....Ok, so how did your observation of my experiment go?.....
The water level stayed the same or may have decreased minutely. I made sure that all the ice was floating in the glass. Any ice touching the bottom of the glass is equivalent to glaciers on land and would make the level go up. The key is that to simulate the sea ice, the ice cubes have to totally float in the water.
The reason the water level might actually do DOWN is that any trapped gases in the ice increases the volume of the ice displacing the water will pass off into the air. That effect is small however.
....I think not. That would mean significant areas of the world with temperatures regularly hitting 50C in summer.......
Just because it gets warmer at the polar regions doesn't mean it has to get correspondingly hotter in the tropics. The small presently observed warming that everybody is talking about is affecting those cold places, but has no discernible effect in the tropical lands or seas.
(.....I thought you said all that evaporated water had to come out on land? Instead, it can remain in the warmer air.....)
When warm moist air from the oceans hits land, it rises and therefore cools. That cooling causes the water to precipitate. If it cold enough such in the polar regions, it makes snow which piles up into ice.
(....A temperature rise of 5C could be enough to start a positive feedback of warming......)
The average temperature of earth is determined by solar output and how much heat from the sun gets to the surface and how much radiates away again. When the oceans get warmer, more water evaporates and there are more clouds which reflect sunlight. That puts a damper on further heating. That is a negative feedback effect.
......then develop experimental studies to determine the accuracy of such predictions.......
The repeatable experiment is the key to good science. It separates educated conjecture from what is really observed. Einstein came up with some far out hypotheses and had the math to prove them. Many experiments have been done and are still ongoing that show that he is describing things as they are.
Here is an example of the difference between experimental observation and the interpretation:
In 1929 Mr. Hubble discovered that light from stars and galaxies is shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. That is STILL all that we can actually measure. He INTERPRETED that the cause of this is the familiar doppler effect. That is where we get the idea that these galaxies are receding from us and each other at astonishing velocities approaching the speed of light. More recent data show that the red shift must be caused by something more fundamental than simple doppler stretching. The data of the red shift is not in dispute, only its interpretation.
....Weird. - so, Apple is not PERFECT when it comes to sleep/hibernate issues......
One thing I have found with updates is to never use the incremental updates, but always the combo version. Also, check the file system and permissions and if needed run the repair utility. Then restart the computer and install the applicable combo version immediately before running any other application. Also, unless a vulnerability affects you, wait until the next combo update comes out rather than installing Apple's security patches. That procedure will go a long way in avoiding unforeseen glitches.
......The largest portion of the world's ice is in Antartica.....
Even a substantial part of that is floating on the oceans surrounding that continent. Those extensive floating ice fields would have to melt first, before the land based ice would even begin to melt. As the oceans warm up, more water evaporates and the surface where the ice used to be is exposed. All that added water then precipitates out over the land. That means that ice could actually build up on the colder, elevated locations of the planet, lowering the level of the seas.
Get out that beautiful National Geographic relief map of the world's oceans sometime. Notice that many of the major rivers continue their bed across what is now the continental shelf and then drop off suddenly into the deep basins. The Amazon is the most prominent example. If these shelves had always been under water, the river bed would end at present sea level.
It is a fact that a warmer atmosphere can hold much more water in suspension which would more than compensate for any melting ice masses on land. A hurricane is a powerful demonstration of the incredible water holding capacity of warm, tropical air. Water both in vapor and liquid forms has a huge heat storing capacity. Warm moist air and warmer ocean currents would affect the climate much more in the now colder parts of earth than the tropics. We see a demonstration of this in how the Gulf Stream keeps most of Europe much warmer in winter than comparable latitudes elsewhere.
Real global warming, say 10degC or so would greatly increase the habitable land area for both man and beast. I don't think any of our Canadian friends would object to orange groves in their northern territories. There is no indication that we are headed for that sort of warming any time soon.
Apple doesn't compete in the rock bottom market. If you look at comparable machines from the large name brand makers with Apple offerings, you'll find they are about the same for the same features. On the high end, Apple is actually cheaper than a comparable Dell.
With Windows, every time they come out with an upgrade, the computer slows down. From Win2K to XP and now Vista, a given computer will be slower, if it works at all.
