Don't believe me? Fine, give up your internet connection with its own IP and use the NAT solution of your ISP. Good luck running a torrent.
We could easily solve the entire problem if we just used NAT for every major ISP. It would free up countless adresses and keep IP4 usuable for decades rather then years.
So who is first? Who is going to give up their IP for their home for the greater good?
I'd be ok with that if I got a small block of ports that were reserved for me (for SSH and torrents). And ideally get a discount.
There is no way someone will make a laptop that every feature everyone will like. Claiming one thing is really bad in something and something else is really good, is nothing but opinion. Just because its your opinion, doesn't mean is the most popular opinion. I sure wouldn't assume one would sell better or worse int he market just over what i preferred on it.
Yes, I understand I'm in a very small minority of people who feel the way I do, but I'm just expressing my opinion and pointing out that the design of Apple's notebooks aren't great for everyone. I thought that was pretty obvious when I used the word "personally."
There is a lot of used/refurbished Thinkpads on the market at very reasonable prices. This is not so for Apple's computers depreciate much more slowly.
You can throw them in a bag (from being turned on all night working on a presentation) and then check them into your baggage, have the baggage claim people beat the snot out of them, you drag your computer on the ground with some actually luggable luggage and bash them into the back of a cab, up 14 flights of stairs banging it on each step on the way, then throw it down on the expensive mahogany table and open it up and...
I have to agree from my experience. I bought a used Thinkpad T23. It had looked like it had been pretty well-used when I bought it. Since then its been through all kinds abuse and has been with me through all kinds of traveling. I've dropped it many times, even had it fall flat on its face and still survived (a few dents on the edges of the keyboard that had to bend back into shape, but it never stopped working).
I like that it isn't flashy and fancy looking, which reduces its attractiveness to thieves. I like the fact that it looks dull and boring, especially on the exterior (mine is completely scratched up).
My next notebook will be either a used Thinkpad X-series or a MacBook Pro. Two different types of notebooks I know. If I'm going to get a Mac, I'd want one that can run Final Cut, Logic and other audio/video apps otherwise it would be a waste of an OS X capable machine (I currently use a Mac Pro for these purposes, but it would nice to have essentially a portable workstation). Otherwise, I'd want an ultraportable to use on the go that would replace my T23. The MacBook Air just isn't the machine I'd want to buy for those purposes, at least not at the price its at and considering that I could get a used machine at considerably less that would serve the same purpose.
Most people disagree with you, and can't stand trackpoints, which is why they are in only very few laptops anymore. I am one of those who dislikes trackpoints, and it's why I have never, or will ever, consider buying a Thinkpad. I don't like having that little thing in the keyboard; maybe it's the way I type, but every time I have had to use a laptop which had one, my fingers were constantly 'tripping' on it. Very annoying.
Though you are probably correct that most people don't like trackpoints, most people don't like touchpads either (but like them more than trackpoints). Most people prefer real mice, but those are just not as practical when you are on the go. Everyone at my workplace uses a separate mouse with their MacBook Pros or other laptops. It doesn't help the MacBooks that they only have one mouse button (hence an external mouse is almost a requirement for many people).
I think a lot of people haven't given trackpoints an honest chance. My girlfriend didn't like it at all at first, but one time when we were traveling I forgot to pack a mouse and she was forced to use it and she grew to really like it. Also, not all trackpoint clones are created equal. I bought a desktop keyboard that had a trackpoint-like stick, but it completely sucked as and was unusable; I had the same problems you described. The one on my Thinkpad T23 rocks, but that doesn't mean other manufacturers make good ones.
There is an annoyance with trackpads too - the base of my thumb sometimes hits it accidentally and then the cursor suddenly jumps to some random place and I find that my last few words have been inserted in the middle of some other part of my document instead of at the end. That is annoying but only happens once every couple of days despite how much typing I do.
When I had a notebook with only a touchpad this was a constant annoyance.
