And then you go to Tools > Extensions and install the "View This Page In IE" extension, which adds a right-click menu item to open the page you're viewing in IE without introducing any IE or ActiveX into the internals of Firefox, as AOL seems anxious to do.
I don't think the average AOL user is going to buy that solution. For one, AOL users don't install extensions (AOL could pre-install this). Even most Firefox users probably don't install and extensions. More importantly, running two browsers is just a very clumsy solution. IE and Firefox do no co-exist very well on many Windows boxes, and they are both fairly resource hungry, bringing older machines to their knees. I'm primarily a Safari user myself, using Firefox and IE as needed for certain uses and OSs, but if such a feature were incorporated in Safari (with proper security measures) I'd be just fine with it. Heck, I might even use it on some weird occasion.
I disagree. In theory this is only mirroring what a number of users already do. Many users surf with Firefox until they get to a site that only works with IE, then switch to IE. That is not to say that this is not a security issue... actually a potential security disaster. Now all they need to do is make it mirror a more clueful user's behavior and automatically e-mail a complaint to the web master about their site's noncompliance with standards. Seriously though, this is still probably better from a safety standpoint than IE, and is workable as a default install for the clueless masses.
I mentioned this in another post, but it bears repeating. A well trained liar does not make up a story from scratch with a certain level of detail. This is a good way to get caught as an unexpected question about a detail may indicate that you are lying. It is best to base your story on a previous experience, even one unrelated to the story. Ideally you should base it on something similar to what you want the interrogator to believe. If you want to lie and say you did not shoot someone when you did, talk about a night two weeks previous to the night in question but with the differences you want to incorporate rehearsed in your mind. By blending a real experience with fiction, inconsequential details are just memories of that real experience, and do not require any creativity. When you say you were at home with a good book, you can easily describe what you were reading about, wearing, eating, etc.
You don't actually have to believe it. You just have to have previously constructed the memory in your mind. People react differently when remembering things than they do when creatively "making something up." A common tell is when people glance up and to the left while speaking. This is a common indicator of creative thought. A good liar will have rehearsed or fantasized a lie in their head. When asked about it, they remember what they rehearsed, rather than creating it on the spot. Especially talented liars base their lies upon a true experience to prevent details from tripping them up. This way they do not have to think up anything on the fly.
I'd be very curious to see what is shown in these scans when a well trained professional is put to the test. I suspect they are just detecting how creative thought differs from memory retrieval and that classic lying techniques will fool this new method as well.
I'll bite. After all Bush is such an easy target. Bush has used "creative" funding policies to effectively ban embryonic stem cell research. Don't believe me, take a look at the few universities willing to do such research, they have all made public statements about their planned court battles. Or how about the destruction of NIH funding? The day after the election the research labs down the street were told the news. All federal funding was to be cut in half. That includes diabetes, HIV, Parkinson's, MS, Prions, everything. What Bush says he supports and what he actually supports, you know with funding and by preventing restrictive patents on things like genes, are completely different. The current administration has done more damage to scientific research in this country than any other in recent history. But hey what do I care, I work in a field largely supported by military funding and anti-terror dollars, so I have job security.
Pull your head out of your butt and look around. America isn't so free anymore, and it sure as heck isn't the world leader in science anymore. We're falling behind because of one simple thing...greed. Bush may have made statements in support of umbilical stem cell research, but he did not do so to advance science or help people. He did so to get votes from the religious-right, by providing an alternative to embryonic stem cell research. It is just a game of three card monty. We should be researching all types of stem cells and reaping the benefits thereof, not shutting down research because it can be turned into some sort of religious vote swinging issue.
"No one capable of getting themselves elected president should, on any account, be allowed to do the job." Sadly this is more true than ever.
