....You make another mistake in that you seem to be saying that software in the Linux form is taken from so many different sources....
In using many sources for a product, be it hardware or software, is no problem as such. What is a problem, in the case of computers alone, is that with the exception of Apple, much of the systems integration and getting it all to work is left to the end user. For example, Photoshop elements is a reasonably priced, very capable photo editing application. If someone has a Macintosh or Windows computer and wishes to edit pictures, he or she may install this program and exchange the files it produces with others who may wish to edit them further. There are of course photo editors available for Linux as well, but they may not be compatible with what most others are using and are familiar with.
(...Again, the Macintosh is just as much a hodgepodge thrown together piece of equipment as any other...)
Have you ever heard the expression, "The design is more than the sum of its parts"? Of course, Apple uses the same disk drives and chips as everyone else, but they are able to integrate and test them _together with the software_ as a complete working SYSTEM. When you build and integrate your system from the same kinds of parts, you are doing exactly what Apple does, but you are not selling your systems commercially. In the end, you will have a much superior product (presumably you are an expert and know what you are doing) than the DELLS and HPs sold commercially. For people with your capability and interest, there is no better way to go than to use Linux as the basis for the systems you build.
I have UBUNTU 8.04 installed a VM on my Mac Pro, as well as several versions of Windows running in separate VMs. UBUNTU was the only one where I had to do some configuring of the OS itself, not the VM, in order to access the Internet.
I myself have built other kinds of electronic equipment at home, such as a 750 KV Tesla coil using parts from an old 1 kW amateur radio transmitter. As an electronics engineer I remember the first computer I ever came in contact with. It was a PDP11 with a whole row of switches and lights on the front panel. The computer was connected to a teletype machine. Programs were loaded and saved with a paper tape with holes in it.
When it comes to computers, I am like most people now, in that I want to go down to the store and buy one that just works in the same way that I go and get a pizza to eat.
I believe that analogy with the air-conditioners either installed by a dealer or integrated at the factory is not that far-fetched. In either one, the working parts may have been the same, but the factory integrated result was always far superior.
(...Also the likes of the company that violates your privacy by putting products such as WGA/WGN in your computer most of the time without your knowledge,...)
This is another reason why I like Apple products, because Apple does not play such games and except for their lawyers probably couldn't care less if somebody installs a friend's copy of their latest operating system on an old Mac. Unlike Microsoft, they are selling complete computers not just software. Therefore they do not have to play all those stupid games.
Of course, almost anything is possible if a knowledgeable person puts in lots of time and effort. Digitizing a large LP collection takes a lot of time and effort, as does ripping and cataloging a big pile of CDs. To apply even more effort to make this collection easily usable on our home network was fortunately avoided by the simple fact that Apple had done all that for us. The simple sharing setup that iTunes allows, makes all the music available in various places around the house.
It may eventually, after futzing around long enough, eventually be made to work okay, although never really well. Before automobile manufacturers got the idea to build air-conditioners into the vehicle, the dealer installed versions workrd mostly okay also, but never as well as an air conditioner properly integrated into the vehicle right at the factory. That was a more proprietary solution in that a Ford air-conditioner did not work in a Chevy.
People around here at Slashdot make the word "proprietary" out as if it were a certain flavor of profanity. A well integrated design, such as the Macintosh will always be superior to a hodgepodge of thrown together bits and pieces of computer hardware and software created by a number of people who have never met one another and have no central direction or leadership. I can however attest to a certain thrill of finally getting such an assembly of bits and pieces to actually boot up and perform as intended. Linux of all flavors fits into this scenario amazingly well because it is flexible and thus may be customized more than any other operating system.
Responsive to what? Will it respond to me wanting to download a program to my iPod? Will it allow to share my music and video library on the 1 TB disk drive connected to the Airport Extreme in the family room to the computer (Mac Mini) in the living room connected to the stereo and a 47" LCD TV screen and to the laptop used while relaxing in bed sometimes? I can do all of this easily, without fuss with Apple products running OSX. That is the kind of responsiveness which matters in the end, not whether the computer responds to a mouse click in 80 milliseconds or 40.
