If all Americans opt to purchase goods and services base on political ideology rather than market forces, the overall purchasing power of Americans will be less than efficiency.
True, but two responses: 1. Economic efficiency should not be the highest goal for individuals or nations, and I say this as a die-hard libertarian capitalist. Denying profits to an oppressive regime may be more important than increasing your purchasing power.
2. Even in purely economic terms, trading with a hostile entity may be detrimental in the long term if they use their profits to fund attacks against you (military or otherwise).
That's not to say that we should start boycotting everything from China, just that taking ideology into account isn't necessarily irrational.
I don't see how a Finder glitch equates to having no idea what's going on. (Have you tried moving the files out of the Desktop folder and then dragging them back to the desktop itself?) OS X is Unix; if you want to see what's going on there's ps and top and fs_usage and a bunch of other tools, many of which have UI wrappers. I can understand the argument that you don't have the control you do in Linux where you can easily build your own kernel and such, but I'd think it would be much better than XP in that respect.
even Apple knows that their O/S just isn't useful to most people, they just released a tool to let you put Windows on their boxes for christ sake.
Your conclusion does not remotely follow. Microsoft sells Office for OS X; does that mean they know Windows sucks?
I wouldn't be surprised is Apple was already planning on phasing out their software and just providing hardware/ipod.
Prepare to be surprised. Apple has their sights set a bit higher than becoming another Dell.
"If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth -- and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago." -- Fortune, Feb. 19, 1996
Yes, in the 1996 world of using computers for word processing and spreadsheets, Microsoft won. We've moved on a bit since then. The "next great thing" is not an MP3 player.
Pretty much. And I don't believe for a second that the DMCA was intended to support the "public good". It was always a giveaway to rent-seeking corporations.
You know all those little goofball utilites that perform some really simple but ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY function and are $25 time-limited shareware on the Mac?
No, not really. What are you thinking of? In my experience most "necessary" functions are either not necessary on a Mac or trivially done with shell or Perl scripts.
Adobe going from CodeWarrior to XCode for their Mac version is a mess, and it's still at least similar APIs, as I understand it.
It's exactly the same APIs. "All" that changes is the build system and compiler-specific code, which is apparently still a lot for big legacy apps like Photoshop.
The interfaces of QT apps I've used on the Mac (Google Earth and Parallels Workstation) are really ugly. In both cases I put up with them because of the great functionality of the apps, but I'd much prefer "native" Cocoa or Carbon versions.
While that's true, this "unique selling point" has basically left them treading water in terms of marketshare
You say "treading water", I say "consistently profitable niche". Selling Wintel clones is not a profitable strategy because the market is so throughly commoditized. You can point to Dell, but that's just survivorship bias. Remember Packard Bell?
1% of the Wintel market @ 25% margin = Huge Profits.
And they'll get at least that with Boot Camp and Leopard's virtualization, without compromising OS X.
The switch to Intel make zero sense, nada, zip, zilch, unless you start coming up (as some have) with really far-fetched notions
Sure it does. The Core Duo crushes the G4 in the large majority of real-world tasks, and in the bigger picture Apple eliminates dependencies on CPU providers that don't really care about desktop CPUs.
Besides, I think the cell based PowerPC processors that are the guts of the new Xbox and Playstation systems are fascinating.
They are. They're also lousy for general purpose systems.
All I can say is wow... I now have a running bet that come October we will start to see the beginnings of the end of OSX - I bet that we see the new Mac systems start comming out with "designed for Windows Vista" stickers on them.
Well said. In addition to the perpetual recurring costs, there's also the potential for the service to be discontinued or crippled, e.g. advertisers offer Tivo $X to have fast-forwarding disabled during their commercials. My Mac mini+EyeTV will never have fees or DRM, and will always do exactly as I say.
A tax on fuel is actually an exceptional idea. It's better than mandating fuel efficiency standards. It's better than taxing SUVs. It's better than subsidies for hybrids, or subsidies for mass transit. If the goal is to reduce the CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere, then a tax on fuel is the way to go. Let the market decide the best way to reduce the need for fuel.
