This is really really pointless. They already did the recall a while ago, and I'm sure most professionals heard about it and checked it. And face it, most laptop users I've seen on flights have been professionals, not little kids playing Half-Life.
I could see if they did this just as everything was announced (and even then only for a short time).
While I haven't tried the most recent version of SnapStream, it used to have pretty good commercial detection. It only had a problem handling shows on Cartoon network, but that channel always came in bad through our line so it might have been due to that. But then again, maybe things have changed with SnapStream.
It took 40 years, that shows how much we really need it, i suppose.
Or it took that long for the technology to catch up. After all, 40 years ago they were stuck with analog. An analog signal transmitting the feed for HD (or even UHD) would be INSANELY high, far too high to be practical. Now that we're in more of a digital age we can deal with it.
This new HD suffers from the same thing. Ignoring price and need, we simply can't use this on a consumer-level until we find a way to send the signal in a practical manner.
Best TV related comment I have read in a great while.
Don't actually go outside and inteact with other people, sit at home and your TV will make you think you are interacting with other people.
Great idea! Forget about watching "The Transporter" on my TV I'll just go drive around like a maniac, get involved with a Yakuza leader's daughter, and start beating people up. Or maybe I should just hook up with the crew of a FireFly-class spaceship and go on sub-legal adventures with a bunch of rogues, 2 fugitives, and a space hooker.
They're not saying it's to replace human interaction, but to further immerse you into a scene. Nobody should replace friends, outings, and a general social life with TV. And I didn't get the impression from the article they were even HINTING at it.
Reading is good, I'm not knocking it. In fact now that I'm out of college I have a lot more incentive to read for leisure as I'm not reading text-books a few hours a day. And with a good imagination you can really get into a book.
But it's also fun to just sit back and watch the adventure unfold around you on a screen from time to time. And the more crisp the picture/colors/sounds, the better (unless it's gore).
The $250 price point rules out a Wii for me. I don't actually need a console and for whatever reason $200 was my limit for buying this one.
Well, I'm sure it'll drop in price eventually. Didn't the gamecube drop a huge chunk after a year-of-so (I'm asking, not being sarcastic)?
Personally I would have loved to see the $199 price point people were speculating, even if it had no game. $250 isn't bad, but when you think about it it's only $50 less than a XBox 360 Core system.
In the end I'm not complaining, it's still pretty cheap (for me) and I usually love their games.
Not flaming you, but can you give us some examples?
He's only partially right. I read an article (can't cite where/when) saying that part of Apple's deal with some of the big record lables was that that they could only sell their music if they have some sort of DRM implemented. After all, the record labels want to contain the wildfire as much as they can (even if they're only armed with a tea cup), so preventing iTunes purchases from becoming "buy once, copy many times" helps them (as well as Apple).
The record labels also keep trying to mess with their price agreement but that's another story alltogether.
However, Apple also relies on their DRM to maintain a stronghold within the music biz by locking out other MP3 players from playing their music. I can't totally blame them for this, but it's the reason that if the record lables backed down they'd keep using it. By keeping this interdependent relationship between iTunes and portable players they win out.
One could argue that by licensing FairPlay and allowing other manufacturers to use it would increase their consumer base, but there are ways that releasing it could hurt them in the long run. Or at least, that's how they could see it. But since the record labels are a bunch of greedy tards, I doubt they'll ever back down so we'll never know what Apple would do with their DRM if they did.
Well, a while ago (80s?) they mentioned that Superman was essentially a large Solar battery. That he absorbed the energy from the rays of the yellow sun and stored them. When he's "running low" he's more vulnerable to cuts, has less strength, etc. Likewise his invulnerability is from an aura his body projects (powered by the solar battery).
They tried doing something similar with "The Flash," where-as he pulls power from something called the "Speed Force." This is also why he doesn't leave massive craters as he runs.
I guess it was to somehow try to explain things without everyone playing the whole gravity/physics game.
No, it just means they weren't "unlucky" when they launched to the moon. Just because things are overlooked doesn't mean something bad will happen, just might happen.
Take seatbelts: driving without one is dangerous and can kill you. However I know people that drive without one, and they've never gotten into an accident. While it's stupid of them, nothing has happened as a result of it.