That is true, if you are counting market share by sales. If you are counting the number of machines owned and in use, well, that number is not so easy to calculate. Four years ago I bought two towers, a PC and a mac. The mac is currently my web server/PVR/MP3 server/DVD player/sometimes extra gaming box. The PC is, well it doesn't work anymore and even if it did, it would not be good for much aside from a dumb terminal. Your method of counting does not include either machine, even though I still buy new hardware and software for one of them. I don't see many estimates that account for the number of years a machines is usable, nor for may estimates that include the amount of use a machine gets. How many cheap PCs are purchased for someone, but are only powered on three times and then sit in a closet or under a desk while grandma uses her olde fashioned typewriter?
If you define market share by number of sales, compared to total sales, then you are correct. If you want meaningful statistics on what percentage of machines being used are Macs, well, those numbers are not really available. I can tell you anecdotally, however, among computing professionals, they are way, way up.
While I agree with point you are trying to make, I think you have no idea how much of South Korean politics is dependent upon the president of the U.S. South Korea is a U.S. satellite state set in opposition to North Korea, a former U.S.S.R. and Chinese satellite state. North Korea can and may invade at any time, and the presence of a large number of U.S. troops, that Bush has promised to remove, are one of the major things preventing it. When the U.S. says "jump" Korea says "how high??"
people tend to worship volcano gods and mountains, rather than investigating creation...if there is no trancendant, why would one trust in logic?
Ha ha ha ha ha! Wow, thanks, that was really funny. People worshipping Vulcan, the god of fire, are probably the most refined example of logical and reasoned discourse. The Romans and Greeks had a much better understanding of logic and reasoning than most scientists and Slashdot posters do today. As far as monotheism or strong religious beliefs in general as a correlative for scientific or reasoned thought, well that is just not backed up by history. The Ancient Chinese, Egyptian, Sumerian, Greek, Roman, Etruscan, and Mayan civilizations all advanced scientifically beyond the norm. If anything, a tolerance for a plethora of religions corresponds well with reasoned discourse and logic.
People trust in logic, because it works and is useful. I'm not saying that religion is not important, or that a reasonable person cannot reasonably have religious beliefs. But logic need not have any sort of religion to lend it credence, it stands well on its own merit.
Bush didn't outlaw Steam Cell Research; He ceased giving federal funding for new steam cell lines.
This is not quite correct. He banned giving funding for new stem cell lines, leaving largely contaminated ones that are unusable and he banned federal funding for any institute or university that experiments with other embryonic stem cells, effectively making it impossible for any research institute (all of which are heavily funded by tax dollars) to research the promising embryonic stem cells with private funding.
Not to confuse the issue, the research being discussed in this article was performed in Korea, was not affected by Bush's policies, and uses umbilical stem cells mostly because they are less likely to cause cancerous growth. I imagine a lot of cutting edge new technologies will be coming from foreign countries these days, seeing as the U.S. is becoming an academic disaster.
Also, before you go off on the ethics of the situation, write a nice letter to my wheelchair bound mother whose spinal injury has prevented her from walking for the last 30 years. Tell her why tax dollars are allocated by a bunch or religious wackos who think many of the activities we do every day are immoral. Dancing leads to pre-marital sex, lets ban it. The most cogent argument I have heard against research on embryonic stem cells is that it might (conceivably) lead to a future where pregnancies and abortions are conducting in order to produce stem cells. This argument might hold some weight if you think abortions are morally wrong and if you think things should be banned based upon other practices that might possibly result (i.e. ban dancing to prevent sex.) Personally, I think if you think sex is wrong, pass a law to ban it, in the mean time leave dancing and embryonic stem cell research alone.
Maybe it is the fact that the PC has four times the RAM? Macs are RAM hungry, I would not run OSX on less the 256, and my powerbook does fine with 768. Aside from the RAM, while I like Blizzard and really enjoy their games, I have not been too impressed with the technical aspects of the mac versions of their games. Warcraft III, for example, always ran on a single processor of my dual processor tower. They could do a better job of multithreading.
I my post I clearly stated "I use a PC and a Mac on a daily basis." Perhaps that does not specifically state that it was a Win2k machine (it is), but this is Slashdot. I think you can assume for the most part that a poster's machine is running something current.
