When a sysadmin decides that 3 days of rolling backups is plenty, then yes. I know more than he does. I've known some great system admins, and I've know some completely incompetent ones. The problem is that due to their position, the incompetent ones can hide their incompetence from management for a very long time.
A coworker that was living down the road from the Davidian compound tells me that the Dividians had been legally shooting rifles on their property. A neighbor made a noise complaint and the local sheriff had already been out and worked out a compromise to resolve the complaint. As the story goes, the issue had already been resolved with the kooky but harmless Davidians.
There is no good reason that a light bulb that is designed to screw into a standard socket should ever use any kind of wireless technology for it's control. The thing, by it's very nature, is already connected to a wired network in the home. Using wireless pollutes the WiFi spectrum while simultaneously exposing the device to hackers.
The same thing could be done with a screw in adapter. Adapter screws into the fixture, bulb screws into the adapter. Same feature set. More flexibility.
I do think your full of it. Yes, Linux works fine. It has for a long time. What you seem to be missing is that installing the OS at all is not 'just working'. It is a very small group of people that go looking for drivers in Windows. Most people just buy a PC that is preinstalled with all the the necessary drivers. When the computer stops working well, they get rid of it and buy another. They never go looking for drivers. I also agree that other than games, there is all the software that most people need available for both Linux and OSX. What you seem to be missing is that most people don't know what these applications are called. This requires effort on their part to figure it out, and thus for those people it doesn't "just work".
It is not lack of choice. Virtually every PC out there could have Xubuntu installed on it. Most people don't do that because that is not "just working".
I have yet to meet a single person with an Android phone that doesn't use it as a personal computer. For most users, it takes games, an office suite and a web browser. Thinking that OSX market share is larger than Android market share is just silly.
Because the companies know they can get someone else to work for free, and thus the only way to get any money ever is to work for free for a while. It is a scam in the same way that an employer that tells an employee to clock out and keep working if they want to keep their job is a scam.
OSX has struggled for apps because it has so few users. The number of Android users, dwarfs the number of OSX users. Apps already exist for most of what is done on PCs. There is just an easier path to the desktop for Android than from OSX.
There has never been a generation of kids that grew up interacting with computers as anything more than media consumption devices. The kids that currently use them as media consumption devices just didn't use them when they were not media consumption devices.
While having 5 kids with computers all doing programming might be 100%, and having 500 kids with computers and 5 doing programming might only be 1%, in real reality, the number of kids programming hasn't changed.
The definitions don't get weird unless you are confused into thinking that tablets, smartphones, pdas, game consoles, etc, are something different than a PC with a different choice of software/peripherals.
OSX has the same problem that Desktop Linux has. A lack of critical mass. Android does not have that problem. With OSX, new users have to figure out what applications do what they currently do with their current equipment. They won't take the effort. Especially if that effort costs more. They can just buy a Windows PC and it will Just Work.
Android doesn't face this problem. With an Android desktop, they now get to run all of the software that they already use. They are not buying into a new platform. That buy in has already happened. They are just getting a unit with a bigger screen and some extra peripherals.
Only, that isn't how it would go down. It would go down like this:
VP of sales: PC sales are up this year by 20%. This trend is forcast to continue for the forseable future.
[content murmuring and smug looks]
Analyst: We already know that portable PCs have been gaining of desktop PCs for several years. Customers are demanding smaller sizes. Instead of 17" screens, they want 7" screens. They do want us to make them touch screens, but the upside is that they don't care about getting keyboards and mice with the system. The processors they now want are also cheaper for us and they want on OS that we can get for free.
President: Are you talking about that "Linux" thing? The guys down at the Yacht club tell me that the kind of people that use it like to fiddle with stuff. How are our support costs going to look if we have people breaking their computers all the time. These things are barely holding together as it is.
Analyst: That's the beauty of this. With the configuration people are asking for, the public has already been educated that having access beyond loading apps is bad and something they don't want. If we choose to offer systems unlocked like our current PC lineup, our marketing goes viral.
President: yes... yes let's do that... then have cake.
Engineer: No problem, we can have one of our Chinese manufacuring partners cranking the things out withing 4 months of our industrial design team getting them the branded case specs that fits their reference design.
President: 4 months?!?! In that case lets have cake... and hookers... and blow!
That might make sense if there was even a check box on their reports to mark whether a stereo system was in use or not. "Studies" on cell phone use in cars are pretty much universally an exercise in confirmation bias, and calls for laws against them are pretty much universally cries of "Your dangerous activity is unacceptable, but mine is OK".
Or, the police could cut out the middle man and just take the report that the phone was stolen, and use the turn by turn directions provided to drive right up to the person that stole the phone in the first place.
Or the police could do their job and arrest people who steal phones. They have a constant stream of evidence when the phone is on, and turn by turn directions to the thief's location. The thieves are being handed to them on a silver platter.
Apple isn't the problem here with stolen phones. Law enforcement is. Our phones locations are tracked. We all know this. No one is denying that our phones are tracked. The police literally get a map with the bad guys location marked on it, and a constant stream of evidence to prove that the bad guy is guilty of a crime.
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I bought a cart just today. Super Scribblenauts Unlimited.
Waa I heard someone make a complaint that doesn't affect most people in third world countries, someone call the waambulance.
When a sysadmin decides that 3 days of rolling backups is plenty, then yes. I know more than he does. I've known some great system admins, and I've know some completely incompetent ones. The problem is that due to their position, the incompetent ones can hide their incompetence from management for a very long time.
