you've posted more crap in the last 3 days than i have in six months obviously something gets done enough for you to come back here and waste your life eh
I'm a grad student in chemistry. There's a lot of down time when waiting for experiments to finish, I will admit.
when you say "we" you are obviously confusing yourself with someone who actually does something around here?
What the fuck actually GETS done around here? I must have missed that part.
Re:Pay it only if it's worth it
on
Jaguar is Over
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· Score: 1
I personally think the rewritten Finder and open/save dialogs alone is worth $129!
There you go! Personally, the finder doesn't get me cranked up, but their implementation of SMB certainly does, and that alone is worth $129 of my boss's cash;)
And really, that's the point. I think a lot of people will find $129 worth of goodness in the upgrade. Those who don't can wait until next time around when they will get all those goodies plus some more. Sounds like a good deal all the way around to me.
Granted, it would be better if it were free, but I don't think I've ever NOT said that about anything I wasn't selling.;)
Gee, pudge, at least this guy posts some links. Seriously, how many more stories do we have to endure that basically consist of "And, from this part of Steve Jobs' talk, he said..." kind of crap? Could we maybe wait until there's an actual transcription of the damned thing? I mean, it will be forthcoming quite soon.
Hey pudge, you know, you don't HAVE to post every apple story people submit. You can actually decline them too. I'm sure we'll all have enough reports from WWDC to make us long for SCO stories again, so can we wait for real articles?
It sounds like you fear how the bill might be misused, not the bill itself. Go after the misusers, not the bill. It's more difficult, but the idea here is not at fault; it's the action.
And how might that be accomplished? No, the bill is not at fault. Yes, it's the action. But when the FBI is licking it's chops to perform the misguided action, and there's no one with sufficient power willing to prevent them, then once the bill is passed, it can be assumed that Bad Stuff will ensue. Hence, the best point to prevent the Bad Stuff from happening is to protest vehemently to the Congresscritters considering the bill, as they at least are theoretically answerable to us, and enough noise has been known to change their mind. It takes a hell of a lot more noise to change the mind of the FBI, and is damned near impossible.
For that reason, I certainly stipulate that, from our vantage point, the action and the law are inseparable. Therefore, they have to be attacked as a whole at the weakest point.
P2P programs are just a tool. Using them to download other people's software is wrong*. Prosecute the users of the tool, not the tool itself.
Obviously, that's the theory from the slashdot crowd, but that's a less repeated mantra in law enforcement circles. In fact, were you to repeat that in the FBI crowd, I predict that "bullshit" would be the most common response. You will never convince them of that - they believe (perhaps correctly) that 95% of file trading is illicit, and that certainly believe that the 5% is not worth saving at the expense of granting the 95%.
Bottom line is that if this law is passed, Bad Stuff WILL happen. For me, that's enough reason to oppose the law, I don't give a damn how innocuous it seems on paper, as a law on paper is completely irrelevant and impotent.
Pay it only if it's worth it
on
Jaguar is Over
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Another upgrade! I just bought Jaguar for one machine about two months ago! Got to do it, though.... too much cool stuff in Panther to just pass by.
Well, that's the thing. Is the stuff in Panther worth $129? If so, then there's nothing to complain about (except that maybe you didn't get your money's worth out of Jaguar, but that's just unfortunate timing).
If it's not worth it, I'm sure Apple will support Jaguar for quite some time. As long as these (now semi-) annual upgrades aren't effectively mandatory, then I think it's a good thing - upgrade only when they've made significant changes to the things you like, but at least you get the option to upgrade a lot, unlike with Windows when real feature changes come once every 5 years.
It's just that there are so many people who have convinced themselves that it IS in fact illegal to make copies of the music they own, and I mistook you for one of them.
It is NOT illegal to make a copy of something you own for your own personal use, so please don't cite that as an example of how unfair our copyright laws are.
I was being facetious. For chrissakes, no one on here has a sense of humor, starting first and foremost with you.