My old 550Mhz Titanium G4 made in 2001 runs the succeeding versions of OSX (10.1, 10.2, 10.3 and the current 10.4) FASTER. With 10.4 installed it actually does things that the latest Vista laptop does.
We also have Windows boxes and an X-box360, both to play games on. The PC is blocked from Internet access and only turned on when it is in active use.
....Flat out wrong. I couldn't immediately find a reference to contrast your lack of proof.......
You don't need to get any proof of this from anyone else. Do some REAL experimental science yourself. After all science is experimenting not conjecturing about what may have happened in the distant past or the unknown future.
1. Take a tall glass and fill it with ice cubes. 2. Fill the rest of the glass with cold tap water until it is as full as you can get it without spilling over the rim. Make sure the ice cubes are floating in the water and not touching the bottom of the glass. 3. Let all the ice melt. 4. Carefully OBSERVE the water level. 5. You may, if you are really a careful observer, see that the water level has even decreased slightly. 6. Repeat experiment as many times needed to convince yourself that you are wrong. If you do observe a DECREASE, I'll let you think about its cause for a while. Please do post the results of your experiment for others. You don't have to write a long dissertation, summary will do.
Come now. No references are needed for this. Simple physics. Warmer oceans evaporate more water and a warmer atmosphere can hold much more water. This combined effect will mean more rain everywhere, even in places that get very little right now. There is no conjecture, but that is how the laws of nature work. A warmer Earth is a more fruitful place for all. Much of the world's ice is already floating on the oceans and is therefore displacing the water. All that floating ice melting would not raise the oceans even a millimeter. All the ice on land melting would not make much of a rise either. Just get yourself a globe and look how much ice area on land there is compared to the vastness of the oceans. The worlds major ice stores are in Antarctica and Greenland. If that all melted the oceans would not rise enough to cause many problems. It would take a LOT of global warming for a long time to melt all that ice, not just a few degrees. If the average temperature of the whole planet increased by as much as 10DegC, the worlds deserts would shrink to insignificance. There is evidence that the vast Sahara was once inhabited land.
.....That's the reason that Kyoto largely exempts developing economies.....
Kyoto is a farce designed to hobble western economies and give some an unfair advantage. If pollution is really bad and affects the entire planet, then it doesn't really matter where it is generated. Unlike many pollutants man generates, CO2 is a natural component of the atmosphere. Every time you exhale you add some.
Climate is subject to many variables, including solar output. There is evidence that human activity has had little if any effect on global climate in the past.
There is nothing that says solar output may not oscillate again like it did 5200 years ago. There are two intriguing mentions in the Bible about a future time when there will be significantly increased solar output. (Isaiah 30:26, Revelation 16:8-9) People may scoff at these ancient writings, but neither can anyone unequivocally say this could never happen.
We humans did not make the earth nor the sun. We are incredibly arrogant creatures who think we can affect the work of the Creator in any material way.
....My bottom-of-the-line Toshiba A65 laptop can do the same thing.....
That is wonderful and I am glad that your computer works as it should. In reading through so many posts in this topic it seems that this is a sore spot for many PC users, whereas it is a non-issue to Mac users. The fact that your system works fine proves that this issue has to do with hardware-software integration. Apparently Toshiba pays better attention to such details than other PC makers.
.....don't you think that if computers booted in 1-2 seconds.....
There are computers that do this RELIABLY every time. They are called Macs. Mine is set to automatically sleep if there is no meaningful activity in 15min, such as user input, down or uploading or playing music. It takes 3 seconds to come back to normal operation. This return includes reconnecting to services such as Instant Messenger and checking for new email. So if you are energy conscious get a Mac and save the planet.
.....That's one of the things that always amazed me about OS X.....
It's not so much OSX as the so much better integrated Apple hardware that does it. I never shut off my my Mac, but just put it to sleep. When I am running Virtual PC, that also works perfectly each time. Apple is the only company that makes a complete computer. Everybody else makes only half of one or less. The more important half is supplied by Microsoft or some Linux distro. Apple can test their complete product much more extensively and make sure it just works. The fact that Linux also has trouble in this area proves that the lack of hardware-software integration and not software per se is the cause of the hibernation fiasco.
