One suspects they'd consider Apple more "green" should Apple provide them with an infusion of cash.
Nice theory, but Greenpeace doesn't accept funding from corporations or governments. Your own link supports this. Greenpeace is looking for funding, of course, but not from Apple. They pick attention-getting fights and stage public displays of annoyance so as to keep the name a household one.
So even if a company appears to not give a cr@p about their heavy impact on the environment, we should go easy on them, because they might be secretly investing lots of money into reducing their environmental impact?
Apple has no responsibility whatsoever to answer to Greenpeace. None. Zero. Zilch. "Appears not to give a crap" is based wholly on Greenpeace's unscientific studies, which ranked companies based on public statements, and not any measurement of environmental impact. This is what we call a publicity stunt, which is Greenpeace's primary occupation.
Note that now Greenpeace is patting itself on the back for "forcing" Apple to change their policy, even though most, if not all of this information has been presented on Apple's site for many years.
I don't see how giving a 10% discount for replacing your iPod is environmentally friendly at all.
They will recycle your old one free of charge, whether you buy a new one or not. Same with anything they make. The 10% discount is just an incentive.
Surely if they made iPods so they didn't have to be either thrown in the bin or replaced every 18 months (or less) then that would be far better, environmentally speaking.
The 18-month battery is a myth stemming from one person's bad experience: it is not a function of the design or manufacture of the iPod. Battery health is a variable that cannot be strictly controlled, so under some conditions, any battery from any manufacturer, in any product, may fail. Most don't. Furthermore, Apple will replace failed batteries under warranty for free, or out-of-warranty for $60. And as I mentioned before, they will recycle them for free.
It has been known for years that Apple's environmental record is absolutely terrible.
Cite a source.
Of course Steve Jobs is going to say otherwise, he's not a complete idiot, but that doesn't mean what he is saying is in anyway true.
You're saying both that it's ok to presume guilt when a company doesn't talk much about their environmental impact, and also that when they do, they must be lying? You truly are an asshole, aren't you?
You're also ignoring the fact that many of the claims are easily verifiable (Did Apple stop selling lead-leaden CRTs? Uh, yeah.), others are are in compliance with government regulations (like the EU RoHS), which is pretty damn hard to lie about.
The grandparent was talking about CD-to-tape as a counter-example to DRM. Not CD-to-lossy digital. If you had read the thread, you might have caught that.
I did dislike the loss of quality but the convenience of tapes at the time seemed worth it.
My point: This is the kind of thing people don't say about DRM. Incurring a loss in exchange for added convenience isn't widely accepted anymore. I personally find this kind of silly, and especially silly when it's highlighted in a comment like that above.
Cassettes are dead, man, and the updated technology no longer includes this capability.
You're being obtuse. I didn't say anything about satellite or digital radio. The parent refered to recording songs off of FM radio, which you can still do today. And why do you automatically assume cassette tapes? Why not directly to your computer?
Still, a tape was more than good enough in a portable or in the car. MP3s are lossy, and most people seem happy with them, so I don't know what you mean when you say that "people don't feel the same way anymore."
You're ignoring the context. The parent was talking about DRM being a "culture shock" because it apparently prevents the kind of format-shifting described above. In fact, it permits exactly the same loss-inducing kind.
My point is that where once it was "acceptable" to record a CD onto a tape, incurring a loss of quality (perceptible or not), in the DRM-era it is "unacceptable" to incur any loss or face any obstacle when format-shifting. Saying "burn/rerip" can get you shot in some circles, even though it actually works.
Which of course means when the smaller labels set prices to $0.05 (just an example) a song, Apple will still sell it at $1.29 a track rather than passing the savings on to its customers.
You misunderstand. By "set the price", I mean they're the ones that get to decide the minimum they're willing to accept in exchange for their product. This doesn't mean that the actual price they sell to Apple for is negotiable. It just means they get to decide whether the price that Apple offers to buy at is acceptable. There's no such thing as them saying "Please give us less money". If they think that getting 70+ cents a track is too much, the only real option they have is to just not deal with Apple.
I think you're grasping at straws if you think there's some kind of "screw the labels, screw the consumer" thing going on.
Generally I would expect that not needing packaging, delivery trucks, shelf space, etc, would result in the end product being cheaper due to the lack of need to pay for all that stuff...
The comparison was made to Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, which has enough buying power to negotiate preposterously low wholesale prices for the music they carry, and which has one of the most efficient logistics operations in the world, which is used to transport a hell of a lot more than just music CDs. That's not really something to draw generalizations from.
