacPro and 1TB RAID, and what days to "work late" (fragging.)
...is that Apple will sell even more iPods. Since they make more money on iPods than selling music anyway, their profits will get fatter, their stock price will go up, and my IRA will get bigger.
My guess is also that people will still use iTunes to manage the music that's on their iPod. And if people have to use something else to download their music, and then put it into iTunes anyway, my guess is also that the majority of people will stick with buying from the iTunes Store.
Ummmm..... the NYT publishing how we were tracking Osama bin Laden via his satellite phone comes to mind. And then there's the NSA wiretaps (which are completely legal, and there's precedent set by every administration since Carter). Seems like every time the US figures out a way to track/spy on terrorists, the NYT spills the info to the press. It's almost as if they want the terrorists to win.
I do agree with you, though, that there's not much that Apple would have to do to improve the Newt: give it about 4GB of flash memory, a faster processor, built-in Bluetooth, WiFi, and USB, and get the syncing working with iCal/Address Book/etc. Throw in a WebKit-based browser, QuickTime support, and a VGA video-out dongle and you're done. (And I only added the last two so that you can use it for presenting Keynote-created presentations on LCD projectors.)
And yes, I agree with keeping the screen monochrome so you can still power the thing with cheap AAs for 20 hours continuous.
The shift is in perception and not in real production or consumption (which is gradually increasing). That shift is caused by warmongering which makes people worry about supply without actually reducing it in reality.
Did you forget the hurricanes last year and how gas prices spiked then? Oh wait, I guess bush caused the hurricanes, too. My point is this: Regardless of the cause, whenever you're at a max production point (thus constraining supply) and demand is on the rise, *any* perceived negative influence on supply will cause a spike in price. Regardless of the market.... oil, fish, Xboxes, it doesn't matter. And the reason we're at a constrained supply point is because China and India have both increased demand. Duh.
Oil prices have gone up and oil company profits have gone with them. You are implying (nay: stating) that there is no connection. That is nonsense.
Let's see here.... oil companies' profit margins have remained constant over the past 15+ years, production costs have gone up, but they make more money. In essence, they make the same amount per gallon sold regardless of the price at the pump. Hmmm. I guess their profits couldn't be because they have increased number of gallons sold, could it? Oh heavens no. That would be too simplistic an explanation.
Which is why the CIA hired him
They tried to kill each other!
While back in the 1950's the CIA supported the Ba'athists, it did not "hire" Saddam directly. He was part of the overthrow plot, yes, but he was not a hired hitman. Neither was he "installed". And there is plenty of evidence -- like Richard Clarke's "boogie to Baghdad" assessment -- that shows they were not enemies. The recently translated tapes & documents seized from Saddam's palaces add further proof. So watch the History channel. Read a book. Or read this or these or this. But whatever you do, get educated before spouting off nonsense like this again.
maybe they outsource it to companies like Exxon and Haliburton. Most oil extraction in Venezuela, for example, is carried out by Exxon.
LOL I don't know where you get your information, but since I personally know several people who have worked in the oil & gas industry for 15+ years and who have spent time in the middle east I can tell you for a fact that oil extraction is not outsourced. Unlike what was portrayed in Clooney's bit-o-fiction Syriana, no western company owns or operates any facility in the Gulf. The majority are nationally-owned companies; the rest have a nationally-owned company as the major shareholder, meaning any outside company -- or country -- plays second-fiddle to the national interest. As for Venezuela.... their continued tax increases on the extraction companies mean companies like Exxon make about $10 per-barrel profit, which is the same as what they were making 10 years ago.
but in real life the price of oil has been fluctuating far more rapidly than a simplistic demand/supply model would allow
Then you don't understand supply and demand very well, do you? We spent about 15 years at an equilibrium price, so I can understand why you forgot some of the economics lessions. Like this one: When supply is at a maximum production point and demand is high, prices will fluctuate within the the envelope of elasticity when there is a perceived shift with suppliers or consumers. Look at Xbox 360 prices on eBay last Christmas. Look at current Alaskan salmon prices. Look at seafood market prices around Lent. Hell, look at any of the commodities markets. I could cite example after example. What's happening in the oil markets isn't anything new, nor is it anything out of the ordinary.
the US's insane support for Iran's hardliners
We're supporting those nuts? Riiiiiight. Don't know what news you've been watching, but time to come back to the really-real world: we've been at odds with Iran since the fall of the Shah in 1979. Or are you too young to remember the whole hostage crisis thing?