I believe it happened. I'm not saying there's NO chance that it didn't happen, but some of the "evidence" that is was a hoax I've heard is laughable.
However, anything done on 35mm (like Firefly) can be digitally resampled to create a high-def print. You'll be happy to know that UHD has done exactly that.:)
Cool:)
Then I'm gonna try watching them. Fortunately my provider picked up UHD a few months ago.
A laptop is usually a little slower (due to the laptop harddrive), the screen is usually a little smaller, and you're stuck with that keyboard (replacing is a pain). These all-in-one jobs like the iMac are usually slightly faster, have a bigger screen, and you have the ordinary keyboard.
I did the laptop-as-a-desktop route with a Powerbook. While I loved the machine, it usually stayed in the same place all day. After a while I got a little tired of using the laptop-keyboard, being force to stay the same distance from the screen, hooking up the external screen when I was programming, etc.
The iMac is tempting and I might get one at some point. But I'd jump all over the PowerMac if they went for a different/smaller enclosure or cut the price a little.
There's a difference between HD and a widescreen. I'm not talking about the "stretching" effect that some shows have suffered, but the picture quality itself. From what I've been told, the actual equipment used to shoot/store a HD scene is different than your run-of-the-mill equipment.
In any case, some HD broadcasts I've seen were simply the station trying to upconvert a 16:9 480i shows to "Hi Def." In other words, a blurry pixelated mess that is obvious to distinguish between a true HD show.
This particular marathon doesn't mean all that much, but starting on Sept. 24, Firefly will be broadcast in high definition on UHD, which is going to be awesome.
It depends, if it was shot with the right equipment for HD then yes it will be awesome. But if it was just shot using ordinary equipment, then I'm hesitant to watch it. I've seen shows broadcast via HD that were not shot for HD, and it looked like total garbage. Sure, it filled up my whole screen (which was kind of nice) but the picture quality was poor even after they tried upconverting it at the broadcasters.
I'm not saying this will happen here, I don't know enough about the show when it originally aired to know if it was shot using HD equipment. I'm just saying if it wasn't then prepared to be disappointed.
What if the third-party driver is behaving exactly as it's supposed to, per the API, and the problem is actually in the OS itself? I mean, seriously: how else does a network card exploit crash the system?
True, it is a possibility. However, on the other side my old Dell laptop had bad drivers that came standard. They kept performing illegal operations (and blue-screening) Windows 2000. When I found updated drivers, the illegal operations went away.
So it's possible that poor drivers can do something screwy to the system by doing something non-standard.
When I was in college, we had a very nice tub... pipe to the Internet:) Back in 98-99 I believe we leased part of a T3.
What stunk is we were blocked from playing games on the Internet. This was back during Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, Counter Strike, Quake III, days. They blocked ports, UDP, you name it. It really stunk.
The LAN Gaming was great, particularly since you often knew the person you were playing against so I didn't mind THAT much. However, after I moved offcampus my senior year I found out that they took things a step further. They started blocking traffic between each dorm, meaning you could only play against people in your own dorm. When I asked what their reasons were, my friends just shrugged.
I don't know what the state of affairs is there now, for all I know they've opened up Internet gaming again. But it was a shame that a school ranked so highly for "being wired" that they took such steps. I know, I know... I wasn't going there to play games. But I did pretty well in school (later got my Masters) so it's not like I was a complete slacker.
Well, here in the US as much as we'd like to think allofmp3 is legal, it either isn't or at the very least there's the chance that eventually the RIAA will manage to intimidate them somehow and seize their records. Personally I don't want to bother with the RIAA ever getting ahold of their records and serving me; even if I have a better chance of winning the lottery, running outside, and getting struck by lightning while I cheered being a millionaire.
Personally, I don't care that much about the iTunes DRM in its present state. I'm not big on portable mp3 players anymore so it doesn't affect me there, and my car (while new) doesn't have an mp3 player (just an indash 6CD changer) so if I really need to I burn some mix CDs. And I don't have enough PCs to use up my activations (and if I did I'd just deactivate the least-used-one). And I like the UI well enough, so in all I don't have any reason to take these annoying steps.
Sure, to some people the iTunes DRM is probably quite annoying. And if I had a portal mp3 player or one built into my car I'd probably start doing something. But in its current state it's not even a nuisance to me.
