Humorous but true. Privileged members of society (such as members of Congress) don't need to worry about the legality of things such as recreational drugs. Whatever they were using before this law passed won't change because of it. No one is going to say, "Hey, marijuana is legal now, I'm gonna quit doing cocaine and smoke marijuana instead."
I know plenty of professionals (lawyers, surgeons, anaesthetists etc) that use recreational drugs. The chances of them getting charged with anything if caught in procession are pretty much nil. Drug laws aren't for the protection of society in general, the purpose is to establish control over people that are viewed as "trouble makers". Upper society members that use 'responsibly' need not worry. If they make a public scene, yeah, they'll be some kind of slap on the wrist, but in general if you are rich enough or respected enough certain laws don't apply. They are for the people beneath you.
I mean, I did at every corporate and government job I have had to date, but I'm sure I'm the exception to the rule. I mean, who would actually work from home on a consumer grade connection?
Might have been somewhat funny if you spelled Dianetics correctly and skipped the bit about hoarding (can't even spell hoard correctly?!). The first two sentences already hit home you are missing the point of it being people who generally have a lot of books (not creating a false environment) so the last bit is redundant and is just as bad as explaining a joke.
The best delivery would have been: "That's why I keep ten copies of Mien Kampf and Dianetics in each room."
They might hit a cabbie or airport shuttle operator's profit margin.
This. Locally (not CA) the Airport has a deal with one cab company. In exchange for a non disclosed amount of capital, one company (largest in town) is the only one allowed to pick up passengers from the airport. Others are allowed to drop off, but they can't pick anyone up on that trip (which discourages them from taking fares there since it's a long one way trip and rates are set by law, so they can't charge extra).
Vegas has a surcharge for cabs that go to the airport (at least so the cabbie claimed last time I was there).
Just two examples where the airport has a tie in to taxi revenue. I'm sure some of the California airports have similar deals going on that would be undermined by UberX or similar.
Documentation is more important than code. He insists on documentation first.
Cool. Did not know that.
I once watch him rip a developer a new one (and ripped out code) because the developer committed code without documentation.
And that's something most would take as Theo being an asshole. I think it's totally justified if the rule is documentation first. It doesn't take much to end up with shit documentation. In my experience documenting after the fact never works. The justification is usually, "We should document what it ends up like so we don't have to rewrite it." But it just never happens. To me it's akin to a civil engineer just building something saying they'll draw up the "as-builts" at the end of the project and just work off a napkin up until then (then never do the as-builts). Definitely not professional. I know why it happens in software (squeezed budgets, tight timelines), but it's not right. I'd love to work on a project where we have top down support to do things right.
If so, how did you make it a priority? More specifically, as the leader of OpenBSD what did you do to ensure great documentation?
As a software developer I know that documentation often falls to the wayside (features take priority, schedule already tight etc). As a project manager it's difficult to get good documentation (staff does poor job, stakeholders don't want to pay for it etc). OpenBSD has really good documentation (in my opinion) and it was really useful when initially getting to know OpenBSD, PF etc. Most of the pay for middleware I use has documentation that is absolute shit (incomplete, wrong, not up to date etc). To me the state of documentation in OpenBSD is more impressive than "Only two remote holes in the default install, in a heck of a long time!". Of course, "You'll love our man pages!" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
Overcame what odds? His parents are/were a dentist and a psychiatrist. That makes his parent's household income damn near the 1% (definitely 6 figures probably at least 200K/year which would be top 5%). I.e. his family was well off.
Yes he makes a ton more than his parents, but he's still the same income class. His parents were in the top quintile and so is he. He's just in a richer sub-segment of rich. If he was born middle class or lower it would be overcoming odds (lowest quintile has something like 4% chance of getting into upper or top iirc). Most people end up in the same income class as their parents. There is very little upward mobility and also very little downward for the rich.
Well put. You are quite correct that most users of the free version could get by with those options. As for direct competitors to LogMeIn I don't think there are many (and would love to be correctly). I checked out TeamViewer and GoToMyPc before settling on LogMeIn. The remote help market seems to be over served while remote management has a lot less options (maybe the market is smaller). The smart thing LogMeIn did was make their service useful for more use cases while keeping it simple to use.
I can understand there being completely user help focussed products like Copilot. In those situations you want something focussed and simple. In the particular case of Copilot I'm surprised that Fog Creek isn't also offering a remote management suite. They have all the pieces there to create a product that competes in remote management, plus their existing users for their main products (FogBugz and Kiln) are the type of users that may need that kind of service. Can't be bothered to roll my own or host an open source bug tracker, I probably don't have the resources to manage remote management.
