Well, that "double the features HP" (sic) doesn't run OS X, so there's a major feature off the list for me.
Your HP might cost half the price, but what cost, in terms of build standard (and no, Apple is not perfect here, but neither is any other PC maker - Apple just tends to get yelled at more due to premium branding), and choice of OS.
On an Apple box, I can run Mac OS X, Linux (and assorted Unix flavours) and Windows if it's really necessary.
On your "double the features" HP box, you can run Windows and Linux (and assorted Unix flavours).
I'm also wondering what these "double the features" actually are. USB ports? Firewire? Audio ports? SPDIF I/O? Hard drives? Optical drives? graphics cards (not upgradable in iMac and laptops, but not upgradable on PC laptops either), PCI slots? RAM?
I find it hard to imagine you can come up with twice as many features on your HP when compared to a similar Mac.
No, your post was a thinly veiled jab at Mac users; that you didn't express it accurately if it wasn't your intention is a problem with your expression, not with my understanding.
I will be the first to criticise Apple, despite owning 7 Macs of various vintage, I am well aware of their faults and complain about them frequently.
Our "khaki-wearing, self appointed kings of techno cool" are your "If it isn't open source it should be burned!" zealots (or, in the case of windows users... well, I'm not sure, are there any rabid Windows fans over the age of 14, yelling "Mac sucks cos joo can't run warez from piratebay on them").
Again, you categorise all Mac users in your blanket statement at the end there. If you don't mean it that way, insert the word "some". While it's a small change, it makes an enormous difference in a medium where tone and inflection are absent.
Not all Mac users "have more money than tech sense" y'know.
I use Macs because they are the best fit for the job I use them for - internet, email, word processing, video editing, photo editing.
There is no possible Windows solution that is better for the tasks I use my computers for.
In terms of usability, the Mac does "just work" - this doesn't mean it never crashes or has problems (that would just be silly). But for the 95% of the rest of the time where it's working fine, Mac OS X works for me.
I have Ubuntu installs too, on the older machines in collection that I still use (you know, Apple hardware ages pretty well, and Ubuntu runs pretty well on it).
You'll counter my argument by telling me that I could just use Ubuntu full time and it would be cheaper and better, but until I can run Photoshop (yes I do have a fully paid for copy of CS), Final Cut Pro and other commercial apps, I'll stick with OS X as my main OS. For all the ancillary stuff that works just as well on Ubuntu as it does on OS X, since my main machine is OS X, I don't really see the need to explicitly use something else - there's no problems with spyware, viruses, malware and other junk to worry about, so it's win-win.
Your arrogance that you automatically assume that you know more than all Mac users is unbecoming. Grow up.
Yep. I have stopped buying games for this reason pretty much.
Thought about getting a console, decided against it. Now I just tend to play old games that have replay value (Starcraft, Transport Tycoon, Quake 3, UT etc)
For me, the DRM situation has just stopped me from buying new games, full stop. And I don't obtain them illegally either, so at least in a tiny slice of the market, the industry really has lost a customer.
Well, the Apple computer you buy is the biggest dongle ever manufactured, but I didn't "pay dearly" for it by any means. It is totally comparable in cost to equivalent generic PC hardware.
Ubuntu, incidentally, is also running on this "paid for dearly" hardware that was more than worth what i paid for it (to me).
I think the days of the "it's Apple, therefore it's twice as expensive as a PC" myth are truly over, although it was almost always propagated by people comparing bargain basement held-together-with-duct-tape PCs made with the teeth of blind chinese orphans because it's cheaper for Dell to recycle their workers rather than buy aluminium with the all-options-maxed-out top of the range Mac (and Mac Pros are expensive).
And while I did buy an OS licence with my Mac, unless you build your own PC (90% of PC users don't, I will wager) you also pay an OS licence fee. The beauty of retail copies of OS X though, is that you can install them on a nuked-and-paved drive (no need to install OEM and then upgrade).
Ballmer did say he'd rather someone used an illegal copy of Windows over another operating system, so it's not outside the realms of possibility that they'll give you windows for free just to continue the monopoly.
Because it's always stamped in a convenient place, right.
I love the fact that in some cases, part of reinstalling Windows involves physically moving the computer so you can read the 25 digit code.
