Right now, the people who have/control oil have far more political clout (money) than those who build bridges. Maybe if a few more important bridges collapse, that may change. There are many pretty major bridges in the US and relatively few of them fail spectacularly. Here in the state of Oregon many bridges, especially in I5 have been or are in the process of repair/replacement. State governments, not the feds are responsible for their highways and bridges. Maybe, the Minnesota highway department need closer scrutiny, rather than blaming the Federal Government. If the state inspectors say a major interstate bridge is unsafe and threaten to close it, you can be sure the funds to fix it can be found.
....Can you replace the hard drive in the iMac without voiding the warranty....
Why would you want to do that? Most likely, you need more storage only if you do a lot of multimedia creation or consumption. In that case you'd probably want to spend enough money for a beefy Mac Pro box and a really big monitor to connect to it. For just storing and playing back multimedia files, a huge external Firewire drive is a much better choice. As a bonus, you can connect that drive to another computer if needed. The same goes for sound and NIC. If you need fancy sound processing and network cards, then you are likely in a class of users that can afford a 4 CPU Mac Pro system and wouldn't want to use an iMac for jobs it was never designed to do.
.....For example, way too much drag-and-dropping things when a keyboard-based approach would be much more effective..........
There is an ideal system for you from the 1980s. It's called MSDOS. It did not need any stinkin' mouse! The keyboard was king.
Really now, what is simpler to install a program, just drag its icon off the CD onto into your Applications folder or typing a longwinded command line? Even the Mac version of MS Office uses simple drag and drop installation. I can't think of an easier way to install a program into a computer than the way Apple does it.
.....iTunes is not a reason to stay on Mac/Windows.....
Can Amarok activate and update the iPhone? If not the iTunes is still needed for all iphone users. That excludes UBUNTU for now since Apple doesn't make an itunes for it or any Linux flavor.
.....Not to mention the time you've wasted screwing around with putting in motherboards, replacing cases, kernel recompiles, fullfilling dependencies for Linux RPM installations, compiling apps, etc........
People should not be denigrated for things like that. Some people LIKE doing such stuff because the computer is their favorite toy. Not everybody need a computer to actually do work. Some enjoy installing a new OS every other week and adding video cards and other hardware and getting a thrill to have all that stuff to finally work properly. For such people, there is nothing better than a home built, maxed out PC. After all people do the same sort of things with cars as well.
For the rest of the world, who use their cars as transportation tools and their computers as communications, entertainment and creative tools, Macs are generally the best COMPLETE (hardware and software) money can buy.
Are you sure about that? Maybe for the desktop of a/. reader but not your average uncle George or aunt Millie. I had no problem getting Windows XP or even VISTA to install and run on my Mac using Parallels, but it balked at Ubuntu. I did not have the time to hunt down the solution, although I am sure there is one.
There also was a link to a lengthy article from a fellow editor of Information Week, with his experience trying to get UBUNTU running on an HP laptop.
A typical/. user would not have too much trouble finding and then figuring out the forum advice ond then editing a configuration file or two. If that were needed to get ANYYTHING working for aunt Millie, Linux would be out the door and Windows, warts and all, would be back. For/.ers who LOVE computers (otherwise you wouldn't be reading this) Linux is great, useful and fun, but for the Georges and Millies of this world, who just want to USE a computer as a means to an end, rather than somewhat as an end in and of itself, Linux is definitely out of the running. Any/.er who recommends any flavor of Linux to his/her computer illiterate friend or relative, better be prepared to be the help desk for such persons.
.......The mid-range system, the iMac, is a great design and a really nice computer, but it is not meaningfully upgradeable, and the choice of components is really limited.......
So what exactly would you like to upgrade? You can plug in USB and Firewire peripherals and increase RAM. You wouldn't need a hot video card unless you want to play games. For that a PC is much better anyway.
What components would you like to replace? The HD? That is a bit harder to replace in the all in one imac, but it can be done. For storing large video and audio files, it is usually simpler to get a 750Gb+ drive. The advantage to that is you can use it on your next computer also, whether from Apple or someone else.
Apple just chooses not to get into the rock bottom computer competition game.
......You still have to waste the money on overpriced, proprietary hardware from Apple though.......
Only Apple makes COMPLETE computers, -- hardware and software. A working computer SYSTEM, all integrated to allow even grandma to be able to run it. Yet any geek or geek wannabe can install most any software whether Linux or Windows instead or in addition to the OSX it comes with. Even OSX allows an expert to go hog wild with the command line if wanted. You even get a compiler and other tools if you want to write cool programs.
