Not entirely of course, but to a large degree you CAN. One big way is to pay attention to nutrition. Stop drinking a lot of alcohol, don't smoke, avoid sugary drinks (sodas), certain kinds of fat and empty foods such as white bread and sugary pastries. Eat natural, vitamin and mineral rich foods, unprocessed, as much as possible. Get enough sleep at least most nights. Park at the far edge of your work or shopping center parking lot and walk that extra distance. If safe, ride a bicycle.
Most commercial food factories care only for their bottom line, not for your health. If a food has a higher shelf life, that translates directly into more profit. To enhance shelf life or taste, all sorts of preservatives and other artificially unnatural things are added to many prepared factory foods.
A good rule of thumb: For equivalent product categories, always buy the one with the shortest ingredient list. This eliminates most convenience foods, such as TV dinners and pizzas. It means you have to take the time to cook fresh, natural ingredients, rather than grabbing a pre-made package and nuking it in the microwave.
Natural, organic products are usually more expensive. Whatever you don't spend in the grocery store on healthful foods, you will more than make up for at the doctors office and the pharmacy. This also goes for the time it takes to cook a healthful meal. You'll spend more time in the kitchen, but less time in the doctors office. In the end, you'll feel better too.
To a surprising degree, you can avoid many illnesses.
....A doctor's office would lose it's practice if it handed over information to anyone without the patient's consent....
This is generally true in the US also. However, anyone who applies for insurance MUST give this consent to the insurance company. Once the insurance company presents your signed consent form to whoever has your information, they get what they want.
...I'm very glad I live in a country with a Nationalised Healthcare System....
Is the provision of healthcare a right for everybody? How about the provision of needed food? Is everybody entitled to needed food? How about shelter or transportation. Should there be national food and shelter insurance also? How about a national life's necessities insurance? Would we not all benefit if everybody had good food and shelter?
Insurance is a bet that the risks of life be taken by everyone, rather then the individual hit by a particular curve that life throws at various times to all people.
At what point do people provide these things for themselves, as they have in most civilizations for centuries?
....if employers and landlords are going to perform credit checks.....
We occasionally have to do such credit checks before renting to someone. The overall credit score is not as important as the unpaid bills of ordinary ongoing services, rather than not paying the credit card. Somebody who doesn't pay their utilities, for example, may not pay their rent either. Someone who has no credit card or other loans, but always pays ongoing bills in cash, would be likely to also pay their rent.
...."I'll insure you if and only if you don't need the insurance"....
Banker: I cannot lend you the $50,000 you want be you really do need that money. We only make loans to people that don't REALLY need money.
So now it will be the same for health insurance.
Insurance company:
We will only insure healthy people who don't need medical treatments. Your health score tells us you use too many prescription drugs and therefore can by definition in no way be healthy.
Very often, the founder of a company cares greatly about his people, even the seemingly unimportant ones down on the assembly line. David Packard was one of these. Even when HP already had about 3000 employees, he'd make the rounds regularly to speak to his workers individually about their jobs, hopes and dreams with HP. He's solicit suggestion for improvements he could implement. Morale was very high and the man was universally liked and highly respected. Most people will be very loyal to a boss who they know really cares about them.
When another management comes in, such as Carly, whose focus is efficiency and money, at the expense of the welfare of the people, the company can go down the drain very quickly.
.... it should be kept private as it could be used abusive fashion....
It is funny how our society demands certain relationships to remain private and demands others to be public or nearly public. Your privacy relationship with your doctor, priest and lawyer are protected by various laws, but your relationship with your banker is demanded to be known almost totally, at least by the government, as well as most anyone else that pretends they need to know all about your financial dealings.
Unlike most of us, in Steve's case, his medical condition potentially translates to a lot of money for Apple and its investors. In essence what this says is that the openness requirement of money supersedes the importance of medical privacy. This speaks volumes about the decadence of our culture. Anything that takes on the highest importance is in a sense the object of worship. It still says on our money "In God We Trust", but that is in reality an empty slogan.
....You do realize that the creation of said pictures....
But the creation of such pictures is an ACTION, for which the actors rightfully should be called to account. However, again, if someone is merely in possession of such pictures or information, without action attached, should not be criminal.
There were and still are countries, where the possession of certain literature, such as Bibles is a capital crime. In Nazi Germany, the possession of certain types of radio receivers, was punishable by death. Laws against ownership are always political in nature and have really nothing to do with true harm coming to the society as a whole that makes such laws. Passing laws against intent is a freedom robbing procedure that all dictators employ. Such rules really should not exist in a free society. To the extent that such laws do exist, that society is not free.
If you read the Ten Commandments, basic rules for living, you do not find anything about possession mentioned. They are all about bad actions or failure to do good actions.
So then if such a human criminal stabs you with a knife or beats you to death with a baseball bat or tire iron, you'll be less dead than if you had been shot? So then possession of these or even your hands which can also kill, should be illegal by your reasoning. Why single out one particular instrument that can be and is even designed to kill?
