Cheaper car insurance is about as discriminatory as people living in flood plains having to pay higher house/disaster insurance. Its all about statistical risk, and old people (meaning over 30) drive statistically safer than younger people, there is less a need about showing off, or drinking and driving, etc... for the over 30 crowd, than there is for the irresponsible college and high school crowd. You cost them less, the older you are. Discriminatory would be barring them insurance just because they are young.
As this relates to the story though... I think that the ISP reacted like a bunch of asshats. The more people online not using Myspace or such, the better. Granted they won't be searving up the next "ass jiggle" type video on Youtube, but they will be contributing to more mature services like Wikipedia, or information sites, which is a more important social service that viral stuff and flash culture. The older you are the more you have to offer to society, the younger the more you think you have to offer, but the less you do.
Poltical agenda overpower much? I didn't sing a single praise to Clinton, nor did I even make it seem that he was responsible for the economy, I stated it as a title for a strech of time, such as Bush era, or Reagon era. Clinton had very little to do with the strength of the economy, I agree, but nor did he have much to do with its weaknesses.
Calm down, take a deep breath, and realize that some people aren't talking politics, or attacking you special point-of-view.
There is a hug difference from "keeping your eye on" and actually purchasing. I DO have my eye on a nice huge LCD (meh to plasma) television, a $4000 gaming rig, a nice new stereo, a new car, etc ect... How many of these will I purchase in the next year, probably none of them, since most of them are just status items, and don't serve for much more than to impress my neighbors in the "See my shiny bling!" way. Perhaps if our economy returned to Clinton Era (mid 90's) levels, then these gadgets will switch from eye candy to actual goods.
Right now though... I can't excuse myself to buy a new DVD player when this one isn't broken, nor do I really feel like switching over to a whole new format. I'm still hunting for a couple movies on DVD that I only have on VHS. DVD is good enough, whereas VHS sucked, HD-blah isn't too much of an improvement to the non-pathological videophile like me, at least not enough of an improvement to warrent much money being spent. I like to think, and pray, that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will be like mini-disks were, vast selections of limited media rotting in the aisles of your nearest store, forgotten. I hope they don't catch on, since there is no need for them except for mindless technophilia, and this I would lose some respect for the average American consumer. They aren't addressing a need, only some odd lust for more consumer goods, and corporate manipulations. Same thing with the odd goverment enforcement of HD technology, I don't like the government forcing me to subsidize television manufacturers and cable companies by making me upgrade to something pointless. Wow, now I can watch law and order in letterbox!
Sorry for the rant. For some reason this technology pisses me off, I don't want to be forced to upgrade again, once in 10 years is enough. I wish I could wait until there is something as revolutionary as DVD and CD were.
Actually science can be seen as a democracy, this can be seen in the paradigmatic nature of its advances. While science as process (the stuff scientists do) is based on empirical fact and careful methodology, the actual "truthiness" of the findings is determined by their peers, and the community of scientists as a body.
I think this Pluto thing underlines this very well, how arbitrary the whole mess is. Science says a planet is this! Does this necissarily mean it is? Nope, it can change tomorrow, or next week. "Planet" as term has no real linkage to reality. The fact is "there is something in the 9th orbit of x specifications" It also is a fact that EVERYONE calls Pluto a planet (even those who voted against it, I bet), thus linquistically pluto is a Planet, and the definition should then be fixed to make it allign with language as used.
Thank you, I'm not the only one to pick of on the proto-cult flick theme here. I told my friends that SOaP is probably going to be the Evil Dead of this generation.
Oddly enough, it is. Better than A Scanner Darkly at least, which is the only other movie I've seen this year. Yes, no Pirates for me, nor Clerks, I'll wait for the DVD. Actually, outside of the first Pirates movie it might be the best movie of the 21st century (heh). At least it is the only comedy to make me laugh since Who Is Harry Crumb.
Miami Vice has a broader appeal than SOaP, it had the urban-gang-action thing for it (not that any of these movies are anything but B, no matter the gross), I'm sure there were hot thug-chicks, bad gangsta rap (better than the SOaP credit emo, I'm sure), and all the other things the hoi polloi love.