I'm saying that I used to hear arguments that Apple was higher priced because the parts were higher quality and didn't break as much (or maybe I'm confusing them with Sun?). Now, since they use the same Intel parts, it's hard to make that argument.
Not hard, just harder. There are ranges of Intel components: some motherboard manufacturers are more reliable than others, some components have better hardware or better drivers, etc. It's like saying an eMachines (or whatever) laptop you got for $500 at Walmart is of lower quality than the Thinkpad laptop. One company uses cheaper components to bring the cost down, while the other uses more premium components to bring up the overall quality to justify a higher price. Most commercial customers will go for the more reliable product with better support.
If you think the Apple and Dell laptop battery issues were bad, eMachines and their ilk have been plagued by such things as well as POWER ADAPTERS THAT CATCH ON FIRE. Sure, you can get lucky buying a cheap PC, but from my experience said PCs are usually more of a headache than they're worth. Such is the risk of business, what makes it so bad for them is that since they ship SO MANY units they now have to make a major recall.
Now, that's not to say that apple uses higher quality components than everyone else. I'm sure Lenovo and Dell use very similar components in their high (or mid-high) range models. But they are similarly more expensive than lower-end machines with subpar quality. The only other main difference is how the cases are engineered (both outside and in). It's been my experience that the end-product of an Apple laptop is very solid and durable.
Remember, like Toyota, Apple tries to rely on their "just works" image: their machines are pretty solid. Toyota doesn't import their parts from another planet, they use similar (or the same) parts as other car companies. They just try to make sure they pick good parts and put them together well. However, like Toyota they can easily slip if they stop paying attention, as demonstrated by Toyota's current problems.
I know, I know, drugs are already illegal, but they are STILL the real problem.
Nope.
Whether you think drugs are bad, should be illegal, or our government is doing the right (or successfuly) thing... the grandparent was focusing on "Drugs are being sold to our children in SCHOOL." Emphasis on school.
That is a real problem. Or do you think that drugs being sold to 10-year-olds on a playground is a good thing? OK, high schoolers can technically make decisions (good or bad) themselves. But elementary school? It happens, if only to get them hooked.
Apple is selling more Macs than it has in over a decade. They're approaching record numbers in some spots like laptops where Macs have climbed to a 12% marketshare. They can't meet the demand and are sourcing a 3rd manufacturer to help build more. So how exactly has Apple's switch to Intel HURT them? Is your definition of hurt a special definition that really means "THE BEST THING THATS EVER HAPPENED TO THEM!"!?!?
No doubt they're doing stellar at the moment. But my (admittedly poor) prediction skills foresee in the long term (1-2 years) more and more people will have the same attitude as the grandparent (or great-grandparent as I had to repost). People will question Apple's decisions on certain things now that they're similar in architecture.
People will probably start asking the same questions:
If you're so similar, then what makes you so special
I don't see why you won't let me install OSX on my eMachines. You're not playing fair.
So I'm pretty much paying a lot more for a laptop that's similar to that Dell over there just so I can run OSX? Nice bait.
etc
I'm not saying it will happen, but that it's possible at some point more and more average Joes will start to act like it. Then god forbid Apple caves under pressure and opens OS X (as they now have less reason not to) then they'll get hit with the same problems Windows experiences. On top of which, what casual user would want to buy an "overpriced" Apple work-of-art if they can run OS X on their cheap eMachine.
FORGOT TO SET THE PLAIN-TEXT OPTION -- formatted post
I agree that their move to Intel has kind of hurt them: they're no longer much different than normal PC vendors.
As for opening up their OS I don't blame them -- their business model has relied on control to provide quality. Instead of dealing with the thousands and thousands of pieces of hardware, with their varying degrees of quality and relying on horrid drivers from lazy coders, they spend their time focusing on making sure that their few systems work flawlessly. I mean, before releasing a new Mac they make sure that everything is up to their "standards" though down the line a manufacturing thing comes up like the battery fiasco or the various little things like white splotches on the screen.
Windows on good hardware is pretty good/stable but cheap systems like the all-known eMachines totally mess with it and unfortunately there are a lot more cheaply made systems out there using inferior products and drivers than there are good/stable machines.
