...Say instead of carbon based lifeforms there's silicon or some other...
The binding energies of the carbon atom are neither too strong nor too weak to allow the required complexity of molecules for life functions. Silicon binding energies are significantly higher, which means that molecules based on silicon are much more difficult to break apart and re-assemble in the myriads of configurations that are constantly happening in all life forms. The universal laws of physics dictate the binding energies of the various types of atoms to one another. Hemoglobin for example must be easily able to bind to and release oxygen without large energy exchanges. Given the present understanding of the complexities of molecular biology it is very safe to assert that no life forms, especially no INTELLIGENT physical life forms can be based on anything other than the element carbon.
...Therefore it is impossible for candy to be anything but brown?...
If the laws of candy dictate that chocolate must be what we observe as brown, then all chocolate M&M must be brown. The laws of physics dictate that physical life must be based on carbon. You cannot get around the laws of physics. It has nothing to do with sample size but with the binding energies of atoms to one another, as determined by the laws of physics.
...Just cause we haven't seen it doesn't mean it isn't possible....
According to the laws of physics, as we presently understand them, 1000 deg physical life based on these laws cannot occur -- period. As far as we can tell by OBSERVATION, the same laws operate throughout the known Universe. Such life may be possible in your or some fiction writer's imagination, but NOT by means of any known, reasonably established science. I have assumed that the SETI researchers are real scientists using the tools of science to try to find intelligent life somewhere else in the Universe.
The Solaris article is first of all FICTION and second talks about an alien MIND. A Mind is not physical and therefore is not subject to physical restrictions. The SETI project, which IMHO is a big waste of time IS trying to receive communications from "alien" life forms.
It IS an established fact of microbiology that life cannot exist outside the rather narrow temperature range where liquid water can exist and that the only atom we know that can sustain the incredibly complex molecules of living systems is carbon. The molecular chemistries of even one celled organisms is unimagineably complicated and will still require years of intense study to figure out.
...We find bacteria living in nuclear reactors, after all...
I thought this article was about INTELLIGENT life. What parts of a reactor have bacteria been found in? I suspect not in the core. Heat is generally used as a means to sterilize objects that must not have unwanted life forms, such as bacteria. At this time, life forms not based on carbon and liquid water are pure conjecture, not within the realm of known scientific principles. Even water at 90 deg C is still liquid and there are life forms that may exist at that temperature. We know of NO physical life forms that can exist without water in its liquid state.
...it's very likely there's life somewhere in our universe in a form we cannot comprehend...
I was talking about PHYSICAL life forms, limited to the laws of physics. These laws appear to operate uniformly throughout the known universe. The SETI project is endeavoring to find electromagnetic signals from some sort of intelligent life form. Electromagnetic signals are physical means of communication that have severe limitations for communications across the vast gulf of intergalactic space. Any physical life forms, obeying the laws of physics as we know them cannot be too radically different from life on earth. The laws of physics have set rather narrow parameters within which physical bodies, such as ours can operate. The Bible and many, if not most other religions postulate a spirit realm or dimension, wherein the laws of physics, as we currently understand them, do not apply and which physical apparatus such as fancy radio systems cannot explore.
The Bible tells us that we are spiritual beings tempoarily living in physical bodies. Humans, it appears, are incurably religious. Other advanced spiritual life forms out there certainly would not use primitive, time-space limited means of communication, such as radio signals. The Bible further tells us that spiritual things cannot be explored or fathomed by physical means that our science is limited to. Since physical science and our intellect cannot explore these things by reasoning or experiment, we are left with the only alternative: that of FAITH. Jesus Christ, who claimed to be God dwelling for a short time in a human body, told us flat out that there are many intelligent, non-physical life forms beside us. No one will ever prove or disprove the existence of God, the existence of angels or demons or other aspects of the spiritual dimensions by physical means.
...where well known scientists explain why aliens would likely have a humanoid form...
They are probably right if it is a PHYSICAL form, bounds to the laws physical objects are subject to. The fact is that many, if not most religions believe in some sort of NON-physical life (spirits or "the force" etc.) is a strong indicator of the likelyhood that other life forms "out there" may be spirtual and not communicate with something as primitive and physical, such as radio waves. The Bible teaches that we are spirit beings temporarily inhabiting physical bodies. This, like the existence of God, cannot be proven or disproven "scientifically", because science is limited to the laws that govern the physical cosmos.