The boot time of Macs from a cold start depends more on the amount of RAM installed than other factors. By default most computers generally do a RAM check which can take quite a with several Gs of RAM installed.
Do you think that most people bought their existing DVD player to replace their VCR because the DVD gives better picture quality or because it is so much more convenient? No playback media wear, rewinding, random access and other advances is what made DVD such a success. Most movies are still shot on film at 24fps and the studios will try to resell the same movies they sold on VHS and normal DVD on the new HD medium. Initially the players will play your old DVD's, but at some point the new players no longer will, because the movie makers will pressure the manufacturers to not make compatible player, so you once again have to pre-purchase the same old movies for the then current players.
.......For most folks, once they get used to good HD, DVD seems distractingly soft and undetailed.......
Do you think that most people bought their existing DVD player to replace their VCR because the DVD gives better picture quality or because it is so much more convenient? No playback media wear, rewinding, random access and other advances is what made DVD such a success. Better quality is just a frosting on the cake. HD DVD and bluray gives little or nothing more other than a bit more frosting in these areas. Going from VHS to DVD did not materially improve the content quality. Some of the old movies are still the best ever done. For example, the newer version of "Around the the World in 80 days" sucks in comparison to the old 1950's version. Do you really think that newer films shot with HD equipment will be superior in anything other than being a bit sharper? I have re-purchased many of the VHS films on DVD, not because the DVD quality is superior, but because of the above named advantages of DVD over tape.
The reason most people will stick with present DVD is the same reason most folks use Windows. It is not the best available, but it is good enough. There is no compelling reason to switch to Linux or a Mac.
......you could lose business deals and contracts worth millions of dollars.......
10, 20 or more years from now that important deal will be forgotten entirely , or at best, be a dim memory. However, your neglected son or daughter may neglect you as you decay at rest in some smelly old age home or in a fancy mansion on a hilltop. What goes around comes around. Whatsoever a man (or woman) sows, he (she) will also reap.
Yes indeed, living here in the mountains of Oregon is wonderful partly because of the fact that there is NO wireless reception of any sort where we live. We live in a peaceful electromagnetic gulch where there is no TV, and only noisy static filled radio reception. Visitors we get at our house are sometimes upset that their cell phones don't work at all, but more often relieved to have some peace. We do have some modern conveniences, including flush toilets, electricity and wired phone lines.
.....Isn't it possible that making people keep their day job and do this stuff in their free time.......
The problem is that manufacturing of non-tangible products of the mind IS the day job of many people in our modern world. I would they even are the majority. In our modern world, people are not paid for what they do, but for what the KNOW. Very few here on/. are making physical things such as building cars and houses. If the carpenters get paid for building a house, should the ones who drew up the plans of that house not get paid for their efforts? If you pay for the physical computer, should you not also pay for the software therein, without which that computer is a very expensive boat anchor? Reading stuff here on/. makes it most likely that you do not make your living by making or dealing primarily with a physical things. Maybe you should give your computer knowledge away for free and get a day job as a truck driver for Walmart.
....I *so* can't wait until our culture gets past the "intellectual property" dark age......
Don't hold your breath, you'll likely turn blue. Until the day comes when lawyers no longer run the US, that will not happen, neither will meaningful tort reform. People have been having property disputes since there have been people. Using laws and courts is only a less bloody way of solving these, rather than muscles and clubs. The notion that knowledge and ideas are "property" however arose when knowledge and ideas could be recorded and duplicated easily by persons other than the originator. From the time of Gutenberg, this process of duplicating recorded information has become easier and cheaper.
The question then remains: Should somebody with an idea be able to benefit from this more than the others who did not have this particular idea? Most people, even here on/. would answer yes. Like so many things, the devil is in the details. The balance between benefiting the originators and the benefits to the rest of us has been shifted too far towards the content creators. The idea business as a whole is as big as if not a bigger part of the economy than the making and selling of physical goods. Unlike physical merchandise, products of the mind, especially in the Internet age, are easily transported and duplicatd. Putting movement restrictions and taxes on these is much harder than material goods. However, eventually humanity will collectively figure out how to deal with the immaterial products of the mind, just as we have done for physical things.