This has more to do with the laws of physics and chemistry. As far as we can tell, these apply equally throughout the known universe. Physical life based on carbon is the only one capable of forming the complexity and versatility needed for even a single cell organisms to exist. The atomic binding energies of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen have to be matched to the spectral photon energies for a process such as photosynthesis. The spectrum of our star, the Sun, is remarkably well matched to the atomic and molecular properties of these elements.
There are many factors that must be matched in order to achieve the conditions needed for life. For example, any two or more stars must not be closer to each other than about 3.8 light years, otherwise they would influence the long-term orbits of any possible life harboring planet to fall outside of the habitable zone at times. This one single factor alone eliminates about half of all known stars as being host to a planet similar to ours. Our closest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri, it is about 4.2 ly from here.
...How close are these planets, really, to earth?...
In order to have intelligent life, not only must the planet itself be similar to Earth in all respects, but the star it orbits must be very similar to our Sun. In this case, the star is too cold to emit the proper spectrum of light to use for knitting together atoms of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, such as occurs here on Earth by the process of photosynthesis in green plants. This means that this star and others like it can be safely scratched from a list of planets may have intelligent life.
....you better go double check your "facts", because they're lacking...
Anyone who can open a book of maps, such as National Geographic can see that the world's oceans were confined at one time to the deep ocean basins and the areas now called the continental shelves were dry.
Greenland is called that because it was once a "green land" with plant life much as we find it today on the East Coast of the United States. Ice cores from the bottom of thousands of feet of ice show pollen and seeds as well as other microscopic evidence of this fact. There is little disagreement about global warming in and of itself, but its cause and what effect this will have. Warming and cooling of the Earth is a natural cyclic activity that human beings never have had and never will have any significant influence over.
There are those who know full well that if control can be gained over how energy is produced and utilized, they will have effectively gained control over all of civilization. It is mainly in their use and production of energy, that modern industrialized societies depend on.
The end of innocence for foolish, greedy, thieving Apple users.
People who do that sort of thing, regardless of whether they use OSX or Windows, deserve to have their computers catch fire until nothing remains but a little puddle of charred, molten plastic and metal. Meanwhile, the real worms, the kind that multiply without end, with no user interaction, such as the recent Conficker malware are still confined exclusively to Windows. Therefore even thieving pirates with a Mac are still better off than their Windows counterparts.
....we're talking about melting the ice caps flooding massively populated areas....
Neither of these scenarios would happen of course and even if it did happen, it would take place over many human lifetimes giving people and economies plenty of time to adjust. When the whole atmosphere becomes warmer, that is significantly warmer, it will also hold significantly more moisture. This means that any of that extra water would be suspended in the atmosphere and not put places like New York underwater.
...you are still releasing CO2 into the atmosphere....
So what? That is where it all was once upon a time before coal was formed. We call coal a fossil fuel because it was once a living organism, specifically a plant that took carbon out of the atmosphere and stored it in its own body. Therefore, all that original carbon did not make the earth to hot for living things. It will take centuries to burn even a fraction of all the coal that exists, so that we will restore the earth to what it was when coal was formed. I think humanity and all other living things can adapt to this change over such a time span. The burning of coal the emits a number of pollutants, but CO2 is not one of them. Every time you exhale, you emit CO2.
Whenever a theory makes a prediction which is then verified by experiment, that theory ought to be seriously looked at rather than to be dismissed at the wave of the hand. In July 2005 a NASA experiment named "deep impact" fired a 300 kg copper slug at a comet named Tempel I to help test the currently accepted ice ball model of comets. Scientists who include the electric interaction in order to explain what we observe in the universe, made an accurate prediction months in advance of the impact. They predicted that as a projectile approached the comet, there would be TWO flashes of light. The first one would be caused by an electric discharge, a lightning bolt to the comet from the projectile and the second one from the impact itself. This is EXACTLY what was observed. Like so often, scientists hidebound by the accepted, majority explanation of things, are often surprised and baffled, as they were by this double flash. Scientists who hold only to of the conventional, currently accepted theory, where the electric force is ruled out, have no explanation for this double flash.
Because the electric forces is 39 orders of magnitude more powerful than gravity, it can also make things happen much faster than the slow uniformitarian models of current cosmology and the slow gradual evolutionary viewpoint.
So indeed yes, there is a scripture applicable to this found in II Peter 3:3-9 where we are told that God intervened catastrophically in the natural world and will do so again.
