For what its worth, Apple shipped Unix for the mac in the 80s, calling it AUX. It had the Mac UI, I believe.
My (dim) memory says that it could run Mac apps as well, so I'm not quite sure why they didn't decide to make this the underpinnings of the "the Macintosh" back then-- the 90s sure would have been different if they had!
I suspect they didn't out of concern for newbie users.
And when the software provides better value compared to closed source software, the market moves in that direction fairly quickly.
Linux in the server space and Apache are great examples of this. We've come a long way in 10 years.
The free market encourages both to exist, and values them fairly, based on their utility value-- it really isn't an "either or" situation. both models will continue to succeed.
Proprietary software has to quickly move to the innovative areas and get out of the commodity areas... because open source will quickly take over anything that is commodity software (such as OS, web servers, web browsers, and eventually, OFFICE Apps) IF you want to charge cash, you provide extra value to justify it.
Where the zero marginal cost of software has the most impact is in the broadest areas-- which become commodities. Things like high end compositing engines, will continue to provide value that is difficult to duplicate for some period, and then they will become open source.
But the free market model covers all of this if you think in terms of value, not cash. The problem is so many are so anti-hum^H^H^H corporate that they have started to think that profit is a four letter word.
When profit is what we all do when we use and support an open source product to greater benefit than its proprietary counterpart. And when we use proprietary products to solve a problem that was expensive and previously unsolvable, we also profit-- our productivity goes up even though we paid for the software when we weren't before (Because it didn't exist.)
This "basic proposition" you talk of does NOT EXIST. Its a basic proposition of many leftists...
But economics is about value, NOT CASH. People are not failing free market theory when they value things other than cash! That's just propaganda and spin to try and undermine free market theory.
The pricing of free market theory takes these non-cash values into account. People pay more, for instance, for a hotel room where they can get peace and quiet-- they are not getting physical return for that extra investment, but they ARE getting value. So a cabin by the lake is not "gouging" people as leftists would say, nor are people ignoring efficient market by paying more for a smaller room. They are just valuing the peace and quiet.
That value exists only in cash is the falsehood I'm fighting.
That someone will exchange something (like labor) that can be exchanged for cash for something that is "free" (like linux) only supports my statement. but it also supports the "cash" position in that labor is a form of cash.
So, either cash is everywhere and nothing is free- not even linux-- or you include any form of value as value (and linux is still not free.)
Taxes are general levies allocated without regard for the value of goods and services received.
So, there is no justification for taxes? There's no value delivered for them?
I think you just made my point!
Something like social security is a charge for later delivery of value.
This is as true as paying a slot machine is investing for future delivery of value. social security is bankrupt, and it is irresponsibly run-- you are never getting your money back, and what money you MIGHT get back is far less than what you have put in.
You can go buy private annuities that pay out like social security, the only difference is that they have to be honest with the money (no dipping in and spending it on toys as the government regularly does.) Social security is essentially a fraud.
Taxes are a way of collectively charging a population for collectively received benefits. It is not an inherently coercive method of finance.
Except that it is BY DEFINITION coercive. You don't pay, they force you to. You refuse, they put you in jail. You resist arrest, they have guns.
Taxes are the forced extration of value from people against their will, and NOT TO THEIR BENEFIT. Ok, so you get some benefit, but that is a tiny proportion in value to to the taxes you pay.
By the way, who said only the government could provide armed defense, roads and other services? Any private company could provide these things, or privately entered groups of people.
Everything the government does it does incompetantly, or at inordinant expense for the value recieved.
That they do deliver some trivial amount of value does not justify all of the taxes, only a trivial amount of them.
I wasn't meaning to denigrate the paper. I was expressing my opnions, which I expect are along the lines of the paper--- I just think that the problem is too many people think "free market" is all about money and that there is no other from of value. (I call these people leftists.)
I thought I said there were idiots calling themselves libertarins. That I find no unlibertrian points to the Libertarian platform, does not mean that all those calling themselves Libertarians are really so, (and not idiots.)
We can debate the relative percentages of idiots calling themselves all kinds of things, but my main point in responding is to say that I am not disputing the paper, I'm merely saying that it shouldn't be that radical of a finding.
Its only dispelling something that was poor thinking to begin with.
My only prejudice is to figure von Mises is worth reading.
I know of no difference between Libertarians and libertarians. Except that some people calling themselves libertarians are idiots, but that's to be expected. There are even objectivists who support Microsoft (thus violating objectivist morality.)
That people may have built financial models that don't account for open source is not an issue-- it simply means that the models may not be correctly applied, and are appropriate only to situations where value is only represented by cash. Hence using the word financial is appropriate.
But the free market is a free market of value (not cash), and open source fits right in. And that was my point.