Since you want to interpret everything literally, however, what we call "fair use" will effectively become a crime when all media are encumbered with copy/decryption protection schemes. In other words, it's not illegal to make a copy of the medium, but it is illegal to defeat the mechanisms we have in place to prevent you from copying. And if you find a way to actually copy something, it's useless as more than an archive. Why? Because it's impossible to actually play the media without a licensed player (remember DeCSS?). So you still like your fair use? We don't have it with DVD's.
So, again, laws as written are absolutely pointless. It's how they're implemented, including clever loopholes, that matters. As for fair use - no, it's not illegal to make personal copies. But it's not illegal to prevent you from doing it either, and as of now fair use is NOT a law - contrary to evidently public belief, you have no rights as such that have actually been legislated. Hence, we have the current sorry state of affairs, in which the **AA are belligerent in getting laws passed which make fair use impossible if not illegal.
Law enforcement agencies sharing information and teaching kids about why breaking the law is a bad thing. That honestly sounds like a good idea to me. Kids are taught that drugs are bad, that you don't shoot people - why not also teach them tearing away at the foundation of the economy is also a bad thing. Yes, the way the RIAA and MPAA approach things sucks, their business model is old, and they litigate to save themselves. But that doesn't mean that copyright is a bad thing, per se.
I know where you're coming from - to disclose, I like the general idea of copyright, and think it would be fine without industry shills. Today, copyright duration is, what, life + 3000 years? And fair use means that copying stuff for home use is only a misdemeanor instead of a felony?
My problem in light of above is, yes, the law sounds great on paper...but only there. Education is fine, but what about the inter-agency info sharing? Again, I would have not problem if it were used to get blatant commercial-mp3-only sharers, but lately it's been used to go after kids who basically build search engines. And I don't like that.
So it's like this - the law sounds good, but do you support a just law if you know for sure that it will be implemented in a monstrously unjust manner? That has to be considered, because a law in a vacuum is nothing. Consider sodomy laws on the books in most states - they are horrendously discriminatory against homosexuals and other people the Christian Coalition considers "deviants" - but I don't really care because they're not enforced at all, and amount to nothing more than a quaint little nuiscance. This law, on the other hand, while it sounds nice, has the potential to take down a lot of people who have the gall to allow people a way of sharing information without policing that information. And I don't like that at all.
Their actions DO indemnify linux users
on
My Visit to SCO
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· Score: 1
Since IBM cannot offer S under the GPL, Linus cannot offer K++ under the GPL, and any license SCO had to offer K++ under the GPL is void. They are infringing on the copyrights of everybody who contributed to K++ when they distribute it.
True, but that's not the point necessarily, as 1) they're not suing, and 2) I'm sure they'd back IBM on this one and grant them rights. (see further analysis of this point below). However, this doesn't grand SCO rights, as SCO did then release the tainted product, and they did so UNDER THE GPL. So you're right, IBM can't make it GPL'd since they don't own the rights. But SCO can at least make their portion GPL, and did. So despite the fact that they released a tainted product, they did so knowingly and voluntarily, under the GPL, including their code. So regardless of IBM's actions, SCO GPL'd their own code. And they did so after discovering it had their code, so they can't make a "Hey, didn't mean to do that" argument.
Your analysis of the A,B,C portions, I dunno...you could certainly argue two points. First, the intent of the authors certainly was to GPL their code, and these individual patches might be considered (or even were) GPL'd themselves. Second, you seem to be saying that the fact that SCO released a de-facto unlicensed product revokes the GPL copyright license they intended to grant through their product. In other words, "We can sue our licensees due to malfeasance of the person we licensed the original code from." And I don't think that would fly in any court. SCO, by default, intended to grant a license to their proprietary IP when they released a product they KNEW contained their code under the GPL. I don't think they then retain rights because they ultimately didn't have the rights they implicitly claimed originally. I really think that will be good enough for any court in the US.
