Apple products do not appeal to the masses because Apple sells its products at a premium.
Last I checked, the iPod was an Apple product-- if their is any other DAP on the market with such broad appeal, I'm pretty much unaware of it. Not that I'm a fanboy, but come on, they own that market.
Along the same lines, why buy an Apple cell phone when you can buy a Nokia phone for less money?
Why would anyone buy an iPod when the can get better and cheaper DAPs from Creative and Sandisk? Marketing, mass appeal, and a loyal fan base. To suggest that an Apple cell phone wouldn't sell is pretty short sighted.
It's an election year for Congress, plus it's karmic retribution for the Lewinsky scandal.
Oh, BS. Scandals driven by partisan politics have been with us since the begining of this country. To try and frame one polititcal party as having started it all is completely and utterly disingenous.
Do you think HP is any better? I recently had a multi-month multi-return-for-repair laptop issue with HP. USB ports quit working, sent it in for repair after speaking to Indian customer service for two hours. It takes 6 weeks for the laptop to come back, and the USB ports are still not working. Another two hours with Indian tech support, laptop again goes in to service, 2 weeks later the laptop comes back with incorrect motherboard in it so that the USB ports don't line up with the case, just a couple of gaping holes in the side (great QC, huh? It they couldn't have even checked if the problem it was sent in for was repaired). Another two hours on the phone with Indian tech support, bumped up to QC supervisor, laptop again sent in for repair. four weeks later, the laptop comes back from repair, lasts two days and then the power connector on the side of the laptop burns up and melts through the side of the case. Laptop now totally non-functional. Another two hours with Indian tech support, QC, and customer advocacy. At one point when I told them I wanted the thing replaced, because this one was obviously a piece of crap, the customer service person started claiming I was refusing to have it repaired and that they wouldn't be able to do anything more. Needless to say, I dumped that person and talked to her supervisor. Laptop finally goes in for the last time and is replaced by a better refurbished model. Warranty is now expired, so any other problems and I'm SOL.
Actually, did you not find it amusing that during the course of all of this speculation about what would happen on the earth without humans, the guy makes the point that he was totally wrong in his thoughts about what the area around Chernobyl would be like?
The guy basically tells us that his predictions about ecosystems are for crap anyways, so why the heck should we listen to his current one?
Spliting apart and choosing what characteristics to form the new entity is not in any way like what happens in biology, unless it's something that you are making in a lab. As for your assessment of why corporations can change phenotype (dammit, you guys have me doing it now) at will because it doesn't have to conform to the laws of physics-- well that just proves the point. With competition in the market place the best way to describe it, in biological terms, would be to say it's like individuals competing against each other in a society, which is, in fact, what it is. You end up saying social interaction is social interaction, which is pretty much a pointless exercise.
That people make up BS analogies in order to justify unethical actions in business or society goes back to the early social Darwinists, and the arguments are just as flawed now as they were then. It was better when people just said that they were chosen by God or some such so had the right to do what they want. It makes it easier for the masses to understand and doesn't get people all upset science.
Biological evolutionary techniques could never apply in a case such as this. Firstly, populations evolve, not individuals. Secondly, an individual company like MS has the ability to take on new characteristics and enter new environments, which biological organisms can't do. Evolution requires differential reproductive success and corporations don't reproduce. Could pretty much go on all day. The point is your analogy fails badly from a biological standpoint and is basically that kind of thing that corporate drones come up with to justify a lack of ethics or morality in their business dealings.
Yes, but it also enables people to watch the news cycle and major outlet coverage an see things that we never saw before. Watch any big news event, and you see that within hours all of the major news organizations morph into one single point of view, one standard story that they then all cover in the same fashion. Or notice how coverage from place to place differs based on the bias of the outlet and the tastes of its audience. Read a story in Al-Jazeera and then in the Jerusalem Post for some of the more extreme differences.
And the oversight that the bloggers have put on the news media has been mostly for the good. BS stories, doctored photos, and fabricated evidence, that they used to get away with, and getting discovered now.
And then you fire the tech that did a half-assed job getting the server up, and hire a competent person that will activate the freaking thing at the time he replaced the motherboard. That way you have three days to work on it if there is a problem, not minutes of scrambling to fix an easily preventable problem while the hire-ups are rightfully pissed at the IT department for screwing up. For crap's sake, it takes about two minutes on the phone with MS's indian tech support to accomplish this. Sure it's an extra step that you'd rather not be bothered with, but damn, cross the Ts and dot the Is before you call it a day.
As I pointed out earlier, I have a Mac. And read the freaking parent that someone replys to so you can figure out what the context was before posting and being an ass. It isn't that hard.
