And the Libertarian stance always seems to come down to the owner of the land has rights, and nobody else on that land does.
This is where I think libertarians are full of it. That land is in turn granted to the "owner" by the government. That's right, who records the deed showing Joe's ownership? Who would Joe expect to come defend his property against a roving band of criminals? Who is expected the intervene should there be a legal dispute over the ownership (Let's say Larry shows up and says Joe is full of crap, I own this land...).
Since the government is ultimately granting property rights and recognition, there are some meta-laws Joe has to accept. After all, he can't run a child slavery ring or kill people on "his" land. One of those meta-laws is not discriminating. If Joe doesn't like those rules, fuck him for being a scumbag but in general, the correct thing Joe should do is either declare his independence and dare the government to come blow his ass up, or move the fuck away to some remote island or third-world shit hole where he can pay off rival warlords to guard his property.
Applying public pressure to revise their policy is not. I don't think you really understand Libertarian principals at all.
I understand this much: given a corporation will only react when their profits are threatened, so unless he can show that getting left out materially affects ABC's profits, they aren't going to give a rats ass. They set the threshold at $50K: if he can't cobble together that much money from his support base, he isn't worth dealing with.
The fallacy that because you don't believe in government interference in corporate affairs, you don't believe that corporations should ever be criticized for doing anything that isn't illegal.
I hadn't heard this new hippy libertarian attitude towards corporations - criticizing them! Whoa I thought libertarians worshipped the almighty free market which not only ignores everything outside supply/demand, but consists of amoral unthinking fictitious legal persons called "corporations" which only seek to maximize profit and ignore all criticism. What's next, organizing a protest and inciting a strike?!
Translation: fuck libertarians in general. The non-hypocritical way to fix this in a manner consistent with his political philosophy is to create a competing corporation. If he's going to govern according to a set of ideals then he should use those same ideals to fix this predicament and show us that libertarianism actually works somewhere at a level larger than some guy with his own property and chicken coop out in the sticks.
Or he could just get 5000 people to pony up $10. If he can't do that his candidacy is a total joke anyway.
Why did this guy get marked troll? If you believe voting is any more real than pro wrestling I have some magic beans you might be interested in. [...] When the Ron Paul supporters asked to be heard according to the RNCs own rules they held a vote to change those rules
Sounds like your diatribe is directed against the GOP and not voting in general.
Sorry, but this attitude is cynical bullshit. If citizens of the USA don't even believe voting is nothing more than crap, why are we starting wars with the stated purpose (admittedly after shifting the goalposts a few times) of bringing freedom to people and the right to vote?
This is ABC's decision. As a Libertarian surely you wouldn't want to interfere with the choice that a private company made.
Ahh, yes, that old trotted out stupid fallacy. If you don't want a government to interfere in a decision, that must mean you think every decision made by a corporate entity should be met with a tub full of KY-jelly and a re-enactment of the scene from goatse.
What fallacy? The poster that brought up government interference here was you. And isn't essentially correct that libertarians believe that a private corporation can do what it wants outside of illegal activities? So their choice to exclude him from debates - too damn bad. I don't remember a Constitutional right to appear in debates.
MS (and others) always mimic the wrong parts of Apple. Apple products are successful for two reasons (in this order): (1) They provide social status
This has got to be the most oft-repeated lie, I mean fantasy delusion, concerning Apple. Yes, they have an eye on design. But it is simply ludicrous to claim their success over the last 12+ years is entirely due to fashion/social conscious hipsters seeking approval from one another or total strangers for that matter.
All I can figure is this delusion allows people to ascribe failure of others to something outside their control, something not easily replicable. However the bottom line is Apple makes stuff that is easy and functional for actual customers. This meets success in the market, something various businesses have been slow to catch on to.
I mean, did anyone try to do programming, system administration and/or serious graphics or writing on iPad and alikes?
How powerful do you think the systems were back in the 70s, when unix and c were created? Today's iPad, with its touchscreen keyboard, would be a massive improvement over printouts...
The PC isn't going anywhere, in fact I have yet to meet anyone that doesn't have at least 2 if not more.