In fact, I'll give an analogy. Let's say I'm a musician. I release an album, and for one of the songs I happened to have sampled a lot of someone else's song. I get sued, and I lose, proving that, indeed, I didn't have the right to sell that album containing that tainted song. But does that nullify the entire transfer of rights to that album? Can I then sue the people who bought the album and listened to it because they didn't have a valid license from me, since I didn't have the right to sell part of it? When you consider it in these terms, you see how ridiculous that is.
So, we have to ask which is the best option, in SCO's eyes? Cease production of their unprofitable Linux distribution, admit to copyright infringement against a bunch of kernel hackers who are unlikely to bring suit against them, and be able to sue IBM for billions of dollars? Or grant IBM the contract so they can keep the Linux distribution, sit back and watch their business fade away?
That's a good point - and so you're right, if IBM put code in, SCO can fairly argue that they might as well have kept releasing it, the cat was out of the bag, right? Best thing would have been for them to, at that point, GPL the tainted code, make it free, get some goodwill with the linux crowd, and have some positive PR when they nail IBM. Releasing the code wouldn't kill their trade secret attack, the damage being already done, so they would still have had ground. If I were SCO that's the smart thing - give away some worthless code, continue to sell Linux, their main revenue stream, sue IBM.
Instead of doing the smart thing, they kept releasing linux for quite a while knowing it had their IP inside, making them on shaky moral ground in the copyright realm. The problem is that this action, ie knowingly releasing under GPL a product that contained their code, seemingly indemnifies the non-IBM linux crowd they are threatening (though, again, NOT IBM). A perfect defense for Red Hat would be "They kept releasing it under GPL, so it had to have been OK by the license." So, they're pissing off linux users for no point, because they can't actually go after them, since th
Delicate now. Future membranes may not be so fragile. It's still a step forward.
Fair point, but for what it's worth Nafion isn't an immature technology - it's been the proton-transfer membrane of choice in the fuel cell crowd for some time now. Point is, I wouldn't expect any sort of massive improvement from it alone.
Only possibility I can think of directly is some sort of support matrix, which would lessen the amount of membrane which is Nafion, tanking the current of hte cell.
As it happens, the transfer-membrane is generally the weak point of the cell, both from a chemistry as well as mechanical standpoint, so I don't find this incredibly surprising.;)
It doesn't take much more than a fifth grade education to understand the distinction between public and free software. I won't bother with a detailed breakdown of your FUD, I'm sure you've got the necessary skills to look up the GPL or read commentary about it. But fundamentally, your idea that only proprietary software can be commercial is retarded.
Not my post, but what the guy said seemed reasonable. So either I have a 5th grade education, or you seem to be trolling yourself. Either way, it's an interesting thread, so it would be nice if you actually would breakdown what you call his "FUD."
Since then, I realized that most, if not all, of the computer and video games made the past ten years or so are utter crap. I even sold my PS2 and all my games. I haven't played a graphical game in months. But yet, every day I come back to playing MUDs, which are text-based on-line games. Using a simple telnet client, I find more plot and imaginination in text lines than I do in stunningly beautiful graphical games. Plus, I find that they rely more on intelligence and ingenuity than graphical games, which seem to primarily rely on eye candy and a gamer's reflexes.
I would tend to agree, but there is some good stuff out there that gives you what you want. There are good RPG's if that's your thing, and there are decent action/story hybrids like Deus Ex if you prefer that.
I know what you mean with MUD's, it's amazing what you can do when you don't have that graphical crutch. But there are games that build fairly well on that sort of thing without getting bogged down with confusing scenery.
Just because you liked Angelina Jolie's tits doesn't make the movie good as a whole. But trust me, I know where you're coming from. Sometimes I think we should have stayed in the silent film era.
Otherwise, why is it that IBM can still make money selling AIX? If the infringement were really the reason why a proprietar Linux can't be sold, how is it that AIX (and Solaris, too, for that matter) aren't affected by it but SCO's is?