Most people, when they buy a car, they want the engine included and built by the maker of that car. Unless you buy from Apple, you will always get the engine made by someone else. Maybe that is worth something extra?
..... And exactly how would Apple know if it was stolen?....
You tell them by locking your ipod to your computer and itunes account. If you don't want to do that, then don't. If you take the ipod to a friend's house and plug it into their computer, their computer will tell you the ipod is locked. It will ask if you want to log into your itms account. After you do, the ipod is unlocked and the friend's computer is added to the authorized computer list. Before you go home, you can decide to de-authorize that computer again, otherwise it will remain authorized. Before you go over there or on a trip, you can take the risk and de-protect your ipod.
When a thief plugs the protected ipod into an unauthorized computer, the ipod asks if he wants to authorize that computer. He/she can't because they cannot log into your iTms account. That computer also sends its IP address and your ipod serial number to Apple, which sends you an email with that information. The ipod now also becomes a brick. You can decide what action to take with that information. If by chance you should get your ipod back you plug it back into your computer an it will be unbricked and synced again. If you decide to sell the ipod, you'd unprotect it first and erase all your music. Apple could advertise these security features as another selling point. You, however decide whether you want to use them, just as you can for their File Vault encryption system on Macs.
If you don't need or want itunes, why get an ipod? It's the two together that "just work" and are made for each other. There is no other combination on the market that works as well.
....when using another charger/computer is needed.....
Simple, you authorize any computer by logging into your itunes account. After that you can plug your iPod into it. It will then ask if you want to sync it with the new computer, as it does now. You just reply cancel and charge your ipod. Since a thief cannot log into your account the computer would brick the ipod.
.....What a great way to stop people selling their iPods to someone else and instantly making 2nd hand market for iPods impossible!......
Why? If you sell your iPod, you just erase it and unlock it first. If someone steals it, they can't do either without your password. They can charge it on an external charger or in a car, but they are stuck with whatever content you had on it.
......So they all wont be able to charge iPods?.......
Any thief will be able to charge the old existing ones, but not change their content. On new iPods, Apple could add a circuit inside that prevents charging. Maybe, even the power management system in the present ipods could be locked.
....charger would need to have electronics capable of providing identification.....
No it wouldn't. The iPod would only get turned into a brick by a computer that doesn't have YOUR authority, not Apple's and not by some dumb charger. You could use it anywhere. If you took your ipod to a friend's house and plugged it unto their computer, the ipod would become a brick. However, if you then took it home, it would get unbricked again for YOU as soon as you plugged into your authorized computer. If you wanted to sell or give the ipod to your friend, you would have to unprotect your ipod first. Your friend/customer could then sync and optionally protect the ipod they got from you with their own password. I think such a system would make iPod theft less frequent.
...... I don't think Apple should be deciding where I can charge my iPod........
They wouldn't as long as you are the legal owner. Only after a thief plugs it into another computer to sync/charge it, would the ipod be locked. If you, as the rightful owner plugged into your computer, it would automatically be unlocked. As long as it is unlocked, it would work with any charger, but not with an unauthorized computer. A thief couldn't sync the iPod or charge it on another computer. They could charge it and play it in a car or other non-computer charging device. They would be stuck with your music forever. If you sold your iPod you would have to unlock it with your password first.
Why should it? The iPod serial number and the iTunes password can be stored in the legitimate users account by Apple and in the iPod. As long as the thief is happy with the music already stored on the iPod, it will always work in a car or any other source of power. If it is ever plugged into an unauthorized computer it refuses to charge after that.
If a legal owner wishes to transfer the iPod to someone else, he/she must first clear out the password. Only the legal owner can do that. After that point the iPod is unprotected, just as it was when bought new and may be used be a new owner. The new owner may protect the iPod with his/her own password, which is also sent to Apple. If a stolen iPod is plugged into an unauthorized computer, that computer not only locks the iPod but also sends its IP address to Apple which sends an email with that information to the registered user it was stolen from. The legal user can then use that info to try to get their iPod back. The whole system will work essentially similarly as Apple's DRM does today. Such a free service from Apple would be an added incentive to become a registered customer of the iTunes store.
.......In the US, a phone is considered pretty much a commodity item, and use pretty much ONLY for one thing.....calling and talking to people.......
In many countries most people did not even have phones until cell phones were invented, whereas in the US almost everybody had a phone since at least the 1950s. That is true of even rural areas that STILL don't get even the faintest cell signal. They have had the good old fashioned land line phone, not too much different from what Alexander came up with more than a 100 years ago.