I'll counter your worthless anecdote with mine: me. I have 3 notebooks (1 MacBookPro, 1 Sager Midern, 1 System 76), and 1 tablet (Nexus 7). No desktops.
because doing so would preclude the entire concept of bi-partisanship
Have you been conscious the last 4 years? Bi-partisanship to republicans means "our way or the highway". Congressional republicans have fought everything Obama has tried to do, and are even trying to squirm out of agreements they made (i.e. sequester and cutting the defense budget).
There is no bipartisanship involving republicans. They want the country to tank since it enhances their election prospects.
This is a lesson that gets lost on hard core techs sometimes - it doesn't matter that your product is technically superior if you can't sell it. This is what Apple excels at - superior marketing.
I see this bandied about all the time, Apple's marketing is so awesome it defies the laws of physics, while Microsoft's marketing sucks rocks. Yet if asked why Linux never took over the desktop and Microsoft's dominance there, the answer is typically that Microsoft's marketing is unbeatable. Apparently Microsoft is both awesome and sucks at marketing... WTF?
Claiming the iPod won out due to superior marketing displays massive and willful ignorance, extreme forgetfulness, or both. The iPod won out due to ease of use, plus the incredible integration with the iTunes music store (which came out after another 2 years I think?) - this made it easy and simple for REGULAR consumers to buy music and load it on their device. That plus some confidence their investment wouldn't disappear. Zune launched right into a fairly well established iPod ecosystem and delivered... "squirting" music to your friends, which let them listen to a song you purchased what, 3 times? That's worthless.
The Zune blew chunks in this respect. Microsoft didn't get the music industry on board at the same level, and there was a clusterf*ck of DRM crap which kept getting renamed, rebranded, retired, rehashed - remember PlaysForSure? The announcement that "PlaysForSure" would be killed off and all music inaccessible unless burned to CD? The different but parallel Zune store? The reversal? The new "Certified for Vista?" The new-new XBox Music store? The consumer base threw up their hands and lost confidence any money spent on any media would continue to be usable in the next 6 months.
Sorry but Microsoft totally mishandled this all on their own.
For a company with deep pockets, they are pretty quick to throw a device getting a lukewarm reception under the bus. XBox seems to be the only thing they stuck with long enough. What they haven't figured out is that if you are going up against entrenched successful competitors, and can't leverage Windows on the desktop, you have to deliver a BETTER consumer experience and be price competitive. Google figured this out with a different strategy (open source, free tools), competitive pricing, etc. Microsoft is still trying to leverage their desktop. I don't get it - it seems to me mobile apps are basically written from scratch.
What a stupid thing to say. I'm more likely to buy a Windows 8 tablet over the two current leaders as iOS is garbage (really, I don't know how anyone puts up with it), and I don't care for Android (I don't like the clunky UI and hate the pitiful dev tools). I seriously doubt that I'm unique.
So iOS is garbage and Andoid is lousy too... makes you wonder why Microsoft is a total non-entity in this market space they've been in for 15 years.
What's wrong with Windows 8 that you think customers will run screaming from the platform? If iOS, Android, and Windows 8 were the only three options, there's no real reason to go with the current market leaders other than being heavily invested in those other ecosystems.
No compelling reason to pick one up over iOS/Android (yes yes, of course YOU and the 53 other people that agree are sure to cause a day 1 sales boom). As for ecosystem investment, well DUH you could have said the same about any previous Microsoft OS versus anything else - discounting the massive advantages of the ecosystem, there's no real reason to go with Windows over BeOS, or Windows of OS/2, or Windows over Linux, etc.
They both have the same processor, same amount of RAM, same GFX capability, same battery life (7h according to the manufacturer) et al.
A difference of $90? That difference is more than made up by the extended coverage cost, on the same pages you linked: $190 for 3 years (Apple) vs. $299 for 3 years (ASUS).
Yup let's see (you forgot the PC, Power PC processors)... G5 based Macs were discontinued in August of 2006, And Apple ceased supporting them with the release of Snow Leopard in August of 2009. But hey three years of life out of a multiple thousand dollar machine isn't bad!
So, you bought a "multiple thousand dollar" Mac G5 the day before they were discontinued, and it disappeared into the thin air the day Snow Leopard became available? My experience is radically different: I bought my parents a Mac Mini in Dec 2005 (it was about $600 by the way), and it still works great for them today for what they need to do.
until you pop the hood and see the small old diesel sitting in the engine compartment.