Absolutely correct. It's refreshing to see some economic wisdom here. Of course knee-jerk conservatives will protest because it's a tax increase (which I agree should be offset with tax cuts elsewhere), and knee-jerk liberals will protest because it involves using the dreaded free market.
People aren't willing to change their lifestyles until it's clear to them that those lifestyles are unsustainable.
And even then, they'll just *say* they'll change. Most won't *actually* change until it's in their self-interest to do so.
You know that the majority of Social Security and Medicare benefits go to people who are not remotely poor, yes? It's insane to confiscate 15% of the paychecks of burger flippers and hand the proceeds to Warren Buffett.
So rich people can afford to pollute, and poor people can't?
Bluntly: yes. By definition, rich people can afford lots of things poor people can't.
It's like saying there should be no jailtime for setting wildfires, just fines. Then the pyromaniac club can light up California, paying for better fire departments in Texas, right?
The economically optimal level of arson is zero. The economically optimal level of pollution is not.
We have a system which needs absolute minimums enforced, and the hidden costs incremental use paid as well. That means minimum MPG and a tax on gasoline.
Enforcing minimums would mean capping the total amount of gas that any person can use. MPG standards don't help here; a "gas guzzling" SUV that's only driven 5,000 miles a year is less harmful than a hybrid that makes multiple cross country trips.
How about we don't prevent companies from dumping tocis by produicts in the drinking water- but we make them pay depending how much they dump.
A form of this is already in place and working well: emissions trading.
Why should you be able to pump more posions into the air that we all breathe just because you pay a few extra dollars a year?
What's your solution? A fixed allocation of fossil fuels per person? Fuel economy standards don't work by themselves; a 50mpg hybrid driven 30,000 miles a year is spewing more poisons than an SUV driven 10,000 miles a year.
Over the short term the price of gasoline is relatively inelastic. This means it takes a large increase in price before there is *any* impact on demand.
No, it means that demand falls less than prices rise. If there wasn't any impact on demand then it would be *perfectly* inelastic, which doesn't happen except in contrived scenarios like the demand for water of a person dying of thirst in the desert.
Over the longer term one might see a trend towards more efficient vehicles, but I don't know of any evidence that large masses of people would suddenly consider giving up their cars.
They won't. But they might look for jobs closer to home, carpool, eliminate unnecessary trips, or voluntarily buy more fuel-efficient cars. (We've already seen the latter; SUV sales have dropped as gas prices have increased). Gas taxes give people incentives to conserve gas; MPG restrictions give people incentives to find loopholes in the restrictions. (Which incidentally is how SUVs came to exist, since they qualified as trucks for CAFE purposes).
An economic ripple effect.
You get the same ripple effect when people have to pay more for cars with better fuel efficiency. TANSTAAFL.
The ironic thing about Apple's iTMS is that all those answers are "yes", for $1.99 a show.
Not really. Any OS update could disable the ability to play your files, and there's no escape hatch of burning and re-ripping like with iTMS music.
All Apple would have to do is release some kind of monthly subscription, $100 a month gets you 100 episodes of any and every show a month.
Now that's interesting. I wouldn't do $100, but with 50 for $50 I'd happily cancel my cable service. Assuming the resolution becomes adequate and somebody comes up with a way to defeat the DRM.
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If all Americans opt to purchase goods and services base on political ideology rather than market forces, the overall purchasing power of Americans will be less than efficiency.
True, but two responses:
1. Economic efficiency should not be the highest goal for individuals or nations, and I say this as a die-hard libertarian capitalist. Denying profits to an oppressive regime may be more important than increasing your purchasing power.
2. Even in purely economic terms, trading with a hostile entity may be detrimental in the long term if they use their profits to fund attacks against you (military or otherwise).
That's not to say that we should start boycotting everything from China, just that taking ideology into account isn't necessarily irrational.