....They believe that anthropogenic climate change is real....
That is exactly right, they BELIEVE, but do not know this for a fact. Prestigious bodies of scientists have in the past believed certain things to be true and later turned out to be false.
There are many cycles in nature, climate being just one. There is indeed evidence that long ago the average temperature of the Earth was significantly warmer than it is today. Greenland is called that for a reason. It was within human history once a green land. Ice cores drilled to the bottom of the ice contain molds, pollen and other microscopic evidence of plant life now still in existence on the East Coast of the United States.
Even if we are in a warming cycle at this time, this does not mean we cannot enter a cooling cycle at a later time. Besides, even if it does get warm enough to melt all the ice in Greenland, so what? Would it be so bad to be able to grow food in places now covered with ice? I am quite certain that there are many Canadians who would not mind a milder climate. There is also evidence that the world's ocean where once much lower than they are today.
There may be more reality to religion in some cases than most modern skeptical persons, especially on/. would ever want to admit to.
There is a prophecy in the Bible concerning the end of human history, during a specific seven-year period of time, where the sun will be seven times hotter: Isaiah 30:26
In the book of Revelation, which is also about that period of Earth history, we also read about a very much hotter sun: Rev 16:8-9
Each of these prophets, writing centuries apart from each other, is writing about the time when the Creator God will punish the overwhelming wickedness of humanity, before sending Jesus Christ back to this planet to establish true peace and prosperity for all of mankind.
Maybe scientists are beginning to measure the start of these dramatic prophecies already. If this is really to come true, eliminating greenhouse gases won't do squat. We humans might as well face it. We are definitely not in control of our destiny, but that there is a Creator God who made and controls this universe and everything in it.
...Since he's a reporter, using a small part of the movie, even if it's not yet published, it's a fair use of the material and is not protected under the copyright law.....
Whether it is illegal or not is irrelevant, because he crossed the big boss. Any employee who does something the big boss intensely dislikes, can get fired. There is no need to make a big deal of this, because that is all that really happened. No number of lawyers will be able to get the guy's job back for him.
....Personally, I think tiered pricing by volume is a good idea...
I agree with you entirely. I cannot see why we get electricity, gas, water, garbage service and other things measured and pay for the amount we use should not also apply to Internet bandwidth. The garbage and recycling company around here has two different size garbage cans at two different service rates. Switching from one Internet provider to another is a futile temporary tactic that will soon not work anymore anywhere. Internet bandwidth is a finite quantity that must be and will be paid for according to use. I think that anyone here would agree that gasoline must be sold and paid for by the gallon not by the gas tank full. Why should it be any different for Internet usage? Simply pay by data transferred.
Interesting legal question: If your neighbor manages to install the latest copy of the Conficker Worm, on a computer of yours which is trespassing on his network, would he be in trouble with the law?
...What has been mentioned about Apple in the EU has not been very positive...
So for you, some bureaucrats of the EU, many of whom hate anything American with a purple passion, are the be-all and end-all judges of computer quality. These are the same idiots who are constantly down on Microsoft for various alleged sins, and turned a blind eye when a European company does exactly the same thing. Besides, I live in the United States and what the European commission or any other European bureaucrat thinks and does it is totally irrelevant. I was in Germany three years ago, where I visited a large computer store. Most of their equipment was American or Japanese. The sprinkling of German or other European made computers looked like the do-it-yourself kits found at Fry's or other sellers of build your own computer components.
(...Considering the simple issues like too much thermal paste...)
You sure are making a big issue of this one item. As I understand, this paste issue occurred quite a few years ago and yet you still bring it up.
(...Apple is a popular brand name...)
It is indeed and how did it get that way? Apple did not invent the portable music player, but they came out with one that millions of people were willing to fork over their hard earned cash for, rather than any of the established ones already on the market. Ultimately, you don't build a brand name for yourself by selling a POS, but by putting out a decent product that people will buy again and again.
You tell that to all the millions of users who are struggling at this moment with the Conficker Worm which does not affect even one single solitary computer with OSX loaded into it, even a Hackintosh not made by Apple.
