....Because if someone is pirating movies, or trading child porn, or planning a terrorist attack, you will probably go to jail or be sued?.....
Neither has happened yet AFAIK, because all that needs to be done is to examine our computers and see that they are free of the offending material. In the US, so far at least there has to some evidence that the accused was involved in or knew of the crime. The ISP may squawk however and cut off service. There are many open access points in coffee shops and other public places. In the Portland OR, airport I had no trouble connecting to the Internet. They also have little booths with Ethernet jacks.
Sharing Internet connections is a bit off topic anyway. I suppose it is inconceivable to many/.ers that there are people that have lived and continue to, without the Internet nor cell phones. I do have a cell phone, but it is only on for MY convenience, when I really need to make a call right where I happen to be. After the call, it is immediately turned off again. We got DSL mainly to listen to my favorite FM Radio Station from the Bay Area since we moved away from their normal broadcast range. The dial up we had was good enough for reading and posting/. occasionally.
....Are there even 1.2 million Macs in operation?.....
Even if there were only ONE Mac, there are zero Mac bots. So therefore Macs are infinitely more secure than Windows. Besides, who cares WHY nobody breaks into my house (Mac)? All I know is that criminals stay away and leave my possessions alone. I could not care less what the reasons are that they do. Maybe it is that mean, snarling Doberman in the yard or I have strong locks or doors. Maybe I do live in the woods. So what? I can explore the wild Internet with a Mac, like a riding in an armored car in a bad neighborhood.
...... So I don't think they're going to be able to pad their bottom line by selling an extra 10 copies of NAV to Mac consumers by producing any kidn of report........
I don't think so either. What they want to do is paint the Mac with stinking statistical brush that smells worse than Microsoft. That way enterprise users won't get the unthinkable idea of switching to a computer system that doesn't need the Symantec crap. They are a Microsoft parasite, but can't suck blood out of the Macs and are deathly afraid that if enterprise switches to Macs in large numbers their main income would disappear.
....I think much greater weight should be given to the amount of time it takes for a company to fix severe problems.....
Even greater weight should be given to how many infected computer there are out there trying to spew their spam and other malware all over the Internet. A current article on/. states there are 1.2 million such infected systems out there. That is really the ONLY meaningful statistic. Is maybe ONE of these infected systems a Mac running OSX?
....Indeed, the ONLY thing that this study shows is that the Apple ads are full of shit........
This is counter to a current/. article that says there are 1.2 million bots in operation, worldwide. Does even ONE of these run on OSX? Maybe Apple is right on!
....I am rather looking forward to the comments from Apple users.....
You are , are you?! Well right here on/. at this time, there is a front page post on 1.2 million bot infestations. Read some of that. I bet that not even ONE of these is on a Mac under OSX. Symantec doesn't like Macs because they don't need the crap Symantec tries to sell in the disguise of anti-malware programs. If one day it came out that they promote the black hat hackers just so the can sell more of their garbage, I would not be surprised in the least. I don't understand why anyone pays attention to such self-serving drivel from that company.
....Gravity measurement? Could you point me to some reading on this?....
Look at post (#18437001) and subsequent. All clocks use regular motion. All motion is governed by fundamental forces. The motion of atoms is governed by electric forces and the motion of heavenly bodies is controlled by gravity.
...The problem is the person who gets the song and then copies or downloads all the other songs and doesn't go buy the CD....
The erroneous assumption by you and the **AA is that this person would have bought the CD or DVD if the material were NOT available on the Internet.
There may be a few who will do that, but a much larger number are honest and acquire material honestly. Assuming everybody to be a thief and/or lawbreaker is poor public relations. There is no form of advertising that works better and is therefore more valuable than direct word of mouth. Maybe when some of the current young generation music buyer get control of the music companies, the DRM paranoia and all that goes with it will cease. Meanwhile there is opportunity for others to have a head start on this and profit, selling non-enslaved materials, while the old fogies that run the big media companies today slowly die off.
