Capitalism is a game in which the goal is simply to make the most money (with the least effort). The "free market" (aka competition) is just one of many possible strategies to make the most money.
I have to correct you here, because you are way, way off in your description of these concepts.
Capitalism is a "game" in the sense that every system is a game. "Evolution is a "game" in which the goal is to pass on your genes, and therefore (insert discussion of evolution using game terms)." etc. I strongly suspect (due to your following statements) that you're using "game" as a pejorative term to discredit the idea of capitalism because, although you don't really know what it means, you've been told that it's worse than (insert another economic system here) based on (insert oversimplified discussion of benefits of other economic system and pitfalls of capitalism).
Capitalism is a system of economics in which (hypothetically) the capital means of production are owned by individuals, rather than the state, and through the mechanism of offer/counteroffer, prices are "discovered" due to market action. The "free market" is a related, but distinct concept based on the idea that the most efficient economies are reached through market action that is facilitated by a few conditions, including: 1) Low (or nonexistent) barriers to entry in a market 2) Widespread access to information 3) Etc.
In such a free market, the price that a company would be able to charge (i.e. the price that buyers would be willing to pay) would always draw very close to the cost of offering their product or service, due to the ability of competitors to jump into the market and undercut a company charging exorbitant rates, the knowledge of the buyers that the rates being charged were excessive, etc. However, the market created by the Telcos doesn't even remotely resemble a free market, due to: 1) EXTREMELY high barriers to entry (legal monopolies on "the last mile" within residential neighborhoods, HUGE infrastructure costs in laying the network infrastructure outside these neighborhoods, etc.) 2) The Telcos are often owned by the same vested interests that control the media, and therefore the information regarding the costs to provide these services is deliberately hidden/not broadcast/drowned out by misinformation/etc.
In other words, while your assertion that "practically every business on earth bends over backwards to avoid the free market at all costs" is essentially correct, your understanding of *why* this is the case is so wrong as to be dangerous. The issue here is: the telecommunications market is not free and never has been. For a variety of reasons, a free Telco market is both impossible and impractical, and therefore the closest thing that we can do is have the infrastructure be handled as a government-owned utility, and have the providers of service compete against each other... but this is not remotely the same thing as "free markets are a bad strategy for business"...
Virtually all proposed gun legislation would not make a difference in gun crimes..
So propose something that would make a difference. I'm willing to hear you out.
So in the absence of something that will work, your suggestion to do something that won't work, but will have significant negative effects is superior to doing nothing at all? Do you still not see why people who value their 2nd amendment rights object to gun control?
Isn't there any love for police here being able to do their job more effectively?
No there isn't and there is a very simple reason for this.
People who regularly break traffic laws will have to stop complaining about the police and start taking responsibility for breaking the traffic laws. This is unconscionable to the speeder, tailgater, weaver and lane hog. Their inability to drive within the rules is so clearly not their fault, it must be "revenue raising" or some such and they should for no reason drive within the speed limit, at a safe distance nor exercise proper lane discipline. Worse yet, it would mean they would have to admit their ability to drive is somewhat less than perfect, again this is so wrong it cannot even be considered.
1) Plenty of evidence is available that shows that traffic laws are set for many reasons, with safety being merely the excuse for their existence. See the numerous complaints of yellow lights being shortened to generate revenue from redlight-cams, unreasonably slow speed limits on small towns whose main street IS the highway between 2 major cities, etc.
2) Even if we assume that MOST speed limits are not being set for revenue-generating purposes, they are clearly in many cases set at arbitrarily low numbers, with little regard being paid for actual safety. In fact, studies show that statistically, most drivers typically ignore the speed limit in the first place and simply drive at a speed that is dependent on the circumstances and visibility, etc. of the road in question, modifying their behavior at most only slightly in order to adhere to the posted speed limit. This tends to suggest that, in fact, most drivers drive with some measure of reasonable consideration for the fact that they oh, I don't know, what to get where they're going alive? Arbitrarily low speed limits do not, then, increase safety; they simply allow for more tickets and increase general frustration among drivers.
3) While I agree 110% with the concern about tailgating, lane hogging, weaving and etc., to lump speeding, which does not inherently imply dangerous or discourteous behavior, in with all these other offenses which necessarily contain one or both, is at best thoughtless on your part, and undermines your argument (which is itself stupid, but breaking down the reasons that the powers of the police need to be brought back into some semblance of sanity would require more effort than i care to put into this post).
Income taxes are slavery, if you are going to quote me, quote me, don't make shit up. I know it sounds better for your ideology, when you make shit up, but you see, it doesn't help your argument. Do you even have an argument that is not made of straw?
Not being born as a slave into a system that automatically dedicates you as one.
Happy? Oh, and the pot calling the kettle black. Sheesh.
