Right now, there's a huge profit incentive for patent trolls because of the huge payouts in damages when these lawsuits are won.
Either cap damages, or limit compensation to injunctions, to remove the huge incentive that companies have to make profit from patent battles.
Having these companies bickering over patents and billion-dollar payouts is bad for everyone, since they should be inventing new technology or at least fixing those iPhone purple flare cameras.
Linus, thanks for Linux, which makes our days better across the globe.
My question is a hypothetical: assuming that software patents were more enduring and strictly enforced, such that you would not have been able to make a UNIX-like operating system, what would you have invented instead?
In other words, if UNIX and VMS were defensible enough so that Linux and Windows (respectively) could not have been created, where would technology have gone? If the Mac OS GUI was so vigorously defended that nothing approximating it could be used, what would our desktop interfaces look like today?
I think what we need to move more towards is getting CS people out of coding and into becoming software architects. Most software can be easily divided into (relatively) simple chunks, and if you have enough skills put into actually building software, instead of writing code (which is probably the least important part of the process), then the divisions become trivial.
This is a good point.
Coding is, in my view, one tool in the belt of a CS grad. The biggest skill is how to apply technology, and that's where critical thinking and analytical skills are essential. Sometimes, coding is the answer; not always.
Often times, the architecture is in integrating multiple systems to work together, and multiple tools are used, including but not limited to coding.
The roll-your-own days are mostly gone. While I'm nostalgic for some aspects of them, we need to acknowledge that today's coder may be stitching together complex chains of software, hardware, operating systems, network, libraries, scripts, shells, etc. in order to make a project as a whole work, and that's where architecture (a career) is more important than programming (a tool, a craft).
Most people in the field consider programming to be a craft - a combination of art and science, just like the traditional (non-software) profession of architect.
Traditionally, blue collar work has included artisans and craftsmen, and as I recall that's where the apprenticeship method started.
Although the traditional dividing line between blue- and white-collar trades was how sweaty you got (literally, since blue shirts are easier to launder), the ultimate difference is in how much autonomous decision-making you do. That's while programmers tend to be so anti-union. They identify with the decision-makers (management).
I think this is insightful because "autonomous decision-making" is a good dividing line. However, most blue collar work of the type I've mentioned occurs by independent contractors or people with a fair amount of autonomous decision-making, such as installing hardware or planning construction. I don't think "blue collar" should be assumed to mean "because they sweat, they're dumb," which is an assumption that our television shows seem to make.
there should be more apprentices and fewer university graduates with insurmountable debt
When we graduated college, an old-timer said something to the effect of, "Now that your degree program is over, your education can begin."
What followed for the lucky amongst us was finding people in our industries who could teach us from the benefit of experience. Education tries for comprehensive and lacks in application; an apprenticeship teaches application.
Both are necessary, but one can be had by cracking a book on your own time (use the Abe Lincoln method, just make sure you do an hour a day) and the other -- experience/apprenticeship -- cannot.
I've now been around long enough to have seen a few dozen projects like this pop up, vanish within five years, and be completely gone without a trace in ten. They're not relevant because they're not effective.
To get people to learn to code HTML, get them a project they want to work on, and then guide them through the HTML stage to using a script to generate that HTML. By itself, HTML/CSS coding is a dead-end skill. The real goal should be the web application or site and how it's going to do something that people actually need.
Clever little games may seem to increase participation, but they really distract from the actual task and attract people who do not have the mental state to pursue the other skills they will need to further themselves along this path.
I enjoy your comments on the site, so you'll get more than the standard drive-by response from me.
There is a substantial amount of math and logic that should be used as a foundation for programming. I know the coworkers that would otherwise be installing air conditioners when I ask people if they thing we could use a more functional-type language for a new project instead of an object oriented language.
First, I'd like to make it clear that I am not scornful of these fields. Air-conditioning installing, building wiring, etc. are not devoid of creativity and intelligence requirements.
In fact, like programming, there's a huge gulf between doing it and doing it right that is determined by degree of intelligence and creativity.
You may find that intelligence level is the difference between the blank starers and the thinkers, if you look back over the years.