I wish that IBM would offer a Thinkpad without the trackpoint; how hard can it be to have a replacement keyboard, for the majority of people who don't use trackpoints (yes the modern Thinkpads have *both* a trackpad and trackpoint, but I don't just want to be able to use a trackpad, I specifically want to *not* have a trackpoint in there, and I think many people would agree. Besides, having two pointing devices really seems like a hack doesn't it?).
I am of course the opposite, I'm glad they have Thinkpads with *only* a trackpoint. Although it might be possible to disable the touchpad and use only the trackpoint (I hope you can do this at least), I think the touchpad is a waste of space. It's nice that on their ultra-portable (X series) you can get one with a trackpoint only.
You can pull the rubber eraser off of the trackpoint. It'll still be there (in the form of the plastic that rubber goes on top of), but I think it'll be mostly out of your way and your fingers will be less likely to trip on it. I'm not sure if you can specifically disable the trackpoint so that only the touchpad is active (or vice versa), but it would me nice if you could.
Horizontal and vertical scrolling are nice, and I have used extensively a laptop with a touchpad that supported that before I got my Thinkpad with only a trackpoint. I don't miss it at all. Like the other guy said, you could configure the middle mouse for this if you really wanted to.
Oh yeah, and did I mention the Thinkpad has 3 mouse buttons? Apple one-button philosophy has its worst impact in its notebook line.
The other thing that makes a trackpoint really nice is you never have to take your hands off the keyboard. With a touchpad, the thumbs aren't really great for such precise movement, and I generally use my fingers rather than my thumb.
Apple's notebooks are also lacking a trackpoint-like mouse. I personally can't stand touchpads, even the ones on Apple's notebooks. The trackpoint is a much better input device when done right, and the ones on the Thinkpads work quite well.
My current notebook is an old Thinkpad T23 that only has a trackpoint and no touchpad. Although I really like OS X (own both a Mac Pro and Mac Mini) and really want a mobility for some of the apps I use on it, this seemingly small issue is enough to make me unsure about whether my next notebook will be a MacBook or a Thinkpad. It's a big issue to me, an analogy would be the touch screen keyboard on the iPhone being a reason people don't want it over a phone with a real QWERTY keyboard.
A used Thinkpad X-series is likely to be next laptop purchase (I bought the T23 used). And I would be running Linux on it of course, which I enjoy more than OS X anyway, but the few video and audio apps I use on OS X make a Mac possibly more useful to me. So I haven't really made a decision.
It's odd that most people are willing to pay $20,000 for a car they drive 30 minutes a day but they aren't willing to spend $400 on a phone that they use all the time. Most people benefit more from having a good cell phone than a good car, and the difference between a good phone and a crappy phone is much more pronounced than the difference between a good car and crappy car.
I assure you that I use my car much more than I use my phone and that my car is much more important (I drive 1-1.5 hrs a day, and use my phone less than 15 minutes a day and sometimes not at all). Also, the quality of the safety features in my car are more important than the quality of my phone. Granted, those safety features will only make a difference in an emergency situation, but considering the life-and-death nature of it the quality of my cell phone is meaningless in comparison.
If you want to consider the connectivity that a cell phone gives you as time used (in that case I use mine 16 hrs a day), then you may have a point about usage time being more, but even then the important of a safe car is more important in my book. I got by just fine without a cell phone, but it was difficult the few years I didn't have a car especially since there was no grocery store near where I lived.
Hi, to get the best user experience from this product, you need to install the.NET runtime v1.1, the.NET Runtime v2.0, the.NET runtime v3.0, the.NET runtime v3.5, the.NET runtime service pack 1, the.NET runtime v2 service pack 1, the.NET runtime v3.0 service pack 1, the.NET 3.5 recommended update and the.NET runtime v1.1. security update.
And it isn't supported on Windows 2000, which is what a lot of businesses are still running.