SOaP, on the other hand, had that bad campy feel, that most people don't like, since they want to take their movies seriously within-genre. Miami Vice was straight action, and advertised as such, while SOaP was... A spoof, of sorts, arguably a survival action flick, it was really just a comedy. Think Evil Dead 2, it looks like a horror movie, but in reality it is pure comedy, without the idiotic Sandler or Farrel jab of making damn sure you know its a comedy at all times ("hey look, this is funny. I pooped myself and ran into a window!"). All the people I know who didn't like it, didn't like it in the capacity that it was a bad action movie, entirely missing the fact that it was really just a spoof of movies like the Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno. I think this movie is doomed to be a cult phenomena, and like all cult movies, doomed to semi-obscurity (who watches Rocky Horror, or Evil Dead, or even Eraserhead?)
Yes, it was obscure, but it did make 15m, meaning it wasn't too obscure. Everyone made a buck, everyone got their laugh. No news here, its a happy (and thus uninteresting) ending.
Somewhere in the back of my head (in the most ridiculous part) I am hoping they are cancelling it to ressurect Firefly, like they did with SG1 to begin with. I know this isn't true, and will never happen, but what is life but useless hope.
and they're planning to release a Macintosh-specific keyboard in a few months.
Really? You just made my life, and saldy ruined my roomates. My 3am writing habits are about to get much louder... CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK SMASH! Sadly this means I will be breaking many keyboards in other places.
After I finally retired my M, I went through 3 keyboards in a year, mostly from destroying the flimsy spacebar with my dual-thumb power space.
Way to go Apple for helping out the little people.
We to turn a supposition into a strong statement of judgement. Before judging, please have proof of your position, not "some wanker on slashdot said something that perhaps could be construed as such, in his limited judgement", which I don't think fits as anyones definition of justification.
Make up a damn label for your silly indie band, potential (and probably-nonexistant) problem solved.
If you honestly believe that humanitarian concern for Iraqis was a high priority in Bush's mind... wow. I have no words.
Please, prove otherwise. Granted it might not have been HIS primary concern, but the actual invation plan of Iraq has been brewing since sometime during the Clinton administration, with many other minds working on it.
but it is indisputable that the threat of WMD was the way they chose to sell the war to the American public. I'm not disputing this. And if the powers that be actually new that there were no WMDs to speak of, then yes accountability is going to be a key issue, if though, they actually beleived that there were WMDs, then their actions becomes more justified. I'm not sure of the answer to this, but this is the key question.
There are some schools of thought out there that think that what the public thinks or knows doesn't really matter, since the public are ignorant of their own best interests, and too easily swayed by media/emotion/party affiliation to critically analyze big issues such as war. I don't agree with this philosophy fully, but it does serve to illuminate a question: if they knew what their motives to war were, could it still be said to be under false pretenses? What does the public have to do with it, last time I checked a public vote was not needed to start a war, and the accountability comes from not re-electing the people who supported it.
Again I'm ambigious about the previous paragraph, I find it rather distateful, but this thought is out there.
defending GWB is beyond ridiculous in this thread.
This isn't a "with us or against us" kind of post, its admitted hearsay, and a weak rational to war. I always thought that WMD was the weakest path to invation even when the administration was really laying it on. I always wondered why truer rational couldn't be given to the masses, since the WMD thing was obviousely 99% rhetoric.
That said the false dichotomies are getting rather sick in todays politics. GWB keeps on screaming "friend or enemy", and now the anti-Bush/anti-war camp are doing much the same. Fear me, I am moderate, enemy of the world.
I'm getting sick of the "We went to war because of WMD// George Bush lied" rational for the war. WMDs were, granted, a small part of our involvment, but the causes of the war were MUCH more complex than the threat of the presence of WMD.
Saddam was not a nice person, and I for one am not shedding tears that he is gone. The domino, or stabalization motives were also present, and not altogether disagreeable (the humanitarian and stabalization motives were much higher as priorities in the minds of the powers that be, than WMDs, sadly these are too complex to be selling points for the general public).
That said, the whole thing is still a bungled mess thanks to the lack of strategy on behalf of the DoD.
That is a blatent appeal to authority, which is not a very good rhetorical tactic. You might need a line of reasoning validating how that source is priviliged over other sources that say they found old caches of WMDs.