7th grade economics and 5th grade politics
Actually, I'm personally way beyond that, but I had to backtrack for you since you needed a refresher in the basics.
As for wealth.... you're oblivious to the fact that your argument does not and cannot support itself. Your argument goes something like: "Bush/Cheney/etc are doing all this to get rich." But they already are rich. "Well, they're doing this to get more rich." Why do they need to get more rich? They have plenty, and give bunches of it away to charity anyway. "Because they're greedy. And they want to help their buddies!" Aren't their buddies already rich, too? "But they want to get more rich!" and on and on and on.
Saddam was not a "US-installed secular dictator". If yo so much as watch the History channel you'd know that he was part of the Ba'ath party revolutionaries, and has spent his entire adult life involved in the violent seizing of power.
Osama and Saddam did not hate each other, and they are far from "incompatible." While not exactly the bestest of buddies, there was a common enemy: The Great Satan, a.k.a. the US of A. I could provide you with a laundry list of links confirming this fact so you could go educate yourself and not come across like a moron, but you'd just call them "spurious" and ignore them anyway. Geeze, you left-heads are all alike... even use the same words like "spurious" and refuse to admit that anything you say has any semblance of being incorrect. Arguing with one of you is like arguing with all of you.
You need to lay off the Michael Moore conspiracy theory kool-aid. It's rotting your brain. Go do some research for yourself as opposed to blindly eating whatever Fat Boy and his pals in the MSM are feeding you.
But profit for whom? Look at the financials of the "big oil" companies and you'll see their profit margins are only around 6.5-7%, and that hasn't changed. (For a frame of reference, Apple's profit margin on the iPod is well into the 20% range.) So Exxon et al are not making any extra money. The retailers aren't making any extra money. So who's making the extra money? The nations of OPEC. They set the price per barrel. So the "oil men" you refer to as being greedy are not people with ties to eeeevil Halliburton and Exxon and BP, but the nations of OPEC.
Oh, and just a refresher from 7th grade sociology class: when demand increases but supply stays level, prices increase. China and India are going through a boost in their economy right now and their demand has soared, while the US stayed flat for a while during the early 2000's as we went through a recession that started in August 2000 and didn't start showing signs of relief until late '04/early '05. So global demand has increased, while global production has stayed flat. Yes, the price per barrel has gone up due to simple economics that a 7th grader could understand and explain more easily than someone who is too busy paying attention to conspiracy theories and Michael Moore to grasp the basic concepts of supply and demand.
Erm, you're guilty of logical fallacy, namely argumentum ad crumenam or "an appeal to wealth". Essentially it boils down to "so-and-so is rich, therefore my statement is correct." Your entire argument -- both points one and two -- are guilty of this.
Not to mention that your theory doesn't address the fact that we went after Afghanistan first, despite the fact that as time goes on, there are increasing amounts of evidence that Iraq was tied to 9/11 (if not also the original WTC bombing in 1993) and Saddam's intent made him next on the War on Terror hit list, and rightly so. Oh, and a reminder: Afghanistan has no oil reserves. If this economic foundation argument of yours is to hold any water, explain that to me, please.
... it will be the perfect platform for running the Einstein Project on. For those who haven't heard of it, the Einstein Project is the Newton OS running in emulation on Linux PDAs, so you can ditch that klunky designed-for-the-desktop Windows OS and replace it with something better. Photos and more info here.