Most (none?) of those are not directly comparable. They are primarily screen sharing designed for meetings and light support (i.e. guiding someone through something), not remotely managing computers behind a firewall.
I've used Goto and it's good for screen sharing, but that's about it. With logmein you can even control things like updates, view logs etc without logging into the machine. When you do log in you can share the screen (default) or you can block it from the local user and you have full admin access (if the user you log in as has it.. unlike screen sharing software that borks once you hit UAC). I primarily use the pro version on headless machines behind firewalls (where I have no control of the firewall and am lucky the end user can figure out plugging in a network cable). I'm looking at moving to neorouter or setting up something myself using vnc and vnc reflector for cost savings. That being said, pro is pretty reasonable in a business situation. I definitely wouldn't be using it for home usage though.
Quick, easy and painless. First time I installed OpenBSD was after having done a few Redhat and Mandrake installs (Mandrake 6 or 7 era). I remember thinking it couldn't have been finished, "That's it?" Moved on to configuring PF (which was simple thanks to good examples, excellent man pages and an easy sensible syntax). I don't remember how long it took, but I'm pretty sure it was under 30 minutes my first time from bare system to a running system with custom routing and filtering. Any time after that was even quicker since I didn't have to spend the 5 minutes learning PF.
I'd encourage anyone who hasn't tried OpenBSD to try it. Yes, Theo is a hard to love character, but don't let that get in your way.
Slashdot was already going downhill and dice pushed it over the edge. Half (or more) the "articles" are just click bait.
Used to be you could come to slashdot for an intelligent discussion. Yeah, clicks drive revenue, but when all the readers disappear there won't be anyone to click.
This risk, being a known mole is too high for a "real" spy. If I were a spy agency, I wouldn't risk any assets for such a short term gain. Once exposed, a mole will have no trustworthiness AND all associations would likely become suspect.
And the solution to that problem is easy. Money. Well money and indirection.
Most people can be bought for a price and they don't have to know it's the NSA doing the buying, it could be a terrorist group or something more benign. All that matters is there is not direct link between the code submitter and NSA. Heck, the submitter can claim the NSA made him/her do it as long as they come off as a crazy person (which they will with no direct proof.. "well this person paid me to submit this code, no they didn't say they were from the NSA.. BUT THEY HAD TO BE, I'M CERTAIN!"). Bonus points for finding some tinfoil hat wearing neckbeard that can be bought. If it ever hits the media it'll be short lived and humorous, "Crazy basement dweller claims NSA made him do it! Needed money for rare Star Wars collectibles."
I'm of course playing devil's advocate here. I think it's smarter to find holes in the existing implementation, especially one that has been audited as safe.
Just because you aren't using a search bar doesn't mean you aren't searching. Any time you look for an email you are searching, whether that be a quick visual scan of a folder you know it's in (after finding the folder) or what have you. You may consider your method superior, but it takes more effort to organize. If I can find an email as quickly as you using the gmail search, then my overall effort is lower, meaning I'm wasting less time on email and spending more time in the real world.
Maybe you use all automated organizing, but manual organizing seems pointless in 2013. I used to manually organize my MP3s.. in the 90s. I used to manually organize my email in the 00s. Now I don't have to do either and my life is better for it.
Exactly. Also even if you are using a default driver for some type of supported device class (HID being only one example) you might want to be able to uniquely identify your device from an application.
I worked at a company that sent a device to production without our own VID and PID on it (which we had, it just never made it into the image). It caused a few headaches. With a unique VID and PID you can use a generic driver (on windows you have your inf file point to it), but it gives you the ability to replace the generic serial driver or what have you with a custom driver for your device at some point in the future (without screwing up the system so everyone else's generic device has to attempt to use your driver).
Definitely. No matter where I've worked that has been an issue with someone at some level in the organization. "Oh that should be easy."
That also goes hand in hand with estimation. With proper estimates non-technical people will often think you're sandbagging. "There's no way it can take that long!"
I'm lucky with my current clients. They've been through a successful project and a few failed ones and have a much better grasp on how long it takes to develop reliable software and why it's best to get it as close to right the first time. This also means they are aware of the costs of developing and maintaining software.