Apple decides the iOS experience should dominate the OSX world (Apple is a bit of a special case, they can pretty much do *anything* and their loyal userbase will lap it up, it's more like a fashion brand and they probably see minimal difference in business results between the times they truly deliver an enriching experience and when they make missteps).
Have you used a Mac or iOS device in the last 5 years?
There are plenty of very visible missteps in the Apple history books; the G4 cube for instance (although there are more "Top X things Apple did wrong" articles than you could shake a stick at). Apple appears to have learned from many of these mistakes and moved on. Your accusation that Mac OS X is changing in any material way to resemble iOS is particularly laughable... an App store being made available for Mac OS X doesn't indicate anything remotely on the scale of Microsoft building the next version of Windows around a touchscreen interface.
Then there's the typical "Apple customers are buying brand, not quality" that isn't really worth the time it takes to rebut. I buy Apple products because 1) Apple considers usability to be a priority, so I don't have to fight my computer to do things on it 2) Bang for buck- comparable hardware/software has only been available at comparable prices for the last 10 years (at least) 3) Service- On the rare instances in which I've had hardware issues, I have had parts replaced in and out of warranty with no hassle and often for free. I accidentally took my iPhone into the pool with me (left it in my swim trunk pockets like an idiot...), took it to the Apple store, was honest with them and they gave me a replacement, and all I had to do was sign a form documenting the exchange. Try that with Dell.
How, exactly, has Apple "set back general purpose computing" at all, outside of your personal preference for a phone that you can tinker with? Because it's not as though Android devices aren't available, should you choose to purchase one. By contrast, Microsoft has, in every market in which it has participated in, tried to squelch actual competition rather than actually, you know, competing.
Just because many (most?) users prefer an appliance-style phone rather than a directly user-programmable phone doesn't mean Apple has done a damn thing to 'set back' anything other than the personal pride felt by many elitists on sites like this in having a 'better' device, measured in market penetration.
Seriously. Just because you don't like the iPhone doesn't mean that Apple is doing anything bad for the computer market.
You simply have no idea at all what you're talking about with respect to Christianity. If you are of the serious opinion that Christianity is all about 'control' and manipulation of emotions to enforce this control, it simply means that you have done zero research on the Bible itself, as opposed to basing the entirety of your ill-informed opinion on the Catholic church (which is what Christianity looks like when wrapped up in a cult-flavored candy shell).
But then, it's always easier to post baseless religion-bashing drivel in a discussion like this, because it's popular to do so, and provides a venue for the anti-religious to pat each other on the back for being so much 'smarter' (and therefore 'better') than us gullible idiots who have 'succumbed' to the 'control' of a religious philosophy.
Because "Do unto your neighbor as you would have him do unto you" is about 'control'.
It's well-known that Apple's RAM upgrades and similar stuff is overpriced, but the baseline models are in almost all cases at the same or only slightly higher prices when you're comparing comparably specced machines. Extra goodies people may or may not want to buy are really irrelevant- show me a major manufacturer in ANY industry that doesn't attempt to make it easy to buy extra 'on-brand' items to help their bottom line, and I'll be impressed by a link accusing Apple of gouging their customers.
Fun as it is to flame Apple, their merchandise is a reliably good value within any of the market segments they choose to serve, and the 'lol twice the price noob' myth has been debunked for years. Can we get past it yet?
so, politicians who avail themselves of prostitutes or drugs are still juvenile?
In short, yes. Relying on drugs as a replacement for a fulfilling life is the refuge of an immature mind, as is the use of a prostitute as a surrogate for sex in the context of a meaningful relationship.
I'm not sure if you were *trying* to give a perfect example of what the GP was talking about, but you did a bang-up job!
Additionally, if one looks at the link posted by Black Sabbath, the entirety of it is nit-picking over different translations of speeches made by the President of Iran, all of which appear to be deliberately vague in the first place!
I mean, Imagine that, translators trying to make sense of deliberately vague wording will attempt to structure their translations in an effort to make the meaning more clear for their audience!
The actual text of the speeches itself is a lot more vague and yet sinister. For example:
Our dear Imam said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine. Is it possible to create a new front in the heart of an old front. This would be a defeat and whoever accepts the legitimacy of this regime [Israel] has in fact, signed the defeat of the Islamic world. Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. I have no doubt that the new wave that has started in Palestine, and we witness it in the Islamic world too, will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world.
Why is the mere existence of Israel a threat to the Islamic world? Aside from the easy-to-google statements of all sorts of supposed (and unsubstantiated) "Zionist conquest plans" by Islamic haters of Israel, is there any reason to believe that Israel cannot coexist with the "Islamic world" aside from the Islamic world's stated interest in destroying Israel?
