The magazine's domain name was registered by a German, and it wasn't April Fools in Germany, either...
Yeah, I'm going to tell my friends that my birthday is "today" even though it's "tomorrow" except for some people in some country that nobody I know nor anyone that's going to be celebrating my birthday, for the most part, live in.
In addition, think about even buying a Mac - if you go to an Apple store or Apple's web site, you have a better shopping experience than going through (let's say) Dell's web site or going to Office Depot.
That entirely depends on who you are and how you like shopping...
As for the drivers, irq conflicts, etc... well, flaky drivers I haven't run into a whole lot lately, nor IRQ conflicts... nor overheating components actually. Going together/reliably... reliability IS an issue with macs (I've used Macs that crashed, froze, etc). Software can be an issue, though not as much anymore now that you can run Windows and now that Mac decided to use x86 architecture.
As for Apple's human factors group and Mac coming out on top of head-to-head usability tests, I've yet to see conclusive usability tests for Mac vs. Windows. I know a lot of people that would be totally lost on a Mac. There are certain Mac things that were, IMO, just plain stupid (two button mouse, for example, was a failed Mac thing - IMO - that Apple seemed to persist in, hehe. Yes I know you can get two button mice:) ).
Easy to use, sure. So is Windows, depending on what you're doing. Usability seems to be extremely subjective, and having used Mac and Linux and Windows, I'm nots ure even which one *I* find most easy. Mac is the most different to me, so for me it's Linux vs. Windows. Windows works more often (hardware issues mostly). Linux can be faster to do certain tasks for me... etc..
Anyways. I've had good results with Dell machines using Windows. Hardware was fine, OS was fine, etc.
I've known people to be quite happy with Macs and switch from PCs, I've known people that hate Macs and switch to PCs. And Linux people are somewhere in there.
I mistook the Apple -> Tesla comparison, my mistake. Yes, Tesla is going for the high-end alone... although I guess they're trying to get the price down. Maybe not even rich people like paying lots of money for something that breaks too often, hehe.
You can't con someone on a $50,000 / year salary into buying a $100,000, at least not as easily:)
Ehhh it's easier than you might think, I bet... credit card companies seem to be able to talk a lot of young people into massive debt. But I won't complain too much.. it lets me get 3% back on purchases.:)
It's still not a valid comparison though, as far as comparing price of current hardware. You can't compare price+performance of an old non-Mac to price+performance of a new Mac. Unless I'm missing something...:)
So, your Just Works thing is OS related then. Virus, etc. I did the same for my parents by simply installing Linux on it. They use it for news, e-mail, etc. Linux works great for it. I also put PuppyLinux on a quite old Toshiba laptop (192mb ram I think). They use gmail. They used to get viruses once a year with XP... no problems since installing Linux. Admittedly things would get harder if they were constnatly using an iPod or wanted to sync their iPhone or whatever. (on that note - interesting that not many people complain about Mac's vendor lock-in with their gadgets, everyone complains about MS, hehe).
I don't know how much your dad's Mac Mini costs, but I just used an old desktop computer of mine (I believe it's an AMD Athlon 64 3400+, 2gb ram, pretty decent video card), put openSuSE (not completely satisfied with openSuSE/KDE unfortunately; used to use openSuSE 10.3 quite happily... probably will put Ubuntu on it for them) on.
Incidentally, I think people have the perception that Macs (and Linux) are worm/virus invulnerable or something like that... I don't think that's actually true, nor do (apparently) other hackers (e.g., pwn2own contest). It's just that if someone wants to deliver a widespread payload, you don't target Mac/Linux...:)
That said, I put Linux on my parents' comp for the same reason you got them a Mac, so... hehe.
In case anyone is in doubt about April Fools or not...
Server-side code decompiler
If youâ(TM)ve ever wished to know how sites and web applications work, Eagle Eyes (the name is fitting in this context) will let you view the server-side source code of a web page. We didnâ(TM)t explore this feature much, but from basic tests, the server-side code decompiler was able to tell us how the Mixx promotional algorithm worked.
If it actually does do all that (support FF plugins, Gecko and Webkit [and I assume Trident], score competitively on Acid3 [I would assume that is at least some indication of being more standards compliant], good JS performance), that would be a pretty big Wow.
Although it's increasingly moving towards native-language ("Gently" or "Strongly" or "Boldly" or "Majestically" in modern English scores, etc). In the past, it wasn't just Italian, it was Italian and German and French and English... sometimes multiple languages.