Actually not true, I have a couple friends (and FOFs) who were there, and got sick from exposure from it still, even if it was old stuff. Then again I wasn't there, and this is hearsay, so it can be doubted, but the actual discovery can't. I don't know if I do doubt it, the media, and dogmatic groupthink, has refused to even acknowledge it, and I'm sure the effects of it will be downplayed if the media were forced to acknowledge it.
I'm still amazed that the media refused to report it, perhaps because it is egg on the face of the status quo, or would be embarrising to the "George Bush Lied!" camp. I still am amused that Afganistan is something we don't talk about too, when was the last time that you saw that in the news?
I like Flickr much better than DA. Flickr is a little bit less snobby, and its easier to ignore the plethera of angsty goths. Granted the signal to noise ratio is much higher on Flickr, but as a whole I think the quality of people is a bit better.
Speaking of, why aren't the social websites (yes, I could call them Web 2.0, but then I'd have to go shoot myself) such as del.icio.us, or Flickr? Granted del.icio.us has not actually changed much in-itself it started the whole social thing that is so prevelant these days.
And how has a software homepage changed how we use the internet? Whatabout Winamp.com, or iTunes.com? It is rather absurd, the most time people spent on Napster's page was to find where the download link was. And while I'm bitching why is Blogger.com there? Didn't LiveJournal come first on the free blogging scene? Perhaps even, to be blasphemous, Google should be replaced with Yahoo, since Google was only really following in the footsteps of Yahoo, and can be seen (in the eyes of 10 years ago) as the Yahoo of today.
How has Slashdot changed the internet, or how people experience it? It brought strange, long-running, inside jokes to the unsuspected masses? Increasing the general FUD content of the world? Validating fat kids in their mothers basements as having something to say? Sporadically downing random websites across the lands? Slashdot, the Mongol invation of the internet.
Your experience is good while mine is bad and that's how it goes. The difference is that when the company is Dell or any other PC maker, it seems that bashing that company is justified while Apple deserves an apology. I feel as you do, yet Apple doesn't deserve a pass when Dell/IBM/HP do not.
I agree, but the critisism shouldn't be greater than that heaped on the random PC peddler of choice. I never quite understood why Apple was such a charged topic in the computer world. Reading discussions and such I've noticed that it seems that you must either love or hate Macs (and Apple), with very little perceived middle ground. I'm sure there is a majority who are apathetic on both the Win/Nix and Apple sides though. Even my father (who knows nothing of computers, outside of what he gets from me) hates Apple, and to be fair most of the Apple people I know grew up with them, and have very little Windows experience, much less *Nix (they even gasp and shudder when I open the OS X terminal).
It seems that most of the critisism comes from other non-Apple fanboys, and most of the praises come from Apple fanboys. Everyone wants to justify their choice with a heavy supply of elitism, especially if the purchase is expensive (look at all the "piss on x brand of car" stickers out there).
In the end it all boils down to subjective individual experience. Back in the day I was a massive Apple trollboy, I hated the damn things (OS9 still makes me shudder with rage), and massively boosted Windows. Then I boosted Linux. And now I run all three from time to time, and realize that I like OS X, but can understand people liking what they like, as long as they don't press it.
Back to the point (its amazing the tangents that a pot of coffee can produce), saying that "Apple has problems" is a true statement, but I don't think it really is that high above the general level of faults, but it is hard to cut through all the bullshit being coughed up by fanboys and trolls. We are swimming in the fallacy (from both sides equally).
Reading over this discussion, I have yet to see "Hungary is a third rate POS country" or any such drivel to get offended at, just food jokes. Imagine if it were Turkey, now that place makes me hungry.
And then, you have forums like this, where Apple users are discussing the problems with their computers in a cool (as in the opposite of your post) manner, and very publically, with nary a speck of elitism except on the behalf of the anti-Apple crowd.
As case in point, go back and count how many Apple users have said something along the lines of; "My Gen 1 Apple was buggy and broken as hell, needed support replacement 1+ times, support flawless, got replacement", which seems to be par for the course in Apple support. Notice that no one is being apologetic for Apple, the product was broken, but this is somewhat a non-Issue because of a rapid and mostly pain-free fix.
