If they were talking about criminalizing false WHOIS information, I'd agree with you 100%.
Trouble is, that's not what they're doing. They're talking about creating harsher penalties for people who commit fraud with a website registered under fake credentials.
They're not going to go hunting you down for having false information. Rather, if they catch you committing fraud on your website, they'll tack another few years onto your sentence if the site info wasn't accurate.
You gotta stop believing what they say in the front-page blurbs.
The bill would not affect people who are trying to safeguard their privacy because it only makes it a crime to submit false registration data when it is done to help commit a crime, said Mark Bohannon, senior vice president for public policy at the Software & Information Industry Association, which supports the bill.
Oh, fer Pete's sake, Taco. Would it really hurt all that much to give a full, accurate blurb on this one?
This isn't about forcing people to use their real name when registering a domain. This is about increasing the severity of the punishment for committing online fraud. Basically, if you commit fraud using a website with faked credentials, you'll face a stiffer penalty than you would had you committed fraud on a website where you used legitimate credentials to register.
I'm not saying I've fully researched this, but it sure as hell isn't the rights-trampling orgy the blurb makes it out to be, Taco. Do your homework before posting half-informed diatribes to the front page.
Crimsonland was fun, but the paid version, from what I've heard, is nothing more than the free one with a few more guns.
...nothing wrong with that! Crimsonland is a quality, free game. It obviously took quite a bit of blood, sweat, and tears to make, and 10tons certainly deserves financial compensation.
Instead of looking at it as "Why would I pay money for a weak little upgrade to Crimsonland", look at it as "I help support a really cool game and studio by giving them some money for a game I love; in return, they give me some bonus weapons!"
Making cool, freely-downloadable games is fun, but it takes a helluva lot of time, and unless you're on a trust fund, you need a day job to pay the bills. Enough people help fund places like 10tons, then more and more good, independent developers will be able to quit their day jobs and focus on making fun, interesting, free games.
...though if I'd put it together, I would have boosted Rise of Nations a bit and pulled Warcraft III back a bit.
RoN is a truly amazing game once you get the basics down. It takes a while to get to a point where you feel "in control" of what is going on--for example, there are five different resources to juggle, and your military strategy needs to change significantly as you progress through the ages. What makes it stand apart from the other games in this list is that there is so much to juggle that you've got a lot more control over how to play out the game than you do in other games. There simply isn't a recipe for "how to win a game"; once you've gone beyond a few basic opening strategies, it's wide open. What's more, there's far less unit micromanagement than in other games in the genre: you send your armies into battle and control formations, but you rarely need to do the "now you attack this here" bit. Some people like this; to me, it goes against the nature of the RTS, changing it from being a game of strategy to being a game of who can click which units the fastest and most accurately.
Warcraft III was pretty and engaging, but it eventually boiled down to the classic Rock-Paper-Scissors style combat that dominates the genre. It's more of an action game than a strategy game, IMHO--gameplay relies on developing and guiding your heroes to determine the outcome of the battle, making it more of a dungeon crawl than a strategic title.
TA deserves that first place award. It's one of the few old-school RTS games I can still play and thoroughly enjoy. I'd love to see the engine updated to take advantage of modern hardware and UI enhancements...
My wife and I both got cell phones about a year ago. Hers was the fancy, bonus-cash-off color screen fold-open phone, mine was the standard, free-with-plan Motorola 120e. At the time, I thought I was being nice by letting her have the color phone. While she still likes it, I'm quite glad I let her have it, as the 120e is the perfect 'plain vanilla' phone for me. It's got a basic feature list--datebook, phonebook, and such--has a simple, monochrome screen, a powerful backlight (it comes in quite handy in blackouts,) and a nice design. It's absolutely bulletproof--it has gouges on the casing from where I've dropped, crushed, and scraped it, but it still works perfectly. It can last for days without needing a charge, and the call quality is just fine.
By contrast, the hinge on my wife's phone wiggles and feels somewhat flimsy, it's lucky to go for 36 hours without running out of juice, all the neat 'features' just end up costing money if you want to use them, and frankly, it doesn't get any better reception or sound quality than my phone does. Yeah, she can play Tetris on it, but honestly, I don't feel like I'm missing out on much.
For a good little "I just want to talk on it" phone, I'd recommend the 120e...
Wikipedia has spent a lot of time outlining those very questions on their Replies to Common Objections page.