......If apple wanted to claim a larger share they could commoditise their hardware......
I hope they never succumb to the Microsoft syndrome and shoot for the least common denominator of the computer world. Apple computer is always unfairly compared with the market share of ALL computer makers. If you instead rank Apple just as a hardware maker, they come in third or fourth, depending whom you ask. Still everybody always endlessly spouts this crap about Apple's less than 10% market share and then pits the entire PC industry against one company. Compare Apple to the Dells and Hewlett-Packards of this world, instead of Microsoft, which has never built even one computer. Why should Apple not keep control of their product, just like all other manufacturers strive to do? Apple's products are not more expensive for equal quality than any of the brands I mentioned, except possibly for the rock bottom stuff from Dell.
Anyone who has to resort to name calling knows deep down in their heart that they have lost the debate, but will not openly admit this.
......Apple force you into buying their hardware which was (and still is mostly) more expensive that you can get........
Apple no more forces you into buying their computers than Ford forces you into buying their cars. Apple happens to to be the ONLY computer manufacturer that makes a whole COMPLETE machine. They also make the software that runs their computers. Everybody else only sells HALF or less computer. They buy the engines that run their computers (the OS) from MS. MS in turn tells them how to build their computers such that the engine will drive the computer hardware. The software makes a computer, not the hardware. The fact that Apple computers also are able to run Windows proves that it's the software that makes Apple systems stand out. Apple's software is made ONLY for their own hardware. That makes it much simpler to make a secure, easier to use computer system. Apple knows this and charges accordingly. So, therefore, anyone who REALLY wants a secure, easy to use whole system will pay extra for a Mac.
The difference is that we knew exactly who and where that enemy was. We told them that if they use those nukes, they in turn would all glow in the dark soon after. Today, if one of these terrorists got a hold of a nuke, we would not know who did it and where it came from would not know who to nuke back. It is interesting that all but one of the perps of 9-11 were from Saudi Arabia supposedly an friend. We of course get a lot of oil from them and couldn't very well shut that off. Iraq did not supply oil because they had much of their oil producing capacity destroyed in the first Gulf war. Bush felt that he had to do SOMETHING to respond to this terrorism attack and chose Saddam. All the money has been expended and likely will yet be spent should have gone toward getting the US, and by extension the rest of the western industrialized countries off the oil addiction. If if the oil were not so critical, then terrorism would die on its own, since there would be no money to fund such activity. There are alternatives to oil, but they cost too much to compete with cheap Arab oil right now. It was funny how the oil prices took a sudden dive immediately after a large oil discovery off the US Gulf of Mexico coast was made public.
....I see no reason why "three men and a baby" is somehow worse......
Well no "three men" EVER produced a baby. AFAIK it has *always* been ONE male and ONE female that make a baby. Since that is so, then why is it so unreasonable for this baby-making process to also extend to that baby's later development and life? Of course there can be input from other members of a community, but the primary responsibility for child raising is on the same two people who produced that child in the first place. This has been mainstream in the human race for millennia. Anything else is against the Creator's intent and is an unnatural modern aberration. We are seeing the results of this breakdown of what God intended in the decay of our educational system now and will see it in the rest of society later. God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, he shall also reap. That is an ancient ironclad law that modern man and his ways cannot circumvent. The reaping has begun!
.....Why then, after 100+ years of existence in the market place, has the automobile not dropped in price,.......
It has dropped. In 1962 my parents bought a brand new Buick station wagon for just over $4000.00 incl. taxes etc. So how much does an equivalent SUV or mini van cost today? Adjusted for pure money inflation, it works out to about the same or less. As far as one person's earning power, after taxes, such a vehicle definitely requires more time. 5 year car loans are common today, but were virtually unknown back then. Most car loans were of the 2 or 3 year variety. An average wage earner with a high school education back then could support a family, and the spouse did not HAVE to go to work in order for them to get a mortgage on a normal house.
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....Ok, so how did your observation of my experiment go?.....
The water level stayed the same or may have decreased minutely. I made sure that all the ice was floating in the glass. Any ice touching the bottom of the glass is equivalent to glaciers on land and would make the level go up. The key is that to simulate the sea ice, the ice cubes have to totally float in the water.