As far as your other comments go, no I'm not a Mac zealot, although I do prefer it for most tasks, I use OSX, Win2K, Linux, and NetBSD on a daily basis. Yes, PDFs do bring my Win2K machine to a complete halt while trying to open from within firefox. Yes, I have used WinXP, and it is superior to Win2K and OSX in some ways. No, it is not as capable or pleasant to use as OSX for most tasks.
This thread discussed why people do not often switch from OSX to a PC. I seriously doubt you have tried using OSX as a workstation for 2 weeks. If so you would probably not be ranting your overpriced and non-upgradable FUD. Nor would you be claiming that any version of Windows can compete with OSX in general. There just really isn't any contest.
Just imagine if Apple bought Bungi, and Halo was released for the MAC first,
I agree with your point, for the most part, but Bungie is just one company and buying it would not have made a difference for all the other games not ported. Maybe you should be asking, what if MS, did not abuse their illegal monopoly by buying all the good mac developers up, and killing their products. That said, there have been a number of very good games over the years that never made it to the PC. It's just that since most people use PCs they have never heard of them. Bungie made Marathon 2, the predecessor to Halo which was much further ahead of the curve than Halo is. In fact it was by far the best FPS of it's time with features that did not reach PC games for years. I also think that Apple could do more for game developers and gamers. Building a really nice Playstation 3 emulator (with the help of Sony) into OSX 10.5 would probably do a lot to counter the lack of games for OSX. I'm not a big gamer, and mainly use my machine for work and hobbies, but I play the occasional game. I've never had a problem finding something good to play. Who knows, I imagine Apple has a pretty good handle on the numbers. Perhaps it would not make as big a difference as either of us think.
"I think the Mac to PC converts are rare, however, because most people are attracted to the Old Navy wearing, Jetta-driving hipsters that sport Macs on TV
I agree that PC to mac converts are rare, but I think it is for exactly the opposite reason you suggest. Everyone I know who has gone from a Mac to a PC, did so because they needed a particular application for something they were doing, or because someone in management decided that they needed to homogenize the computing environment for some unreasonable reason. People stay on the Mac because switching to a PC makes one so painfully unproductive. I can't think of anyone I know who uses Macs because they are cool. PCs quite simply, cannot do many of the things I do every day, and what they can do, they don't do as well (in most cases, not all).
I use a PC and a Mac on a daily basis. Any task that can be done on the mac is. This is because of all the system-wide features available on the Mac, but not on the PC. Pretty much every Mac user who has used a PC has opened a PDF file, then stared in horror as the whole machine grinds to a halt while the PDF viewer loads and the file opens. There goes anywhere from 2 to 60 seconds of your life. A number of PC users have mentioned to me how much PDFs suck, and how they hate going to a page that turns out to be a PDF. What they don't realize is that it is not PDF that sucks. What sucks is the combination of Window's inability to multitask and Acrobat's horrible slowness. That is just one example, but it is representative. Once you see how much better things can be, almost no one wants to go back. This is why it is not unusual to see people look for different employment, rather than give up their OSX.
Yeah, it's a tough call. Which is more damaging to your box, spyware, or SP2. I know one user who's machine is always getting spyware. Every time we play a LAN game he has to run some spyware removal software to make sure his box will run fast enough. Of course I know another guy who upgraded to SP2 and his machine started to bluescreen on a regular basis when running games with 3d graphics (about 5 times per LAN party). The moral of this story is "damned if you do, damned if you don't." Both guys are still better off than the one running Windows ME, he gets the spyware and the bluescreens.
"How well do they interoperate with most software and are they as easy to upgrade?
"
Wow, that is a pretty broad question. The answers are well, ok, and not at all for the first question and yes, sometimes for the second question.
Macs are not binary compatible with windows software, without a third party emulator. All that pre-compiled software you may have will not work. On the other hand, most major applications have a version compiled for the mac. Smaller applications, or niche applications may have a mac version, or may not. There may be an equivalent program, or there may not. On the other hand, Macs have quite a few applications, not available at all on windows (some of which have functional equivalents). Also, Macs can compile and run the vast majority of software written for Linux or the BSDs. I suppose you just have to figure out what you want to do, then look into what is available.