Distaste for Apples? I own a Mac Mini, an iPod Photo, and an iPod Shuffle, and have owned in the past an Apple ][+,//e,//c,///+, Lisa 2/10, Mac Plus, and an iMac G3. I'm not a fanatic about Apple, but I've owned many in addition to PCs. My reply was to a specific post reguarding the cost of Vista upgrades and how it appeared no one wants to pay for upgrades-- the OS X example was a counterpoint to this. Don't be overly sensitive and go branding people as trolls when the intent is clearly not there.
Think about it this way: the pre-release backlash on Vista has indicated that people might not be willing to pay $200 every couple of years for upgrades
Why not? Mac fans have been forking out $129.00 every 18 months for their OS X upgrades, and you hear almost no bitching at all from them. If you throw enough eye candy at them, people will buy anything.
Which is why open source products are taking over the market and grinding all of their competitors into the dust. Oh how I long for the old days when just about every computer sold came with commercial proprietary operating systems and businesses and government agencies would only use commercial office suites. I sure miss the quality!
Like most people when they first heard about the McDonalds case, I thought that it was a stupid verdict. Reading the facts of the case, however, convinces most people otherwise.
Well, the "Me so horny" prostitute was Vietnamese (from the movie Full Metal Jacket), and it's the Japanese that have problems pronouncing Ls, not the Chinese. So, besides mixing up three different asian countries with distinct languages and cultures, your ethnic insult was spot on. Way to go!
Yep. And I've already been told by one of the Mac faithful about this great new feature that will be in Leopard called "spaces", where you'll be able to have multiple virtual desktops, not knowing that Linux has had such functionality for years.
Which is way this organization will end up seeming to be nothing more than an extension of a single party and be largely ignored.
And while I do then to think the average voter doesn't think things through to any great extent, the failure of the Dover school board to get re-elected actually gives me hope that sometimes, when things reach a certain threshold, the voters will start paying attention and kick the bums out.
Slashdot Mirror
It really baffles me why they haven't added virtual desktop support yet.
r toys/xppowertoys.mspx
It's been around since NT-- a powertoy called Virtual Desktop Manager
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powe
Apple products do not appeal to the masses because Apple sells its products at a premium.
Last I checked, the iPod was an Apple product-- if their is any other DAP on the market with such broad appeal, I'm pretty much unaware of it. Not that I'm a fanboy, but come on, they own that market.
Along the same lines, why buy an Apple cell phone when you can buy a Nokia phone for less money?
Why would anyone buy an iPod when the can get better and cheaper DAPs from Creative and Sandisk? Marketing, mass appeal, and a loyal fan base. To suggest that an Apple cell phone wouldn't sell is pretty short sighted.
It's an election year for Congress, plus it's karmic retribution for the Lewinsky scandal.
Oh, BS. Scandals driven by partisan politics have been with us since the begining of this country. To try and frame one polititcal party as having started it all is completely and utterly disingenous.
Do you think HP is any better? I recently had a multi-month multi-return-for-repair laptop issue with HP. USB ports quit working, sent it in for repair after speaking to Indian customer service for two hours. It takes 6 weeks for the laptop to come back, and the USB ports are still not working. Another two hours with Indian tech support, laptop again goes in to service, 2 weeks later the laptop comes back with incorrect motherboard in it so that the USB ports don't line up with the case, just a couple of gaping holes in the side (great QC, huh? It they couldn't have even checked if the problem it was sent in for was repaired). Another two hours on the phone with Indian tech support, bumped up to QC supervisor, laptop again sent in for repair. four weeks later, the laptop comes back from repair, lasts two days and then the power connector on the side of the laptop burns up and melts through the side of the case. Laptop now totally non-functional. Another two hours with Indian tech support, QC, and customer advocacy. At one point when I told them I wanted the thing replaced, because this one was obviously a piece of crap, the customer service person started claiming I was refusing to have it repaired and that they wouldn't be able to do anything more. Needless to say, I dumped that person and talked to her supervisor. Laptop finally goes in for the last time and is replaced by a better refurbished model. Warranty is now expired, so any other problems and I'm SOL.
I really hope the you are still in Jr. High.
Actually, did you not find it amusing that during the course of all of this speculation about what would happen on the earth without humans, the guy makes the point that he was totally wrong in his thoughts about what the area around Chernobyl would be like?
The guy basically tells us that his predictions about ecosystems are for crap anyways, so why the heck should we listen to his current one?
You guys have nothing on California. A local school here has a "peaceful playground," which doesn't allow competitive playing or running of any sort.