Apple did the right thing by switching to Intel. For all its crunchy 64-bit vector-processing goodness, the G5 was a niche product for IBM. Their bread and butter is now game consoles. They'll lose about a million processor sales per quarter, which they can easily make up for by concentrating on their core market: consoles. The equipment and personnel gets re-tasked to console chip development, and they don't even notice the blip on their balance sheet. They had their opportunity to provide processors at higher MHz and lower power (for laptops) and gave Apple the Heisman. Apple (rightly) walked.
I mean shit, how long could they sit there with their laptops throttled (thanks, Freescale) and the dual-proc dual-core G5s barely keeping up with the latest-and-greatest silicon coming out of Intel's fabs?
So now Apple can stop wasting time & breath fighting "the Megahertz Myth" and stop wasting resources developing their own mobos and interconnect chips and whatnot, and turn all that over to Intel. The EE's that used to work on mobos and interconnect chips can then be re-tasked to develop other cool gadgetry... like a home theater Mac mini, a Newton replacement, a killer cellphone, an iPod with 3D holographic display, teleportation device, etc.
Oh look-ee here! Another uh dem dagum Commies! Ma! Git da shotgun from outta da back winder of mah truck!
Out of all the people proclaiming the greatness of socialism that I've ever talked to, they've either A) Never lived in a socialist country, or B) Lived there but moved here because they wanted more opportunity. (Incidentally, the last group I find wildly amusing. "So you lived in _______?" "Yes!" "Aren't they socialist?" "Yes! It was wonderful! America should be more like that!" "Then why did you move here?" "I wanted more opportunities.")
Seriously, pinhead. If you think that socialism is "putting people first", then pack your bags and move to France. There, you can eat croissants and live a nice comfey lifestyle on the government dole while you look for work amongst the other poor schleps living in a country with an unemployment rate of over 12% and climbing.
Socialism is good only in theory. If you paid attention or read some history, you'd know this. But obviously that would confuse the two brain cells you have rattling around in that empty skull of yours.
Socialism putting people first. [snort] That's the funniest thing I've heard all week.
Socialism, communism... for all their minor differences, they're the same damn thing, and they both suck. The reason the common workplace environment is work-work-work go-go-go is because today in the land of capitalist pigs (of which I'm proud to be one,) everyone wants more and they want it now. "Sure I'm driving a 3-series Beemer, but I want to upgrade to the 5-series." No one is satisfied with what they have, and in America if you work hard you can get what you want now as opposed to saving for 10 years. If you don't want to work hard, if you want to be lazy and complacent, then be satisfied driving an 8-year-old beater and watching Friends reruns on basic cable on your non-TiVo'ed 20" CRT TV set. Otherwise, buckle up and work for it.
Things are different from just a few generations ago. They left work at work, but then again they were content to save for a few years to buy that new TV set in cash. Today, most people work hard to make enough money to pay off their debts, which continue to increase as they make more money. Kids ring up a few grand on a credit card right out of college because they want stuff and they want it now. Then their $12-an-hour job doesn't afford them the lifestyle they want with the credit card bill and all, so they work long hours to make more money to live better. They get more money and their credit card company raises the credit limit, which is promptly used buying more stuff. But now the bill is higher, so they have to work harder still to get back to the fun lifestyle again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat for 40 years.
What we need is to get rid of the socialism here in America, you twit! What's an incredible insult to human intelligence is that you think you know what you're talking about. First off, socialized healthcare has been a disaster everywhere it's been tried. Look at Canada. People there who have the bucks come to the US to get their surgeries done. England is no better off. Second, even in Communist states -- the so called "worker's paradise" -- there was (annd is) still a high amount of greed and corruption within organizations. Finally, if you knew a single thing about business, you'd know that the incentive for a company to treat its employees better than the shop down the street is because if all your employees leave to go work somewhere else, your company will fail. Kinda hard to stay in business without any employees.
It's naiive commentary and attitudes like yours that cause all the damn problems in this country. If you think socialism is so great, why don't you move to a socialist country?