Even still, while I feel OSX is far superior to Windows in quality if OSX was subject to the same environment as Windows (vendors, poor drivers, etc) then they would quickly be in the same category as Microsoft. OS X subject to the terrors of the hardware (and software) world would make it suffer.
So in the end Apple focuses on a bundled product. Those in the science-business are not unfamiliar with this: while some companies will sell you device X and software Y, some will only sell a combined system of Device W and preconfigured PC Z to be sure everything will work AND to be able to provide support.
I agree that their move to Intel has kind of hurt them: they're no longer much different than normal PC vendors.
As for opening up their OS I don't blame them -- their business model has relied on control to provide quality. Instead of dealing with the thousands and thousands of pieces of hardware, with their varying degrees of quality and relying on horrid drivers from lazy coders, they spend their time focusing on making sure that their few systems work flawlessly. I mean, before releasing a new Mac they make sure that everything is up to their "standards" though down the line a manufacturing thing comes up like the battery fiasco or the various little things like white splotches on the screen.
Windows on good hardware is pretty good/stable but cheap systems like the all-known eMachines totally mess with it and unfortunately there are a lot more cheaply made systems out there using inferior products and drivers than there are good/stable machines.
Even still, while I feel OSX is far superior to Windows in quality if OSX was subject to the same environment as Windows (vendors, poor drivers, etc) then they would quickly be in the same category as Microsoft. OS X subject to the terrors of the hardware (and software) world would make it suffer.
So in the end Apple focuses on a bundled product. Those in the science-business are not unfamiliar with this: while some companies will sell you device X and software Y, some will only sell a combined system of Device W and preconfigured PC Z to be sure everything will work AND to be able to provide support.
I image my harddrives twice after every initial install. Once for the OS and necessary installs (JRE, Textpad, Winzip) and once after I install my office suite and dev tools.
However, there's a flaw with your strategy. Any IT guy worth his snuff will could tell you rolled back.
"Hmm, Mr Anderson I see you installed Windows XP later year. Yet for some reason you installed a years worth of MS Updates yesterday. I also noticed that there are no other files created between last year and yesterday. Per chance, have you rolled back to an image?"
If that's really your MOD, then let me thank you. I REALLY enjoyed the first two parts. I'm not big on MP games or mods, so I was glad when someone mentioned Minerva (great SP MOD).
Anyway, keep up the good work! I can't wait for part 3!
So you'd WANT gay people/fat people/people who like the color blue to be forced to work with a boss that dislikes them? Or even, to take away the freedom of an employer to employ whoever he likes? That would be another freedom taken away, and it'd cause more problems than it would fix.
But an employer is not just an ordinary person. As it stands, an employer/organization/etc already has to follow rules about many business matters. It's not like we're saying "nobody is allowed to not like gay/fat/disabled/etc people." I'm just saying an employer (company, etc) should have a reason to fire someone. After all, said person was good enough to hire in the first place and if not for this personal preference said person would still be working there.
Imagine this scenario, you hire a woman. She performs her job extremely well, is never tardy, and gets along well with the co-workers. GREAT, a fine employee. A year or two go by (way past the probationary period) and you find out that she had an abortion a decade ago. You are disgusted and fire her on the spot, as you are in a right-to-hire state.
In all that time, the topic never came up (so it's not like she was preachy about it) and her annual reports were stellar. Yet, on a whim you fire said employee. Even though she pleads the case that her husband has cancer and she needs the job to pay for the bills, you terminate her and go about your day.
Tell me, how is that fair to her? Where your personal beliefs have done some heavy damage to her situation.
Again, an employer is not just "an average Joe that doesn't feel like holding the door open for someone." An employer has to follow certain rules (minimum wage, certain benefits to full-time employees working over x hours, various tax laws, security laws, etc). Why the heck should they be allowed to do whatever they feel like, particularly when it can be abused so easily?
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This is really really pointless. They already did the recall a while ago, and I'm sure most professionals heard about it and checked it. And face it, most laptop users I've seen on flights have been professionals, not little kids playing Half-Life.
I could see if they did this just as everything was announced (and even then only for a short time).
While I haven't tried the most recent version of SnapStream, it used to have pretty good commercial detection. It only had a problem handling shows on Cartoon network, but that channel always came in bad through our line so it might have been due to that. But then again, maybe things have changed with SnapStream.