Criminality arises in the heart and mind of a person. As person thinks, so is he. Evidently. German, Japanese and others think about crime in general less often. It has nothing to do with the weapons they might own.
Passing laws punishing intent is very dangerous, unless we had a 100% perfect way of foretelling the future or a foolproof mind scanning system. A shot gun in the bank is a straw-man. People have gotten arrested and sent to prison for having such a gun in their house, car trunk and other places where intent is a nebulous. If someone threatens anyone with such a weapon, THAT is an action which can and should be punishable.
Another poster said in an interesting way: "An armed society is a polite society." Indeed in such a society, anyone who decides NOT to be polite is unlikely to be around too long.
....Apple have the legal right to dictate what hardware you run their software on.....
No, unless they specifically make that a condition of sale which you have to SIGN, before they will sell you and allow you to install an upgrade of their OSX on your computer. Anyone who can PROVE they do own a Mac would be exempt from actually signing such legally binding document. Providing a valid, registered serial number of you old Mac should do that.
The problem is that EULAs are a legally nebulous construct. A better approach would be to simply not sell an OSX upgrade to anyone unless they actually signed an agreement that they are a indeed a legitimate Mac owner or could prove this by providing the serial number of their Mac. Since these serial numbers are unique and registered with Apple, they already have the most important component of such a scheme in place.
....However, nothing gives Apple the right to tell me, the consumer, what hardware I am required to run their operating system on.....
That would be true if Apple were a software company like MS. They are not. They don't even MAKE an operating system. The build complete computers, of which OSX is a key part. They are perfectly within their rights to require some sort of agreement that you will only install their engine and transmission in their vehicle. Their EULA alone is probably insufficient for this. What they could do is require each customer to prove they are indeed a Mac owner or sign a statement that they are, BEFORE they sell you a key part of their system. NOW they would have you under a signed binding contract which, unlike a EULA they would easily be able to enforce in a court of law.
This is pure unadulterated BS. Unlike Microsoft, Apple doesn't even make an operating system. They build complete computer SYSTEMS that happen to include their own OS. All the others buy an off the shelf OS from Microsoft or use a freebie called Linux.
Some car makers buy engines and other key components from others who sell these to anybody. Other car makers build their own engines and other key parts and do NOT sell them or make them available separately. Why should what Apple does be illegal when car makers and other manufacturers do exactly the same thing, and have done so for years? Why should integrated software be treated differently than integrated hardware?
No, not at all. They can save themselves all those legal costs and simply no longer sell OSX openly. For a while, nobody coud obtain a legitimate copy of OSX Tiger for Intel without buying a Mac. Apple sells only upgrades to Mac owners who can prove they are indeed Mac owners. Those who don't already own a Mac that will run that particular upgrade for their old Mac, won't be eligible to buy the OSX upgrade.
.... Apple sells me an operating system in the form of installable media.....
If more and more predators like Pystar jump into the business of trying to make a fast buck from the hard work of Apple, they have a number of simple options to thwart them. They only have to stop selling OSX on the open market to any and all comers. Instead they can require proof of Mac ownership. Nobody gets a legitimate copy of OSX unless they can prove that they actually own a genuine Apple manufactured Mac computer.
After that, anyone who wants to install OSX on some other hardware is forced to break the law by "pirating" some copy of OSX. Since each Mac has a serial number and most of these are registered with Apple, they can also easily do an evil Microsoft Activation scheme. They may be forced to do this if they cannot enforce their restrictions in a court of law.
As always, it is the scumbags of this world who care about nothing else than themselves, that force companies to institute activation and DRM systems which in the end don't work very well other than making life miserable for the honest people who pay for the merchandise they want or go without.
Apple is NOT Microsoft or Adobe, software makers. Apple builds hardware and is the only company that writes their own software for their own hardware and is therefore the ONLY Company that makes a WHOLE, not just half a computer. They are entitled to alone determine who gets to use the software half of their total computer system. If they do not wish to allow their software half to run on other hardware, the only real way they can ultimately prevent that, is not with lawyers, but to simply not to make the software half of the computers available independently of their hardware.
is only the beginning. I can see controlling people's behavior, that what they do may be needed, but NOT what they happen to possess. It is so easy to surreptitiously plant some illegal material or object in order to frame someone. People should be held responsible for what they DO, not what they merely HAVE. If some driver has an open bottle of booze in a car they could be tested for alcohol, but not punished for merely having the bottle.
If someone has some arbitrarily classified, so called illegal weapon in their house, they should not be punished merely for that fact, only if they threaten someone or in some other way DO something harmful with any object. One can beat someone to death with a baseball bat or cut someone's throat with a kitchen knife. Do we declare the ownership of baseball bats or knives illegal? A large fraction, if not the majority of the US prison population is there because they had something that was for mostly arbitrary reason declared to be illegal to merely own, even if they may not have done anything harmful to another.