Yes there are fan boys, but for every fan boy on the Apple side there is another rabid trollboy on the other side, so it equals out. Yes, a vocal minority of Apple users are smug and elitist, but a majority realize that it is just a computer / OS so it really doesn't matter. How can someone really get worked up about someone elses choice in products? OS X is better for me, Apple hardware is needed to run OS X (and get the experience), Windows or some *Nix is better for you... Meh. Who cares?
For what its worth, my three Apple products over the last 4 years have been flawless (iPod, iBook, and Mini), as have most of my aquaintences (some iPod issues, but got a free replacement/upgrade in a store walk-in, no appointment). I realize that I cannot deduce any solid statistics from this, but I think me and my circle of Mac-using friends are pretty par for the course.
Like all things in life, you hear about the problems, and not the stuff doing what its supposed to. Same thing with the asshats on either side of the great OS debate, most users just use their favorite OS with narry a fanboy peep, and let others use theirs with narry a trollboy post, but sadly the idiots are louder.
So you may be right that they don't lose customers as readily, but they still lose profits.
Not really true, what they are doing is breading loyalty, and return customers (read more fanboys), which means the next product cycle (or life cycle, as it were) they will sell more Macs, have a larger base, etc... In the long run this equals profit.
This seems to be a forgotten buisness model, since it is far easier to screw the customer over for quick money, than take the time to garner loyalty.
I thought it was because I was so used to my old G4 iBook (and all my friends PPC Macs), and its utter lack of noise. On the older Macs the only way to make the fan turn on was to really stretch them (4 hours of WoW, or extensive Photoshop work on large files), but other than that silent. My Mini though, it seems that almost any amount of prolonged HD, or mildly intensive CPU/graphic use, activity will cause the fan to activate. It is kind of annoying, since I always liked the fact that I could just forget about my Mac when not using it, unlike my old PC which sounded like a hurricane, even when not in use.
Not that I mind too much that I can here the fan when working, it just seems that it doesn't stop making noise once it starts. Putting it to sleep briefly seems to work, but is also kind of annoying. But again, much much better than my old PC, with its 6 always on fans. I used to have to turn it off, just because I couldn't sleep for the constant whirring.
Other than that, its almost flawless. There is a slight USB issue (my mouse slows down, or is rarely forgotten during heavy transfers through USB). And OS X seemed rather unresponsive compaired to my old iBook with less RAM and processor speed, but this has gotten better with updates. My other problems arrise from the fact that Word and Photoshop are still for PPC, and Rosetta produces a huge resource hit, but that isn't an Apple problem per se. I was toying with getting Pages, but it seems that the format is completely unique, so it would trap me into using it forever, which annoys me (say what you will about MS's propritary.doc format, but at least many other programs can open it). But that was a tangent...
how long did it take for the spam bots to send 10 messages to this address
Oddly, no spam yet. At first it does take a bit of discipline to begin with, but after awhile it becomes habitual to use it on webforms and such, though there are lapses, which explains the amount of spam I do get. As for dictionary mailers, the solution is easy, use an obscure word that probably isn't in them. My address, with spam blocking is above, and it really is not a common word (without me, there is about 20 hits on Google), and is rather easy to tell via word of mouth (unline, say, anthroporraistes@emailaddress.com, which would be a pain in the ass).
And then there is a few after-the-fact moves, such as the ever so handy bounce feature. Right now I don't trust server-side filtering, though, I want spam to get to my mailbox (at least Google's) so I make sure I don't miss anything, and to better train my filters.
I've been using Spamgourmet.com for a couple years now, with no complaints. It pretty much does what ypu describe, you create a temporary throw-away address with a limited forward amount, and everything after that is eaten. You can also make senders "trusted", and set your throw-away address to reply, if it is legitimate communications.
I get very little spam thanks to this (about 10 per week), while Spamgourmet has blocked 47,378 of 1,802 messages. The only problem is that the addresses are sometimes not allowed for online registrations, and it is a pain in the ass to write on real world forms, plus keeping track of 200+ message prefixes is a pain.
For example: slashdotDEMO.10.omestes@xoxy.net This message will forward 10 messages to me, after that they all go into the void, so it can be added to any list, or whatnot, with no pain to me, and my 3 spam filters (gmail's, junkmatcher, and mail.app's) meaning only about 1 spam per month reaches my inbox, with about 1 false positive per 3 months.