Where we live there is no cell phone service. When young people come to visit us they are dismayed, but older folks are delighted to have a rest from being on an "electronic leash" 24/7. We do have DSL Internet however, so when the youngsters get desperate, they can check their email and let their most important friends and associates know that they have not fallen off the planet.
I got a $20 prepaid cell phone which costs me about $40 for 6 months to maintain and keep fed with minutes. It's good enough to call from the airport or on car trips.
It's in large measure because of its history, that the US phone system seems archaic, compared to countries where land line service has never been ubiquitous. In many ways, the US phone system IS archaic, but it works still well, for what it was designed for --- people talking to each other. Because a piece of wire is much simpler than complex radio equipment, a landline phone will ALWAYS be more reliable than wireless.
......and she'll tell you that you have to teach them to get it right.......
Could it be that for more than a few women, that their milk TASTES bad to the baby? Could the reason for that and other common health troubles be due to the poor nutrition afforded by our modern industrialized foods? For example:
Pasteurization of milk available in our grocery stores destroys all the enzymes found in the milk as it comes from the cows. These enzymes are there a number of reasons, one of which is to help digest the milk. Homogenization makes the fat particles so small, that many of them go right through the intestinal wall into the blood. There there fats help build up the deposits that eventually cause heart attacks.
Could it be that all the additives, refined sugars and flour most people eat causes changes that make the infant reject the milk until it gets desperately hungry?
Could it be that the chlorinated water in most cities is detrimental to people in some as yet unknown way? Our children used to earn money by raising pigs and steers for sale at the yearly county fair in our 4H program. Every single one of these animals, every year, refused to drink the city water. Only when they had become desperate with thirst, would they finally drink the stuff. Their horses also would boycott the water until they no longer could stand the thirst. Yet the water was and is considered "safe" for drinking.
Big food and pharma companies don't care about anyone's health, only about maximizing profits.
From this and other posts here it seems like the next novel or tax laws will be written on an iPhone. This things a PHONE meant for talking to others. It happens to do a few other things fairly well, but putting in even one full page of text is not what it (or other phones) is designed for.
..... Again, without the assumption of uniformity.....
I never said that NOTHING is constant. Some thing change rapidly, some slowly, some a little and some not at all. This is especially applicable if large periods of time, millions and even billions of years are considered. Therefore, if I assume something is constant, I should check that assumption. If it is not possible to check it, then it must be taken on faith, like a religion. If someone slept on that mattress for thousands of years, the material it is made of would likely have crumbled to dust before then, but it will likely be OK for the short human life time. The quest for origins is about the past, not the future.
(....things like diatoms....)
Diatoms have mineral skeletons, like many sea shells and snails. Finding a shell like that somewhere is NOT a fossil. Don't confuse mineral shells of certain creatures with fossils. They are much different.
Upon your suggestion, I looked up fossils on wikipedia, where it says among other things:
"Fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as the footprint or faeces (feces) of a reptile."
"Fossil sites with exceptional preservation -- sometimes including preserved soft tissues -- are known as Lagerstätten. These formations may have resulted from carcass burial in an anoxic environment with minimal bacteria, thus delaying decomposition."
"Paleobiologists have studied the frozen flesh of prehistoric mammoths, and the preserved muscle tissue of archosaurs."
You tell me how a pile of reptile s**t can be preserved in sediment by any slow process. Do an experiment (science). Take some of your excrement and figure out how you can make it into a fossil. Maybe you can get expert on fossils to help you. If that grosses you out, try to fossilize your footprint.
You tell me how a slow burial over time could eliminate decay and oxidation of soft tissues. Only a quick death, immediate preservation by burial, such as caused by a sudden cataclysm could make fossils out of the soft tissues. Notice the phrase "may have resulted". That means nobody knows a plausible mechanism by which the result came about, but are guessing.
You tell me how the mammoths and archsaurs could be preserved by anything OTHER than an overwhelming, sudden catastrophe. Some of these frozen mammoths were found still chewing their last bite of food. They died very suddenly and whatever killed them instantly, also preserved their bodies.
The earth bears the scars of asteroid impacts, evidence of overflowing waters and other marks of a violent past. There is evidence that there is several times as much water trapped in the mantle of the earth, than in all the oceans. Even today, if the earth were smooth, the planet would be nothing but water about a mile deep.
....Look, you're just so full of falsehoods and ignorance...
If you could, you'd tell me how to make a fossil or cite someone who did make one. You KNOW you can't and neither can anyone who believes the evolutionary fairytale.
(....the test is about past experience being uniform....)
No, it is an experiment I repeat every night in the PRESENT, not the past. So far nothing unusual has happened. I usually sleep fine each night unless I ate too much for dinner.