....Seeing as the earth must be angularly decelerating at an excruciatingly slow rate......
At present, measuring the distance of the earth to sun to great accuracy is less feasible than doing this for the earth moon relationship. Both the earth and the moon are thought to be (by evolutionary theory) about the same age. It is a measured fact that the moon is receding from the earth a little each year. Figuring the present rate backwards would place the moon in contact with the earth in only a few hundred thousand gravity years, not millions or even billions. The possibilities are: 1) The earth "captured" the moon or it was ripped out of the earth much later, 2) The earth and moon are not nearly as old as evolutionary beliefs postulate.
The rate at which comets lose material can be plainly observed. A comet should not last more than about 15,000 gravity years. The fact that comets still exist means either the universe is very young or comets are being still made somewhere. No evidence has been OBSERVED for a spawning place for comets. There are some mathematical speculations about an Oort cloud, but NO observations of such.
(.....I'd like to see a citation or something; that's a hell of a claim.....)
The most detailed, easily understood source, with all sorts of citations, should you be inclined to pursue this, is found at:
You will find there a rather comprehensive history of man's measuring of one of the fundaments "constants", namely the speed of light. Planck's Constant is inversely related to this and appears in the equations governing atomic phenomena, including radioactivity which of course is used for dating rocks, both from the earth and the moon and other sources. The speed of light is highly variable, dependent on the medium it propagated in. If the medium changes, the speed changes. Space is just another medium, having measured electrical and magnetic properties. If its properties change, then the speed of light through will also.
Fossils are a major cornerstone of evolutionary theory. Yet nobody has ever made a fossil in the laboratory or observed one in process of formation today. Today, if an organism dies, it provides food for another, but NEVER makes a fossil.
Like I said, evolution is a belief system, just like any other religion. The difference is that it is cloaked in the mantle of science and funded by taxpayer money in the US.
.....Now the question is, just how much commentary do I need to add to "fair use" copy Bill Gates's interview with Jon Stewart?......
The copyright violation should only be predicated on the premise that it is NOT a violation at all if the one that does the copying cannot ever benefit financially in any way. That is what real 'pirates' do. They use other people's IP to make money for themselves. A consumer copying a CD or file to their ipod or emailing a song to their friends should always be allowed. What difference does it make whether I listen to a new song on the radio and then go buy the record or whether I get a copy of the song in an email or download and then buy the recording? Either way I was exposed through advertising and decided to buy. Why should radio, even recording the song therefrom be legal and downloading it from the Internet be unlawful? All avenues of content distribution should be treated like. The content companies should let anyone advertise their wares and be even happy to get all that free advertising. Apparently they don't get this idea yet.
....No, the earth is about 6500 years old. It says so right in the Bible, so it must be true. All this billions-of-years-old stuff is a scheme concocted by the evil scientists.....
Actually, they are both right. It's just like is light particles or waves? It's both. To measure time you need a clock. There are two kinds of clocks we use. The one scientists use is run by the electronic forces that control the atoms and their particles. That's the one that governs your digital watch and radioactivity. The Bible uses the force that controls the motion of the earth, planets and galaxies, the force of gravity. Your grandfather's pendulum clock is timed by gravity.
The equations that govern the atomic forces ALL have a time value in them; that is they are contain certain "constants". There is no known law of physics that mandates that the actually remain constant. The equations that govern gravity, do NOT contain any constants. Gravity depends ONLY on mass and distance, nothing else.
The entire evolutionary belief system, masquerading as science, mandating billions of years, is based on the assumption (belief) that these constants truly are and always were constant as we measure them today. Even today, the atomic clock it drifting measurably slower against the gravity one. There is evidence that some of these so called constants may have changed by as much as a factor 300 million since the "big bang" event. There is an equivalence (nonlinear as most things in nature are) between the two time scales.
........The earth is about 4.5 billion years old......
