That's you. You don't mind ads and spam. Some people do, for them,.Mac is the way to go. For you, supporting the Microsoft empire is the way to go. We each make our own decisions, eh?
Go get POP or IMAP service with your Yahoo account, or heck - just get your email forwarded to your regular (work?) mail account. See how much that costs you.
Let's not compare different things. Being able to integrate iSync, iPhoto, iCal, iDisk with mac.com is powerful. Some people will want to use this, some people won't. If all you had a mac.com address for was to be able to show that you use a mac, then maybe the new.Mac isn't for you. However, if you value the services provided by the iTools (publish iPhoto images to the web, online disk storage that mounts as a drive, etc.) and you'll have a use for the new service (share calendars online via iCal, synchronize mobile devices at home, work, and on the road with iSync, etc.) then $99 is a paltry fee.
The free iTools was nice, but Apple is expanding the services offered, far beyond anything offered by other free services. Email access will be IMAP/POP and Web. Personally, I despise the amount of advertising on Yahoo. I don't use MSN/Hotmail, but I imagine its similar on that side.
If this service isn't for you - don't complain. There are plenty of people who realize that less that $10 a month isn't a big deal. You mention Apple being "smart" and offering this service bundled with dial-up for $15 a month, that'd be nice but basic dial-up service from Earthlink already costs $21.95 a month! Same with AOL, if I recall (that might be $19.95 a month). NetZero is $9.95 or so, but you don't get much with it, last I recall.
What people aren't realizing is that what Jobs is talking about is >>Backup software, NOT burning software. There's a big difference. Go check out the pricing for Dantz Retrospect and other Mac-backup products.
True, tar and cdrecord are a lot cheaper, but they are also a good deal more difficult to use. There are a lot of folks out there that want to take advantage of the digital tools that are becoming available but are anything but computer whiz's. If its possible to allow them access to the power and flexibility that we gurus take for granted, more power to Apple!
All those services charge for the access you get from mac.com - Checkout the pricing for IMAP/POP access for Hotmail and Yahoo. Last I checked, they each wanted at least $30, even if you didn't want POP and just wanted to forward your email to a personal account.
Not to mention the inappropriate number of advertisements that you're subjected to on these services.
No, he is referring to a major revision of the OS - say from 10.0 to 10.1, just as Jaguar is a MAJOR revision, going from 10.1 to 10.2. The severity of the upgrade is not like it was in OS 9 and earlier where 9.1 to 9.2 wasn't that big a deal and 8.5 to 8.6 wasn't that big a deal. Not so here - the minor revisions (service packs) are the x.x.Y updates (10.0.4, 10.1.5, etc.) - the OS is "10", and will likely remain that way for at least a few years.
And the $20 was primarily for duplication, packaging and shipping costs. You could still go to CompUSA, if I recall, with a blank CD, and they'd burn the update for you.
Incidentally, the update to Jaguar will cost $129, I believe Jobs said during his keynote. It will ship Aug. 24th.
If anyone's being rash, its you. Your first year for.Mac is $49 - less than $5 a month. Peanuts compared to your dial-up or broadband service. Heck, that's less than I spend on Starbucks in a WEEK! (Significantly so, actually). After the initial year, I assume it'll go up to $99 for everyone, still less than $10 a month, and again, less than I spend on Starbucks in a WEEK!
I'm sure that Apple and everyone else appreciates that you have to spend money on a lot of other things, but this is a very insignificant cost compared to the individual user, to subsidize a set of services that cost Apple FAR MORE to offer. As Jobs' keynote explained, Yahoo! and Hotmail both charge money for POP access (and other features) to your email account. All providers of online disk storage have gone out of business (according to Jobs). The new.Mac will offer IMAP, POP, and WEB access - more than you can get from anywhere else) as well as integration with iCal (the new calendaring app), iSync (the new mobile/digital device synchronization app) and your iDisk will increase from 25MB to 100MB. Go check out how much 100MB of web space will cost you on the various providers out there... specifically the Mac based providers with which you can properly store Mac files (not that this is necessary if you use HQX or other archives).