There's absolutely no reason why transferring 100MB of data should cost more than fabricating, packaging, storing, delivering to a shop, displaying and selling a chunk of metal and plastic.
If it were 100MB of random, useless data then you might have a point. Think: Why to blank CDs cost a few cents, while music CDs cost $10 or more?
I was under the impression that Apple forces all of the music to be sold at the same price (hence why all of the songs on iTunes before this DRM thing were $.99).
Apple sets the retail price (i.e. what you pay), the labels set the wholesale price (i.e. how much retailers like Apple pay).
Radios with built-in cassette players could often record "free" [1] music directly from the radio, without any external microphone.
Has it not ocurred to you that you can still do this?
The CD era made it even easier to make high quality tapes.
And I'll bet you didn't mind the loss of quality in exchange for the ability to format-shift, did you? Funny how people don't feel the same way anymore.
Maybe this is a dumb question, but if I could somehow go 20,000 feet underwater, in the middle of the Pacific and walk on the ocean floor, at some point I might trip over a cable, is that the idea?
Pretty much. They've been laying them for over a hundred years, so there's probably quite a few to stumble upon if you're ambling around the right areas. Some are more buried in the sand than others, but they're all pretty much sitting on the surface. In fact, to repair them, they drag a hook along the ocean floor until they snag, then they reel it in like a fish.
How do they know when it's touched bottom so they can move 100 feet forward and lay down some more?
Knowing the depth of the water and the amount they've spooled out gives them a pretty good idea of where it is.
Can they attach cameras and lights with batteries, wait for the thing to sink and then look around down there until the batteries die?
Probably. But generally the kind of kit you send down that far for science is the kind that you want to reel back in eventually.
If an aircraft carrier sunk in the middle of the Pacific and sunk 20,000 ft to the bottom could it crush the wires?
It takes much less than an aircraft carrier to sever such a cable. Anchors, fishing trawlers, and sharks have all been known to do the trick.
How thick is the thing when it's 20,000 feet down running up and down underwater mountains and valleys?
Not very thick at all. A few inches. Closure to shore it may be thicker, encased in more "armor", as there are more threats (as above: anchors, etc.) And no, it's unlikely you could dive down and splice in, for this reason, not to mention the more technical issues.
Could I go snorkeling someplace and see it when it comes up on shore? How to they protect it from terrorists with scuba gear?
Probably, somewhere. Some places it comes right up onto the beach, often surrounded by barbed-wire fences, then into a building where it's redirected underground. In other places, it's buried into the sea bed near shore and then goes underground to the terminal. Terrorist attack probably isn't that big a concern, as close to shore is the easiest and cheapest place to repair any damage.
Where do they "plug it in" when it comes up on shore? What do they plug into?
If you've seen one sturdy-looking telecom building, you've seen them all. Some might be built more like bomb shelters (or rather, as bomb shelters) than others, but for the most part, they're dull, short, windowless buildings. Inside the cable plugs into an expensive box with blinking lights connected to other boxes with blinking lights. Usually there's a telephone handset for talking to the guy on the other end.
My entire point is that most Americans identify their country with freedom, an association it does little to deserve.
You must be completely unfamiliar with the history of the world. When people refer to any modern democracy as "free", it is in relative terms. An absolute definition of "free" is the realm of philosophy, not reality.
You're arguing that the US is not a "free country" because it has laws that restrict some freedoms. Forgive me if I consider that an insight worthy of a freshman civics class.
I suspect that the post on BoingBoing was intended to be humorous, not a Call to Arms...
People that read BoingBoing frequently can't tell the difference. As everything posted there is either humorous or a call to arms, it's easy to confuse the two.
You're arguing that lack of choice is a good thing?
No. I'm arguing that the OP's decision to make shit up in support of his opinion and then pretending it's an objective analysis is a bad thing. I'm also arguing that to claim "lack of choice" is stupid when nobody is being forced to buy an iPhone. If PowerPoint is your killer app, don't buy a phone that doesn't have it. If the ability to run third-party email clients just in case you don't like the included one, don't buy a phone that doesn't have it.
Intel was forced to make the changes because of public outcry due to some ugly PR.
And, as I stated, the fact that nobody (Not Microsoft, not the RIAA, not "every web site") was using it. Not because of anything AMD did, which the OP claimed. The above "Insightful" comment is both factually wrong and rife with paranoid delusion.