The majority of the Apple's customer base, and most computer users all over, doesn't give a crap about this. Look at how many people even on this site, swear up and down they're sticking with Windows XP because it works.
But Hey a quick look at the "have useful lives longer" poster's profile reveals a pattern of pro-Apple, anti-MS, posts... including a rather extremely ignorant post about "anyone who has ever shopped at newegg.com", probably means that bringing up any sort of valid point that contradicts his own will probably be pointless.
Yeah there's a lot of ranting, but if you step back you'll find a lot of people are basically assuming their experience applies to everybody... there arises the conflict. That, and all computer users just love to tinker with their home IT infrastructure, and thinking installing and maintaining computers is fun time.
It has worked that way every time I fucked up as a manager, I got grilled by the higher ups why my people fucked up. I was responsible for them, and "gee I didn't know" was not fucking good enough.
I see the problem, both you and Holder should have used the Alberto Gonzales "I don't remember" defense.
Mandrake -> Red Hat -> Xandros -> Gentoo -> OS X...
I went Slackware -> (gap of many years) -> Gentoo -> Ubuntu -> Debian -> Fedora
I'm not counting Mint or Arch or many other ones I dabbled in (i.e. didn't run for a few months).
I love Linux and all, but the mainstream support of OS X combined with UNIX under the hood made the Mac the best platform for me.
Similar thing here... I like Linux and all, but maintaining my home IT infrastructure isn't my hobby (any more). I want to do stuff (i.e. software development) with my home computers and not tweak and fiddle with them all the time. And I got tired of dealing with graphics card issues, wireless networking issues, etc. These days my linux is all inside VMs.
One thing to keep in mind is that it takes a Unanimous Verdict from a jury to apply the death penalty.
What's that have to do with it? That just means a totally botched investigation, a bogus eye witness (perhaps not intentional but witnesses aren't always correct either), some crucial piece of evidence overlooked/not collected/not followed up, or something those lines are an innocent person is about to be killed.
I used to be all in favor of the death penalty... and then a series of cases were overturned (if memory serves, many from Dallas, TX and it was pretty obvious the prosecutors were just convicting warm bodies to close their cases) releasing innocent people from death row. That's just a disgusting error almost made.
So, if Apple were to have won all her lawsuits, we'd have no HTC phones, no Samsung phones or tablets and no Motorolla phones being sold in the US.
Yes there would be other phones... what would change is Apple would then demand a license fee for every device. Kinda like how Microsoft is getting that from Android phones.
"he [Obama] only deserves credit for failing to extend the war."
Nice spin there. I guess that sounds better than "failing to extend the pointless, expensive, idiotic, and supremely tragic total clusterfuck the Republicans got us into 9 years ago?" And you left out the criticism Obama took for so-called "cutting and running" as the various GOP morons and cowards forgot their own damn idiot of an administration actually set the deadline in the first place.
Loathe? Detest? For what, building products people are willing to buy? They arent in the same solar system of evil as Microsoft in the 90s. They'd need to stifle competition through illegal methods... get some perspective and make your claim AFTER they get sued by the government and are found guilty and criminal.
What kinds of users issues do you have to deal with in Linux that make it more difficult than Windows?
The usual issue of device and software support. Specifically: iPhone/iPod support, Linksys AE1000 support, Garmin Forerunner (GPS watch) support, etc.
It's one thing to transition a Windows or Mac user that doesn't do much besides browse website and read email (i.e. the ideal tablet user). Their workflow is easily transferable to Linux. But the typical user has a device or software package that needs to work as well...
I'm willing to fiddle around, read reams of pages on getting these working, but at the end of the day, I also have an OSX notebook and a Windows notebook to fall back on, so if I can't get it working on my Linux notebook I'm not out of luck.
But in good conscience I cannot recommend Linux to normal users when I have to struggle getting regular devices working for ME. The various instructions google digs up are complex (for regular users) and target specific distros.
We live in an age where the devices we own hold the keys to our lives, why aren't they as secure as they possibly can be short of not existing??
