MP3s are lossy. If you want the original, you have to stick a CD in a CD player.
CD Audio is lossy too. If you want the original you would have to go down to the recording studio and listen in on the session.
All recordings are compromises between fidelity and the size of the resulting recording. At every step in the recording process a sound engineer has to make decisions on how to best trade-off on fidelity and data size.
In the case of CD audio they band-limit the high end and sample at a rate twice that (plus a bit) of the highest frequency sound wave they want to capture. They attempt to do this as intelligently as possible but it ends in cutting off the transients and harmonics that are tricky for human hearing but which might still have provided some character to the music.
With MP3, AAC, and other such formats they use a more complicated model of human hearing which takes into account stuff like the fact that it's very difficult to notice extremely quiet elements under very loud elements, so you can simplify the recording at that part to exclude the unnoticeable elements and save some bandwidth. Again, it has to be done as intelligently as possible in order to avoid stepping on the character of the music.
In any case, you will always have loss in any recording and playback system. The key is to do your encoding professionally and as close to the source as possible in order to avoid over-processing the sound and losing fidelity. Creating a MP3 or AAC file from a master is certainly better than creating one from a CD, especially if it is done with professional equipment by a competent sound engineer. Is it worth any extra cost that might entail? That's left up to the consumer to decide.
Do you really think an iTunes download is better than a high-quality rip from a normal CD-ripper? I don't use iTunes, but I seem to recall them being the quality equivalent of 128kps or 160kps at most.
The current files distributed by the iTunes Music Store are unprotected, 256 kbps, 44.1 kHz AAC files. A 128 kbps AAC file is widely considered to have approximately the same quality as a 160 kbps MP3 file, although the difference at 256 kbps is likely to be small even with a lossless version of the file. The iTunes Music Store file is certainly extremely close in quality, if not better since it is direct from a master, as a "high-quality rip from a normal CD-ripper".
Before Apple started offering the unprotected 256 kbps AAC files they sold 128 kbps DRM-protected versions. They now offer a service to upgrade those songs to the higher quality, DRM-free format.
Of course if you'd read the first link you posted, you'd have seen this:
Coincidentally, we appear to have fried a card after moving it in and out of our own Focus today to the point that no PC, phone, or camera can read it anymore, so this is definitely a real problem that needs a real solution.
Which is rather a different problem than your second link describes.
HTH. HAND
It seems to me like that was covered in the quote I posted from the second link:
The phone will stop working properly if you remove the SD card, and the SD card cannot be read by another phone, device, or PC.
So if we follow your link and find out what is "really happening," we find out that some blokes plugged a card into a phone and that it seemed to kill the card.
Of course if you read the second link I posted you'd see that Microsoft itself spells it out a bit more clearly:
When the operating system integrates the SD card with your phone:
It reformats the SD card.
It creates a single file system that spans the internal storage and the SD card.
It locks the card to the phone with an automatically generated key.
From this point on, the phone's operating system uses all of the available memory as a single storage space for storing applications and data. The phone will stop working properly if you remove the SD card, and the SD card cannot be read by another phone, device, or PC.
It's not just one data point from some casual observer. The manufacturer of the operating system states quite clearly that this is the expected behavior.
If "optimal performance" means for MS engineers "doesn't break things down", then it explains a lot of my experience. (Talk about lowering one's expectations!)
I'm all for breaking compatibility if you are going to get huge reliability and performance gains and there are no decent open alternatives to be had but this is certainly something that needs to be avoided, if possible. However, it seems to me that Microsoft does a lot of needless "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" in these circumstances when they really should do their best to try to re-use a more open format.
Of course, I'm a bit cynical and I figure that this is just a ploy on their part to lock people into using special SD cards which, once formatted, can only be used on Windows Phone 7 devices as a manner of lock-in. Again, I'm ok with this if the benefit is monumental but it's rare that you'll get so huge a benefit that it's worth the lock-in. Perhaps they should allow users to choose between using a "performance" SD mode which uses special SD cards that are locked to a device and a "compatible" SD mode which can use normal SD cards that can be used in all devices.