Great point. Also, weren't they GIVING their ancient linux away until very recently? It's hard to give something away then claim trade secret. Although I'm not sure that covers all their claims, as they tend to jump around a lot.
Similarly, I would bring up the old "If linux copied SMP from you, how come they're so much better at it?" routine. OpenLinux flat sucks, and that's all there is to it.
It's also fun to hear them interpret the GPL. They seem to think that, since IBM put their code into the GPL, that this prevents their code from actually BEING GPL'd...even if THEY release linux too! Something must be in the water in Utah.
The best idea I've seen in YEARS was to have people start using a specific, original poem as their signatures. Then, the author granted license to anyone who WASN'T sending spam. Therefore, they could sue any spammer for copyright infringement if they used it, and you could train your mail filter to look for the signature. Once spamassassin took it up, it pretty much snowballed.
See story here
First, it's quite possible those guys were hijacked too, as it's hard to believe someone would be blase enough to point the proxy to their OWN server. So we may be adding injury to insult to injury here.
Second, hey guys, the site's still up. Get off your lazy asses.;)
I just cannot understand why anyone would get so uppity about how Apple chooses to market their products if they don't WANT ONE.
You haven't read the thread real well, eh dipshit? I want MacOS X. It's a unix with a window manager that doesn't suck, which seems to be a first. If I have to have the rest of the mac too, so be it. But spending $1500 for an entry-level machine is unacceptable. And please don't mention the iMac, as popping in cards, drives, and such is mandatory for me, as is having a separate monitor.
One of the reasons that the OS actually works is because of the hardware. Apple controls the hardware configs quite strongly and as such, it is easier to make the OS actually work properly than with Windows. If you shove the 'superior' hardware then you shove many of the benefits of using MacOS as well.
I've found that to be largely a myth perpetuated by people who swallowed it from Apple. I use windows, linux and BSD, and have never had any significant hardware issues. All support all common hardware. So Apple could easily increase its hardware support list without losing effectiveness. They just don't want to, because controlling both ends makes them more money per unit. Though that doesn't necessarily mean more money overall.
I am a poor university student and I managed to spend CDN$2300 on an iBook. Smart budgeting, good grades for scholarships and good spending habits are all it takes.
Right, so you're in the raman noodles crowd.;) But for those of us who want a computer but don't want to spend all our beer money on it, that's not an option. I don't want my computer to suck all my discretionary income, and it shouldn't. So ultimately, I'll keep using PC's, and keeping the significant amount of pocket cash it affords me.
Basically all I'm saying is that I would like to own an apple, but they're out of my (willing) price range. However, $2000 may mean less to me later than it does now, but by then my habits may be ingrained and I still won't use macs. I just question the wisdom of cutting off an entire segment of the population the way they have. It especially doesn't make sense the way they go after schools - they target kids when they're young, which is smart, but I expect they lose a lot of them when they get out of grade school because of ownership costs, which is less smart.
That thing sure is sensitive to tilt. A minor gravitational fluctuation sets it off.
I know you're just being a smartass, but actually I'd say that this thing is less susceptible to tilt and more to "surface" forces like friction and electrostatics compared to it's larger counterparts.
They don't even mention that the 16th amendment could not be ratified without the southern states, but was put into effect anyway. They don't mention the drastic changes in citizenship that came with it. It wasn't until this point that people were U.S. Citizens instead of citizens of their respective states. They also strongly imply the civil war was over slavery even though historical evidence does not indicate this...
I have the distinct impression that you, suh, ah a Sutheneh...;)
And Ill wait to buy a Ferrari when they have one thats less than $20,000. Apple doesnt go for the low end because it doesnt have to, and it couldnt gaurentee the quality its got if it did. You get what you pay for.