Depends on whether you use an atomic clock or one operated by gravity. The above figure is about right for atomic years, but 6000 is gravity measurement.
....But this is Apple, so it is probably OK for them to do it.......
Apple is run by people and these there can be just as foolish as those at MS. Apple should be happy when hackers pound on OSX. I makes all their Mac customers even more secure than they already are, provided Apple promptly fixes the problems found. Anyone who writes software ought to be glad when bugs are found and can be fixed in time.
...I can purchase at least two PCs versus one Mac of comparable specs.....
I'd like you or anyone who reads this, to demonstrate this assertion with vendor links, prices and specifications. Perhaps a no name, white box desktop system might be half price of an iMac, but one of these would not come close in features and cost only half of what iMacs sell for. As for laptops and workstation class systems, Macs actually cost less, or at least the same as an equivalent other name brand computer. Of course, it is possible to buy a stripped down Windows box which will be fine for simple email and web surfing stock reports. Apple doesn't sell anything other than full featured multi-media hardware with superb software to match. Anyone who doesn't want this capability should not spend the extra for it and therefore should not buy an Apple computer, any more than a car buyer in Alaska needs and air-conditioner.
.....then does the combination become the old computer?........
In the case of computers, the CPU IS the computer, at least as far as the hardware goes. The "soul" of the computer, if it can be called that, is the OS and sum total of all its other software. If a Mac runs Windows XP rather than OSX, does that make it a different computer with a unique "personality" or is it still a Mac? If a Dell came with Windows XP and you replace that with Linux, is that Dell still the same computer?
If all identifying marks are removed from the hardware, would you be able to tell that it was a Mac by the software it runs? Only if there was some internal hardware identifier that the computer software could access and communicate, would you ever know you were using Apple hardware. So, it is the software, more than the hardware, that determines what a computer is and does. This software is immaterial and is loaded into the computer from external sources.
In human analogy, your body is the hardware as a whole and the brain is the CPU. Nobody knows for sure exactly how and where this thing we call "personality" or "consciousness" resides. In a computer one might say that it is NOT the CPU, but the main storage device, say the hard drive, which holds the "personality" of that computer. In humans there is evidence that this storage device is part of the brain, but there is also evidence that consciousness may be elsewhere, even apart from the body entirely, also immaterial and loaded in from external sources.
....Apple doesn't sell computers either. They sell software with a $2000 copy protection dongle attached......
No, Apple sells a $2000 computer with their own free operating system. You can replace that with your very own copy of Windows of you want. That way Bill won't go hungry. I don't know for sure, but there is no reason I know why Linux could not also work on the new Macs.
....There is no way the average lifespan of a consumer PC before it gets thrown away is two years......
Most users get a new computer when the existing one will not easily do a new task. Older Windows laptops for example seldom come with wireless capability. Most users do not have the desire nor capability to install a wireless interface. Therefore they'll buy a new computer that has it, if they really want that feature. Macs have always been more complete and therefore slightly more expensive. I bought a Powerbook in 2001 which has wireless networking built in. There were virtually no new Windows machines back them that did. That old machine doesn't do our Photoshop or movie editing and the battery lasts less than an hour, but still makes a great multimedia music and movie player connected to a projector and stereo in the living room. So, the article is right, Macs are useful longer.
Also, old Macs do sell for more on e-bay. That is not anecdotal, but anyone can check e-bay to see that.
....Indeed. But it would take a long afternoon of some really deep philosphical arguments for me to admit that I don't know the answer......
Why does that take so much thought? A computer is basically the CPU. The rest of the stuff in the box just supports that. Same for display, mouse and keyboard. So, simply as long as you have the same CPU you still have the same computer. Upgrade RAM, disk, display etc. but leave the CPU alone. So if the CPU is upgraded, then system is a new computer, even if it is in the same old box with all the other old pieces.
.... but i've never seen a Mac without Symantec installed on it......