It's not so "vast" anymore. I think 30% of US households have an HDTV now, and it's increasing pretty rapidly. 70% being SD-only households is a lot but it's ever shrinking.
Where did that statistic come from?
The $30 cheap DVD player probably costs more than that in the long run. I'm willing to bet that a person would have to buy more than three of those $30 players over the lifetime of my one player to cover the device failures. Based on my experience with my parent's DVD players, I'd be right.
That's funny because my parent's had the same experience. They went through 2 ~$30 players before they finally bought a decent one. But that doesn't dispute the idea that $30 is the buy-in price for a lot of people, whether or not they are buying something that is going to fail or not.
Players are cheap and they'll only get cheaper. Even the dual players. So why not just buy one, get movies for that format and if the one you choose doesn't turn out to be the winner, buy the other player when it's cheap, too. [...] So what's the solution, in the meantime you're going to waste your expensive high def TV watching shitty standard format DVDs?
You are under the false assumption that everyone has bought an HDTV. In any case, those who do have HDTVs get HD programming (from cable/satellite/over-the-air), have game systems that take advantage of it, and some have computers connected to it. HD quality movies are now showing up on torrent sites. So the physical format can be skipped altogether.
The vast majority of people don't even have an HDTV. Most people were very slow to switch from VHS, and some are still haven't. They are going to be slow to switch from SD and DVD's to HD and HD-DVD/Blueray. And the current players may be "cheap" for you, but they won't really be "cheap" for most people until you can get a player for $30.
Another group of people is those that don't even care about the prospect of watching movies on these formats, but are more interested in data storage. They are waiting for the price to go down on writable media.
Yup. I chose an iMac 24" 1 year ago. Now, I have Leopard, maxed the memory at 3GB. Trying to give it a fair shake. I'm now in hindsight wishing I had gotten the separate display and built a new PC.
Sell it. You will probably get most of what you paid for it as Macs seem to hold their value pretty well.
Anyone who believes patents aren't a necessity in a free market system is a fool. If it weren't for patents we'd have one or two large corporations who manufatured and sold us everything. Anybody who came up with a new idea would have it copied by one of the large companies and brought to market faster and cheaper than the person who initially invented it.
The problem here is that you are putting too much value on ideas. Ideas aren't really worth that much. If anything, its the implementation of the ideas that is worth something. Ideas are a dime a dozen.
Why? It'd probably interfere with all the drugs he listed.
I was speaking facetiously of course.
Anyway, I think that ego is a key ingredient in productivity. I'm jealous of those who have an over-sized opinion of themselves. I'm trying to become more egotistical myself.
Well of course striving for more productivity is something that involves your ego. Your desire to be a more productive person is fueled by your ego.
If you honestly believe that pursuits of the ego are the best thing for you, then go right ahead.
And you can see my ego is in full force here, since I am talking down to you.
I take piracetam, vinpocetine, adrafinil, and methylphenidate. Of course it gives me an "unfair advantage". That's why I take them. It also benefits society, because it makes me orders of magnitude more productive as an engineer and a scientist that I would be otherwise. It benefits my family, various people in need in my community, and the many children in third-world nations that I can support because my income is freaking enormous. If I were good at something more lucrative than what I do, I might feel less pressure to enhance my performance, but I doubt it. With power (to produce income) comes responsibility (to distribute income).
While you're at it, you may want to take a drug to reduce that freaking enormous ego you have there.
(Seriously, that's about the only real difference: the level of evangelistic fervour each language's advocates hold. Perl and Python have users; Ruby has missionaries.)
I haven't had Flash cause Firefox to crash. I can't even remember the last time Firefox crashed on me, in fact. And I use Firefox on Windows, OS X, and Linux regularly. I do, however, use the Flashblock extension, but have sites that require Flash unblocked, like YouTube. I do use Adblock as well, but only recently started using it. Maybe if I hadn't been using either of these extensions I'd have a problem, but haven't noticed any problems yet.