I certainly won't say there is anything wrong with Mac doing the high-end selling, and there's nothing wrong with people buying them.
What I do think is annoying is when Mac gets seen as the sort of... Most Reliable, Fastest, Best Laptop when it really isn't necessarily, the OS isn't necessarily amazing, it's not necessarily inherently better except that you paid more for it, etc. Same thing happens with Linux users (Linux is more reliable, better, faster, etc., which is definitely not always the case).
If someone knows all this and wants to buy a Mac anyway, cool. If they like the whole Mac thing, fine with me. But before they spend an extra $1000 or whatever, thinking that that is what is necessary to get a "good" computer, I hope they research other options. That', I guess, is my main annoyance.
You reference Tesla... it's a little different, isn't it? Only people that have the money AND are interested in spending it that way are going to by a Tesla car, it's a niche market. Apple marketing seems to be targeting more than just the rich that are interested. A lot of people think the $2000 Mac vs. $1000 non-Mac (let's take Desktops for this example, it's easier) is going to make a huge difference... or that PCs are just used by cheap people, REAL sound engineers [image editors, composers, whatever] use Macs. If you don't use a Mac, you just aren't in the right crowd.
It seems especially prevalent in schools. I'm a composer, and the same arguments come up with Finale vs. Sibelius. Finale had the corner on the music notation market for so long that still, even though a lot of people are using Sibelius now (including famous composers), you still run into the "Oh. You use Sibelius. Yeah, well, that's cool, but if you really want the quality and customizability, you use Finale like all the other real music notators..." attitude.
I suppose you run into this with anything. But, when it comes up, may as well complain about it!:)
So, it'd be interesting to see a spec review on the $1300 15" MacBook Pro vs. say, a Dell 15" $1300 laptop, whateve rthat would be. Unfortunately, the review in question reviewed high-end macbook vs. configured-to-be-high-end Dell. I would have found it more interesting if they reviewed the pricerange that you and I are interested in, hehe.:)
But if they feel that Macs provide more "Just Works", then perhaps they would buy a $2800 Mac laptop.
If they can afford it, sure. People buy Hummer H2's and H3's still, even though they eat gas. If they can afford it (I doubt they are really using it like at least some people used the H1's) and feel like having it, sure. Not quite a good analogy as some people DO use all of what MacBooks offer.
However, as far as WoW being sluggish... a year old MacBook Pro vs. a two to three year old lower-end Dell isn't a completely fair comparison, is it? My Dell I believe came with 1gb ram (I think). I upgraded it, I believe, to two. I doubt WoW would run so great on a 1gb dual core 32 bit processor with whatever video card was in there (x1400 mobile or something like that, I think?)... the MacBook probably had more ram, better video card, faster processor, etc., so I am not sure about the comparison...
As far as "Just Works," Windows works with a lot, and it's more of an OS + Age of Hardware thing than a Dell vs. Mac thing, I think.
That said... hey, if you know it's more expensive and you've used Windows and didn't like it, etc., I have no problem with you getting a Mac and liking it and feeling it was worth your money (as if what I have problems with has any bearing on what you do, hehe).:)
I'm not defending Mac... if you think I was defending mac by pretending you know something about my post, the fact is you probably don't know much about my post.;)
Secondly, you're right, I didn't know it wasn't a processor. In my defense, the centrino "package" does include the processor specifications.
Centrino is a platform-marketing initiative from Intel. It is not a mobile CPU - rather, the term covers a particular combination of mainboard chipset, mobile CPU and wireless network interface in the design of a laptop.
Strangely enough, I do know something about hardware. Just haven't particularly paid attention to mobile hardware as much. I don't have my dell in front of me since I'm at work, so I can't look up the actual processor model number.
I wouldn't know, but Ubuntu is running pretty well, and openSuSE 10.1, 10.2, 10.2, and 11.1 worked okay on it as well. It's been running Linux exclusively for the past three years or so.
... the question is also, "does Lauren need an expensive notebook."
Let's say the MacBook CAN justify its $2800 pricetag (i.e., it's not overpriced hardware, it's just good/expensive hardware and a lot of it). Ok, so the question is, is a $2800 laptop necessary? My $1350 dell ($2050 minus $800 deal) has been working for several years now (battery has died, that's about it. It's old enough that it has a dual core Centrino (32 bit processor).