...that it is highly probable that life is based on carbon...
Ok, let me turn it around --- it is highly unlikely that physical life is NOT based on carbon. The chemistry of life is unimaginably complex and cannot be based on any other atom besides carbon. From everything we have learned about living chemistry so far, there can be no other basis for physical life. The laws of physics as far as we presently understand them preclude any other life chemistry that does NOT involve the carbon atom.
...the Bible says there are no aliens out there...
What did Jesus mean when He spoke these words in John 14?
Let not your heart be troubled: believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
There are lots of places in the Bible that indicate that our time-space dimension is only a small part of what is *real* and that science and our limited intellect can only grasp a tiny fraction. Anything beyond our senses and intellect can only be grasped by faith. Some people only have faith in their intellect and others can and do go beyond it. In the end, everyone can make a choice to believe or not to.
...What physical law requires life to be carbon-based...
The only known atom that has the right binding energies to allow the extremely complex molecules for life is carbon. Life produced molecules have hundreds of atoms in them that are constanly being re-arranged in countless new combinations. Silicon is a distant second choice, but its binding energies are too high to allow the easy making and breaking of the complex chemical bonds as we observe them in living systems.
There may be non-physical (ie. spiritual) life forms, but these are not within the knowable realm of our science and would certainly not communicate with something as primitive as a radio signal.
...they want to believe from what they have a reason to believe...
In order to have intelligent life on a planet, the conditions needed for life to develop must be met. One of these is the right temperature range. Because the laws of physics appear to operate uniformly throughout the Universe as far as we have observed until now, the only physical life allowed must be based on carbon, just like life on Earth. It is no accident that the internal temperature of warm blooded creatures is in the narrow range it is within.
One of the critical parameters to keep the temperature stable enough for life is the spacing of stars from one another. If the distance is closer than about 3.8 light years, the orbits of any possible planets of both stars becomes too irregular to keep the temperatures within the required bounds. About half of all stars in the known Universe fail this test by being too close. The sun's nearest neighbor, Alpha Centauri, is about 4.2 light years distant.
Another important star parameter is the color temperature of the parent star. It must be keyed to the physics of photosynthesis which requires specific wavelengths of light. In addition, stars significantly larger or smaller than our sun cause other stability problems for long term temperature control.
The parameters of the planet itself and its location relative to its star must also be kept in narrow bounds. A too small a star makes it neccessary to place the planet so close, it can no longer rotate independently, but one side will always face the star, making it extremely hot and the other side way too cold for life. The giant stars output their energy too unsteadily for long term stable temperature.
The planet also has to have sufficient quantities of water in liquid form and enough but not too much oxygen in its atmosphere. The atmosphere also has to have a mechanism to shield life forms from the intense harmful radiation components from the parent star, such as UV, (such as our ozone layer) and from other space radiation harmful to long term life survival. There are many other parameters that must be exactly right in order for a planet to support intelligent life. All of these, when taken together, make it extrmemly unlikely that there would be another planet like ours in our galaxy. We are simply too far away from other galaxies to receive any kind of electromagnetic signal or an answer to our signaling. The first radio waves generated by humans are still less than 100 light years away from here.
An alcoholic might be someone who is convicted some other alcohol related crime, such as someone who beat up someone else while drunk. Even if this wre only be applied to DUI's it would help save some lives.
Anyone convicted of a DUI or known to be a alcoholic could be ordered to install this in their car and be prohibited from driving any car without it. Those who don't drink and/or drive would not have to pay for such a system. If such a person drives a car without such a system, they would never drive again legally.
A EULA isn't worth the paper it is not written on since it cannot ever be a valid, court enforceable contract. A contract must clearly and UNAMBIGOUSLY identify the participants thereto and they must be of legal age to make a legally binding agreement. Any kid can click a mouse.
I can certainly see that for someone that spends as much for music as you do, paying a monthly rental is a good option. I suspect that Apple will offer some sort of rental option in the not too distant future, not only for music, but also for video. I think the content creators will eventually get over their piracy paranoia and make as much or more money from legal network downloads, as they now make from physical media. When that finally dawns on them they will also realize that pirate downloading is just part of the noise, yes, a nuisnace, but it is not really preventing them from making a killing anyway. At that time they'll drop DRM, just as most software makers no longer distribute their wares on copy protected media, as they once did with copy locked floppies. DRM costs extra money, which they'll be able to pocket or maybe by some miracle share with their customers. After all, like you said, will the 30 year old music with DRM still be playable? I know I can still play my 50 year old LP vinyl records and I suspect that 50 year old commercial CD's will most likely still play also.