...yes, but their answers generally amount to relying on The Wiki Way to save the day. While it's a wonderul sentiment, it's profoundly naive to rely primarily on the integrity of the community to cope with growing pains.
The larger a community grows, the less diciplined and dedicated that community will be to the "core values". If Wikipedia becomes the Next Big Thing, the Wiki folks will have an absolute shitstorm of asinine, counter-productive, uninformed, and outright malicious activity to deal with, and they'll tire of it very quickly.
Consider this hypothetical meatspace analogy:
"Mr. Mayor, how do you plan to deal with crime when LittleTown, USA, becomes the thriving metropolitan center you want it to be?"
"Well, we've been doing pretty well so far with crime, as most of the folks here in LittleTown are peaceful types, and Bill is a really great sheriff. We figure things should remain pretty much the same as we grow..."
However, in a terrible privacy decision, the court said video monitoring of the computers and patrons was a-ok.
Y'know, after reading the ruling, it's really tough to share this sky-is-falling sentiment. They basically ruled that requiring video monitoring in cafes (with a 72-hour recording log) is OK, but that the city cannot do more than verify the system is operational without a warrant to inspect the tapes. Their rationale is that this is little different from having adult supervision or a security guard on premesis. Furthermore, the video need only be capable of showing "the activity and physical features of persons or areas within the premises." The cafes aren't required to set them up so that Eye-In-The-Sky can read what your screen says; IMHO, this is even better than having a security guard prowling the cafe at eye level.
Frankly, I'm inclined to agree with the court on this one. A video system designed for security surveillance would be far less suited for snooping than human supervision. Which do you find more invasive--a grainy, black-and-white security recording from 20 feet away that's going to be wiped in 72 hours, or Bob the Security Guy, who has watched you every day for three months because he has a funny feeling that you're out to cause trouble?
I had similar experiences in Latin America and even New York.
Fact is, in most of the world, electricity isn't reliable. I'm actually shocked that in a place as chaotic as Iraq that there is a regular, if not unreliable power grid.
Yes, a reliable power grid is one helluva beast to keep running, and I'm quite aware that the powers-that-be have been working heavy-duty overtime to fix it. I'm not suggesting that the grid should be a reliably back up and running by now; I'll be surprised if the job is 'done' before the end of summer. Rather I'm simply stating that it is still a big problem, despite the continuing efforts to fix it.
There's a difference between spotty power in Iraq and spotty power in Latin America, though. Before the war, the power grid was fairly decent in Baghdad; washing machines, TVs, and other appliances were standard household fixtures in many areas. Since the invasion, there is a large chunk of the population that has had their lifestyle radically altered by the sudden degradation of the electrical infrastructure.
When you've gone all your life with spotty power, it's no big deal to you. When you're used to having electricity most of the time, a year's worth of extended power outages makes a big impact in how you lead your life...
In all seriousness though, it's nice to have a little bit different viewpoint of life in Baghdad. I really thought that everyone must be staying home all day long, afraid to leave their homes, given the way the US media reports the conditions there.
...Iraq may not be the a smouldering pit of of doom and gloom, but it sure as heck ain't a fun place to be, either. Below is an excerpt from Baghdad Burning, an Iraqi blog:
This individual has both a computer -and- an internet connection, yet their daily life is still at the mercy of the highly unreliable power grid. It may not be hell on earth, but it's a far cry from anything even remotely pleasant...
What the iLug needs most is:
1. Money.
2. Information.
3. Technical help.
Free software, hackers, and Iraq, all wrapped up into the same organization? Danger! Danger! Potential terrorist organization detected!
Seems only a few weeks ago we would have run the risk of getting our asses detained for violationg the Patriot Act. Now that this part of the Patriot Act has been ruled unconstitutional, though, we're safe to help these guys out.
<voiceover style="announcer:campy-1950's-sci-fi;">or are we?</voiceover>
Consider that, for the longest time, laptop computers were massive, clunky, overpriced, underperforming, fragile beasts that were marginally useable, at best. They were more "look what I got!" things than anything else.
Then, a few manufacturers started to build laptops which, while still heavy and clunky, could last long enough on battery power to do some good word processing. It was still very much a niche product, but now people like business travellers could justify using them on long trips. They became more comact, more robust. People stopped saying, "whoa, what is that thing?" and started saying, "oh, neat--a laptop computer!"