"Overpriced Mac" can mean more than "the hardware added up doesn't equal the pricetag"... it can also mean "it's twice as much as you need to spend for what you're going to do with it."
Christians really think all of mankind was only 2 people as little as 4000years ago?
No, I don't think they do.
I don't even know how to talk about this.....
Apparently, you're right:)
It gets even worse when we take into account how terribly accurate (hmm) dating methods are when someone says this or that civilization was at this or that date. Example: Wikipedia says that Ancient Egypt started around 3150 BC. It has a footnote. The footnote says this:
^ Only after 664 BC are dates secure. See Egyptian chronology for details. "Chronology". Digital Egypt for Universities, University College London. Retrieved on 2008-03-25.
Look at pretty much any "bias" ranking thing, even skewz.com.
Or, just visit the site for yourself. Let's see. Headlines show bias pretty quickly...
"Obamas Are Personally Paying For White House Renovations" Just what I needed to read about. One of those very important things. Up there with the White House garden.
"WATCH Weekend Late Night Round-Up: Sarah Palin, Obama's Rabid Questioner, And Octomom"
They are STILL talking about Palin. And apparently, Obama's questioner has problems.
"WATCH: Steele Discusses Hard-Partying Past, Getting Kicked Out Of College"
Definitely one of those big news items. I wonder what would happen if Fox News started reporting on Biden's college years? Incidentally, I'm conservative and I don't even really like Steele... but something is fishy. I don't see any democratic leader stories on here...
"Lawyer Peddling Alleged Biden Daughter Cocaine Tape Withdraws"
It's a good thing he withdrew, I suppose? If he has a real tape, what's the problem with him "selling" it and if it's not a real tape, then it's obviously not going to be Ashley Biden, so what's the big deal? Seems it'd be better to just get the tape and see if it's real or not? Oh, but family members should be off limits. Like Huffington Post left Palin's daughter alone. (they even covered the daughter/boyfriend breakup.)
"Obama Calls For Global Unity In FT Interview"
Well good for him. He does a lot of calling. It'd be nice to see HP criticize Obama at least ONCE somewhere. I don't think anyone but the most deluded think that Obama has actually made no mistakes and has acted perfectly since he's been in office, do they?
They even call out a Republican and only a republican on some stupid remark during a Senate debate. Strangely enough, a search for a flat out mistake (or something) by Pelosi, the house speaker, of saying "500 million" American jobs were lost every month yielded no results on HP except in user comments.
Is Gnome providing more stastics, previews, etc? That would make a huge difference in the time it takes to show a directory.
Does it matter, though? Yes, that'd make it take longer, but that doesn't mean that's better or even worth the extra 5 seconds. When I open a directory, I usually am not looking for statistics. I think Windows actually got this right, for the most part... clicking the folder showed statistics on the left sidebar or whatever of the window, but it didn't load all stats for the all entries right away.
Granted, it still took a while for folders with a ton of files (e.g., C:\Windows, hehe) but I have noticed the slowness at time as well.
That said, I liked KDE 3.5 and dislike KDE 4.2. 4.2 felt kinda like a toy, Plasma crashed and got strange duplicate settings every now and then (and didn't save the ones I wanted, had to manually edit the setting files in ~/.kde4..), etc. OTOH, it was "prettier." I also found that the prettiness sometimes got in the way though, unfortunately. I started using Ubuntu instead of openSuSE 11.1 and I am liking Gnome a bit better, it's a little more intuitive... but I am sad I can't quite change as many settings as I want to. Easily, anyways.:)
I realize that. Neither one is recorded in Egyptian history, hence me referencing the second also-embarrassing event. I believe it is Ham that is presumably responsible for Egypt? I forget, though.
Some speculate that Microsoft is actually worried that this will allow open source systems, such as Linux, to flourish, at the expense of Microsoft technology
So in other words, the "Microsoft is opposing such a Wonderful Thing (tm)" is all speculation?
Slashdot Mirror
What is this "African Decent" you speak of? :)
Works in chrome, doesn't work in Firefox. I assume Chrome retries without a referrer or something like that. Weird!
The magazine's domain name was registered by a German, and it wasn't April Fools in Germany, either...
Yeah, I'm going to tell my friends that my birthday is "today" even though it's "tomorrow" except for some people in some country that nobody I know nor anyone that's going to be celebrating my birthday, for the most part, live in.