Certainly other companies need to do something about the mindshare that Apple is enjoying now, but I wonder how important that is going to be once Steve Jobs leaves Apple. His marketing based vision of the company will be difficult to be push by somebody that is not as charismatic as him (he has been described as a cult leader, which is not far from the truth).
While I agree that the numbers make the idea of an "iPhone Killer" somewhat silly, can we please put to rest this idea that Apple is driven by marketing? It's so far from the truth it's laughable. Apple makes products that are based on being designed for aesthetics and ease of use. The fact that they use well-designed marketing campaigns to promote their products is (and always has been) secondary to the design that goes into the products themselves. Besides, one would think that the landslide victory of the iPod in the personal music player arena would have driven home the fact that feature laundry lists aren't necessary for good appliance-type products, which is the other point that people who think Apple is all about marketing usually miss.
I'm not even sure what a good example of a marketing-based company is. Usually it seems more like shoddy companies just try to use marketing to shore up their shoddy products. My 2Â, anyway.
1) and 2) are both platform agnostic and accurate. I love how your "evidence" of the "by far the most common" reason is just an anecdote about an idiot. I'm sure we could all dredge up our stories of clueless Windows users and prop them up as evidence that "all Windows users are idiots", but it would be knocked down like the non-proof it is.
Fashionable though it be to bash Macs and those of us who use them, the reality continues to be that Macs tend to be better bang for your buck, and are overall a lot less prone to the issues with which Windows use is rife. Those of us with the familiarity to know that it's not "OS-X" could reference the Unix underpinnings or perhaps the fact that Apple's target population is USERS and not business/vendors like Microsoft, but at the end of the day, Apple generally puts out better stuff than Microsoft.
All this aside, as a fairly devoted Mac user, I have absolutely no interest in seeing a documentary about "MacHeads". At best, such a film could focus on the operating system and the practical benefits of its use, but: 1. Everybody who knows about this already doesn't need to see a film about it. 2. People who don't know about computers are very unlikely to go out of their way to see a documentary about "nerds" and nerdy topics. At worst, as a previous poster said, this is just a lame attempt to ridicule a nerd subculture group to make a buck through a few cheap shots.
You link to a 13-year-old event, which itself is an outlier when measured by any standard.
When's the last time Hamas fired a rocket into Israel? Smart money is on "in the last 48 hours".
I know it's fashionable to be anti-Christian, but all of the evidence suggests that fundamentalist Muslims are both more common and more dangerous than fundamentalist Christians.
Also, anybody else see the irony at anti-Christian comments in the discussion following an article about an anti-muslim overreaction?
I'm not sure how the comment above got modded 'insightful'- It has been the norm for several years now for Apple to offer primarily one-piece, mostly non-upgradable stuff. While you can often add RAM or swap out hard drives, a lot of the other stuff is integrated a lot more tightly, which is necessary to achieve the slim profiles and tiny footprints of, for example, G5 and later iMacs.
If you're a frequent upgrader or tinkerer, then obviously iMacs aren't for you- by all means, go with Linux or something and Do It Yourself, but the 'all-in-one' strategy has strengths as well as the weakness of limited expandability. In any case, none of this is news.
This touches on a much larger problem for Apple... they make throw-away gadgets and computers of increasingly lesser quality as they build up a user-base. They are in some ways becoming Dell by decreasing quality (for increased profit) as their sales volume increases. I've seen no evidence that the quality of the hardware has decreased... this looks more like you trying to blame your preferences toward expandability on Apple's decision not to cater to that market on the low end.
"'I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot... and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that's precisely why I succeed''." -
-- Michael Jordan
I'm glad you have karma to burn, because you are swallowing the line that 3/4 of the rational posters have already shown to be false: that the killing of civilians is: A) Solely being continued by Israel, and not by Hezbollah B)The fault of Israeli forces, rather than the fault of Hezbollah, whose members choose to stage operations from populated civilian areas as a way to generate sympathy from ignorant people like yourself
As many prior posters have quoted, the difference between Israeli citizens and Lebanese citizens is that "Israeli citizens are sleeping in bomb shelters; Lebanese citizens are sleeping with bombs."
Yes, the pictures are gruesome. What makes you think that equivalent pictures of Hezbollah "victories" (children wrapped in bombs walking into Israeli markets, rather than fired missiles going at particular places, whose civilians were warned, and which had been used by Hezbollah operatives as staging grounds?
Bomb-wrapped Lebanese children into Markets = Okay, but Israeli missiles into Hezbollah staging grounds = not okay?
I hate to sound like a pedant, but from what you said, you would probably do well to just bit the bullet and get a Mac.