(...numerous logic board failures, nvidia GPU chipset failures...) Nobody has ever said that the common components used by Apple as well as by everybody else cannot fail or do not fail. Even so, organizations like Consumer Reports give Apple Computers the highest possible grades for overall quality and reliability. Apple can do this because they do not race with a rock-bottom and therefore can afford to put a considerable portion of their insane profits back into their product. Apple pioneered touches, such as the magnetic connector for power are no big deal until somebody stumbles over the cord and the connector pops harmlessly off. With other computers the result is a broken connector or the computer crashing to the floor. Having a keyboard that lights up in a dark room is not a necessity, but a nice touch other manufacturers, as usual, are also now copying.
(...In conclusion, I determine...)
Well good for you that YOU, a self-styled computer god, have determined that for yourself. Fortunately, more credible organizations and more reliable reviewers have come to the opposite conclusion that you have come to. Also, the fact that many people are willing to pay extra for quality, are keeping up Apple's profits at levels the other computer makers only dream about.
Unless you take into consideration the price of the whole computer, as a system, including the software. Dell does not to make software, but are forced to load in Windows VISTA, a steaming POS for which the user must constantly spend time and effort to keep it updated in order to prevent the entry of tens of thousands of possible malware programs, many of which steal private information leading to a possible empty bank account. There are bot-nets comprised of millions of Windows computers spewing forth billions of SPAM messages, but no Apple computers at all. Computer hardware comparisons are essentially useless. Nobody buys a piece of hardware only, but a whole complete computer. Because computers are entirely software driven, the whole computer SYSTEM must be compared to another computer system. Apple is the only company that makes a whole complete computer, software and hardware. therefore, both can be tailored for each other making a far superior system product.
...I'd be very surprised to see anything noticeable....
Maybe you would not see any difference, but chip manufacturers do. After semiconductor chips are packaged, they are tested in various ways, such as speed versus temperature and other parameters. The manufacturer then sorts them according to performance. The really hot chips get sold for more, the average ones at average prices and the marginal ones for rock-bottom prices. Apple is a manufacturer that does not buy or produce rock-bottom products. If you have a rock-bottom computer, you may get away with rock-bottom priced components.
....I thought the great thing about Macs was that they were allegedly great and easy to use for random people and their grandmas?....
Grandma doesn't have to buy the most expensive Mac laptop in order to get an easy to use, reliable, virus and malware free computer. A plain Macbook for $1000 that just works (tm) will keep her computing happily for many years. I like the fact that my Macs are part of a niche market, free of malware, adware, spyware and gradual system deterioration making it necessary to wipe the hard drive clean and start over. I do not know a single person that has ever needed to reinstall OSX because it had gradually become unusable or broken over time. I have a 2004 iBook wherein OSX crashes or freezes regularly after it warms up half hour or longer. Investigation with diagnostic software shows that one of the memory chips soldered to the motherboard is defective. That is the only time I have ever seen the Mac version of the BSOD. I hope that Apple computers always remain in enough of a minority, so they never become a major target for all the cyber criminals presently targeting Windows computers. Therefore, I hope that Macs always remain a niche market. I see absolutely no advantage for having a computer with majority market share.
...Show me a Macbook that I can buy for just $400.....
Show me a new BMW, Lexus or Mercedes Benz I can buy for under $19995.95! You can't? Oh, I see, those companies don't make a car for that price.
Any computer, no matter what its price, is nothing more than a pile of metal, plastic and silicon designed to run software. In Apple's case, it is the software you do get, such as OSX and the iLife programs, as well as the software you do NOT get, such as trialware, spyware, adware pre-installed by the manufacturer, as well as the reservoir of tens of thousands of viruses, worms, Trojans and other malicious code. Any of Apple's computers can run programming from Redmond or open source. However, such a Mac will always be inferior in every way to the product that Apple delivers to their customers. Even a Hackintosh made by some other hardware manufacturer, or put together from the correct collection of spare parts, will be a better overall computer system running OSX, than it would have been with other software.
Slashdot Mirror
....You make another mistake in that you seem to be saying that software in the Linux form is taken from so many different sources....
In using many sources for a product, be it hardware or software, is no problem as such. What is a problem, in the case of computers alone, is that with the exception of Apple, much of the systems integration and getting it all to work is left to the end user. For example, Photoshop elements is a reasonably priced, very capable photo editing application. If someone has a Macintosh or Windows computer and wishes to edit pictures, he or she may install this program and exchange the files it produces with others who may wish to edit them further. There are of course photo editors available for Linux as well, but they may not be compatible with what most others are using and are familiar with.