Or it took that long for the technology to catch up. After all, 40 years ago they were stuck with analog. An analog signal transmitting the feed for HD (or even UHD) would be INSANELY high, far too high to be practical. Now that we're in more of a digital age we can deal with it.
This new HD suffers from the same thing. Ignoring price and need, we simply can't use this on a consumer-level until we find a way to send the signal in a practical manner.
Great idea! Forget about watching "The Transporter" on my TV I'll just go drive around like a maniac, get involved with a Yakuza leader's daughter, and start beating people up. Or maybe I should just hook up with the crew of a FireFly-class spaceship and go on sub-legal adventures with a bunch of rogues, 2 fugitives, and a space hooker.
They're not saying it's to replace human interaction, but to further immerse you into a scene. Nobody should replace friends, outings, and a general social life with TV. And I didn't get the impression from the article they were even HINTING at it.
Reading is good, I'm not knocking it. In fact now that I'm out of college I have a lot more incentive to read for leisure as I'm not reading text-books a few hours a day. And with a good imagination you can really get into a book.
But it's also fun to just sit back and watch the adventure unfold around you on a screen from time to time. And the more crisp the picture/colors/sounds, the better (unless it's gore).
Well, I'm sure it'll drop in price eventually. Didn't the gamecube drop a huge chunk after a year-of-so (I'm asking, not being sarcastic)?
Personally I would have loved to see the $199 price point people were speculating, even if it had no game. $250 isn't bad, but when you think about it it's only $50 less than a XBox 360 Core system.
In the end I'm not complaining, it's still pretty cheap (for me) and I usually love their games.
The record labels also keep trying to mess with their price agreement but that's another story alltogether.
However, Apple also relies on their DRM to maintain a stronghold within the music biz by locking out other MP3 players from playing their music. I can't totally blame them for this, but it's the reason that if the record lables backed down they'd keep using it. By keeping this interdependent relationship between iTunes and portable players they win out.
One could argue that by licensing FairPlay and allowing other manufacturers to use it would increase their consumer base, but there are ways that releasing it could hurt them in the long run. Or at least, that's how they could see it. But since the record labels are a bunch of greedy tards, I doubt they'll ever back down so we'll never know what Apple would do with their DRM if they did.
Well, a while ago (80s?) they mentioned that Superman was essentially a large Solar battery. That he absorbed the energy from the rays of the yellow sun and stored them. When he's "running low" he's more vulnerable to cuts, has less strength, etc. Likewise his invulnerability is from an aura his body projects (powered by the solar battery).
They tried doing something similar with "The Flash," where-as he pulls power from something called the "Speed Force." This is also why he doesn't leave massive craters as he runs.
I guess it was to somehow try to explain things without everyone playing the whole gravity/physics game.
I also liked the Tomas Crown Affair. While I've seen better movies recently trying to do what it did (smart caper) it was still a good flick.
No, it just means they weren't "unlucky" when they launched to the moon. Just because things are overlooked doesn't mean something bad will happen, just might happen.
Take seatbelts: driving without one is dangerous and can kill you. However I know people that drive without one, and they've never gotten into an accident. While it's stupid of them, nothing has happened as a result of it.
I believe it happened. I'm not saying there's NO chance that it didn't happen, but some of the "evidence" that is was a hoax I've heard is laughable.
Then I'm gonna try watching them. Fortunately my provider picked up UHD a few months ago.
A laptop is usually a little slower (due to the laptop harddrive), the screen is usually a little smaller, and you're stuck with that keyboard (replacing is a pain). These all-in-one jobs like the iMac are usually slightly faster, have a bigger screen, and you have the ordinary keyboard.
I did the laptop-as-a-desktop route with a Powerbook. While I loved the machine, it usually stayed in the same place all day. After a while I got a little tired of using the laptop-keyboard, being force to stay the same distance from the screen, hooking up the external screen when I was programming, etc.
The iMac is tempting and I might get one at some point. But I'd jump all over the PowerMac if they went for a different/smaller enclosure or cut the price a little.
There's a difference between HD and a widescreen. I'm not talking about the "stretching" effect that some shows have suffered, but the picture quality itself. From what I've been told, the actual equipment used to shoot/store a HD scene is different than your run-of-the-mill equipment.