About the only reason of which I am aware to not use a Mac is if you have software which requires you to use a Windows PC. I don't personally know of any non-game software which would prevent you from switching to Macs, but I hear that it exists. But if you're considering Linux, then that argument against Macs is gone. From a usability standpoint, Macs have a huge advantage (you may not care, if you're a computer guru; my guess would be that you aren't, since you're asking about switching to Linux vs. just digging up the information and researching software yourself); from a software support standpoint, Macs are likely to have an advantage as well, with the exception of certain company-sponsored Linux flavors and programs. But if you don't need those already, you won't need them after you drop your Windows box, right?
Now, I'm probably horribly biased, since I've been a Mac user for a long time now, but I really have just never felt the need to get a Windows box. About everything I ever want to do, I can do on my iMac G5. The only big exception for me are certain games, but being a World of Warcraft addict means that I don't have a lot of time to spend thinking about games I don't have!:p
Seriously, get a Mac. I think you'll be happy with it!
I'm too lazy to look up and link, but I'm sure lots of other regulars around here have read about the horrible failures of most modern advertising to really do anything other than annoy and frustrate the "target audience". I'm not a big fan of the GTA series, but I've been around people who were, and listening to the parodies of actual radio advertisement and seeing the parodies of billboards was a clever and fun way to make the game world more interesting. On the other hand, basically every "real world" advertisement put into a game is hideously overdone. I remember somebody commenting on the spammed billboards for some company or other in a recent racing game, and the "dnL" vs 7up thing is just ridiculous.
The way that things look to me is that two things will end up happening:
1. The only advertisement that will really continue to flourish are the sorts of things that make it to the Super Bowl commercials, which is to say that they'll actually be entertaining.
2. "Advertising" as an industry will basically keel over and die, because products will eventually reach a point at which they will stand or fall on their own merits. The internet means that the exchange of information is certainly possible; all that remains is for people to realize that 99% of advertisement has nothing to do with the product and everything to do with making as much noise to get as much attention (negative OR positive) as possible.
I really don't care about the advertising industry; I'm not the sort to know or care what's in fashion, I just buy what I want (or need) and any advertisement aimed at me beyond the introduction of new products is doomed to failure.
The people that were wearing just the ear buds are just like the easily-led people who follow any other trend. Have no doubt about it, there are a lot of followers and a lot of stupid people in the world, but it's not Apple's fault for making products about which people become passionate.
Think about it this way- how many fads have you seen come and go within a year? 6 months? 3 months? Now think about the fact that the iPod is in its 5th or 6th generation (too lazy to look it up exactly right now) and has yet to have its dominance be realistically challenged in the MP3 (or MP3 wannabe, see WMV, ATRAC, etc.) player market.
Sure, that first guy in his prep school to bust out the earbuds had a new toy to show off, and maybe "mommy and daddy" bought it for him and he didn't really know or care if it was good. A few more people buy iPods, everybody realizes that they're not that great, and another ill-planned product vanishes into the void.
Now look at the MP3 player market. You're trying to tell me that EVERYBODY has been duped by Apple, and that OMG WHITE EARBUDS ARE SO TEH COOL! that Apple (and the iPod) are making it solely on image and marketing?
Oh, and the reason that you don't see hipsters listening to music in commercials for IBM, Oracle, and SAP (and the reason you don't see suits and boardrooms and ROI charts in Apple commercials) are because they are two different products for drastically different markets. IBM, Oracle and SAP are marketing "business solutions" to businesses; Apple is marketing personal computers and personal music players.
Also, I'm just going to say that I used OS 9 extensively, and for a while in preference to OS X while games and programs made the transition, and I have never had nearly as many problems with OS 9 as with any version of the Windows operating system up to that point.
And no, Linux or BSD or whatever else aren't viable options for 95% of home computer users.
I don't personally know much about Apple customer service, because I haven't ever had to deal with Apple's Customer service. If you'll read some of the responses lower in this article, you'll find that my situation isn't particularly atypical.
I got started using Macs because that's what my dad used, way back in the day, and my consistent impression of the differences between Macs and Windows PCs has been that Apple, as it has been said, got "the whole widget" right. My iMac G5 works seamlessly with almost any peripheral that I've thought to buy for it, and for any Windows-specific NON-GAME program, I've been able to find a more than satisfactory equivalent.
I don't know how people get off on thinking that Apple products suck, and that Steve Jobs must be the best marketer ever born. There are disadvantages to having a Mac; I can't play all of the latest games, people look at my computer and assume I'm an idiot (CS Major, definitely know more than your average Joe, though I'm sure I'm in up to my ears here on/.), certain very specific programs just don't work. If Macs weren't good in the first place, why would anybody buy a Mac?
No, I didn't read the article; and I don't care to, because any writer who says that Macs are "just another computer", only "OH MY GOODNESS WOW THE RECEPTIONIST WAS NICE!" is missing the point. Steve Jobs is a very charismatic figurehead for Apple, and yes, Macs and iPods are marketed aggressively (but not beyond reason or taste, by contrast see http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3609953966 5548298&q=microsoft+ipod), but the reason Apple is still around is because Macs are good computers, and smart people are willing to pay top dollar for quality.