The reason the water level might actually do DOWN is that any trapped gases in the ice increases the volume of the ice displacing the water will pass off into the air. That effect is small however.
....I think not. That would mean significant areas of the world with temperatures regularly hitting 50C in summer.......
Just because it gets warmer at the polar regions doesn't mean it has to get correspondingly hotter in the tropics. The small presently observed warming that everybody is talking about is affecting those cold places, but has no discernible effect in the tropical lands or seas.
(.....I thought you said all that evaporated water had to come out on land? Instead, it can remain in the warmer air.....)
When warm moist air from the oceans hits land, it rises and therefore cools. That cooling causes the water to precipitate. If it cold enough such in the polar regions, it makes snow which piles up into ice.
(....A temperature rise of 5C could be enough to start a positive feedback of warming......)
The average temperature of earth is determined by solar output and how much heat from the sun gets to the surface and how much radiates away again. When the oceans get warmer, more water evaporates and there are more clouds which reflect sunlight. That puts a damper on further heating. That is a negative feedback effect.
....Apple's solution to that problem is to not provide patches......
Don't the updates in between releases include patches and improvements? Increments from say 10.3.0 to 10.3.9 or the same with 10.4.x?
The Windows boxes are connected to our internal network but the gateway blocks any communication to/from the Internet for their MAC codes.
......then develop experimental studies to determine the accuracy of such predictions.......
The repeatable experiment is the key to good science. It separates educated conjecture from what is really observed. Einstein came up with some far out hypotheses and had the math to prove them. Many experiments have been done and are still ongoing that show that he is describing things as they are.
Here is an example of the difference between experimental observation and the interpretation:
In 1929 Mr. Hubble discovered that light from stars and galaxies is shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. That is STILL all that we can actually measure. He INTERPRETED that the cause of this is the familiar doppler effect. That is where we get the idea that these galaxies are receding from us and each other at astonishing velocities approaching the speed of light. More recent data show that the red shift must be caused by something more fundamental than simple doppler stretching. The data of the red shift is not in dispute, only its interpretation.
....Weird. - so, Apple is not PERFECT when it comes to sleep/hibernate issues......
One thing I have found with updates is to never use the incremental updates, but always the combo version. Also, check the file system and permissions and if needed run the repair utility. Then restart the computer and install the applicable combo version immediately before running any other application. Also, unless a vulnerability affects you, wait until the next combo update comes out rather than installing Apple's security patches. That procedure will go a long way in avoiding unforeseen glitches.
......The largest portion of the world's ice is in Antartica.....
Even a substantial part of that is floating on the oceans surrounding that continent. Those extensive floating ice fields would have to melt first, before the land based ice would even begin to melt. As the oceans warm up, more water evaporates and the surface where the ice used to be is exposed. All that added water then precipitates out over the land. That means that ice could actually build up on the colder, elevated locations of the planet, lowering the level of the seas.
Get out that beautiful National Geographic relief map of the world's oceans sometime. Notice that many of the major rivers continue their bed across what is now the continental shelf and then drop off suddenly into the deep basins. The Amazon is the most prominent example. If these shelves had always been under water, the river bed would end at present sea level.
It is a fact that a warmer atmosphere can hold much more water in suspension which would more than compensate for any melting ice masses on land. A hurricane is a powerful demonstration of the incredible water holding capacity of warm, tropical air. Water both in vapor and liquid forms has a huge heat storing capacity. Warm moist air and warmer ocean currents would affect the climate much more in the now colder parts of earth than the tropics. We see a demonstration of this in how the Gulf Stream keeps most of Europe much warmer in winter than comparable latitudes elsewhere.
Real global warming, say 10degC or so would greatly increase the habitable land area for both man and beast. I don't think any of our Canadian friends would object to orange groves in their northern territories. There is no indication that we are headed for that sort of warming any time soon.
...For three times the cost....
Apple doesn't compete in the rock bottom market. If you look at comparable machines from the large name brand makers with Apple offerings, you'll find they are about the same for the same features. On the high end, Apple is actually cheaper than a comparable Dell.