I'm not holding my breath waiting for them to do something sensible like this...
If this is even possible there is something really wrong with the SD card in question
You have to dig further into the links in the article to find out what is really happening. Apparently the Windows Phone 7 devices are stressing the SD cards in a manner which is not in-spec for a normal SD card. This means that a SD card which is perfectly fine by the normal spec might be ruined by the way the Windows Phone 7 OS uses the card.
This means that you will need a SD card which is certified under more stringent requirements in order to not be destroyed by the Windows Phone 7 OS.
On top of that the OS also completely reformats the card so that it is a "permanent" part of the device. It probably sets up special space for swap space and other OS-specific data structures so that they can be accessed quickly and easily by the OS but this results in the card not having a normal disk layout that other devices can read using default software.
Why would ANYONE use Safari on Mac when you have FF? ABP and NoScript for the win!
ClickToFlash works very nicely and there are several other extensions that let you block stuff. It even replaces flash videos with the H.264 stream if it is available.
I'm really loving GlimmerBlocker, which sets up a http proxy so any web browser you use will have ads blocked, you don't need to install an ad blocker extension on every browser you have. It'll even allow other computers on your network to use the proxy and gain the same benefits. Pretty nifty.
As I pointed out elsewhere, this is nothing new. People have been breaking out the serial port data lines in the dock connector for at least 4 or 5 years now.
Never, this isn't a hack. Apple publishes the specs for the Dock Connector for exactly this purpose. There are even companies out there which are already producing cables that convert the Dock Connector to serial and RJ-11 interface. In fact, people were publishing how to do this as early as 2006.
Nothing to see here, really. This news is ancient.
LOL, Faux News was linked as proof that a story is real.
It's a clever pun but it falls apart. See, "faux" is French and it's pronounced like "foe", not like "fox". When you say "faux news" it reads as "foe news" and doesn't make any sense.
I'd try to come up with something more clever if I were you, right now you just look ignorant.
At best there was that Russian store selling quasi-legal DRM-free music downloads. But yeah, there are a lot of people who still think that the iPod was and still is not able to play DRM-free tracks so I always remind myself to explicitly point out that Apple has always supported DRM-free media.
Ogg format is another matter! It's too bad that it never really became a big player and I don't think there's any hope for it ever gaining the critical mass it needs to join the mainstream. iTunes and the iPod support quite a few DRM-free formats but only the more popular ones, not the fringe.
2) refuse to allow music purchased from any online store but theirs to play on it.
Just to clarify, because I'm pretty sure this is what you meant:
Apple refused to allow DRM music purchased from any online store but theirs to play on it. The iPod would play DRM-free music in most of the popular formats purchased from any online store.
The only DRM the iPod would play was Apple's Fairplay, which was implemented on the demand of the music companies. Fairplay was dropped soon after the music companies allowed the other online stores to sell DRM-free music.
You really should not post about something you're so ignorant about. Any player can get the full combat log output to a text file by typing/combatlog in-game
So ignorant about? As I stated, I thought there probably was such a command, although I assumed it might be just part of a custom client instead of the default client. That Blizzard has this information available in the default client is a good thing. I know that mod authors used to parse the combat log text for their information and I thought they had moved onto a more direct method for obtaining their data but perhaps they are still using log parsing.
Also, there's a thread on the Blizzard UI forums entirely dedicated to keeping mod authors updated on API/UI changes, often posting them several months before they are even on the test realms.
Yes, I've done some rudimentary addon programming for WoW and I'm aware of the communication between Blizzard and the mod authors. The fact is that even with the communication the API is still far too unstable. It's such a moving target, often changing every couple of months, so that addons break if the authors aren't extremely on top of updating them. Even if the addon author is keeping up with the API changes there are often problems for weeks after a new patch.