Look, I think you're trying to discuss what you feel is the percentage between creativity and regurgitation in each of the above subjects. And I will tell you right now that all those fields are diverse with jobs that require more than one of the other. If you want to say programming requires more creativity and that's something that cannot be taught then at least give me a compelling argument for that.
I'm not communicating effectively here. I'm not trying to make this a comparison of creativity levels, or regurgitation, except to say that I think education over-emphasizes regurgitation, which is not the skill that differentiates an excellent programmer from a hum-drum one. This was a statement I made in support of the apprenticeship idea.
Professionals are different from all other careers in two crucial ways: first, they must be able to handle a huge amount of detail and balance those details against one another; second, they are responsible for greater impact than most others, and as a result need to have critical thinking, leadership and human perception skills that are not normally required.
I'm thinking of doctors, lawyers, CEOs, architects and probably a few other groups here. I don't know if creativity is what is needed; most jobs call for inventiveness, or the ability to apply different forms with a bit of fudging so that new uses arise. But so does life itself.
Are we shuffling too many people into these professions? Yes, unquestionably so, just like we're sending too many people to college. This doesn't mean we should forget what these professions actually require, especially since most who attempt them fail.
If only you could see the spaghetti code I've seen. Ordinary people are free to write code, in fact I love that and I hope that continues to expand. But when you're talking about commercial grade software being written for a company that is being sold to people for real money... that's when I start to cringe that "good enough to tinker with in my home means good enough to be deployed to millions of personal devices across the world."
Why do you assume I haven't seen similar forms of spaghetti code? The first workplace skill I mastered was Lamaze breathing so I could avoid shouting expletives when looking over other people's projects. However, I'd be lying if I said these people were not well-credentialed. Some came from what are considered good schools and had good resumes, and make more money than just about anyone else.
Ordinary people are going to be writing more code. For most coding, what is required isn't a mystery. In fact, it's well known and well publicized, so that cut-paste-and-modify programming will continue to be the norm. If you haven't looked at the average web developer these days, you might take a peek, and you may see where programming is going. Mastery of libraries, frameworks and commonly needed syntactical devices has replaced the roll-your-own coder.
You're free to apply to jobs but when you're going up agains
You can have one: either focus all of your energy into providing quality, or just keep showing up for the long hours and maybe someone will promote you.
The problem is that not everyone can achieve quality, so managers (like elementary school teachers) emphasize participation not results.
This means that in order to be seen as good at your job, you have to hang out at work for 10-12 hours. This means stretching everything you do and padding it with non-essentials. Eventually, you get accustomed to this pace. Surprise! You're now an ineffective worker, which means if they find someone else to hire, you may be out of a job, especially if you're near (or over) 50.
It would be better to emphasize quality work, have fewer people so that inter-personal communication is higher, and send everyone home after six hours to spend time with their families or to otherwise figure out their personal lives. People are such zombies because they spend all their time at work and then have no idea what to do with themselves in their off-hours.
If you give everyone "freedom," they'll do things that offend each other. This means we have to come up with definitions of freedom that aren't actually free. This to me suggests that we should stop claiming our goal is "freedom," and start claiming that it's harmony or mutually non-offensive co-existence or some other buzzword-laden catchphrase.
This makes sense to me. Most of the best programmers I've known are guys who otherwise would be installing air conditioners, fixing big trucks or re-wiring buildings.
Coding is not a profession. It's a skill, which is a part of a series of job descriptions and career paths, but in itself it's a form of knowledge more like what an electrician has than what professionals like architects, doctors, lawyers and assassins must know.
Apprenticeship is an excellent idea since most of the "best practices" can't be taught at a school, and apprenticeship allows people with applied skills to shine, instead of schools where those with excellent detail memorization shine. Most of the best programmers I know either never went to school for it, or didn't do all that well at school.
Bring back the hacker aesthetic. Professions are for those who want to super-specialize and master specific high-level skills. Hacking is something anyone with the gumption and dedication can do. As the world expands into mobile devices, ordinary people are writing code every day.