If you want to know WHY evolution is a fairy tale, look here if you dare.
If this gets you angry, it is only because deep down you know it's true. Lies never bother people nearly as much as truth they don't WANT to hear and accept.
When people run out of reason, they resort to personal attacks, such as you have.
you will see that this term includes to provide an interpretation for a mystery.
(.....that fossils were made rapidly.....)
There is no way anyone knows of, whereby a fossil can be made slowly. Today, when a living organism dies, it DECAYS. It never makes a fossil. To prevent decay, all agents that cause such decay must be eliminated. That means decay causing organisms must be killed or inactivated very quickly after death and oxygen must be excluded almost immediately. Slow burial in sediments doesn't work. Nobody has EVER made a fossil, using any conceivable slow evolutionary mechanism. Maybe you have some information on how it is possible to make a fossil today by a slow extended process over time.
Fossilization always involves water in that fossils are found in sedimentary formations only. A sudden destructive burial of the large variety of living things, while yet alive, under miles of mud and silt, in a cataclysmic flood of rushing water fits the evidence of fossils. The immense pressure and resultant heat killed micro-organisms that cause decay and exclude oxygen. A slow burial over a long time doesn't.
(.....these assumptions are no different than the ones you make when you assume that your bed is made of matresses....)
However, I can test such assumptions EXPERIMENTALLY by lying down on one to see if they are valid. There is NO way to test some of the assumptions of evolutionists. It is science to make assumptions that can be tested by observation. Religious assumptions (beliefs) and evolutionary beliefs cannot be tested. That's why they are both only beliefs. The assumption that nothing ever changes (such as some natural "constants") cannot be tested experimentally. We do have evidence that most of nature is dynamic, not an unchanging static. Assuming that fossils were made "somehow", but not being able to make one by any theorized process is not science but faith.
(..... If the rate of nuclear decay were once much higher,......)
You are forgetting that energy conservation laws would prevent this. For example, a larger Planck's constant h in the past would reduce atomic cross sections. You can think of h being a sort of damping factor for the vibrations of atoms. This means the likelihood of an emitted particle from dissipating its energy within a given amount of matter would decrease. Even today, an atom is mostly empty space. With a larger h it would in effect be even emptier. Also, the now rather big, slow moving, destructive flying fragments of radioactive decay would instead be smaller, moving much faster. Thus energy conservation laws would not be violated and atomic binding forces would not change. In combination with the smaller cross section of atoms, radioactivity fragments, such as gamma rays are effectively smaller, moving faster and therefore would have very little interaction with matter on that account as well. There are particles called neutrinos still today, which go through the whole earth and never interact with a single atom. With a much larger h, other particles, such as gamma rays from radioactivity and radiation from space would behave in a similar fashion as neutrinos still do.
A two dimensional analogy would be a chain link fence and some chicken wire fencing. If you would shoot marble sized steel balls at the chicken wire you would have a certain chance of each ball breaking a wire, ultimately destroying the whole fence. Now if shot BB's at a larger chain link fence sized wire mesh, each of them moving correspondingly faster in order to carry the same energy as each ball did, the probability of damaging the fence would be comparatively small.
On the atomic level, this means for example, that genetic DNA damage by a
.....and believe it or not, most people don't give a shit if it's loaded with spyware and viruses........
An increasing number of people are finding out it doesn't have to be that way. They are learning that there is one company that makes both the hardware and its software as a complete system that "just works". This company also make a music player and recently a phone that just work. There are other phones, music player and computers that have bells and whistles that Apple doesn't make and they make no cheap, rock bottom priced products at all.
Maybe, if one of the other name brand computer makers adopted Linux, picked ONE unified flavor thereof and made as SURE as humanly possible that their computers worked at least as well as OSX does on Macs, Linux might get off the ground. They would also have to have a help desk where befuddled consumers can turn to for any problems that inevitably arise in all hi-tech products. They would have to include applications at least equivalent to the ones that Apple includes and make certain that these apps worked as advertised. There are many good open source programs they could choose from to make friendly and support for non-techie users.
A large company would however have to be "willing to bet the ranch" and abandon Windows, since MS would not let them install their wares for the steep discounts they give to faithful Windows only PC makers. Large established companies are seldom willing to make such all or nothing bets. Until something like that happens, Linux will remain a very nice OS, but be used mostly by the/. type of people.
Slashdot Mirror
.....Turn it to bridge reconstruction.....