There are other posts about footwear and hardhats and gloves and whatnot, so I'll throw in my two cents with what else I'd take:
* Assorted shovels
* Assorted prybars
* Strong rope (50' of kernmantel climber's rope ought to do)
* Many, many, many water containers. Filled. With the heat and vigorous activity, plan on 10 quarts per day per person. Well-stocked military surplus stores should have hard plastic 5-gallon jugs.
* Speaking of surplus stores, you may want to pick up a web belt, some canteens & canteen carriers, and some accessory pouches for holding stuff.
* Large zip ties
* Waterproof flashlight and a couple sets of batteries. I like the 4 D-cell Maglites, myself. Also may want to consider a headlamp in addition to a "normal" flashlight.
* Wet wipes. Forget the soap, you won't be showering, and it's a waste of water anyway.
* Duct tape. 'nuff said.
* Gasoline. Enough to get your vehicle out of the disaster area to a place you can buy more. Guard your gas supply in your vehicle and in any containers as if it was gold.
* Clothes made with a durable, breathable fabric, preferably ripstop. Oh, and the more pockets the better.
* High-energy "handy foods" like beef jerky, trail mix, and protein bars that won't melt, require no preparation and no refrigeration.
* A sturdy lockback knife or three. A swiss army knife is good to have stashed away in a pocket, but you'll want a good sized (3-4" blade) lockback for serious cutting chores.
* FRS/GMRS radios and either a shitton of batteries or an auto charger.
Hope this helps. Good luck and Godspeed.
The fact of the matter is there are idiot users regardless of their platform and regardless of their profession, not just Mac users, and not just graphic artits. So it'd be nice if you stopped generalizing and stereotyping, because it makes you seem like the moron.
Which you very well might be.
Do you wish I were kidding?
'nuff said.
It's all checks and balances. You've got the people's representatives in Congress (the House) balanced by the state's representatives (Senate). If the president was elected by sheer majority vote only, winning, in essence, only one victory (the popular vote of the people), that would render the Senate's check on the House null and void. Just as Congress is a representative democracy, so is the election of the President.
Madison was overtly in support of states' rights. We have a "federal" government not a "national" government because Madison (and Jefferson, and a bunch of the other delegates) saw the government as a federation of the states. So the electoral college system is both a manner of checks and balances, but its also a means by which the states elect the president.
The entire purpose of the electoral college was to ensure that the President has broad support across the land, rather than simply support in only the big cities with large populations. And while big cities attract wealth, they also are home to more poor and more who are on welfare. (How many welfare recipients as a percentage of population, do you think there are in Boise as opposed to New York City?) As a result, a system whereby "majority rules" is a recipe for socialism: a candidate would only have to appeal to the poor and uneducated to win; want to keep winning? Keep the poor and uneducated poor and uneducated, keep them on the government dole (welfare) and they'll keep voting you into office as long as they're getting their welfare check. (Ask yourself this: Which party pushes the hardest for social programs, taxing "the rich", and redistribution of wealth?) If you look at a map, color-coded county by county, of the 2000 election, Bush had broad appeal across the country... Gore had pockets of appeal in high-population centers. A straight popular vote would mean a candidate would just have to hit the northeast, the west coast, and a couple states in the south; then the votes of people in states like Idaho and Nebraska wouldn't matter.
It all boils down to this: the founding fathers were smart enough to learn from history and they implemented the electoral college as a system to prevent the US from plunging into socialism or communism. (Not that the left isn't trying its hardest.)
As for the two-party system.... presuming a Bush victory this year, I predict we'll have three major parties by 2020. By 2012, the Democratic party will begin to splinter as fractional radical groups (like MoveOn.org) become disillusioned with the "ineffectiveness" of the party and pull away. Since these special interest groups that the Democrats have been playing to for the past 30 years don't normally play nice with each other, the party will not hold together as we know it today.