With Windows, every time they come out with an upgrade, the computer slows down. From Win2K to XP and now Vista, a given computer will be slower, if it works at all.
My old 550Mhz Titanium G4 made in 2001 runs the succeeding versions of OSX (10.1, 10.2, 10.3 and the current 10.4) FASTER. With 10.4 installed it actually does things that the latest Vista laptop does.
We also have Windows boxes and an X-box360, both to play games on. The PC is blocked from Internet access and only turned on when it is in active use.
....Flat out wrong. I couldn't immediately find a reference to contrast your lack of proof.......
You don't need to get any proof of this from anyone else. Do some REAL experimental science yourself. After all science is experimenting not conjecturing about what may have happened in the distant past or the unknown future.
1. Take a tall glass and fill it with ice cubes.
2. Fill the rest of the glass with cold tap water until it is as full as you can get it without spilling over the rim. Make sure the ice cubes are floating in the water and not touching the bottom of the glass.
3. Let all the ice melt.
4. Carefully OBSERVE the water level.
5. You may, if you are really a careful observer, see that the water level has even decreased slightly.
6. Repeat experiment as many times needed to convince yourself that you are wrong.
If you do observe a DECREASE, I'll let you think about its cause for a while. Please do post the results of your experiment for others. You don't have to write a long dissertation, summary will do.
....So where are your references?.....
Come now. No references are needed for this. Simple physics. Warmer oceans evaporate more water and a warmer atmosphere can hold much more water. This combined effect will mean more rain everywhere, even in places that get very little right now. There is no conjecture, but that is how the laws of nature work. A warmer Earth is a more fruitful place for all. Much of the world's ice is already floating on the oceans and is therefore displacing the water. All that floating ice melting would not raise the oceans even a millimeter. All the ice on land melting would not make much of a rise either. Just get yourself a globe and look how much ice area on land there is compared to the vastness of the oceans. The worlds major ice stores are in Antarctica and Greenland. If that all melted the oceans would not rise enough to cause many problems. It would take a LOT of global warming for a long time to melt all that ice, not just a few degrees. If the average temperature of the whole planet increased by as much as 10DegC, the worlds deserts would shrink to insignificance. There is evidence that the vast Sahara was once inhabited land.
.....That's the reason that Kyoto largely exempts developing economies.....
Kyoto is a farce designed to hobble western economies and give some an unfair advantage. If pollution is really bad and affects the entire planet, then it doesn't really matter where it is generated. Unlike many pollutants man generates, CO2 is a natural component of the atmosphere. Every time you exhale you add some.
Climate is subject to many variables, including solar output. There is evidence that human activity has had little if any effect on global climate in the past.
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/5200event.htm
There is nothing that says solar output may not oscillate again like it did 5200 years ago. There are two intriguing mentions in the Bible about a future time when there will be significantly increased solar output. (Isaiah 30:26, Revelation 16:8-9) People may scoff at these ancient writings, but neither can anyone unequivocally say this could never happen.
We humans did not make the earth nor the sun. We are incredibly arrogant creatures who think we can affect the work of the Creator in any material way.
....My bottom-of-the-line Toshiba A65 laptop can do the same thing.....
That is wonderful and I am glad that your computer works as it should. In reading through so many posts in this topic it seems that this is a sore spot for many PC users, whereas it is a non-issue to Mac users. The fact that your system works fine proves that this issue has to do with hardware-software integration. Apparently Toshiba pays better attention to such details than other PC makers.
.....don't you think that if computers booted in 1-2 seconds.....
There are computers that do this RELIABLY every time. They are called Macs. Mine is set to automatically sleep if there is no meaningful activity in 15min, such as user input, down or uploading or playing music. It takes 3 seconds to come back to normal operation. This return includes reconnecting to services such as Instant Messenger and checking for new email. So if you are energy conscious get a Mac and save the planet.
.....That's one of the things that always amazed me about OS X.....
It's not so much OSX as the so much better integrated Apple hardware that does it. I never shut off my my Mac, but just put it to sleep. When I am running Virtual PC, that also works perfectly each time. Apple is the only company that makes a complete computer. Everybody else makes only half of one or less. The more important half is supplied by Microsoft or some Linux distro. Apple can test their complete product much more extensively and make sure it just works. The fact that Linux also has trouble in this area proves that the lack of hardware-software integration and not software per se is the cause of the hibernation fiasco.
