I don't generally have that problem... I just go to Dell's outlet site and grab a "scratch and dent" Inspiron or whatever, wipe the HDD and install Debian. My current main PC is an Athlon running Squeeze. I never bothered with Windows (which came preloaded)... just gave myself 2 more gigs of memory and was done with it. I do rather hate the fact that I'll have to upgrade the power supply if I get a new video card (currently running on the "adequate" onboard video)... though to be honest, the onboard video handles HD playback fine... As for laptops, I've not encountered any problems from my HP Mini or my old Dell... which based on its age would be considered one of the "problem" laptops for getting stuff to work. I'm amazed that Debian is so smooth... I've found my distro... I won't switch now.:)
My desktop was purchased for $269.... you can't beat it. I can't even get an old Mac for that price... well one that would run anything remotely recent.
The only thing people have to do is try. Just see the defaults... There's not been that much flap over "windows only" hardware in quite a while now. Sure it still exists, but it's less and less each year. It is no longer profitable to make hardware not "play nice" with other operating systems. I rather think it is because the market and visibility for Linux has grown since the days of "100% Windows".
I never said Samsung WASN'T evil. But we can see PROOF that Apple is being an evil corporation trying to starve out competition that they consider to be a threat to their conquest of total marketshare dominance. (and since your evidence is anecdotal, it's simply anecdotal.... not proven... and since you're an AC, you could be an Apple employee filling the forums full of bullshit.)
So, I call bullshit on your post until you give proof, with citations and not just "I was in a Samsung plant." So cut the crap and stop defending Apple in this. Apple is JUST as evil as Samsung. I have no doubt of that. What concerns me is the ever-present "well Samsung kills babies to make LCDs!" crap that gets trotted out when this dust up is mentioned. Apple fucked the courts over (and the jury fucked Samsung) with their obvious patents based on common actions and prior art, which is funny, because a JAPANESE court said EXACTLY the opposite regarding this case. Funny how geography works. Do you think it's racist that Apple won, is American and white, and Samsung is Korean and well, not white? Go figure. I don't believe it is racist, but I do believe geography played a not-so subtle role in this verdict. Sorry, folks, Apple's just as Evil(tm) as Microsoft. They're showing how they really are in the courts and in their "walled garden." Pretty soon we'll have a Borg Steve Jobs for the Apple logo. I for one think it's past time for it.
They're asking for a preliminary injunction BEFORE the trial starts to prevent sales of the S3 from continuing. What part of Preliminary injunction don't you get?
It means if it is granted, BEFORE the trial court and jury etc., there won't be a Galaxy S3 on American store shelves. Pretty simple logic, really.
If the Galaxy SIII is on everyone's list (looks like it's a popular phone right now), and somehow the ban goes into effect, there will be tons of pissed people who will remember that Apple told them they couldn't buy a phone they wanted. (Regardless of who implements the ban, the courts, etc... it's Apple's wish, so it's Apple's fault.)
Telling a customer "Apple banned the sales of that phone here in the US" will piss them off for a long time. It's not good to tell someone they can't buy something.:) Apple should realize this by now... but they're just trying to kill off competition (this isn't about patents... it's about market share...) The top dog (now Apple) is taking a page from every other top dog's playbook and litigating their competition now that they're #1 (or perceived as such....) It's not exclusive to Apple, of course... lots of companies do it. Steve Jobs thought Android copied his iPhone, so this is a natural extension of his nerd-rage. Trouble is, Steve's dead... the RDF is fading... people aren't going to be pleased... and Apple may reap the benefits sooner rather than later of the old phrase "don't shit where you eat."
That's true, but in the case of the browser wars, it was all about mindshare first, then market share. People became frustrated with IE in many ways and began to look for alternatives. Mozilla didn't advertise on TV, radio, or print, but word of mouth is a powerful thing... (along with a nice bit of ad purchasing on websites)... soon, Firefox's standards compliant browser started eating into IE's market-share. Soon after that, IE-only sites were fixing their flaws and becoming browser agnostic. Now the choices of browser is subjective, with all of them standards compliant (I am not sure about the latest IE, since I quit using IE, and windows at version 6 and XP respectively).
