Apple limits what machines can run Mac OSX, which is in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
I'm not sure where you get that. Here's the gist of the law:
Section 1: "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal."
Section 2: "Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony..."
You'll notice that the law is concerned with restraint of interstate or international commerce, which has nothing to do with what hardware you can run an OS on.
Apple has a monopoly on iPhones and iPods, and other hand held devices because they have a large marketshare and they locked them so that only iTunes and the Apple App Store can put media files or software on them
Nope. You don't have to use iTunes software or the iTunes music store if you don't want to. There are a number of third-party apps that can be used to move music to and from an iPod, some of them much faster and less bloated than iTunes has become. And any compatible music file will work just fine, including files ripped from CDs and Amazon music downloads.
Switching power supplies are much cheaper than old transformer ones.
Unfortunately, they're much more electrically noisy as well. I use a 13.8 VDC switching power supply with a VHF ham radio mobile rig that I run as a base station. I have to turn it off if I want to use my HF receiver to monitor any frequency below about 3 MHz due to switching noise from the power supply.
There are quite a few U.S. houses built in the 50's with 2-prong outlets. Mine is one.
Yeah, mine was too. But oddly enough, there are ground wires run to each outlet anyway. These were used to ground the metal boxes in which the outlets themselves are installed. Turns out that this was commonly done even back as far as the 1950s. Pull a cover off one of your outlets and you might find the same thing. It makes it very easy to put the more modern 3-hole grounded outlets. Just remember to pull the fuse or switch off the circuit breaker before you start undoing things!
back in the OpenStep days, NeXT published a shopping list of what hardware they supported.
That's because, by that time, NeXT had ceased trying to be a hardware company and was strictly in the business of licensing software much the same way Microsoft does. Apple does not operate on the same business plan--they make their money selling hardware.
And piss off their high-profit hardware sales customers when it comes time for an OS update. Good business strategy
2) Offer more hardware that people want. Seems to me that the hackintosh computers you see are in the two markets that Apple steadfastly refuses to produce in: Consumer towers and netbooks. These also happen to be very popular markets
They are also very low-margin markets that Apple has repeatedly said they have no interest in competing in. They'd rather sell premium hardware at a higher markup. Their recent profit statements seem to suggest that this is working rather well for them.
3) Stop charging so damn much for your hardware. It isn't special
Old complaint that doesn't work any more. When you compare apples to apples (sorry), Apple hardware isn't really that much more expensive than a Dell with the same features.
a 10.2 era powermac would probably struggle with 10.5
Not really. I'm running OS X 10.5.x on a first generation PPC G4 Mac mini and it does okay. Not that it's exactly speedy or anything but I couldn't say that about it even on the day it came out.
MS has unintentionally broken things at time, but I cannot recall in recent history when MS has released an update to ever intentionally break something
They intentionally broke QuickTime for Windows. That was an issue brought up in DOJ -v- Microsoft.
my ex girlfriend worked for apple and told me that an agreement with microsoft was in effect to keep the mac os off the "buy a disk install on your hardware" circuit since microsoft knows os would be adopted in droves.
Total nonsense. I don't know how many times this has been explained here on Slashdot but some people just don't seem to get it that Apple doesn't sell it's OS for use on non-Apple hardware because Apple is a hardware company. They make money selling hardware, not licensing software as Microsoft does. OS X is one of the things Apple uses to differentiate its hardware from that of other computer manufacturers. If they were to allow people to install OS X on other manufacturers' hardware, they would be shooting themselves in the foot.
All that said, the reason that Apple had included support for the Atom processor in OS X in the first place was that they had intended to use an Atom in their upcoming tablet computer. However, they were not satisfied with the Atom's performance and switched to an ARM processor instead. In other words, they dropped Atom support not to keep people from installing OS X on netbooks but because it's not needed for any Apple product.
There are several free e-book reader apps available for the iPhone that are pretty decent. Most of the stand-alone books have been public domain stuff released by one or two publishers who have pretty much spammed the App Store with them hoping to capitalize on people who aren't aware that much this stuff is available for free. It got so bad at one point that Apple was forced to make a separate category for books so users didn't have to wade through the hundreds of book titles to in order to find the apps they actually want.
do they all just mindlessly parrot one another...?
(Squawk, WEE-ooo) Equating legislators with parrots is an insult to parrots everywhere. Now, give me a cracker before I bite the ever-lovin' crap outta you.
Yes, the 360 can't really beat the Wii, but they beat Sony this time.
And yet, despite the billions of dollars that Microsoft spent to develop it, the company has made very little profit on the 360. In fact, until very recently, Microsoft lost so much money on the XBox 360 that it will never make back what was spent on it's development before the current version reaches EOL. Explain to me how that's a win.