Today, laptops are amazing little machines that can have virtually every convenience of a desktop system crammed into a five pound, notebook-sized package. They're powerful enough to do virtually anything that Joe Sixpack wants to do, they're reliable, and they've gone from "bizzare gizmo" cool to "everyday useful" cool. Entire industries are springing up based around supporting mobile computing. You see a person working on a laptop at a coffee shop and hardly bat an eyelid.
Now, if you look at multi-purpose handheld gadgets today, what do you see? I see massive, clunky, overpriced, underperforming, fragile beasts that are marginally useable, at best...
Shoulde ye, upon iynspection of thyne Astrelabie, obsyrve a displaye of vivyde blu that doth syrmounte all othre tynt, eyther thyne Astrelabie ist fully angled teuwards the Heavyns, or thyne Astrelabie hast crayshd moste uttyrly.
Lyte Lowys my sone, I aperceyve wel by certeyne evydences thyn abilite to lerne sciences touching nombres and proporciouns; and as wel considre I thy besy praier in special to lerne the tretys of the Astrelabie...
Shame he's dead. He'd make a good Slashdot editor.
(yes, yes, I know, Olde Englishe ande alle thate...)
Close--Bryant's exact quote was "you're not cop, you're little people!" Bryant was suggesting that he wasn't about to let Deckard simply walk out of his office--either Deckard took the job, or he'd have 'problems' with the law...
[mycar:~] bob% ignition
Connecting to ignition...Connection refused: too many users. Please try again later.
[mycar:~] bob% ignition
Connecting to ignition...Connection refused: too many users. Please try again later.
[mycar:~] bob% ignition
Connecting to ignition...Connection refused: too many users. Please try again later.
I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times that my Ford Explorer has gotten me (or, better put, others) out of trouble, mostly from people driving their front wheel drive econoboxes in the snow like it was the Indy 500.
Heh. Where I live (Baltimore,) there are plenty of coffee-canned-for-performance econoboxes and SUVs to go around. What's more, we get enough snow that it hits a few times every winter, but not enough snow to for the city to qualify as "a city that gets snow". An inch causes consternation; three closes school; six shuts the city down.
Anyhow. The vehicles, and their drivers.
The Uber-Civics assume that, because they have zippy, lightweight front-wheel drive, they can drive like bats out of hell and stop on a dime.
By contrast, the Hummers et. al. assume that, because they have strong, beefy four-wheel drive, they can drive like bats out of hell and stop on a dime.
Of course, both sets of vehicles have roughly identical braking capabilities in snow--that is, utterly abysmal.
The econoboxes, by nature of their lightweight frame, plow about a foot into the snowbank, get lifted off the ground, and sit there looking all stupid 'cuz the 3-foot aluminum wing doesn't do jack shit if you're not moving. (I have yet to develop the heart to tell them that it's just as effective whilst cruising at 70 down residential streets, but this is for another time.)
The SUVs, by nature of their heavy frame, plow about four feet into the snow, where (to their shock and horror) the drivers discover that even their very, very masculine car can get high-centered. (You haven't lived until you've seen a Hummer owner waiting for a tow out of a snowbank.) Such high centering is invariably accompanied by heated cell phone calls, gratuitous gesticulation at various things, and the careful brushing of snow from various articles of outerwear.
(Now, I'd never want to drive my Civic in the mountains after a snowfall--that's just suicide. The vast, vast majority of SUV owners, though, live in urban areas and use them for freeway commuting, shuttling kids, and grocery detail...)
The argument for seems to be based entirely on the assumption that we need to colonize Mars as quickly as possible and this is a first step. But why do we need to colonize Mars as quickly as possible? Until we've exhausted what we can learn from unmanned probes, why send manned missions at all?
Well, at one point in our world's history, there were a lot of people who simply couldn't comprehend why anybody would want to throw their life away by sailing off the edge of the planet. There wasn't anything fundamentally wrong with Europe that necessitated grand exploration, and most of the people leading these expeditions could have enjoyed a very comfortable life had they desired to do so. In short, the biggest thing driving the exploration was sheer curiosity (paired with the hope that these explorers might be able to find easier routes to places like the East Indies and cash in on them--a sort of Renaissance explorer's lottery.)