Slashdot Mirror
Horrendously wrong.
Capitalism is a game in which the goal is simply to make the most money (with the least effort). The "free market" (aka competition) is just one of many possible strategies to make the most money.
I have to correct you here, because you are way, way off in your description of these concepts.
Capitalism is a "game" in the sense that every system is a game. "Evolution is a "game" in which the goal is to pass on your genes, and therefore (insert discussion of evolution using game terms)." etc. I strongly suspect (due to your following statements) that you're using "game" as a pejorative term to discredit the idea of capitalism because, although you don't really know what it means, you've been told that it's worse than (insert another economic system here) based on (insert oversimplified discussion of benefits of other economic system and pitfalls of capitalism).
Capitalism is a system of economics in which (hypothetically) the capital means of production are owned by individuals, rather than the state, and through the mechanism of offer/counteroffer, prices are "discovered" due to market action. The "free market" is a related, but distinct concept based on the idea that the most efficient economies are reached through market action that is facilitated by a few conditions, including:
1) Low (or nonexistent) barriers to entry in a market
2) Widespread access to information
3) Etc.
In such a free market, the price that a company would be able to charge (i.e. the price that buyers would be willing to pay) would always draw very close to the cost of offering their product or service, due to the ability of competitors to jump into the market and undercut a company charging exorbitant rates, the knowledge of the buyers that the rates being charged were excessive, etc.
However, the market created by the Telcos doesn't even remotely resemble a free market, due to:
1) EXTREMELY high barriers to entry (legal monopolies on "the last mile" within residential neighborhoods, HUGE infrastructure costs in laying the network infrastructure outside these neighborhoods, etc.)
2) The Telcos are often owned by the same vested interests that control the media, and therefore the information regarding the costs to provide these services is deliberately hidden/not broadcast/drowned out by misinformation/etc.
In other words, while your assertion that "practically every business on earth bends over backwards to avoid the free market at all costs" is essentially correct, your understanding of *why* this is the case is so wrong as to be dangerous.
The issue here is: the telecommunications market is not free and never has been. For a variety of reasons, a free Telco market is both impossible and impractical, and therefore the closest thing that we can do is have the infrastructure be handled as a government-owned utility, and have the providers of service compete against each other... but this is not remotely the same thing as "free markets are a bad strategy for business"...
Virtually all proposed gun legislation would not make a difference in gun crimes..
So propose something that would make a difference. I'm willing to hear you out.
So in the absence of something that will work, your suggestion to do something that won't work, but will have significant negative effects is superior to doing nothing at all?
Do you still not see why people who value their 2nd amendment rights object to gun control?
Isn't there any love for police here being able to do their job more effectively?
No there isn't and there is a very simple reason for this.
People who regularly break traffic laws will have to stop complaining about the police and start taking responsibility for breaking the traffic laws. This is unconscionable to the speeder, tailgater, weaver and lane hog. Their inability to drive within the rules is so clearly not their fault, it must be "revenue raising" or some such and they should for no reason drive within the speed limit, at a safe distance nor exercise proper lane discipline. Worse yet, it would mean they would have to admit their ability to drive is somewhat less than perfect, again this is so wrong it cannot even be considered.
1) Plenty of evidence is available that shows that traffic laws are set for many reasons, with safety being merely the excuse for their existence. See the numerous complaints of yellow lights being shortened to generate revenue from redlight-cams, unreasonably slow speed limits on small towns whose main street IS the highway between 2 major cities, etc.
2) Even if we assume that MOST speed limits are not being set for revenue-generating purposes, they are clearly in many cases set at arbitrarily low numbers, with little regard being paid for actual safety. In fact, studies show that statistically, most drivers typically ignore the speed limit in the first place and simply drive at a speed that is dependent on the circumstances and visibility, etc. of the road in question, modifying their behavior at most only slightly in order to adhere to the posted speed limit. This tends to suggest that, in fact, most drivers drive with some measure of reasonable consideration for the fact that they oh, I don't know, what to get where they're going alive? Arbitrarily low speed limits do not, then, increase safety; they simply allow for more tickets and increase general frustration among drivers.
3) While I agree 110% with the concern about tailgating, lane hogging, weaving and etc., to lump speeding, which does not inherently imply dangerous or discourteous behavior, in with all these other offenses which necessarily contain one or both, is at best thoughtless on your part, and undermines your argument (which is itself stupid, but breaking down the reasons that the powers of the police need to be brought back into some semblance of sanity would require more effort than i care to put into this post).
paying taxes = being a slave
- only if you misquote me.