Apple uses PDF as the basis of the OS X display engine. When they adopted the NeXT OS as their next-generation to replace the "Classic" Mac OS, they switched from NeXT's Display PostScript precisely because PDF was a free and open-source specification. An OS X user can create a PDF file from pretty much any document simply by beginning a print operation then selecting "save as PDF" from the print dialog box.
Seriously, what programmer has not heard of floating point errors? That has to be one of the most common phrases I have ever heard in relation to programming; even the EEs and MEs I have met are familiar with the concept.
Even I am familiar with the concept and I was a freakin' art major. There's no excuse at all for someone working on the code of a mission-critical project to make that sort of mistake.
Someone, I don't know who, once said that "if you took a Neanderthal, cleaned him up, dressed him in modern clothes and put him on a New York subway car, no one would look twice."
Someone else responded to that with "that says more about the New York subway system than it does about Neanderthals."
Actually, I did--at $14 per share! It's at $202 as I write this and has split once since I purchased it. I only wish I'd been able to buy a more substantial amount.
ARM -- another British invention -- has established a small beachhead in the notebook market
Not quite accurate. While Acorn is indeed a British company, the current batch of ARM (Acorn RISC Machine) processors is actually the result of a collaboration between Acorn, Apple Inc. and VLSI Technology. I guess you could say it's a multi-national invention.
I'm sure coal power kills more per year than nuclear ever has.
Read my post again more carefully before you go off on a tangent.
I agreed with the original poster that the public needs to be shown that "the word 'nuclear' is not a cause for panic." I am not opposed to nuclear power, I was merely pointing out that people's fears of it are not totally irrational--as many nuclear power proponent make them out to be--and that the industry needs to demonstrate that in fact the public has no reason to fear a nuke plant in their home town. They have not done a very good job of this so far.
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Apple limits what machines can run Mac OSX, which is in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
I'm not sure where you get that. Here's the gist of the law:
Section 1:
"Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal."
Section 2:
"Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony..."
You'll notice that the law is concerned with restraint of interstate or international commerce, which has nothing to do with what hardware you can run an OS on.
Apple has a monopoly on iPhones and iPods, and other hand held devices because they have a large marketshare and they locked them so that only iTunes and the Apple App Store can put media files or software on them
Nope. You don't have to use iTunes software or the iTunes music store if you don't want to. There are a number of third-party apps that can be used to move music to and from an iPod, some of them much faster and less bloated than iTunes has become. And any compatible music file will work just fine, including files ripped from CDs and Amazon music downloads.
And yet, here you are... ;-)
Switching power supplies are much cheaper than old transformer ones.
Unfortunately, they're much more electrically noisy as well. I use a 13.8 VDC switching power supply with a VHF ham radio mobile rig that I run as a base station. I have to turn it off if I want to use my HF receiver to monitor any frequency below about 3 MHz due to switching noise from the power supply.
KJ6BSO
Especially when you consider that you don't have to install a GFI in every outlet. One per circuit will do.
There are quite a few U.S. houses built in the 50's with 2-prong outlets. Mine is one.
Yeah, mine was too. But oddly enough, there are ground wires run to each outlet anyway. These were used to ground the metal boxes in which the outlets themselves are installed. Turns out that this was commonly done even back as far as the 1950s. Pull a cover off one of your outlets and you might find the same thing. It makes it very easy to put the more modern 3-hole grounded outlets. Just remember to pull the fuse or switch off the circuit breaker before you start undoing things!
I studied physics at University, and both me and a friend of mine
It's pretty obvious that you didn't study English.
back in the OpenStep days, NeXT published a shopping list of what hardware they supported.
That's because, by that time, NeXT had ceased trying to be a hardware company and was strictly in the business of licensing software much the same way Microsoft does. Apple does not operate on the same business plan--they make their money selling hardware.
1) Charge more for software licenses.
And piss off their high-profit hardware sales customers when it comes time for an OS update. Good business strategy
2) Offer more hardware that people want. Seems to me that the hackintosh computers you see are in the two markets that Apple steadfastly refuses to produce in: Consumer towers and netbooks. These also happen to be very popular markets
They are also very low-margin markets that Apple has repeatedly said they have no interest in competing in. They'd rather sell premium hardware at a higher markup. Their recent profit statements seem to suggest that this is working rather well for them.
3) Stop charging so damn much for your hardware. It isn't special
Old complaint that doesn't work any more. When you compare apples to apples (sorry), Apple hardware isn't really that much more expensive than a Dell with the same features.
a 10.2 era powermac would probably struggle with 10.5
Not really. I'm running OS X 10.5.x on a first generation PPC G4 Mac mini and it does okay. Not that it's exactly speedy or anything but I couldn't say that about it even on the day it came out.