Why limit this to only code, but untrusted data as well? The software will also disallow the use of certain words or phrases in all your documents and lyrics of songs. It will erase pictures deemed pornographic or politically incorrect and report you to the thought police as well.
There has never been an anti-copying technology that has NOT been bypassed. The life of a computer is NOT in the hardware, but in the software. "Trusted" computing can be emulated in software on "non-trusted" computers, just as Windows can be emulated on a Mac. If they screw up the hardware, someone WILL write software to bypass the problem, the DMCA notwithstanding. If users are not allowed to do what they want, they either won't buy the DRM crap or someone will realize there is money to be made by bypassing the so called "trusted" computing. MS thought their present x-boxes were hardware secure, but anyone that wants to, can get make mods to bypass that also. Unless the content providers buy enough polititians to mandate so called "trusted" computers, just as they will likely try to buy the "broadcast flag", there will always be non-DRM hardware available.
In time, I suspect the content makers will figure out how to make tons of money from the Internet and related technology, just as they always have done in the past when new technology forced them to re-think their business. When that happens, DRM will be unneccessary. So, there is no need to get really worried that computers in the future will not be just as programmable with whatever someone wants them to do, regardless of what shape or form the hardware will take.
... $4.99/month for the unlimited music subscription...
When you stop paying the subscription, all your music you downloaded and tediously categorized evaporates into cyberspace. When you subscribe to a magazine, at least you still have the magazines, even if you cancel the subscription. With the Yahoo music you have nothing at all. Renting movies is different, because, at least for most people I know, they'd watch most movies once or maybe twice, whereas music , especially good music, gets listened to again and again. Maybe Apple will incorporate the music rental idea into iTunes as a way of sampling music. I have read rumors that Apple is contemplating something like this. I'd go for the idea of renting music and then buy it if it is something I'd like to listen to over again.
As long as Steve is at the helm of Apple, it is not likely that Apple will allow clones of their products, regardless of where they're manufactured. If Apple were using the Intel chips, they would have never sold a pile of Macs that were lashed up into a supercomputing array, since it is considerably more expensive to do this with the x86 architecture. Why do you think both M$ and Sony are using PPC technology chips from IBM in their newest game boxes? The x86 systems carry a lot of baggage of the past which Apple, Sony and MS have seen fit to finally dump. It is more likely that MS will port Windows to the PPC technology, since they already did that with their NT OS about ten years ago.
...Our 100000 workstations run Windows, and I'd estimate that fewer than 4% of our users have admin rights...
In corporate environments there are usually only a few programs in use. Most of these are specialized for the company or the particular department. The makers of these programs are often employees of the company or work closely with their customers until the program works exactly the way the customer wants. One way to solve this problem is to custom tailor the permissions setup for each user so the program WILL run, giving just the needed permissions without giving across the board admin status. Windows CAN be made quite secure, but it requires a knowledgeable professional to do this.
The programs I meant are usually bought off the shelf, especially games. Many programs want to write places, such as in the program folder, that is and should be off limits to ordinary users. Some programs also want to save stuff to the registry for some stupid reason. I have figured out where a particular program wants to write and have specifically enabled it to do so without giving all users of that program admin status. The Windows permissions model is very flexible, but requires quite a bit of computer savy to use correctly. Your mother or grandma is not likey to be able to do this and so it is easiest to give them admin permissions, which is the default of any Windows install.
I course I did not buy the camcorder for this, I just learned that that it could be used this way. I have had it for almost a year and it cost only $600 then.
...The media attention focused on a vulnerability does NOT reflect the severity of that vulnerability...
There have been some vulnerabilities of OSX, but nobody has ever exploited them because they were more theoretical than practical. Security is the Job of the OS, not any particular application, including any web browser. It is Windows itself that is insecure and because IE is imbedded in that OS more deeply than any other browser, IE makes a better entry point for OS weaknesses. Just the fact that the numbers of malware are NOT proportionate to how many users of each OS exist, shows that it is is EASY to break into Windows systems.