Don;t get me wrong, I understand why it's there, but you have to admit that the inconvenience of the serial number (and the Windows Genuine We Think You're A Criminal thing that makes you activate it) only harms the consumer. Any illegal copies of Windows have a cracked serial, a key gen or an enterprise key included on the burned dvd....
I have Mac OS X and Ubuntu desktops - neither install disk requires a serial number and I like it that way, simple inconvenience or not.
A cellphone has a powered transmitter, and a boosted receiver with a specialised antenna. An RFID chip must rely solely on the radio energy it receives to power itself up and transmit back, so I'm not sure that a cellphone is an adequate test.
The signal power you're talking about for a phone is going to be so much higher, and likely at totally different frequencies.
I think the only way to test it effectively would be to see if the RFID reader at the airport still works with the wallet, assuming the person working the desk doesn't mind you testing it out.
I was going to post this too. A simple solution would be to make a passport holder that blocked the RFID signals, that you could purchase if you wanted to be sure your details weren't being scanned from afar.
I saw the shill from the music industry playing the "oh my god we are so poor and billions of pounds are being lost from file sharing" card. I was amazed he was able to say it with a straight face (although I guess he could believe his own shit).
He went on to say that this report (an interim report!) "didn't go far enough" to deal with the crippling online piracy that is causing music execs to have to bum for change on the streets.
And while he did mention "changing and adapting the business plan" to take advantage of the online era, the iTunes store was conspicuously absent (he did mention other services specifically by name, including Nokia's subscription service with their phones). So it's clear that the industry doesn't want to see iTunes succeed, even with their new tiered pricing deal. It seems that a runaway success download music store, with thousands of people buying tracks that "they could easily get for free" isn't worth mentioning in an interview about how the music industry is dealing with online downloading... How very.... selectively forgetful of them.
So, if any British music producer/record company/BMI researcher is reading, and I'm sure there must be some. Send another "-1 full of shit" moderation up the chain of command to the PR/management. Also, let them know that they'll never be able to stop online downloading, but it's not the end of days. Some simple reasons from the music buying public:
Sales of CDs are falling because:
1. Music just isn't as good as it used to be. Hours and hours of manufactured rubbish, heavily processed and canned and then carefully timed for release to score a number 1 is not music.
2. Even if some people like that type of music, and some must do, CDs and CD singles are *far* more expensive than they should be.
3. You prosecute grannies who don't own computers, and assign arbitrarily silly values of "lost revenue" to "stolen" songs. Hint: if people who wouldn't buy it if it cost money obtain it for free, you're not losing money.
4. 99.999999999999% of the profits of music sales do not go to the artists in question that we love. At least in the public perception. I'm sure it;s something like 3% of the price of a CD goes to the artist. Now, I understand basic economics, that everyone in the chain needs to be paid, from artist, vendor, distributor, manufacturer etc, but the labels are snarfing deep at the trough and fucking everyone else over. I'd rather download the music and just send the price of the CD to the band in the post, but that would be unfair to the company that pressed the CD and the shop that sold it.
5. I have bought from iTunes, quite a lot in fact. I wanted to show you guys that it was a viable business model, but you just won't let the subject go. Ignoring the success of the store and instead moaning that people still share music (well, duh!)
6. I seem to remember the movie industry proclaim that the sky was falling when the video cassette recorder hit the shops. That "home taping will kill movies! We'll lose BILLIONS! The World Is Over!!!!", but then they started selling their movies on VHS tape and made money hand over fist. Funny that. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, home taping *didn't* kill movies. They're still going strong. The really good movies that were released after VHS recorders were around made more money than the cocaine industry in the 80s.
7. You are never going to stop online music sharing. You just can not. Even getting it classified as a felony in the US (alongside rape, murder, grand larceny, grand theft auto, online music sharing is clearly as bad as those crimes) you will not stop it. Look to the software industry - Microsoft has almost more illegal copies of Windows out there than legit installs, yet they are still making hay while the sun shines. Would they prefer if everyone bought legit copies? Of course. Can then enforce this? No. Should they? Not really - people are always going to go outside the rules. Sell your product. Make it attractive to buy so th
I knew Robotics Lab wasn't quite right. It's been a very long time, and my Starcraft discs wont install under 10.5 (or was that Elite Force? one of my retro games needs classic to install, even if it has a universal binary once it's all up and running).