Third thing I did on both my macs (After dragging terminal to the dock and the MS demo apps to the trash can) was download and install Firefox for OSX.
The little birdie network is saying that the hole is actually in the Java plug-in, so Firefox with Java enabled has the same problem.
CPUID is not the same as the Pentium III's Processor Serial Number. Get your terms straight if you want to be taken seriously. Bear in mind also that the PSN was disabled by default and was ditched entirely a year after introduction because nobody was using it. Even Microsoft never used it as part of it's product activation. AMD had nothing to do with it. You are a paranoid fool.
The reason you don't see much criticism of the iPhone on Slashdot is because it isn't out yet. Seriously, why does a person like yourself have to waste energy making shit up about it?
That one bug in the email sure is annoying. Too bad I can't try a different email app.
You're arguing that a hypothetical bug in an unreleased product makes Windows Mobile better?
I wish this thing played videos.
Uh, it does. Standard MPEG-4/h.264.
Will this thing ever support Flash?
Nobody in any position to know has said that it wouldn't, so again you're pulling out a strawman.
I contacted Apple for the 4th time about my need for PowerPoint support.
PowerPoint is a Microsoft product. Complaining to Apple would get you nowhere. Even if iPhone was completely open there's no reason to think that it would have PowerPoint support. If it were truly necessary to view presentations on your phone (who does this?), any decent presentation software is capable of exporting to standard formats such as PDF, which the iPhone supports.
Windows Mobile can do everything I need this iPhone to do and an MDA is $300 instead of $600.
Most people consider this before buying. I don't understand why you are so mystified by it. The MDA might be fine if you don't care at all about media playback features or web browsing or Mac integration. Not everyone does. Some people care more about PowerPoint presentations, and they have a world of other phones to choose from. They're different.
If you don't believe me, look at the Hiptop/Sidekick - http://hiptop.com/forums/ A bunch of Apple employees left and made that platform which is mostly closed.
I know you're trying to make it sound like Danger, Inc. and Apple are somehow closely related, but the facts don't follow. "A bunch of Apple employees"? One of the founders had come from Apple. Oh, and Steve Wozniak is on the board. Whoopty shit. Furthermore, you've not actually given any evidence to support your claim that "every long-time user is tired of the same old lackings".
The iPhone will be more locked-down and WORSE than that.
Says who? All Apple has said is that it isn't an open platform. In all probability, Apple will operate the same way Danger does, by screening third-party software submitted to them, and selling through their store. iPhone has already been demonstrated as syncing with iTunes, and iTunes already distributes applications in the form of iPod games. It is no more closed that the Sidekick.
Never install Quicktime player on a Windows PC since there's a better alternative.
Downloading random-ass binaries off of somebody's ISP-provided homepage is rarely, if ever, a "better alternative". Also, the parent post mentioned nothing about installing QuickTime on a Windows PC....and Apple.
Darwin Streaming Server, which is what most people streaming QuickTime use, is free, open source, and doesn't require a license. It runs on Linux, BSD, Solaris, as well.
Right, it couldn't destroy the entire operating system in Linux or a Mac, perhaps, but it could delete all of Grandma's photos, documents, email, bookmarks, and so on. Which is probably what she'd really care about.
It's also the thing that malware writers care the least about. They tend to be more interested in creating botnets or routing spam than deleting grandma's photos. Windows is a much better target for these aims.
is it just the dumb thing than manages the dock. the thing that manages the stupid modal 'active application state'? the silly little file browser?
It is the silly little file browser.
Re:It's not about the customers
on
AMD's New DRM
·
· Score: 1
Any PC related living room media devices should be small, quiet, run cool, and be inexpensive, and not have lots of bright lights. But of course all the hardware manufacturers want to push the latest hot, fast hardware... because it's the fastest.
Why are we STILL paying for songs that aren't even CD quality?
In terms of audio, not information, "CD-Quality" is subjective, and a lot more flexible than you think. You're listening to music, not bits. It's that simple.
I always assumed these 'JetBlue####' Access Points were from JetBlue Airplanes, and I was lucky enough to be within line-of-sight of these signals. The airplanes were a few miles above us, which seems pretty distant for a Wifi signal...
It's possible. With no obstructions or reflections, WiFi signals from unmodified home routers can reach several thousand feet up. Google "warflying" for examples.
Slashdot Mirror
One suspects they'd consider Apple more "green" should Apple provide them with an infusion of cash.