Income taxes are slavery, if you are going to quote me, quote me, don't make shit up. I know it sounds better for your ideology, when you make shit up, but you see, it doesn't help your argument. Do you even have an argument that is not made of straw?
Not being born as a slave into a system that automatically dedicates you as one.
Happy? Oh, and the pot calling the kettle black. Sheesh.
bitchslap the sweaty monkey with your solid diamond dildo until he agrees
I think I read that fanfiction too!
Apple decides the iOS experience should dominate the OSX world (Apple is a bit of a special case, they can pretty much do *anything* and their loyal userbase will lap it up, it's more like a fashion brand and they probably see minimal difference in business results between the times they truly deliver an enriching experience and when they make missteps).
Have you used a Mac or iOS device in the last 5 years?
There are plenty of very visible missteps in the Apple history books; the G4 cube for instance (although there are more "Top X things Apple did wrong" articles than you could shake a stick at). Apple appears to have learned from many of these mistakes and moved on. Your accusation that Mac OS X is changing in any material way to resemble iOS is particularly laughable... an App store being made available for Mac OS X doesn't indicate anything remotely on the scale of Microsoft building the next version of Windows around a touchscreen interface.
Then there's the typical "Apple customers are buying brand, not quality" that isn't really worth the time it takes to rebut. I buy Apple products because
1) Apple considers usability to be a priority, so I don't have to fight my computer to do things on it
2) Bang for buck- comparable hardware/software has only been available at comparable prices for the last 10 years (at least)
3) Service- On the rare instances in which I've had hardware issues, I have had parts replaced in and out of warranty with no hassle and often for free. I accidentally took my iPhone into the pool with me (left it in my swim trunk pockets like an idiot...), took it to the Apple store, was honest with them and they gave me a replacement, and all I had to do was sign a form documenting the exchange. Try that with Dell.
How, exactly, has Apple "set back general purpose computing" at all, outside of your personal preference for a phone that you can tinker with? Because it's not as though Android devices aren't available, should you choose to purchase one. By contrast, Microsoft has, in every market in which it has participated in, tried to squelch actual competition rather than actually, you know, competing.
Just because many (most?) users prefer an appliance-style phone rather than a directly user-programmable phone doesn't mean Apple has done a damn thing to 'set back' anything other than the personal pride felt by many elitists on sites like this in having a 'better' device, measured in market penetration.
Seriously. Just because you don't like the iPhone doesn't mean that Apple is doing anything bad for the computer market.
If only I had mod points to mod you down.
You simply have no idea at all what you're talking about with respect to Christianity. If you are of the serious opinion that Christianity is all about 'control' and manipulation of emotions to enforce this control, it simply means that you have done zero research on the Bible itself, as opposed to basing the entirety of your ill-informed opinion on the Catholic church (which is what Christianity looks like when wrapped up in a cult-flavored candy shell).
But then, it's always easier to post baseless religion-bashing drivel in a discussion like this, because it's popular to do so, and provides a venue for the anti-religious to pat each other on the back for being so much 'smarter' (and therefore 'better') than us gullible idiots who have 'succumbed' to the 'control' of a religious philosophy.
Because "Do unto your neighbor as you would have him do unto you" is about 'control'.
>_>
_
Parent = flamebait.
It's well-known that Apple's RAM upgrades and similar stuff is overpriced, but the baseline models are in almost all cases at the same or only slightly higher prices when you're comparing comparably specced machines. Extra goodies people may or may not want to buy are really irrelevant- show me a major manufacturer in ANY industry that doesn't attempt to make it easy to buy extra 'on-brand' items to help their bottom line, and I'll be impressed by a link accusing Apple of gouging their customers.
Fun as it is to flame Apple, their merchandise is a reliably good value within any of the market segments they choose to serve, and the 'lol twice the price noob' myth has been debunked for years. Can we get past it yet?
so, politicians who avail themselves of prostitutes or drugs are still juvenile?
In short, yes. Relying on drugs as a replacement for a fulfilling life is the refuge of an immature mind, as is the use of a prostitute as a surrogate for sex in the context of a meaningful relationship.
I'm not sure if you were *trying* to give a perfect example of what the GP was talking about, but you did a bang-up job!
I mean, Imagine that, translators trying to make sense of deliberately vague wording will attempt to structure their translations in an effort to make the meaning more clear for their audience!
The actual text of the speeches itself is a lot more vague and yet sinister. For example:
Why is the mere existence of Israel a threat to the Islamic world? Aside from the easy-to-google statements of all sorts of supposed (and unsubstantiated) "Zionist conquest plans" by Islamic haters of Israel, is there any reason to believe that Israel cannot coexist with the "Islamic world" aside from the Islamic world's stated interest in destroying Israel?