MS has unintentionally broken things at time, but I cannot recall in recent history when MS has released an update to ever intentionally break something
They intentionally broke QuickTime for Windows. That was an issue brought up in DOJ -v- Microsoft.
my ex girlfriend worked for apple and told me that an agreement with microsoft was in effect to keep the mac os off the "buy a disk install on your hardware" circuit since microsoft knows os would be adopted in droves.
Total nonsense. I don't know how many times this has been explained here on Slashdot but some people just don't seem to get it that Apple doesn't sell it's OS for use on non-Apple hardware because Apple is a hardware company. They make money selling hardware, not licensing software as Microsoft does. OS X is one of the things Apple uses to differentiate its hardware from that of other computer manufacturers. If they were to allow people to install OS X on other manufacturers' hardware, they would be shooting themselves in the foot.
All that said, the reason that Apple had included support for the Atom processor in OS X in the first place was that they had intended to use an Atom in their upcoming tablet computer. However, they were not satisfied with the Atom's performance and switched to an ARM processor instead. In other words, they dropped Atom support not to keep people from installing OS X on netbooks but because it's not needed for any Apple product.
So much for conspiracy theories.
Would be nice to get the app separate.
There are several free e-book reader apps available for the iPhone that are pretty decent. Most of the stand-alone books have been public domain stuff released by one or two publishers who have pretty much spammed the App Store with them hoping to capitalize on people who aren't aware that much this stuff is available for free. It got so bad at one point that Apple was forced to make a separate category for books so users didn't have to wade through the hundreds of book titles to in order to find the apps they actually want.
do they all just mindlessly parrot one another...?
(Squawk, WEE-ooo) Equating legislators with parrots is an insult to parrots everywhere. Now, give me a cracker before I bite the ever-lovin' crap outta you.
Yes, the 360 can't really beat the Wii, but they beat Sony this time.
And yet, despite the billions of dollars that Microsoft spent to develop it, the company has made very little profit on the 360. In fact, until very recently, Microsoft lost so much money on the XBox 360 that it will never make back what was spent on it's development before the current version reaches EOL. Explain to me how that's a win.
"I crashed my car because I was texting while driving. #*%?@! car...! "
Apple uses PDF as the basis of the OS X display engine. When they adopted the NeXT OS as their next-generation to replace the "Classic" Mac OS, they switched from NeXT's Display PostScript precisely because PDF was a free and open-source specification. An OS X user can create a PDF file from pretty much any document simply by beginning a print operation then selecting "save as PDF" from the print dialog box.
Seriously, what programmer has not heard of floating point errors? That has to be one of the most common phrases I have ever heard in relation to programming; even the EEs and MEs I have met are familiar with the concept.
Even I am familiar with the concept and I was a freakin' art major. There's no excuse at all for someone working on the code of a mission-critical project to make that sort of mistake.
I looked a little deeper and it appears that you're right. I hate it when that happens... ;-)
Someone, I don't know who, once said that "if you took a Neanderthal, cleaned him up, dressed him in modern clothes and put him on a New York subway car, no one would look twice."
Someone else responded to that with "that says more about the New York subway system than it does about Neanderthals."
And that's because Humans and Neanderthals are actually the same "species".
BZZZZZT! Wrong! Same genus (homo) but different species. Neanderthals were homo neanderthalensis while modern humans are homo sapiens sapiens.
hey, top tip: invest in Apple in 1998!
Actually, I did--at $14 per share! It's at $202 as I write this and has split once since I purchased it. I only wish I'd been able to buy a more substantial amount.
ARM -- another British invention -- has established a small beachhead in the notebook market
Not quite accurate. While Acorn is indeed a British company, the current batch of ARM (Acorn RISC Machine) processors is actually the result of a collaboration between Acorn, Apple Inc. and VLSI Technology. I guess you could say it's a multi-national invention.
No argument at all about the Beatles, though.
it's tough to be exact because it is heavily dependent on the person (i.e. fat stores)
Right. Most of us Slashdotters could easily go 39 days. On the other hand, if Kate Moss misses lunch she has to be hospitalized.
I'm sure coal power kills more per year than nuclear ever has.
Read my post again more carefully before you go off on a tangent.
I agreed with the original poster that the public needs to be shown that "the word 'nuclear' is not a cause for panic." I am not opposed to nuclear power, I was merely pointing out that people's fears of it are not totally irrational--as many nuclear power proponent make them out to be--and that the industry needs to demonstrate that in fact the public has no reason to fear a nuke plant in their home town. They have not done a very good job of this so far.
That was one hell of a burrito. Must have been from Taco Bell.