Slashdot Mirror
Cheaper car insurance is about as discriminatory as people living in flood plains having to pay higher house/disaster insurance. Its all about statistical risk, and old people (meaning over 30) drive statistically safer than younger people, there is less a need about showing off, or drinking and driving, etc... for the over 30 crowd, than there is for the irresponsible college and high school crowd. You cost them less, the older you are. Discriminatory would be barring them insurance just because they are young.
As this relates to the story though... I think that the ISP reacted like a bunch of asshats. The more people online not using Myspace or such, the better. Granted they won't be searving up the next "ass jiggle" type video on Youtube, but they will be contributing to more mature services like Wikipedia, or information sites, which is a more important social service that viral stuff and flash culture. The older you are the more you have to offer to society, the younger the more you think you have to offer, but the less you do.
Poltical agenda overpower much? I didn't sing a single praise to Clinton, nor did I even make it seem that he was responsible for the economy, I stated it as a title for a strech of time, such as Bush era, or Reagon era. Clinton had very little to do with the strength of the economy, I agree, but nor did he have much to do with its weaknesses.
Calm down, take a deep breath, and realize that some people aren't talking politics, or attacking you special point-of-view.
There is a hug difference from "keeping your eye on" and actually purchasing. I DO have my eye on a nice huge LCD (meh to plasma) television, a $4000 gaming rig, a nice new stereo, a new car, etc ect... How many of these will I purchase in the next year, probably none of them, since most of them are just status items, and don't serve for much more than to impress my neighbors in the "See my shiny bling!" way. Perhaps if our economy returned to Clinton Era (mid 90's) levels, then these gadgets will switch from eye candy to actual goods.
Right now though... I can't excuse myself to buy a new DVD player when this one isn't broken, nor do I really feel like switching over to a whole new format. I'm still hunting for a couple movies on DVD that I only have on VHS. DVD is good enough, whereas VHS sucked, HD-blah isn't too much of an improvement to the non-pathological videophile like me, at least not enough of an improvement to warrent much money being spent. I like to think, and pray, that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will be like mini-disks were, vast selections of limited media rotting in the aisles of your nearest store, forgotten. I hope they don't catch on, since there is no need for them except for mindless technophilia, and this I would lose some respect for the average American consumer. They aren't addressing a need, only some odd lust for more consumer goods, and corporate manipulations. Same thing with the odd goverment enforcement of HD technology, I don't like the government forcing me to subsidize television manufacturers and cable companies by making me upgrade to something pointless. Wow, now I can watch law and order in letterbox!
Sorry for the rant. For some reason this technology pisses me off, I don't want to be forced to upgrade again, once in 10 years is enough. I wish I could wait until there is something as revolutionary as DVD and CD were.
LaserDisc?
Actually science can be seen as a democracy, this can be seen in the paradigmatic nature of its advances. While science as process (the stuff scientists do) is based on empirical fact and careful methodology, the actual "truthiness" of the findings is determined by their peers, and the community of scientists as a body.
I think this Pluto thing underlines this very well, how arbitrary the whole mess is. Science says a planet is this! Does this necissarily mean it is? Nope, it can change tomorrow, or next week. "Planet" as term has no real linkage to reality. The fact is "there is something in the 9th orbit of x specifications" It also is a fact that EVERYONE calls Pluto a planet (even those who voted against it, I bet), thus linquistically pluto is a Planet, and the definition should then be fixed to make it allign with language as used.
Thank you, I'm not the only one to pick of on the proto-cult flick theme here. I told my friends that SOaP is probably going to be the Evil Dead of this generation.
"hey thats the best movie I've seen all year!".
Oddly enough, it is. Better than A Scanner Darkly at least, which is the only other movie I've seen this year. Yes, no Pirates for me, nor Clerks, I'll wait for the DVD. Actually, outside of the first Pirates movie it might be the best movie of the 21st century (heh). At least it is the only comedy to make me laugh since Who Is Harry Crumb.
Miami Vice has a broader appeal than SOaP, it had the urban-gang-action thing for it (not that any of these movies are anything but B, no matter the gross), I'm sure there were hot thug-chicks, bad gangsta rap (better than the SOaP credit emo, I'm sure), and all the other things the hoi polloi love.