Nice theory, but Greenpeace doesn't accept funding from corporations or governments. Your own link supports this. Greenpeace is looking for funding, of course, but not from Apple. They pick attention-getting fights and stage public displays of annoyance so as to keep the name a household one.
So even if a company appears to not give a cr@p about their heavy impact on the environment, we should go easy on them, because they might be secretly investing lots of money into reducing their environmental impact?
Apple has no responsibility whatsoever to answer to Greenpeace. None. Zero. Zilch. "Appears not to give a crap" is based wholly on Greenpeace's unscientific studies, which ranked companies based on public statements, and not any measurement of environmental impact. This is what we call a publicity stunt, which is Greenpeace's primary occupation.
Note that now Greenpeace is patting itself on the back for "forcing" Apple to change their policy, even though most, if not all of this information has been presented on Apple's site for many years.
I don't see how giving a 10% discount for replacing your iPod is environmentally friendly at all.
They will recycle your old one free of charge, whether you buy a new one or not. Same with anything they make. The 10% discount is just an incentive.
Surely if they made iPods so they didn't have to be either thrown in the bin or replaced every 18 months (or less) then that would be far better, environmentally speaking.
The 18-month battery is a myth stemming from one person's bad experience: it is not a function of the design or manufacture of the iPod. Battery health is a variable that cannot be strictly controlled, so under some conditions, any battery from any manufacturer, in any product, may fail. Most don't. Furthermore, Apple will replace failed batteries under warranty for free, or out-of-warranty for $60. And as I mentioned before, they will recycle them for free.
It has been known for years that Apple's environmental record is absolutely terrible.
Cite a source.
Of course Steve Jobs is going to say otherwise, he's not a complete idiot, but that doesn't mean what he is saying is in anyway true.
You're saying both that it's ok to presume guilt when a company doesn't talk much about their environmental impact, and also that when they do, they must be lying? You truly are an asshole, aren't you?
You're also ignoring the fact that many of the claims are easily verifiable (Did Apple stop selling lead-leaden CRTs? Uh, yeah.), others are are in compliance with government regulations (like the EU RoHS), which is pretty damn hard to lie about.
The grandparent was talking about CD-to-tape as a counter-example to DRM. Not CD-to-lossy digital. If you had read the thread, you might have caught that.
I did dislike the loss of quality but the convenience of tapes at the time seemed worth it.
My point: This is the kind of thing people don't say about DRM. Incurring a loss in exchange for added convenience isn't widely accepted anymore. I personally find this kind of silly, and especially silly when it's highlighted in a comment like that above.
Cassettes are dead, man, and the updated technology no longer includes this capability.
You're being obtuse. I didn't say anything about satellite or digital radio. The parent refered to recording songs off of FM radio, which you can still do today. And why do you automatically assume cassette tapes? Why not directly to your computer?
Still, a tape was more than good enough in a portable or in the car. MP3s are lossy, and most people seem happy with them, so I don't know what you mean when you say that "people don't feel the same way anymore."
You're ignoring the context. The parent was talking about DRM being a "culture shock" because it apparently prevents the kind of format-shifting described above. In fact, it permits exactly the same loss-inducing kind.
My point is that where once it was "acceptable" to record a CD onto a tape, incurring a loss of quality (perceptible or not), in the DRM-era it is "unacceptable" to incur any loss or face any obstacle when format-shifting. Saying "burn/rerip" can get you shot in some circles, even though it actually works.
Which of course means when the smaller labels set prices to $0.05 (just an example) a song, Apple will still sell it at $1.29 a track rather than passing the savings on to its customers.
You misunderstand. By "set the price", I mean they're the ones that get to decide the minimum they're willing to accept in exchange for their product. This doesn't mean that the actual price they sell to Apple for is negotiable. It just means they get to decide whether the price that Apple offers to buy at is acceptable. There's no such thing as them saying "Please give us less money". If they think that getting 70+ cents a track is too much, the only real option they have is to just not deal with Apple.
I think you're grasping at straws if you think there's some kind of "screw the labels, screw the consumer" thing going on.
Generally I would expect that not needing packaging, delivery trucks, shelf space, etc, would result in the end product being cheaper due to the lack of need to pay for all that stuff...
The comparison was made to Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, which has enough buying power to negotiate preposterously low wholesale prices for the music they carry, and which has one of the most efficient logistics operations in the world, which is used to transport a hell of a lot more than just music CDs. That's not really something to draw generalizations from.