Because corporations and lazy and cheap, and security doesn't pad their bottom line in the all-consuming march for profits.
It is less expensive for them to punt all security issues and instead rely on the government to make abusing the non-security of these devices "illegal". Yes that is ineffective, but before criticizing the government, consider the fundamental impossibility of fixing security problems by declaring the abuse illegal, and also consider the root problem is that corporations are basically irresponsible and will offload all expenses to somebody else rather than spend money to protect their customers.
I guess I'm just really confused by the us-vs.-them mentality in the above post.
It's just the cognitive dissonance created when a zealot is forced to reconcile two thoughts: the free market is correct, and customers (i.e. regular people) choose something else than their fervent attachment. They can't figure out why everybody doesn't use the same stuff as they do, after projecting their identical preferences/tastes and workflow or usage patterns onto the rest of humanity. Since they are naturally correct in every way, the conclusion is people are sheep or just don't get it.
I used to be like that, but I'm also more willing to try stuff out and think critically. Over the years I realized that outside gaming, about 90% of what I do on a computer easily transfers between Windows, OSX, and Linux. These days rather than obsessing over OSes, I'm enjoying programming languages more - just learning and fiddling around with all the various new fangled languages there are. And that stuff is readily available for free on every platform.
PS the answer to your question, "how you reliably prevent the fuck-tards like the stupid 20-year-old kid I mentioned above from endangering themselves and others while still preserving the rights of those that have the maturity and gravitas to properly be trusted with a lethal weapon" is actually extremely simple: Training, training, training. a near-fanatical devotion to proper firearms safety and training is what's kept my gun-happy family accident free for over 100 years.
I think training and education will go a long ways towards addressing this issue... but I can see entrenched pro-gun rights organization (i.e. the NRA and their allies) fight it every step of the way. They'll complain about added costs, added regulations, etc.
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There is a lot of truth to it... the kinds of people that would buy a tablet, are also largely uninterested in geek stuff like hardware specs.
And the Libertarian stance always seems to come down to the owner of the land has rights, and nobody else on that land does.
This is where I think libertarians are full of it. That land is in turn granted to the "owner" by the government. That's right, who records the deed showing Joe's ownership? Who would Joe expect to come defend his property against a roving band of criminals? Who is expected the intervene should there be a legal dispute over the ownership (Let's say Larry shows up and says Joe is full of crap, I own this land...).
Since the government is ultimately granting property rights and recognition, there are some meta-laws Joe has to accept. After all, he can't run a child slavery ring or kill people on "his" land. One of those meta-laws is not discriminating. If Joe doesn't like those rules, fuck him for being a scumbag but in general, the correct thing Joe should do is either declare his independence and dare the government to come blow his ass up, or move the fuck away to some remote island or third-world shit hole where he can pay off rival warlords to guard his property.
Applying public pressure to revise their policy is not. I don't think you really understand Libertarian principals at all.
I understand this much: given a corporation will only react when their profits are threatened, so unless he can show that getting left out materially affects ABC's profits, they aren't going to give a rats ass. They set the threshold at $50K: if he can't cobble together that much money from his support base, he isn't worth dealing with.
The fallacy that because you don't believe in government interference in corporate affairs, you don't believe that corporations should ever be criticized for doing anything that isn't illegal.
I hadn't heard this new hippy libertarian attitude towards corporations - criticizing them! Whoa I thought libertarians worshipped the almighty free market which not only ignores everything outside supply/demand, but consists of amoral unthinking fictitious legal persons called "corporations" which only seek to maximize profit and ignore all criticism. What's next, organizing a protest and inciting a strike?!
Translation: fuck libertarians in general. The non-hypocritical way to fix this in a manner consistent with his political philosophy is to create a competing corporation. If he's going to govern according to a set of ideals then he should use those same ideals to fix this predicament and show us that libertarianism actually works somewhere at a level larger than some guy with his own property and chicken coop out in the sticks.
Or he could just get 5000 people to pony up $10. If he can't do that his candidacy is a total joke anyway.
Why did this guy get marked troll? If you believe voting is any more real than pro wrestling I have some magic beans you might be interested in. [...]
When the Ron Paul supporters asked to be heard according to the RNCs own rules they held a vote to change those rules
Sounds like your diatribe is directed against the GOP and not voting in general.