The Republican party will grow more moderate as figures like Giuliani and McCain come into the forefront. Hard-line conservatives, fundamental Constitutionalists, and NeoCons will start going towards the Libertarian party unless they can "anchor" the party and prevent the Giuliani's and McCain's from gaining strong positions of power. Younger moderate and conservative Democrats will jump ship and join forces with the more moderate-leaning Republican party, which will win landslide victories for about four more presidential election cycles after 2012. By this point the more "mainstream" Republican party will see challengers on both sides as strength in the Libertarian party grows, and the kook fringe (made up of MoveOn.org followers, the Hollywood left, etc) grows on the other side.
Dude, you need to download and install JunkMatcher. It works awesome in compliment to Mail.app's built-in filter, and it's free as in beer.
Of course, having half of those accounts on an Xserve G5 running OS X Server 10.3.3 and referencing about a half-dozen blacklists helps, too. :)
First off, the handwriting recognition is fabulous. And the assistant is just too cool for words. Write "lunch next Wednesday with Connie" and it'll ask you to pick which Connie is in your address book if there's more than one, then schedule an appointment next Wednesday from noon to 1pm with her. Make a long to-do list of things like "Call Jim". As you're going through your list ticking things off, highlight "Call Jim" and activate the Assistant, which will ask which Jim you want to call from your address book and dial the number through the built-in speaker or PCMCIA modem card, then pull up a call log app with call timer and notepad. Speech synthesis. Audio recording and playback. I've got my Newt MP2100 synced to OS X's iCal and Address Book already. (My wife has her's synced to Outlook at work.) I can connect it into any network (via ethernet or WiFi) and print directly to any networked printer, surf the net, or send an email. I can swap the network card for a modem card and fax or dial in to an ISP. The only problem with the Newton is its size: too big when you're not using it but just right when you are. I have a Palm Vx that I carry with me so I have quick access to phone numbers and (most importantly) my checkbook. But if it wasn't for the checkbook software, I would have ditched the Palm completely in favor of the Newt.
If anyone out there is looking for the best in PDAs, look into getting a MP2100 off eBay... they're only about $100. Once you add a WiFi card, ethernet card, modem card, large-capacity storage card, and a couple pieces of shareware, you'll spend about $250 total, and you'll never regret it. Matter of fact, you'll be wondering why the Newt -- which the last model, the MessagePad 2100, came out in 1997 -- can do so many things that Palms and PocketPCs can't, even today.
FWIW the Newton community is very active and passionate, and there's a lot of support for OS X and iApps, as well as loads of software. Oh, and if you want developer tools, there's plenty to pick from.
True, it's not easy being green. But after using both a Palm Vx and a Newton MessagePad 2100, while it's a bigger thing to cary around, there's no comparison... the Newton rocks.
According to this article Apple switched from LG Electronics to Hon Hai Precision Industry as the manufacturer of BOTH the 15" and 17" iMacs.
[sigh] Same FUD, different day.
There's three very good reasons that Apple won't release OS X on Intel:
1) Apple is a hardware company. They make the most revenue on hardware sales, not software sales. (Which probably explains the current lack of excruciatingly painful WinXP-like authentication for OS X.)
2) OS X has been heavily optimized for the AltiVec 128-bit SIMD vector processor on the G4. Without that optimization, it's a helluva lot slower, and I don't care how fast your Pentium or Athlon is running... vector processing is a whole other ballgame.
3) The majority of software would either not run at all or be severly broken by switching platforms. Most of the mainstream software for OS X is written in Carbon, the "migration environment". For those of you that don't know, OS X supports five software "environments": "Classic" (OS 9 running inside OS X), "Carbon" (Classic applications that have been tweaked to take advantage of most of OS X's Unix structure so they run native under OS X, but they haven't been completely rewritten), "Cocoa" (completely new Objective C apps, written in the NeXT-based OOP development tools), the terminal/command line applications, and the X Window apps (assuming you have some flavor of X installed on OS X, as it's not installed by Apple.) So, what happens to the Classic and Carbon apps if Apple switches to X86? They break. And what percentage of apps are Carbon apps right now? Oh, I'd venture to guess about 70%.
Telling application developers they have to re-code their software again, after telling them two years ago they'd have to re-code their software, is not a good way of making friends with the developers.