I would argue that in order to take a class on Starcraft, you'd be able to capture a Terran SCV and build yourself both prerequisites though.
Well someone must be teaching it - since they made it fit into an episode of The Wire and equated chess strategy with drug dealing practices in west side Baltimore.
And that is my point. It is still not enough, and it creates a poverty gap.
Check the story of the poor guy in the comments who earns exactly $30,000 and, due to getting sick, is now trapped in insurmountable debt.
$30,000 p/a is enough to have an ok life *if you don't get sick*, insurance or not. Even with insurance, if you need to use the hospital for more than a checkup, or heaven forbid you need regular prescriptions, you are going to get screwed, and quickly.
It makes not difference what the median income is, if it's not enough. A poverty gap is a poverty gap.
The Bush family has been heavily invested in a lot of unpleasant things - big oil, big pharma, osama and family (before he decided to send some buddies on a one way vacation to New York), arms deals, Karl Rove...
The gap between the haves and the have nots is just getting wider and wider, and this is one of the primary wedges driving that gap. People will make do and mend with most things, but if they get sick, they have no choice but to pay.
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Well, that "double the features HP" (sic) doesn't run OS X, so there's a major feature off the list for me.
Your HP might cost half the price, but what cost, in terms of build standard (and no, Apple is not perfect here, but neither is any other PC maker - Apple just tends to get yelled at more due to premium branding), and choice of OS.
On an Apple box, I can run Mac OS X, Linux (and assorted Unix flavours) and Windows if it's really necessary.
On your "double the features" HP box, you can run Windows and Linux (and assorted Unix flavours).
I'm also wondering what these "double the features" actually are. USB ports? Firewire? Audio ports? SPDIF I/O? Hard drives? Optical drives? graphics cards (not upgradable in iMac and laptops, but not upgradable on PC laptops either), PCI slots? RAM?
I find it hard to imagine you can come up with twice as many features on your HP when compared to a similar Mac.
No, your post was a thinly veiled jab at Mac users; that you didn't express it accurately if it wasn't your intention is a problem with your expression, not with my understanding.
I will be the first to criticise Apple, despite owning 7 Macs of various vintage, I am well aware of their faults and complain about them frequently.
Our "khaki-wearing, self appointed kings of techno cool" are your "If it isn't open source it should be burned!" zealots (or, in the case of windows users ... well, I'm not sure, are there any rabid Windows fans over the age of 14, yelling "Mac sucks cos joo can't run warez from piratebay on them").
Again, you categorise all Mac users in your blanket statement at the end there. If you don't mean it that way, insert the word "some". While it's a small change, it makes an enormous difference in a medium where tone and inflection are absent.
Not all Mac users "have more money than tech sense" y'know.
I use Macs because they are the best fit for the job I use them for - internet, email, word processing, video editing, photo editing.
There is no possible Windows solution that is better for the tasks I use my computers for.
In terms of usability, the Mac does "just work" - this doesn't mean it never crashes or has problems (that would just be silly). But for the 95% of the rest of the time where it's working fine, Mac OS X works for me.
I have Ubuntu installs too, on the older machines in collection that I still use (you know, Apple hardware ages pretty well, and Ubuntu runs pretty well on it).
You'll counter my argument by telling me that I could just use Ubuntu full time and it would be cheaper and better, but until I can run Photoshop (yes I do have a fully paid for copy of CS), Final Cut Pro and other commercial apps, I'll stick with OS X as my main OS. For all the ancillary stuff that works just as well on Ubuntu as it does on OS X, since my main machine is OS X, I don't really see the need to explicitly use something else - there's no problems with spyware, viruses, malware and other junk to worry about, so it's win-win.
Your arrogance that you automatically assume that you know more than all Mac users is unbecoming. Grow up.
Well, by the very definition of the words that came out of my mouth (or fingers as it were), I am not "paying dearly".
The phrase "paying dearly" implies that I regretted the purchase I made, or that my purchase had negative consequences that I found unpleasant.