Uh-uh. For $600 or not much more, I can put together about an Athlon 2500 with a CD burner and a recent Radeon or nV graphics card, and 512 MB RAM. Apple can't offer anything to come close to that for under $1500. The problem is, if Apple wants to expand it's core business to other areas, they need to target geeks. And now they're not fighting Dell, necessarily, they're fighting people like me who are going to make their own damned machines. That's why they've expanded their laptop business much more than their desktop.
Honestly, I'd rather have MacOS X running. But I'm not going to effectively pay $1000 for the privelege. I'll stick with linux.
And that includes 0.0000001% of the people in the world.
All right, if you want to play red-herring, the sector that was previously thought unprofitable includes well over 99% of the people now using any computer.
Of course they know how to tap it. It's obvious. Sell a cheap-ass product with no distinguishing features, no customer service, no innovation, and no user experience to speak of, by the millions. Apple just doesn't want to be that company.
Apple is a successful, profitable company. 18/20 profitable quarters! That's amazing! What makes you think they give a damn about increasing their market share significantly?
Dell. Probably 20/20 profitable quarters, and it didn't need MS to prop it up. Point is that there is a damned lot of profit to be made, and Dell does it selling virtually all their home machines below Apple's entry level.
Basically, all I want is their damned OS, they can shove their supposedly superior hardware. I don't need customer service, as I know what the fuck I'm doing, and I don't consider a color scheme to be an innovation. Just give me the OS on something that doesn't cost $1500 for entry-level.
And I'll tell you why they should give a damn - they make big talk about being accessible, and not being elitist, but their price points put them outside either A) the rich, or B) ideologues that eat raman noodles 3 meals a day for 6 months so they can afford one. And it's a really dumb idea to forsake a segment of the market that doesn't make $30,000 (like say students at non-ivy-league schools). I went to state school, and Apple had NO marketshare - they simply cost too much to even be an option. As a result, all my friends from college either still use windows or switched to linux - but I don't know a single person from undergrad who used a mac. And those buying preferences continue once ingrained.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a grad student in chemistry. There's a lot of down time when waiting for experiments to finish, I will admit.
What the fuck actually GETS done around here? I must have missed that part.
There you go! Personally, the finder doesn't get me cranked up, but their implementation of SMB certainly does, and that alone is worth $129 of my boss's cash ;)
And really, that's the point. I think a lot of people will find $129 worth of goodness in the upgrade. Those who don't can wait until next time around when they will get all those goodies plus some more. Sounds like a good deal all the way around to me.
Granted, it would be better if it were free, but I don't think I've ever NOT said that about anything I wasn't selling. ;)
Hey pudge, you know, you don't HAVE to post every apple story people submit. You can actually decline them too. I'm sure we'll all have enough reports from WWDC to make us long for SCO stories again, so can we wait for real articles?
And how might that be accomplished? No, the bill is not at fault. Yes, it's the action. But when the FBI is licking it's chops to perform the misguided action, and there's no one with sufficient power willing to prevent them, then once the bill is passed, it can be assumed that Bad Stuff will ensue. Hence, the best point to prevent the Bad Stuff from happening is to protest vehemently to the Congresscritters considering the bill, as they at least are theoretically answerable to us, and enough noise has been known to change their mind. It takes a hell of a lot more noise to change the mind of the FBI, and is damned near impossible.
For that reason, I certainly stipulate that, from our vantage point, the action and the law are inseparable. Therefore, they have to be attacked as a whole at the weakest point.
P2P programs are just a tool. Using them to download other people's software is wrong*. Prosecute the users of the tool, not the tool itself.
Obviously, that's the theory from the slashdot crowd, but that's a less repeated mantra in law enforcement circles. In fact, were you to repeat that in the FBI crowd, I predict that "bullshit" would be the most common response. You will never convince them of that - they believe (perhaps correctly) that 95% of file trading is illicit, and that certainly believe that the 5% is not worth saving at the expense of granting the 95%.