(...Again, the Macintosh is just as much a hodgepodge thrown together piece of equipment as any other...)
Have you ever heard the expression, "The design is more than the sum of its parts"? Of course, Apple uses the same disk drives and chips as everyone else, but they are able to integrate and test them _together with the software_ as a complete working SYSTEM. When you build and integrate your system from the same kinds of parts, you are doing exactly what Apple does, but you are not selling your systems commercially. In the end, you will have a much superior product (presumably you are an expert and know what you are doing) than the DELLS and HPs sold commercially. For people with your capability and interest, there is no better way to go than to use Linux as the basis for the systems you build.
I have UBUNTU 8.04 installed a VM on my Mac Pro, as well as several versions of Windows running in separate VMs. UBUNTU was the only one where I had to do some configuring of the OS itself, not the VM, in order to access the Internet.
I myself have built other kinds of electronic equipment at home, such as a 750 KV Tesla coil using parts from an old 1 kW amateur radio transmitter. As an electronics engineer I remember the first computer I ever came in contact with. It was a PDP11 with a whole row of switches and lights on the front panel. The computer was connected to a teletype machine. Programs were loaded and saved with a paper tape with holes in it.
When it comes to computers, I am like most people now, in that I want to go down to the store and buy one that just works in the same way that I go and get a pizza to eat.
I believe that analogy with the air-conditioners either installed by a dealer or integrated at the factory is not that far-fetched. In either one, the working parts may have been the same, but the factory integrated result was always far superior.
(...Also the likes of the company that violates your privacy by putting products such as WGA/WGN in your computer most of the time without your knowledge,...)
This is another reason why I like Apple products, because Apple does not play such games and except for their lawyers probably couldn't care less if somebody installs a friend's copy of their latest operating system on an old Mac. Unlike Microsoft, they are selling complete computers not just software. Therefore they do not have to play all those stupid games.
Thanks for an extensive and thoughtful reply! :-)
.....From what I understand it is possible...
Of course, almost anything is possible if a knowledgeable person puts in lots of time and effort. Digitizing a large LP collection takes a lot of time and effort, as does ripping and cataloging a big pile of CDs. To apply even more effort to make this collection easily usable on our home network was fortunately avoided by the simple fact that Apple had done all that for us. The simple sharing setup that iTunes allows, makes all the music available in various places around the house.
....And depending on how everything is setup....
It may eventually, after futzing around long enough, eventually be made to work okay, although never really well. Before automobile manufacturers got the idea to build air-conditioners into the vehicle, the dealer installed versions workrd mostly okay also, but never as well as an air conditioner properly integrated into the vehicle right at the factory. That was a more proprietary solution in that a Ford air-conditioner did not work in a Chevy.
People around here at Slashdot make the word "proprietary" out as if it were a certain flavor of profanity. A well integrated design, such as the Macintosh will always be superior to a hodgepodge of thrown together bits and pieces of computer hardware and software created by a number of people who have never met one another and have no central direction or leadership. I can however attest to a certain thrill of finally getting such an assembly of bits and pieces to actually boot up and perform as intended. Linux of all flavors fits into this scenario amazingly well because it is flexible and thus may be customized more than any other operating system.
....You can't beat the value and ease of use of Linux today....
Until you need to put your iTunes purchased music and other music on your iPod or iPhone.
...But it's responsive...
Responsive to what? Will it respond to me wanting to download a program to my iPod? Will it allow to share my music and video library on the 1 TB disk drive connected to the Airport Extreme in the family room to the computer (Mac Mini) in the living room connected to the stereo and a 47" LCD TV screen and to the laptop used while relaxing in bed sometimes? I can do all of this easily, without fuss with Apple products running OSX. That is the kind of responsiveness which matters in the end, not whether the computer responds to a mouse click in 80 milliseconds or 40.
.....With our sample size of 1, Earth.....