Good way to annoy friends. :)
In addition, think about even buying a Mac - if you go to an Apple store or Apple's web site, you have a better shopping experience than going through (let's say) Dell's web site or going to Office Depot.
That entirely depends on who you are and how you like shopping...
As for the drivers, irq conflicts, etc... well, flaky drivers I haven't run into a whole lot lately, nor IRQ conflicts... nor overheating components actually. Going together/reliably ... reliability IS an issue with macs (I've used Macs that crashed, froze, etc). Software can be an issue, though not as much anymore now that you can run Windows and now that Mac decided to use x86 architecture.
As for Apple's human factors group and Mac coming out on top of head-to-head usability tests, I've yet to see conclusive usability tests for Mac vs. Windows. I know a lot of people that would be totally lost on a Mac. There are certain Mac things that were, IMO, just plain stupid (two button mouse, for example, was a failed Mac thing - IMO - that Apple seemed to persist in, hehe. Yes I know you can get two button mice :) ).
Easy to use, sure. So is Windows, depending on what you're doing. Usability seems to be extremely subjective, and having used Mac and Linux and Windows, I'm nots ure even which one *I* find most easy. Mac is the most different to me, so for me it's Linux vs. Windows. Windows works more often (hardware issues mostly). Linux can be faster to do certain tasks for me... etc..
Anyways. I've had good results with Dell machines using Windows. Hardware was fine, OS was fine, etc.
I've known people to be quite happy with Macs and switch from PCs, I've known people that hate Macs and switch to PCs. And Linux people are somewhere in there.
I mistook the Apple -> Tesla comparison, my mistake. Yes, Tesla is going for the high-end alone... although I guess they're trying to get the price down. Maybe not even rich people like paying lots of money for something that breaks too often, hehe.
You can't con someone on a $50,000 / year salary into buying a $100,000, at least not as easily :)
Ehhh it's easier than you might think, I bet... credit card companies seem to be able to talk a lot of young people into massive debt. But I won't complain too much.. it lets me get 3% back on purchases. :)
It's still not a valid comparison though, as far as comparing price of current hardware. You can't compare price+performance of an old non-Mac to price+performance of a new Mac. Unless I'm missing something... :)
So, your Just Works thing is OS related then. Virus, etc. I did the same for my parents by simply installing Linux on it. They use it for news, e-mail, etc. Linux works great for it. I also put PuppyLinux on a quite old Toshiba laptop (192mb ram I think). They use gmail. They used to get viruses once a year with XP... no problems since installing Linux. Admittedly things would get harder if they were constnatly using an iPod or wanted to sync their iPhone or whatever. (on that note - interesting that not many people complain about Mac's vendor lock-in with their gadgets, everyone complains about MS, hehe).
I don't know how much your dad's Mac Mini costs, but I just used an old desktop computer of mine (I believe it's an AMD Athlon 64 3400+, 2gb ram, pretty decent video card), put openSuSE (not completely satisfied with openSuSE/KDE unfortunately; used to use openSuSE 10.3 quite happily... probably will put Ubuntu on it for them) on.
Incidentally, I think people have the perception that Macs (and Linux) are worm/virus invulnerable or something like that... I don't think that's actually true, nor do (apparently) other hackers (e.g., pwn2own contest). It's just that if someone wants to deliver a widespread payload, you don't target Mac/Linux... :)
That said, I put Linux on my parents' comp for the same reason you got them a Mac, so... hehe.
Server-side code decompiler
If youâ(TM)ve ever wished to know how sites and web applications work, Eagle Eyes (the name is fitting in this context) will let you view the server-side source code of a web page. We didnâ(TM)t explore this feature much, but from basic tests, the server-side code decompiler was able to tell us how the Mixx promotional algorithm worked.
And they show this picture ... hehe.
After reading the article, I'm inclined to say "April Fools" too. But it's not April 1st, so that would be Evil of them. :P
If it actually does do all that (support FF plugins, Gecko and Webkit [and I assume Trident], score competitively on Acid3 [I would assume that is at least some indication of being more standards compliant], good JS performance), that would be a pretty big Wow.
Although it's increasingly moving towards native-language ("Gently" or "Strongly" or "Boldly" or "Majestically" in modern English scores, etc). In the past, it wasn't just Italian, it was Italian and German and French and English... sometimes multiple languages.