Bottom line is that if this law is passed, Bad Stuff WILL happen. For me, that's enough reason to oppose the law, I don't give a damn how innocuous it seems on paper, as a law on paper is completely irrelevant and impotent.
Well, that's the thing. Is the stuff in Panther worth $129? If so, then there's nothing to complain about (except that maybe you didn't get your money's worth out of Jaguar, but that's just unfortunate timing).
If it's not worth it, I'm sure Apple will support Jaguar for quite some time. As long as these (now semi-) annual upgrades aren't effectively mandatory, then I think it's a good thing - upgrade only when they've made significant changes to the things you like, but at least you get the option to upgrade a lot, unlike with Windows when real feature changes come once every 5 years.
Yeah, I can understand your mistake. ;)
I was being facetious. For chrissakes, no one on here has a sense of humor, starting first and foremost with you.
Since you want to interpret everything literally, however, what we call "fair use" will effectively become a crime when all media are encumbered with copy/decryption protection schemes. In other words, it's not illegal to make a copy of the medium, but it is illegal to defeat the mechanisms we have in place to prevent you from copying. And if you find a way to actually copy something, it's useless as more than an archive. Why? Because it's impossible to actually play the media without a licensed player (remember DeCSS?). So you still like your fair use? We don't have it with DVD's.
So, again, laws as written are absolutely pointless. It's how they're implemented, including clever loopholes, that matters. As for fair use - no, it's not illegal to make personal copies. But it's not illegal to prevent you from doing it either, and as of now fair use is NOT a law - contrary to evidently public belief, you have no rights as such that have actually been legislated. Hence, we have the current sorry state of affairs, in which the **AA are belligerent in getting laws passed which make fair use impossible if not illegal.
I know where you're coming from - to disclose, I like the general idea of copyright, and think it would be fine without industry shills. Today, copyright duration is, what, life + 3000 years? And fair use means that copying stuff for home use is only a misdemeanor instead of a felony?
My problem in light of above is, yes, the law sounds great on paper...but only there. Education is fine, but what about the inter-agency info sharing? Again, I would have not problem if it were used to get blatant commercial-mp3-only sharers, but lately it's been used to go after kids who basically build search engines. And I don't like that.
So it's like this - the law sounds good, but do you support a just law if you know for sure that it will be implemented in a monstrously unjust manner? That has to be considered, because a law in a vacuum is nothing. Consider sodomy laws on the books in most states - they are horrendously discriminatory against homosexuals and other people the Christian Coalition considers "deviants" - but I don't really care because they're not enforced at all, and amount to nothing more than a quaint little nuiscance. This law, on the other hand, while it sounds nice, has the potential to take down a lot of people who have the gall to allow people a way of sharing information without policing that information. And I don't like that at all.
True, but that's not the point necessarily, as 1) they're not suing, and 2) I'm sure they'd back IBM on this one and grant them rights. (see further analysis of this point below). However, this doesn't grand SCO rights, as SCO did then release the tainted product, and they did so UNDER THE GPL. So you're right, IBM can't make it GPL'd since they don't own the rights. But SCO can at least make their portion GPL, and did. So despite the fact that they released a tainted product, they did so knowingly and voluntarily, under the GPL, including their code. So regardless of IBM's actions, SCO GPL'd their own code. And they did so after discovering it had their code, so they can't make a "Hey, didn't mean to do that" argument.
Your analysis of the A,B,C portions, I dunno...you could certainly argue two points. First, the intent of the authors certainly was to GPL their code, and these individual patches might be considered (or even were) GPL'd themselves. Second, you seem to be saying that the fact that SCO released a de-facto unlicensed product revokes the GPL copyright license they intended to grant through their product. In other words, "We can sue our licensees due to malfeasance of the person we licensed the original code from." And I don't think that would fly in any court. SCO, by default, intended to grant a license to their proprietary IP when they released a product they KNEW contained their code under the GPL. I don't think they then retain rights because they ultimately didn't have the rights they implicitly claimed originally. I really think that will be good enough for any court in the US.