Sorry, but this attitude is cynical bullshit. If citizens of the USA don't even believe voting is nothing more than crap, why are we starting wars with the stated purpose (admittedly after shifting the goalposts a few times) of bringing freedom to people and the right to vote?
This is ABC's decision. As a Libertarian surely you wouldn't want to interfere with the choice that a private company made.
Ahh, yes, that old trotted out stupid fallacy. If you don't want a government to interfere in a decision, that must mean you think every decision made by a corporate entity should be met with a tub full of KY-jelly and a re-enactment of the scene from goatse.
What fallacy? The poster that brought up government interference here was you. And isn't essentially correct that libertarians believe that a private corporation can do what it wants outside of illegal activities? So their choice to exclude him from debates - too damn bad. I don't remember a Constitutional right to appear in debates.
MS (and others) always mimic the wrong parts of Apple. Apple products are successful for two reasons (in this order): (1) They provide social status
This has got to be the most oft-repeated lie, I mean fantasy delusion, concerning Apple. Yes, they have an eye on design. But it is simply ludicrous to claim their success over the last 12+ years is entirely due to fashion/social conscious hipsters seeking approval from one another or total strangers for that matter.
All I can figure is this delusion allows people to ascribe failure of others to something outside their control, something not easily replicable. However the bottom line is Apple makes stuff that is easy and functional for actual customers. This meets success in the market, something various businesses have been slow to catch on to.
I mean, did anyone try to do programming, system administration and/or serious graphics or writing on iPad and alikes?
How powerful do you think the systems were back in the 70s, when unix and c were created? Today's iPad, with its touchscreen keyboard, would be a massive improvement over printouts...
The PC isn't going anywhere, in fact I have yet to meet anyone that doesn't have at least 2 if not more.
I'll counter your worthless anecdote with mine: me. I have 3 notebooks (1 MacBookPro, 1 Sager Midern, 1 System 76), and 1 tablet (Nexus 7). No desktops.
because doing so would preclude the entire concept of bi-partisanship
Have you been conscious the last 4 years? Bi-partisanship to republicans means "our way or the highway". Congressional republicans have fought everything Obama has tried to do, and are even trying to squirm out of agreements they made (i.e. sequester and cutting the defense budget).
There is no bipartisanship involving republicans. They want the country to tank since it enhances their election prospects.
This is a lesson that gets lost on hard core techs sometimes - it doesn't matter that your product is technically superior if you can't sell it. This is what Apple excels at - superior marketing.
I see this bandied about all the time, Apple's marketing is so awesome it defies the laws of physics, while Microsoft's marketing sucks rocks. Yet if asked why Linux never took over the desktop and Microsoft's dominance there, the answer is typically that Microsoft's marketing is unbeatable. Apparently Microsoft is both awesome and sucks at marketing... WTF?
Claiming the iPod won out due to superior marketing displays massive and willful ignorance, extreme forgetfulness, or both. The iPod won out due to ease of use, plus the incredible integration with the iTunes music store (which came out after another 2 years I think?) - this made it easy and simple for REGULAR consumers to buy music and load it on their device. That plus some confidence their investment wouldn't disappear. Zune launched right into a fairly well established iPod ecosystem and delivered... "squirting" music to your friends, which let them listen to a song you purchased what, 3 times? That's worthless.
The Zune blew chunks in this respect. Microsoft didn't get the music industry on board at the same level, and there was a clusterf*ck of DRM crap which kept getting renamed, rebranded, retired, rehashed - remember PlaysForSure? The announcement that "PlaysForSure" would be killed off and all music inaccessible unless burned to CD? The different but parallel Zune store? The reversal? The new "Certified for Vista?" The new-new XBox Music store? The consumer base threw up their hands and lost confidence any money spent on any media would continue to be usable in the next 6 months.
Sorry but Microsoft totally mishandled this all on their own.
For a company with deep pockets, they are pretty quick to throw a device getting a lukewarm reception under the bus. XBox seems to be the only thing they stuck with long enough. What they haven't figured out is that if you are going up against entrenched successful competitors, and can't leverage Windows on the desktop, you have to deliver a BETTER consumer experience and be price competitive. Google figured this out with a different strategy (open source, free tools), competitive pricing, etc. Microsoft is still trying to leverage their desktop. I don't get it - it seems to me mobile apps are basically written from scratch.