Anyone who merely OWNS say a shotgun a quarter inch shorter than some arbitrarily decided length some politicians came up with, can be thrown in prison for simply that. Anyone who grows certain kinds of plants, which the Creator saw fit to put on our planet, can be punished for that. Anyone who simply HAS certain kinds of pictures or information can currently be sent to prison for a long time, regardless of what harm they have actually DONE with those pictures or information.
It is BEHAVIOR that people may DO with some of these things that should be looked at to see whether society is truly harmed, not whether they merely HAVE something that someone doesn't approve of.
....He did not send Jesus to teach us about advanced technology or how to perform miracles....
You are right, that was not God's primary purpose. There is someone here on/. who has a sig. to the effect that says: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from miracles" There is an element of truth in that.
To God there is no such thing as a miracle. After all, someone who can create a whole Universe from absolutely nothing should be and I firmly believe, is capable of communicating truth to us in a manner that we can accept. Christians are not required to check their brain and its reasoning power at the door of the church. In Isaiah God challenges us with: "Come, let us reason together..."
Like I pointed out, God had a loving relationship with man at the beginning. When man broke off this intimate fellowship, God went to the extreme of leaving His deity behind, like a cloak, and clothed Himself in a frail, mortal human body. In that mortal body He ultimately suffered the penalty of experiencing that final separation from all that is good, that every human will needlessly experience, if the offer of God's reconciliation and forgiveness in Jesus Christ is rejected. Jesus, because He is both eternal and fully human, tasted in a moment of time, what it is like to be cut off from God forever. He did this in order that NO human might experience that horror. That is why he cried out on the cross, in agony, that He had been forsaken by God.
Right now, we live in a broken world, where good and evil are inextricably intertwined. This was not always so and will not always be. There will be a time and place with God, where there is only goodness and light. There will also be a place where there will only be evil and darkness, away from the goodness and perfection of God.
Right now, every human is given the opportunity to respond to the love call of God. It is my hope and prayer that many will.
Like you correctly pointed out, it requires a lot of work to invade systems other than Windows. Criminals would not be criminals if they wanted to work. They would get real jobs like most of us honest people. As long as Macs, iPhones, Linux and other potentially exploitable devices take more work to hack into, than Windows does, even still, these malefactors will not make the effort of break these more secure systems.
Your house and mine is obviously not burglar proof. No house is. However, as long as we have better locks and maybe an alarm system and the house down the street has flimsy locks and doors and maybe even has the doors unlocked, our houses will be quite safe. There is also the matter of possible rewards. If the crooks know they can get a better haul out of your place than the neighbors, they may work a little harder to get your stuff.
There is however no evidence that the data stored on Macs is intrinsically more valuable to crooks than the data on a Windows box. That means there isn't really any incentive in that to work harder to break into iPhones, Linux or Mac systems. Even in Windows systems, the low hanging fruit that allowed self-propagating malware has been largely picked. Now the crooks have to attack the computer (brain) that operates the keyboard and mouse with techniques of social engineering. That requires considerably more skill and effort than it took to write a self-propagating virus that spread to millions of Windows computer in hours and in some cases minutes.
.... I think if Jesus could see what we made out of his religion....
The assumption here is that Jesus came to start a religion. He did far more than that. He came from beyond time and space into our material world to bring the wayward human race back into a proper relationship with the transcendent Creator God. He came to return to humanity the eternal love relationship that was operative between mankind and this God who exists eternally outside of and independent of this Universe we are now in. When man decided to disbelieve what this loving God first said, the relationship of trust and love was broken. Now, through Jesus Christ, the offer of reconciliation is open to any member of the human race who once again chooses to believe what God has communicated through and in His emissary and redeemer. The issue was, in the beginning, belief and trust in God and that is STILL the only avenue open to every person on this planet.
We are told in the record that there in no way has any man ever imagined or conceived in his mind, the things this God has planned for those who love Him and show this love by believing and trusting Him, just as a little child trusts their Daddy. We are told that man is made in the image and likeness of God. There are two Hebrew words here, translated image and likeness. The first has the idea of a coin, a hard to obliterate stamp of certain characteristics of God. Man, as the object of God's love has never lost this. The second part, "likeness" is used in functional contexts. Man became mortal and lost the ability to function and operate as God intended an eternal being to live. Selfishness, greed, envy and all the other negative traits and actions of us humans came in and are still with us today.
For example, from the record left for us concerning how Jesus left those He loved, it is obvious that the technology He has is far beyond our own. He did not rise into the sky on a roaring rocket flame, but, we are told, a "cloud" lifted Him silently from their view. We are further told that other celestial beings then informed Jesus' followers standing there, staring into the sky, that this same Jesus shall like like manner return to that same spot on Earth.