It's very draining and frustrating to both the users and the addon authors and it doesn't need to be this way. Blizzard should produce a much more stable API and back-support older versions better. Take a look at most modern API such as Java, Cocoa, C++ STL,.NET, etc. They are often stable on the order of years instead of months. Now I'm not saying that a game needs to have THAT stable of an API but Blizzard can certainly do a better job at keeping their API more stable than they currently do.
i don't like the idea that you actually need addons to be successful. Devs have to account for all these addons so the difficulty of the game is artificially inflated, leaving 'casuals' behind. You simply can't raid instances with vanilla client.
You can raid just fine with the "vanilla" client. Some aspects of it might be a little tougher, such as keeping track of debuffs that need to be cleansed, but I've done it without much problem.
I agree that addons are nice to have but I'd rather have a thin client and then add-in the functionality I need rather than a fat client with a lot of features that get in the way. The only two things missing are the ones I've mentioned: stable API and a in-client way of finding, installing, and managing addons. With these features you wouldn't need to worry about addons breaking every patch and you wouldn't need to be as dependent on an addon author staying active in the game.
I don't understand why something like Recount isn't built into clients during development.
Building so much into the client is doing it wrong. WoW has a great API for building 3rd party addons and there's a lot of stuff that should just be left to a 3rd party. The problem is that they don't have a particularly STABLE API so most addons break with every patch. That's what creates the pressure for Blizzard to simply bundle the addons into the default client.
If Blizzard would work on a stable API and a better system for finding and managing addons then there would be a lot less clamor for more features in the client.
As for recording combat messages I'm sure that Blizzard has a much easier way of doing that in the client. They probably have a special development client that allows stuff to directly write out to log files. It would be much easier to do this than build a Recount look-alike to do the job.
Seems to me this is a bunch of people standing up for what they believe in even though it may cost them financially. It would be nice to see a few Apple employees do the same.
Maybe the fact that there aren't a slew of Apple employees leaving means that a lot of people are happy to work for Apple. Just sayin'...
Apple has no central domain management tools for OSX There is no equivalent to AD/machine management for workstations. There is no OS X server. Software update controls are limited, to best. There is no ability to use a local SUS - equivalent or similar to what's available on Linux and Windows. Office for Mac has no sync with the PC versions, so it'd be an all-or-nothing migration.
was thinking the same - and what seems to be missing is that you still need to carry around a great big charger, possibly a spare battery, headphones, books, papers, umbrella, and other gubbins truly roaming office workers need all in one big bag. So a couple of mills here and there might look good, but is it that important?
To be fair Apple has made some major strides in cutting down the size of chargers and if you are only going out for lunch or a few hours then you don't even need that since the Apple laptops have been getting up to 10 hours on a charge under moderate usage. You can't change out the battery so you don't carry around a spare. Books and papers are becoming scarcer since the use of e-books and the like have become popular.
Believe it or not, even shaving off a small percentage of size and weight does make a difference. Sure if you compare the latest MacBook Air to the last version you won't notice a huge difference but go a few versions back (to regular laptops of the time) and you can see how much the incremental changes have added up. By continuously pushing the envelope you constantly refine your product and keep it fresh.
Do you pay a premium for being on the cutting edge of portability? Of course, but for some people portability trumps price and speed.
Memory requirements are definitely a problem under OS/X. It is totally unacceptable that Safari requires 1/2 GB of RAM to display a few web pages like it does on my computer right now. mds, a simple background daemon, is using 400MB! The kernel is using 450 MB. The bloody mail client is using 150MB. This machine has been up for a grand total of 9h.
They aren't really using that all that memory. That's most likely data that has been accessed at one time and is kept around in case you need it again. Any good, modern operating system does the same thing. A good OS will fill up your RAM with stuff that you might possibly use so that when you need it you get it quickly. If some other app comes around and needs a chunk of memory then some of the data in RAM is either paged off to disk or simply thrown out, depending on whether the data is "dirty" (changed) or not.