You have made more sense than most posters in this forum! That said, I think that most users want a computer that "just works" (tm) and because of the Mac's freedom from the malware hassles it is the top candidate. However if a user has a need for a computer function the software for which is not available on the Mac or Linux, then they will have no other choice but Windows which is so dominant and therefore has specialized software for many businesses.
They'd be out of the computer business very soon. They'd be competing with MS for software and with cheap made in China no-name hardware boxes. They also have to support who knows how many different hardware configurations. Now they have control of both the hardware and the software and for that reason alone, their product will always be better, even if it costs a bit more to first buy. It is much cheaper in the long run for most users. How much market share does BMW or Mercedes Benz have? As long as Apple has enough market share to attract good software development, it is a good thing for them NOT to become the dominant monopolist. They are making good products and have a large stash of cash and are relatively debt free. I think that's a good position for any business to be in.
...It is entirely possible that if Mac OS X had the marketshare of Windows it would be compromised as often...
That is such a tired old line! Windows is insecure by design because at heart it is still a single user system. As long as there so many programs that require an ordinary user to log on as an administrator in order to work properly, there is in effect only one user of the system. Any user can get into any other user's space and install anything they want, including all kinds of malware, messing up the whole computer. Ordinary users of a computer should be isolated from each other and especially from the system. OSX and Linux isolate users from the system and from each other, making it a lot harder for any one user to screw up the whole computer. I hope that MS fixes that in the next Windows. If they do, then many existing programs will no longer work. That will make many MS users mad and MS knows that. Will they pick security over comapatibility? We shall see in a year or so.
...I bought a dual tuner card for my PC yesterday for 135$....
Since I already have a digital camcorder, I just plug that into any of our Macs, including a Mac mini along with an external 250G firewire drive. The camcorder is fed by our entertainment system. Anything that can show up on the TV monitor can then be recorded onto the HD. The whole setup can be turned on automatically by a timer system, since no tape needs to be in the camcorder.
Slashdot Mirror
...Say instead of carbon based lifeforms there's silicon or some other...
The binding energies of the carbon atom are neither too strong nor too weak to allow the required complexity of molecules for life functions. Silicon binding energies are significantly higher, which means that molecules based on silicon are much more difficult to break apart and re-assemble in the myriads of configurations that are constantly happening in all life forms. The universal laws of physics dictate the binding energies of the various types of atoms to one another. Hemoglobin for example must be easily able to bind to and release oxygen without large energy exchanges. Given the present understanding of the complexities of molecular biology it is very safe to assert that no life forms, especially no INTELLIGENT physical life forms can be based on anything other than the element carbon.
...Therefore it is impossible for candy to be anything but brown?...
If the laws of candy dictate that chocolate must be what we observe as brown, then all chocolate M&M must be brown. The laws of physics dictate that physical life must be based on carbon. You cannot get around the laws of physics. It has nothing to do with sample size but with the binding energies of atoms to one another, as determined by the laws of physics.
...Just cause we haven't seen it doesn't mean it isn't possible....
According to the laws of physics, as we presently understand them, 1000 deg physical life based on these laws cannot occur -- period. As far as we can tell by OBSERVATION, the same laws operate throughout the known Universe. Such life may be possible in your or some fiction writer's imagination, but NOT by means of any known, reasonably established science. I have assumed that the SETI researchers are real scientists using the tools of science to try to find intelligent life somewhere else in the Universe.
The Solaris article is first of all FICTION and second talks about an alien MIND. A Mind is not physical and therefore is not subject to physical restrictions. The SETI project, which IMHO is a big waste of time IS trying to receive communications from "alien" life forms.
It IS an established fact of microbiology that life cannot exist outside the rather narrow temperature range where liquid water can exist and that the only atom we know that can sustain the incredibly complex molecules of living systems is carbon. The molecular chemistries of even one celled organisms is unimagineably complicated and will still require years of intense study to figure out.
...but the energy is derived from sulphur rather than from the sun....
Even so, the rather narrow temperature range wherein water exists as a liquid must be met for these life forms to continue.
...We find bacteria living in nuclear reactors, after all...