SOaP, on the other hand, had that bad campy feel, that most people don't like, since they want to take their movies seriously within-genre. Miami Vice was straight action, and advertised as such, while SOaP was... A spoof, of sorts, arguably a survival action flick, it was really just a comedy. Think Evil Dead 2, it looks like a horror movie, but in reality it is pure comedy, without the idiotic Sandler or Farrel jab of making damn sure you know its a comedy at all times ("hey look, this is funny. I pooped myself and ran into a window!"). All the people I know who didn't like it, didn't like it in the capacity that it was a bad action movie, entirely missing the fact that it was really just a spoof of movies like the Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno. I think this movie is doomed to be a cult phenomena, and like all cult movies, doomed to semi-obscurity (who watches Rocky Horror, or Evil Dead, or even Eraserhead?)
Yes, it was obscure, but it did make 15m, meaning it wasn't too obscure. Everyone made a buck, everyone got their laugh. No news here, its a happy (and thus uninteresting) ending.
Somewhere in the back of my head (in the most ridiculous part) I am hoping they are cancelling it to ressurect Firefly, like they did with SG1 to begin with. I know this isn't true, and will never happen, but what is life but useless hope.
Yeah, it worked so well for Firefly...
Really? You just made my life, and saldy ruined my roomates. My 3am writing habits are about to get much louder... CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK SMASH! Sadly this means I will be breaking many keyboards in other places.
After I finally retired my M, I went through 3 keyboards in a year, mostly from destroying the flimsy spacebar with my dual-thumb power space.
Way to go Apple for helping out the little people.
We to turn a supposition into a strong statement of judgement. Before judging, please have proof of your position, not "some wanker on slashdot said something that perhaps could be construed as such, in his limited judgement", which I don't think fits as anyones definition of justification.
Make up a damn label for your silly indie band, potential (and probably-nonexistant) problem solved.
If you honestly believe that humanitarian concern for Iraqis was a high priority in Bush's mind... wow. I have no words.
Please, prove otherwise. Granted it might not have been HIS primary concern, but the actual invation plan of Iraq has been brewing since sometime during the Clinton administration, with many other minds working on it.
but it is indisputable that the threat of WMD was the way they chose to sell the war to the American public. I'm not disputing this. And if the powers that be actually new that there were no WMDs to speak of, then yes accountability is going to be a key issue, if though, they actually beleived that there were WMDs, then their actions becomes more justified. I'm not sure of the answer to this, but this is the key question.
There are some schools of thought out there that think that what the public thinks or knows doesn't really matter, since the public are ignorant of their own best interests, and too easily swayed by media/emotion/party affiliation to critically analyze big issues such as war. I don't agree with this philosophy fully, but it does serve to illuminate a question: if they knew what their motives to war were, could it still be said to be under false pretenses? What does the public have to do with it, last time I checked a public vote was not needed to start a war, and the accountability comes from not re-electing the people who supported it.
Again I'm ambigious about the previous paragraph, I find it rather distateful, but this thought is out there.
This isn't a "with us or against us" kind of post, its admitted hearsay, and a weak rational to war. I always thought that WMD was the weakest path to invation even when the administration was really laying it on. I always wondered why truer rational couldn't be given to the masses, since the WMD thing was obviousely 99% rhetoric.
That said the false dichotomies are getting rather sick in todays politics. GWB keeps on screaming "friend or enemy", and now the anti-Bush/anti-war camp are doing much the same. Fear me, I am moderate, enemy of the world.
Thank you.
// George Bush lied" rational for the war. WMDs were, granted, a small part of our involvment, but the causes of the war were MUCH more complex than the threat of the presence of WMD.
I'm getting sick of the "We went to war because of WMD
Saddam was not a nice person, and I for one am not shedding tears that he is gone. The domino, or stabalization motives were also present, and not altogether disagreeable (the humanitarian and stabalization motives were much higher as priorities in the minds of the powers that be, than WMDs, sadly these are too complex to be selling points for the general public).
That said, the whole thing is still a bungled mess thanks to the lack of strategy on behalf of the DoD.
Not a flame, just a comment...