I assure you that almost all modern flavors of Linux, BSD, and Windows do the same thing. They might do it in slightly different manners and they may report it to you differently but you'd be amazed at how similar they all are under the hood.
From experience OS/X guzzle memory like no other OS I know. I use two boxes at work, a Linux HP PC with 4GB of RAM that never ever swaps, and a MBP laptop with 4GB of RAM that becomes slow as molasses after a week of use due to memory issues.
I don't know what's wrong with your particular MacBook Pro but I run a lab of Macs, including some MacBook Pros, and we regularly have machines that haven't been restarted in months with no noticeable problems. Maybe your particular unit has a bad memory chip and should be taken in for service.
Also, Mac OS X runs great even with a low amount of memory. I've run it with as little as 640 MB of RAM without it suffering from too much of a slowdown, under a simple workload of web browsing and document editing. Yes, if you do a lot of background and complex work then memory requirements will grow but that's not directly related to the core OS.
I'm not calling any negative situation any name with gate at the end. It was stupid the first time anyone did it after the Watergate affair and it's only gotten worse with time. Give it up now or keep looking stupid when you say repeat the meme.
Slashdot Mirror
MP3s are lossy. If you want the original, you have to stick a CD in a CD player.
CD Audio is lossy too. If you want the original you would have to go down to the recording studio and listen in on the session.
All recordings are compromises between fidelity and the size of the resulting recording. At every step in the recording process a sound engineer has to make decisions on how to best trade-off on fidelity and data size.
In the case of CD audio they band-limit the high end and sample at a rate twice that (plus a bit) of the highest frequency sound wave they want to capture. They attempt to do this as intelligently as possible but it ends in cutting off the transients and harmonics that are tricky for human hearing but which might still have provided some character to the music.
With MP3, AAC, and other such formats they use a more complicated model of human hearing which takes into account stuff like the fact that it's very difficult to notice extremely quiet elements under very loud elements, so you can simplify the recording at that part to exclude the unnoticeable elements and save some bandwidth. Again, it has to be done as intelligently as possible in order to avoid stepping on the character of the music.
In any case, you will always have loss in any recording and playback system. The key is to do your encoding professionally and as close to the source as possible in order to avoid over-processing the sound and losing fidelity. Creating a MP3 or AAC file from a master is certainly better than creating one from a CD, especially if it is done with professional equipment by a competent sound engineer. Is it worth any extra cost that might entail? That's left up to the consumer to decide.
Do you really think an iTunes download is better than a high-quality rip from a normal CD-ripper? I don't use iTunes, but I seem to recall them being the quality equivalent of 128kps or 160kps at most.
The current files distributed by the iTunes Music Store are unprotected, 256 kbps, 44.1 kHz AAC files. A 128 kbps AAC file is widely considered to have approximately the same quality as a 160 kbps MP3 file, although the difference at 256 kbps is likely to be small even with a lossless version of the file. The iTunes Music Store file is certainly extremely close in quality, if not better since it is direct from a master, as a "high-quality rip from a normal CD-ripper".
Before Apple started offering the unprotected 256 kbps AAC files they sold 128 kbps DRM-protected versions. They now offer a service to upgrade those songs to the higher quality, DRM-free format.
Of course if you'd read the first link you posted, you'd have seen this:
Coincidentally, we appear to have fried a card after moving it in and out of our own Focus today to the point that no PC, phone, or camera can read it anymore, so this is definitely a real problem that needs a real solution.
Which is rather a different problem than your second link describes.
HTH. HAND
It seems to me like that was covered in the quote I posted from the second link:
The phone will stop working properly if you remove the SD card, and the SD card cannot be read by another phone, device, or PC.
Hope that helps you too...
So if we follow your link and find out what is "really happening," we find out that some blokes plugged a card into a phone and that it seemed to kill the card.