Well, I've had 13 Macs since the first mac plus and NONE of them has ever had any Symantec crap installed. The only anti-virus program that ever lived on any Mac was a program called Disinfectant, which was a freebie program. None of the Macs we have now, nor any Mac owners I know have *any* sort of anti-malware software. Macs without all that garbage are still safer than any Windows machine with every anti malware program in existence installed thereon.
The need to install such stuff on a computer is equivalent to having to install seat belts, airbags and anti-lock brakes on a new car. Modern cars should and do come with these from the factory.
Hopefully the need for such expensive, troublesome extra garbage software on Windows machines has been eliminated or at least greatly reduced with VISTA. I ordered a copy of VISTA to try on one of our PCs.
.....really seems like claiming global warming in 2007 is nothing more than claiming global cooling as in the 1970's.........
Climate variation in recorded history are far greater than any there have been since mankind started burning fossil fuels. We are in an upswing right now and there will be a downswing of temperature again. Most things in nature are cyclical. Besides, I'd rather have warming than another ice age. Growing bananas in Alaska might not be so terrible.
There was an article on/. recently about Mars and Pluto also having global warming and the Martian ice-caps receding. The Martians had better stop driving their CO2 belching SUVs.
......There is NO question that that expansion of the universe is accelerating........
Is this a real measured fact or is this based on a commonly accepted interpretation of a known measurement? The whole idea of a rapidly expanding universe is based on the interpretation of the measured fact of the red shift. If the cause, that is the interpretation of this fact is not really true, then the whole house of cards of dark matter and energy becomes superfluous. The red shift's present "generally accepted" interpretation is the doppler effect. If that is NOT what causes the red shift, then some other assumptions about the universe also become questionable. Among these is its immense age. A proven young universe would make evolutionists very uncomfortable.
....Dell or HP that meets the user's requirements.....
Maybe you're right for entry level jobs if the company has a lot of those. However that Mac mini might find wider applications throughout the organization. Getting as few kinds of systems as possible has big advantages of interchangeability. If a slightly higher level work requires WiFi those jobs can be done by a more capable machine also. After 5 years or so you'll have a hard time giving that cheap Dell to anyone, whereas you still might get some money for a Mac. Even getting only $50 for an old mac is a lot better than having to PAY $5 to haul an old decrepit PC to the recycling yard. Compare ebay prices on similar aged Macs and Dells and give me a report. Most Dells that age are not even worth selling because of the shipping cost. An old mini G4 costs little to ship and will likely work fine with a buyer's old monitor, keyboard and mouse.
....However I would need a 50% salary raise for the second OS skills set....
Fine, I'll pay you that and fire the other 3 persons, since you'll be able to run our whole IT dept. by yourself now. You won't have to worry about malware re-installing Windows and all our other software either. Maybe I can even get one of our secretaries do your job and save even more.
.....now what about paying almost 2x for Apple hardware over non-proprietary PCs......
I challenge you to show that this is true. Apple hardware for the same features is only a little more expensive at the low end and actually cheaper at the high end. Do some price comparisons, not with cheap off brands or home made garbage hardware, but major brands, hp, Dell, Sony etc. Apple hardware, regardless of what OS you run on it is not much more expensive compared to all the other hardware makers. The same is true for mp3 players. After all, the electronic parts of all this paraphernalia all comes from the same factories in Asia making chips, resistors, capacitors, circuit boards and plastic moldings.
.....Many times, these folks can't stand the thought of empowered users.....
More likely, they are worried that half of them or more would be out of work. Every department manager is an empire builder of sorts. IT empires are no different. None of them will ever allow any decision that would diminish the importance and budget of their little fiefdom if they can at all help it. The do a snow job on the boss and that's often been the end of the story. However because the boss him/herself, spouse or kids may have a Mac or iPod they may ask the IT guys why Macs are NOT considered in the office. The IT folks better have a convincing answer.