The error you, and many others make, is confusing "prices" with "Value"
Free software has value, even though its free.
To claim that the free market is only about pricing things in terms of CASH is false. Pricing includes value, and everything that goes into a transaction-- labor, for instance.
By your theory, every worker is getting a free ride because they put no money in and get money out.
Free Market Economics is not about pricing of cash, its about pricing in terms of value. To pretend that "only profits mater" to people is stupid -- a huge profit is pointless if you end up in jail, and thus fraud is rather rare in a free market economy.
Monopolists MORE OFTEN emerge in regulated markets-- the government creates them. YEs, in an unregulated market, they can emerge, but tehy cannot survive for very long.
To say that people developing open source software are not motivated by profits is to lie-- either about them, or the definition of "profit" which is to "receive value"... Things other than cash have vale- even to capitalists.
I would hate to know what you were doing to get taxes that high. The average family in the United States pays between 20-25% of their income to taxes.
THis is simply not true. The average family pays that much in INCOME TAXES ALONE. When you add Sales taxes (%8) car taxes, STATE TAXES (say %10), gas taxes, Social Security (%16) Medicair (dunno) you easily get to %50 for the average family.
Hell, add sales tax and social security to %25 and you're already in the %40... not including the property taxes you have to pay and the phone taxes you have to pay (%12 roughly), etc. etc. etc.
Pretending that income tax is the only tax you have to pay is dishonest.
s we have seen from recent corporate scandals, consumer often have a very hard time obtaining accurate information about products they would like to purchase.
I love it how leftists consider "Fraud" to be the natural state of the freemarket.
FRAUD IS FRAUD. It is illegal, and thus the only question is if it is being prosecuted enough.
And, as I pointed out, even despite the Microsoft effect, the freemarket is beating them. Not financially yet, but technologically and mindshare wise. Non-MS operating systems are the fastest growing, and apache seems pretty stable with over %50 marketshare. Did you just not read that part?
You're an idiot. What I said was that the standard configuration G4 is $3,000. Ok, its $2,999. Quote from the Apple store this morning. Yes, you can get a $4,000 BTO machine. You can get at $5,000 BTO machine if you want.
But the idea that the standard Mac is a $5,000 computer is absurd, and just a continuation of the myth that macs are overpriced.
My point was that x86s don't run at full speed and most people ignore that fact when comparing them to powerbooks-- its yet another reason that the powerbooks are much much MUCH faster computers and better deals since the prices are the same.
You want to us a 5 button mouse iwht your powerbook? Feel free-- you can use the one you already have if its USB.
On the road, however, you can't carry a mouse on any laptop, and so you're going to change your formfactor... and the tibook pad works very well. (Better than the pds on some pc laptops I've tried)
I just think its a silly thing to say you're not buying one because of the mouse button. If its price then you're not buying a laptop at all because of price, cause the Macs are the same price as PCs.
Oh, and you can get used powerbooks, even used tibooks, for less than a grand. They hold their value well.
If you think an iBook is too expensive, don't buy a new one. There are great macs out there for $500 that are still better than the new PCs you can get for the same price (Remember you don't get something for nothin.)
And as to being intolerant- -the "two button mouse" issue was laid to rest in, what, 1983? Its a scientific question and it has been asnwered. That you flamed for apple not including a two button mouse shows either your ignorance or your bullheadedness at defying the *FACT* that second mice buttons slow people down.
Sorry, if you didn't know that-- its one of the standard issue, mac Myths that pc zeolots trot out, and so I gave the standard issue response.
The parent post is not flamebait. THIS is flamebait-- you fucking asshole stupid idiot moderating fucks who couldn't think your way out of a paper bag don't deserve to live, let alone reproduce, let alone moderate comments on slashdot.
This site increasingly looses its utility because there are too few actual thinking humnans aboard and far too many goosestepping idiot pc nazis.
Yeah, any time you point out that the macintosh doesn't suck, you're engaging in "flamebait". Sheesh. Not to long ago I had a post that was both +5 and "flamebait".
Metamoderation needs more teeth to clean out the gene pool, you fuckwads.
Your information, your life, it has NO value. Go kill yourself.
Even a 700MHz pentium will get its ass kicked by a 667MHz PowerPC-- and even under emulation the exceesive speed of the powerpc will still make it better to run it on the Powerbook than on a pc natively.
I'm not brainwashed-- you are. I simply know processor design and know that a PC running off of battery cuts the clock rate to 1/3, 1/4 or 1/6th the normal clock rate.
Or, maybe you can run yours almost at full speed-- and get almost ZERO battery life, which of course isn't quite fair because the Apple will still get a long, normal, basttery life and kick its ass performance wise-- just not by as much.