As far as upgradeability goes, some macs are compact all in one units, or laptops, and are about as upgradeable as pc equivalents. Their towers are probably easier to upgrade than most pcs with a few caveats. Mainly not all hardware has drivers, or is compatible with OSX, and finding out which is not always easy. I've never had a problem, personally, but I always do a little research before making any new hardware purchases.
OK, you're right my numbers were off a bit. Even so, I'm not sure that the number is really very large. The "people who plan to buy" number is meaningless. You can't do a survey of people who plan to do something because most people have unrealistic expectations. so that leaves us with 14ish percent of mac machines being sold to someone who used to own a pc, and who bought an ipod. What percentage of those people switched because of their like for the ipod? That number is not provided, but it is probably not most of them. Most of the people I know are switching because of OSX and it's UNIX abilities, or because they are sick and tired of worms and spyware. I'm not saying that ipods are not working as a sales tool, but considering that they are only currently an unknown portion of 14%, I don't think it is a huge motivator.
On the other hand, I think that most estimates of how many people are using macs, is generally quite a bit lower than reality. Most are based on mac sales versus pc sales, and don't account for how long machines are used, or how many of those pc's are used only very occasionally, or not at all. I know here in the office they have about a 50% share and a similar share for people's personal systems.
I saw this article a while ago, and then ran a few numbers in my head. Given the number of ipods Apple sells is a little under the number of computers sold, in an average quarter, this is not really surprising at all. I don't think the correlation is really meaningful. Slightly less than 6% of Apple's new computer customers have also bought ipods. Given the overlap between people into high tech gadgets and people with enough money to afford an ipod or a mac, I'm surprised these numbers aren't higher.
I agree that this dialogue was far above par for television, or movies these days. How often do characters behave realistically enough to mis-hear a piece of random dialogue. Firefly broke a number of TV rules, and was better for it.
I don't think he had too much trouble. DVD sales of the series are pretty impressive. I should know, it is one of only two series I felt was good enough to purchase
I'm sure a dozen other people will point this out, but there are a lot of reasons a series can fail that have nothing to do with quality of the series. I never saw an episode of Firefly on TV, and did not even know it existed until someone showed me an episode on DVD. It is one of the most entertaining shows I have ever seen, I I normally have a strong dislike for Wheaton's work. A little research showed me that the show was not advertised much, played on a network I don't even look for shows on, and played at a number of different times, when it was not preempted by sports. It makes it hard to build up a following in a series when your audience has to do research beforehand to know when and if an episode will be playing. I've since shown this series to a number of people, everyone has liked it, and several have bought the DVDs (I know I did).
Agreed. The U.S. is lagging because we have not provided incentives like other countries, and because there is little or no competition. Without fair and equal access to the public right of ways monopolized by the telecomms, smaller providers can't compete. We pay more for less, not because we are subsidizing more rural areas, but because U.S. companies know that they can gouge us, and there is nothing we can do about it. If not for the crappy state of things, community wireless programs would not have to exist.
My father and one of my brothers have windows machines. One is a locked down corporate XP pro SP1 laptop that is remotely administered by professionals. The other is a Windows ME home computer used for web surfing, e-mail, and video games.
About every other time I go to visit them, I walk them through spyware removal to make their machines run at a reasonable speed again. About once every three months, one of them calls me because their machine has become too bad to use and I talk them through it on the phone. They are both average, clueless users. If I could switch either of them to linux or the mac, I would in a heartbeat. My mother only calls for help with her imac when she forgets how to delete things in her webmail or she accidentally kicks the power cord out of the wall.
It is my professional opinion that anyone who does not actually need windows should switch, if they can afford to.
Slashdot Mirror
And then you go to Tools > Extensions and install the "View This Page In IE" extension, which adds a right-click menu item to open the page you're viewing in IE without introducing any IE or ActiveX into the internals of Firefox, as AOL seems anxious to do.