I think the same is happening in the OS arena too, but we're not at the "platform agnostic" step yet. It's slower with an entire OS, but considering OpenOffice/LibreOffice, and seamless (mostly) interoperability between Windows and Linux and Mac, we're getting there. I have not missed Windows at all when I switched to full-time Linux. I can do everything I want in the same way (if I choose to) I did in Windows. With WINE and DosBox, I can play all my favorite windows games right on my Debian machine. Sure it's not 100% there yet, but I do think it's moving farther along than most people give it credit for...
I look forward to the "post IE" era of Operating Systems too... but I'm doing fine right now. Others may still need more coaxing, but if Ubuntu's any indication that Linux can be simple to use, we're moving right along... (My father uses Ubuntu and hasn't had an issue since he ditched XP... and he's a computerphobe who still gets his TV in a screwed up state by pushing the wrong buttons on the remote...)
I think both the hardcore and "user-friendly" Linux versions can coexist fine. I have used the former and the latter, but I settled on Debian when I got my 64-bit computer (a cheapazoid dell AMD refurb...)
The old farts like myself who cut their teeth on Commodore 64's and Atari 800's are still looking for something to tinker with (there are exceptions, of course), and Linux fills that need nicely. I can remember installing Slackware from floppies while in college, because I wandered into the computer lab and started dinking around with HPUX.. Back then there wasn't much of a WWW... Of course the hacker in me grew substantially when I found I could use a free OS on my PC. Sure it was a beast to get my ET4000 card recognized by X, (I never got it fully working), but having my own shell prompt on my lowly PC rekindled my love of tinkering. Not since I got my first Atari 800XL for Christmas (with a datasette) had I felt like using a computer was fun again...
That is not to say I want to force my love of tinkering on anyone else... heck, I remember trying to free enough RAM in DOS to run certain games... that was the "not fun" side of tinkering, and I can see why people are reluctant to return to those lawless days of yesteryear.:)
Linux can thrive and succeed without 95% of the marketshare. Sure there are some high profile things the commercial OS vendors will always keep close to their chest... but for everything else, there's always an alternative. Linux represents that, but cannot gain traction because those who have an idea about going to Linux remember the stories the "old farts" liked to tell about the hell it was getting the OS to work....
Would I like to kick Microsoft to the curb? Most assuredly. Would I like to see Apple again become a niche player? Without a doubt... but where Linux is going is exciting enough, and well it should make others take notice. (and your sig is so appropriate... mine was 2004 - 2011, though.;) heheheh.)
No, we had no free markets in the 1800's. That's a myth. A free market doesn't mean a market without rules. It means a market without manipulation. Read Adam Smith or F.A. Hayek. (And before the Kensyians jump in with their nonsense... Just give it a shot.)
That's why Americans have a whole lot more market regulations when compared with some "socialist" european countries, the difference is that your regulations only preserve the absence of competition (wtf do you think patents are?).
What's really startling is that the regulations are not about socialism but corporatism and cronyism. Wouldn't it be a great time if the free market would be allowed to work? We need a shot at it, but considering the current political climate... that's not going to happen anytime soon.
It also requires eternal vigilance. Basking in the glow of one's freedom means that someone's (or some other "entity" acting on behalf of someone) going to try to snatch the freedom while you're not looking.
I like Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller), and I respect his positions and agree with most of what he says, but recently I watched a youtube interview with him and he said something that seemed uncharacteristic and almost naive. He said that he believes that people are generally good. He hasn't personally met very many evil people, you know, the inherently evil people. But I have to disagree. The current political climate and the wholesale slavery that is being attempted by major corporations with the force of law and lack of alternatives is not something inherently good people come up with. Evil is as evil does. The fruits of evil are abundantly clear and all around us.
The trick is to stamp the roots rather than burning the fruit. We're not working at the right level, which is why this crap keeps cropping up every few years. It's as if someone (or some group) like the *AA's or their kind keep the evil plan on the back burner until the hype wears down and tries again every so often, hoping we're asleep at the wheel. They are nothing if patient. One day we will be asleep at the wheel and they'll get another pile of restrictive slavery put into the mechanisms of the world. Just like they've done in the past.
Time to start killing the roots, people. Not slowly... quickly. And without mercy. Or we'll be looking back on the "wild west" days of the Internet and society fondly as they plug us into the thought scanner 9000 to make sure we aren't being subversive, like thinking for ourselves...