Oh, and piss off on the mouse issue- that dog won't hunt. This is science here, not your opinion. Multibutton mice slow people down. ITs a fact. Deal with it.
You wouldn't, I was just giving an example-- that if you require PC specific software, you're still better off getting a mac and running under emulation when it comes to laptops.
The performance hit you take with office is NOTHING like the performance hit you take on a PC when you unplug it from the wall...
On a PC laptop, they cut the clock rate to 1/3 of the normal clock rate to save battery power!
But the powerbook will still kick its ass in emulation.
What you're forgetting is that under battery power intel machines don't run at full clock speed, so your full clock speed cpu comparisons aren't correct.
Under battery power the cut the clock speed to 1/3 or 14th or 1/6th of normal, and cut performance too... because the intel processor is so poorly designed that it can't me made in a way that doesn't waste a lot of battery power.
PowerPC laptops run at full speed under battery power.
Open source is the definition of Market Economics. It does not need its own theory- it proves the Marekt theory in the most divergent context imaginable.
If you have an idea and you open source it, you get free engineering. People contribute their engineering and get the utility of yours and others in response. This is a free exchange of value in a free market.
IF your terms suck, or you change direction in mid stream, the others are free to leave your project and start their own, or go along with you if they like your direction.
Linux is a consistant linus kernel because people like linus's direction-- not because he "owns" it. That is direct market feed back to linus.
If you are selling your product to people who are contributing nothing but money to the process, and are just using it, then you are in the traditional software model. but Open source works here as well-- you can incorporate open source into your product and leverage others work to make more money off of your work. At the same time, the MARKET FORCES (not the GPL) will force you to contribute your improvements back to the community. And finally, you're not profiting unfairly from others work because the others contributed freely, and were compensated... and also can sell the results in the market place against you, so if your product is PURELY reselling open source, then you'll loose the inevitable price war-- its hard to beat free.
If, however, you actually add value to the product, on top of the open source, then you CAN charge for that value and everybody wins-- your customer gets a better product with more features and testing than you could otherwise do yourself, the other os developers get the benefit of your improvements and you get more money for selling a better product that cost you less to develop.
This is all free market economics.
The differnce between open source (free market) and communism is that under communism you are forced to work for the state against your will. Here in america, we are %50 forced to work for the state against your will, but they cleverly let us work for private companies and only took the product of half our work in taxes (fees, etc. And yes, last time I did my taxes, my total payments to the state were over %50, and I'm in a medium tax bracket.)
Even with the GPL, however, you are not compelled to work for the "State"... you can choose to not use the GPL for your code, or go make code to replace whats' in the GPL, or just use the gPL code and not change it. ITs a free market of licenses.
Since the government isn't (Yet) regulating software, the emergence of the open source movement proves that free markets work-- whenever one company gets to monopolistic, under free market theory, competitors emerge. Lots of competitors have emerged to Microsoft, but Open Source is the first one to really sustain a battle and change the terms of the war.
As long as the state doesn't mandate Microsoft control (As they may wit palladium) the free market will prevail and the products that offer the most utility value will succeed. For a long time Microsoft was able to distort the market with anti-market means, and also provide sufficent value to have locked up much of the market--- a great example of the market under a lot of stress.
But the emergence of the free market, the resurgence of a variety of MS competitors- from Sun to Apple to IBM to me, shows that the free market does work-- even with the governments help for microsoft, the market is beating them.
Not financially right now, but in terms of brainshare and technology, MS is currently loosing. In order to win, or even survive, they will have to deliver better value for their prices... and since open source software is free, the competition is stiff.
So, no, there isn't a new theory needed-- The Free market works and has been validated, yet again, by opensource. (So stop voting republican or democrat and become a libertarian already.)
This is silly. First off, the URL is only valid for 15 minutes or so.
Secondly, it is such an easy fix, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it isn't already fixed and implemented. All they have to do is check the ip address of the machine making the request, or move to cookies for session info. Or, better yet, go to SSL.
I can understand people being pissed about having to pay for,Mac-- people are cheap SOBs in general. Including me. They misexecuted this one.
But to have the highest moded post in this discussion being a straight out bash calling for Apple to "wake up" is absurd- and ignores the fact that they have long been delivering the best value for the money of any computer maker out there. They don't charge for iTunes,($30 worth), iMovie ($20 worth to me), Quicktime ($20 worth to me - I get pro features by writing my own player, the codecs are worth $20 to me easily.) iCal or iSync, $25 and $5 respectively. Mail.app, $25, Deve environment is worth $300, Sherlock3 is worth $30, iDVD $40 worth..... so in a sense, they've already paid for my first seven years of.Mac by giving me software worth that much *to me*. And I didn't even include iPhoto, or the FCP and Cinema tools discounts that I get for being a Mac user.