Anyone now willing to trust themselves without reservations to the goodness and mercy God extends in and through Jesus Christ will be empowered to begin, right here in this life, a process of being increasingly enabled to once again receive the desire and ability to operate and live as God intends. The culmination will be when such a person leaves this material world and is given the same sort of immortal, time-space transcending body to live in, as Jesus demonstrated to those people who then recorded their experiences with Jesus for us. Then those so transformed will be enabled to posses the technology to fulfill the ancient dream of traveling to the distant stars and galaxies and beyond the boundaries of our space-time universe to the very presence of God.
..Seriously, for such an advanced species, they make very little sense....
Seriously, do you think that a REALLY advanced being would not need to be VERY careful in approaching us humans, the most dangerous life-form by far, in the whole galaxy?
Beings advanced enough to travel through the vast reaches of space, even only in our own galaxy, not even the unfathomable reaches of intergalactic space, could have conquered death and the limitations of time and space. Would they really want to share their secrets with a warlike bunch like us, who have never been able to get along with one another for as long as we have existed?
Would they really want us to be able to spread the contagion of evil and selfishness that pervades humanity all over the universe? It seems to me, that an intelligent being, advanced enough to be able to come here from the distant places among the stars, would be very foolish indeed to allow that to happen. We humans need to quarantined by the vastness of space and the death limitation until we can learn to NOT be selfish and until ALL of us indeed want to obey the golden rule of love that Jesus Christ spoke about.
These advanced celestial beings see the mess we made of this world, which we had no hand in building. Would they really permit or even help us to travel to other, yet pristine planets and screw them up also? I don't think so.
One advanced being DID come here about 2000 years ago. His earth name was Jesus. He came to inhabit a human body. He claimed to be God become human, from another realm, far beyond our own, a place we have named "heaven". The records we have of His visit tell us He had access to technology and powers so far beyond our own we call them miracles. He showed us technology from God that proved that it is possible to transcend death and that this is a basic prerequisite to be able to travel to the distant places of the Universe. Living in His resurrected, transformed body, He demonstrated the ability to travel in and out of our time-space environment as easily as you and I walk from the kitchen to our living room and back again.
Instead of believing Him and accepting what He related of the realms far beyond our own and how to live our life, the people of that time murdered Him. However, because He came from a civilization that had conquered death long ago, if death indeed even exists there at all, He did not stay dead. The collection of energy fields we call atoms, constituting His body were reconstituted in a configuration and by a power we do not and cannot understand at this, but He came back to life. We read that those who do believe Him will be likewise transformed and housed in a transcendent body no longer subject to death, decay or the constraints of time and place as we now know and experience them.
The records we have of His visit also tell us that he will one day once again traverse the immense reaches of space-time. He will at that time force, rather than ask, humans to do His bidding. We read that this return will be sudden, without warning.
There will be and are today, only two groups of people. One of them believes and therefore will be glad when it finally happens. The other group, we are told, will seek shelter in caves and cry for the mountains to fall on them, to hide them from that One, coming once again, this time to take total dominion over this planet we all live on. He will return from beyond the distant reaches of time and space. Which group are you a member of?
....devices I pay for and ostensibly own still being directed and controlled by others.....
It is hard to get away from outside control of modern devices. Your refrigerator, washing machine and everything else you have plugged into the power line is in a sense directed by and at the mercy of the power company. They try to protect your electrical goods by doing their best to supply a voltage and current that won't send these devices up in smoke. If they have a short that supplies 12,000 volts into your house, they are held responsible and are expected to replace your fried appliances and maybe even your burned down house.
As long as Apple is not held responsible by you or grandma when the hacked phone fails, Apple should not care. The problem is that in today's legal environment, there certainly are people and especially lawyers who will try to blame Apple if the phone fails, regardless whether it was hacked or not. Unfortunately, in our legal climate, the manufacturer may be held responsible, even if the user abuses the equipment. The odds of being successful may be against the attackers, but there are still plenty of legal predators out there who will try the odds anyway. Who knows, they may get a good settlement out of court.
That's why you find, for example, these "Lawyer Tags" on extension cords and other electrical paraphernalia. It's the manufacturers trying put another layer of protection for themselves from lawyers in our our predatory legal system.
How is the fractional banking system any different than say the telephone system or even a bridge? There are many systems that rely on the law of averages. How is money different than the number of telephone lines or the carrying capacity of a bridge? If too many people try to use the phone at once or too many get on a bridge, both will collapse. Just as an unforeseen event physical event can overload a utility or bridge, so too unpredicted events can cause the collapse of a financial system. Why is it that so many seem to think that the commodity we call money is somehow immune to the forces of supply and demand that govern all other systems of man? A commodity that is not as easily manipulated as another it seems to me should be preferable as a medium of exchange. I think it is this intuition that cause many to buy gold and other rare commodities.
Slashdot Mirror
...But you can't avoid being ill...
Not entirely of course, but to a large degree you CAN. One big way is to pay attention to nutrition. Stop drinking a lot of alcohol, don't smoke, avoid sugary drinks (sodas), certain kinds of fat and empty foods such as white bread and sugary pastries. Eat natural, vitamin and mineral rich foods, unprocessed, as much as possible. Get enough sleep at least most nights. Park at the far edge of your work or shopping center parking lot and walk that extra distance. If safe, ride a bicycle.