I don't see how a Finder glitch equates to having no idea what's going on. (Have you tried moving the files out of the Desktop folder and then dragging them back to the desktop itself?) OS X is Unix; if you want to see what's going on there's ps and top and fs_usage and a bunch of other tools, many of which have UI wrappers. I can understand the argument that you don't have the control you do in Linux where you can easily build your own kernel and such, but I'd think it would be much better than XP in that respect.
even Apple knows that their O/S just isn't useful to most people, they just released a tool to let you put Windows on their boxes for christ sake.
Your conclusion does not remotely follow. Microsoft sells Office for OS X; does that mean they know Windows sucks?
I wouldn't be surprised is Apple was already planning on phasing out their software and just providing hardware/ipod.
Prepare to be surprised. Apple has their sights set a bit higher than becoming another Dell.
"If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth -- and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago."
-- Fortune, Feb. 19, 1996
Yes, in the 1996 world of using computers for word processing and spreadsheets, Microsoft won. We've moved on a bit since then. The "next great thing" is not an MP3 player.
The dell has a much better processer.
Nope. The Dell has a Pentium D, the Mac has a Core Duo which is significantly faster per-cycle.
Pretty much. And I don't believe for a second that the DMCA was intended to support the "public good". It was always a giveaway to rent-seeking corporations.
Can you point to a law that's been passed in the last six years and say, "This is a good law"?
The do-not-call registry comes to mind. Actually, that's all that comes to mind.
You know all those little goofball utilites that perform some really simple but ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY function and are $25 time-limited shareware on the Mac?
No, not really. What are you thinking of? In my experience most "necessary" functions are either not necessary on a Mac or trivially done with shell or Perl scripts.
Come on, just stop pirating and all of this would be a non-issue.
Counterexample A: DVD region codes.
Oklahoma was the first state to regulate medicines that were being used to make methamphetamines.
Ah, so you're only 22 years behind then.
Congratulations, you've just violated the DMCA. Just like I would if I mentioned that "Select All" works too.
Adobe going from CodeWarrior to XCode for their Mac version is a mess, and it's still at least similar APIs, as I understand it.
It's exactly the same APIs. "All" that changes is the build system and compiler-specific code, which is apparently still a lot for big legacy apps like Photoshop.
The interfaces of QT apps I've used on the Mac (Google Earth and Parallels Workstation) are really ugly. In both cases I put up with them because of the great functionality of the apps, but I'd much prefer "native" Cocoa or Carbon versions.
While that's true, this "unique selling point" has basically left them treading water in terms of marketshare
You say "treading water", I say "consistently profitable niche". Selling Wintel clones is not a profitable strategy because the market is so throughly commoditized. You can point to Dell, but that's just survivorship bias. Remember Packard Bell?
1% of the Wintel market @ 25% margin = Huge Profits.
And they'll get at least that with Boot Camp and Leopard's virtualization, without compromising OS X.
Sure. Like the two poster-children of free software applications, GIMP and OOo, both of which run natively without X11... not.
Wrong and wrong. Your only correct move was posting as AC.
The switch to Intel make zero sense, nada, zip, zilch, unless you start coming up (as some have) with really far-fetched notions
Sure it does. The Core Duo crushes the G4 in the large majority of real-world tasks, and in the bigger picture Apple eliminates dependencies on CPU providers that don't really care about desktop CPUs.
Besides, I think the cell based PowerPC processors that are the guts of the new Xbox and Playstation systems are fascinating.
They are. They're also lousy for general purpose systems.
All I can say is wow... I now have a running bet that come October we will start to see the beginnings of the end of OSX - I bet that we see the new Mac systems start comming out with "designed for Windows Vista" stickers on them.
Please let me in this action.
Well said. In addition to the perpetual recurring costs, there's also the potential for the service to be discontinued or crippled, e.g. advertisers offer Tivo $X to have fast-forwarding disabled during their commercials. My Mac mini+EyeTV will never have fees or DRM, and will always do exactly as I say.