Some of my biggest frustrations were working in companies under people that had no clue about software. Not budgeting for maintenance (i.e. assuming once the software is released it is done, and it just makes money with 0 more input of money), dictating deadlines with 0 input from the staff that will actually be writing the software, trying to create a product based on a name and no requirements then pushing the blame on the failed project onto the developers that did anything and everything that was asked of them... heck, one company I used to work at (prior to going on my own) just fired their lead dev. Why? He had the audacity to imply a failed project was the fault of people higher up. Something along the lines of:
"You can't put the blame on us. We wrote exactly what you asked for, changing directions every time you changed your mind on what the product was."
"Well you should have pushed back if you thought this wasn't the right way to go!"
"Here are emails showing I did.."
"Well you didn't push back hard enough!"
"You said the project goes on and I don't want to hear anymore about it. Here's the email!"
"Obviously you don't understand how things work here. We're going to have to let you go."
Classic case of the leader surrounding himself in people that will agree with everything he says. He only ever wants to hear, "Yes, that's an amazing idea boss, you are so smart."
For the Rav4s it appeared to be that once that logs were pulled. Most likely an elderly person that mistook the gas for the brake pedal (elderly people crash through stores yearly in my home town because of this) and a bunch of copy cats trying to get insurance money. In the case of the Lexus SUV apparently there was at least one legitimate case of the floor mat getting stuck under a pedal. They installed floor mat clips in all affected vehicles.
I heard one story of an upset Rav4 owner that wanted to return his vehicle and they wouldn't accept it. So his vehicle just happened to "unintentionally" accelerate through the front of the dealership.
"Can't win in a court of law" doesn't fix the injuries the driver of the car that is rear ended suffered.
This. This. A million times this.
People who have never been in at least a relatively serious accident don't understand this. Even a "minor" accident (which on the radio they would announce as no serious injuries) can end up being years worth of suffering for the victim. Being in the clear legally just means you will eventually get money to cover your expenses and a little extra for "pain and suffering" (non-pecuniary).
I was in an accident, not my fault. Did everything possible to avoid it (but when you are between a concrete barrier and an elderly driver that doesn't notice your horn there aren't many options.. it's just how fast you are going to hit them or the concrete). If it was possible to pay whatever I get out of the accident to not have had it in the first place I do that in a second.
In driving class I was taught to hit the small animal if it wasn't possible to safely avoid it (don't swerve if there's oncoming traffic or a bike, don't slam the brakes if someone is tailing you etc). It didn't really truly hit me until I was in an accident. You do not want to be in a collision if you can avoid it. A small cute and furry is worth that cost (and if it's someone's pet they shouldn't have been in the road in the first place.. if that helps you rationalize it). Even a relatively minor accident can put your life on hold for months. I only had a broken arm (bit of a major problem as someone that codes for a living). It took me a few months to get back up to working full time and more than a year later I'm still having issues (possible ligament issue) and no where near settling the case. My wife was out of work more than a month as well. Luckily we are scraping by month to month.
I've been rear ended a few times and generally it's not too bad (month of pain or so), but they can be bad too and much harder to argue if you only have soft tissue damage. It's just easier to not get hit.
Why is it that you retards cannot understand that "selling to a small, but highly profitable segment of the market" is a perfectly viable business model?
Targeting a luxury (or mid luxury / high end?) segment is a perfectly legitimate model. It works for BMW, Rolex, Gucci, Bowers & Wilkins etc. The problem for Apple is that as a luxury or high end producer of tech goods is being aesthetically pleasing and having brand recognition isn't enough. They have to innovate to stay in their position. Other luxury companies have to compete on performance (I'm sure the BMW R&D budget is huge) and often they do cutting edge, but it isn't really the same as the tech arena where things move very quickly and even small companies can compete. If Apple can't continue to innovate they are going to find themselves in the awkward position they were in during the 90s (prior to Steve's return). They were hemorrhaging money on failed projects (how much did they spend on Pink?), their processors were falling behind the competition, their OS was getting long in the tooth and they were still attempting to charge a premium for their products.
That being said, Apple has a LOT of money and a huge cult following. At worst there is going to be some attrition in their market share, but even that's doubtful as they can sell their existing products into new markets to keep revenues up. Apple dying would be a very slow death (unless they make really huge mistakes consecutively and continuously).
Slashdot Mirror
Humorous but true. Privileged members of society (such as members of Congress) don't need to worry about the legality of things such as recreational drugs. Whatever they were using before this law passed won't change because of it. No one is going to say, "Hey, marijuana is legal now, I'm gonna quit doing cocaine and smoke marijuana instead."