Most commercial food factories care only for their bottom line, not for your health. If a food has a higher shelf life, that translates directly into more profit. To enhance shelf life or taste, all sorts of preservatives and other artificially unnatural things are added to many prepared factory foods.
A good rule of thumb: For equivalent product categories, always buy the one with the shortest ingredient list. This eliminates most convenience foods, such as TV dinners and pizzas. It means you have to take the time to cook fresh, natural ingredients, rather than grabbing a pre-made package and nuking it in the microwave.
Natural, organic products are usually more expensive. Whatever you don't spend in the grocery store on healthful foods, you will more than make up for at the doctors office and the pharmacy. This also goes for the time it takes to cook a healthful meal. You'll spend more time in the kitchen, but less time in the doctors office. In the end, you'll feel better too.
To a surprising degree, you can avoid many illnesses.
....A doctor's office would lose it's practice if it handed over information to anyone without the patient's consent....
This is generally true in the US also. However, anyone who applies for insurance MUST give this consent to the insurance company. Once the insurance company presents your signed consent form to whoever has your information, they get what they want.
...I'm very glad I live in a country with a Nationalised Healthcare System....
Is the provision of healthcare a right for everybody? How about the provision of needed food? Is everybody entitled to needed food? How about shelter or transportation. Should there be national food and shelter insurance also? How about a national life's necessities insurance? Would we not all benefit if everybody had good food and shelter?
Insurance is a bet that the risks of life be taken by everyone, rather then the individual hit by a particular curve that life throws at various times to all people.
At what point do people provide these things for themselves, as they have in most civilizations for centuries?
....if employers and landlords are going to perform credit checks .....
We occasionally have to do such credit checks before renting to someone. The overall credit score is not as important as the unpaid bills of ordinary ongoing services, rather than not paying the credit card. Somebody who doesn't pay their utilities, for example, may not pay their rent either. Someone who has no credit card or other loans, but always pays ongoing bills in cash, would be likely to also pay their rent.
...."I'll insure you if and only if you don't need the insurance"....
Banker:
I cannot lend you the $50,000 you want be you really do need that money. We only make loans to people that don't REALLY need money.
So now it will be the same for health insurance.
Insurance company:
We will only insure healthy people who don't need medical treatments. Your health score tells us you use too many prescription drugs and therefore can by definition in no way be healthy.
...HP springs to mind...
Very often, the founder of a company cares greatly about his people, even the seemingly unimportant ones down on the assembly line. David Packard was one of these. Even when HP already had about 3000 employees, he'd make the rounds regularly to speak to his workers individually about their jobs, hopes and dreams with HP. He's solicit suggestion for improvements he could implement. Morale was very high and the man was universally liked and highly respected. Most people will be very loyal to a boss who they know really cares about them.
When another management comes in, such as Carly, whose focus is efficiency and money, at the expense of the welfare of the people, the company can go down the drain very quickly.
.... it should be kept private as it could be used abusive fashion ....
It is funny how our society demands certain relationships to remain private and demands others to be public or nearly public. Your privacy relationship with your doctor, priest and lawyer are protected by various laws, but your relationship with your banker is demanded to be known almost totally, at least by the government, as well as most anyone else that pretends they need to know all about your financial dealings.
Unlike most of us, in Steve's case, his medical condition potentially translates to a lot of money for Apple and its investors. In essence what this says is that the openness requirement of money supersedes the importance of medical privacy. This speaks volumes about the decadence of our culture. Anything that takes on the highest importance is in a sense the object of worship. It still says on our money "In God We Trust", but that is in reality an empty slogan.
....You do realize that the creation of said pictures....
But the creation of such pictures is an ACTION, for which the actors rightfully should be called to account. However, again, if someone is merely in possession of such pictures or information, without action attached, should not be criminal.
There were and still are countries, where the possession of certain literature, such as Bibles is a capital crime. In Nazi Germany, the possession of certain types of radio receivers, was punishable by death. Laws against ownership are always political in nature and have really nothing to do with true harm coming to the society as a whole that makes such laws. Passing laws against intent is a freedom robbing procedure that all dictators employ. Such rules really should not exist in a free society. To the extent that such laws do exist, that society is not free.
If you read the Ten Commandments, basic rules for living, you do not find anything about possession mentioned. They are all about bad actions or failure to do good actions.
...but humans are criminal....
So then if such a human criminal stabs you with a knife or beats you to death with a baseball bat or tire iron, you'll be less dead than if you had been shot? So then possession of these or even your hands which can also kill, should be illegal by your reasoning. Why single out one particular instrument that can be and is even designed to kill?
Criminality arises in the heart and mind of a person. As person thinks, so is he. Evidently. German, Japanese and others think about crime in general less often. It has nothing to do with the weapons they might own.
.....strongly argues for the intent ....