The boot time of Macs from a cold start depends more on the amount of RAM installed than other factors. By default most computers generally do a RAM check which can take quite a with several Gs of RAM installed.
.....DVD had a big advantage over VHS ......
Do you think that most people bought their existing DVD player to replace their VCR because the DVD gives better picture quality or because it is so much more convenient? No playback media wear, rewinding, random access and other advances is what made DVD such a success. Most movies are still shot on film at 24fps and the studios will try to resell the same movies they sold on VHS and normal DVD on the new HD medium. Initially the players will play your old DVD's, but at some point the new players no longer will, because the movie makers will pressure the manufacturers to not make compatible player, so you once again have to pre-purchase the same old movies for the then current players.
.......For most folks, once they get used to good HD, DVD seems distractingly soft and undetailed.......
Do you think that most people bought their existing DVD player to replace their VCR because the DVD gives better picture quality or because it is so much more convenient? No playback media wear, rewinding, random access and other advances is what made DVD such a success. Better quality is just a frosting on the cake. HD DVD and bluray gives little or nothing more other than a bit more frosting in these areas. Going from VHS to DVD did not materially improve the content quality. Some of the old movies are still the best ever done. For example, the newer version of "Around the the World in 80 days" sucks in comparison to the old 1950's version. Do you really think that newer films shot with HD equipment will be superior in anything other than being a bit sharper? I have re-purchased many of the VHS films on DVD, not because the DVD quality is superior, but because of the above named advantages of DVD over tape.
The reason most people will stick with present DVD is the same reason most folks use Windows. It is not the best available, but it is good enough. There is no compelling reason to switch to Linux or a Mac.
......you could lose business deals and contracts worth millions of dollars.......
10, 20 or more years from now that important deal will be forgotten entirely , or at best, be a dim memory. However, your neglected son or daughter may neglect you as you decay at rest in some smelly old age home or in a fancy mansion on a hilltop. What goes around comes around. Whatsoever a man (or woman) sows, he (she) will also reap.
.....they're called "the middle of nowhere".....
Yes indeed, living here in the mountains of Oregon is wonderful partly because of the fact that there is NO wireless reception of any sort where we live. We live in a peaceful electromagnetic gulch where there is no TV, and only noisy static filled radio reception. Visitors we get at our house are sometimes upset that their cell phones don't work at all, but more often relieved to have some peace. We do have some modern conveniences, including flush toilets, electricity and wired phone lines.
I wonder if this will work only on the new Intel Macs or also on the older PPC versions?
.....Isn't it possible that making people keep their day job and do this stuff in their free time.......
/. are making physical things such as building cars and houses. If the carpenters get paid for building a house, should the ones who drew up the plans of that house not get paid for their efforts? If you pay for the physical computer, should you not also pay for the software therein, without which that computer is a very expensive boat anchor? Reading stuff here on /. makes it most likely that you do not make your living by making or dealing primarily with a physical things. Maybe you should give your computer knowledge away for free and get a day job as a truck driver for Walmart.
The problem is that manufacturing of non-tangible products of the mind IS the day job of many people in our modern world. I would they even are the majority. In our modern world, people are not paid for what they do, but for what the KNOW. Very few here on
....I *so* can't wait until our culture gets past the "intellectual property" dark age......
/. would answer yes. Like so many things, the devil is in the details. The balance between benefiting the originators and the benefits to the rest of us has been shifted too far towards the content creators. The idea business as a whole is as big as if not a bigger part of the economy than the making and selling of physical goods. Unlike physical merchandise, products of the mind, especially in the Internet age, are easily transported and duplicatd. Putting movement restrictions and taxes on these is much harder than material goods. However, eventually humanity will collectively figure out how to deal with the immaterial products of the mind, just as we have done for physical things.
Don't hold your breath, you'll likely turn blue. Until the day comes when lawyers no longer run the US, that will not happen, neither will meaningful tort reform. People have been having property disputes since there have been people. Using laws and courts is only a less bloody way of solving these, rather than muscles and clubs. The notion that knowledge and ideas are "property" however arose when knowledge and ideas could be recorded and duplicated easily by persons other than the originator. From the time of Gutenberg, this process of duplicating recorded information has become easier and cheaper.