I know plenty of professionals (lawyers, surgeons, anaesthetists etc) that use recreational drugs. The chances of them getting charged with anything if caught in procession are pretty much nil. Drug laws aren't for the protection of society in general, the purpose is to establish control over people that are viewed as "trouble makers". Upper society members that use 'responsibly' need not worry. If they make a public scene, yeah, they'll be some kind of slap on the wrist, but in general if you are rich enough or respected enough certain laws don't apply. They are for the people beneath you.
Care to provide a link?
Because no one ever VPN'd in for work purposes.
I mean, I did at every corporate and government job I have had to date, but I'm sure I'm the exception to the rule. I mean, who would actually work from home on a consumer grade connection?
Might have been somewhat funny if you spelled Dianetics correctly and skipped the bit about hoarding (can't even spell hoard correctly?!). The first two sentences already hit home you are missing the point of it being people who generally have a lot of books (not creating a false environment) so the last bit is redundant and is just as bad as explaining a joke.
The best delivery would have been: "That's why I keep ten copies of Mien Kampf and Dianetics in each room."
Or go to a bitcoin ATM, . Of course some jurisdictions require a fingerprint scan etc.
The 2.7 x 10^-1 m device weighs just 4.7 x 10^-1 kg and measures a mere 6.6 x 10^-3 m in thickness.
Why doesn't slashdot allow the <sup> tag?!
They might hit a cabbie or airport shuttle operator's profit margin.
This. Locally (not CA) the Airport has a deal with one cab company. In exchange for a non disclosed amount of capital, one company (largest in town) is the only one allowed to pick up passengers from the airport. Others are allowed to drop off, but they can't pick anyone up on that trip (which discourages them from taking fares there since it's a long one way trip and rates are set by law, so they can't charge extra).
Vegas has a surcharge for cabs that go to the airport (at least so the cabbie claimed last time I was there).
Just two examples where the airport has a tie in to taxi revenue. I'm sure some of the California airports have similar deals going on that would be undermined by UberX or similar.
Which man page(s)? None of the intro pages cover it nor does afterboot.
Documentation is more important than code. He insists on documentation first.
Cool. Did not know that.
I once watch him rip a developer a new one (and ripped out code) because the developer committed code without documentation.
And that's something most would take as Theo being an asshole. I think it's totally justified if the rule is documentation first. It doesn't take much to end up with shit documentation. In my experience documenting after the fact never works. The justification is usually, "We should document what it ends up like so we don't have to rewrite it." But it just never happens. To me it's akin to a civil engineer just building something saying they'll draw up the "as-builts" at the end of the project and just work off a napkin up until then (then never do the as-builts). Definitely not professional. I know why it happens in software (squeezed budgets, tight timelines), but it's not right. I'd love to work on a project where we have top down support to do things right.
If so, how did you make it a priority? More specifically, as the leader of OpenBSD what did you do to ensure great documentation?
As a software developer I know that documentation often falls to the wayside (features take priority, schedule already tight etc). As a project manager it's difficult to get good documentation (staff does poor job, stakeholders don't want to pay for it etc). OpenBSD has really good documentation (in my opinion) and it was really useful when initially getting to know OpenBSD, PF etc. Most of the pay for middleware I use has documentation that is absolute shit (incomplete, wrong, not up to date etc). To me the state of documentation in OpenBSD is more impressive than "Only two remote holes in the default install, in a heck of a long time!". Of course, "You'll love our man pages!" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
Overcame what odds? His parents are/were a dentist and a psychiatrist. That makes his parent's household income damn near the 1% (definitely 6 figures probably at least 200K/year which would be top 5%). I.e. his family was well off.
Yes he makes a ton more than his parents, but he's still the same income class. His parents were in the top quintile and so is he. He's just in a richer sub-segment of rich. If he was born middle class or lower it would be overcoming odds (lowest quintile has something like 4% chance of getting into upper or top iirc). Most people end up in the same income class as their parents. There is very little upward mobility and also very little downward for the rich.
me dreaming of sitting at a desk coding, but the actual visuals are of Vim and nothing else.
Ah, so obviously it was a nightmare ;)
No need to turn this into a Vim vs Emacs debate.
Damn lack of edit. I'd love to be corrected, not correctly. That doesn't even make sense.
Well put. You are quite correct that most users of the free version could get by with those options. As for direct competitors to LogMeIn I don't think there are many (and would love to be correctly). I checked out TeamViewer and GoToMyPc before settling on LogMeIn. The remote help market seems to be over served while remote management has a lot less options (maybe the market is smaller). The smart thing LogMeIn did was make their service useful for more use cases while keeping it simple to use.