There's absolutely no reason why transferring 100MB of data should cost more than fabricating, packaging, storing, delivering to a shop, displaying and selling a chunk of metal and plastic.
If it were 100MB of random, useless data then you might have a point. Think: Why to blank CDs cost a few cents, while music CDs cost $10 or more?
It is not convenient when you use Linux.
Nothing is convenient when you use Linux.
I was under the impression that Apple forces all of the music to be sold at the same price (hence why all of the songs on iTunes before this DRM thing were $.99).
Apple sets the retail price (i.e. what you pay), the labels set the wholesale price (i.e. how much retailers like Apple pay).
Radios with built-in cassette players could often record "free" [1] music directly from the radio, without any external microphone.
Has it not ocurred to you that you can still do this?
The CD era made it even easier to make high quality tapes.
And I'll bet you didn't mind the loss of quality in exchange for the ability to format-shift, did you? Funny how people don't feel the same way anymore.
Maybe this is a dumb question, but if I could somehow go 20,000 feet underwater, in the middle of the Pacific and walk on the ocean floor, at some point I might trip over a cable, is that the idea?
Pretty much. They've been laying them for over a hundred years, so there's probably quite a few to stumble upon if you're ambling around the right areas. Some are more buried in the sand than others, but they're all pretty much sitting on the surface. In fact, to repair them, they drag a hook along the ocean floor until they snag, then they reel it in like a fish.
How do they know when it's touched bottom so they can move 100 feet forward and lay down some more?
Knowing the depth of the water and the amount they've spooled out gives them a pretty good idea of where it is.
Can they attach cameras and lights with batteries, wait for the thing to sink and then look around down there until the batteries die?
Probably. But generally the kind of kit you send down that far for science is the kind that you want to reel back in eventually.
If an aircraft carrier sunk in the middle of the Pacific and sunk 20,000 ft to the bottom could it crush the wires?
It takes much less than an aircraft carrier to sever such a cable. Anchors, fishing trawlers, and sharks have all been known to do the trick.
How thick is the thing when it's 20,000 feet down running up and down underwater mountains and valleys?
Not very thick at all. A few inches. Closure to shore it may be thicker, encased in more "armor", as there are more threats (as above: anchors, etc.) And no, it's unlikely you could dive down and splice in, for this reason, not to mention the more technical issues.
Could I go snorkeling someplace and see it when it comes up on shore? How to they protect it from terrorists with scuba gear?
Probably, somewhere. Some places it comes right up onto the beach, often surrounded by barbed-wire fences, then into a building where it's redirected underground. In other places, it's buried into the sea bed near shore and then goes underground to the terminal. Terrorist attack probably isn't that big a concern, as close to shore is the easiest and cheapest place to repair any damage.
Where do they "plug it in" when it comes up on shore? What do they plug into?
If you've seen one sturdy-looking telecom building, you've seen them all. Some might be built more like bomb shelters (or rather, as bomb shelters) than others, but for the most part, they're dull, short, windowless buildings. Inside the cable plugs into an expensive box with blinking lights connected to other boxes with blinking lights. Usually there's a telephone handset for talking to the guy on the other end.
My entire point is that most Americans identify their country with freedom, an association it does little to deserve.
You must be completely unfamiliar with the history of the world. When people refer to any modern democracy as "free", it is in relative terms. An absolute definition of "free" is the realm of philosophy, not reality.
You're arguing that the US is not a "free country" because it has laws that restrict some freedoms. Forgive me if I consider that an insight worthy of a freshman civics class.
Why can the government...
Social contract.
I have no interest in BluRay movies, but I'd love a 45GB burner for backing up raw DV data.
I think you'll find that DV tapes are cheaper and more reliable. Less work, too.
I suspect that the post on BoingBoing was intended to be humorous, not a Call to Arms...
People that read BoingBoing frequently can't tell the difference. As everything posted there is either humorous or a call to arms, it's easy to confuse the two.
(Score: -1, Flamebait)
You're arguing that lack of choice is a good thing?
No. I'm arguing that the OP's decision to make shit up in support of his opinion and then pretending it's an objective analysis is a bad thing. I'm also arguing that to claim "lack of choice" is stupid when nobody is being forced to buy an iPhone. If PowerPoint is your killer app, don't buy a phone that doesn't have it. If the ability to run third-party email clients just in case you don't like the included one, don't buy a phone that doesn't have it.
Intel was forced to make the changes because of public outcry due to some ugly PR.