Slashdot Mirror
....Because if someone is pirating movies, or trading child porn, or planning a terrorist attack, you will probably go to jail or be sued?.....
/.ers that there are people that have lived and continue to, without the Internet nor cell phones. I do have a cell phone, but it is only on for MY convenience, when I really need to make a call right where I happen to be. After the call, it is immediately turned off again. We got DSL mainly to listen to my favorite FM Radio Station from the Bay Area since we moved away from their normal broadcast range. The dial up we had was good enough for reading and posting /. occasionally.
Neither has happened yet AFAIK, because all that needs to be done is to examine our computers and see that they are free of the offending material. In the US, so far at least there has to some evidence that the accused was involved in or knew of the crime. The ISP may squawk however and cut off service. There are many open access points in coffee shops and other public places. In the Portland OR, airport I had no trouble connecting to the Internet. They also have little booths with Ethernet jacks.
Sharing Internet connections is a bit off topic anyway. I suppose it is inconceivable to many
....Are there even 1.2 million Macs in operation?.....
Even if there were only ONE Mac, there are zero Mac bots. So therefore Macs are infinitely more secure than Windows. Besides, who cares WHY nobody breaks into my house (Mac)? All I know is that criminals stay away and leave my possessions alone. I could not care less what the reasons are that they do. Maybe it is that mean, snarling Doberman in the yard or I have strong locks or doors. Maybe I do live in the woods. So what? I can explore the wild Internet with a Mac, like a riding in an armored car in a bad neighborhood.
...... So I don't think they're going to be able to pad their bottom line by selling an extra 10 copies of NAV to Mac consumers by producing any kidn of report. .......
I don't think so either. What they want to do is paint the Mac with stinking statistical brush that smells worse than Microsoft. That way enterprise users won't get the unthinkable idea of switching to a computer system that doesn't need the Symantec crap. They are a Microsoft parasite, but can't suck blood out of the Macs and are deathly afraid that if enterprise switches to Macs in large numbers their main income would disappear.
....I think much greater weight should be given to the amount of time it takes for a company to fix severe problems.....
/. states there are 1.2 million such infected systems out there. That is really the ONLY meaningful statistic. Is maybe ONE of these infected systems a Mac running OSX?
Even greater weight should be given to how many infected computer there are out there trying to spew their spam and other malware all over the Internet. A current article on
....Indeed, the ONLY thing that this study shows is that the Apple ads are full of shit........
/. article that says there are 1.2 million bots in operation, worldwide. Does even ONE of these run on OSX? Maybe Apple is right on!
This is counter to a current
....I am rather looking forward to the comments from Apple users.....
/. at this time, there is a front page post on 1.2 million bot infestations. Read some of that. I bet that not even ONE of these is on a Mac under OSX. Symantec doesn't like Macs because they don't need the crap Symantec tries to sell in the disguise of anti-malware programs. If one day it came out that they promote the black hat hackers just so the can sell more of their garbage, I would not be surprised in the least. I don't understand why anyone pays attention to such self-serving drivel from that company.
You are , are you?! Well right here on
....Gravity measurement? Could you point me to some reading on this?....
Look at post (#18437001) and subsequent. All clocks use regular motion. All motion is governed by fundamental forces. The motion of atoms is governed by electric forces and the motion of heavenly bodies is controlled by gravity.
...The problem is the person who gets the song and then copies or downloads all the other songs and doesn't go buy the CD....
The erroneous assumption by you and the **AA is that this person would have bought the CD or DVD if the material were NOT available on the Internet.
There may be a few who will do that, but a much larger number are honest and acquire material honestly. Assuming everybody to be a thief and/or lawbreaker is poor public relations. There is no form of advertising that works better and is therefore more valuable than direct word of mouth. Maybe when some of the current young generation music buyer get control of the music companies, the DRM paranoia and all that goes with it will cease. Meanwhile there is opportunity for others to have a head start on this and profit, selling non-enslaved materials, while the old fogies that run the big media companies today slowly die off.