In any case, some HD broadcasts I've seen were simply the station trying to upconvert a 16:9 480i shows to "Hi Def." In other words, a blurry pixelated mess that is obvious to distinguish between a true HD show.
I'm not saying this will happen here, I don't know enough about the show when it originally aired to know if it was shot using HD equipment. I'm just saying if it wasn't then prepared to be disappointed.
So it's possible that poor drivers can do something screwy to the system by doing something non-standard.
When I was in college, we had a very nice tub... pipe to the Internet :) Back in 98-99 I believe we leased part of a T3.
What stunk is we were blocked from playing games on the Internet. This was back during Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, Counter Strike, Quake III, days. They blocked ports, UDP, you name it. It really stunk.
The LAN Gaming was great, particularly since you often knew the person you were playing against so I didn't mind THAT much. However, after I moved offcampus my senior year I found out that they took things a step further. They started blocking traffic between each dorm, meaning you could only play against people in your own dorm. When I asked what their reasons were, my friends just shrugged.
I don't know what the state of affairs is there now, for all I know they've opened up Internet gaming again. But it was a shame that a school ranked so highly for "being wired" that they took such steps. I know, I know... I wasn't going there to play games. But I did pretty well in school (later got my Masters) so it's not like I was a complete slacker.
Well, here in the US as much as we'd like to think allofmp3 is legal, it either isn't or at the very least there's the chance that eventually the RIAA will manage to intimidate them somehow and seize their records. Personally I don't want to bother with the RIAA ever getting ahold of their records and serving me; even if I have a better chance of winning the lottery, running outside, and getting struck by lightning while I cheered being a millionaire.
Personally, I don't care that much about the iTunes DRM in its present state. I'm not big on portable mp3 players anymore so it doesn't affect me there, and my car (while new) doesn't have an mp3 player (just an indash 6CD changer) so if I really need to I burn some mix CDs. And I don't have enough PCs to use up my activations (and if I did I'd just deactivate the least-used-one). And I like the UI well enough, so in all I don't have any reason to take these annoying steps.
Sure, to some people the iTunes DRM is probably quite annoying. And if I had a portal mp3 player or one built into my car I'd probably start doing something. But in its current state it's not even a nuisance to me.
If you think the Apple and Dell laptop battery issues were bad, eMachines and their ilk have been plagued by such things as well as POWER ADAPTERS THAT CATCH ON FIRE. Sure, you can get lucky buying a cheap PC, but from my experience said PCs are usually more of a headache than they're worth. Such is the risk of business, what makes it so bad for them is that since they ship SO MANY units they now have to make a major recall.
Now, that's not to say that apple uses higher quality components than everyone else. I'm sure Lenovo and Dell use very similar components in their high (or mid-high) range models. But they are similarly more expensive than lower-end machines with subpar quality. The only other main difference is how the cases are engineered (both outside and in). It's been my experience that the end-product of an Apple laptop is very solid and durable.
Remember, like Toyota, Apple tries to rely on their "just works" image: their machines are pretty solid. Toyota doesn't import their parts from another planet, they use similar (or the same) parts as other car companies. They just try to make sure they pick good parts and put them together well. However, like Toyota they can easily slip if they stop paying attention, as demonstrated by Toyota's current problems.
That is a real problem. Or do you think that drugs being sold to 10-year-olds on a playground is a good thing? OK, high schoolers can technically make decisions (good or bad) themselves. But elementary school? It happens, if only to get them hooked.
People will probably start asking the same questions:
- If you're so similar, then what makes you so special
- I don't see why you won't let me install OSX on my eMachines. You're not playing fair.
- So I'm pretty much paying a lot more for a laptop that's similar to that Dell over there just so I can run OSX? Nice bait.
- etc
I'm not saying it will happen, but that it's possible at some point more and more average Joes will start to act like it. Then god forbid Apple caves under pressure and opens OS X (as they now have less reason not to) then they'll get hit with the same problems Windows experiences. On top of which, what casual user would want to buy an "overpriced" Apple work-of-art if they can run OS X on their cheap eMachine.FORGOT TO SET THE PLAIN-TEXT OPTION -- formatted post
I agree that their move to Intel has kind of hurt them: they're no longer much different than normal PC vendors.