My problems with Firefox are all with the OS X version and some of its UI problems and bugs in certain extensions that only occur in the OS X version.
I'm a linux user (debian) who has recently been using OS X. What I've found is that while it does have basic functionality out of the box, getting anything more has been a pain in the ass.
I had the same experience. Debian/Ubuntu package management blows away Fink and MacPorts. I find that Linux is a much better "UNIX" out-of-box than OS X is, and then OS X requires quite a bit of work to get it to state that I find usable as a UNIX. I was able to move everything from my Linux box that I really needed over, though.
I bought a Mac Pro with the intention of giving OS X a shot as my main OS (and the Mac Mini I had wasn't cutting it for the things I used it for). I have done this and after an initial adjustment period it's mostly good. But I still use Linux in VMWare. And I have managed to install Linux on my laptop with everything working (had XP before), so I get my native Linux fix there.
If I wasn't into creating music and video editing I would be happier using Linux as my main OS, but apps like Logic 8 and Final Cut make OS X worthwhile.
Why not donate, say, 3400 of them that you will never read again to a local public library? I have quite a few books myself and I'm contemplating doing exactly this (except for about 50 books that are rare, super-expensive or used often).
To his credit, he did say that he donated or gave away 500 of the books in the process of cataloging them. Also some of these books may be reference (as an example, he was looking for books on GUI design). He did say that 80% of the books have been read however.
Personally, I can't imagine having that many books myself. I generally don't have more than 10-15 non-reference books on hand at a time. I usually pass them on to someone else. Of course, I don't read dead tree publications very much to begin with. eBooks are fine for me, unless I'm traveling or something. And even then I'm not much of a book reader.
Collecting books is not my thing, but to each his own.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, embedding a flash movie directly on slashdot. Considering 90% don't RTFA this is going to be the worst /.ing that's ever happened!
What Slashdotter doesn't at least use Flashblock if not Adblock and NoScript?
Don't believe me? Fine, give up your internet connection with its own IP and use the NAT solution of your ISP. Good luck running a torrent.
We could easily solve the entire problem if we just used NAT for every major ISP. It would free up countless adresses and keep IP4 usuable for decades rather then years.
So who is first? Who is going to give up their IP for their home for the greater good?
I'd be ok with that if I got a small block of ports that were reserved for me (for SSH and torrents). And ideally get a discount.
There is no way someone will make a laptop that every feature everyone will like. Claiming one thing is really bad in something and something else is really good, is nothing but opinion. Just because its your opinion, doesn't mean is the most popular opinion. I sure wouldn't assume one would sell better or worse int he market just over what i preferred on it.
Yes, I understand I'm in a very small minority of people who feel the way I do, but I'm just expressing my opinion and pointing out that the design of Apple's notebooks aren't great for everyone. I thought that was pretty obvious when I used the word "personally."
And they probably will continue to be.
There is a lot of used/refurbished Thinkpads on the market at very reasonable prices. This is not so for Apple's computers depreciate much more slowly.
You can throw them in a bag (from being turned on all night working on a presentation) and then check them into your baggage, have the baggage claim people beat the snot out of them, you drag your computer on the ground with some actually luggable luggage and bash them into the back of a cab, up 14 flights of stairs banging it on each step on the way, then throw it down on the expensive mahogany table and open it up and...
I have to agree from my experience. I bought a used Thinkpad T23. It had looked like it had been pretty well-used when I bought it. Since then its been through all kinds abuse and has been with me through all kinds of traveling. I've dropped it many times, even had it fall flat on its face and still survived (a few dents on the edges of the keyboard that had to bend back into shape, but it never stopped working).
I like that it isn't flashy and fancy looking, which reduces its attractiveness to thieves. I like the fact that it looks dull and boring, especially on the exterior (mine is completely scratched up).