I certainly won't say there is anything wrong with Mac doing the high-end selling, and there's nothing wrong with people buying them.
What I do think is annoying is when Mac gets seen as the sort of ... Most Reliable, Fastest, Best Laptop when it really isn't necessarily, the OS isn't necessarily amazing, it's not necessarily inherently better except that you paid more for it, etc. Same thing happens with Linux users (Linux is more reliable, better, faster, etc., which is definitely not always the case).
If someone knows all this and wants to buy a Mac anyway, cool. If they like the whole Mac thing, fine with me. But before they spend an extra $1000 or whatever, thinking that that is what is necessary to get a "good" computer, I hope they research other options. That', I guess, is my main annoyance.
You reference Tesla ... it's a little different, isn't it? Only people that have the money AND are interested in spending it that way are going to by a Tesla car, it's a niche market. Apple marketing seems to be targeting more than just the rich that are interested. A lot of people think the $2000 Mac vs. $1000 non-Mac (let's take Desktops for this example, it's easier) is going to make a huge difference... or that PCs are just used by cheap people, REAL sound engineers [image editors, composers, whatever] use Macs. If you don't use a Mac, you just aren't in the right crowd.
It seems especially prevalent in schools. I'm a composer, and the same arguments come up with Finale vs. Sibelius. Finale had the corner on the music notation market for so long that still, even though a lot of people are using Sibelius now (including famous composers), you still run into the "Oh. You use Sibelius. Yeah, well, that's cool, but if you really want the quality and customizability, you use Finale like all the other real music notators..." attitude.
I suppose you run into this with anything. But, when it comes up, may as well complain about it! :)
So, it'd be interesting to see a spec review on the $1300 15" MacBook Pro vs. say, a Dell 15" $1300 laptop, whateve rthat would be. Unfortunately, the review in question reviewed high-end macbook vs. configured-to-be-high-end Dell. I would have found it more interesting if they reviewed the pricerange that you and I are interested in, hehe. :)
But if they feel that Macs provide more "Just Works", then perhaps they would buy a $2800 Mac laptop.
If they can afford it, sure. People buy Hummer H2's and H3's still, even though they eat gas. If they can afford it (I doubt they are really using it like at least some people used the H1's) and feel like having it, sure. Not quite a good analogy as some people DO use all of what MacBooks offer.
However, as far as WoW being sluggish ... a year old MacBook Pro vs. a two to three year old lower-end Dell isn't a completely fair comparison, is it? My Dell I believe came with 1gb ram (I think). I upgraded it, I believe, to two. I doubt WoW would run so great on a 1gb dual core 32 bit processor with whatever video card was in there (x1400 mobile or something like that, I think?)... the MacBook probably had more ram, better video card, faster processor, etc., so I am not sure about the comparison...
As far as "Just Works," Windows works with a lot, and it's more of an OS + Age of Hardware thing than a Dell vs. Mac thing, I think.
That said... hey, if you know it's more expensive and you've used Windows and didn't like it, etc., I have no problem with you getting a Mac and liking it and feeling it was worth your money (as if what I have problems with has any bearing on what you do, hehe). :)
Tax. 8.25%. $(2050 - 800)*1.0825 = ~$1353
I'm not defending Mac... if you think I was defending mac by pretending you know something about my post, the fact is you probably don't know much about my post. ;)
Secondly, you're right, I didn't know it wasn't a processor. In my defense, the centrino "package" does include the processor specifications.
Centrino is a platform-marketing initiative from Intel. It is not a mobile CPU - rather, the term covers a particular combination of mainboard chipset, mobile CPU and wireless network interface in the design of a laptop.
Strangely enough, I do know something about hardware. Just haven't particularly paid attention to mobile hardware as much. I don't have my dell in front of me since I'm at work, so I can't look up the actual processor model number.
I wouldn't know, but Ubuntu is running pretty well, and openSuSE 10.1, 10.2, 10.2, and 11.1 worked okay on it as well. It's been running Linux exclusively for the past three years or so.
... the question is also, "does Lauren need an expensive notebook."
Let's say the MacBook CAN justify its $2800 pricetag (i.e., it's not overpriced hardware, it's just good/expensive hardware and a lot of it). Ok, so the question is, is a $2800 laptop necessary? My $1350 dell ($2050 minus $800 deal) has been working for several years now (battery has died, that's about it. It's old enough that it has a dual core Centrino (32 bit processor).