I don't think the average AOL user is going to buy that solution. For one, AOL users don't install extensions (AOL could pre-install this). Even most Firefox users probably don't install and extensions. More importantly, running two browsers is just a very clumsy solution. IE and Firefox do no co-exist very well on many Windows boxes, and they are both fairly resource hungry, bringing older machines to their knees. I'm primarily a Safari user myself, using Firefox and IE as needed for certain uses and OSs, but if such a feature were incorporated in Safari (with proper security measures) I'd be just fine with it. Heck, I might even use it on some weird occasion.
I disagree. In theory this is only mirroring what a number of users already do. Many users surf with Firefox until they get to a site that only works with IE, then switch to IE. That is not to say that this is not a security issue... actually a potential security disaster. Now all they need to do is make it mirror a more clueful user's behavior and automatically e-mail a complaint to the web master about their site's noncompliance with standards. Seriously though, this is still probably better from a safety standpoint than IE, and is workable as a default install for the clueless masses.
*golf clap*
just enough details to be believable
I mentioned this in another post, but it bears repeating. A well trained liar does not make up a story from scratch with a certain level of detail. This is a good way to get caught as an unexpected question about a detail may indicate that you are lying. It is best to base your story on a previous experience, even one unrelated to the story. Ideally you should base it on something similar to what you want the interrogator to believe. If you want to lie and say you did not shoot someone when you did, talk about a night two weeks previous to the night in question but with the differences you want to incorporate rehearsed in your mind. By blending a real experience with fiction, inconsequential details are just memories of that real experience, and do not require any creativity. When you say you were at home with a good book, you can easily describe what you were reading about, wearing, eating, etc.
You don't actually have to believe it. You just have to have previously constructed the memory in your mind. People react differently when remembering things than they do when creatively "making something up." A common tell is when people glance up and to the left while speaking. This is a common indicator of creative thought. A good liar will have rehearsed or fantasized a lie in their head. When asked about it, they remember what they rehearsed, rather than creating it on the spot. Especially talented liars base their lies upon a true experience to prevent details from tripping them up. This way they do not have to think up anything on the fly.
I'd be very curious to see what is shown in these scans when a well trained professional is put to the test. I suspect they are just detecting how creative thought differs from memory retrieval and that classic lying techniques will fool this new method as well.
I'll bite. After all Bush is such an easy target. Bush has used "creative" funding policies to effectively ban embryonic stem cell research. Don't believe me, take a look at the few universities willing to do such research, they have all made public statements about their planned court battles. Or how about the destruction of NIH funding? The day after the election the research labs down the street were told the news. All federal funding was to be cut in half. That includes diabetes, HIV, Parkinson's, MS, Prions, everything. What Bush says he supports and what he actually supports, you know with funding and by preventing restrictive patents on things like genes, are completely different. The current administration has done more damage to scientific research in this country than any other in recent history. But hey what do I care, I work in a field largely supported by military funding and anti-terror dollars, so I have job security.
Pull your head out of your butt and look around. America isn't so free anymore, and it sure as heck isn't the world leader in science anymore. We're falling behind because of one simple thing...greed. Bush may have made statements in support of umbilical stem cell research, but he did not do so to advance science or help people. He did so to get votes from the religious-right, by providing an alternative to embryonic stem cell research. It is just a game of three card monty. We should be researching all types of stem cells and reaping the benefits thereof, not shutting down research because it can be turned into some sort of religious vote swinging issue.
"No one capable of getting themselves elected president should, on any account, be allowed to do the job." Sadly this is more true than ever.
In terms of market share they are down a lot.
That is true, if you are counting market share by sales. If you are counting the number of machines owned and in use, well, that number is not so easy to calculate. Four years ago I bought two towers, a PC and a mac. The mac is currently my web server/PVR/MP3 server/DVD player/sometimes extra gaming box. The PC is, well it doesn't work anymore and even if it did, it would not be good for much aside from a dumb terminal. Your method of counting does not include either machine, even though I still buy new hardware and software for one of them. I don't see many estimates that account for the number of years a machines is usable, nor for may estimates that include the amount of use a machine gets. How many cheap PCs are purchased for someone, but are only powered on three times and then sit in a closet or under a desk while grandma uses her olde fashioned typewriter?