As for opening up their OS I don't blame them -- their business model has relied on control to provide quality. Instead of dealing with the thousands and thousands of pieces of hardware, with their varying degrees of quality and relying on horrid drivers from lazy coders, they spend their time focusing on making sure that their few systems work flawlessly. I mean, before releasing a new Mac they make sure that everything is up to their "standards" though down the line a manufacturing thing comes up like the battery fiasco or the various little things like white splotches on the screen.
Windows on good hardware is pretty good/stable but cheap systems like the all-known eMachines totally mess with it and unfortunately there are a lot more cheaply made systems out there using inferior products and drivers than there are good/stable machines.
Even still, while I feel OSX is far superior to Windows in quality if OSX was subject to the same environment as Windows (vendors, poor drivers, etc) then they would quickly be in the same category as Microsoft. OS X subject to the terrors of the hardware (and software) world would make it suffer.
So in the end Apple focuses on a bundled product. Those in the science-business are not unfamiliar with this: while some companies will sell you device X and software Y, some will only sell a combined system of Device W and preconfigured PC Z to be sure everything will work AND to be able to provide support.
I agree that their move to Intel has kind of hurt them: they're no longer much different than normal PC vendors. As for opening up their OS I don't blame them -- their business model has relied on control to provide quality. Instead of dealing with the thousands and thousands of pieces of hardware, with their varying degrees of quality and relying on horrid drivers from lazy coders, they spend their time focusing on making sure that their few systems work flawlessly. I mean, before releasing a new Mac they make sure that everything is up to their "standards" though down the line a manufacturing thing comes up like the battery fiasco or the various little things like white splotches on the screen. Windows on good hardware is pretty good/stable but cheap systems like the all-known eMachines totally mess with it and unfortunately there are a lot more cheaply made systems out there using inferior products and drivers than there are good/stable machines. Even still, while I feel OSX is far superior to Windows in quality if OSX was subject to the same environment as Windows (vendors, poor drivers, etc) then they would quickly be in the same category as Microsoft. OS X subject to the terrors of the hardware (and software) world would make it suffer. So in the end Apple focuses on a bundled product. Those in the science-business are not unfamiliar with this: while some companies will sell you device X and software Y, some will only sell a combined system of Device W and preconfigured PC Z to be sure everything will work AND to be able to provide support.
I image my harddrives twice after every initial install. Once for the OS and necessary installs (JRE, Textpad, Winzip) and once after I install my office suite and dev tools.
However, there's a flaw with your strategy. Any IT guy worth his snuff will could tell you rolled back.
"Hmm, Mr Anderson I see you installed Windows XP later year. Yet for some reason you installed a years worth of MS Updates yesterday. I also noticed that there are no other files created between last year and yesterday. Per chance, have you rolled back to an image?"
Sorry to hear that. I didn't have a single problem with Ep1; it ran flawlessly on mine.
Anyway, keep up the good work! I can't wait for part 3!
But an employer is not just an ordinary person. As it stands, an employer/organization/etc already has to follow rules about many business matters. It's not like we're saying "nobody is allowed to not like gay/fat/disabled/etc people." I'm just saying an employer (company, etc) should have a reason to fire someone. After all, said person was good enough to hire in the first place and if not for this personal preference said person would still be working there.
Imagine this scenario, you hire a woman. She performs her job extremely well, is never tardy, and gets along well with the co-workers. GREAT, a fine employee. A year or two go by (way past the probationary period) and you find out that she had an abortion a decade ago. You are disgusted and fire her on the spot, as you are in a right-to-hire state.
In all that time, the topic never came up (so it's not like she was preachy about it) and her annual reports were stellar. Yet, on a whim you fire said employee. Even though she pleads the case that her husband has cancer and she needs the job to pay for the bills, you terminate her and go about your day.
Tell me, how is that fair to her? Where your personal beliefs have done some heavy damage to her situation.
Again, an employer is not just "an average Joe that doesn't feel like holding the door open for someone." An employer has to follow certain rules (minimum wage, certain benefits to full-time employees working over x hours, various tax laws, security laws, etc). Why the heck should they be allowed to do whatever they feel like, particularly when it can be abused so easily?