I thought this article was about INTELLIGENT life. What parts of a reactor have bacteria been found in? I suspect not in the core. Heat is generally used as a means to sterilize objects that must not have unwanted life forms, such as bacteria. At this time, life forms not based on carbon and liquid water are pure conjecture, not within the realm of known scientific principles. Even water at 90 deg C is still liquid and there are life forms that may exist at that temperature. We know of NO physical life forms that can exist without water in its liquid state.
...it's very likely there's life somewhere in our universe in a form we cannot comprehend...
I was talking about PHYSICAL life forms, limited to the laws of physics. These laws appear to operate uniformly throughout the known universe. The SETI project is endeavoring to find electromagnetic signals from some sort of intelligent life form. Electromagnetic signals are physical means of communication that have severe limitations for communications across the vast gulf of intergalactic space. Any physical life forms, obeying the laws of physics as we know them cannot be too radically different from life on earth. The laws of physics have set rather narrow parameters within which physical bodies, such as ours can operate. The Bible and many, if not most other religions postulate a spirit realm or dimension, wherein the laws of physics, as we currently understand them, do not apply and which physical apparatus such as fancy radio systems cannot explore.
The Bible tells us that we are spiritual beings tempoarily living in physical bodies. Humans, it appears, are incurably religious. Other advanced spiritual life forms out there certainly would not use primitive, time-space limited means of communication, such as radio signals. The Bible further tells us that spiritual things cannot be explored or fathomed by physical means that our science is limited to. Since physical science and our intellect cannot explore these things by reasoning or experiment, we are left with the only alternative: that of FAITH. Jesus Christ, who claimed to be God dwelling for a short time in a human body, told us flat out that there are many intelligent, non-physical life forms beside us. No one will ever prove or disprove the existence of God, the existence of angels or demons or other aspects of the spiritual dimensions by physical means.
...where well known scientists explain why aliens would likely have a humanoid form...
They are probably right if it is a PHYSICAL form, bounds to the laws physical objects are subject to. The fact is that many, if not most religions believe in some sort of NON-physical life (spirits or "the force" etc.) is a strong indicator of the likelyhood that other life forms "out there" may be spirtual and not communicate with something as primitive and physical, such as radio waves. The Bible teaches that we are spirit beings temporarily inhabiting physical bodies. This, like the existence of God, cannot be proven or disproven "scientifically", because science is limited to the laws that govern the physical cosmos.
...that it is highly probable that life is based on carbon...
Ok, let me turn it around --- it is highly unlikely that physical life is NOT based on carbon. The chemistry of life is unimaginably complex and cannot be based on any other atom besides carbon. From everything we have learned about living chemistry so far, there can be no other basis for physical life. The laws of physics as far as we presently understand them preclude any other life chemistry that does NOT involve the carbon atom.
...the Bible says there are no aliens out there...
What did Jesus mean when He spoke these words in John 14?
Let not your heart be troubled: believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
There are lots of places in the Bible that indicate that our time-space dimension is only a small part of what is *real* and that science and our limited intellect can only grasp a tiny fraction. Anything beyond our senses and intellect can only be grasped by faith. Some people only have faith in their intellect and others can and do go beyond it. In the end, everyone can make a choice to believe or not to.
...What physical law requires life to be carbon-based...
The only known atom that has the right binding energies to allow the extremely complex molecules for life is carbon. Life produced molecules have hundreds of atoms in them that are constanly being re-arranged in countless new combinations.
Silicon is a distant second choice, but its binding energies are too high to allow the easy making and breaking of the complex chemical bonds as we observe them in living systems.
There may be non-physical (ie. spiritual) life forms, but these are not within the knowable realm of our science and would certainly not communicate with something as primitive as a radio signal.
...they want to believe from what they have a reason to believe...
In order to have intelligent life on a planet, the conditions needed for life to develop must be met. One of these is the right temperature range. Because the laws of physics appear to operate uniformly throughout the Universe as far as we have observed until now, the only physical life allowed must be based on carbon, just like life on Earth. It is no accident that the internal temperature of warm blooded creatures is in the narrow range it is within.
One of the critical parameters to keep the temperature stable enough for life is the spacing of stars from one another. If the distance is closer than about 3.8 light years, the orbits of any possible planets of both stars becomes too irregular to keep the temperatures within the required bounds. About half of all stars in the known Universe fail this test by being too close. The sun's nearest neighbor, Alpha Centauri, is about 4.2 light years distant.