Spliting apart and choosing what characteristics to form the new entity is not in any way like what happens in biology, unless it's something that you are making in a lab. As for your assessment of why corporations can change phenotype (dammit, you guys have me doing it now) at will because it doesn't have to conform to the laws of physics-- well that just proves the point. With competition in the market place the best way to describe it, in biological terms, would be to say it's like individuals competing against each other in a society, which is, in fact, what it is. You end up saying social interaction is social interaction, which is pretty much a pointless exercise.
That people make up BS analogies in order to justify unethical actions in business or society goes back to the early social Darwinists, and the arguments are just as flawed now as they were then. It was better when people just said that they were chosen by God or some such so had the right to do what they want. It makes it easier for the masses to understand and doesn't get people all upset science.
Biological evolutionary techniques could never apply in a case such as this. Firstly, populations evolve, not individuals. Secondly, an individual company like MS has the ability to take on new characteristics and enter new environments, which biological organisms can't do. Evolution requires differential reproductive success and corporations don't reproduce. Could pretty much go on all day. The point is your analogy fails badly from a biological standpoint and is basically that kind of thing that corporate drones come up with to justify a lack of ethics or morality in their business dealings.
Microsoft fans are like young Republicans. Weird, militant outcasts who never get laid.
That pretty much describes close to 90% if the slashdot crowd.
Yes, but it also enables people to watch the news cycle and major outlet coverage an see things that we never saw before. Watch any big news event, and you see that within hours all of the major news organizations morph into one single point of view, one standard story that they then all cover in the same fashion. Or notice how coverage from place to place differs based on the bias of the outlet and the tastes of its audience. Read a story in Al-Jazeera and then in the Jerusalem Post for some of the more extreme differences.
And the oversight that the bloggers have put on the news media has been mostly for the good. BS stories, doctored photos, and fabricated evidence, that they used to get away with, and getting discovered now.
The already did that a few months ago. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4542174. stm
And then you fire the tech that did a half-assed job getting the server up, and hire a competent person that will activate the freaking thing at the time he replaced the motherboard. That way you have three days to work on it if there is a problem, not minutes of scrambling to fix an easily preventable problem while the hire-ups are rightfully pissed at the IT department for screwing up. For crap's sake, it takes about two minutes on the phone with MS's indian tech support to accomplish this. Sure it's an extra step that you'd rather not be bothered with, but damn, cross the Ts and dot the Is before you call it a day.
As I pointed out earlier, I have a Mac. And read the freaking parent that someone replys to so you can figure out what the context was before posting and being an ass. It isn't that hard.
Distaste for Apples? I own a Mac Mini, an iPod Photo, and an iPod Shuffle, and have owned in the past an Apple ][+, //e, //c, ///+, Lisa 2/10, Mac Plus, and an iMac G3. I'm not a fanatic about Apple, but I've owned many in addition to PCs. My reply was to a specific post reguarding the cost of Vista upgrades and how it appeared no one wants to pay for upgrades-- the OS X example was a counterpoint to this. Don't be overly sensitive and go branding people as trolls when the intent is clearly not there.
Think about it this way: the pre-release backlash on Vista has indicated that people might not be willing to pay $200 every couple of years for upgrades
Why not? Mac fans have been forking out $129.00 every 18 months for their OS X upgrades, and you hear almost no bitching at all from them. If you throw enough eye candy at them, people will buy anything.
Ha! They started out that way. I'm still pissed at them for the Mystery House Adventure bug on my Apple ][+. Never did get to finish the damned game.
Um....ever heard of 3D Realms?
Yes, several people did-- but it's only ironic if you're an Alanis Morissette fan.
Which is why open source products are taking over the market and grinding all of their competitors into the dust. Oh how I long for the old days when just about every computer sold came with commercial proprietary operating systems and businesses and government agencies would only use commercial office suites. I sure miss the quality!
Like most people when they first heard about the McDonalds case, I thought that it was a stupid verdict. Reading the facts of the case, however, convinces most people otherwise.
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
Well, the "Me so horny" prostitute was Vietnamese (from the movie Full Metal Jacket), and it's the Japanese that have problems pronouncing Ls, not the Chinese. So, besides mixing up three different asian countries with distinct languages and cultures, your ethnic insult was spot on. Way to go!
Yep. And I've already been told by one of the Mac faithful about this great new feature that will be in Leopard called "spaces", where you'll be able to have multiple virtual desktops, not knowing that Linux has had such functionality for years.
Which is way this organization will end up seeming to be nothing more than an extension of a single party and be largely ignored.
And while I do then to think the average voter doesn't think things through to any great extent, the failure of the Dover school board to get re-elected actually gives me hope that sometimes, when things reach a certain threshold, the voters will start paying attention and kick the bums out.
Wait a minute. You thought that you were supposed to be taking things seriously here? On Slashdot?