That being said, CS needs to find a new career type that might belong to professions. I suggest "product architect" (like Steve Jobs) and "total systems integrators" (like what the Google guys do, interoperability) for those who will need college degrees or equivalent and a professional mindset.
I think extreme lack of variation in lifestyle is one of the hallmarks of a hacker; at least it was in the 1980s. You don't spend mental energy on things unrelated to what you actually want to do. Clothes are there to cover the body, and serve no other purpose. Food is there to nourish. You don't immerse yourself in these things because they're distracting.
This comes from a desire to be on autopilot in all the necessary but uninteresting aspects of life. Hackers never want to put thought into dressing, because that's irrelevant. It is functional and nothing more, so good enough is the best it gets. In the same way, a lot of successful people cut corners on aspects of personal appearance or home maintenance. It's just not part of the mission.
Starting in the 1970s, Russian immigrants came to this area in great numbers. They are bordered on the South by a large Hispanic population, on the East by a large East Asian and Indian population, and on the West by rural communities and exburbs.
The user community tends to be very vocal in its criticism of Microsoft on all issues, which means that Redmond sees nothing unusual about a lot of people complaining here. Like the boy who cried wolf, if you constantly complain, all complaints get equal treatment. For a company that wants to get things done and not just quit because you object, that means they all get ignored.
I clone your MAC address, I decrypt your Wi-Fi, and I own your basic electronics already.
Apply these relative basic skills and what do you have? A high-tech integrated system which can actually be used to conceal the identity of a vehicle behind a false identity, and charge up all sorts of services to the legitimate owner besides.
This issue is chronically ignored, but the fact remains that earth is finite and no matter how "carbon neutral" we all try to be, at some point we'll create too many people to both have those people and any kind of natural environment as well. If we had orbiting colonies today, the rich would go there to escape the clutter, pollution, violence, corruption, etc. of life on earth. Maybe Elysium will be like the Idiocracy for future generations.
This was interesting reading. Bittersweet, because there's always doubt over a sale. No matter what anyone says, if you created it, it's yours and you have a moral right to it. In the hands of commerce however, others control it, and use facts/figures to justify actions based on knowledge from the past.
I think it makes sense instead for Slashdot to think of the future. There is always going to be room for a site that covers geek topics, and no one does it like Slashdot. It's a potent mix of technology, culture and politics that has always been at the forefront of changes in the technology field. If anything, it's time for Slashdot's "owners" (the community is the real owner) to re-invest in updating the site, and to stay the course. Don't try to make it into Facebook, because Slashdot and its appeal are fundamentally different.
What's dying is the internet as it has become in successive iterations: post-1996, post-2002, and whatever came after that. AOL wrecked the internet and died, Myspace died, Facebook is failing because the power users are leaving, since the site has become basically a work-day time-waster for cube slaves. The branching of the internet audience into niches is the real story here, not the attempt of a few people (even Wikipedia) to control what everyone is thinking.
If I had one suggestion, it would be to cover more of the underground. People are living outside the grid, even if from within the grid, in more ways and more interesting ways than ever before.
Social programs cost a lot of money, much of which seems to go to those administering the programs, and not to the intended recipients.
Research is -- on the scale that government or really large corporations operate -- cheap. It is a relatively small portion of the budget and yet returns value over decades and centuries.
Some unsung R&D programs like the military, NASA and our espionage programs are also worth spending on.
I don't understand austerity; is the idea "sacrifice tomorrow to pay for today"? I bet that will work about as well as it sounds.
Congratulations to the French on ducking this foolish trend and instead supplementing education and research.
Except for the brand-new high profile chips, there's not enough of a price difference between AMD and Intel prices to justify using anything but the real thing. None of us wants to roll out a whole floor of machines only to find out that the AMD machines we spec'd have some incompatibility or another, not when for $50/machine wholesale we could get Intel chips instead.
Apple blamed the end user for the issue til they finally fessed up that it was their hardware/software
They've been doing that since the 1980s. Remember the Mac IIx motherboards? The failing Mac Plus and SE power supplies? Even back into the Apple// days, this behavior was fairly standard (remember the defective//c motherboards?).