If you define market share by number of sales, compared to total sales, then you are correct. If you want meaningful statistics on what percentage of machines being used are Macs, well, those numbers are not really available. I can tell you anecdotally, however, among computing professionals, they are way, way up.
While I agree with point you are trying to make, I think you have no idea how much of South Korean politics is dependent upon the president of the U.S. South Korea is a U.S. satellite state set in opposition to North Korea, a former U.S.S.R. and Chinese satellite state. North Korea can and may invade at any time, and the presence of a large number of U.S. troops, that Bush has promised to remove, are one of the major things preventing it. When the U.S. says "jump" Korea says "how high??"
people tend to worship volcano gods and mountains, rather than investigating creation...if there is no trancendant, why would one trust in logic?
Ha ha ha ha ha! Wow, thanks, that was really funny. People worshipping Vulcan, the god of fire, are probably the most refined example of logical and reasoned discourse. The Romans and Greeks had a much better understanding of logic and reasoning than most scientists and Slashdot posters do today. As far as monotheism or strong religious beliefs in general as a correlative for scientific or reasoned thought, well that is just not backed up by history. The Ancient Chinese, Egyptian, Sumerian, Greek, Roman, Etruscan, and Mayan civilizations all advanced scientifically beyond the norm. If anything, a tolerance for a plethora of religions corresponds well with reasoned discourse and logic.
People trust in logic, because it works and is useful. I'm not saying that religion is not important, or that a reasonable person cannot reasonably have religious beliefs. But logic need not have any sort of religion to lend it credence, it stands well on its own merit.
Seoul is in Australia now? Wow, I must be behind on my current events. On a related note, you don't seem to be very well informed.
Bush didn't outlaw Steam Cell Research; He ceased giving federal funding for new steam cell lines.
This is not quite correct. He banned giving funding for new stem cell lines, leaving largely contaminated ones that are unusable and he banned federal funding for any institute or university that experiments with other embryonic stem cells, effectively making it impossible for any research institute (all of which are heavily funded by tax dollars) to research the promising embryonic stem cells with private funding.
Not to confuse the issue, the research being discussed in this article was performed in Korea, was not affected by Bush's policies, and uses umbilical stem cells mostly because they are less likely to cause cancerous growth. I imagine a lot of cutting edge new technologies will be coming from foreign countries these days, seeing as the U.S. is becoming an academic disaster.
Also, before you go off on the ethics of the situation, write a nice letter to my wheelchair bound mother whose spinal injury has prevented her from walking for the last 30 years. Tell her why tax dollars are allocated by a bunch or religious wackos who think many of the activities we do every day are immoral. Dancing leads to pre-marital sex, lets ban it. The most cogent argument I have heard against research on embryonic stem cells is that it might (conceivably) lead to a future where pregnancies and abortions are conducting in order to produce stem cells. This argument might hold some weight if you think abortions are morally wrong and if you think things should be banned based upon other practices that might possibly result (i.e. ban dancing to prevent sex.) Personally, I think if you think sex is wrong, pass a law to ban it, in the mean time leave dancing and embryonic stem cell research alone.
Athlon64, 512MB RAM
AlBook /128MB RAM
Maybe it is the fact that the PC has four times the RAM? Macs are RAM hungry, I would not run OSX on less the 256, and my powerbook does fine with 768. Aside from the RAM, while I like Blizzard and really enjoy their games, I have not been too impressed with the technical aspects of the mac versions of their games. Warcraft III, for example, always ran on a single processor of my dual processor tower. They could do a better job of multithreading.
at least give 2K/XP a chance
I my post I clearly stated "I use a PC and a Mac on a daily basis." Perhaps that does not specifically state that it was a Win2k machine (it is), but this is Slashdot. I think you can assume for the most part that a poster's machine is running something current.