I keed I keed... lighten up everyone... two behemoths just showed us why the Patent System needs reforming.... it won't help much, but no real people got hurt in this melee... unless you count the boredom forced on the jury.:)
Since we have delays all the time in the gaming world, why not wait until the DLC is done, or better yet, stop working on DLC as an add-on and fix the original game? That way, when the game's out for a while, a company can extend the life of the game (not horse armor *cough*) adding additional quests, etc. Adding "new armor types" and so forth (unless tied to a quest) would be pointless and milks the dough of the user who already likes the game because he purchased it.
I would say that slicing up resources so a game can have DLC at launch is needlessly spreading development thin and allowing game-killing bugs to creep into already complex games (Fallout, Fallout:New Vegas, Skyrim anyone?)
Oops.. I should've mentioned this in the previous post.. (sorry!) but you can see even in my posting history (I'll spare you the tedium) where I stated "if Apple goes Intel, I'll eat my hat." (I gave a bunch of now inconsequential reasons for the claim too... but at the time they seemed relevant)
The apple users, lovers, people who owned Powermacs... said on forums, in editorial print magazines, and just about everywhere else "No, Apple's not going to Intel"... and gave a myriad of practical reasons (they thought) why it wouldn't occur. What that means in context is everyone who says "OS X is never going to be iOS" and "OS X will always be what it is today..." etc... are more than likely incorrect in their predictions.
Given Apple's past performance is it not unreasonable to assume that Apple won't just continue to do what some people speculate and turn OS X into iOS, and by that same token turn a Mac into an iPhone with a detached display (or in the case of a laptop, built in keyboard.)
You cannot replace your own batteries on your Mac notebooks anymore. You used to be able to. (I have a first gen Macbook Pro) That's just one example of how the entire Apple lineup is becoming more closed and less like a traditional computer. If one comes into the Apple ecosystem now, they are buying a more closed product than they have had in the past decade or so.
What we're seeing is the return to the original Mac... closed and not open to experimentation. Whether that is a bad thing depends on your perspective.
You make some interesting points, and it comes back to the inter-connected world economy. Most people remember the "Buy American" mantra in the 70's and 80's... because Detroit was taking it in the shorts from Japanese car companies. That translated into later "Buy American" campaigns where Wal Mart and other retailers were being targeted for using cheap Chinese goods instead of more expensive American goods. Now we have "conflict minerals" and "conflict diamonds" etc.. that no matter what you buy or who you buy from, at some point there is a distinct possibility that those minerals used in the components of your electronics came from war-torn regions.
The problem exists in that people do a great deal of posturing and hand-wringing (even on/.), but it amounts to a tempest in a teapot. Most people would not give up their iPhone or 3D LCD television if it really came down to it, yet like celebrities trying to guilt people into donating to charity, it seems people have no shortage of puritanical guilt to spread around to "everybody else."
The key here is not that the minerals are going to fund conflicts in the Congo. The key is what can be done to prevent the conflicts, but more importantly, what can be done to encourage the Congo to end the senseless civil wars. My guess is there isn't any quick-fix and the boycott of "conflict minerals" will not stem the tide of bloodshed.
Should we encourage companies to avoid using these minerals when they can? Sure. But we should never look down our sanctimonious noses at those who don't "have our moral superiority" and claim how well we're doing to stop using these minerals as we type from our computers that contain mostly "conflict minerals" in some form or another.
Political correctness, as you correctly mentioned, was just the tip of the iceberg. It's nothing more than a bunch of busybodies that want to inform you and I how to say something, what words to use, and what we can and cannot "morally" use (for food or whatever cause du jour comes up on the news.) I frankly don't give a shit. I boycott hollywood, the RIAA and Microsoft. If someone wants to know why, I tell them. Otherwise I simply do my bit and move on. (Oh and Disney fucking sucks and should be imploded and its grisly parts be shot from a rocket into the sun.)
The Apple faithful said "Never going to Intel!" and it happened. So, hyperbole or not, Apple is closing off their once semi-open OS so they can maintain control over the "experience." If that's what people want when they buy a Mac or iPhone, that's fine. It's just not what some of the older converts (who started with 10.0 via a coupon in their Macs) want.