I personally maintain a server at Rackspace that costs me over $250 a month for my company and our clients. This is pricey, but it has a lot of benefits as well, just as the new.Mac has and will continue to have. Jobs specifically said that they will continue to add features and integration to.Mac without increasing the cost.
I hope you'll reconsider your decision to nay-say Apple and that you'll consider paying for the.Mac service. Its really not asking as much as you seem to think.
Re:Burger King is finally going to beat a competit
on
Apple to Unveil .Mac Today
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Precisely. $49 for the first year, breaks down to a little more that $4 a month. You can't pay that for the convenience of centering your email around it, having a convenient place to post digital photos, using it to sync your ever increasing digital lifestyle, post your calendar to, etc.?!? C'mon... Apple's doing a smart thing by offering an integrated service that will appeal to a lot of folks that want to start taking advantage of a lot of the digital tools that are coming out, but don't have anything in common with each other, aren't designed to integrate with anything, etc. Apple's business plan is to simplify a person's increasingly digital lifestyle... this isn't about using the computer, that's what Microsoft is centered around, Apple's philosophy is far more sophisticatedm, it seems.
Commercials first appeared on "broadcast" television and you PAID for cable to be able to watch commercial free television (obviously not the same shows as on broadcast television, that's not what I'm saying). So, the cable company is already taking in money from its subscribers. I have digital cable, so they're also making money from putting commercials in the menu system. The cable shows all have commercials (unless you're watching a premium movie/PPV) and now the industry wants to start showing pop-up ads during television.
For me, that'll be the last straw. Watching the Bond movie this past weekend, I was horrified to have to sit through 10 minutes of commercials for the privilege of watching 8 minutes of Bond. And the industry complains that viewers aren't watching the commercials -- seems to me like they're shooting themselves in the foot. I used to sit through commercials because the breaks were relatively short (2-3 30s commercials) so there wasn't *much* I could do. Now, I can easily get up, go check my email, switch over to the digital cable menu system to select what I'm going to watch for the rest of the evening, refill my drink, get ice, use the washroom - any number of things.
Not to mention that a number of advertisements seem to think that making their ads as annoying as the banner ads that give you seizures is a good tactic, instead of paying money to have a decent design team work on an entertaining, high quality commercial spot.
No, and remember that the letter from the MS President/Peru indicated that the local software industry would be HURT if the gov't. decreased its reliance on MS. So, one would imagine that in Peru's case, the local software industry will embrace this move by MS and the Peru gov't.
Unfortunately, with Microsoft's cash reserves and assets, they can afford to give out free software for quite a long time. However, in some respects, I believe this is illegal (underselling the competition) in the long term, though we've seen what effects the justice system has on MS: none.
Even if you do need ultrapure water, chances are that purifying the water could be done more easily at each person's home than at a central location. Our current water distribution infrastructure isn't really meant for "ultrapure" water distribution, so a new infrastructure would be needed there. That's unlikely. Carbon filters have gotten pretty decent at purifying water, so that may suffice (if necessary). If distilled water is needed, that's more energy to be used (boiling the water or using an evaporator of some sort) which would hurt the energy efficiency even more.
The eMac starts at $1,099 while the old iMac starts at $799. To run OS X and write some apps, a 600MHz G3 iMac ($999) is plenty fast enough. What you've written is equivalent to saying that a 1.2GHz PIII isn't fast enough to load up Linux w/ GNOME/KDE and write a few apps. That's bull.
Now, the eMac has a 700MHz G4 processor which is only 233MHz slower than the FASTEST single processor G4 tower (at 933MHz and a cost of $2299). OS X will run considerably faster on the G4, obviously, since it has the Altivec processing unit which OS X makes good (and liberal) use of. However, during basic interaction with the system (such as developing apps) you won't notice a difference between the eMac and a 933MHz PowerMac tower. There's a good chance you won't notice a significant difference between the 600MHz G3, either.