"Overpriced Mac" can mean more than "the hardware added up doesn't equal the pricetag" ... it can also mean "it's twice as much as you need to spend for what you're going to do with it."
I'll have to try it ... thanks!
Interesting. I'm running Ubuntu 8.10 on a Dell E1505 and youtube videos are lurchy in full screen mode. It's annoying :(
Christians really think all of mankind was only 2 people as little as 4000years ago?
No, I don't think they do.
I don't even know how to talk about this.....
Apparently, you're right :)
It gets even worse when we take into account how terribly accurate (hmm) dating methods are when someone says this or that civilization was at this or that date. Example: Wikipedia says that Ancient Egypt started around 3150 BC. It has a footnote. The footnote says this:
^ Only after 664 BC are dates secure. See Egyptian chronology for details. "Chronology". Digital Egypt for Universities, University College London. Retrieved on 2008-03-25.
Yes. Glad it's over. Let's go get some PizzaPizza
I don't see why this is flamebait. At all.
Look at pretty much any "bias" ranking thing, even skewz.com.
Or, just visit the site for yourself. Let's see. Headlines show bias pretty quickly...
"Obamas Are Personally Paying For White House Renovations"
Just what I needed to read about. One of those very important things. Up there with the White House garden.
"WATCH Weekend Late Night Round-Up: Sarah Palin, Obama's Rabid Questioner, And Octomom"
They are STILL talking about Palin. And apparently, Obama's questioner has problems.
"WATCH: Steele Discusses Hard-Partying Past, Getting Kicked Out Of College"
Definitely one of those big news items. I wonder what would happen if Fox News started reporting on Biden's college years? Incidentally, I'm conservative and I don't even really like Steele... but something is fishy. I don't see any democratic leader stories on here...
"Lawyer Peddling Alleged Biden Daughter Cocaine Tape Withdraws"
It's a good thing he withdrew, I suppose? If he has a real tape, what's the problem with him "selling" it and if it's not a real tape, then it's obviously not going to be Ashley Biden, so what's the big deal? Seems it'd be better to just get the tape and see if it's real or not? Oh, but family members should be off limits. Like Huffington Post left Palin's daughter alone. (they even covered the daughter/boyfriend breakup.)
"Obama Calls For Global Unity In FT Interview"
Well good for him. He does a lot of calling. It'd be nice to see HP criticize Obama at least ONCE somewhere. I don't think anyone but the most deluded think that Obama has actually made no mistakes and has acted perfectly since he's been in office, do they?
They even call out a Republican and only a republican on some stupid remark during a Senate debate. Strangely enough, a search for a flat out mistake (or something) by Pelosi, the house speaker, of saying "500 million" American jobs were lost every month yielded no results on HP except in user comments.
Yeah, sounds "reality biased" to me...
Is Gnome providing more stastics, previews, etc? That would make a huge difference in the time it takes to show a directory.
Does it matter, though? Yes, that'd make it take longer, but that doesn't mean that's better or even worth the extra 5 seconds. When I open a directory, I usually am not looking for statistics. I think Windows actually got this right, for the most part... clicking the folder showed statistics on the left sidebar or whatever of the window, but it didn't load all stats for the all entries right away.
Granted, it still took a while for folders with a ton of files (e.g., C:\Windows, hehe) but I have noticed the slowness at time as well.
That said, I liked KDE 3.5 and dislike KDE 4.2. 4.2 felt kinda like a toy, Plasma crashed and got strange duplicate settings every now and then (and didn't save the ones I wanted, had to manually edit the setting files in ~/.kde4..), etc. OTOH, it was "prettier." I also found that the prettiness sometimes got in the way though, unfortunately. I started using Ubuntu instead of openSuSE 11.1 and I am liking Gnome a bit better, it's a little more intuitive... but I am sad I can't quite change as many settings as I want to. Easily, anyways. :)
I realize that. Neither one is recorded in Egyptian history, hence me referencing the second also-embarrassing event. I believe it is Ham that is presumably responsible for Egypt? I forget, though.
From the summary:
Some speculate that Microsoft is actually worried that this will allow open source systems, such as Linux, to flourish, at the expense of Microsoft technology
So in other words, the "Microsoft is opposing such a Wonderful Thing (tm)" is all speculation?