And, as I stated, the fact that nobody (Not Microsoft, not the RIAA, not "every web site") was using it. Not because of anything AMD did, which the OP claimed. The above "Insightful" comment is both factually wrong and rife with paranoid delusion.
Third thing I did on both my macs (After dragging terminal to the dock and the MS demo apps to the trash can) was download and install Firefox for OSX.
The little birdie network is saying that the hole is actually in the Java plug-in, so Firefox with Java enabled has the same problem.
When Intel and Microsoft were pushing the CPUID
CPUID is not the same as the Pentium III's Processor Serial Number. Get your terms straight if you want to be taken seriously. Bear in mind also that the PSN was disabled by default and was ditched entirely a year after introduction because nobody was using it. Even Microsoft never used it as part of it's product activation. AMD had nothing to do with it. You are a paranoid fool.
The reason you don't see much criticism of the iPhone on Slashdot is because it isn't out yet. Seriously, why does a person like yourself have to waste energy making shit up about it?
That one bug in the email sure is annoying. Too bad I can't try a different email app.
You're arguing that a hypothetical bug in an unreleased product makes Windows Mobile better?
I wish this thing played videos.
Uh, it does. Standard MPEG-4/h.264.
Will this thing ever support Flash?
Nobody in any position to know has said that it wouldn't, so again you're pulling out a strawman.
I contacted Apple for the 4th time about my need for PowerPoint support.
PowerPoint is a Microsoft product. Complaining to Apple would get you nowhere. Even if iPhone was completely open there's no reason to think that it would have PowerPoint support. If it were truly necessary to view presentations on your phone (who does this?), any decent presentation software is capable of exporting to standard formats such as PDF, which the iPhone supports.
Windows Mobile can do everything I need this iPhone to do and an MDA is $300 instead of $600.
Most people consider this before buying. I don't understand why you are so mystified by it. The MDA might be fine if you don't care at all about media playback features or web browsing or Mac integration. Not everyone does. Some people care more about PowerPoint presentations, and they have a world of other phones to choose from. They're different.
If you don't believe me, look at the Hiptop/Sidekick - http://hiptop.com/forums/ A bunch of Apple employees left and made that platform which is mostly closed.
I know you're trying to make it sound like Danger, Inc. and Apple are somehow closely related, but the facts don't follow. "A bunch of Apple employees"? One of the founders had come from Apple. Oh, and Steve Wozniak is on the board. Whoopty shit. Furthermore, you've not actually given any evidence to support your claim that "every long-time user is tired of the same old lackings".
The iPhone will be more locked-down and WORSE than that.
Says who? All Apple has said is that it isn't an open platform. In all probability, Apple will operate the same way Danger does, by screening third-party software submitted to them, and selling through their store. iPhone has already been demonstrated as syncing with iTunes, and iTunes already distributes applications in the form of iPod games. It is no more closed that the Sidekick.
Never install Quicktime player on a Windows PC since there's a better alternative.
...and Apple.
Downloading random-ass binaries off of somebody's ISP-provided homepage is rarely, if ever, a "better alternative". Also, the parent post mentioned nothing about installing QuickTime on a Windows PC.
Darwin Streaming Server, which is what most people streaming QuickTime use, is free, open source, and doesn't require a license. It runs on Linux, BSD, Solaris, as well.
Right, it couldn't destroy the entire operating system in Linux or a Mac, perhaps, but it could delete all of Grandma's photos, documents, email, bookmarks, and so on. Which is probably what she'd really care about.
It's also the thing that malware writers care the least about. They tend to be more interested in creating botnets or routing spam than deleting grandma's photos. Windows is a much better target for these aims.
is it just the dumb thing than manages the dock. the thing that manages the stupid modal
'active application state'? the silly little file browser?
It is the silly little file browser.
Any PC related living room media devices should be small, quiet, run cool, and be inexpensive, and not have lots of bright lights. But of course all the hardware manufacturers want to push the latest hot, fast hardware... because it's the fastest.
Not all of them.
Why are we STILL paying for songs that aren't even CD quality?
In terms of audio, not information, "CD-Quality" is subjective, and a lot more flexible than you think. You're listening to music, not bits. It's that simple.
I always assumed these 'JetBlue####' Access Points were from JetBlue Airplanes, and I was lucky enough to be within line-of-sight of these signals. The airplanes were a few miles above us, which seems pretty distant for a Wifi signal...
It's possible. With no obstructions or reflections, WiFi signals from unmodified home routers can reach several thousand feet up. Google "warflying" for examples.