As far as your other comments go, no I'm not a Mac zealot, although I do prefer it for most tasks, I use OSX, Win2K, Linux, and NetBSD on a daily basis. Yes, PDFs do bring my Win2K machine to a complete halt while trying to open from within firefox. Yes, I have used WinXP, and it is superior to Win2K and OSX in some ways. No, it is not as capable or pleasant to use as OSX for most tasks.
This thread discussed why people do not often switch from OSX to a PC. I seriously doubt you have tried using OSX as a workstation for 2 weeks. If so you would probably not be ranting your overpriced and non-upgradable FUD. Nor would you be claiming that any version of Windows can compete with OSX in general. There just really isn't any contest.
Just imagine if Apple bought Bungi, and Halo was released for the MAC first,
I agree with your point, for the most part, but Bungie is just one company and buying it would not have made a difference for all the other games not ported. Maybe you should be asking, what if MS, did not abuse their illegal monopoly by buying all the good mac developers up, and killing their products. That said, there have been a number of very good games over the years that never made it to the PC. It's just that since most people use PCs they have never heard of them. Bungie made Marathon 2, the predecessor to Halo which was much further ahead of the curve than Halo is. In fact it was by far the best FPS of it's time with features that did not reach PC games for years. I also think that Apple could do more for game developers and gamers. Building a really nice Playstation 3 emulator (with the help of Sony) into OSX 10.5 would probably do a lot to counter the lack of games for OSX. I'm not a big gamer, and mainly use my machine for work and hobbies, but I play the occasional game. I've never had a problem finding something good to play. Who knows, I imagine Apple has a pretty good handle on the numbers. Perhaps it would not make as big a difference as either of us think.
"I think the Mac to PC converts are rare, however, because most people are attracted to the Old Navy wearing, Jetta-driving hipsters that sport Macs on TV
I agree that PC to mac converts are rare, but I think it is for exactly the opposite reason you suggest. Everyone I know who has gone from a Mac to a PC, did so because they needed a particular application for something they were doing, or because someone in management decided that they needed to homogenize the computing environment for some unreasonable reason. People stay on the Mac because switching to a PC makes one so painfully unproductive. I can't think of anyone I know who uses Macs because they are cool. PCs quite simply, cannot do many of the things I do every day, and what they can do, they don't do as well (in most cases, not all).
I use a PC and a Mac on a daily basis. Any task that can be done on the mac is. This is because of all the system-wide features available on the Mac, but not on the PC. Pretty much every Mac user who has used a PC has opened a PDF file, then stared in horror as the whole machine grinds to a halt while the PDF viewer loads and the file opens. There goes anywhere from 2 to 60 seconds of your life. A number of PC users have mentioned to me how much PDFs suck, and how they hate going to a page that turns out to be a PDF. What they don't realize is that it is not PDF that sucks. What sucks is the combination of Window's inability to multitask and Acrobat's horrible slowness. That is just one example, but it is representative. Once you see how much better things can be, almost no one wants to go back. This is why it is not unusual to see people look for different employment, rather than give up their OSX.
Yeah, it's a tough call. Which is more damaging to your box, spyware, or SP2. I know one user who's machine is always getting spyware. Every time we play a LAN game he has to run some spyware removal software to make sure his box will run fast enough. Of course I know another guy who upgraded to SP2 and his machine started to bluescreen on a regular basis when running games with 3d graphics (about 5 times per LAN party). The moral of this story is "damned if you do, damned if you don't." Both guys are still better off than the one running Windows ME, he gets the spyware and the bluescreens.
"How well do they interoperate with most software and are they as easy to upgrade? "
Wow, that is a pretty broad question. The answers are well, ok, and not at all for the first question and yes, sometimes for the second question.
Macs are not binary compatible with windows software, without a third party emulator. All that pre-compiled software you may have will not work. On the other hand, most major applications have a version compiled for the mac. Smaller applications, or niche applications may have a mac version, or may not. There may be an equivalent program, or there may not. On the other hand, Macs have quite a few applications, not available at all on windows (some of which have functional equivalents). Also, Macs can compile and run the vast majority of software written for Linux or the BSDs. I suppose you just have to figure out what you want to do, then look into what is available.