That is a blatent appeal to authority, which is not a very good rhetorical tactic. You might need a line of reasoning validating how that source is priviliged over other sources that say they found old caches of WMDs.
Actually not true, I have a couple friends (and FOFs) who were there, and got sick from exposure from it still, even if it was old stuff. Then again I wasn't there, and this is hearsay, so it can be doubted, but the actual discovery can't. I don't know if I do doubt it, the media, and dogmatic groupthink, has refused to even acknowledge it, and I'm sure the effects of it will be downplayed if the media were forced to acknowledge it.
I'm still amazed that the media refused to report it, perhaps because it is egg on the face of the status quo, or would be embarrising to the "George Bush Lied!" camp. I still am amused that Afganistan is something we don't talk about too, when was the last time that you saw that in the news?
I like Flickr much better than DA. Flickr is a little bit less snobby, and its easier to ignore the plethera of angsty goths. Granted the signal to noise ratio is much higher on Flickr, but as a whole I think the quality of people is a bit better.
Speaking of, why aren't the social websites (yes, I could call them Web 2.0, but then I'd have to go shoot myself) such as del.icio.us, or Flickr? Granted del.icio.us has not actually changed much in-itself it started the whole social thing that is so prevelant these days.
And how has a software homepage changed how we use the internet? Whatabout Winamp.com, or iTunes.com? It is rather absurd, the most time people spent on Napster's page was to find where the download link was. And while I'm bitching why is Blogger.com there? Didn't LiveJournal come first on the free blogging scene? Perhaps even, to be blasphemous, Google should be replaced with Yahoo, since Google was only really following in the footsteps of Yahoo, and can be seen (in the eyes of 10 years ago) as the Yahoo of today.
How has Slashdot changed the internet, or how people experience it? It brought strange, long-running, inside jokes to the unsuspected masses? Increasing the general FUD content of the world? Validating fat kids in their mothers basements as having something to say? Sporadically downing random websites across the lands? Slashdot, the Mongol invation of the internet.
I agree, but the critisism shouldn't be greater than that heaped on the random PC peddler of choice. I never quite understood why Apple was such a charged topic in the computer world. Reading discussions and such I've noticed that it seems that you must either love or hate Macs (and Apple), with very little perceived middle ground. I'm sure there is a majority who are apathetic on both the Win/Nix and Apple sides though. Even my father (who knows nothing of computers, outside of what he gets from me) hates Apple, and to be fair most of the Apple people I know grew up with them, and have very little Windows experience, much less *Nix (they even gasp and shudder when I open the OS X terminal).
It seems that most of the critisism comes from other non-Apple fanboys, and most of the praises come from Apple fanboys. Everyone wants to justify their choice with a heavy supply of elitism, especially if the purchase is expensive (look at all the "piss on x brand of car" stickers out there).
In the end it all boils down to subjective individual experience. Back in the day I was a massive Apple trollboy, I hated the damn things (OS9 still makes me shudder with rage), and massively boosted Windows. Then I boosted Linux. And now I run all three from time to time, and realize that I like OS X, but can understand people liking what they like, as long as they don't press it.
Back to the point (its amazing the tangents that a pot of coffee can produce), saying that "Apple has problems" is a true statement, but I don't think it really is that high above the general level of faults, but it is hard to cut through all the bullshit being coughed up by fanboys and trolls. We are swimming in the fallacy (from both sides equally).
Lord... Sense of humor?
Reading over this discussion, I have yet to see "Hungary is a third rate POS country" or any such drivel to get offended at, just food jokes. Imagine if it were Turkey, now that place makes me hungry.
And then, you have forums like this, where Apple users are discussing the problems with their computers in a cool (as in the opposite of your post) manner, and very publically, with nary a speck of elitism except on the behalf of the anti-Apple crowd.
As case in point, go back and count how many Apple users have said something along the lines of; "My Gen 1 Apple was buggy and broken as hell, needed support replacement 1+ times, support flawless, got replacement", which seems to be par for the course in Apple support. Notice that no one is being apologetic for Apple, the product was broken, but this is somewhat a non-Issue because of a rapid and mostly pain-free fix.