It is what it is. Evil megacorp references aside... these things have been brewing in the applesphere for a while now. It's not a new plan. Apple's never been all that "open" with their Macintosh platform (a different track than the Apple 2 days, I suppose), and the fact that OS X started out with more freedom was just a transitional phase to the 'iOSification' of their entire product line.
The constitutional consideration was whether the federal government can fine you for failing to take out health insurance. Is this even a constitutional matter? Most people would say not.
And most people would be incorrect. The compulsion (and subsequent penalty) is well beyond the Federal government's power. Calling it a tax was a way for the Supreme Court to sidestep the whole issue of the federal government going overboard and telling you what you can and cannot do with your after-tax money.
If the original implication (Commerce Clause, which is a mess in itself) was that if the original interpretation stood, the federal government would have been given the power to compel you to buy things. You think Bloomberg's an aberration? He's a symptom of a larger nanny-state problem.. and if that were to bleed up to the federal level, the government would be mandating X% of your food budget has to go to "healthy" items and so forth. The "Can the Government compel a person to buy broccoli?" quandary.
The federal government has been well beyond its constitutional power boundaries for over a century. The fact that people accept it without even the slightest grumble is what's really sad.
Copyright was never meant to be a property right and it does not guarantee revenue. Never has... in spite of the RIAA/MPAA assertion it does. Copyright is about control over one's work for a limited time.
That's it. And if everyone used thePirateBay, the site would implode.
Local fire department saves cat stuck in tree with help from Deep Blue, but the city government gets a DMCA takedown notice after the youtube video of the rescue was posted. It seems Rick Astley is not appropriate background music for a cat rescue. Steve Ballmer still throwing chairs at the tree, and the EFF is investigating if Microsoft is using private citizens' chairs without their consent. Apple users still indignant that the app "Kitty Rescue 10.0" came out on the Android marketplace first.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't generally have that problem... I just go to Dell's outlet site and grab a "scratch and dent" Inspiron or whatever, wipe the HDD and install Debian. My current main PC is an Athlon running Squeeze. I never bothered with Windows (which came preloaded)... just gave myself 2 more gigs of memory and was done with it. I do rather hate the fact that I'll have to upgrade the power supply if I get a new video card (currently running on the "adequate" onboard video)... though to be honest, the onboard video handles HD playback fine... As for laptops, I've not encountered any problems from my HP Mini or my old Dell... which based on its age would be considered one of the "problem" laptops for getting stuff to work. I'm amazed that Debian is so smooth... I've found my distro... I won't switch now. :)
My desktop was purchased for $269.... you can't beat it. I can't even get an old Mac for that price... well one that would run anything remotely recent.
The only thing people have to do is try. Just see the defaults... There's not been that much flap over "windows only" hardware in quite a while now. Sure it still exists, but it's less and less each year. It is no longer profitable to make hardware not "play nice" with other operating systems. I rather think it is because the market and visibility for Linux has grown since the days of "100% Windows".
I never said Samsung WASN'T evil. But we can see PROOF that Apple is being an evil corporation trying to starve out competition that they consider to be a threat to their conquest of total marketshare dominance. (and since your evidence is anecdotal, it's simply anecdotal.... not proven... and since you're an AC, you could be an Apple employee filling the forums full of bullshit.)
So, I call bullshit on your post until you give proof, with citations and not just "I was in a Samsung plant." So cut the crap and stop defending Apple in this. Apple is JUST as evil as Samsung. I have no doubt of that. What concerns me is the ever-present "well Samsung kills babies to make LCDs!" crap that gets trotted out when this dust up is mentioned. Apple fucked the courts over (and the jury fucked Samsung) with their obvious patents based on common actions and prior art, which is funny, because a JAPANESE court said EXACTLY the opposite regarding this case. Funny how geography works. Do you think it's racist that Apple won, is American and white, and Samsung is Korean and well, not white? Go figure. I don't believe it is racist, but I do believe geography played a not-so subtle role in this verdict. Sorry, folks, Apple's just as Evil(tm) as Microsoft. They're showing how they really are in the courts and in their "walled garden." Pretty soon we'll have a Borg Steve Jobs for the Apple logo. I for one think it's past time for it.
They're asking for a preliminary injunction BEFORE the trial starts to prevent sales of the S3 from continuing. What part of Preliminary injunction don't you get?