Looking back, I'm quite glad they went ahead and did it, anyways. Without said exploration, me and several billion of my closest friends wouldn't have the life we have today. Say whatever you will about the ills American society has introduced to this planet, say whatever you will about how royally we're fucking things up in our adolescent pursuit of global hegemony--fact is, America has done a lot to advance global prosperity, human rights, and quality of life. Had the explorers and pioneers of old not taken the (sometimes overwhelming) risks they took, we would be far less advanced, as a planet, than we are today.
Look forward. Know that you, your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren will never, ever, ever live to see the day when there is a self-sustaining colony on the Moon, Mars, or anywhere else. Know, too, that the sooner we start accepting the risks inherent with exploration, the sooner we'll be able to achieve the advances that come with such momentous human achievements.
When Steve Jobs was at NeXT, some magazine interviewer asked "What would you do if you were running Apple again?" Steve thought for a minute, and answered "I'd milk it for all it's worth."
...actually, the complete quote was "If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth--and get busy on the next great thing." The quote is from early 1996. Think back to early 1996 and the state of the Macintosh--the storm clouds were rapidly gathering, Windows 95 was taking off like a bottle rocket, and Apple wasn't really doing anything about it. Jobs was right to say that. And, to be perfectly honest, Steve has already done what he said he would do--he's taken Apple on to "the next big thing" with OS X and the entire "Digital Hub" concept. The Macintosh of 1996 is milked and gone.
Calling for-fee upgrade versions "Bait and Switch" is a bit rich. Did Apple ever claim that they'd never charge for future versions of their software?
Just answer this question: if new and exciting upgrades to the iApps justified the cost of system upgrades before, why isn't the OS X pricing dropping now?
Perhaps because the system continues to grow in complexity, thus requiring even more dilligence and attention. The larger and more complex something gets, the more it costs to maintain. Microsoft has a tradition of shirking on this point, and it shows--the more "advanced" their systems get, the more a computer gets bogged down with cruft and flotsam. Contrast this to Apple: not only did 10.3 have a whole bunch of new features and fixes, it was significantly faster than 10.2. This is neither easy nor cheap, and it gets harder and more expensive the more advanced something gets.
Anyhow, I get the feeling I'm not going to be changing any minds. You're clearly so incensed at Apple that you're finished buying their products. Enjoy the one you have!
I found the "yearly OS upgrade" strategy for Mac OS X pretty suspect. And now that the "iApps" are being pruned from the OS, how could they possibly justify $130 per annum?
Oh, I dunno. Maybe their developers and engineers insisted on getting paid for their work or something.
Acquiring and retaining the caliber of employee necessary to develop "a machine that does exactly what you tell it and doesn't break for no reason" is expensive. Cut too many corners and you start losing your talent, starting with the best people you've got. Once you start losing your talent base, it becomes harder and harder to regain that base, as the overall quality of your product drops, your reputation suffers, and you start losing income from sales--forcing you to cut even more corners than before.
That said, nobody is holding a gun to your head, ordering you to upgrade to the latest versions. Your Mac will continue to operate as it always has for as long as you want to keep it running.
If you want to benefit from the continued efforts of Apple's software development team, why is it so onerous to expect to pay for it? They don't disable the version you've already got, after all.
Slashdot Mirror
Trouble is, that's not what they're doing. They're talking about creating harsher penalties for people who commit fraud with a website registered under fake credentials.
They're not going to go hunting you down for having false information. Rather, if they catch you committing fraud on your website, they'll tack another few years onto your sentence if the site info wasn't accurate.
You gotta stop believing what they say in the front-page blurbs.
The bill would not affect people who are trying to safeguard their privacy because it only makes it a crime to submit false registration data when it is done to help commit a crime, said Mark Bohannon, senior vice president for public policy at the Software & Information Industry Association, which supports the bill.
Oh, fer Pete's sake, Taco. Would it really hurt all that much to give a full, accurate blurb on this one?
This isn't about forcing people to use their real name when registering a domain. This is about increasing the severity of the punishment for committing online fraud. Basically, if you commit fraud using a website with faked credentials, you'll face a stiffer penalty than you would had you committed fraud on a website where you used legitimate credentials to register.
I'm not saying I've fully researched this, but it sure as hell isn't the rights-trampling orgy the blurb makes it out to be, Taco. Do your homework before posting half-informed diatribes to the front page.
What wouldst thou deau?
>
Of course, you're better off simply throwing them at something other than the Internet...
Instead of looking at it as "Why would I pay money for a weak little upgrade to Crimsonland", look at it as "I help support a really cool game and studio by giving them some money for a game I love; in return, they give me some bonus weapons!"