However, it's not just Apple. Anywhere you have a bunch of people who are responsible for technology over time, you get an entrenched bureaucracy. Entrenched bureaucracies tend to respond to problems by blaming the user first.
Don't believe me? Go to a *BSD or Linux mailing list and bring up a problem that could be inherent to the OS. The first responses will always be user-blaming, and those people don't even get paid to do it.
This will be downvoted to Flamebait, but here goes:
Ultrabooks are neat. There's no denying that.
However, in terms of the daily tasks the average user does (email, office apps, web) the ultrabooks offer nothing new. They do however offer smaller screens and often more delicate machines for a much higher price.
The iPad and its ilk succeeded because they made laptops less cumbersome; tablets are just easier to carry around and you can whip them out and get started quickly without a whole lot of setup. Netbooks did sort of as well, for a certain segment of the population. I doubt laptops will go away until we have a highly functional keyboard replacement.
The suggestion to drop prices is kind of brain-dead.
IHS iSuppli said that Ultrabooks have a chance at success if manufacturers get prices down between $600 to $700
Translated, that says to basically bring ultrabook prices down to those of current mid-level laptops. Seems to defeat the point of making high-end hardware, but in another six months, they can just re-use last year's ultrabook designs.
I don't understand why this is so hard for manufacturers: machines should just work. If they don't, they should be swapped out (same way we'd do it in a corporate IT environment) for a working one.
Of course, there's a downside to that. If a user is incompetent, they're going to become a loss for the company on the second swap or support call. You'd have to use a blacklist to keep out the unable.
I'm not impressed by the world of PC clones, but the saving grace is that they're cheap; you don't pay the overhead for great service. The downside is that they're roll-it-yourself, not quite as extreme as Linux boxes, but in the middle. You have to configure it for four hours to remove crapware, install basics like WinRAR (which is still awaiting registration... alas), and get it set up so a human can use it.
But it's cheap, and in the long-run, that's a bigger driver of the market than luxury gear like Apple sells. In fact, Apple has steadily been reversing its position from being a maker of independent hardware, to being a maker of slightly nicer PC hardware, made in the same Chinese plants that Dell used to use.
The two business models -- cut-rate clones versus custom hardware -- have converged, mainly because neither one could do it all. Clones are chaotic, the bazaar not the cathedral, but they get the job done. The problem is that no one is accountable for making sure their design and software are consistent, and no one is ultimately responsible for getting them working. That is shifted to the user. You can pay more for a Mac, but as the link to their service woes above shows, they're not perfect either, and because there's only one company, you have few options if they don't want to help.
Now I'm outta here before someone makes the obvious Libertarians-are-PCs-Totalitarians-are-Macs argument. Godwin in -1 seconds.
Slashdot Mirror
Right now, there's a huge profit incentive for patent trolls because of the huge payouts in damages when these lawsuits are won.
Either cap damages, or limit compensation to injunctions, to remove the huge incentive that companies have to make profit from patent battles.
Having these companies bickering over patents and billion-dollar payouts is bad for everyone, since they should be inventing new technology or at least fixing those iPhone purple flare cameras.
Linus, thanks for Linux, which makes our days better across the globe.
My question is a hypothetical: assuming that software patents were more enduring and strictly enforced, such that you would not have been able to make a UNIX-like operating system, what would you have invented instead?
In other words, if UNIX and VMS were defensible enough so that Linux and Windows (respectively) could not have been created, where would technology have gone? If the Mac OS GUI was so vigorously defended that nothing approximating it could be used, what would our desktop interfaces look like today?
This is a good point.
Coding is, in my view, one tool in the belt of a CS grad. The biggest skill is how to apply technology, and that's where critical thinking and analytical skills are essential. Sometimes, coding is the answer; not always.
Often times, the architecture is in integrating multiple systems to work together, and multiple tools are used, including but not limited to coding.
The roll-your-own days are mostly gone. While I'm nostalgic for some aspects of them, we need to acknowledge that today's coder may be stitching together complex chains of software, hardware, operating systems, network, libraries, scripts, shells, etc. in order to make a project as a whole work, and that's where architecture (a career) is more important than programming (a tool, a craft).