Another important star parameter is the color temperature of the parent star. It must be keyed to the physics of photosynthesis which requires specific wavelengths of light. In addition, stars significantly larger or smaller than our sun cause other stability problems for long term temperature control.
The parameters of the planet itself and its location relative to its star must also be kept in narrow bounds. A too small a star makes it neccessary to place the planet so close, it can no longer rotate independently, but one side will always face the star, making it extremely hot and the other side way too cold for life. The giant stars output their energy too unsteadily for long term stable temperature.
The planet also has to have sufficient quantities of water in liquid form and enough but not too much oxygen in its atmosphere. The atmosphere also has to have a mechanism to shield life forms from the intense harmful radiation components from the parent star, such as UV, (such as our ozone layer) and from other space radiation harmful to long term life survival. There are many other parameters that must be exactly right in order for a planet to support intelligent life. All of these, when taken together, make it extrmemly unlikely that there would be another planet like ours in our galaxy. We are simply too far away from other galaxies to receive any kind of electromagnetic signal or an answer to our signaling. The first radio waves generated by humans are still less than 100 light years away from here.
...but not anyone "known to be an alcoholic"...
An alcoholic might be someone who is convicted some other alcohol related crime, such as someone who beat up someone else while drunk. Even if this wre only be applied to DUI's it would help save some lives.
...It seems to me short of a court order...
Anyone convicted of a DUI or known to be a alcoholic could be ordered to install this in their car and be prohibited from driving any car without it. Those who don't drink and/or drive would not have to pay for such a system. If such a person drives a car without such a system, they would never drive again legally.
...he can still say in the EULA...
A EULA isn't worth the paper it is not written on since it cannot ever be a valid, court enforceable contract. A contract must clearly and UNAMBIGOUSLY identify the participants thereto and they must be of legal age to make a legally binding agreement. Any kid can click a mouse.
I can certainly see that for someone that spends as much for music as you do, paying a monthly rental is a good option. I suspect that Apple will offer some sort of rental option in the not too distant future, not only for music, but also for video. I think the content creators will eventually get over their piracy paranoia and make as much or more money from legal network downloads, as they now make from physical media. When that finally dawns on them they will also realize that pirate downloading is just part of the noise, yes, a nuisnace, but it is not really preventing them from making a killing anyway. At that time they'll drop DRM, just as most software makers no longer distribute their wares on copy protected media, as they once did with copy locked floppies. DRM costs extra money, which they'll be able to pocket or maybe by some miracle share with their customers. After all, like you said, will the 30 year old music with DRM still be playable? I know I can still play my 50 year old LP vinyl records and I suspect that 50 year old commercial CD's will most likely still play also.
...avoiding untrusted code running...
Why limit this to only code, but untrusted data as well? The software will also disallow the use of certain words or phrases in all your documents and lyrics of songs. It will erase pictures deemed pornographic or politically incorrect and report you to the thought police as well.
...if you don't want DRM...
There has never been an anti-copying technology that has NOT been bypassed. The life of a computer is NOT in the hardware, but in the software. "Trusted" computing can be emulated in software on "non-trusted" computers, just as Windows can be emulated on a Mac. If they screw up the hardware, someone WILL write software to bypass the problem, the DMCA notwithstanding. If users are not allowed to do what they want, they either won't buy the DRM crap or someone will realize there is money to be made by bypassing the so called "trusted" computing. MS thought their present x-boxes were hardware secure, but anyone that wants to, can get make mods to bypass that also. Unless the content providers buy enough polititians to mandate so called "trusted" computers, just as they will likely try to buy the "broadcast flag", there will always be non-DRM hardware available.
In time, I suspect the content makers will figure out how to make tons of money from the Internet and related technology, just as they always have done in the past when new technology forced them to re-think their business. When that happens, DRM will be unneccessary. So, there is no need to get really worried that computers in the future will not be just as programmable with whatever someone wants them to do, regardless of what shape or form the hardware will take.
... $4.99/month for the unlimited music subscription ...
When you stop paying the subscription, all your music you downloaded and tediously categorized evaporates into cyberspace. When you subscribe to a magazine, at least you still have the magazines, even if you cancel the subscription. With the Yahoo music you have nothing at all. Renting movies is different, because, at least for most people I know, they'd watch most movies once or maybe twice, whereas music , especially good music, gets listened to again and again. Maybe Apple will incorporate the music rental idea into iTunes as a way of sampling music. I have read rumors that Apple is contemplating something like this. I'd go for the idea of renting music and then buy it if it is something I'd like to listen to over again.