*whoosh*
Err my 2 cents, the 'cent' character didn't show up properly for some reason.
Certainly other companies need to do something about the mindshare that Apple is enjoying now, but I wonder how important that is going to be once Steve Jobs leaves Apple. His marketing based vision of the company will be difficult to be push by somebody that is not as charismatic as him (he has been described as a cult leader, which is not far from the truth).
While I agree that the numbers make the idea of an "iPhone Killer" somewhat silly, can we please put to rest this idea that Apple is driven by marketing? It's so far from the truth it's laughable. Apple makes products that are based on being designed for aesthetics and ease of use. The fact that they use well-designed marketing campaigns to promote their products is (and always has been) secondary to the design that goes into the products themselves. Besides, one would think that the landslide victory of the iPod in the personal music player arena would have driven home the fact that feature laundry lists aren't necessary for good appliance-type products, which is the other point that people who think Apple is all about marketing usually miss.
I'm not even sure what a good example of a marketing-based company is. Usually it seems more like shoddy companies just try to use marketing to shore up their shoddy products. My 2Â, anyway.
1) and 2) are both platform agnostic and accurate. I love how your "evidence" of the "by far the most common" reason is just an anecdote about an idiot. I'm sure we could all dredge up our stories of clueless Windows users and prop them up as evidence that "all Windows users are idiots", but it would be knocked down like the non-proof it is.
Fashionable though it be to bash Macs and those of us who use them, the reality continues to be that Macs tend to be better bang for your buck, and are overall a lot less prone to the issues with which Windows use is rife. Those of us with the familiarity to know that it's not "OS-X" could reference the Unix underpinnings or perhaps the fact that Apple's target population is USERS and not business/vendors like Microsoft, but at the end of the day, Apple generally puts out better stuff than Microsoft.
All this aside, as a fairly devoted Mac user, I have absolutely no interest in seeing a documentary about "MacHeads". At best, such a film could focus on the operating system and the practical benefits of its use, but:
1. Everybody who knows about this already doesn't need to see a film about it.
2. People who don't know about computers are very unlikely to go out of their way to see a documentary about "nerds" and nerdy topics.
At worst, as a previous poster said, this is just a lame attempt to ridicule a nerd subculture group to make a buck through a few cheap shots.
You link to a 13-year-old event, which itself is an outlier when measured by any standard.
When's the last time Hamas fired a rocket into Israel? Smart money is on "in the last 48 hours".
I know it's fashionable to be anti-Christian, but all of the evidence suggests that fundamentalist Muslims are both more common and more dangerous than fundamentalist Christians. Also, anybody else see the irony at anti-Christian comments in the discussion following an article about an anti-muslim overreaction?
If you're a frequent upgrader or tinkerer, then obviously iMacs aren't for you- by all means, go with Linux or something and Do It Yourself, but the 'all-in-one' strategy has strengths as well as the weakness of limited expandability. In any case, none of this is news. This touches on a much larger problem for Apple
"'I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot... and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that's precisely why I succeed''." - -- Michael Jordan
The sun is bright. *crickets*
I'm glad you have karma to burn, because you are swallowing the line that 3/4 of the rational posters have already shown to be false: that the killing of civilians is:
A) Solely being continued by Israel, and not by Hezbollah
B)The fault of Israeli forces, rather than the fault of Hezbollah, whose members choose to stage operations from populated civilian areas as a way to generate sympathy from ignorant people like yourself
As many prior posters have quoted, the difference between Israeli citizens and Lebanese citizens is that "Israeli citizens are sleeping in bomb shelters; Lebanese citizens are sleeping with bombs."
Yes, the pictures are gruesome. What makes you think that equivalent pictures of Hezbollah "victories" (children wrapped in bombs walking into Israeli markets, rather than fired missiles going at particular places, whose civilians were warned, and which had been used by Hezbollah operatives as staging grounds?
Bomb-wrapped Lebanese children into Markets = Okay, but Israeli missiles into Hezbollah staging grounds = not okay?
Get real.
I hate to sound like a pedant, but from what you said, you would probably do well to just bit the bullet and get a Mac.
:p
About the only reason of which I am aware to not use a Mac is if you have software which requires you to use a Windows PC. I don't personally know of any non-game software which would prevent you from switching to Macs, but I hear that it exists.
But if you're considering Linux, then that argument against Macs is gone. From a usability standpoint, Macs have a huge advantage (you may not care, if you're a computer guru; my guess would be that you aren't, since you're asking about switching to Linux vs. just digging up the information and researching software yourself); from a software support standpoint, Macs are likely to have an advantage as well, with the exception of certain company-sponsored Linux flavors and programs. But if you don't need those already, you won't need them after you drop your Windows box, right?