I have a 400MHz iMac DV (Summer 2000) that would list on eBay for about $500 (including OS X, typically) and it runs OS X v.10.1.5 just fine. When I use it for development, I have no issues. I often have BBEdit, XFree86 4.2, xterm, SciTE, Dreamweaver MX or Codewarrior 7, Mozilla, virtual desktops, and the Classic environment with NS4 running simultaneously. Just as I would expect on a Linux system, multi-tasking is a non-issue, tasks run in the background when necessary, responsiveness of the GUI is not affected, etc.
So, yeah, you can experience OS X for not a ton of money. The PowerMac dual-1GHz G4s are not for developers, as much as developers have gotten used to having the fastest possible machines in the PC world (and God knows, I want a dual-1GHz Mac!!). Those machines are workstations meant for video editing professionals. Practically no other user would need that much power, today. At least not as their desktop (maybe as a server, but get an Xserve - its cooler). You don't need it for games, you don't need it for Photoshop, you don't need it for still photography editing or audio editing, e.g.: the entire sound editing for Star Wars, AotC was done w/o a power-horse workstation like that. I believe it was done using a couple machines (for different editing devices, I believe), the most powerful of which was a PowerMac about the speed of the eMac!
What app developer in PC-land needs a dual-2.2GHz P4 system just to run vi/emacs/joe/nedit, etc? Even if you're kernel hacking and doing daily kernel compiles, I doubt you need quite that much power (though I imagine Linus still has that sweet 8-way system of his).
Rambling now, sorry. Basic point is, if you want to experience OS X - there are very inexpensive ways to go about it. Check eBay for private party sales or check various Mac places for refurb'ed systems (Apple's store sometimes lists refurb'ed systems as well).
Harware will need to change anyhow, eventually. A slow migration to OS X is entirely possible and a legitimate option.
As for the software being proprietary, to some extent, you're right. The GUI is proprietary, but the guts are far from it. Also, the system has been hailed as one of the easiest to develop for, which should save money in the long run.
My main point was simply that for the end-user, Mac OS X is a far better bet than Linux. Linux isn't ready for the desktop yet, period. I use it practically every day and I keep everything updated as best I can. Even so, I'm far more productive on my iMac than on my Linux systems. C'est l'avi.
Someday, I'm sure Linux will be ready. When it is, we'll have at least three world-class operating systems to compete on the desktop. Maybe, by then, we'll all be able to work with each other as well. As it is, OS X plays nicest with existing infrastructure and is easiest to use.
That's all.
At no point to I say anything about European culture being more sophisticated. European culture and society is a bit more liberal with respect to sexuality. Which is what is being discussed here, in the Piers Anthony thread, unless I've lost track (entirely possible).
As for the president, he has a great deal to do with puritanical ideals and the like. I shant go into great detail, as I don't feel it necessary to this thread.
Agreed, 100%. My subtle point, however, was that sexuality is a very, very strong factor in religion. One that causes most (if not all) of the conflict that spawns wars and other transgressions. Remove the bits about sexuality, supremacy and the like from the world's religions and we would find that there would be very little to get upset about any more.
Incidentally, as an American, I don't believe we invented democracy and I certainly don't believe that there isn't freedom (even freedom that is *better* than ours) elsewhere in the world.
Religion's conflict stems from sexuality to a great extent. While I don't really have the time or energy to go into great detail, inspect the various literature relating to religion on things such as creation (adam and eve, et al), morals & values (women serve men, men protect women, etc.) and a host of other topics. If religion were only about belief in a higher being, nobody would get upset about it, would they? Religion affects the very way of life in a society, a way of life that is rife with sexuality, sexual repression (in some cases) and various other topics that relate to sexuality and the difference between sexes. It is quite difficult to escape since it is the very reason we exist: to procreate. To name any other reason as "the" reason for our existence would be challenging (and difficult to support).