As far as upgradeability goes, some macs are compact all in one units, or laptops, and are about as upgradeable as pc equivalents. Their towers are probably easier to upgrade than most pcs with a few caveats. Mainly not all hardware has drivers, or is compatible with OSX, and finding out which is not always easy. I've never had a problem, personally, but I always do a little research before making any new hardware purchases.
OK, you're right my numbers were off a bit. Even so, I'm not sure that the number is really very large. The "people who plan to buy" number is meaningless. You can't do a survey of people who plan to do something because most people have unrealistic expectations. so that leaves us with 14ish percent of mac machines being sold to someone who used to own a pc, and who bought an ipod. What percentage of those people switched because of their like for the ipod? That number is not provided, but it is probably not most of them. Most of the people I know are switching because of OSX and it's UNIX abilities, or because they are sick and tired of worms and spyware. I'm not saying that ipods are not working as a sales tool, but considering that they are only currently an unknown portion of 14%, I don't think it is a huge motivator.
On the other hand, I think that most estimates of how many people are using macs, is generally quite a bit lower than reality. Most are based on mac sales versus pc sales, and don't account for how long machines are used, or how many of those pc's are used only very occasionally, or not at all. I know here in the office they have about a 50% share and a similar share for people's personal systems.
I saw this article a while ago, and then ran a few numbers in my head. Given the number of ipods Apple sells is a little under the number of computers sold, in an average quarter, this is not really surprising at all. I don't think the correlation is really meaningful. Slightly less than 6% of Apple's new computer customers have also bought ipods. Given the overlap between people into high tech gadgets and people with enough money to afford an ipod or a mac, I'm surprised these numbers aren't higher.
I agree that this dialogue was far above par for television, or movies these days. How often do characters behave realistically enough to mis-hear a piece of random dialogue. Firefly broke a number of TV rules, and was better for it.
I don't think he had too much trouble. DVD sales of the series are pretty impressive. I should know, it is one of only two series I felt was good enough to purchase
I'm sure a dozen other people will point this out, but there are a lot of reasons a series can fail that have nothing to do with quality of the series. I never saw an episode of Firefly on TV, and did not even know it existed until someone showed me an episode on DVD. It is one of the most entertaining shows I have ever seen, I I normally have a strong dislike for Wheaton's work. A little research showed me that the show was not advertised much, played on a network I don't even look for shows on, and played at a number of different times, when it was not preempted by sports. It makes it hard to build up a following in a series when your audience has to do research beforehand to know when and if an episode will be playing. I've since shown this series to a number of people, everyone has liked it, and several have bought the DVDs (I know I did).
"I understand only that I can understand nothing with completeness." The gateless gate is closed... or possibly nonexistent.
Agreed. The U.S. is lagging because we have not provided incentives like other countries, and because there is little or no competition. Without fair and equal access to the public right of ways monopolized by the telecomms, smaller providers can't compete. We pay more for less, not because we are subsidizing more rural areas, but because U.S. companies know that they can gouge us, and there is nothing we can do about it. If not for the crappy state of things, community wireless programs would not have to exist.
Why are you spouting this FUD about microsoft?
My father and one of my brothers have windows machines. One is a locked down corporate XP pro SP1 laptop that is remotely administered by professionals. The other is a Windows ME home computer used for web surfing, e-mail, and video games.
About every other time I go to visit them, I walk them through spyware removal to make their machines run at a reasonable speed again. About once every three months, one of them calls me because their machine has become too bad to use and I talk them through it on the phone. They are both average, clueless users. If I could switch either of them to linux or the mac, I would in a heartbeat. My mother only calls for help with her imac when she forgets how to delete things in her webmail or she accidentally kicks the power cord out of the wall.
It is my professional opinion that anyone who does not actually need windows should switch, if they can afford to.