Passing laws punishing intent is very dangerous, unless we had a 100% perfect way of foretelling the future or a foolproof mind scanning system. A shot gun in the bank is a straw-man. People have gotten arrested and sent to prison for having such a gun in their house, car trunk and other places where intent is a nebulous. If someone threatens anyone with such a weapon, THAT is an action which can and should be punishable.
Another poster said in an interesting way: "An armed society is a polite society." Indeed in such a society, anyone who decides NOT to be polite is unlikely to be around too long.
....Apple have the legal right to dictate what hardware you run their software on.....
No, unless they specifically make that a condition of sale which you have to SIGN, before they will sell you and allow you to install an upgrade of their OSX on your computer. Anyone who can PROVE they do own a Mac would be exempt from actually signing such legally binding document. Providing a valid, registered serial number of you old Mac should do that.
.....Apple makes it fairly clear in their EULA ...
The problem is that EULAs are a legally nebulous construct. A better approach would be to simply not sell an OSX upgrade to anyone unless they actually signed an agreement that they are a indeed a legitimate Mac owner or could prove this by providing the serial number of their Mac. Since these serial numbers are unique and registered with Apple, they already have the most important component of such a scheme in place.
....However, nothing gives Apple the right to tell me, the consumer, what hardware I am required to run their operating system on.....
That would be true if Apple were a software company like MS. They are not. They don't even MAKE an operating system. The build complete computers, of which OSX is a key part. They are perfectly within their rights to require some sort of agreement that you will only install their engine and transmission in their vehicle. Their EULA alone is probably insufficient for this. What they could do is require each customer to prove they are indeed a Mac owner or sign a statement that they are, BEFORE they sell you a key part of their system. NOW they would have you under a signed binding contract which, unlike a EULA they would easily be able to enforce in a court of law.
...They have crippled their operating system...
This is pure unadulterated BS. Unlike Microsoft, Apple doesn't even make an operating system. They build complete computer SYSTEMS that happen to include their own OS. All the others buy an off the shelf OS from Microsoft or use a freebie called Linux.
Some car makers buy engines and other key components from others who sell these to anybody. Other car makers build their own engines and other key parts and do NOT sell them or make them available separately. Why should what Apple does be illegal when car makers and other manufacturers do exactly the same thing, and have done so for years? Why should integrated software be treated differently than integrated hardware?
....So, no matter what happens, Apple loses....
No, not at all. They can save themselves all those legal costs and simply no longer sell OSX openly. For a while, nobody coud obtain a legitimate copy of OSX Tiger for Intel without buying a Mac. Apple sells only upgrades to Mac owners who can prove they are indeed Mac owners. Those who don't already own a Mac that will run that particular upgrade for their old Mac, won't be eligible to buy the OSX upgrade.
Problem solved.
....And then someone can counter-sue Apple for bundling Mac OS X into those Mac machines.....
And after that someone can sue Honda for not allowing the installation of their engines into a Ford.
.....there's not damned thing Jobs can likely do about it......
Yes he can. He can stop selling Mac OSX to all comers, but require proof of Mac ownership before licensing anyone a copy.
.... Apple sells me an operating system in the form of installable media.....
If more and more predators like Pystar jump into the business of trying to make a fast buck from the hard work of Apple, they have a number of simple options to thwart them. They only have to stop selling OSX on the open market to any and all comers. Instead they can require proof of Mac ownership. Nobody gets a legitimate copy of OSX unless they can prove that they actually own a genuine Apple manufactured Mac computer.
After that, anyone who wants to install OSX on some other hardware is forced to break the law by "pirating" some copy of OSX. Since each Mac has a serial number and most of these are registered with Apple, they can also easily do an evil Microsoft Activation scheme. They may be forced to do this if they cannot enforce their restrictions in a court of law.
As always, it is the scumbags of this world who care about nothing else than themselves, that force companies to institute activation and DRM systems which in the end don't work very well other than making life miserable for the honest people who pay for the merchandise they want or go without.
Apple is NOT Microsoft or Adobe, software makers. Apple builds hardware and is the only company that writes their own software for their own hardware and is therefore the ONLY Company that makes a WHOLE, not just half a computer. They are entitled to alone determine who gets to use the software half of their total computer system. If they do not wish to allow their software half to run on other hardware, the only real way they can ultimately prevent that, is not with lawyers, but to simply not to make the software half of the computers available independently of their hardware.
...Banning an entire class of substances....
is only the beginning. I can see controlling people's behavior, that what they do may be needed, but NOT what they happen to possess. It is so easy to surreptitiously plant some illegal material or object in order to frame someone. People should be held responsible for what they DO, not what they merely HAVE. If some driver has an open bottle of booze in a car they could be tested for alcohol, but not punished for merely having the bottle.