If I'd had to buy that software retail it would have cost more than the values I've put down for it.
If they continue to deliver free apps,and add value to the one's already out there -- something they've shown a willingness to do, then I continue to come out ahead.
And to top it all off, if I wanted to, I didn't HAVE to pay for.Mac.
The upgrade price of jaguar for current 10 users is a bit annoying, though. They add a lot and I understand why they're charging... but it should be $70 if you've already bought the box retail, as I have. (But, its easy for me to say since, as a developer, they'll send it to me anyway. Course that cost me $500, but this is just another $129 discount I'm getting, on top of the $2,000 in other discounts I've already gotten.)
Apple treats its people well. Cheapscates will always whine when you try to charge for something that was free...while they happily use iTunes and don't pay for it and give it no value.
Thats one downside to opensource-- its played into the pricing psychology discovered long ago. People will value something based on what you're asking for it. Ask $700 for a piece of software and they'll think its a great deal if they get it for $500. Ask $500 for the SAME SOFTWARE and they'll think its too expensive nad your sales are lower.
Give away software for free, or internet services for free, and nobody pays for them-- which is why nobody's got a successful subscription service on the net (except for a couple situations.)
Apple thought the added value of growing the userbase would offset the costs-- but it didn't, the costs were absurd, and so they are solving hte problem. Much as I hate to pay for.Mac, even though I'm getting a great deal at $50 and have lots of free software to balance it out, I would rather have them do this than have them eliminate the service.
You ahve the option-- go buy an external mouse if you want to slow yourself down.
But to say you're not seriously looking at an ibook because it has only has one mouse button is silly. It doesn't even need that mouse button.
default mapping would not solve the problem-- you'd still be slowed down when you have to stop and think about which mouse button to use. Course you don't think you stop and think, but you do- your mind just ignores that it had to stop.
Its unfortunate that so many people are ignorant about basic CHI science.
This is the silliest reason not to buy a TiBook I've ever heard.
You should buy it. you'll quickly discover that you don't need the extra buttons and the machine works fine without them.
The idea that you need more than one button is a false one, it simply isn't true, and you only think you do because you've been using poorly designed operating systems that make you use absurdly complicated controls (like three button mice when only one is *necessary*.)
Something tells me that TiBook would have to be an X86 running at 1/4 speed under battery too, and THEN you'd really buy it.
Apple doesn't sell a $5,000 G4. The most expensive stock model at the Apple store is $3,000.
Sure you can add stuff to get a G4 up to $5,000 in cost, but you can do that with any computer.
I'm tired of hearing people misrepresent the prices of Macs to make them look expensive. These lies to justify your own prejudice are annoying.
ESPECIALLY in the context of pointing out that Apple is giving its customers a $5,0000 discount.
Once again (Final Cut Pro, Cinema Tools, iMovie, iTunes, iDVD, DVD Studio Pro) apple releases software that used to cost $50-$5,000 more at a great price, saving their customers %100-%50 of the cost and you guys try to use it to claim that Apple's products are overpriced.
This is because OS X apps are not supposed to conform to the MHIG. There is a new set of Human Interface guildines called the Aqua HIG.
These aren't guildines that are "Enforced" -- you can make your app look and work like windows if you want. But Apple certainly does encourage it.
The interface builder has the guildlines built in and will tell you where to place your controls in relation to each other, comes with a default menu layout and the default hotkeys set up. etc.
As to 3 button mice, Apple is correct in not shipping them out of the box. It breaks the paradigm and actually slows people down. I use a three button mouse, though, I got it because its a trackball, the scroll wheel and other button are useful, and I like them.
But for most users, a one button mouse is the correct choice to ship. Billions in productivity have been wasted by microsoft choosing to ship the 2 button mouse (not to mention the billions lost wasting time reinstalling your os, etc. on windows.)
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Which is appropriate. How much did steve make on his options this year.
Do you know? Well, you CAN'T KNOW unless he exercised the options-- there is no money made by stock options until they are excercised.
One year they may be worthless (The year they are granted for instance, right now they are worthless since the stock was down.)
How is NOT PAYING a WORTHLESS ASSET to somebody "failing to expense it"?
When they actually pay it out, and its worth something, THEN maybe they should expense it.
Apple has just reported another fiscal quarter with millions of dollars in losses. Look it up with the SEC.
Apple's profit this last quarter was 32 million.
Small historically for them, but like Dell and Intel, they are one of the few tech companies actually making money.
Since Jobs *salary* is exactly $1, cutting it in half wouldn't do much to help the situation.
Please check your facts before you go ranting, oh, that's right, the anti-mac faction knows the facts are against them so they make shit up.