Making cool, freely-downloadable games is fun, but it takes a helluva lot of time, and unless you're on a trust fund, you need a day job to pay the bills. Enough people help fund places like 10tons, then more and more good, independent developers will be able to quit their day jobs and focus on making fun, interesting, free games.
RoN is a truly amazing game once you get the basics down. It takes a while to get to a point where you feel "in control" of what is going on--for example, there are five different resources to juggle, and your military strategy needs to change significantly as you progress through the ages. What makes it stand apart from the other games in this list is that there is so much to juggle that you've got a lot more control over how to play out the game than you do in other games. There simply isn't a recipe for "how to win a game"; once you've gone beyond a few basic opening strategies, it's wide open. What's more, there's far less unit micromanagement than in other games in the genre: you send your armies into battle and control formations, but you rarely need to do the "now you attack this here" bit. Some people like this; to me, it goes against the nature of the RTS, changing it from being a game of strategy to being a game of who can click which units the fastest and most accurately.
Warcraft III was pretty and engaging, but it eventually boiled down to the classic Rock-Paper-Scissors style combat that dominates the genre. It's more of an action game than a strategy game, IMHO--gameplay relies on developing and guiding your heroes to determine the outcome of the battle, making it more of a dungeon crawl than a strategic title.
TA deserves that first place award. It's one of the few old-school RTS games I can still play and thoroughly enjoy. I'd love to see the engine updated to take advantage of modern hardware and UI enhancements...
My wife and I both got cell phones about a year ago. Hers was the fancy, bonus-cash-off color screen fold-open phone, mine was the standard, free-with-plan Motorola 120e. At the time, I thought I was being nice by letting her have the color phone. While she still likes it, I'm quite glad I let her have it, as the 120e is the perfect 'plain vanilla' phone for me. It's got a basic feature list--datebook, phonebook, and such--has a simple, monochrome screen, a powerful backlight (it comes in quite handy in blackouts,) and a nice design. It's absolutely bulletproof--it has gouges on the casing from where I've dropped, crushed, and scraped it, but it still works perfectly. It can last for days without needing a charge, and the call quality is just fine.
By contrast, the hinge on my wife's phone wiggles and feels somewhat flimsy, it's lucky to go for 36 hours without running out of juice, all the neat 'features' just end up costing money if you want to use them, and frankly, it doesn't get any better reception or sound quality than my phone does. Yeah, she can play Tetris on it, but honestly, I don't feel like I'm missing out on much.
For a good little "I just want to talk on it" phone, I'd recommend the 120e...
I had my money on 20 point Dingbat.
The larger a community grows, the less diciplined and dedicated that community will be to the "core values". If Wikipedia becomes the Next Big Thing, the Wiki folks will have an absolute shitstorm of asinine, counter-productive, uninformed, and outright malicious activity to deal with, and they'll tire of it very quickly.
Consider this hypothetical meatspace analogy:
"Mr. Mayor, how do you plan to deal with crime when LittleTown, USA, becomes the thriving metropolitan center you want it to be?"
"Well, we've been doing pretty well so far with crime, as most of the folks here in LittleTown are peaceful types, and Bill is a really great sheriff. We figure things should remain pretty much the same as we grow..."
Y'know, after reading the ruling, it's really tough to share this sky-is-falling sentiment. They basically ruled that requiring video monitoring in cafes (with a 72-hour recording log) is OK, but that the city cannot do more than verify the system is operational without a warrant to inspect the tapes. Their rationale is that this is little different from having adult supervision or a security guard on premesis. Furthermore, the video need only be capable of showing "the activity and physical features of persons or areas within the premises." The cafes aren't required to set them up so that Eye-In-The-Sky can read what your screen says; IMHO, this is even better than having a security guard prowling the cafe at eye level.
Frankly, I'm inclined to agree with the court on this one. A video system designed for security surveillance would be far less suited for snooping than human supervision. Which do you find more invasive--a grainy, black-and-white security recording from 20 feet away that's going to be wiped in 72 hours, or Bob the Security Guy, who has watched you every day for three months because he has a funny feeling that you're out to cause trouble?
Fact is, in most of the world, electricity isn't reliable. I'm actually shocked that in a place as chaotic as Iraq that there is a regular, if not unreliable power grid.