Right now, the people who have/control oil have far more political clout (money) than those who build bridges. Maybe if a few more important bridges collapse, that may change. There are many pretty major bridges in the US and relatively few of them fail spectacularly. Here in the state of Oregon many bridges, especially in I5 have been or are in the process of repair/replacement. State governments, not the feds are responsible for their highways and bridges. Maybe, the Minnesota highway department need closer scrutiny, rather than blaming the Federal Government. If the state inspectors say a major interstate bridge is unsafe and threaten to close it, you can be sure the funds to fix it can be found.
....Can you replace the hard drive in the iMac without voiding the warranty....
Why would you want to do that? Most likely, you need more storage only if you do a lot of multimedia creation or consumption. In that case you'd probably want to spend enough money for a beefy Mac Pro box and a really big monitor to connect to it. For just storing and playing back multimedia files, a huge external Firewire drive is a much better choice. As a bonus, you can connect that drive to another computer if needed. The same goes for sound and NIC. If you need fancy sound processing and network cards, then you are likely in a class of users that can afford a 4 CPU Mac Pro system and wouldn't want to use an iMac for jobs it was never designed to do.
.....For example, way too much drag-and-dropping things when a keyboard-based approach would be much more effective. .........
There is an ideal system for you from the 1980s. It's called MSDOS. It did not need any stinkin' mouse! The keyboard was king.
Really now, what is simpler to install a program, just drag its icon off the CD onto into your Applications folder or typing a longwinded command line? Even the Mac version of MS Office uses simple drag and drop installation. I can't think of an easier way to install a program into a computer than the way Apple does it.
.....iTunes is not a reason to stay on Mac/Windows.....
Can Amarok activate and update the iPhone? If not the iTunes is still needed for all iphone users. That excludes UBUNTU for now since Apple doesn't make an itunes for it or any Linux flavor.
.....Not to mention the time you've wasted screwing around with putting in motherboards, replacing cases, kernel recompiles, fullfilling dependencies for Linux RPM installations, compiling apps, etc........
People should not be denigrated for things like that. Some people LIKE doing such stuff because the computer is their favorite toy. Not everybody need a computer to actually do work. Some enjoy installing a new OS every other week and adding video cards and other hardware and getting a thrill to have all that stuff to finally work properly. For such people, there is nothing better than a home built, maxed out PC. After all people do the same sort of things with cars as well.
For the rest of the world, who use their cars as transportation tools and their computers as communications, entertainment and creative tools, Macs are generally the best COMPLETE (hardware and software) money can buy.
.....Linux is definitely desktop ready.....
/. reader but not your average uncle George or aunt Millie. I had no problem getting Windows XP or even VISTA to install and run on my Mac using Parallels, but it balked at Ubuntu. I did not have the time to hunt down the solution, although I am sure there is one.
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/. user would not have too much trouble finding and then figuring out the forum advice ond then editing a configuration file or two. If that were needed to get ANYYTHING working for aunt Millie, Linux would be out the door and Windows, warts and all, would be back. For /.ers who LOVE computers (otherwise you wouldn't be reading this) Linux is great, useful and fun, but for the Georges and Millies of this world, who just want to USE a computer as a means to an end, rather than somewhat as an end in and of itself, Linux is definitely out of the running. Any /.er who recommends any flavor of Linux to his/her computer illiterate friend or relative, better be prepared to be the help desk for such persons.
Are you sure about that? Maybe for the desktop of a
There also was a link to a lengthy article from a fellow editor of Information Week, with his experience trying to get UBUNTU running on an HP laptop.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.j
A typical
.......The mid-range system, the iMac, is a great design and a really nice computer, but it is not meaningfully upgradeable, and the choice of components is really limited.......
So what exactly would you like to upgrade? You can plug in USB and Firewire peripherals and increase RAM. You wouldn't need a hot video card unless you want to play games. For that a PC is much better anyway.
What components would you like to replace? The HD? That is a bit harder to replace in the all in one imac, but it can be done. For storing large video and audio files, it is usually simpler to get a 750Gb+ drive. The advantage to that is you can use it on your next computer also, whether from Apple or someone else.
Apple just chooses not to get into the rock bottom computer competition game.
......You still have to waste the money on overpriced, proprietary hardware from Apple though.......
Only Apple makes COMPLETE computers, -- hardware and software. A working computer SYSTEM, all integrated to allow even grandma to be able to run it. Yet any geek or geek wannabe can install most any software whether Linux or Windows instead or in addition to the OSX it comes with. Even OSX allows an expert to go hog wild with the command line if wanted. You even get a compiler and other tools if you want to write cool programs.
Most people, when they buy a car, they want the engine included and built by the maker of that car. Unless you buy from Apple, you will always get the engine made by someone else. Maybe that is worth something extra?
....Actually, you can via virtualization...