It means if it is granted, BEFORE the trial court and jury etc., there won't be a Galaxy S3 on American store shelves. Pretty simple logic, really.
If the Galaxy SIII is on everyone's list (looks like it's a popular phone right now), and somehow the ban goes into effect, there will be tons of pissed people who will remember that Apple told them they couldn't buy a phone they wanted. (Regardless of who implements the ban, the courts, etc... it's Apple's wish, so it's Apple's fault.)
Telling a customer "Apple banned the sales of that phone here in the US" will piss them off for a long time. It's not good to tell someone they can't buy something. :) Apple should realize this by now... but they're just trying to kill off competition (this isn't about patents... it's about market share...) The top dog (now Apple) is taking a page from every other top dog's playbook and litigating their competition now that they're #1 (or perceived as such....) It's not exclusive to Apple, of course... lots of companies do it. Steve Jobs thought Android copied his iPhone, so this is a natural extension of his nerd-rage. Trouble is, Steve's dead... the RDF is fading... people aren't going to be pleased... and Apple may reap the benefits sooner rather than later of the old phrase "don't shit where you eat."
That's true, but in the case of the browser wars, it was all about mindshare first, then market share. People became frustrated with IE in many ways and began to look for alternatives. Mozilla didn't advertise on TV, radio, or print, but word of mouth is a powerful thing... (along with a nice bit of ad purchasing on websites)... soon, Firefox's standards compliant browser started eating into IE's market-share. Soon after that, IE-only sites were fixing their flaws and becoming browser agnostic. Now the choices of browser is subjective, with all of them standards compliant (I am not sure about the latest IE, since I quit using IE, and windows at version 6 and XP respectively).
I think the same is happening in the OS arena too, but we're not at the "platform agnostic" step yet. It's slower with an entire OS, but considering OpenOffice/LibreOffice, and seamless (mostly) interoperability between Windows and Linux and Mac, we're getting there. I have not missed Windows at all when I switched to full-time Linux. I can do everything I want in the same way (if I choose to) I did in Windows. With WINE and DosBox, I can play all my favorite windows games right on my Debian machine. Sure it's not 100% there yet, but I do think it's moving farther along than most people give it credit for...
I look forward to the "post IE" era of Operating Systems too... but I'm doing fine right now. Others may still need more coaxing, but if Ubuntu's any indication that Linux can be simple to use, we're moving right along... (My father uses Ubuntu and hasn't had an issue since he ditched XP... and he's a computerphobe who still gets his TV in a screwed up state by pushing the wrong buttons on the remote...)
I think both the hardcore and "user-friendly" Linux versions can coexist fine. I have used the former and the latter, but I settled on Debian when I got my 64-bit computer (a cheapazoid dell AMD refurb...)
The old farts like myself who cut their teeth on Commodore 64's and Atari 800's are still looking for something to tinker with (there are exceptions, of course), and Linux fills that need nicely. I can remember installing Slackware from floppies while in college, because I wandered into the computer lab and started dinking around with HPUX.. Back then there wasn't much of a WWW... Of course the hacker in me grew substantially when I found I could use a free OS on my PC. Sure it was a beast to get my ET4000 card recognized by X, (I never got it fully working), but having my own shell prompt on my lowly PC rekindled my love of tinkering. Not since I got my first Atari 800XL for Christmas (with a datasette) had I felt like using a computer was fun again...
That is not to say I want to force my love of tinkering on anyone else... heck, I remember trying to free enough RAM in DOS to run certain games... that was the "not fun" side of tinkering, and I can see why people are reluctant to return to those lawless days of yesteryear. :)
Linux can thrive and succeed without 95% of the marketshare. Sure there are some high profile things the commercial OS vendors will always keep close to their chest... but for everything else, there's always an alternative. Linux represents that, but cannot gain traction because those who have an idea about going to Linux remember the stories the "old farts" liked to tell about the hell it was getting the OS to work....
Would I like to kick Microsoft to the curb? Most assuredly. Would I like to see Apple again become a niche player? Without a doubt... but where Linux is going is exciting enough, and well it should make others take notice. (and your sig is so appropriate... mine was 2004 - 2011, though. ;) heheheh.)