Being an American, I have a pretty decent idea, actually. From watching the evening news and looking at the daily news highlights on Google, I get an even better idea. From staying up-to-date on Bush's policies and those of his largest campaign contributors, I get a decent idea of the predominant ideas in our current society/culture. So, while to you, I may be a pretentious fuckwit, I am quite informed about what (by all appearances) is going on around me.
Now, maybe your reaction was a typical anti-foreigner reaction because my post may have made it seem that I wasn't American. In fact, I'm through and through American, though my mother is "fresh off the boat" German. I was raised in the midwest (not in California, I imagine my "view" of the US would be a bit different then) and I've had the pleasure of living abroad on occasion.
Now, if your reaction isn't simply anti-foreign sentiment, pray tell why you might take it upon yourself to attempt to insult me and demean the value of my post, which was made in good faith, to bring up a topic of discussion I felt was appropriate given the interview questions and the subsequent comments by the Slashdot crowd.
This is very true. A huge switch would not be advisable, however, a huge switch from MS software to Linux is also not advisable. In either case, a slow transition would meet with a larger degree of success. Such a transition could be accomplished on the hardware *or* software sides.
Just an FYI - you're confusing Quartz with Carbon. Quartz is entirely new for OS X (with nothing to do with OS 9, more to do with NeXTStep/OpenStep). The Carbon APIs are the throw-back to OS 9 and earlier. The new "bit" is to enable Carbon apps to take advantage of the anti-aliasing (as you mentioned), which Cocoa apps were already able to do.
Slashdot Mirror
That's you. You don't mind ads and spam. Some people do, for them, .Mac is the way to go. For you, supporting the Microsoft empire is the way to go. We each make our own decisions, eh?
Go get POP or IMAP service with your Yahoo account, or heck - just get your email forwarded to your regular (work?) mail account. See how much that costs you.
.Mac isn't for you. However, if you value the services provided by the iTools (publish iPhoto images to the web, online disk storage that mounts as a drive, etc.) and you'll have a use for the new service (share calendars online via iCal, synchronize mobile devices at home, work, and on the road with iSync, etc.) then $99 is a paltry fee.
Let's not compare different things. Being able to integrate iSync, iPhoto, iCal, iDisk with mac.com is powerful. Some people will want to use this, some people won't. If all you had a mac.com address for was to be able to show that you use a mac, then maybe the new
The free iTools was nice, but Apple is expanding the services offered, far beyond anything offered by other free services. Email access will be IMAP/POP and Web. Personally, I despise the amount of advertising on Yahoo. I don't use MSN/Hotmail, but I imagine its similar on that side.
If this service isn't for you - don't complain. There are plenty of people who realize that less that $10 a month isn't a big deal. You mention Apple being "smart" and offering this service bundled with dial-up for $15 a month, that'd be nice but basic dial-up service from Earthlink already costs $21.95 a month! Same with AOL, if I recall (that might be $19.95 a month). NetZero is $9.95 or so, but you don't get much with it, last I recall.
What people aren't realizing is that what Jobs is talking about is >>Backup software, NOT burning software. There's a big difference. Go check out the pricing for Dantz Retrospect and other Mac-backup products.
True, tar and cdrecord are a lot cheaper, but they are also a good deal more difficult to use. There are a lot of folks out there that want to take advantage of the digital tools that are becoming available but are anything but computer whiz's. If its possible to allow them access to the power and flexibility that we gurus take for granted, more power to Apple!
To folks who already have a mac.com address, you can purchase the subscription for $49.
All those services charge for the access you get from mac.com - Checkout the pricing for IMAP/POP access for Hotmail and Yahoo. Last I checked, they each wanted at least $30, even if you didn't want POP and just wanted to forward your email to a personal account.
Not to mention the inappropriate number of advertisements that you're subjected to on these services.