....Seeing as the earth must be angularly decelerating at an excruciatingly slow rate......
At present, measuring the distance of the earth to sun to great accuracy is less feasible than doing this for the earth moon relationship. Both the earth and the moon are thought to be (by evolutionary theory) about the same age. It is a measured fact that the moon is receding from the earth a little each year. Figuring the present rate backwards would place the moon in contact with the earth in only a few hundred thousand gravity years, not millions or even billions. The possibilities are: 1) The earth "captured" the moon or it was ripped out of the earth much later, 2) The earth and moon are not nearly as old as evolutionary beliefs postulate.
The rate at which comets lose material can be plainly observed. A comet should not last more than about 15,000 gravity years. The fact that comets still exist means either the universe is very young or comets are being still made somewhere. No evidence has been OBSERVED for a spawning place for comets. There are some mathematical speculations about an Oort cloud, but NO observations of such.
(.....I'd like to see a citation or something; that's a hell of a claim.....)
The most detailed, easily understood source, with all sorts of citations, should you be inclined to pursue this, is found at:
http://www.setterfield.org/cx1.html
You will find there a rather comprehensive history of man's measuring of one of the fundaments "constants", namely the speed of light. Planck's Constant is inversely related to this and appears in the equations governing atomic phenomena, including radioactivity which of course is used for dating rocks, both from the earth and the moon and other sources. The speed of light is highly variable, dependent on the medium it propagated in. If the medium changes, the speed changes. Space is just another medium, having measured electrical and magnetic properties. If its properties change, then the speed of light through will also.
Fossils are a major cornerstone of evolutionary theory. Yet nobody has ever made a fossil in the laboratory or observed one in process of formation today. Today, if an organism dies, it provides food for another, but NEVER makes a fossil.
Like I said, evolution is a belief system, just like any other religion. The difference is that it is cloaked in the mantle of science and funded by taxpayer money in the US.
.....Now the question is, just how much commentary do I need to add to "fair use" copy Bill Gates's interview with Jon Stewart?......
The copyright violation should only be predicated on the premise that it is NOT a violation at all if the one that does the copying cannot ever benefit financially in any way. That is what real 'pirates' do. They use other people's IP to make money for themselves. A consumer copying a CD or file to their ipod or emailing a song to their friends should always be allowed. What difference does it make whether I listen to a new song on the radio and then go buy the record or whether I get a copy of the song in an email or download and then buy the recording? Either way I was exposed through advertising and decided to buy. Why should radio, even recording the song therefrom be legal and downloading it from the Internet be unlawful? All avenues of content distribution should be treated like. The content companies should let anyone advertise their wares and be even happy to get all that free advertising. Apparently they don't get this idea yet.
....No, the earth is about 6500 years old. It says so right in the Bible, so it must be true. All this billions-of-years-old stuff is a scheme concocted by the evil scientists.....
Actually, they are both right. It's just like is light particles or waves? It's both. To measure time you need a clock. There are two kinds of clocks we use. The one scientists use is run by the electronic forces that control the atoms and their particles. That's the one that governs your digital watch and radioactivity. The Bible uses the force that controls the motion of the earth, planets and galaxies, the force of gravity. Your grandfather's pendulum clock is timed by gravity.
The equations that govern the atomic forces ALL have a time value in them; that is they are contain certain "constants". There is no known law of physics that mandates that the actually remain constant. The equations that govern gravity, do NOT contain any constants. Gravity depends ONLY on mass and distance, nothing else.
The entire evolutionary belief system, masquerading as science, mandating billions of years, is based on the assumption (belief) that these constants truly are and always were constant as we measure them today. Even today, the atomic clock it drifting measurably slower against the gravity one. There is evidence that some of these so called constants may have changed by as much as a factor 300 million since the "big bang" event. There is an equivalence (nonlinear as most things in nature are) between the two time scales.