This has more to do with the laws of physics and chemistry. As far as we can tell, these apply equally throughout the known universe. Physical life based on carbon is the only one capable of forming the complexity and versatility needed for even a single cell organisms to exist. The atomic binding energies of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen have to be matched to the spectral photon energies for a process such as photosynthesis. The spectrum of our star, the Sun, is remarkably well matched to the atomic and molecular properties of these elements.
There are many factors that must be matched in order to achieve the conditions needed for life. For example, any two or more stars must not be closer to each other than about 3.8 light years, otherwise they would influence the long-term orbits of any possible life harboring planet to fall outside of the habitable zone at times. This one single factor alone eliminates about half of all known stars as being host to a planet similar to ours. Our closest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri, it is about 4.2 ly from here.
...How close are these planets, really, to earth?...
In order to have intelligent life, not only must the planet itself be similar to Earth in all respects, but the star it orbits must be very similar to our Sun. In this case, the star is too cold to emit the proper spectrum of light to use for knitting together atoms of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, such as occurs here on Earth by the process of photosynthesis in green plants. This means that this star and others like it can be safely scratched from a list of planets may have intelligent life.
....you better go double check your "facts", because they're lacking...
Anyone who can open a book of maps, such as National Geographic can see that the world's oceans were confined at one time to the deep ocean basins and the areas now called the continental shelves were dry.
Greenland is called that because it was once a "green land" with plant life much as we find it today on the East Coast of the United States. Ice cores from the bottom of thousands of feet of ice show pollen and seeds as well as other microscopic evidence of this fact. There is little disagreement about global warming in and of itself, but its cause and what effect this will have. Warming and cooling of the Earth is a natural cyclic activity that human beings never have had and never will have any significant influence over.
There are those who know full well that if control can be gained over how energy is produced and utilized, they will have effectively gained control over all of civilization. It is mainly in their use and production of energy, that modern industrialized societies depend on.
...the end of innocence for Apple users....
The end of innocence for foolish, greedy, thieving Apple users.
People who do that sort of thing, regardless of whether they use OSX or Windows, deserve to have their computers catch fire until nothing remains but a little puddle of charred, molten plastic and metal. Meanwhile, the real worms, the kind that multiply without end, with no user interaction, such as the recent Conficker malware are still confined exclusively to Windows. Therefore even thieving pirates with a Mac are still better off than their Windows counterparts.
....we're talking about melting the ice caps flooding massively populated areas....
Neither of these scenarios would happen of course and even if it did happen, it would take place over many human lifetimes giving people and economies plenty of time to adjust. When the whole atmosphere becomes warmer, that is significantly warmer, it will also hold significantly more moisture. This means that any of that extra water would be suspended in the atmosphere and not put places like New York underwater.
...you are still releasing CO2 into the atmosphere....
So what? That is where it all was once upon a time before coal was formed. We call coal a fossil fuel because it was once a living organism, specifically a plant that took carbon out of the atmosphere and stored it in its own body. Therefore, all that original carbon did not make the earth to hot for living things. It will take centuries to burn even a fraction of all the coal that exists, so that we will restore the earth to what it was when coal was formed. I think humanity and all other living things can adapt to this change over such a time span. The burning of coal the emits a number of pollutants, but CO2 is not one of them. Every time you exhale, you emit CO2.
....about your Electric Universe theories....
Whenever a theory makes a prediction which is then verified by experiment, that theory ought to be seriously looked at rather than to be dismissed at the wave of the hand. In July 2005 a NASA experiment named "deep impact" fired a 300 kg copper slug at a comet named Tempel I to help test the currently accepted ice ball model of comets. Scientists who include the electric interaction in order to explain what we observe in the universe, made an accurate prediction months in advance of the impact. They predicted that as a projectile approached the comet, there would be TWO flashes of light. The first one would be caused by an electric discharge, a lightning bolt to the comet from the projectile and the second one from the impact itself. This is EXACTLY what was observed. Like so often, scientists hidebound by the accepted, majority explanation of things, are often surprised and baffled, as they were by this double flash. Scientists who hold only to of the conventional, currently accepted theory, where the electric force is ruled out, have no explanation for this double flash.
Because the electric forces is 39 orders of magnitude more powerful than gravity, it can also make things happen much faster than the slow uniformitarian models of current cosmology and the slow gradual evolutionary viewpoint.