In fact, I'll give an analogy. Let's say I'm a musician. I release an album, and for one of the songs I happened to have sampled a lot of someone else's song. I get sued, and I lose, proving that, indeed, I didn't have the right to sell that album containing that tainted song. But does that nullify the entire transfer of rights to that album? Can I then sue the people who bought the album and listened to it because they didn't have a valid license from me, since I didn't have the right to sell part of it? When you consider it in these terms, you see how ridiculous that is.
So, we have to ask which is the best option, in SCO's eyes? Cease production of their unprofitable Linux distribution, admit to copyright infringement against a bunch of kernel hackers who are unlikely to bring suit against them, and be able to sue IBM for billions of dollars? Or grant IBM the contract so they can keep the Linux distribution, sit back and watch their business fade away?
That's a good point - and so you're right, if IBM put code in, SCO can fairly argue that they might as well have kept releasing it, the cat was out of the bag, right? Best thing would have been for them to, at that point, GPL the tainted code, make it free, get some goodwill with the linux crowd, and have some positive PR when they nail IBM. Releasing the code wouldn't kill their trade secret attack, the damage being already done, so they would still have had ground. If I were SCO that's the smart thing - give away some worthless code, continue to sell Linux, their main revenue stream, sue IBM.
Instead of doing the smart thing, they kept releasing linux for quite a while knowing it had their IP inside, making them on shaky moral ground in the copyright realm. The problem is that this action, ie knowingly releasing under GPL a product that contained their code, seemingly indemnifies the non-IBM linux crowd they are threatening (though, again, NOT IBM). A perfect defense for Red Hat would be "They kept releasing it under GPL, so it had to have been OK by the license." So, they're pissing off linux users for no point, because they can't actually go after them, since th
Fair point, but for what it's worth Nafion isn't an immature technology - it's been the proton-transfer membrane of choice in the fuel cell crowd for some time now. Point is, I wouldn't expect any sort of massive improvement from it alone.
Only possibility I can think of directly is some sort of support matrix, which would lessen the amount of membrane which is Nafion, tanking the current of hte cell.
As it happens, the transfer-membrane is generally the weak point of the cell, both from a chemistry as well as mechanical standpoint, so I don't find this incredibly surprising. ;)
Not my post, but what the guy said seemed reasonable. So either I have a 5th grade education, or you seem to be trolling yourself. Either way, it's an interesting thread, so it would be nice if you actually would breakdown what you call his "FUD."
...but of course there's a difference between not being ABLE to effectively debug something and not caring if you did.
I would tend to agree, but there is some good stuff out there that gives you what you want. There are good RPG's if that's your thing, and there are decent action/story hybrids like Deus Ex if you prefer that.
I know what you mean with MUD's, it's amazing what you can do when you don't have that graphical crutch. But there are games that build fairly well on that sort of thing without getting bogged down with confusing scenery.
Just because you liked Angelina Jolie's tits doesn't make the movie good as a whole. But trust me, I know where you're coming from. Sometimes I think we should have stayed in the silent film era.
Great point. Also, weren't they GIVING their ancient linux away until very recently? It's hard to give something away then claim trade secret. Although I'm not sure that covers all their claims, as they tend to jump around a lot.
Similarly, I would bring up the old "If linux copied SMP from you, how come they're so much better at it?" routine. OpenLinux flat sucks, and that's all there is to it.
It's also fun to hear them interpret the GPL. They seem to think that, since IBM put their code into the GPL, that this prevents their code from actually BEING GPL'd...even if THEY release linux too! Something must be in the water in Utah.
That's always tricky, but conceivable. And right now you CAN't sue them unless you live in a very forward-thinking locality that allows such.