No such situation exists. You can feel as vindicated as you like, it doesn't make you accurate.
Apple computer: Mac OS X, Ubuntu
Other computer: Windows, Ubuntu.
Apple computer: well designed case (with some manufacturing problems, like any product, but still). Better than a plasticy PC laptop.
Extra cash: well worth it.
Yep. I have stopped buying games for this reason pretty much.
Thought about getting a console, decided against it. Now I just tend to play old games that have replay value (Starcraft, Transport Tycoon, Quake 3, UT etc)
For me, the DRM situation has just stopped me from buying new games, full stop. And I don't obtain them illegally either, so at least in a tiny slice of the market, the industry really has lost a customer.
Well, the Apple computer you buy is the biggest dongle ever manufactured, but I didn't "pay dearly" for it by any means. It is totally comparable in cost to equivalent generic PC hardware.
Ubuntu, incidentally, is also running on this "paid for dearly" hardware that was more than worth what i paid for it (to me).
I think the days of the "it's Apple, therefore it's twice as expensive as a PC" myth are truly over, although it was almost always propagated by people comparing bargain basement held-together-with-duct-tape PCs made with the teeth of blind chinese orphans because it's cheaper for Dell to recycle their workers rather than buy aluminium with the all-options-maxed-out top of the range Mac (and Mac Pros are expensive).
And while I did buy an OS licence with my Mac, unless you build your own PC (90% of PC users don't, I will wager) you also pay an OS licence fee. The beauty of retail copies of OS X though, is that you can install them on a nuked-and-paved drive (no need to install OEM and then upgrade).
Ballmer did say he'd rather someone used an illegal copy of Windows over another operating system, so it's not outside the realms of possibility that they'll give you windows for free just to continue the monopoly.
Because it's always stamped in a convenient place, right.
I love the fact that in some cases, part of reinstalling Windows involves physically moving the computer so you can read the 25 digit code.
Don;t get me wrong, I understand why it's there, but you have to admit that the inconvenience of the serial number (and the Windows Genuine We Think You're A Criminal thing that makes you activate it) only harms the consumer. Any illegal copies of Windows have a cracked serial, a key gen or an enterprise key included on the burned dvd....
I have Mac OS X and Ubuntu desktops - neither install disk requires a serial number and I like it that way, simple inconvenience or not.
Well, the option is there to sate all the "government can't tell me what to do!" types, leaving it up to the individual to decide if it's worth it.
A cellphone has a powered transmitter, and a boosted receiver with a specialised antenna. An RFID chip must rely solely on the radio energy it receives to power itself up and transmit back, so I'm not sure that a cellphone is an adequate test.
The signal power you're talking about for a phone is going to be so much higher, and likely at totally different frequencies.
I think the only way to test it effectively would be to see if the RFID reader at the airport still works with the wallet, assuming the person working the desk doesn't mind you testing it out.
I was going to post this too. A simple solution would be to make a passport holder that blocked the RFID signals, that you could purchase if you wanted to be sure your details weren't being scanned from afar.
I saw the shill from the music industry playing the "oh my god we are so poor and billions of pounds are being lost from file sharing" card. I was amazed he was able to say it with a straight face (although I guess he could believe his own shit).
He went on to say that this report (an interim report!) "didn't go far enough" to deal with the crippling online piracy that is causing music execs to have to bum for change on the streets.
And while he did mention "changing and adapting the business plan" to take advantage of the online era, the iTunes store was conspicuously absent (he did mention other services specifically by name, including Nokia's subscription service with their phones). So it's clear that the industry doesn't want to see iTunes succeed, even with their new tiered pricing deal. It seems that a runaway success download music store, with thousands of people buying tracks that "they could easily get for free" isn't worth mentioning in an interview about how the music industry is dealing with online downloading... How very.... selectively forgetful of them.
So, if any British music producer/record company/BMI researcher is reading, and I'm sure there must be some. Send another "-1 full of shit" moderation up the chain of command to the PR/management. Also, let them know that they'll never be able to stop online downloading, but it's not the end of days. Some simple reasons from the music buying public:
Sales of CDs are falling because:
1. Music just isn't as good as it used to be. Hours and hours of manufactured rubbish, heavily processed and canned and then carefully timed for release to score a number 1 is not music.