Of course if you read the second link I posted you'd see that Microsoft itself spells it out a bit more clearly:
When the operating system integrates the SD card with your phone:
From this point on, the phone's operating system uses all of the available memory as a single storage space for storing applications and data. The phone will stop working properly if you remove the SD card, and the SD card cannot be read by another phone, device, or PC.
It's not just one data point from some casual observer. The manufacturer of the operating system states quite clearly that this is the expected behavior.
If "optimal performance" means for MS engineers "doesn't break things down", then it explains a lot of my experience. (Talk about lowering one's expectations!)
I'm all for breaking compatibility if you are going to get huge reliability and performance gains and there are no decent open alternatives to be had but this is certainly something that needs to be avoided, if possible. However, it seems to me that Microsoft does a lot of needless "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" in these circumstances when they really should do their best to try to re-use a more open format.
Of course, I'm a bit cynical and I figure that this is just a ploy on their part to lock people into using special SD cards which, once formatted, can only be used on Windows Phone 7 devices as a manner of lock-in. Again, I'm ok with this if the benefit is monumental but it's rare that you'll get so huge a benefit that it's worth the lock-in. Perhaps they should allow users to choose between using a "performance" SD mode which uses special SD cards that are locked to a device and a "compatible" SD mode which can use normal SD cards that can be used in all devices.
I'm not holding my breath waiting for them to do something sensible like this...
If this is even possible there is something really wrong with the SD card in question
You have to dig further into the links in the article to find out what is really happening. Apparently the Windows Phone 7 devices are stressing the SD cards in a manner which is not in-spec for a normal SD card. This means that a SD card which is perfectly fine by the normal spec might be ruined by the way the Windows Phone 7 OS uses the card.
This means that you will need a SD card which is certified under more stringent requirements in order to not be destroyed by the Windows Phone 7 OS.
On top of that the OS also completely reformats the card so that it is a "permanent" part of the device. It probably sets up special space for swap space and other OS-specific data structures so that they can be accessed quickly and easily by the OS but this results in the card not having a normal disk layout that other devices can read using default software.
IBM is substantially bigger.
Now there are many ways for measuring the size of a business but one widely-accepted method is market cap.
As of 11:57 AM EDT or so:
Apple's market cap: 291.57B
IBM's market cap: 182.11B
By at least one common measuring method you can see that it is Apple which is substantially bigger than IBM.
If the Mac Mini supported target disk mode they could get rid of the external drive entirely and just keep the spare as a bootable backup in TD mode.
The Mac Mini supports target disk mode. Take a look at the list of supported computers on this Apple Knowledge Base article:
How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode
Why would ANYONE use Safari on Mac when you have FF? ABP and NoScript for the win!
ClickToFlash works very nicely and there are several other extensions that let you block stuff. It even replaces flash videos with the H.264 stream if it is available.
I'm really loving GlimmerBlocker, which sets up a http proxy so any web browser you use will have ads blocked, you don't need to install an ad blocker extension on every browser you have. It'll even allow other computers on your network to use the proxy and gain the same benefits. Pretty nifty.
Or just do it directly with this.
As I pointed out elsewhere, this is nothing new. People have been breaking out the serial port data lines in the dock connector for at least 4 or 5 years now.
how long until the company gets a C&D from Apple?
Never, this isn't a hack. Apple publishes the specs for the Dock Connector for exactly this purpose. There are even companies out there which are already producing cables that convert the Dock Connector to serial and RJ-11 interface. In fact, people were publishing how to do this as early as 2006.
Nothing to see here, really. This news is ancient.
LOL, Faux News was linked as proof that a story is real.
It's a clever pun but it falls apart. See, "faux" is French and it's pronounced like "foe", not like "fox". When you say "faux news" it reads as "foe news" and doesn't make any sense.
I'd try to come up with something more clever if I were you, right now you just look ignorant.
At best there was that Russian store selling quasi-legal DRM-free music downloads. But yeah, there are a lot of people who still think that the iPod was and still is not able to play DRM-free tracks so I always remind myself to explicitly point out that Apple has always supported DRM-free media.