Traditionally, blue collar work has included artisans and craftsmen, and as I recall that's where the apprenticeship method started.
I think this is insightful because "autonomous decision-making" is a good dividing line. However, most blue collar work of the type I've mentioned occurs by independent contractors or people with a fair amount of autonomous decision-making, such as installing hardware or planning construction. I don't think "blue collar" should be assumed to mean "because they sweat, they're dumb," which is an assumption that our television shows seem to make.
Unfortunately, it seems like many degree programs are going in that direction as well.
When we graduated college, an old-timer said something to the effect of, "Now that your degree program is over, your education can begin."
What followed for the lucky amongst us was finding people in our industries who could teach us from the benefit of experience. Education tries for comprehensive and lacks in application; an apprenticeship teaches application.
Both are necessary, but one can be had by cracking a book on your own time (use the Abe Lincoln method, just make sure you do an hour a day) and the other -- experience/apprenticeship -- cannot.
From the post:
That's a degree in the liberal arts, unless he chose a deliberately awkward "liberal arts college" + degree formulation.
I've now been around long enough to have seen a few dozen projects like this pop up, vanish within five years, and be completely gone without a trace in ten. They're not relevant because they're not effective.
To get people to learn to code HTML, get them a project they want to work on, and then guide them through the HTML stage to using a script to generate that HTML. By itself, HTML/CSS coding is a dead-end skill. The real goal should be the web application or site and how it's going to do something that people actually need.
Clever little games may seem to increase participation, but they really distract from the actual task and attract people who do not have the mental state to pursue the other skills they will need to further themselves along this path.
I enjoy your comments on the site, so you'll get more than the standard drive-by response from me.
First, I'd like to make it clear that I am not scornful of these fields. Air-conditioning installing, building wiring, etc. are not devoid of creativity and intelligence requirements.
In fact, like programming, there's a huge gulf between doing it and doing it right that is determined by degree of intelligence and creativity.
You may find that intelligence level is the difference between the blank starers and the thinkers, if you look back over the years.
I'm not communicating effectively here. I'm not trying to make this a comparison of creativity levels, or regurgitation, except to say that I think education over-emphasizes regurgitation, which is not the skill that differentiates an excellent programmer from a hum-drum one. This was a statement I made in support of the apprenticeship idea.
Professionals are different from all other careers in two crucial ways: first, they must be able to handle a huge amount of detail and balance those details against one another; second, they are responsible for greater impact than most others, and as a result need to have critical thinking, leadership and human perception skills that are not normally required.
I'm thinking of doctors, lawyers, CEOs, architects and probably a few other groups here. I don't know if creativity is what is needed; most jobs call for inventiveness, or the ability to apply different forms with a bit of fudging so that new uses arise. But so does life itself.
Are we shuffling too many people into these professions? Yes, unquestionably so, just like we're sending too many people to college. This doesn't mean we should forget what these professions actually require, especially since most who attempt them fail.
Why do you assume I haven't seen similar forms of spaghetti code? The first workplace skill I mastered was Lamaze breathing so I could avoid shouting expletives when looking over other people's projects. However, I'd be lying if I said these people were not well-credentialed. Some came from what are considered good schools and had good resumes, and make more money than just about anyone else.
Ordinary people are going to be writing more code. For most coding, what is required isn't a mystery. In fact, it's well known and well publicized, so that cut-paste-and-modify programming will continue to be the norm. If you haven't looked at the average web developer these days, you might take a peek, and you may see where programming is going. Mastery of libraries, frameworks and commonly needed syntactical devices has replaced the roll-your-own coder.
You can have one: either focus all of your energy into providing quality, or just keep showing up for the long hours and maybe someone will promote you.
The problem is that not everyone can achieve quality, so managers (like elementary school teachers) emphasize participation not results.
This means that in order to be seen as good at your job, you have to hang out at work for 10-12 hours. This means stretching everything you do and padding it with non-essentials. Eventually, you get accustomed to this pace. Surprise! You're now an ineffective worker, which means if they find someone else to hire, you may be out of a job, especially if you're near (or over) 50.