No, he is referring to a major revision of the OS - say from 10.0 to 10.1, just as Jaguar is a MAJOR revision, going from 10.1 to 10.2. The severity of the upgrade is not like it was in OS 9 and earlier where 9.1 to 9.2 wasn't that big a deal and 8.5 to 8.6 wasn't that big a deal. Not so here - the minor revisions (service packs) are the x.x.Y updates (10.0.4, 10.1.5, etc.) - the OS is "10", and will likely remain that way for at least a few years.
And the $20 was primarily for duplication, packaging and shipping costs. You could still go to CompUSA, if I recall, with a blank CD, and they'd burn the update for you.
Incidentally, the update to Jaguar will cost $129, I believe Jobs said during his keynote. It will ship Aug. 24th.
If anyone's being rash, its you. Your first year for .Mac is $49 - less than $5 a month. Peanuts compared to your dial-up or broadband service. Heck, that's less than I spend on Starbucks in a WEEK! (Significantly so, actually). After the initial year, I assume it'll go up to $99 for everyone, still less than $10 a month, and again, less than I spend on Starbucks in a WEEK!
.Mac will offer IMAP, POP, and WEB access - more than you can get from anywhere else) as well as integration with iCal (the new calendaring app), iSync (the new mobile/digital device synchronization app) and your iDisk will increase from 25MB to 100MB. Go check out how much 100MB of web space will cost you on the various providers out there ... specifically the Mac based providers with which you can properly store Mac files (not that this is necessary if you use HQX or other archives).
.Mac has and will continue to have. Jobs specifically said that they will continue to add features and integration to .Mac without increasing the cost.
.Mac service. Its really not asking as much as you seem to think.
I'm sure that Apple and everyone else appreciates that you have to spend money on a lot of other things, but this is a very insignificant cost compared to the individual user, to subsidize a set of services that cost Apple FAR MORE to offer. As Jobs' keynote explained, Yahoo! and Hotmail both charge money for POP access (and other features) to your email account. All providers of online disk storage have gone out of business (according to Jobs). The new
I personally maintain a server at Rackspace that costs me over $250 a month for my company and our clients. This is pricey, but it has a lot of benefits as well, just as the new
I hope you'll reconsider your decision to nay-say Apple and that you'll consider paying for the
Precisely. $49 for the first year, breaks down to a little more that $4 a month. You can't pay that for the convenience of centering your email around it, having a convenient place to post digital photos, using it to sync your ever increasing digital lifestyle, post your calendar to, etc.?!? C'mon ... Apple's doing a smart thing by offering an integrated service that will appeal to a lot of folks that want to start taking advantage of a lot of the digital tools that are coming out, but don't have anything in common with each other, aren't designed to integrate with anything, etc. Apple's business plan is to simplify a person's increasingly digital lifestyle ... this isn't about using the computer, that's what Microsoft is centered around, Apple's philosophy is far more sophisticatedm, it seems.
Commercials first appeared on "broadcast" television and you PAID for cable to be able to watch commercial free television (obviously not the same shows as on broadcast television, that's not what I'm saying). So, the cable company is already taking in money from its subscribers. I have digital cable, so they're also making money from putting commercials in the menu system. The cable shows all have commercials (unless you're watching a premium movie/PPV) and now the industry wants to start showing pop-up ads during television.
For me, that'll be the last straw. Watching the Bond movie this past weekend, I was horrified to have to sit through 10 minutes of commercials for the privilege of watching 8 minutes of Bond. And the industry complains that viewers aren't watching the commercials -- seems to me like they're shooting themselves in the foot. I used to sit through commercials because the breaks were relatively short (2-3 30s commercials) so there wasn't *much* I could do. Now, I can easily get up, go check my email, switch over to the digital cable menu system to select what I'm going to watch for the rest of the evening, refill my drink, get ice, use the washroom - any number of things.