Ogg format is another matter! It's too bad that it never really became a big player and I don't think there's any hope for it ever gaining the critical mass it needs to join the mainstream. iTunes and the iPod support quite a few DRM-free formats but only the more popular ones, not the fringe.
2) refuse to allow music purchased from any online store but theirs to play on it.
Just to clarify, because I'm pretty sure this is what you meant:
Apple refused to allow DRM music purchased from any online store but theirs to play on it. The iPod would play DRM-free music in most of the popular formats purchased from any online store.
The only DRM the iPod would play was Apple's Fairplay, which was implemented on the demand of the music companies. Fairplay was dropped soon after the music companies allowed the other online stores to sell DRM-free music.
People actually click on links to link-shortening services?
You really should not post about something you're so ignorant about. Any player can get the full combat log output to a text file by typing /combatlog in-game
So ignorant about? As I stated, I thought there probably was such a command, although I assumed it might be just part of a custom client instead of the default client. That Blizzard has this information available in the default client is a good thing. I know that mod authors used to parse the combat log text for their information and I thought they had moved onto a more direct method for obtaining their data but perhaps they are still using log parsing.
Also, there's a thread on the Blizzard UI forums entirely dedicated to keeping mod authors updated on API/UI changes, often posting them several months before they are even on the test realms.
Yes, I've done some rudimentary addon programming for WoW and I'm aware of the communication between Blizzard and the mod authors. The fact is that even with the communication the API is still far too unstable. It's such a moving target, often changing every couple of months, so that addons break if the authors aren't extremely on top of updating them. Even if the addon author is keeping up with the API changes there are often problems for weeks after a new patch.
It's very draining and frustrating to both the users and the addon authors and it doesn't need to be this way. Blizzard should produce a much more stable API and back-support older versions better. Take a look at most modern API such as Java, Cocoa, C++ STL, .NET, etc. They are often stable on the order of years instead of months. Now I'm not saying that a game needs to have THAT stable of an API but Blizzard can certainly do a better job at keeping their API more stable than they currently do.
i don't like the idea that you actually need addons to be successful. Devs have to account for all these addons so the difficulty of the game is artificially inflated, leaving 'casuals' behind. You simply can't raid instances with vanilla client.
You can raid just fine with the "vanilla" client. Some aspects of it might be a little tougher, such as keeping track of debuffs that need to be cleansed, but I've done it without much problem.
I agree that addons are nice to have but I'd rather have a thin client and then add-in the functionality I need rather than a fat client with a lot of features that get in the way. The only two things missing are the ones I've mentioned: stable API and a in-client way of finding, installing, and managing addons. With these features you wouldn't need to worry about addons breaking every patch and you wouldn't need to be as dependent on an addon author staying active in the game.
I don't understand why something like Recount isn't built into clients during development.
Building so much into the client is doing it wrong. WoW has a great API for building 3rd party addons and there's a lot of stuff that should just be left to a 3rd party. The problem is that they don't have a particularly STABLE API so most addons break with every patch. That's what creates the pressure for Blizzard to simply bundle the addons into the default client.
If Blizzard would work on a stable API and a better system for finding and managing addons then there would be a lot less clamor for more features in the client.
As for recording combat messages I'm sure that Blizzard has a much easier way of doing that in the client. They probably have a special development client that allows stuff to directly write out to log files. It would be much easier to do this than build a Recount look-alike to do the job.
Seems to me this is a bunch of people standing up for what they believe in even though it may cost them financially. It would be nice to see a few Apple employees do the same.
Maybe the fact that there aren't a slew of Apple employees leaving means that a lot of people are happy to work for Apple. Just sayin'...
We all know the answer to that one: 1.21 gigawatts!
Ahh but that just tells us the RATE of energy, not the AMOUNT of energy! The true question is how many gigawatt-hours is it?