What a stupid thing to say. I'm more likely to buy a Windows 8 tablet over the two current leaders as iOS is garbage (really, I don't know how anyone puts up with it), and I don't care for Android (I don't like the clunky UI and hate the pitiful dev tools). I seriously doubt that I'm unique.
So iOS is garbage and Andoid is lousy too... makes you wonder why Microsoft is a total non-entity in this market space they've been in for 15 years.
What's wrong with Windows 8 that you think customers will run screaming from the platform? If iOS, Android, and Windows 8 were the only three options, there's no real reason to go with the current market leaders other than being heavily invested in those other ecosystems.
No compelling reason to pick one up over iOS/Android (yes yes, of course YOU and the 53 other people that agree are sure to cause a day 1 sales boom).
As for ecosystem investment, well DUH you could have said the same about any previous Microsoft OS versus anything else - discounting the massive advantages of the ecosystem, there's no real reason to go with Windows over BeOS, or Windows of OS/2, or Windows over Linux, etc.
They aren't.
An Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A . for US$1049
A "so called" Retina Macbook Air 13" for US$1139
They both have the same processor, same amount of RAM, same GFX capability, same battery life (7h according to the manufacturer) et al.
A difference of $90? That difference is more than made up by the extended coverage cost, on the same pages you linked: $190 for 3 years (Apple) vs. $299 for 3 years (ASUS).
Yup let's see (you forgot the PC, Power PC processors)... G5 based Macs were discontinued in August of 2006, And Apple ceased supporting them with the release of Snow Leopard in August of 2009. But hey three years of life out of a multiple thousand dollar machine isn't bad!
So, you bought a "multiple thousand dollar" Mac G5 the day before they were discontinued, and it disappeared into the thin air the day Snow Leopard became available? My experience is radically different: I bought my parents a Mac Mini in Dec 2005 (it was about $600 by the way), and it still works great for them today for what they need to do.
until you pop the hood and see the small old diesel sitting in the engine compartment.
The majority of the Apple's customer base, and most computer users all over, doesn't give a crap about this. Look at how many people even on this site, swear up and down they're sticking with Windows XP because it works.
But Hey a quick look at the "have useful lives longer" poster's profile reveals a pattern of pro-Apple, anti-MS, posts... including a rather extremely ignorant post about "anyone who has ever shopped at newegg.com", probably means that bringing up any sort of valid point that contradicts his own will probably be pointless.
Yeah there's a lot of ranting, but if you step back you'll find a lot of people are basically assuming their experience applies to everybody... there arises the conflict. That, and all computer users just love to tinker with their home IT infrastructure, and thinking installing and maintaining computers is fun time.
Would you walk as much if you had to wear a helmet?
Can you walk with minimal effort at 10+ mph? Or even with modest fitness 20+ mph?
There's a HUGE difference between walking and biking, namely the speeds easily obtainable and thus the severity of injury should a crash occur.
It has worked that way every time I fucked up as a manager, I got grilled by the higher ups why my people fucked up. I was responsible for them, and "gee I didn't know" was not fucking good enough.
I see the problem, both you and Holder should have used the Alberto Gonzales "I don't remember" defense.
Mandrake -> Red Hat -> Xandros -> Gentoo -> OS X...
I went Slackware -> (gap of many years) -> Gentoo -> Ubuntu -> Debian -> Fedora
I'm not counting Mint or Arch or many other ones I dabbled in (i.e. didn't run for a few months).
I love Linux and all, but the mainstream support of OS X combined with UNIX under the hood made the Mac the best platform for me.
Similar thing here... I like Linux and all, but maintaining my home IT infrastructure isn't my hobby (any more). I want to do stuff (i.e. software development) with my home computers and not tweak and fiddle with them all the time. And I got tired of dealing with graphics card issues, wireless networking issues, etc. These days my linux is all inside VMs.
One thing to keep in mind is that it takes a Unanimous Verdict from a jury to apply the death penalty.