Not to mention that a number of advertisements seem to think that making their ads as annoying as the banner ads that give you seizures is a good tactic, instead of paying money to have a decent design team work on an entertaining, high quality commercial spot.
I *think* (and I'm not a video expert) that you'll be able to view an MPEG-4 QT stream with any MPEG-4 capable viewer, not just QT player.
Cheers.
Wow, more than ever before, I'm starting to see some real good reasoning in Slashdot threads, with respect to Mac/Apple. Nice. ;)
Ah, another Mac faithful. Eventually, we will win them over ... 'tis only a matter of time. In the words of the Borg: Resistance is futile. ;)
Your return will be welcomed with open arms.
Precisely. Sorensen is licensed by Apple from a different company. It is *this* company that keeps the algorithm proprietary.
No, and remember that the letter from the MS President/Peru indicated that the local software industry would be HURT if the gov't. decreased its reliance on MS. So, one would imagine that in Peru's case, the local software industry will embrace this move by MS and the Peru gov't.
Sad, though.
Unfortunately, with Microsoft's cash reserves and assets, they can afford to give out free software for quite a long time. However, in some respects, I believe this is illegal (underselling the competition) in the long term, though we've seen what effects the justice system has on MS: none.
Even if you do need ultrapure water, chances are that purifying the water could be done more easily at each person's home than at a central location. Our current water distribution infrastructure isn't really meant for "ultrapure" water distribution, so a new infrastructure would be needed there. That's unlikely. Carbon filters have gotten pretty decent at purifying water, so that may suffice (if necessary). If distilled water is needed, that's more energy to be used (boiling the water or using an evaporator of some sort) which would hurt the energy efficiency even more.
Cheers.
To clarify a bit:
The eMac starts at $1,099 while the old iMac starts at $799. To run OS X and write some apps, a 600MHz G3 iMac ($999) is plenty fast enough. What you've written is equivalent to saying that a 1.2GHz PIII isn't fast enough to load up Linux w/ GNOME/KDE and write a few apps. That's bull.
Now, the eMac has a 700MHz G4 processor which is only 233MHz slower than the FASTEST single processor G4 tower (at 933MHz and a cost of $2299). OS X will run considerably faster on the G4, obviously, since it has the Altivec processing unit which OS X makes good (and liberal) use of. However, during basic interaction with the system (such as developing apps) you won't notice a difference between the eMac and a 933MHz PowerMac tower. There's a good chance you won't notice a significant difference between the 600MHz G3, either.
I have a 400MHz iMac DV (Summer 2000) that would list on eBay for about $500 (including OS X, typically) and it runs OS X v.10.1.5 just fine. When I use it for development, I have no issues. I often have BBEdit, XFree86 4.2, xterm, SciTE, Dreamweaver MX or Codewarrior 7, Mozilla, virtual desktops, and the Classic environment with NS4 running simultaneously. Just as I would expect on a Linux system, multi-tasking is a non-issue, tasks run in the background when necessary, responsiveness of the GUI is not affected, etc.
So, yeah, you can experience OS X for not a ton of money. The PowerMac dual-1GHz G4s are not for developers, as much as developers have gotten used to having the fastest possible machines in the PC world (and God knows, I want a dual-1GHz Mac!!). Those machines are workstations meant for video editing professionals. Practically no other user would need that much power, today. At least not as their desktop (maybe as a server, but get an Xserve - its cooler). You don't need it for games, you don't need it for Photoshop, you don't need it for still photography editing or audio editing, e.g.: the entire sound editing for Star Wars, AotC was done w/o a power-horse workstation like that. I believe it was done using a couple machines (for different editing devices, I believe), the most powerful of which was a PowerMac about the speed of the eMac!
What app developer in PC-land needs a dual-2.2GHz P4 system just to run vi/emacs/joe/nedit, etc? Even if you're kernel hacking and doing daily kernel compiles, I doubt you need quite that much power (though I imagine Linus still has that sweet 8-way system of his).