Steve, is that you? What did I tell you about posting on /.? Get back into your cage before Mongo gets the cattle prod...
So is "compassionate government", but let's not pick nits...
No, we had no free markets in the 1800's. That's a myth. A free market doesn't mean a market without rules. It means a market without manipulation. Read Adam Smith or F.A. Hayek. (And before the Kensyians jump in with their nonsense... Just give it a shot.)
It's enlightening...
That's why Americans have a whole lot more market regulations when compared with some "socialist" european countries, the difference is that your regulations only preserve the absence of competition (wtf do you think patents are?).
What's really startling is that the regulations are not about socialism but corporatism and cronyism. Wouldn't it be a great time if the free market would be allowed to work? We need a shot at it, but considering the current political climate... that's not going to happen anytime soon.
It also requires eternal vigilance. Basking in the glow of one's freedom means that someone's (or some other "entity" acting on behalf of someone) going to try to snatch the freedom while you're not looking.
I like Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller), and I respect his positions and agree with most of what he says, but recently I watched a youtube interview with him and he said something that seemed uncharacteristic and almost naive. He said that he believes that people are generally good. He hasn't personally met very many evil people, you know, the inherently evil people. But I have to disagree. The current political climate and the wholesale slavery that is being attempted by major corporations with the force of law and lack of alternatives is not something inherently good people come up with. Evil is as evil does. The fruits of evil are abundantly clear and all around us.
The trick is to stamp the roots rather than burning the fruit. We're not working at the right level, which is why this crap keeps cropping up every few years. It's as if someone (or some group) like the *AA's or their kind keep the evil plan on the back burner until the hype wears down and tries again every so often, hoping we're asleep at the wheel. They are nothing if patient. One day we will be asleep at the wheel and they'll get another pile of restrictive slavery put into the mechanisms of the world. Just like they've done in the past.
Time to start killing the roots, people. Not slowly... quickly. And without mercy. Or we'll be looking back on the "wild west" days of the Internet and society fondly as they plug us into the thought scanner 9000 to make sure we aren't being subversive, like thinking for ourselves...
50 according to that book.... :)
I keed I keed... lighten up everyone... two behemoths just showed us why the Patent System needs reforming.... it won't help much, but no real people got hurt in this melee... unless you count the boredom forced on the jury. :)
Pyrrhic victories abound:
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20118404,00.html
That's why it should be "shamsung".... :) Scamscum is too hard. :)
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/04/fuera_de_aqu.html
Perhaps Dishevel meant illegal immigrants when he mentioned "they".
Since we have delays all the time in the gaming world, why not wait until the DLC is done, or better yet, stop working on DLC as an add-on and fix the original game? That way, when the game's out for a while, a company can extend the life of the game (not horse armor *cough*) adding additional quests, etc. Adding "new armor types" and so forth (unless tied to a quest) would be pointless and milks the dough of the user who already likes the game because he purchased it.
I would say that slicing up resources so a game can have DLC at launch is needlessly spreading development thin and allowing game-killing bugs to creep into already complex games (Fallout, Fallout:New Vegas, Skyrim anyone?)
Oops.. I should've mentioned this in the previous post.. (sorry!) but you can see even in my posting history (I'll spare you the tedium) where I stated "if Apple goes Intel, I'll eat my hat." (I gave a bunch of now inconsequential reasons for the claim too... but at the time they seemed relevant)
My hat tasted like shit. :)
The apple users, lovers, people who owned Powermacs... said on forums, in editorial print magazines, and just about everywhere else "No, Apple's not going to Intel"... and gave a myriad of practical reasons (they thought) why it wouldn't occur. What that means in context is everyone who says "OS X is never going to be iOS" and "OS X will always be what it is today..." etc... are more than likely incorrect in their predictions.
Given Apple's past performance is it not unreasonable to assume that Apple won't just continue to do what some people speculate and turn OS X into iOS, and by that same token turn a Mac into an iPhone with a detached display (or in the case of a laptop, built in keyboard.)
You cannot replace your own batteries on your Mac notebooks anymore. You used to be able to. (I have a first gen Macbook Pro) That's just one example of how the entire Apple lineup is becoming more closed and less like a traditional computer. If one comes into the Apple ecosystem now, they are buying a more closed product than they have had in the past decade or so.