My next notebook will be either a used Thinkpad X-series or a MacBook Pro. Two different types of notebooks I know. If I'm going to get a Mac, I'd want one that can run Final Cut, Logic and other audio/video apps otherwise it would be a waste of an OS X capable machine (I currently use a Mac Pro for these purposes, but it would nice to have essentially a portable workstation). Otherwise, I'd want an ultraportable to use on the go that would replace my T23. The MacBook Air just isn't the machine I'd want to buy for those purposes, at least not at the price its at and considering that I could get a used machine at considerably less that would serve the same purpose.
Most people disagree with you, and can't stand trackpoints, which is why they are in only very few laptops anymore. I am one of those who dislikes trackpoints, and it's why I have never, or will ever, consider buying a Thinkpad. I don't like having that little thing in the keyboard; maybe it's the way I type, but every time I have had to use a laptop which had one, my fingers were constantly 'tripping' on it. Very annoying.
Though you are probably correct that most people don't like trackpoints, most people don't like touchpads either (but like them more than trackpoints). Most people prefer real mice, but those are just not as practical when you are on the go. Everyone at my workplace uses a separate mouse with their MacBook Pros or other laptops. It doesn't help the MacBooks that they only have one mouse button (hence an external mouse is almost a requirement for many people).
I think a lot of people haven't given trackpoints an honest chance. My girlfriend didn't like it at all at first, but one time when we were traveling I forgot to pack a mouse and she was forced to use it and she grew to really like it. Also, not all trackpoint clones are created equal. I bought a desktop keyboard that had a trackpoint-like stick, but it completely sucked as and was unusable; I had the same problems you described. The one on my Thinkpad T23 rocks, but that doesn't mean other manufacturers make good ones.
There is an annoyance with trackpads too - the base of my thumb sometimes hits it accidentally and then the cursor suddenly jumps to some random place and I find that my last few words have been inserted in the middle of some other part of my document instead of at the end. That is annoying but only happens once every couple of days despite how much typing I do.
When I had a notebook with only a touchpad this was a constant annoyance.
I wish that IBM would offer a Thinkpad without the trackpoint; how hard can it be to have a replacement keyboard, for the majority of people who don't use trackpoints (yes the modern Thinkpads have *both* a trackpad and trackpoint, but I don't just want to be able to use a trackpad, I specifically want to *not* have a trackpoint in there, and I think many people would agree. Besides, having two pointing devices really seems like a hack doesn't it?).
I am of course the opposite, I'm glad they have Thinkpads with *only* a trackpoint. Although it might be possible to disable the touchpad and use only the trackpoint (I hope you can do this at least), I think the touchpad is a waste of space. It's nice that on their ultra-portable (X series) you can get one with a trackpoint only.
You can pull the rubber eraser off of the trackpoint. It'll still be there (in the form of the plastic that rubber goes on top of), but I think it'll be mostly out of your way and your fingers will be less likely to trip on it. I'm not sure if you can specifically disable the trackpoint so that only the touchpad is active (or vice versa), but it would me nice if you could.
Horizontal and vertical scrolling are nice, and I have used extensively a laptop with a touchpad that supported that before I got my Thinkpad with only a trackpoint. I don't miss it at all. Like the other guy said, you could configure the middle mouse for this if you really wanted to.
Oh yeah, and did I mention the Thinkpad has 3 mouse buttons? Apple one-button philosophy has its worst impact in its notebook line.
The other thing that makes a trackpoint really nice is you never have to take your hands off the keyboard. With a touchpad, the thumbs aren't really great for such precise movement, and I generally use my fingers rather than my thumb.
Apple's notebooks are also lacking a trackpoint-like mouse. I personally can't stand touchpads, even the ones on Apple's notebooks. The trackpoint is a much better input device when done right, and the ones on the Thinkpads work quite well.
My current notebook is an old Thinkpad T23 that only has a trackpoint and no touchpad. Although I really like OS X (own both a Mac Pro and Mac Mini) and really want a mobility for some of the apps I use on it, this seemingly small issue is enough to make me unsure about whether my next notebook will be a MacBook or a Thinkpad. It's a big issue to me, an analogy would be the touch screen keyboard on the iPhone being a reason people don't want it over a phone with a real QWERTY keyboard.