Yes there are fan boys, but for every fan boy on the Apple side there is another rabid trollboy on the other side, so it equals out. Yes, a vocal minority of Apple users are smug and elitist, but a majority realize that it is just a computer / OS so it really doesn't matter. How can someone really get worked up about someone elses choice in products? OS X is better for me, Apple hardware is needed to run OS X (and get the experience), Windows or some *Nix is better for you... Meh. Who cares?
For what its worth, my three Apple products over the last 4 years have been flawless (iPod, iBook, and Mini), as have most of my aquaintences (some iPod issues, but got a free replacement/upgrade in a store walk-in, no appointment). I realize that I cannot deduce any solid statistics from this, but I think me and my circle of Mac-using friends are pretty par for the course.
Like all things in life, you hear about the problems, and not the stuff doing what its supposed to. Same thing with the asshats on either side of the great OS debate, most users just use their favorite OS with narry a fanboy peep, and let others use theirs with narry a trollboy post, but sadly the idiots are louder.
So you may be right that they don't lose customers as readily, but they still lose profits.
Not really true, what they are doing is breading loyalty, and return customers (read more fanboys), which means the next product cycle (or life cycle, as it were) they will sell more Macs, have a larger base, etc... In the long run this equals profit.
This seems to be a forgotten buisness model, since it is far easier to screw the customer over for quick money, than take the time to garner loyalty.
So I'm not the only one who noticed this...
.doc format, but at least many other programs can open it). But that was a tangent...
I thought it was because I was so used to my old G4 iBook (and all my friends PPC Macs), and its utter lack of noise. On the older Macs the only way to make the fan turn on was to really stretch them (4 hours of WoW, or extensive Photoshop work on large files), but other than that silent. My Mini though, it seems that almost any amount of prolonged HD, or mildly intensive CPU/graphic use, activity will cause the fan to activate. It is kind of annoying, since I always liked the fact that I could just forget about my Mac when not using it, unlike my old PC which sounded like a hurricane, even when not in use.
Not that I mind too much that I can here the fan when working, it just seems that it doesn't stop making noise once it starts. Putting it to sleep briefly seems to work, but is also kind of annoying. But again, much much better than my old PC, with its 6 always on fans. I used to have to turn it off, just because I couldn't sleep for the constant whirring.
Other than that, its almost flawless. There is a slight USB issue (my mouse slows down, or is rarely forgotten during heavy transfers through USB). And OS X seemed rather unresponsive compaired to my old iBook with less RAM and processor speed, but this has gotten better with updates. My other problems arrise from the fact that Word and Photoshop are still for PPC, and Rosetta produces a huge resource hit, but that isn't an Apple problem per se. I was toying with getting Pages, but it seems that the format is completely unique, so it would trap me into using it forever, which annoys me (say what you will about MS's propritary
how long did it take for the spam bots to send 10 messages to this address
Oddly, no spam yet. At first it does take a bit of discipline to begin with, but after awhile it becomes habitual to use it on webforms and such, though there are lapses, which explains the amount of spam I do get. As for dictionary mailers, the solution is easy, use an obscure word that probably isn't in them. My address, with spam blocking is above, and it really is not a common word (without me, there is about 20 hits on Google), and is rather easy to tell via word of mouth (unline, say, anthroporraistes@emailaddress.com, which would be a pain in the ass).
And then there is a few after-the-fact moves, such as the ever so handy bounce feature. Right now I don't trust server-side filtering, though, I want spam to get to my mailbox (at least Google's) so I make sure I don't miss anything, and to better train my filters.
I've been using Spamgourmet.com for a couple years now, with no complaints. It pretty much does what ypu describe, you create a temporary throw-away address with a limited forward amount, and everything after that is eaten. You can also make senders "trusted", and set your throw-away address to reply, if it is legitimate communications.
I get very little spam thanks to this (about 10 per week), while Spamgourmet has blocked 47,378 of 1,802 messages. The only problem is that the addresses are sometimes not allowed for online registrations, and it is a pain in the ass to write on real world forms, plus keeping track of 200+ message prefixes is a pain.
For example: slashdotDEMO.10.omestes@xoxy.net This message will forward 10 messages to me, after that they all go into the void, so it can be added to any list, or whatnot, with no pain to me, and my 3 spam filters (gmail's, junkmatcher, and mail.app's) meaning only about 1 spam per month reaches my inbox, with about 1 false positive per 3 months.