A coworker that was living down the road from the Davidian compound tells me that the Dividians had been legally shooting rifles on their property. A neighbor made a noise complaint and the local sheriff had already been out and worked out a compromise to resolve the complaint. As the story goes, the issue had already been resolved with the kooky but harmless Davidians.
An analogy! Let me try: your argument is like a car: it doesn't understand what words mean.
Best car analogy ever.
Granted. I will will restrict the comment to there being no excuse for polluting the WiFi spectrum when you are already connected to a wired network.
Well, that is just plain BS. That isn't even a good lie.
There is no good reason that a light bulb that is designed to screw into a standard socket should ever use any kind of wireless technology for it's control. The thing, by it's very nature, is already connected to a wired network in the home. Using wireless pollutes the WiFi spectrum while simultaneously exposing the device to hackers.
The same thing could be done with a screw in adapter. Adapter screws into the fixture, bulb screws into the adapter. Same feature set. More flexibility.
I do think your full of it. Yes, Linux works fine. It has for a long time. What you seem to be missing is that installing the OS at all is not 'just working'. It is a very small group of people that go looking for drivers in Windows. Most people just buy a PC that is preinstalled with all the the necessary drivers. When the computer stops working well, they get rid of it and buy another. They never go looking for drivers. I also agree that other than games, there is all the software that most people need available for both Linux and OSX. What you seem to be missing is that most people don't know what these applications are called. This requires effort on their part to figure it out, and thus for those people it doesn't "just work".
It is not lack of choice. Virtually every PC out there could have Xubuntu installed on it. Most people don't do that because that is not "just working".
You are arguing against a straw man.
I have yet to meet a single person with an Android phone that doesn't use it as a personal computer. For most users, it takes games, an office suite and a web browser. Thinking that OSX market share is larger than Android market share is just silly.
Well, I guess that explains it all. It is totally different because... well... just because!
Because the companies know they can get someone else to work for free, and thus the only way to get any money ever is to work for free for a while. It is a scam in the same way that an employer that tells an employee to clock out and keep working if they want to keep their job is a scam.
OSX has struggled for apps because it has so few users. The number of Android users, dwarfs the number of OSX users. Apps already exist for most of what is done on PCs. There is just an easier path to the desktop for Android than from OSX.
That is a myth. The maintenance on a typical PC is virtually identical to that of a smartphone or tablet.
There has never been a generation of kids that grew up interacting with computers as anything more than media consumption devices. The kids that currently use them as media consumption devices just didn't use them when they were not media consumption devices.
While having 5 kids with computers all doing programming might be 100%, and having 500 kids with computers and 5 doing programming might only be 1%, in real reality, the number of kids programming hasn't changed.
The definitions don't get weird unless you are confused into thinking that tablets, smartphones, pdas, game consoles, etc, are something different than a PC with a different choice of software/peripherals.
OSX has the same problem that Desktop Linux has. A lack of critical mass. Android does not have that problem. With OSX, new users have to figure out what applications do what they currently do with their current equipment. They won't take the effort. Especially if that effort costs more. They can just buy a Windows PC and it will Just Work.
Android doesn't face this problem. With an Android desktop, they now get to run all of the software that they already use. They are not buying into a new platform. That buy in has already happened. They are just getting a unit with a bigger screen and some extra peripherals.
Only, that isn't how it would go down. It would go down like this:
VP of sales: PC sales are up this year by 20%. This trend is forcast to continue for the forseable future.
[content murmuring and smug looks]
Analyst: We already know that portable PCs have been gaining of desktop PCs for several years. Customers are demanding smaller sizes. Instead of 17" screens, they want 7" screens. They do want us to make them touch screens, but the upside is that they don't care about getting keyboards and mice with the system. The processors they now want are also cheaper for us and they want on OS that we can get for free.
President: Are you talking about that "Linux" thing? The guys down at the Yacht club tell me that the kind of people that use it like to fiddle with stuff. How are our support costs going to look if we have people breaking their computers all the time. These things are barely holding together as it is.
Analyst: That's the beauty of this. With the configuration people are asking for, the public has already been educated that having access beyond loading apps is bad and something they don't want. If we choose to offer systems unlocked like our current PC lineup, our marketing goes viral.
President: yes... yes let's do that... then have cake.
Engineer: No problem, we can have one of our Chinese manufacuring partners cranking the things out withing 4 months of our industrial design team getting them the branded case specs that fits their reference design.
President: 4 months?!?! In that case lets have cake... and hookers... and blow!
That might make sense if there was even a check box on their reports to mark whether a stereo system was in use or not. "Studies" on cell phone use in cars are pretty much universally an exercise in confirmation bias, and calls for laws against them are pretty much universally cries of "Your dangerous activity is unacceptable, but mine is OK".
In California, they wont even take a report on most accidents.
Mayor Bloomberg could just get his police departments to make arrests. They have turn by turn directions directly to the thieves after all.
Or, the police could cut out the middle man and just take the report that the phone was stolen, and use the turn by turn directions provided to drive right up to the person that stole the phone in the first place.
Or the police could do their job and arrest people who steal phones. They have a constant stream of evidence when the phone is on, and turn by turn directions to the thief's location. The thieves are being handed to them on a silver platter.
Apple isn't the problem here with stolen phones. Law enforcement is. Our phones locations are tracked. We all know this. No one is denying that our phones are tracked. The police literally get a map with the bad guys location marked on it, and a constant stream of evidence to prove that the bad guy is guilty of a crime.