A used Thinkpad X-series is likely to be next laptop purchase (I bought the T23 used). And I would be running Linux on it of course, which I enjoy more than OS X anyway, but the few video and audio apps I use on OS X make a Mac possibly more useful to me. So I haven't really made a decision.
It's odd that most people are willing to pay $20,000 for a car they drive 30 minutes a day but they aren't willing to spend $400 on a phone that they use all the time. Most people benefit more from having a good cell phone than a good car, and the difference between a good phone and a crappy phone is much more pronounced than the difference between a good car and crappy car.
I assure you that I use my car much more than I use my phone and that my car is much more important (I drive 1-1.5 hrs a day, and use my phone less than 15 minutes a day and sometimes not at all). Also, the quality of the safety features in my car are more important than the quality of my phone. Granted, those safety features will only make a difference in an emergency situation, but considering the life-and-death nature of it the quality of my cell phone is meaningless in comparison.
If you want to consider the connectivity that a cell phone gives you as time used (in that case I use mine 16 hrs a day), then you may have a point about usage time being more, but even then the important of a safe car is more important in my book. I got by just fine without a cell phone, but it was difficult the few years I didn't have a car especially since there was no grocery store near where I lived.
Hi, to get the best user experience from this product, you need to install the .NET runtime v1.1, the .NET Runtime v2.0, the .NET runtime v3.0, the .NET runtime v3.5, the .NET runtime service pack 1, the .NET runtime v2 service pack 1, the .NET runtime v3.0 service pack 1, the .NET 3.5 recommended update and the .NET runtime v1.1. security update.
And it isn't supported on Windows 2000, which is what a lot of businesses are still running.
It's not so "vast" anymore. I think 30% of US households have an HDTV now, and it's increasing pretty rapidly. 70% being SD-only households is a lot but it's ever shrinking.
Where did that statistic come from?
The $30 cheap DVD player probably costs more than that in the long run. I'm willing to bet that a person would have to buy more than three of those $30 players over the lifetime of my one player to cover the device failures. Based on my experience with my parent's DVD players, I'd be right.
That's funny because my parent's had the same experience. They went through 2 ~$30 players before they finally bought a decent one. But that doesn't dispute the idea that $30 is the buy-in price for a lot of people, whether or not they are buying something that is going to fail or not.
Players are cheap and they'll only get cheaper. Even the dual players. So why not just buy one, get movies for that format and if the one you choose doesn't turn out to be the winner, buy the other player when it's cheap, too.
[...]
So what's the solution, in the meantime you're going to waste your expensive high def TV watching shitty standard format DVDs?
You are under the false assumption that everyone has bought an HDTV. In any case, those who do have HDTVs get HD programming (from cable/satellite/over-the-air), have game systems that take advantage of it, and some have computers connected to it. HD quality movies are now showing up on torrent sites. So the physical format can be skipped altogether.
The vast majority of people don't even have an HDTV. Most people were very slow to switch from VHS, and some are still haven't. They are going to be slow to switch from SD and DVD's to HD and HD-DVD/Blueray. And the current players may be "cheap" for you, but they won't really be "cheap" for most people until you can get a player for $30.
Another group of people is those that don't even care about the prospect of watching movies on these formats, but are more interested in data storage. They are waiting for the price to go down on writable media.
Yup. I chose an iMac 24" 1 year ago. Now, I have Leopard, maxed the memory at 3GB. Trying to give it a fair shake. I'm now in hindsight wishing I had gotten the separate display and built a new PC.
Sell it. You will probably get most of what you paid for it as Macs seem to hold their value pretty well.
Anyone who believes patents aren't a necessity in a free market system is a fool. If it weren't for patents we'd have one or two large corporations who manufatured and sold us everything. Anybody who came up with a new idea would have it copied by one of the large companies and brought to market faster and cheaper than the person who initially invented it.