What's that have to do with it? That just means a totally botched investigation, a bogus eye witness (perhaps not intentional but witnesses aren't always correct either), some crucial piece of evidence overlooked/not collected/not followed up, or something those lines are an innocent person is about to be killed.
I used to be all in favor of the death penalty... and then a series of cases were overturned (if memory serves, many from Dallas, TX and it was pretty obvious the prosecutors were just convicting warm bodies to close their cases) releasing innocent people from death row. That's just a disgusting error almost made.
Check out the list of exonerated death row inmates and tell me a "unanimous verdict" must totally mean they did it. What BS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_exonerated_death_row_inmates
So, if Apple were to have won all her lawsuits, we'd have no HTC phones, no Samsung phones or tablets and no Motorolla phones being sold in the US.
Yes there would be other phones... what would change is Apple would then demand a license fee for every device.
Kinda like how Microsoft is getting that from Android phones.
"he [Obama] only deserves credit for failing to extend the war."
Nice spin there. I guess that sounds better than "failing to extend the pointless, expensive, idiotic, and supremely tragic total clusterfuck the Republicans got us into 9 years ago?"
And you left out the criticism Obama took for so-called "cutting and running" as the various GOP morons and cowards forgot their own damn idiot of an administration actually set the deadline in the first place.
Loathe? Detest? For what, building products people are willing to buy?
They arent in the same solar system of evil as Microsoft in the 90s. They'd need to stifle competition through illegal methods... get some perspective and make your claim AFTER they get sued by the government and are found guilty and criminal.
What kinds of users issues do you have to deal with in Linux that make it more difficult than Windows?
The usual issue of device and software support. Specifically: iPhone/iPod support, Linksys AE1000 support, Garmin Forerunner (GPS watch) support, etc.
It's one thing to transition a Windows or Mac user that doesn't do much besides browse website and read email (i.e. the ideal tablet user). Their workflow is easily transferable to Linux. But the typical user has a device or software package that needs to work as well...
I'm willing to fiddle around, read reams of pages on getting these working, but at the end of the day, I also have an OSX notebook and a Windows notebook to fall back on, so if I can't get it working on my Linux notebook I'm not out of luck.
But in good conscience I cannot recommend Linux to normal users when I have to struggle getting regular devices working for ME. The various instructions google digs up are complex (for regular users) and target specific distros.
We live in an age where the devices we own hold the keys to our lives, why aren't they as secure as they possibly can be short of not existing??
Because corporations and lazy and cheap, and security doesn't pad their bottom line in the all-consuming march for profits.
It is less expensive for them to punt all security issues and instead rely on the government to make abusing the non-security of these devices "illegal".
Yes that is ineffective, but before criticizing the government, consider the fundamental impossibility of fixing security problems by declaring the abuse illegal, and also consider the root problem is that corporations are basically irresponsible and will offload all expenses to somebody else rather than spend money to protect their customers.
I guess I'm just really confused by the us-vs.-them mentality in the above post.
It's just the cognitive dissonance created when a zealot is forced to reconcile two thoughts: the free market is correct, and customers (i.e. regular people) choose something else than their fervent attachment. They can't figure out why everybody doesn't use the same stuff as they do, after projecting their identical preferences/tastes and workflow or usage patterns onto the rest of humanity. Since they are naturally correct in every way, the conclusion is people are sheep or just don't get it.
I used to be like that, but I'm also more willing to try stuff out and think critically. Over the years I realized that outside gaming, about 90% of what I do on a computer easily transfers between Windows, OSX, and Linux. These days rather than obsessing over OSes, I'm enjoying programming languages more - just learning and fiddling around with all the various new fangled languages there are. And that stuff is readily available for free on every platform.
PS the answer to your question, "how you reliably prevent the fuck-tards like the stupid 20-year-old kid I mentioned above from endangering themselves and others while still preserving the rights of those that have the maturity and gravitas to properly be trusted with a lethal weapon" is actually extremely simple: Training, training, training. a near-fanatical devotion to proper firearms safety and training is what's kept my gun-happy family accident free for over 100 years.
I think training and education will go a long ways towards addressing this issue... but I can see entrenched pro-gun rights organization (i.e. the NRA and their allies) fight it every step of the way. They'll complain about added costs, added regulations, etc.