Rambling now, sorry. Basic point is, if you want to experience OS X - there are very inexpensive ways to go about it. Check eBay for private party sales or check various Mac places for refurb'ed systems (Apple's store sometimes lists refurb'ed systems as well).
Harware will need to change anyhow, eventually. A slow migration to OS X is entirely possible and a legitimate option. As for the software being proprietary, to some extent, you're right. The GUI is proprietary, but the guts are far from it. Also, the system has been hailed as one of the easiest to develop for, which should save money in the long run. My main point was simply that for the end-user, Mac OS X is a far better bet than Linux. Linux isn't ready for the desktop yet, period. I use it practically every day and I keep everything updated as best I can. Even so, I'm far more productive on my iMac than on my Linux systems. C'est l'avi. Someday, I'm sure Linux will be ready. When it is, we'll have at least three world-class operating systems to compete on the desktop. Maybe, by then, we'll all be able to work with each other as well. As it is, OS X plays nicest with existing infrastructure and is easiest to use. That's all.
At no point to I say anything about European culture being more sophisticated. European culture and society is a bit more liberal with respect to sexuality. Which is what is being discussed here, in the Piers Anthony thread, unless I've lost track (entirely possible).
As for the president, he has a great deal to do with puritanical ideals and the like. I shant go into great detail, as I don't feel it necessary to this thread.
Agreed, 100%. My subtle point, however, was that sexuality is a very, very strong factor in religion. One that causes most (if not all) of the conflict that spawns wars and other transgressions. Remove the bits about sexuality, supremacy and the like from the world's religions and we would find that there would be very little to get upset about any more.
Incidentally, as an American, I don't believe we invented democracy and I certainly don't believe that there isn't freedom (even freedom that is *better* than ours) elsewhere in the world.
Religion's conflict stems from sexuality to a great extent. While I don't really have the time or energy to go into great detail, inspect the various literature relating to religion on things such as creation (adam and eve, et al), morals & values (women serve men, men protect women, etc.) and a host of other topics. If religion were only about belief in a higher being, nobody would get upset about it, would they? Religion affects the very way of life in a society, a way of life that is rife with sexuality, sexual repression (in some cases) and various other topics that relate to sexuality and the difference between sexes. It is quite difficult to escape since it is the very reason we exist: to procreate. To name any other reason as "the" reason for our existence would be challenging (and difficult to support).
Being an American, I have a pretty decent idea, actually. From watching the evening news and looking at the daily news highlights on Google, I get an even better idea. From staying up-to-date on Bush's policies and those of his largest campaign contributors, I get a decent idea of the predominant ideas in our current society/culture. So, while to you, I may be a pretentious fuckwit, I am quite informed about what (by all appearances) is going on around me.
Now, maybe your reaction was a typical anti-foreigner reaction because my post may have made it seem that I wasn't American. In fact, I'm through and through American, though my mother is "fresh off the boat" German. I was raised in the midwest (not in California, I imagine my "view" of the US would be a bit different then) and I've had the pleasure of living abroad on occasion.
Now, if your reaction isn't simply anti-foreign sentiment, pray tell why you might take it upon yourself to attempt to insult me and demean the value of my post, which was made in good faith, to bring up a topic of discussion I felt was appropriate given the interview questions and the subsequent comments by the Slashdot crowd.
Your turn, you bumbling asshole.
This is very true. A huge switch would not be advisable, however, a huge switch from MS software to Linux is also not advisable. In either case, a slow transition would meet with a larger degree of success. Such a transition could be accomplished on the hardware *or* software sides.
Just an FYI - you're confusing Quartz with Carbon. Quartz is entirely new for OS X (with nothing to do with OS 9, more to do with NeXTStep/OpenStep). The Carbon APIs are the throw-back to OS 9 and earlier. The new "bit" is to enable Carbon apps to take advantage of the anti-aliasing (as you mentioned), which Cocoa apps were already able to do.
Cheers.