I can understand there being completely user help focussed products like Copilot. In those situations you want something focussed and simple. In the particular case of Copilot I'm surprised that Fog Creek isn't also offering a remote management suite. They have all the pieces there to create a product that competes in remote management, plus their existing users for their main products (FogBugz and Kiln) are the type of users that may need that kind of service. Can't be bothered to roll my own or host an open source bug tracker, I probably don't have the resources to manage remote management.
Most (none?) of those are not directly comparable. They are primarily screen sharing designed for meetings and light support (i.e. guiding someone through something), not remotely managing computers behind a firewall.
I've used Goto and it's good for screen sharing, but that's about it. With logmein you can even control things like updates, view logs etc without logging into the machine. When you do log in you can share the screen (default) or you can block it from the local user and you have full admin access (if the user you log in as has it.. unlike screen sharing software that borks once you hit UAC). I primarily use the pro version on headless machines behind firewalls (where I have no control of the firewall and am lucky the end user can figure out plugging in a network cable). I'm looking at moving to neorouter or setting up something myself using vnc and vnc reflector for cost savings. That being said, pro is pretty reasonable in a business situation. I definitely wouldn't be using it for home usage though.
Quick, easy and painless. First time I installed OpenBSD was after having done a few Redhat and Mandrake installs (Mandrake 6 or 7 era). I remember thinking it couldn't have been finished, "That's it?" Moved on to configuring PF (which was simple thanks to good examples, excellent man pages and an easy sensible syntax). I don't remember how long it took, but I'm pretty sure it was under 30 minutes my first time from bare system to a running system with custom routing and filtering. Any time after that was even quicker since I didn't have to spend the 5 minutes learning PF.
I'd encourage anyone who hasn't tried OpenBSD to try it. Yes, Theo is a hard to love character, but don't let that get in your way.
Slashdot was already going downhill and dice pushed it over the edge. Half (or more) the "articles" are just click bait.
Used to be you could come to slashdot for an intelligent discussion. Yeah, clicks drive revenue, but when all the readers disappear there won't be anyone to click.
This risk, being a known mole is too high for a "real" spy. If I were a spy agency, I wouldn't risk any assets for such a short term gain. Once exposed, a mole will have no trustworthiness AND all associations would likely become suspect.
And the solution to that problem is easy. Money. Well money and indirection.
Most people can be bought for a price and they don't have to know it's the NSA doing the buying, it could be a terrorist group or something more benign. All that matters is there is not direct link between the code submitter and NSA. Heck, the submitter can claim the NSA made him/her do it as long as they come off as a crazy person (which they will with no direct proof.. "well this person paid me to submit this code, no they didn't say they were from the NSA.. BUT THEY HAD TO BE, I'M CERTAIN!"). Bonus points for finding some tinfoil hat wearing neckbeard that can be bought. If it ever hits the media it'll be short lived and humorous, "Crazy basement dweller claims NSA made him do it! Needed money for rare Star Wars collectibles."
I'm of course playing devil's advocate here. I think it's smarter to find holes in the existing implementation, especially one that has been audited as safe.
Just because you aren't using a search bar doesn't mean you aren't searching. Any time you look for an email you are searching, whether that be a quick visual scan of a folder you know it's in (after finding the folder) or what have you. You may consider your method superior, but it takes more effort to organize. If I can find an email as quickly as you using the gmail search, then my overall effort is lower, meaning I'm wasting less time on email and spending more time in the real world.
Maybe you use all automated organizing, but manual organizing seems pointless in 2013. I used to manually organize my MP3s.. in the 90s. I used to manually organize my email in the 00s. Now I don't have to do either and my life is better for it.
Don't know what Apple store you're on but the US and Canadian store base model MBAs have an i5 processor.
Exactly. Also even if you are using a default driver for some type of supported device class (HID being only one example) you might want to be able to uniquely identify your device from an application.
I worked at a company that sent a device to production without our own VID and PID on it (which we had, it just never made it into the image). It caused a few headaches. With a unique VID and PID you can use a generic driver (on windows you have your inf file point to it), but it gives you the ability to replace the generic serial driver or what have you with a custom driver for your device at some point in the future (without screwing up the system so everyone else's generic device has to attempt to use your driver).
Definitely. No matter where I've worked that has been an issue with someone at some level in the organization. "Oh that should be easy."
That also goes hand in hand with estimation. With proper estimates non-technical people will often think you're sandbagging. "There's no way it can take that long!"