Now, I'm probably horribly biased, since I've been a Mac user for a long time now, but I really have just never felt the need to get a Windows box. About everything I ever want to do, I can do on my iMac G5. The only big exception for me are certain games, but being a World of Warcraft addict means that I don't have a lot of time to spend thinking about games I don't have!
Seriously, get a Mac. I think you'll be happy with it!
I'm too lazy to look up and link, but I'm sure lots of other regulars around here have read about the horrible failures of most modern advertising to really do anything other than annoy and frustrate the "target audience". I'm not a big fan of the GTA series, but I've been around people who were, and listening to the parodies of actual radio advertisement and seeing the parodies of billboards was a clever and fun way to make the game world more interesting. On the other hand, basically every "real world" advertisement put into a game is hideously overdone. I remember somebody commenting on the spammed billboards for some company or other in a recent racing game, and the "dnL" vs 7up thing is just ridiculous.
The way that things look to me is that two things will end up happening:
1. The only advertisement that will really continue to flourish are the sorts of things that make it to the Super Bowl commercials, which is to say that they'll actually be entertaining.
2. "Advertising" as an industry will basically keel over and die, because products will eventually reach a point at which they will stand or fall on their own merits. The internet means that the exchange of information is certainly possible; all that remains is for people to realize that 99% of advertisement has nothing to do with the product and everything to do with making as much noise to get as much attention (negative OR positive) as possible.
I really don't care about the advertising industry; I'm not the sort to know or care what's in fashion, I just buy what I want (or need) and any advertisement aimed at me beyond the introduction of new products is doomed to failure.
The people that were wearing just the ear buds are just like the easily-led people who follow any other trend. Have no doubt about it, there are a lot of followers and a lot of stupid people in the world, but it's not Apple's fault for making products about which people become passionate.
Think about it this way- how many fads have you seen come and go within a year? 6 months? 3 months? Now think about the fact that the iPod is in its 5th or 6th generation (too lazy to look it up exactly right now) and has yet to have its dominance be realistically challenged in the MP3 (or MP3 wannabe, see WMV, ATRAC, etc.) player market.
Sure, that first guy in his prep school to bust out the earbuds had a new toy to show off, and maybe "mommy and daddy" bought it for him and he didn't really know or care if it was good. A few more people buy iPods, everybody realizes that they're not that great, and another ill-planned product vanishes into the void.
Now look at the MP3 player market. You're trying to tell me that EVERYBODY has been duped by Apple, and that OMG WHITE EARBUDS ARE SO TEH COOL! that Apple (and the iPod) are making it solely on image and marketing?
Oh, and the reason that you don't see hipsters listening to music in commercials for IBM, Oracle, and SAP (and the reason you don't see suits and boardrooms and ROI charts in Apple commercials) are because they are two different products for drastically different markets. IBM, Oracle and SAP are marketing "business solutions" to businesses; Apple is marketing personal computers and personal music players.
Also, I'm just going to say that I used OS 9 extensively, and for a while in preference to OS X while games and programs made the transition, and I have never had nearly as many problems with OS 9 as with any version of the Windows operating system up to that point.
And no, Linux or BSD or whatever else aren't viable options for 95% of home computer users.
I don't personally know much about Apple customer service, because I haven't ever had to deal with Apple's Customer service. If you'll read some of the responses lower in this article, you'll find that my situation isn't particularly atypical.
/.), certain very specific programs just don't work. If Macs weren't good in the first place, why would anybody buy a Mac?
6 5548298&q=microsoft+ipod), but the reason Apple is still around is because Macs are good computers, and smart people are willing to pay top dollar for quality.
I got started using Macs because that's what my dad used, way back in the day, and my consistent impression of the differences between Macs and Windows PCs has been that Apple, as it has been said, got "the whole widget" right. My iMac G5 works seamlessly with almost any peripheral that I've thought to buy for it, and for any Windows-specific NON-GAME program, I've been able to find a more than satisfactory equivalent.
I don't know how people get off on thinking that Apple products suck, and that Steve Jobs must be the best marketer ever born. There are disadvantages to having a Mac; I can't play all of the latest games, people look at my computer and assume I'm an idiot (CS Major, definitely know more than your average Joe, though I'm sure I'm in up to my ears here on
No, I didn't read the article; and I don't care to, because any writer who says that Macs are "just another computer", only "OH MY GOODNESS WOW THE RECEPTIONIST WAS NICE!" is missing the point. Steve Jobs is a very charismatic figurehead for Apple, and yes, Macs and iPods are marketed aggressively (but not beyond reason or taste, by contrast see http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=360995396
WAY WAY overrated. "... crop of economic vandals..."? That's thoughtful and interesting?
No, that's GROUPTHINK. Seriously, congrats that he can bash Bush and all... but (Score:5, Insightful)? Give me a break.