It would be better to emphasize quality work, have fewer people so that inter-personal communication is higher, and send everyone home after six hours to spend time with their families or to otherwise figure out their personal lives. People are such zombies because they spend all their time at work and then have no idea what to do with themselves in their off-hours.
Yeah, because the Muslims aren't like you and me, and they don't have control over their reactions.
If you give everyone "freedom," they'll do things that offend each other. This means we have to come up with definitions of freedom that aren't actually free. This to me suggests that we should stop claiming our goal is "freedom," and start claiming that it's harmony or mutually non-offensive co-existence or some other buzzword-laden catchphrase.
This makes sense to me. Most of the best programmers I've known are guys who otherwise would be installing air conditioners, fixing big trucks or re-wiring buildings.
Coding is not a profession. It's a skill, which is a part of a series of job descriptions and career paths, but in itself it's a form of knowledge more like what an electrician has than what professionals like architects, doctors, lawyers and assassins must know.
Apprenticeship is an excellent idea since most of the "best practices" can't be taught at a school, and apprenticeship allows people with applied skills to shine, instead of schools where those with excellent detail memorization shine. Most of the best programmers I know either never went to school for it, or didn't do all that well at school.
Bring back the hacker aesthetic. Professions are for those who want to super-specialize and master specific high-level skills. Hacking is something anyone with the gumption and dedication can do. As the world expands into mobile devices, ordinary people are writing code every day.
That being said, CS needs to find a new career type that might belong to professions. I suggest "product architect" (like Steve Jobs) and "total systems integrators" (like what the Google guys do, interoperability) for those who will need college degrees or equivalent and a professional mindset.
First they came for the trolls...
I think extreme lack of variation in lifestyle is one of the hallmarks of a hacker; at least it was in the 1980s. You don't spend mental energy on things unrelated to what you actually want to do. Clothes are there to cover the body, and serve no other purpose. Food is there to nourish. You don't immerse yourself in these things because they're distracting.
This comes from a desire to be on autopilot in all the necessary but uninteresting aspects of life. Hackers never want to put thought into dressing, because that's irrelevant. It is functional and nothing more, so good enough is the best it gets. In the same way, a lot of successful people cut corners on aspects of personal appearance or home maintenance. It's just not part of the mission.
Starting in the 1970s, Russian immigrants came to this area in great numbers. They are bordered on the South by a large Hispanic population, on the East by a large East Asian and Indian population, and on the West by rural communities and exburbs.
The user community tends to be very vocal in its criticism of Microsoft on all issues, which means that Redmond sees nothing unusual about a lot of people complaining here. Like the boy who cried wolf, if you constantly complain, all complaints get equal treatment. For a company that wants to get things done and not just quit because you object, that means they all get ignored.
I clone your MAC address, I decrypt your Wi-Fi, and I own your basic electronics already.
Apply these relative basic skills and what do you have? A high-tech integrated system which can actually be used to conceal the identity of a vehicle behind a false identity, and charge up all sorts of services to the legitimate owner besides.
This issue is chronically ignored, but the fact remains that earth is finite and no matter how "carbon neutral" we all try to be, at some point we'll create too many people to both have those people and any kind of natural environment as well. If we had orbiting colonies today, the rich would go there to escape the clutter, pollution, violence, corruption, etc. of life on earth. Maybe Elysium will be like the Idiocracy for future generations.
This was interesting reading. Bittersweet, because there's always doubt over a sale. No matter what anyone says, if you created it, it's yours and you have a moral right to it. In the hands of commerce however, others control it, and use facts/figures to justify actions based on knowledge from the past.
I think it makes sense instead for Slashdot to think of the future. There is always going to be room for a site that covers geek topics, and no one does it like Slashdot. It's a potent mix of technology, culture and politics that has always been at the forefront of changes in the technology field. If anything, it's time for Slashdot's "owners" (the community is the real owner) to re-invest in updating the site, and to stay the course. Don't try to make it into Facebook, because Slashdot and its appeal are fundamentally different.