A tax on fuel is actually an exceptional idea. It's better than mandating fuel efficiency standards. It's better than taxing SUVs. It's better than subsidies for hybrids, or subsidies for mass transit. If the goal is to reduce the CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere, then a tax on fuel is the way to go. Let the market decide the best way to reduce the need for fuel.
Absolutely correct. It's refreshing to see some economic wisdom here. Of course knee-jerk conservatives will protest because it's a tax increase (which I agree should be offset with tax cuts elsewhere), and knee-jerk liberals will protest because it involves using the dreaded free market.
People aren't willing to change their lifestyles until it's clear to them that those lifestyles are unsustainable.
And even then, they'll just *say* they'll change. Most won't *actually* change until it's in their self-interest to do so.
Yeah, just let those people rot
You know that the majority of Social Security and Medicare benefits go to people who are not remotely poor, yes? It's insane to confiscate 15% of the paychecks of burger flippers and hand the proceeds to Warren Buffett.
So rich people can afford to pollute, and poor people can't?
Bluntly: yes. By definition, rich people can afford lots of things poor people can't.
It's like saying there should be no jailtime for setting wildfires, just fines. Then the pyromaniac club can light up California, paying for better fire departments in Texas, right?
The economically optimal level of arson is zero. The economically optimal level of pollution is not.
We have a system which needs absolute minimums enforced, and the hidden costs incremental use paid as well. That means minimum MPG and a tax on gasoline.
Enforcing minimums would mean capping the total amount of gas that any person can use. MPG standards don't help here; a "gas guzzling" SUV that's only driven 5,000 miles a year is less harmful than a hybrid that makes multiple cross country trips.
How about we don't prevent companies from dumping tocis by produicts in the drinking water- but we make them pay depending how much they dump.
A form of this is already in place and working well: emissions trading.
Why should you be able to pump more posions into the air that we all breathe just because you pay a few extra dollars a year?
What's your solution? A fixed allocation of fossil fuels per person? Fuel economy standards don't work by themselves; a 50mpg hybrid driven 30,000 miles a year is spewing more poisons than an SUV driven 10,000 miles a year.
Over the short term the price of gasoline is relatively inelastic. This means it takes a large increase in price before there is *any* impact on demand.
No, it means that demand falls less than prices rise. If there wasn't any impact on demand then it would be *perfectly* inelastic, which doesn't happen except in contrived scenarios like the demand for water of a person dying of thirst in the desert.
Over the longer term one might see a trend towards more efficient vehicles, but I don't know of any evidence that large masses of people would suddenly consider giving up their cars.
They won't. But they might look for jobs closer to home, carpool, eliminate unnecessary trips, or voluntarily buy more fuel-efficient cars. (We've already seen the latter; SUV sales have dropped as gas prices have increased). Gas taxes give people incentives to conserve gas; MPG restrictions give people incentives to find loopholes in the restrictions. (Which incidentally is how SUVs came to exist, since they qualified as trucks for CAFE purposes).
An economic ripple effect.
You get the same ripple effect when people have to pay more for cars with better fuel efficiency. TANSTAAFL.
Just don't be a pansy and sit on the fence.
"I don't know" is very often the most rational answer. Is the Goldbach conjecture true?
The ironic thing about Apple's iTMS is that all those answers are "yes", for $1.99 a show.
Not really. Any OS update could disable the ability to play your files, and there's no escape hatch of burning and re-ripping like with iTMS music.
All Apple would have to do is release some kind of monthly subscription, $100 a month gets you 100 episodes of any and every show a month.
Now that's interesting. I wouldn't do $100, but with 50 for $50 I'd happily cancel my cable service. Assuming the resolution becomes adequate and somebody comes up with a way to defeat the DRM.
It's hard to believe that the miracle of OS X came out of the same company frankly. sheesh.
Heh, it arguably didn't. The paperwork says Apple acquired Next, but in reality it's more the reverse.