For what its worth, Apple shipped Unix for the mac in the 80s, calling it AUX. It had the Mac UI, I believe.
My (dim) memory says that it could run Mac apps as well, so I'm not quite sure why they didn't decide to make this the underpinnings of the "the Macintosh" back then-- the 90s sure would have been different if they had!
I suspect they didn't out of concern for newbie users.
This is true.
And when the software provides better value compared to closed source software, the market moves in that direction fairly quickly.
Linux in the server space and Apache are great examples of this. We've come a long way in 10 years.
The free market encourages both to exist, and values them fairly, based on their utility value-- it really isn't an "either or" situation. both models will continue to succeed.
Proprietary software has to quickly move to the innovative areas and get out of the commodity areas... because open source will quickly take over anything that is commodity software (such as OS, web servers, web browsers, and eventually, OFFICE Apps) IF you want to charge cash, you provide extra value to justify it.
Where the zero marginal cost of software has the most impact is in the broadest areas-- which become commodities. Things like high end compositing engines, will continue to provide value that is difficult to duplicate for some period, and then they will become open source.
But the free market model covers all of this if you think in terms of value, not cash. The problem is so many are so anti-hum^H^H^H corporate that they have started to think that profit is a four letter word.
When profit is what we all do when we use and support an open source product to greater benefit than its proprietary counterpart. And when we use proprietary products to solve a problem that was expensive and previously unsolvable, we also profit-- our productivity goes up even though we paid for the software when we weren't before (Because it didn't exist.)
Exactly, you just made my point, not disputed it.
This "basic proposition" you talk of does NOT EXIST. Its a basic proposition of many leftists...
But economics is about value, NOT CASH. People are not failing free market theory when they value things other than cash! That's just propaganda and spin to try and undermine free market theory.
The pricing of free market theory takes these non-cash values into account. People pay more, for instance, for a hotel room where they can get peace and quiet-- they are not getting physical return for that extra investment, but they ARE getting value. So a cabin by the lake is not "gouging" people as leftists would say, nor are people ignoring efficient market by paying more for a smaller room. They are just valuing the peace and quiet.
That value exists only in cash is the falsehood I'm fighting.
That someone will exchange something (like labor) that can be exchanged for cash for something that is "free" (like linux) only supports my statement. but it also supports the "cash" position in that labor is a form of cash.
So, either cash is everywhere and nothing is free- not even linux-- or you include any form of value as value (and linux is still not free.)
Taxes are general levies allocated without regard for the value of goods and services received.
So, there is no justification for taxes? There's no value delivered for them?
I think you just made my point!
Something like social security is a charge for later delivery of value.
This is as true as paying a slot machine is investing for future delivery of value. social security is bankrupt, and it is irresponsibly run-- you are never getting your money back, and what money you MIGHT get back is far less than what you have put in.
You can go buy private annuities that pay out like social security, the only difference is that they have to be honest with the money (no dipping in and spending it on toys as the government regularly does.) Social security is essentially a fraud.
Taxes are a way of collectively charging a population for collectively received benefits. It is not an inherently coercive method of finance.
Except that it is BY DEFINITION coercive. You don't pay, they force you to. You refuse, they put you in jail. You resist arrest, they have guns.
Taxes are the forced extration of value from people against their will, and NOT TO THEIR BENEFIT. Ok, so you get some benefit, but that is a tiny proportion in value to to the taxes you pay.
By the way, who said only the government could provide armed defense, roads and other services? Any private company could provide these things, or privately entered groups of people.
Everything the government does it does incompetantly, or at inordinant expense for the value recieved.
That they do deliver some trivial amount of value does not justify all of the taxes, only a trivial amount of them.
The rest is theft. Theft at gunpoint.
I wasn't meaning to denigrate the paper. I was expressing my opnions, which I expect are along the lines of the paper--- I just think that the problem is too many people think "free market" is all about money and that there is no other from of value. (I call these people leftists.)
I thought I said there were idiots calling themselves libertarins. That I find no unlibertrian points to the Libertarian platform, does not mean that all those calling themselves Libertarians are really so, (and not idiots.)
We can debate the relative percentages of idiots calling themselves all kinds of things, but my main point in responding is to say that I am not disputing the paper, I'm merely saying that it shouldn't be that radical of a finding.
Its only dispelling something that was poor thinking to begin with.
This is your perception, but not actually true.
Three button mice slow down experienced users as well.
The studies were done in the 80s... go check them out.
There is a difference between perceived time and by-the-clock time.
You perceive it to be faster, but by the clock it isn't.
That's one of the problems with CHI. Users ignore the studies that were done and continue to insist their perception is reality, science be damned.
I didn't say $3,000 powerbooks could be had for less than a grand.