I tried this on my macbook Pro and it ddid not even load the live CD and run it.
..... And exactly how would Apple know if it was stolen?....
You tell them by locking your ipod to your computer and itunes account. If you don't want to do that, then don't. If you take the ipod to a friend's house and plug it into their computer, their computer will tell you the ipod is locked. It will ask if you want to log into your itms account. After you do, the ipod is unlocked and the friend's computer is added to the authorized computer list. Before you go home, you can decide to de-authorize that computer again, otherwise it will remain authorized. Before you go over there or on a trip, you can take the risk and de-protect your ipod.
When a thief plugs the protected ipod into an unauthorized computer, the ipod asks if he wants to authorize that computer. He/she can't because they cannot log into your iTms account. That computer also sends its IP address and your ipod serial number to Apple, which sends you an email with that information. The ipod now also becomes a brick. You can decide what action to take with that information. If by chance you should get your ipod back you plug it back into your computer an it will be unbricked and synced again. If you decide to sell the ipod, you'd unprotect it first and erase all your music. Apple could advertise these security features as another selling point. You, however decide whether you want to use them, just as you can for their File Vault encryption system on Macs.
.....and without needing to use itunes......
If you don't need or want itunes, why get an ipod? It's the two together that "just work" and are made for each other. There is no other combination on the market that works as well.
.....if I sell my iPod to someone.....
You should erase and deactivate it with your password before you sell it.
....when using another charger/computer is needed.....
Simple, you authorize any computer by logging into your itunes account. After that you can plug your iPod into it. It will then ask if you want to sync it with the new computer, as it does now. You just reply cancel and charge your ipod. Since a thief cannot log into your account the computer would brick the ipod.
.....What a great way to stop people selling their iPods to someone else and instantly making 2nd hand market for iPods impossible! ......
Why? If you sell your iPod, you just erase it and unlock it first. If someone steals it, they can't do either without your password. They can charge it on an external charger or in a car, but they are stuck with whatever content you had on it.
......So they all wont be able to charge iPods?.......
Any thief will be able to charge the old existing ones, but not change their content. On new iPods, Apple could add a circuit inside that prevents charging. Maybe, even the power management system in the present ipods could be locked.
....charger would need to have electronics capable of providing identification.....
No it wouldn't. The iPod would only get turned into a brick by a computer that doesn't have YOUR authority, not Apple's and not by some dumb charger. You could use it anywhere. If you took your ipod to a friend's house and plugged it unto their computer, the ipod would become a brick. However, if you then took it home, it would get unbricked again for YOU as soon as you plugged into your authorized computer. If you wanted to sell or give the ipod to your friend, you would have to unprotect your ipod first. Your friend/customer could then sync and optionally protect the ipod they got from you with their own password. I think such a system would make iPod theft less frequent.
...... I don't think Apple should be deciding where I can charge my iPod ........
They wouldn't as long as you are the legal owner. Only after a thief plugs it into another computer to sync/charge it, would the ipod be locked. If you, as the rightful owner plugged into your computer, it would automatically be unlocked. As long as it is unlocked, it would work with any charger, but not with an unauthorized computer. A thief couldn't sync the iPod or charge it on another computer. They could charge it and play it in a car or other non-computer charging device. They would be stuck with your music forever. If you sold your iPod you would have to unlock it with your password first.
.....Will it forever remain a brick?......
Why should it? The iPod serial number and the iTunes password can be stored in the legitimate users account by Apple and in the iPod. As long as the thief is happy with the music already stored on the iPod, it will always work in a car or any other source of power. If it is ever plugged into an unauthorized computer it refuses to charge after that.
If a legal owner wishes to transfer the iPod to someone else, he/she must first clear out the password. Only the legal owner can do that. After that point the iPod is unprotected, just as it was when bought new and may be used be a new owner. The new owner may protect the iPod with his/her own password, which is also sent to Apple. If a stolen iPod is plugged into an unauthorized computer, that computer not only locks the iPod but also sends its IP address to Apple which sends an email with that information to the registered user it was stolen from. The legal user can then use that info to try to get their iPod back. The whole system will work essentially similarly as Apple's DRM does today. Such a free service from Apple would be an added incentive to become a registered customer of the iTunes store.
.......In the US, a phone is considered pretty much a commodity item, and use pretty much ONLY for one thing.....calling and talking to people.......
In many countries most people did not even have phones until cell phones were invented, whereas in the US almost everybody had a phone since at least the 1950s. That is true of even rural areas that STILL don't get even the faintest cell signal. They have had the good old fashioned land line phone, not too much different from what Alexander came up with more than a 100 years ago.