So indeed yes, there is a scripture applicable to this found in II Peter 3:3-9 where we are told that God intervened catastrophically in the natural world and will do so again.
....They believe that anthropogenic climate change is real....
That is exactly right, they BELIEVE, but do not know this for a fact. Prestigious bodies of scientists have in the past believed certain things to be true and later turned out to be false.
There are many cycles in nature, climate being just one. There is indeed evidence that long ago the average temperature of the Earth was significantly warmer than it is today. Greenland is called that for a reason. It was within human history once a green land. Ice cores drilled to the bottom of the ice contain molds, pollen and other microscopic evidence of plant life now still in existence on the East Coast of the United States.
Even if we are in a warming cycle at this time, this does not mean we cannot enter a cooling cycle at a later time. Besides, even if it does get warm enough to melt all the ice in Greenland, so what? Would it be so bad to be able to grow food in places now covered with ice? I am quite certain that there are many Canadians who would not mind a milder climate. There is also evidence that the world's ocean where once much lower than they are today.
....We could call it 'religion', perhaps....
There may be more reality to religion in some cases than most modern skeptical persons, especially on /. would ever want to admit to.
There is a prophecy in the Bible concerning the end of human history, during a specific seven-year period of time, where the sun will be seven times hotter: Isaiah 30:26
In the book of Revelation, which is also about that period of Earth history, we also read about a very much hotter sun: Rev 16:8-9
Each of these prophets, writing centuries apart from each other, is writing about the time when the Creator God will punish the overwhelming wickedness of humanity, before sending Jesus Christ back to this planet to establish true peace and prosperity for all of mankind.
Maybe scientists are beginning to measure the start of these dramatic prophecies already. If this is really to come true, eliminating greenhouse gases won't do squat. We humans might as well face it. We are definitely not in control of our destiny, but that there is a Creator God who made and controls this universe and everything in it.
...Since he's a reporter, using a small part of the movie, even if it's not yet published, it's a fair use of the material and is not protected under the copyright law.....
Whether it is illegal or not is irrelevant, because he crossed the big boss. Any employee who does something the big boss intensely dislikes, can get fired. There is no need to make a big deal of this, because that is all that really happened. No number of lawyers will be able to get the guy's job back for him.
....Personally, I think tiered pricing by volume is a good idea...
I agree with you entirely. I cannot see why we get electricity, gas, water, garbage service and other things measured and pay for the amount we use should not also apply to Internet bandwidth. The garbage and recycling company around here has two different size garbage cans at two different service rates. Switching from one Internet provider to another is a futile temporary tactic that will soon not work anymore anywhere. Internet bandwidth is a finite quantity that must be and will be paid for according to use. I think that anyone here would agree that gasoline must be sold and paid for by the gallon not by the gas tank full. Why should it be any different for Internet usage? Simply pay by data transferred.
....Stealing wifi from a neighbor...
Interesting legal question: If your neighbor manages to install the latest copy of the Conficker Worm, on a computer of yours which is trespassing on his network, would he be in trouble with the law?
It's 4+ more hours in Redmond WA before April 1 is over
...you believe this?...
Of course do I believe it's true, but the offer is only good for today and expires at midnight Pacific Standard Time.
...What has been mentioned about Apple in the EU has not been very positive...
So for you, some bureaucrats of the EU, many of whom hate anything American with a purple passion, are the be-all and end-all judges of computer quality. These are the same idiots who are constantly down on Microsoft for various alleged sins, and turned a blind eye when a European company does exactly the same thing. Besides, I live in the United States and what the European commission or any other European bureaucrat thinks and does it is totally irrelevant.
I was in Germany three years ago, where I visited a large computer store. Most of their equipment was American or Japanese. The sprinkling of German or other European made computers looked like the do-it-yourself kits found at Fry's or other sellers of build your own computer components.
(...Considering the simple issues like too much thermal paste...)
You sure are making a big issue of this one item. As I understand, this paste issue occurred quite a few years ago and yet you still bring it up.
(...Apple is a popular brand name...)
It is indeed and how did it get that way? Apple did not invent the portable music player, but they came out with one that millions of people were willing to fork over their hard earned cash for, rather than any of the established ones already on the market. Ultimately, you don't build a brand name for yourself by selling a POS, but by putting out a decent product that people will buy again and again.