What we're seeing is the return to the original Mac... closed and not open to experimentation. Whether that is a bad thing depends on your perspective.
You make some interesting points, and it comes back to the inter-connected world economy. Most people remember the "Buy American" mantra in the 70's and 80's... because Detroit was taking it in the shorts from Japanese car companies. That translated into later "Buy American" campaigns where Wal Mart and other retailers were being targeted for using cheap Chinese goods instead of more expensive American goods. Now we have "conflict minerals" and "conflict diamonds" etc.. that no matter what you buy or who you buy from, at some point there is a distinct possibility that those minerals used in the components of your electronics came from war-torn regions.
The problem exists in that people do a great deal of posturing and hand-wringing (even on /.), but it amounts to a tempest in a teapot. Most people would not give up their iPhone or 3D LCD television if it really came down to it, yet like celebrities trying to guilt people into donating to charity, it seems people have no shortage of puritanical guilt to spread around to "everybody else."
The key here is not that the minerals are going to fund conflicts in the Congo. The key is what can be done to prevent the conflicts, but more importantly, what can be done to encourage the Congo to end the senseless civil wars. My guess is there isn't any quick-fix and the boycott of "conflict minerals" will not stem the tide of bloodshed.
Should we encourage companies to avoid using these minerals when they can? Sure. But we should never look down our sanctimonious noses at those who don't "have our moral superiority" and claim how well we're doing to stop using these minerals as we type from our computers that contain mostly "conflict minerals" in some form or another.
Political correctness, as you correctly mentioned, was just the tip of the iceberg. It's nothing more than a bunch of busybodies that want to inform you and I how to say something, what words to use, and what we can and cannot "morally" use (for food or whatever cause du jour comes up on the news.) I frankly don't give a shit. I boycott hollywood, the RIAA and Microsoft. If someone wants to know why, I tell them. Otherwise I simply do my bit and move on. (Oh and Disney fucking sucks and should be imploded and its grisly parts be shot from a rocket into the sun.)
The Apple faithful said "Never going to Intel!" and it happened. So, hyperbole or not, Apple is closing off their once semi-open OS so they can maintain control over the "experience." If that's what people want when they buy a Mac or iPhone, that's fine. It's just not what some of the older converts (who started with 10.0 via a coupon in their Macs) want.
It is what it is. Evil megacorp references aside... these things have been brewing in the applesphere for a while now. It's not a new plan. Apple's never been all that "open" with their Macintosh platform (a different track than the Apple 2 days, I suppose), and the fact that OS X started out with more freedom was just a transitional phase to the 'iOSification' of their entire product line.
And most people would be incorrect. The compulsion (and subsequent penalty) is well beyond the Federal government's power. Calling it a tax was a way for the Supreme Court to sidestep the whole issue of the federal government going overboard and telling you what you can and cannot do with your after-tax money.
If the original implication (Commerce Clause, which is a mess in itself) was that if the original interpretation stood, the federal government would have been given the power to compel you to buy things. You think Bloomberg's an aberration? He's a symptom of a larger nanny-state problem.. and if that were to bleed up to the federal level, the government would be mandating X% of your food budget has to go to "healthy" items and so forth. The "Can the Government compel a person to buy broccoli?" quandary.
The federal government has been well beyond its constitutional power boundaries for over a century. The fact that people accept it without even the slightest grumble is what's really sad.
Or this:
http://www.copblock.org/858/alaska-troopers-assault-man-with-anti-obama-sign/
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6512746
Free speech knows no party affiliation. Free speech suppression is universal by both Donkey and Elephant...
Copyright was never meant to be a property right and it does not guarantee revenue. Never has... in spite of the RIAA/MPAA assertion it does. Copyright is about control over one's work for a limited time.
That's it. And if everyone used thePirateBay, the site would implode.
Local fire department saves cat stuck in tree with help from Deep Blue, but the city government gets a DMCA takedown notice after the youtube video of the rescue was posted. It seems Rick Astley is not appropriate background music for a cat rescue. Steve Ballmer still throwing chairs at the tree, and the EFF is investigating if Microsoft is using private citizens' chairs without their consent. Apple users still indignant that the app "Kitty Rescue 10.0" came out on the Android marketplace first.
--- better headline. :)
Except in Japan where you could buy a white one...