Yes, a reliable power grid is one helluva beast to keep running, and I'm quite aware that the powers-that-be have been working heavy-duty overtime to fix it. I'm not suggesting that the grid should be a reliably back up and running by now; I'll be surprised if the job is 'done' before the end of summer. Rather I'm simply stating that it is still a big problem, despite the continuing efforts to fix it.
There's a difference between spotty power in Iraq and spotty power in Latin America, though. Before the war, the power grid was fairly decent in Baghdad; washing machines, TVs, and other appliances were standard household fixtures in many areas. Since the invasion, there is a large chunk of the population that has had their lifestyle radically altered by the sudden degradation of the electrical infrastructure.
When you've gone all your life with spotty power, it's no big deal to you. When you're used to having electricity most of the time, a year's worth of extended power outages makes a big impact in how you lead your life...
Sometimes, sleep just seems like a waste of time and electricity. For example, the day before yesterday, our area had no electricity almost the whole day. Friday is our 'laundry day' so it was doubly frustrating. We stood around looking at the pile of clothes that needed washing. My mother deliberated washing them by hand but I convinced her it would be a bad idea- the water was cold, the weather was miserable and the clothes wouldn't even feel clean. We waited all day for the electricity and once or twice, it flashed on for all of 20 minutes. Finally, at 12 p.m., my mother stated, "Tomorrow, if there's no electricity, we'll wash them by hand. That's that."
This individual has both a computer -and- an internet connection, yet their daily life is still at the mercy of the highly unreliable power grid. It may not be hell on earth, but it's a far cry from anything even remotely pleasant...
1. Money.
2. Information.
3. Technical help.
Free software, hackers, and Iraq, all wrapped up into the same organization? Danger! Danger! Potential terrorist organization detected!
Seems only a few weeks ago we would have run the risk of getting our asses detained for violationg the Patriot Act. Now that this part of the Patriot Act has been ruled unconstitutional, though, we're safe to help these guys out.
<voiceover style="announcer:campy-1950's-sci-fi;"> or are we? </voiceover>
Then, a few manufacturers started to build laptops which, while still heavy and clunky, could last long enough on battery power to do some good word processing. It was still very much a niche product, but now people like business travellers could justify using them on long trips. They became more comact, more robust. People stopped saying, "whoa, what is that thing?" and started saying, "oh, neat--a laptop computer!"
Today, laptops are amazing little machines that can have virtually every convenience of a desktop system crammed into a five pound, notebook-sized package. They're powerful enough to do virtually anything that Joe Sixpack wants to do, they're reliable, and they've gone from "bizzare gizmo" cool to "everyday useful" cool. Entire industries are springing up based around supporting mobile computing. You see a person working on a laptop at a coffee shop and hardly bat an eyelid.
Now, if you look at multi-purpose handheld gadgets today, what do you see? I see massive, clunky, overpriced, underperforming, fragile beasts that are marginally useable, at best...
Patience.
Shoulde ye, upon iynspection of thyne Astrelabie, obsyrve a displaye of vivyde blu that doth syrmounte all othre tynt, eyther thyne Astrelabie ist fully angled teuwards the Heavyns, or thyne Astrelabie hast crayshd moste uttyrly.
Shame he's dead. He'd make a good Slashdot editor.
(yes, yes, I know, Olde Englishe ande alle thate...)
Close--Bryant's exact quote was "you're not cop, you're little people!" Bryant was suggesting that he wasn't about to let Deckard simply walk out of his office--either Deckard took the job, or he'd have 'problems' with the law...
Connecting to ignition...Connection refused: too many users. Please try again later.
[mycar:~] bob% ignition
Connecting to ignition...Connection refused: too many users. Please try again later.
[mycar:~] bob% ignition
Connecting to ignition...Connection refused: too many users. Please try again later.
Damn you, Slashdot...
Heh. Where I live (Baltimore,) there are plenty of coffee-canned-for-performance econoboxes and SUVs to go around. What's more, we get enough snow that it hits a few times every winter, but not enough snow to for the city to qualify as "a city that gets snow". An inch causes consternation; three closes school; six shuts the city down.
Anyhow. The vehicles, and their drivers.
The Uber-Civics assume that, because they have zippy, lightweight front-wheel drive, they can drive like bats out of hell and stop on a dime.
By contrast, the Hummers et. al. assume that, because they have strong, beefy four-wheel drive, they can drive like bats out of hell and stop on a dime.