Remember, some TiBooks cost $2,000 or so.
And they've been out for a year and a half.
iBooks even longer.
Sheesh.
My only prejudice is to figure von Mises is worth reading.
I know of no difference between Libertarians and libertarians. Except that some people calling themselves libertarians are idiots, but that's to be expected. There are even objectivists who support Microsoft (thus violating objectivist morality.)
That people may have built financial models that don't account for open source is not an issue-- it simply means that the models may not be correctly applied, and are appropriate only to situations where value is only represented by cash. Hence using the word financial is appropriate.
But the free market is a free market of value (not cash), and open source fits right in. And that was my point.
The error you, and many others make, is confusing "prices" with "Value"
Free software has value, even though its free.
To claim that the free market is only about pricing things in terms of CASH is false. Pricing includes value, and everything that goes into a transaction-- labor, for instance.
By your theory, every worker is getting a free ride because they put no money in and get money out.
Free Market Economics is not about pricing of cash, its about pricing in terms of value. To pretend that "only profits mater" to people is stupid -- a huge profit is pointless if you end up in jail, and thus fraud is rather rare in a free market economy.
Monopolists MORE OFTEN emerge in regulated markets-- the government creates them. YEs, in an unregulated market, they can emerge, but tehy cannot survive for very long.
To say that people developing open source software are not motivated by profits is to lie-- either about them, or the definition of "profit" which is to "receive value"... Things other than cash have vale- even to capitalists.
I would hate to know what you were doing to get taxes that high. The average family in the United States pays between 20-25% of their income to taxes.
THis is simply not true. The average family pays that much in INCOME TAXES ALONE. When you add Sales taxes (%8) car taxes, STATE TAXES (say %10), gas taxes, Social Security (%16) Medicair (dunno) you easily get to %50 for the average family.
Hell, add sales tax and social security to %25 and you're already in the %40... not including the property taxes you have to pay and the phone taxes you have to pay (%12 roughly), etc. etc. etc.
Pretending that income tax is the only tax you have to pay is dishonest.
s we have seen from recent corporate scandals, consumer often have a very hard time obtaining accurate information about products they would like to purchase.
I love it how leftists consider "Fraud" to be the natural state of the freemarket.
FRAUD IS FRAUD. It is illegal, and thus the only question is if it is being prosecuted enough.
And, as I pointed out, even despite the Microsoft effect, the freemarket is beating them. Not financially yet, but technologically and mindshare wise. Non-MS operating systems are the fastest growing, and apache seems pretty stable with over %50 marketshare. Did you just not read that part?
Sheesh.
You're an idiot. What I said was that the standard configuration G4 is $3,000. Ok, its $2,999. Quote from the Apple store this morning.
Yes, you can get a $4,000 BTO machine. You can get at $5,000 BTO machine if you want.
But the idea that the standard Mac is a $5,000 computer is absurd, and just a continuation of the myth that macs are overpriced.
They aren't, you PC loving zeolot.
My point was that x86s don't run at full speed and most people ignore that fact when comparing them to powerbooks-- its yet another reason that the powerbooks are much much MUCH faster computers and better deals since the prices are the same.
You want to us a 5 button mouse iwht your powerbook? Feel free-- you can use the one you already have if its USB.
On the road, however, you can't carry a mouse on any laptop, and so you're going to change your formfactor... and the tibook pad works very well. (Better than the pds on some pc laptops I've tried)
I just think its a silly thing to say you're not buying one because of the mouse button. If its price then you're not buying a laptop at all because of price, cause the Macs are the same price as PCs.
Oh, and you can get used powerbooks, even used tibooks, for less than a grand. They hold their value well.
If you think an iBook is too expensive, don't buy a new one. There are great macs out there for $500 that are still better than the new PCs you can get for the same price (Remember you don't get something for nothin.)
And as to being intolerant- -the "two button mouse" issue was laid to rest in, what, 1983? Its a scientific question and it has been asnwered. That you flamed for apple not including a two button mouse shows either your ignorance or your bullheadedness at defying the *FACT* that second mice buttons slow people down.
Sorry, if you didn't know that-- its one of the standard issue, mac Myths that pc zeolots trot out, and so I gave the standard issue response.
The parent post is not flamebait. THIS is flamebait-- you fucking asshole stupid idiot moderating fucks who couldn't think your way out of a paper bag don't deserve to live, let alone reproduce, let alone moderate comments on slashdot.
This site increasingly looses its utility because there are too few actual thinking humnans aboard and far too many goosestepping idiot pc nazis.
Yeah, any time you point out that the macintosh doesn't suck, you're engaging in "flamebait". Sheesh. Not to long ago I had a post that was both +5 and "flamebait".