If someone has some arbitrarily classified, so called illegal weapon in their house, they should not be punished merely for that fact, only if they threaten someone or in some other way DO something harmful with any object. One can beat someone to death with a baseball bat or cut someone's throat with a kitchen knife. Do we declare the ownership of baseball bats or knives illegal? A large fraction, if not the majority of the US prison population is there because they had something that was for mostly arbitrary reason declared to be illegal to merely own, even if they may not have done anything harmful to another.
Anyone who merely OWNS say a shotgun a quarter inch shorter than some arbitrarily decided length some politicians came up with, can be thrown in prison for simply that. Anyone who grows certain kinds of plants, which the Creator saw fit to put on our planet, can be punished for that. Anyone who simply HAS certain kinds of pictures or information can currently be sent to prison for a long time, regardless of what harm they have actually DONE with those pictures or information.
It is BEHAVIOR that people may DO with some of these things that should be looked at to see whether society is truly harmed, not whether they merely HAVE something that someone doesn't approve of.
....He did not send Jesus to teach us about advanced technology or how to perform miracles....
You are right, that was not God's primary purpose. There is someone here on /. who has a sig. to the effect that says: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from miracles" There is an element of truth in that.
To God there is no such thing as a miracle. After all, someone who can create a whole Universe from absolutely nothing should be and I firmly believe, is capable of communicating truth to us in a manner that we can accept. Christians are not required to check their brain and its reasoning power at the door of the church. In Isaiah God challenges us with: "Come, let us reason together..."
Like I pointed out, God had a loving relationship with man at the beginning. When man broke off this intimate fellowship, God went to the extreme of leaving His deity behind, like a cloak, and clothed Himself in a frail, mortal human body. In that mortal body He ultimately suffered the penalty of experiencing that final separation from all that is good, that every human will needlessly experience, if the offer of God's reconciliation and forgiveness in Jesus Christ is rejected. Jesus, because He is both eternal and fully human, tasted in a moment of time, what it is like to be cut off from God forever. He did this in order that NO human might experience that horror. That is why he cried out on the cross, in agony, that He had been forsaken by God.
Right now, we live in a broken world, where good and evil are inextricably intertwined. This was not always so and will not always be. There will be a time and place with God, where there is only goodness and light. There will also be a place where there will only be evil and darkness, away from the goodness and perfection of God.
Right now, every human is given the opportunity to respond to the love call of God. It is my hope and prayer that many will.
....and partly that no-one actually tried....
Like you correctly pointed out, it requires a lot of work to invade systems other than Windows. Criminals would not be criminals if they wanted to work. They would get real jobs like most of us honest people. As long as Macs, iPhones, Linux and other potentially exploitable devices take more work to hack into, than Windows does, even still, these malefactors will not make the effort of break these more secure systems.
Your house and mine is obviously not burglar proof. No house is. However, as long as we have better locks and maybe an alarm system and the house down the street has flimsy locks and doors and maybe even has the doors unlocked, our houses will be quite safe. There is also the matter of possible rewards. If the crooks know they can get a better haul out of your place than the neighbors, they may work a little harder to get your stuff.
There is however no evidence that the data stored on Macs is intrinsically more valuable to crooks than the data on a Windows box. That means there isn't really any incentive in that to work harder to break into iPhones, Linux or Mac systems. Even in Windows systems, the low hanging fruit that allowed self-propagating malware has been largely picked. Now the crooks have to attack the computer (brain) that operates the keyboard and mouse with techniques of social engineering. That requires considerably more skill and effort than it took to write a self-propagating virus that spread to millions of Windows computer in hours and in some cases minutes.
.... I think if Jesus could see what we made out of his religion....
The assumption here is that Jesus came to start a religion. He did far more than that. He came from beyond time and space into our material world to bring the wayward human race back into a proper relationship with the transcendent Creator God. He came to return to humanity the eternal love relationship that was operative between mankind and this God who exists eternally outside of and independent of this Universe we are now in. When man decided to disbelieve what this loving God first said, the relationship of trust and love was broken. Now, through Jesus Christ, the offer of reconciliation is open to any member of the human race who once again chooses to believe what God has communicated through and in His emissary and redeemer. The issue was, in the beginning, belief and trust in God and that is STILL the only avenue open to every person on this planet.
We are told in the record that there in no way has any man ever imagined or conceived in his mind, the things this God has planned for those who love Him and show this love by believing and trusting Him, just as a little child trusts their Daddy. We are told that man is made in the image and likeness of God. There are two Hebrew words here, translated image and likeness. The first has the idea of a coin, a hard to obliterate stamp of certain characteristics of God. Man, as the object of God's love has never lost this. The second part, "likeness" is used in functional contexts. Man became mortal and lost the ability to function and operate as God intended an eternal being to live. Selfishness, greed, envy and all the other negative traits and actions of us humans came in and are still with us today.
For example, from the record left for us concerning how Jesus left those He loved, it is obvious that the technology He has is far beyond our own. He did not rise into the sky on a roaring rocket flame, but, we are told, a "cloud" lifted Him silently from their view. We are further told that other celestial beings then informed Jesus' followers standing there, staring into the sky, that this same Jesus shall like like manner return to that same spot on Earth.