The best idea I've seen in YEARS was to have people start using a specific, original poem as their signatures. Then, the author granted license to anyone who WASN'T sending spam. Therefore, they could sue any spammer for copyright infringement if they used it, and you could train your mail filter to look for the signature. Once spamassassin took it up, it pretty much snowballed. See story here
Second, hey guys, the site's still up. Get off your lazy asses. ;)
You haven't read the thread real well, eh dipshit? I want MacOS X. It's a unix with a window manager that doesn't suck, which seems to be a first. If I have to have the rest of the mac too, so be it. But spending $1500 for an entry-level machine is unacceptable. And please don't mention the iMac, as popping in cards, drives, and such is mandatory for me, as is having a separate monitor.
I've found that to be largely a myth perpetuated by people who swallowed it from Apple. I use windows, linux and BSD, and have never had any significant hardware issues. All support all common hardware. So Apple could easily increase its hardware support list without losing effectiveness. They just don't want to, because controlling both ends makes them more money per unit. Though that doesn't necessarily mean more money overall.
I am a poor university student and I managed to spend CDN$2300 on an iBook. Smart budgeting, good grades for scholarships and good spending habits are all it takes.
Right, so you're in the raman noodles crowd. ;) But for those of us who want a computer but don't want to spend all our beer money on it, that's not an option. I don't want my computer to suck all my discretionary income, and it shouldn't. So ultimately, I'll keep using PC's, and keeping the significant amount of pocket cash it affords me.
Basically all I'm saying is that I would like to own an apple, but they're out of my (willing) price range. However, $2000 may mean less to me later than it does now, but by then my habits may be ingrained and I still won't use macs. I just question the wisdom of cutting off an entire segment of the population the way they have. It especially doesn't make sense the way they go after schools - they target kids when they're young, which is smart, but I expect they lose a lot of them when they get out of grade school because of ownership costs, which is less smart.
I know you're just being a smartass, but actually I'd say that this thing is less susceptible to tilt and more to "surface" forces like friction and electrostatics compared to it's larger counterparts.
But nice gag all the same.
I have the distinct impression that you, suh, ah a Sutheneh...;)
Uh-uh. For $600 or not much more, I can put together about an Athlon 2500 with a CD burner and a recent Radeon or nV graphics card, and 512 MB RAM. Apple can't offer anything to come close to that for under $1500. The problem is, if Apple wants to expand it's core business to other areas, they need to target geeks. And now they're not fighting Dell, necessarily, they're fighting people like me who are going to make their own damned machines. That's why they've expanded their laptop business much more than their desktop.
Honestly, I'd rather have MacOS X running. But I'm not going to effectively pay $1000 for the privelege. I'll stick with linux.
All right, if you want to play red-herring, the sector that was previously thought unprofitable includes well over 99% of the people now using any computer.
Of course they know how to tap it. It's obvious. Sell a cheap-ass product with no distinguishing features, no customer service, no innovation, and no user experience to speak of, by the millions. Apple just doesn't want to be that company.
Apple is a successful, profitable company. 18/20 profitable quarters! That's amazing! What makes you think they give a damn about increasing their market share significantly?
Dell. Probably 20/20 profitable quarters, and it didn't need MS to prop it up. Point is that there is a damned lot of profit to be made, and Dell does it selling virtually all their home machines below Apple's entry level.
Basically, all I want is their damned OS, they can shove their supposedly superior hardware. I don't need customer service, as I know what the fuck I'm doing, and I don't consider a color scheme to be an innovation. Just give me the OS on something that doesn't cost $1500 for entry-level.
And I'll tell you why they should give a damn - they make big talk about being accessible, and not being elitist, but their price points put them outside either A) the rich, or B) ideologues that eat raman noodles 3 meals a day for 6 months so they can afford one. And it's a really dumb idea to forsake a segment of the market that doesn't make $30,000 (like say students at non-ivy-league schools). I went to state school, and Apple had NO marketshare - they simply cost too much to even be an option. As a result, all my friends from college either still use windows or switched to linux - but I don't know a single person from undergrad who used a mac. And those buying preferences continue once ingrained.