........The earth is about 4.5 billion years old......
Depends on whether you use an atomic clock or one operated by gravity. The above figure is about right for atomic years, but 6000 is gravity measurement.
....But this is Apple, so it is probably OK for them to do it.......
Apple is run by people and these there can be just as foolish as those at MS. Apple should be happy when hackers pound on OSX. I makes all their Mac customers even more secure than they already are, provided Apple promptly fixes the problems found. Anyone who writes software ought to be glad when bugs are found and can be fixed in time.
...I can purchase at least two PCs versus one Mac of comparable specs.....
I'd like you or anyone who reads this, to demonstrate this assertion with vendor links, prices and specifications. Perhaps a no name, white box desktop system might be half price of an iMac, but one of these would not come close in features and cost only half of what iMacs sell for. As for laptops and workstation class systems, Macs actually cost less, or at least the same as an equivalent other name brand computer. Of course, it is possible to buy a stripped down Windows box which will be fine for simple email and web surfing stock reports. Apple doesn't sell anything other than full featured multi-media hardware with superb software to match. Anyone who doesn't want this capability should not spend the extra for it and therefore should not buy an Apple computer, any more than a car buyer in Alaska needs and air-conditioner.
.....then does the combination become the old computer?........
In the case of computers, the CPU IS the computer, at least as far as the hardware goes. The "soul" of the computer, if it can be called that, is the OS and sum total of all its other software. If a Mac runs Windows XP rather than OSX, does that make it a different computer with a unique "personality" or is it still a Mac? If a Dell came with Windows XP and you replace that with Linux, is that Dell still the same computer?
If all identifying marks are removed from the hardware, would you be able to tell that it was a Mac by the software it runs? Only if there was some internal hardware identifier that the computer software could access and communicate, would you ever know you were using Apple hardware. So, it is the software, more than the hardware, that determines what a computer is and does. This software is immaterial and is loaded into the computer from external sources.
In human analogy, your body is the hardware as a whole and the brain is the CPU. Nobody knows for sure exactly how and where this thing we call "personality" or "consciousness" resides. In a computer one might say that it is NOT the CPU, but the main storage device, say the hard drive, which holds the "personality" of that computer. In humans there is evidence that this storage device is part of the brain, but there is also evidence that consciousness may be elsewhere, even apart from the body entirely, also immaterial and loaded in from external sources.
....Apple doesn't sell computers either. They sell software with a $2000 copy protection dongle attached......
No, Apple sells a $2000 computer with their own free operating system. You can replace that with your very own copy of Windows of you want. That way Bill won't go hungry. I don't know for sure, but there is no reason I know why Linux could not also work on the new Macs.
....There is no way the average lifespan of a consumer PC before it gets thrown away is two years......
Most users get a new computer when the existing one will not easily do a new task. Older Windows laptops for example seldom come with wireless capability. Most users do not have the desire nor capability to install a wireless interface. Therefore they'll buy a new computer that has it, if they really want that feature. Macs have always been more complete and therefore slightly more expensive. I bought a Powerbook in 2001 which has wireless networking built in. There were virtually no new Windows machines back them that did. That old machine doesn't do our Photoshop or movie editing and the battery lasts less than an hour, but still makes a great multimedia music and movie player connected to a projector and stereo in the living room. So, the article is right, Macs are useful longer.
Also, old Macs do sell for more on e-bay. That is not anecdotal, but anyone can check e-bay to see that.
....Indeed. But it would take a long afternoon of some really deep philosphical arguments for me to admit that I don't know the answer......
Why does that take so much thought? A computer is basically the CPU. The rest of the stuff in the box just supports that. Same for display, mouse and keyboard. So, simply as long as you have the same CPU you still have the same computer. Upgrade RAM, disk, display etc. but leave the CPU alone. So if the CPU is upgraded, then system is a new computer, even if it is in the same old box with all the other old pieces.
.... but i've never seen a Mac without Symantec installed on it......