Metamoderation needs more teeth to clean out the gene pool, you fuckwads.
Your information, your life, it has NO value. Go kill yourself.
BZZT Wrong. Thanks for playing.
Even a 700MHz pentium will get its ass kicked by a 667MHz PowerPC-- and even under emulation the exceesive speed of the powerpc will still make it better to run it on the Powerbook than on a pc natively.
I'm not brainwashed-- you are. I simply know processor design and know that a PC running off of battery cuts the clock rate to 1/3, 1/4 or 1/6th the normal clock rate.
Or, maybe you can run yours almost at full speed-- and get almost ZERO battery life, which of course isn't quite fair because the Apple will still get a long, normal, basttery life and kick its ass performance wise-- just not by as much.
Oh, and piss off on the mouse issue- that dog won't hunt. This is science here, not your opinion. Multibutton mice slow people down. ITs a fact. Deal with it.
You wouldn't, I was just giving an example-- that if you require PC specific software, you're still better off getting a mac and running under emulation when it comes to laptops.
The performance hit you take with office is NOTHING like the performance hit you take on a PC when you unplug it from the wall...
On a PC laptop, they cut the clock rate to 1/3 of the normal clock rate to save battery power!
You're right, they're about the same price.
But the powerbook will still kick its ass in emulation.
What you're forgetting is that under battery power intel machines don't run at full clock speed, so your full clock speed cpu comparisons aren't correct.
Under battery power the cut the clock speed to 1/3 or 14th or 1/6th of normal, and cut performance too... because the intel processor is so poorly designed that it can't me made in a way that doesn't waste a lot of battery power.
PowerPC laptops run at full speed under battery power.
Open source is the definition of Market Economics. It does not need its own theory- it proves the Marekt theory in the most divergent context imaginable.
If you have an idea and you open source it, you get free engineering. People contribute their engineering and get the utility of yours and others in response. This is a free exchange of value in a free market.
IF your terms suck, or you change direction in mid stream, the others are free to leave your project and start their own, or go along with you if they like your direction.
Linux is a consistant linus kernel because people like linus's direction-- not because he "owns" it. That is direct market feed back to linus.
If you are selling your product to people who are contributing nothing but money to the process, and are just using it, then you are in the traditional software model. but Open source works here as well-- you can incorporate open source into your product and leverage others work to make more money off of your work. At the same time, the MARKET FORCES (not the GPL) will force you to contribute your improvements back to the community. And finally, you're not profiting unfairly from others work because the others contributed freely, and were compensated... and also can sell the results in the market place against you, so if your product is PURELY reselling open source, then you'll loose the inevitable price war-- its hard to beat free.
If, however, you actually add value to the product, on top of the open source, then you CAN charge for that value and everybody wins-- your customer gets a better product with more features and testing than you could otherwise do yourself, the other os developers get the benefit of your improvements and you get more money for selling a better product that cost you less to develop.
This is all free market economics.
The differnce between open source (free market) and communism is that under communism you are forced to work for the state against your will. Here in america, we are %50 forced to work for the state against your will, but they cleverly let us work for private companies and only took the product of half our work in taxes (fees, etc. And yes, last time I did my taxes, my total payments to the state were over %50, and I'm in a medium tax bracket.)
Even with the GPL, however, you are not compelled to work for the "State"... you can choose to not use the GPL for your code, or go make code to replace whats' in the GPL, or just use the gPL code and not change it. ITs a free market of licenses.
Since the government isn't (Yet) regulating software, the emergence of the open source movement proves that free markets work-- whenever one company gets to monopolistic, under free market theory, competitors emerge. Lots of competitors have emerged to Microsoft, but Open Source is the first one to really sustain a battle and change the terms of the war.
As long as the state doesn't mandate Microsoft control (As they may wit palladium) the free market will prevail and the products that offer the most utility value will succeed. For a long time Microsoft was able to distort the market with anti-market means, and also provide sufficent value to have locked up much of the market--- a great example of the market under a lot of stress.
But the emergence of the free market, the resurgence of a variety of MS competitors- from Sun to Apple to IBM to me, shows that the free market does work-- even with the governments help for microsoft, the market is beating them.
Not financially right now, but in terms of brainshare and technology, MS is currently loosing. In order to win, or even survive, they will have to deliver better value for their prices... and since open source software is free, the competition is stiff.
So, no, there isn't a new theory needed-- The Free market works and has been validated, yet again, by opensource. (So stop voting republican or democrat and become a libertarian already.)
Yet another excuse to Bash Apple.
,Mac-- people are cheap SOBs in general. Including me. They misexecuted this one.
.Mac by giving me software worth that much *to me*. And I didn't even include iPhoto, or the FCP and Cinema tools discounts that I get for being a Mac user.