Anyone now willing to trust themselves without reservations to the goodness and mercy God extends in and through Jesus Christ will be empowered to begin, right here in this life, a process of being increasingly enabled to once again receive the desire and ability to operate and live as God intends. The culmination will be when such a person leaves this material world and is given the same sort of immortal, time-space transcending body to live in, as Jesus demonstrated to those people who then recorded their experiences with Jesus for us. Then those so transformed will be enabled to posses the technology to fulfill the ancient dream of traveling to the distant stars and galaxies and beyond the boundaries of our space-time universe to the very presence of God.
..Seriously, for such an advanced species, they make very little sense....
Seriously, do you think that a REALLY advanced being would not need to be VERY careful in approaching us humans, the most dangerous life-form by far, in the whole galaxy?
Beings advanced enough to travel through the vast reaches of space, even only in our own galaxy, not even the unfathomable reaches of intergalactic space, could have conquered death and the limitations of time and space. Would they really want to share their secrets with a warlike bunch like us, who have never been able to get along with one another for as long as we have existed?
Would they really want us to be able to spread the contagion of evil and selfishness that pervades humanity all over the universe? It seems to me, that an intelligent being, advanced enough to be able to come here from the distant places among the stars, would be very foolish indeed to allow that to happen. We humans need to quarantined by the vastness of space and the death limitation until we can learn to NOT be selfish and until ALL of us indeed want to obey the golden rule of love that Jesus Christ spoke about.
These advanced celestial beings see the mess we made of this world, which we had no hand in building. Would they really permit or even help us to travel to other, yet pristine planets and screw them up also? I don't think so.
One advanced being DID come here about 2000 years ago. His earth name was Jesus. He came to inhabit a human body. He claimed to be God become human, from another realm, far beyond our own, a place we have named "heaven". The records we have of His visit tell us He had access to technology and powers so far beyond our own we call them miracles. He showed us technology from God that proved that it is possible to transcend death and that this is a basic prerequisite to be able to travel to the distant places of the Universe. Living in His resurrected, transformed body, He demonstrated the ability to travel in and out of our time-space environment as easily as you and I walk from the kitchen to our living room and back again.
Instead of believing Him and accepting what He related of the realms far beyond our own and how to live our life, the people of that time murdered Him. However, because He came from a civilization that had conquered death long ago, if death indeed even exists there at all, He did not stay dead. The collection of energy fields we call atoms, constituting His body were reconstituted in a configuration and by a power we do not and cannot understand at this, but He came back to life. We read that those who do believe Him will be likewise transformed and housed in a transcendent body no longer subject to death, decay or the constraints of time and place as we now know and experience them.
The records we have of His visit also tell us that he will one day once again traverse the immense reaches of space-time. He will at that time force, rather than ask, humans to do His bidding. We read that this return will be sudden, without warning.
There will be and are today, only two groups of people. One of them believes and therefore will be glad when it finally happens. The other group, we are told, will seek shelter in caves and cry for the mountains to fall on them, to hide them from that One, coming once again, this time to take total dominion over this planet we all live on. He will return from beyond the distant reaches of time and space. Which group are you a member of?
....devices I pay for and ostensibly own still being directed and controlled by others.....
It is hard to get away from outside control of modern devices. Your refrigerator, washing machine and everything else you have plugged into the power line is in a sense directed by and at the mercy of the power company. They try to protect your electrical goods by doing their best to supply a voltage and current that won't send these devices up in smoke. If they have a short that supplies 12,000 volts into your house, they are held responsible and are expected to replace your fried appliances and maybe even your burned down house.
As long as Apple is not held responsible by you or grandma when the hacked phone fails, Apple should not care. The problem is that in today's legal environment, there certainly are people and especially lawyers who will try to blame Apple if the phone fails, regardless whether it was hacked or not. Unfortunately, in our legal climate, the manufacturer may be held responsible, even if the user abuses the equipment. The odds of being successful may be against the attackers, but there are still plenty of legal predators out there who will try the odds anyway. Who knows, they may get a good settlement out of court.
That's why you find, for example, these "Lawyer Tags" on extension cords and other electrical paraphernalia. It's the manufacturers trying put another layer of protection for themselves from lawyers in our our predatory legal system.
...the legalized fraud that the bankers used ....
How is the fractional banking system any different than say the telephone system or even a bridge? There are many systems that rely on the law of averages. How is money different than the number of telephone lines or the carrying capacity of a bridge? If too many people try to use the phone at once or too many get on a bridge, both will collapse. Just as an unforeseen event physical event can overload a utility or bridge, so too unpredicted events can cause the collapse of a financial system. Why is it that so many seem to think that the commodity we call money is somehow immune to the forces of supply and demand that govern all other systems of man? A commodity that is not as easily manipulated as another it seems to me should be preferable as a medium of exchange. I think it is this intuition that cause many to buy gold and other rare commodities.