2. Even if some people like that type of music, and some must do, CDs and CD singles are *far* more expensive than they should be.
3. You prosecute grannies who don't own computers, and assign arbitrarily silly values of "lost revenue" to "stolen" songs. Hint: if people who wouldn't buy it if it cost money obtain it for free, you're not losing money.
4. 99.999999999999% of the profits of music sales do not go to the artists in question that we love. At least in the public perception. I'm sure it;s something like 3% of the price of a CD goes to the artist. Now, I understand basic economics, that everyone in the chain needs to be paid, from artist, vendor, distributor, manufacturer etc, but the labels are snarfing deep at the trough and fucking everyone else over. I'd rather download the music and just send the price of the CD to the band in the post, but that would be unfair to the company that pressed the CD and the shop that sold it.
5. I have bought from iTunes, quite a lot in fact. I wanted to show you guys that it was a viable business model, but you just won't let the subject go. Ignoring the success of the store and instead moaning that people still share music (well, duh!)
6. I seem to remember the movie industry proclaim that the sky was falling when the video cassette recorder hit the shops. That "home taping will kill movies! We'll lose BILLIONS! The World Is Over!!!!", but then they started selling their movies on VHS tape and made money hand over fist. Funny that. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, home taping *didn't* kill movies. They're still going strong. The really good movies that were released after VHS recorders were around made more money than the cocaine industry in the 80s.
7. You are never going to stop online music sharing. You just can not. Even getting it classified as a felony in the US (alongside rape, murder, grand larceny, grand theft auto, online music sharing is clearly as bad as those crimes) you will not stop it. Look to the software industry - Microsoft has almost more illegal copies of Windows out there than legit installs, yet they are still making hay while the sun shines. Would they prefer if everyone bought legit copies? Of course. Can then enforce this? No. Should they? Not really - people are always going to go outside the rules. Sell your product. Make it attractive to buy so th
You really think a company that saw nothing but dollar signs when lending to people it knew couldn't pay them back would really splash out on backups?
I kid, I kid.
You sound like my ideal woman! Except for being a lesbian and all..
My lonely nights in the barracks must continue, and I don;t get to be Jim!
I knew Robotics Lab wasn't quite right. It's been a very long time, and my Starcraft discs wont install under 10.5 (or was that Elite Force? one of my retro games needs classic to install, even if it has a universal binary once it's all up and running).
I would argue that in order to take a class on Starcraft, you'd be able to capture a Terran SCV and build yourself both prerequisites though.
Isn't it called Gnupocalypse?
He learned to fold origami on Caprica.
Well someone must be teaching it - since they made it fit into an episode of The Wire and equated chess strategy with drug dealing practices in west side Baltimore.
Lesbians don't play Starcraft!
Although Kerrigan might be a lesbian - why else would she keep fending off the Toatally All Awesome Jim Raynor's advances.
The cost of the course is 50 minerals and 200 Vespene gas.
Prerequisites: Barracks, Robotics Lab.
Erm, that was the entire rest of his point after that sentence...
Did you even read the rest of the comment?
You mean the Microsoft news from the EU? While the UK is a member of the EU, it has a separate government from the EU itself, and self governs.
And, unless you;re trying to be a flippant, sound-bite commentator, the UK and the EU itself, are capitalist.
And that is my point. It is still not enough, and it creates a poverty gap.
Check the story of the poor guy in the comments who earns exactly $30,000 and, due to getting sick, is now trapped in insurmountable debt.
$30,000 p/a is enough to have an ok life *if you don't get sick*, insurance or not. Even with insurance, if you need to use the hospital for more than a checkup, or heaven forbid you need regular prescriptions, you are going to get screwed, and quickly.
It makes not difference what the median income is, if it's not enough. A poverty gap is a poverty gap.
The Bush family has been heavily invested in a lot of unpleasant things - big oil, big pharma, osama and family (before he decided to send some buddies on a one way vacation to New York), arms deals, Karl Rove...
The gap between the haves and the have nots is just getting wider and wider, and this is one of the primary wedges driving that gap. People will make do and mend with most things, but if they get sick, they have no choice but to pay.