....This is not a issue for all users...
You tell that to all the millions of users who are struggling at this moment with the Conficker Worm which does not affect even one single solitary computer with OSX loaded into it, even a Hackintosh not made by Apple.
(...numerous logic board failures, nvidia GPU chipset failures...)
Nobody has ever said that the common components used by Apple as well as by everybody else cannot fail or do not fail. Even so, organizations like Consumer Reports give Apple Computers the highest possible grades for overall quality and reliability. Apple can do this because they do not race with a rock-bottom and therefore can afford to put a considerable portion of their insane profits back into their product. Apple pioneered touches, such as the magnetic connector for power are no big deal until somebody stumbles over the cord and the connector pops harmlessly off. With other computers the result is a broken connector or the computer crashing to the floor. Having a keyboard that lights up in a dark room is not a necessity, but a nice touch other manufacturers, as usual, are also now copying.
(...In conclusion, I determine...)
Well good for you that YOU, a self-styled computer god, have determined that for yourself. Fortunately, more credible organizations and more reliable reviewers have come to the opposite conclusion that you have come to. Also, the fact that many people are willing to pay extra for quality, are keeping up Apple's profits at levels the other computer makers only dream about.
...It's not even a close call....
Unless you take into consideration the price of the whole computer, as a system, including the software. Dell does not to make software, but are forced to load in Windows VISTA, a steaming POS for which the user must constantly spend time and effort to keep it updated in order to prevent the entry of tens of thousands of possible malware programs, many of which steal private information leading to a possible empty bank account. There are bot-nets comprised of millions of Windows computers spewing forth billions of SPAM messages, but no Apple computers at all.
Computer hardware comparisons are essentially useless. Nobody buys a piece of hardware only, but a whole complete computer. Because computers are entirely software driven, the whole computer SYSTEM must be compared to another computer system. Apple is the only company that makes a whole complete computer, software and hardware. therefore, both can be tailored for each other making a far superior system product.
...I'd be very surprised to see anything noticeable....
Maybe you would not see any difference, but chip manufacturers do. After semiconductor chips are packaged, they are tested in various ways, such as speed versus temperature and other parameters. The manufacturer then sorts them according to performance. The really hot chips get sold for more, the average ones at average prices and the marginal ones for rock-bottom prices. Apple is a manufacturer that does not buy or produce rock-bottom products. If you have a rock-bottom computer, you may get away with rock-bottom priced components.
....I thought the great thing about Macs was that they were allegedly great and easy to use for random people and their grandmas?....
Grandma doesn't have to buy the most expensive Mac laptop in order to get an easy to use, reliable, virus and malware free computer. A plain Macbook for $1000 that just works (tm) will keep her computing happily for many years.
I like the fact that my Macs are part of a niche market, free of malware, adware, spyware and gradual system deterioration making it necessary to wipe the hard drive clean and start over. I do not know a single person that has ever needed to reinstall OSX because it had gradually become unusable or broken over time. I have a 2004 iBook wherein OSX crashes or freezes regularly after it warms up half hour or longer. Investigation with diagnostic software shows that one of the memory chips soldered to the motherboard is defective. That is the only time I have ever seen the Mac version of the BSOD.
I hope that Apple computers always remain in enough of a minority, so they never become a major target for all the cyber criminals presently targeting Windows computers. Therefore, I hope that Macs always remain a niche market. I see absolutely no advantage for having a computer with majority market share.
...Show me a Macbook that I can buy for just $400.....
Show me a new BMW, Lexus or Mercedes Benz I can buy for under $19995.95! You can't? Oh, I see, those companies don't make a car for that price.
Any computer, no matter what its price, is nothing more than a pile of metal, plastic and silicon designed to run software. In Apple's case, it is the software you do get, such as OSX and the iLife programs, as well as the software you do NOT get, such as trialware, spyware, adware pre-installed by the manufacturer, as well as the reservoir of tens of thousands of viruses, worms, Trojans and other malicious code. Any of Apple's computers can run programming from Redmond or open source. However, such a Mac will always be inferior in every way to the product that Apple delivers to their customers. Even a Hackintosh made by some other hardware manufacturer, or put together from the correct collection of spare parts, will be a better overall computer system running OSX, than it would have been with other software.