The question then remains: Should somebody with an idea be able to benefit from this more than the others who did not have this particular idea? Most people, even here on
I hope they never succumb to the Microsoft syndrome and shoot for the least common denominator of the computer world. Apple computer is always unfairly compared with the market share of ALL computer makers. If you instead rank Apple just as a hardware maker, they come in third or fourth, depending whom you ask. Still everybody always endlessly spouts this crap about Apple's less than 10% market share and then pits the entire PC industry against one company. Compare Apple to the Dells and Hewlett-Packards of this world, instead of Microsoft, which has never built even one computer. Why should Apple not keep control of their product, just like all other manufacturers strive to do? Apple's products are not more expensive for equal quality than any of the brands I mentioned, except possibly for the rock bottom stuff from Dell.
Anyone who has to resort to name calling knows deep down in their heart that they have lost the debate, but will not openly admit this.
......Apple force you into buying their hardware which was (and still is mostly) more expensive that you can get........
Apple no more forces you into buying their computers than Ford forces you into buying their cars. Apple happens to to be the ONLY computer manufacturer that makes a whole COMPLETE machine. They also make the software that runs their computers. Everybody else only sells HALF or less computer. They buy the engines that run their computers (the OS) from MS. MS in turn tells them how to build their computers such that the engine will drive the computer hardware. The software makes a computer, not the hardware. The fact that Apple computers also are able to run Windows proves that it's the software that makes Apple systems stand out. Apple's software is made ONLY for their own hardware. That makes it much simpler to make a secure, easier to use computer system. Apple knows this and charges accordingly. So, therefore, anyone who REALLY wants a secure, easy to use whole system will pay extra for a Mac.
.....your enemy had nuclear weapons.......
The difference is that we knew exactly who and where that enemy was. We told them that if they use those nukes, they in turn would all glow in the dark soon after. Today, if one of these terrorists got a hold of a nuke, we would not know who did it and where it came from would not know who to nuke back. It is interesting that all but one of the perps of 9-11 were from Saudi Arabia supposedly an friend. We of course get a lot of oil from them and couldn't very well shut that off. Iraq did not supply oil because they had much of their oil producing capacity destroyed in the first Gulf war. Bush felt that he had to do SOMETHING to respond to this terrorism attack and chose Saddam. All the money has been expended and likely will yet be spent should have gone toward getting the US, and by extension the rest of the western industrialized countries off the oil addiction. If if the oil were not so critical, then terrorism would die on its own, since there would be no money to fund such activity. There are alternatives to oil, but they cost too much to compete with cheap Arab oil right now. It was funny how the oil prices took a sudden dive immediately after a large oil discovery off the US Gulf of Mexico coast was made public.
....I see no reason why "three men and a baby" is somehow worse ......
Well no "three men" EVER produced a baby. AFAIK it has *always* been ONE male and ONE female that make a baby. Since that is so, then why is it so unreasonable for this baby-making process to also extend to that baby's later development and life? Of course there can be input from other members of a community, but the primary responsibility for child raising is on the same two people who produced that child in the first place. This has been mainstream in the human race for millennia. Anything else is against the Creator's intent and is an unnatural modern aberration. We are seeing the results of this breakdown of what God intended in the decay of our educational system now and will see it in the rest of society later. God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, he shall also reap. That is an ancient ironclad law that modern man and his ways cannot circumvent. The reaping has begun!
.....Why then, after 100+ years of existence in the market place, has the automobile not dropped in price,.......
It has dropped. In 1962 my parents bought a brand new Buick station wagon for just over $4000.00 incl. taxes etc. So how much does an equivalent SUV or mini van cost today? Adjusted for pure money inflation, it works out to about the same or less. As far as one person's earning power, after taxes, such a vehicle definitely requires more time. 5 year car loans are common today, but were virtually unknown back then. Most car loans were of the 2 or 3 year variety. An average wage earner with a high school education back then could support a family, and the spouse did not HAVE to go to work in order for them to get a mortgage on a normal house.