Well, I've had 13 Macs since the first mac plus and NONE of them has ever had any Symantec crap installed. The only anti-virus program that ever lived on any Mac was a program called Disinfectant, which was a freebie program. None of the Macs we have now, nor any Mac owners I know have *any* sort of anti-malware software. Macs without all that garbage are still safer than any Windows machine with every anti malware program in existence installed thereon.
The need to install such stuff on a computer is equivalent to having to install seat belts, airbags and anti-lock brakes on a new car. Modern cars should and do come with these from the factory.
Hopefully the need for such expensive, troublesome extra garbage software on Windows machines has been eliminated or at least greatly reduced with VISTA. I ordered a copy of VISTA to try on one of our PCs.
.....really seems like claiming global warming in 2007 is nothing more than claiming global cooling as in the 1970's.........
/. recently about Mars and Pluto also having global warming and the Martian ice-caps receding. The Martians had better stop driving their CO2 belching SUVs.
Climate variation in recorded history are far greater than any there have been since mankind started burning fossil fuels. We are in an upswing right now and there will be a downswing of temperature again. Most things in nature are cyclical. Besides, I'd rather have warming than another ice age. Growing bananas in Alaska might not be so terrible.
There was an article on
......There is NO question that that expansion of the universe is accelerating........
Is this a real measured fact or is this based on a commonly accepted interpretation of a known measurement? The whole idea of a rapidly expanding universe is based on the interpretation of the measured fact of the red shift. If the cause, that is the interpretation of this fact is not really true, then the whole house of cards of dark matter and energy becomes superfluous. The red shift's present "generally accepted" interpretation is the doppler effect. If that is NOT what causes the red shift, then some other assumptions about the universe also become questionable. Among these is its immense age. A proven young universe would make evolutionists very uncomfortable.
....Dell or HP that meets the user's requirements.....
Maybe you're right for entry level jobs if the company has a lot of those. However that Mac mini might find wider applications throughout the organization. Getting as few kinds of systems as possible has big advantages of interchangeability. If a slightly higher level work requires WiFi those jobs can be done by a more capable machine also. After 5 years or so you'll have a hard time giving that cheap Dell to anyone, whereas you still might get some money for a Mac. Even getting only $50 for an old mac is a lot better than having to PAY $5 to haul an old decrepit PC to the recycling yard. Compare ebay prices on similar aged Macs and Dells and give me a report. Most Dells that age are not even worth selling because of the shipping cost. An old mini G4 costs little to ship and will likely work fine with a buyer's old monitor, keyboard and mouse.
....However I would need a 50% salary raise for the second OS skills set....
Fine, I'll pay you that and fire the other 3 persons, since you'll be able to run our whole IT dept. by yourself now. You won't have to worry about malware re-installing Windows and all our other software either. Maybe I can even get one of our secretaries do your job and save even more.
.....now what about paying almost 2x for Apple hardware over non-proprietary PCs......
I challenge you to show that this is true. Apple hardware for the same features is only a little more expensive at the low end and actually cheaper at the high end. Do some price comparisons, not with cheap off brands or home made garbage hardware, but major brands, hp, Dell, Sony etc. Apple hardware, regardless of what OS you run on it is not much more expensive compared to all the other hardware makers. The same is true for mp3 players. After all, the electronic parts of all this paraphernalia all comes from the same factories in Asia making chips, resistors, capacitors, circuit boards and plastic moldings.
.....Many times, these folks can't stand the thought of empowered users.....
More likely, they are worried that half of them or more would be out of work. Every department manager is an empire builder of sorts. IT empires are no different. None of them will ever allow any decision that would diminish the importance and budget of their little fiefdom if they can at all help it. The do a snow job on the boss and that's often been the end of the story. However because the boss him/herself, spouse or kids may have a Mac or iPod they may ask the IT guys why Macs are NOT considered in the office. The IT folks better have a convincing answer.