As long as Steve is at the helm of Apple, it is not likely that Apple will allow clones of their products, regardless of where they're manufactured. If Apple were using the Intel chips, they would have never sold a pile of Macs that were lashed up into a supercomputing array, since it is considerably more expensive to do this with the x86 architecture. Why do you think both M$ and Sony are using PPC technology chips from IBM in their newest game boxes? The x86 systems carry a lot of baggage of the past which Apple, Sony and MS have seen fit to finally dump. It is more likely that MS will port Windows to the PPC technology, since they already did that with their NT OS about ten years ago.
...Our 100000 workstations run Windows, and I'd estimate that fewer than 4% of our users have admin rights...
In corporate environments there are usually only a few programs in use. Most of these are specialized for the company or the particular department. The makers of these programs are often employees of the company or work closely with their customers until the program works exactly the way the customer wants. One way to solve this problem is to custom tailor the permissions setup for each user so the program WILL run, giving just the needed permissions without giving across the board admin status. Windows CAN be made quite secure, but it requires a knowledgeable professional to do this.
The programs I meant are usually bought off the shelf, especially games. Many programs want to write places, such as in the program folder, that is and should be off limits to ordinary users. Some programs also want to save stuff to the registry for some stupid reason. I have figured out where a particular program wants to write and have specifically enabled it to do so without giving all users of that program admin status. The Windows permissions model is very flexible, but requires quite a bit of computer savy to use correctly. Your mother or grandma is not likey to be able to do this and so it is easiest to give them admin permissions, which is the default of any Windows install.
I course I did not buy the camcorder for this, I just learned that that it could be used this way. I have had it for almost a year and it cost only $600 then.
...The media attention focused on a vulnerability does NOT reflect the severity of that vulnerability...
There have been some vulnerabilities of OSX, but nobody has ever exploited them because they were more theoretical than practical. Security is the Job of the OS, not any particular application, including any web browser. It is Windows itself that is insecure and because IE is imbedded in that OS more deeply than any other browser, IE makes a better entry point for OS weaknesses. Just the fact that the numbers of malware are NOT proportionate to how many users of each OS exist, shows that it is is EASY to break into Windows systems.
...I listen to what their needs are...
You have made more sense than most posters in this forum! That said, I think that most users want a computer that "just works" (tm) and because of the Mac's freedom from the malware hassles it is the top candidate. However if a user has a need for a computer function the software for which is not available on the Mac or Linux, then they will have no other choice but Windows which is so dominant and therefore has specialized software for many businesses.
...If Apple were to switch to Intel ...
They'd be out of the computer business very soon. They'd be competing with MS for software and with cheap made in China no-name hardware boxes. They also have to support who knows how many different hardware configurations. Now they have control of both the hardware and the software and for that reason alone, their product will always be better, even if it costs a bit more to first buy. It is much cheaper in the long run for most users. How much market share does BMW or Mercedes Benz have? As long as Apple has enough market share to attract good software development, it is a good thing for them NOT to become the dominant monopolist. They are making good products and have a large stash of cash and are relatively debt free. I think that's a good position for any business to be in.
...It is entirely possible that if Mac OS X had the marketshare of Windows it would be compromised as often...
That is such a tired old line! Windows is insecure by design because at heart it is still a single user system. As long as there so many programs that require an ordinary user to log on as an administrator in order to work properly, there is in effect only one user of the system. Any user can get into any other user's space and install anything they want, including all kinds of malware, messing up the whole computer. Ordinary users of a computer should be isolated from each other and especially from the system. OSX and Linux isolate users from the system and from each other, making it a lot harder for any one user to screw up the whole computer. I hope that MS fixes that in the next Windows. If they do, then many existing programs will no longer work. That will make many MS users mad and MS knows that. Will they pick security over comapatibility? We shall see in a year or so.
...I bought a dual tuner card for my PC yesterday for 135$. ...
Since I already have a digital camcorder, I just plug that into any of our Macs, including a Mac mini along with an external 250G firewire drive. The camcorder is fed by our entertainment system. Anything that can show up on the TV monitor can then be recorded onto the HD. The whole setup can be turned on automatically by a timer system, since no tape needs to be in the camcorder.