Where we live there is no cell phone service. When young people come to visit us they are dismayed, but older folks are delighted to have a rest from being on an "electronic leash" 24/7. We do have DSL Internet however, so when the youngsters get desperate, they can check their email and let their most important friends and associates know that they have not fallen off the planet.
I got a $20 prepaid cell phone which costs me about $40 for 6 months to maintain and keep fed with minutes. It's good enough to call from the airport or on car trips.
It's in large measure because of its history, that the US phone system seems archaic, compared to countries where land line service has never been ubiquitous. In many ways, the US phone system IS archaic, but it works still well, for what it was designed for --- people talking to each other. Because a piece of wire is much simpler than complex radio equipment, a landline phone will ALWAYS be more reliable than wireless.
......and she'll tell you that you have to teach them to get it right.......
Could it be that for more than a few women, that their milk TASTES bad to the baby? Could the reason for that and other common health troubles be due to the poor nutrition afforded by our modern industrialized foods? For example:
Pasteurization of milk available in our grocery stores destroys all the enzymes found in the milk as it comes from the cows. These enzymes are there a number of reasons, one of which is to help digest the milk. Homogenization makes the fat particles so small, that many of them go right through the intestinal wall into the blood. There there fats help build up the deposits that eventually cause heart attacks.
Could it be that all the additives, refined sugars and flour most people eat causes changes that make the infant reject the milk until it gets desperately hungry?
Could it be that the chlorinated water in most cities is detrimental to people in some as yet unknown way? Our children used to earn money by raising pigs and steers for sale at the yearly county fair in our 4H program. Every single one of these animals, every year, refused to drink the city water. Only when they had become desperate with thirst, would they finally drink the stuff. Their horses also would boycott the water until they no longer could stand the thirst. Yet the water was and is considered "safe" for drinking.
Big food and pharma companies don't care about anyone's health, only about maximizing profits.
......and you can be very fast......
From this and other posts here it seems like the next novel or tax laws will be written on an iPhone. This things a PHONE meant for talking to others. It happens to do a few other things fairly well, but putting in even one full page of text is not what it (or other phones) is designed for.
..... Again, without the assumption of uniformity.....
I never said that NOTHING is constant. Some thing change rapidly, some slowly, some a little and some not at all. This is especially applicable if large periods of time, millions and even billions of years are considered. Therefore, if I assume something is constant, I should check that assumption. If it is not possible to check it, then it must be taken on faith, like a religion. If someone slept on that mattress for thousands of years, the material it is made of would likely have crumbled to dust before then, but it will likely be OK for the short human life time. The quest for origins is about the past, not the future.
(....things like diatoms....)
Diatoms have mineral skeletons, like many sea shells and snails. Finding a shell like that somewhere is NOT a fossil. Don't confuse mineral shells of certain creatures with fossils. They are much different.
Upon your suggestion, I looked up fossils on wikipedia, where it says among other things:
"Fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as the footprint or faeces (feces) of a reptile."
"Fossil sites with exceptional preservation -- sometimes including preserved soft tissues -- are known as Lagerstätten. These formations may have resulted from carcass burial in an anoxic environment with minimal bacteria, thus delaying decomposition."
"Paleobiologists have studied the frozen flesh of prehistoric mammoths, and the preserved muscle tissue of archosaurs."
You tell me how a pile of reptile s**t can be preserved in sediment by any slow process. Do an experiment (science). Take some of your excrement and figure out how you can make it into a fossil. Maybe you can get expert on fossils to help you. If that grosses you out, try to fossilize your footprint.
You tell me how a slow burial over time could eliminate decay and oxidation of soft tissues. Only a quick death, immediate preservation by burial, such as caused by a sudden cataclysm could make fossils out of the soft tissues. Notice the phrase "may have resulted". That means nobody knows a plausible mechanism by which the result came about, but are guessing.
You tell me how the mammoths and archsaurs could be preserved by anything OTHER than an overwhelming, sudden catastrophe. Some of these frozen mammoths were found still chewing their last bite of food. They died very suddenly and whatever killed them instantly, also preserved their bodies.
The earth bears the scars of asteroid impacts, evidence of overflowing waters and other marks of a violent past. There is evidence that there is several times as much water trapped in the mantle of the earth, than in all the oceans. Even today, if the earth were smooth, the planet would be nothing but water about a mile deep.
....Look, you're just so full of falsehoods and ignorance...
If you could, you'd tell me how to make a fossil or cite someone who did make one. You KNOW you can't and neither can anyone who believes the evolutionary fairytale.
(....the test is about past experience being uniform....)