.Mac.
.Mac, even though I'm getting a great deal at $50 and have lots of free software to balance it out, I would rather have them do this than have them eliminate the service.
This is silly. First off, the URL is only valid for 15 minutes or so.
Secondly, it is such an easy fix, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it isn't already fixed and implemented. All they have to do is check the ip address of the machine making the request, or move to cookies for session info. Or, better yet, go to SSL.
I can understand people being pissed about having to pay for
But to have the highest moded post in this discussion being a straight out bash calling for Apple to "wake up" is absurd- and ignores the fact that they have long been delivering the best value for the money of any computer maker out there. They don't charge for iTunes,($30 worth), iMovie ($20 worth to me), Quicktime ($20 worth to me - I get pro features by writing my own player, the codecs are worth $20 to me easily.) iCal or iSync, $25 and $5 respectively. Mail.app, $25, Deve environment is worth $300, Sherlock3 is worth $30, iDVD $40 worth..... so in a sense, they've already paid for my first seven years of
If I'd had to buy that software retail it would have cost more than the values I've put down for it.
If they continue to deliver free apps,and add value to the one's already out there -- something they've shown a willingness to do, then I continue to come out ahead.
And to top it all off, if I wanted to, I didn't HAVE to pay for
The upgrade price of jaguar for current 10 users is a bit annoying, though. They add a lot and I understand why they're charging... but it should be $70 if you've already bought the box retail, as I have. (But, its easy for me to say since, as a developer, they'll send it to me anyway. Course that cost me $500, but this is just another $129 discount I'm getting, on top of the $2,000 in other discounts I've already gotten.)
Apple treats its people well. Cheapscates will always whine when you try to charge for something that was free...while they happily use iTunes and don't pay for it and give it no value.
Thats one downside to opensource-- its played into the pricing psychology discovered long ago. People will value something based on what you're asking for it. Ask $700 for a piece of software and they'll think its a great deal if they get it for $500. Ask $500 for the SAME SOFTWARE and they'll think its too expensive nad your sales are lower.
Give away software for free, or internet services for free, and nobody pays for them-- which is why nobody's got a successful subscription service on the net (except for a couple situations.)
Apple thought the added value of growing the userbase would offset the costs-- but it didn't, the costs were absurd, and so they are solving hte problem. Much as I hate to pay for
You're being silly.
You ahve the option-- go buy an external mouse if you want to slow yourself down.
But to say you're not seriously looking at an ibook because it has only has one mouse button is silly. It doesn't even need that mouse button.
default mapping would not solve the problem-- you'd still be slowed down when you have to stop and think about which mouse button to use. Course you don't think you stop and think, but you do- your mind just ignores that it had to stop
Its unfortunate that so many people are ignorant about basic CHI science.
This is the silliest reason not to buy a TiBook I've ever heard.
You should buy it. you'll quickly discover that you don't need the extra buttons and the machine works fine without them.
The idea that you need more than one button is a false one, it simply isn't true, and you only think you do because you've been using poorly designed operating systems that make you use absurdly complicated controls (like three button mice when only one is *necessary*.)
Something tells me that TiBook would have to be an X86 running at 1/4 speed under battery too, and THEN you'd really buy it.
Apple doesn't sell a $5,000 G4. The most expensive stock model at the Apple store is $3,000.
Sure you can add stuff to get a G4 up to $5,000 in cost, but you can do that with any computer.
I'm tired of hearing people misrepresent the prices of Macs to make them look expensive. These lies to justify your own prejudice are annoying.
ESPECIALLY in the context of pointing out that Apple is giving its customers a $5,0000 discount.
Once again (Final Cut Pro, Cinema Tools, iMovie, iTunes, iDVD, DVD Studio Pro) apple releases software that used to cost $50-$5,000 more at a great price, saving their customers %100-%50 of the cost and you guys try to use it to claim that Apple's products are overpriced.
How desperate are you?
This is because OS X apps are not supposed to conform to the MHIG. There is a new set of Human Interface guildines called the Aqua HIG.
These aren't guildines that are "Enforced" -- you can make your app look and work like windows if you want. But Apple certainly does encourage it.
The interface builder has the guildlines built in and will tell you where to place your controls in relation to each other, comes with a default menu layout and the default hotkeys set up. etc.
As to 3 button mice, Apple is correct in not shipping them out of the box. It breaks the paradigm and actually slows people down. I use a three button mouse, though, I got it because its a trackball, the scroll wheel and other button are useful, and I like them.
But for most users, a one button mouse is the correct choice to ship. Billions in productivity have been wasted by microsoft choosing to ship the 2 button mouse (not to mention the billions lost wasting time reinstalling your os, etc. on windows.)