I'm lucky with my current clients. They've been through a successful project and a few failed ones and have a much better grasp on how long it takes to develop reliable software and why it's best to get it as close to right the first time. This also means they are aware of the costs of developing and maintaining software.
Some of my biggest frustrations were working in companies under people that had no clue about software. Not budgeting for maintenance (i.e. assuming once the software is released it is done, and it just makes money with 0 more input of money), dictating deadlines with 0 input from the staff that will actually be writing the software, trying to create a product based on a name and no requirements then pushing the blame on the failed project onto the developers that did anything and everything that was asked of them... heck, one company I used to work at (prior to going on my own) just fired their lead dev. Why? He had the audacity to imply a failed project was the fault of people higher up. Something along the lines of:
"You can't put the blame on us. We wrote exactly what you asked for, changing directions every time you changed your mind on what the product was."
"Well you should have pushed back if you thought this wasn't the right way to go!"
"Here are emails showing I did.."
"Well you didn't push back hard enough!"
"You said the project goes on and I don't want to hear anymore about it. Here's the email!"
"Obviously you don't understand how things work here. We're going to have to let you go."
Classic case of the leader surrounding himself in people that will agree with everything he says. He only ever wants to hear, "Yes, that's an amazing idea boss, you are so smart."
For the Rav4s it appeared to be that once that logs were pulled. Most likely an elderly person that mistook the gas for the brake pedal (elderly people crash through stores yearly in my home town because of this) and a bunch of copy cats trying to get insurance money. In the case of the Lexus SUV apparently there was at least one legitimate case of the floor mat getting stuck under a pedal. They installed floor mat clips in all affected vehicles.
I heard one story of an upset Rav4 owner that wanted to return his vehicle and they wouldn't accept it. So his vehicle just happened to "unintentionally" accelerate through the front of the dealership.
"Can't win in a court of law" doesn't fix the injuries the driver of the car that is rear ended suffered.
This. This. A million times this.
People who have never been in at least a relatively serious accident don't understand this. Even a "minor" accident (which on the radio they would announce as no serious injuries) can end up being years worth of suffering for the victim. Being in the clear legally just means you will eventually get money to cover your expenses and a little extra for "pain and suffering" (non-pecuniary).
I was in an accident, not my fault. Did everything possible to avoid it (but when you are between a concrete barrier and an elderly driver that doesn't notice your horn there aren't many options.. it's just how fast you are going to hit them or the concrete). If it was possible to pay whatever I get out of the accident to not have had it in the first place I do that in a second.
In driving class I was taught to hit the small animal if it wasn't possible to safely avoid it (don't swerve if there's oncoming traffic or a bike, don't slam the brakes if someone is tailing you etc). It didn't really truly hit me until I was in an accident. You do not want to be in a collision if you can avoid it. A small cute and furry is worth that cost (and if it's someone's pet they shouldn't have been in the road in the first place.. if that helps you rationalize it). Even a relatively minor accident can put your life on hold for months. I only had a broken arm (bit of a major problem as someone that codes for a living). It took me a few months to get back up to working full time and more than a year later I'm still having issues (possible ligament issue) and no where near settling the case. My wife was out of work more than a month as well. Luckily we are scraping by month to month.
I've been rear ended a few times and generally it's not too bad (month of pain or so), but they can be bad too and much harder to argue if you only have soft tissue damage. It's just easier to not get hit.
Why is it that you retards cannot understand that "selling to a small, but highly profitable segment of the market" is a perfectly viable business model?
Targeting a luxury (or mid luxury / high end?) segment is a perfectly legitimate model. It works for BMW, Rolex, Gucci, Bowers & Wilkins etc. The problem for Apple is that as a luxury or high end producer of tech goods is being aesthetically pleasing and having brand recognition isn't enough. They have to innovate to stay in their position. Other luxury companies have to compete on performance (I'm sure the BMW R&D budget is huge) and often they do cutting edge, but it isn't really the same as the tech arena where things move very quickly and even small companies can compete. If Apple can't continue to innovate they are going to find themselves in the awkward position they were in during the 90s (prior to Steve's return). They were hemorrhaging money on failed projects (how much did they spend on Pink?), their processors were falling behind the competition, their OS was getting long in the tooth and they were still attempting to charge a premium for their products.
That being said, Apple has a LOT of money and a huge cult following. At worst there is going to be some attrition in their market share, but even that's doubtful as they can sell their existing products into new markets to keep revenues up. Apple dying would be a very slow death (unless they make really huge mistakes consecutively and continuously).