What's dying is the internet as it has become in successive iterations: post-1996, post-2002, and whatever came after that. AOL wrecked the internet and died, Myspace died, Facebook is failing because the power users are leaving, since the site has become basically a work-day time-waster for cube slaves. The branching of the internet audience into niches is the real story here, not the attempt of a few people (even Wikipedia) to control what everyone is thinking.
If I had one suggestion, it would be to cover more of the underground. People are living outside the grid, even if from within the grid, in more ways and more interesting ways than ever before.
Social programs cost a lot of money, much of which seems to go to those administering the programs, and not to the intended recipients.
Research is -- on the scale that government or really large corporations operate -- cheap. It is a relatively small portion of the budget and yet returns value over decades and centuries.
Some unsung R&D programs like the military, NASA and our espionage programs are also worth spending on.
I don't understand austerity; is the idea "sacrifice tomorrow to pay for today"? I bet that will work about as well as it sounds.
Congratulations to the French on ducking this foolish trend and instead supplementing education and research.
Except for the brand-new high profile chips, there's not enough of a price difference between AMD and Intel prices to justify using anything but the real thing. None of us wants to roll out a whole floor of machines only to find out that the AMD machines we spec'd have some incompatibility or another, not when for $50/machine wholesale we could get Intel chips instead.
They've been doing that since the 1980s. Remember the Mac IIx motherboards? The failing Mac Plus and SE power supplies? Even back into the Apple // days, this behavior was fairly standard (remember the defective //c motherboards?).
However, it's not just Apple. Anywhere you have a bunch of people who are responsible for technology over time, you get an entrenched bureaucracy. Entrenched bureaucracies tend to respond to problems by blaming the user first.
Don't believe me? Go to a *BSD or Linux mailing list and bring up a problem that could be inherent to the OS. The first responses will always be user-blaming, and those people don't even get paid to do it.
This will be downvoted to Flamebait, but here goes:
Ultrabooks are neat. There's no denying that.
However, in terms of the daily tasks the average user does (email, office apps, web) the ultrabooks offer nothing new. They do however offer smaller screens and often more delicate machines for a much higher price.
The iPad and its ilk succeeded because they made laptops less cumbersome; tablets are just easier to carry around and you can whip them out and get started quickly without a whole lot of setup. Netbooks did sort of as well, for a certain segment of the population. I doubt laptops will go away until we have a highly functional keyboard replacement.
The suggestion to drop prices is kind of brain-dead.
Translated, that says to basically bring ultrabook prices down to those of current mid-level laptops. Seems to defeat the point of making high-end hardware, but in another six months, they can just re-use last year's ultrabook designs.
And yet, Apple has its problems:
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/12/10/03/0357223/apple-acknowledges-iphone-5-camera-flaw
I don't understand why this is so hard for manufacturers: machines should just work. If they don't, they should be swapped out (same way we'd do it in a corporate IT environment) for a working one.
Of course, there's a downside to that. If a user is incompetent, they're going to become a loss for the company on the second swap or support call. You'd have to use a blacklist to keep out the unable.
I'm not impressed by the world of PC clones, but the saving grace is that they're cheap; you don't pay the overhead for great service. The downside is that they're roll-it-yourself, not quite as extreme as Linux boxes, but in the middle. You have to configure it for four hours to remove crapware, install basics like WinRAR (which is still awaiting registration... alas), and get it set up so a human can use it.
But it's cheap, and in the long-run, that's a bigger driver of the market than luxury gear like Apple sells. In fact, Apple has steadily been reversing its position from being a maker of independent hardware, to being a maker of slightly nicer PC hardware, made in the same Chinese plants that Dell used to use.
The two business models -- cut-rate clones versus custom hardware -- have converged, mainly because neither one could do it all. Clones are chaotic, the bazaar not the cathedral, but they get the job done. The problem is that no one is accountable for making sure their design and software are consistent, and no one is ultimately responsible for getting them working. That is shifted to the user. You can pay more for a Mac, but as the link to their service woes above shows, they're not perfect either, and because there's only one company, you have few options if they don't want to help.
Now I'm outta here before someone makes the obvious Libertarians-are-PCs-Totalitarians-are-Macs argument. Godwin in -1 seconds.