Of course, both sets of vehicles have roughly identical braking capabilities in snow--that is, utterly abysmal.
The econoboxes, by nature of their lightweight frame, plow about a foot into the snowbank, get lifted off the ground, and sit there looking all stupid 'cuz the 3-foot aluminum wing doesn't do jack shit if you're not moving. (I have yet to develop the heart to tell them that it's just as effective whilst cruising at 70 down residential streets, but this is for another time.)
The SUVs, by nature of their heavy frame, plow about four feet into the snow, where (to their shock and horror) the drivers discover that even their very, very masculine car can get high-centered. (You haven't lived until you've seen a Hummer owner waiting for a tow out of a snowbank.) Such high centering is invariably accompanied by heated cell phone calls, gratuitous gesticulation at various things, and the careful brushing of snow from various articles of outerwear.
(Now, I'd never want to drive my Civic in the mountains after a snowfall--that's just suicide. The vast, vast majority of SUV owners, though, live in urban areas and use them for freeway commuting, shuttling kids, and grocery detail...)
Our products were originally for law enforcement use -- we get all our technology from Nemesys-co...
Nemesys-co? What, are they a division of the E-Ville Group or something?
Well, at one point in our world's history, there were a lot of people who simply couldn't comprehend why anybody would want to throw their life away by sailing off the edge of the planet. There wasn't anything fundamentally wrong with Europe that necessitated grand exploration, and most of the people leading these expeditions could have enjoyed a very comfortable life had they desired to do so. In short, the biggest thing driving the exploration was sheer curiosity (paired with the hope that these explorers might be able to find easier routes to places like the East Indies and cash in on them--a sort of Renaissance explorer's lottery.)
Looking back, I'm quite glad they went ahead and did it, anyways. Without said exploration, me and several billion of my closest friends wouldn't have the life we have today. Say whatever you will about the ills American society has introduced to this planet, say whatever you will about how royally we're fucking things up in our adolescent pursuit of global hegemony--fact is, America has done a lot to advance global prosperity, human rights, and quality of life. Had the explorers and pioneers of old not taken the (sometimes overwhelming) risks they took, we would be far less advanced, as a planet, than we are today.
Look forward. Know that you, your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren will never, ever, ever live to see the day when there is a self-sustaining colony on the Moon, Mars, or anywhere else. Know, too, that the sooner we start accepting the risks inherent with exploration, the sooner we'll be able to achieve the advances that come with such momentous human achievements.
"Well, it's a little cloudy, looks like it might..."
*tikkita tappity* ...o - a - t - s - e - dot - c - x...)
. o O (
*takka TAK!*
"AAAAAaaaaugh!"
Harmful to re-write...harmful to use GOTO...urk...can't...move...
Calling for-fee upgrade versions "Bait and Switch" is a bit rich. Did Apple ever claim that they'd never charge for future versions of their software?
Just answer this question: if new and exciting upgrades to the iApps justified the cost of system upgrades before, why isn't the OS X pricing dropping now?
Perhaps because the system continues to grow in complexity, thus requiring even more dilligence and attention. The larger and more complex something gets, the more it costs to maintain. Microsoft has a tradition of shirking on this point, and it shows--the more "advanced" their systems get, the more a computer gets bogged down with cruft and flotsam. Contrast this to Apple: not only did 10.3 have a whole bunch of new features and fixes, it was significantly faster than 10.2. This is neither easy nor cheap, and it gets harder and more expensive the more advanced something gets.
Anyhow, I get the feeling I'm not going to be changing any minds. You're clearly so incensed at Apple that you're finished buying their products. Enjoy the one you have!
Oh, I dunno. Maybe their developers and engineers insisted on getting paid for their work or something.
Acquiring and retaining the caliber of employee necessary to develop "a machine that does exactly what you tell it and doesn't break for no reason" is expensive. Cut too many corners and you start losing your talent, starting with the best people you've got. Once you start losing your talent base, it becomes harder and harder to regain that base, as the overall quality of your product drops, your reputation suffers, and you start losing income from sales--forcing you to cut even more corners than before.
That said, nobody is holding a gun to your head, ordering you to upgrade to the latest versions. Your Mac will continue to operate as it always has for as long as you want to keep it running.
If you want to benefit from the continued efforts of Apple's software development team, why is it so onerous to expect to pay for it? They don't disable the version you've already got, after all.