No, it is an experiment I repeat every night in the PRESENT, not the past. So far nothing unusual has happened. I usually sleep fine each night unless I ate too much for dinner.
If you want to know WHY evolution is a fairy tale, look here if you dare.
http://www.fhrsporthorses.com/rock-time.htm
If this gets you angry, it is only because deep down you know it's true. Lies never bother people nearly as much as truth they don't WANT to hear and accept.
When people run out of reason, they resort to personal attacks, such as you have.
.....form an explanation for something. ....
....)
......)
If you look up the meaning of the word explanation here:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/explanation
you will see that this term includes to provide an interpretation for a mystery.
(.....that fossils were made rapidly.....)
There is no way anyone knows of, whereby a fossil can be made slowly. Today, when a living organism dies, it DECAYS. It never makes a fossil. To prevent decay, all agents that cause such decay must be eliminated. That means decay causing organisms must be killed or inactivated very quickly after death and oxygen must be excluded almost immediately. Slow burial in sediments doesn't work. Nobody has EVER made a fossil, using any conceivable slow evolutionary mechanism. Maybe you have some information on how it is possible to make a fossil today by a slow extended process over time.
Fossilization always involves water in that fossils are found in sedimentary formations only. A sudden destructive burial of the large variety of living things, while yet alive, under miles of mud and silt, in a cataclysmic flood of rushing water fits the evidence of fossils. The immense pressure and resultant heat killed micro-organisms that cause decay and exclude oxygen. A slow burial over a long time doesn't.
(.....these assumptions are no different than the ones you make when you assume that your bed is made of matresses
However, I can test such assumptions EXPERIMENTALLY by lying down on one to see if they are valid. There is NO way to test some of the assumptions of evolutionists. It is science to make assumptions that can be tested by observation. Religious assumptions (beliefs) and evolutionary beliefs cannot be tested. That's why they are both only beliefs. The assumption that nothing ever changes (such as some natural "constants") cannot be tested experimentally. We do have evidence that most of nature is dynamic, not an unchanging static. Assuming that fossils were made "somehow", but not being able to make one by any theorized process is not science but faith.
(..... If the rate of nuclear decay were once much higher,
You are forgetting that energy conservation laws would prevent this. For example, a larger Planck's constant h in the past would reduce atomic cross sections. You can think of h being a sort of damping factor for the vibrations of atoms. This means the likelihood of an emitted particle from dissipating its energy within a given amount of matter would decrease. Even today, an atom is mostly empty space. With a larger h it would in effect be even emptier. Also, the now rather big, slow moving, destructive flying fragments of radioactive decay would instead be smaller, moving much faster. Thus energy conservation laws would not be violated and atomic binding forces would not change. In combination with the smaller cross section of atoms, radioactivity fragments, such as gamma rays are effectively smaller, moving faster and therefore would have very little interaction with matter on that account as well. There are particles called neutrinos still today, which go through the whole earth and never interact with a single atom. With a much larger h, other particles, such as gamma rays from radioactivity and radiation from space would behave in a similar fashion as neutrinos still do.
A two dimensional analogy would be a chain link fence and some chicken wire fencing. If you would shoot marble sized steel balls at the chicken wire you would have a certain chance of each ball breaking a wire, ultimately destroying the whole fence. Now if shot BB's at a larger chain link fence sized wire mesh, each of them moving correspondingly faster in order to carry the same energy as each ball did, the probability of damaging the fence would be comparatively small.
On the atomic level, this means for example, that genetic DNA damage by a
.....and believe it or not, most people don't give a shit if it's loaded with spyware and viruses........
/. type of people.
An increasing number of people are finding out it doesn't have to be that way. They are learning that there is one company that makes both the hardware and its software as a complete system that "just works". This company also make a music player and recently a phone that just work. There are other phones, music player and computers that have bells and whistles that Apple doesn't make and they make no cheap, rock bottom priced products at all.
Maybe, if one of the other name brand computer makers adopted Linux, picked ONE unified flavor thereof and made as SURE as humanly possible that their computers worked at least as well as OSX does on Macs, Linux might get off the ground. They would also have to have a help desk where befuddled consumers can turn to for any problems that inevitably arise in all hi-tech products. They would have to include applications at least equivalent to the ones that Apple includes and make certain that these apps worked as advertised. There are many good open source programs they could choose from to make friendly and support for non-techie users.
A large company would however have to be "willing to bet the ranch" and abandon Windows, since MS would not let them install their wares for the steep discounts they give to faithful Windows only PC makers. Large established companies are seldom willing to make such all or nothing bets. Until something like that happens, Linux will remain a very nice OS, but be used mostly by the