Apple has no central domain management tools for OSX
There is no equivalent to AD/machine management for workstations.
There is no OS X server.
Software update controls are limited, to best.
There is no ability to use a local SUS - equivalent or similar to what's available on Linux and Windows.
Office for Mac has no sync with the PC versions, so it'd be an all-or-nothing migration.
Oh really?
Mac OS X Server Client Management
It's a good attempt at a troll but your points are so easily knocked down that, ultimately, it fails.
was thinking the same - and what seems to be missing is that you still need to carry around a great big charger, possibly a spare battery, headphones, books, papers, umbrella, and other gubbins truly roaming office workers need all in one big bag. So a couple of mills here and there might look good, but is it that important?
To be fair Apple has made some major strides in cutting down the size of chargers and if you are only going out for lunch or a few hours then you don't even need that since the Apple laptops have been getting up to 10 hours on a charge under moderate usage. You can't change out the battery so you don't carry around a spare. Books and papers are becoming scarcer since the use of e-books and the like have become popular.
Believe it or not, even shaving off a small percentage of size and weight does make a difference. Sure if you compare the latest MacBook Air to the last version you won't notice a huge difference but go a few versions back (to regular laptops of the time) and you can see how much the incremental changes have added up. By continuously pushing the envelope you constantly refine your product and keep it fresh.
Do you pay a premium for being on the cutting edge of portability? Of course, but for some people portability trumps price and speed.
Memory requirements are definitely a problem under OS/X. It is totally unacceptable that Safari requires 1/2 GB of RAM to display a few web pages like it does on my computer right now. mds, a simple background daemon, is using 400MB! The kernel is using 450 MB. The bloody mail client is using 150MB. This machine has been up for a grand total of 9h.
They aren't really using that all that memory. That's most likely data that has been accessed at one time and is kept around in case you need it again. Any good, modern operating system does the same thing. A good OS will fill up your RAM with stuff that you might possibly use so that when you need it you get it quickly. If some other app comes around and needs a chunk of memory then some of the data in RAM is either paged off to disk or simply thrown out, depending on whether the data is "dirty" (changed) or not.
I assure you that almost all modern flavors of Linux, BSD, and Windows do the same thing. They might do it in slightly different manners and they may report it to you differently but you'd be amazed at how similar they all are under the hood.
You might want to take a look at these articles to better understand your own system's memory usage and to see if you do have a problem:
http://www.atpm.com/12.12/activity.shtml
http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-MonitoringTips.html
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Performance/Conceptual/ManagingMemory/ManagingMemory.html
Just some notes on what I'm seeing on my machine
MacBook Pro 13", one Intel Core 2 Duo 2.26 GHz, 4 GB RAM, Mac OS X 10.6.4 (10F569)
uptime: 24 hours
rsize (total memory actually in-use):
Safari: 180.2 MB
mds: 35.2 MB
kernel_task: 150.2 MB
mail: 63.2 MB
I have a few windows open in each application and used the applications for about 1/2 an hour before testing them.
From experience OS/X guzzle memory like no other OS I know. I use two boxes at work, a Linux HP PC with 4GB of RAM that never ever swaps, and a MBP laptop with 4GB of RAM that becomes slow as molasses after a week of use due to memory issues.
I don't know what's wrong with your particular MacBook Pro but I run a lab of Macs, including some MacBook Pros, and we regularly have machines that haven't been restarted in months with no noticeable problems. Maybe your particular unit has a bad memory chip and should be taken in for service.
Also, Mac OS X runs great even with a low amount of memory. I've run it with as little as 640 MB of RAM without it suffering from too much of a slowdown, under a simple workload of web browsing and document editing. Yes, if you do a lot of background and complex work then memory requirements will grow but that's not directly related to the core OS.
I'm not calling any negative situation any name with gate at the end. It was stupid the first time anyone did it after the Watergate affair and it's only gotten worse with time. Give it up now or keep looking stupid when you say repeat the meme.