The problem here is that you are putting too much value on ideas. Ideas aren't really worth that much. If anything, its the implementation of the ideas that is worth something. Ideas are a dime a dozen.
Why? It'd probably interfere with all the drugs he listed.
I was speaking facetiously of course.
Anyway, I think that ego is a key ingredient in productivity. I'm jealous of those who have an over-sized opinion of themselves. I'm trying to become more egotistical myself.
Well of course striving for more productivity is something that involves your ego. Your desire to be a more productive person is fueled by your ego.
If you honestly believe that pursuits of the ego are the best thing for you, then go right ahead.
And you can see my ego is in full force here, since I am talking down to you.
I take piracetam, vinpocetine, adrafinil, and methylphenidate. Of course it gives me an "unfair advantage". That's why I take them. It also benefits society, because it makes me orders of magnitude more productive as an engineer and a scientist that I would be otherwise. It benefits my family, various people in need in my community, and the many children in third-world nations that I can support because my income is freaking enormous. If I were good at something more lucrative than what I do, I might feel less pressure to enhance my performance, but I doubt it. With power (to produce income) comes responsibility (to distribute income).
While you're at it, you may want to take a drug to reduce that freaking enormous ego you have there.
(Seriously, that's about the only real difference: the level of evangelistic fervour each language's advocates hold. Perl and Python have users; Ruby has missionaries.)
Perl = Hinduism
Python = Buddhism
Ruby = Christianity??!??
I haven't had Flash cause Firefox to crash. I can't even remember the last time Firefox crashed on me, in fact. And I use Firefox on Windows, OS X, and Linux regularly. I do, however, use the Flashblock extension, but have sites that require Flash unblocked, like YouTube. I do use Adblock as well, but only recently started using it. Maybe if I hadn't been using either of these extensions I'd have a problem, but haven't noticed any problems yet.
My problems with Firefox are all with the OS X version and some of its UI problems and bugs in certain extensions that only occur in the OS X version.
Would rather be sent to detention than use Internet Explorer. The teacher should be fired for making such a requirement.
Thanks, that helped.
Can you point me to information on how to get Adobe Photoshop CS3 running in Win2k?
I'm a linux user (debian) who has recently been using OS X. What I've found is that while it does have basic functionality out of the box, getting anything more has been a pain in the ass.
I had the same experience. Debian/Ubuntu package management blows away Fink and MacPorts. I find that Linux is a much better "UNIX" out-of-box than OS X is, and then OS X requires quite a bit of work to get it to state that I find usable as a UNIX. I was able to move everything from my Linux box that I really needed over, though.
I bought a Mac Pro with the intention of giving OS X a shot as my main OS (and the Mac Mini I had wasn't cutting it for the things I used it for). I have done this and after an initial adjustment period it's mostly good. But I still use Linux in VMWare. And I have managed to install Linux on my laptop with everything working (had XP before), so I get my native Linux fix there.
If I wasn't into creating music and video editing I would be happier using Linux as my main OS, but apps like Logic 8 and Final Cut make OS X worthwhile.
Why not donate, say, 3400 of them that you will never read again to a local public library? I have quite a few books myself and I'm contemplating doing exactly this (except for about 50 books that are rare, super-expensive or used often).
To his credit, he did say that he donated or gave away 500 of the books in the process of cataloging them. Also some of these books may be reference (as an example, he was looking for books on GUI design). He did say that 80% of the books have been read however.
Personally, I can't imagine having that many books myself. I generally don't have more than 10-15 non-reference books on hand at a time. I usually pass them on to someone else. Of course, I don't read dead tree publications very much to begin with. eBooks are fine for me, unless I'm traveling or something. And even then I'm not much of a book reader.
Collecting books is not my thing, but to each his own.
Will we have to start ripping our music as WAV files? Is the hard drive industry behind this? How will we tag our WAV files?