This UK innovation just has the courts directly acting on the corporations' behalf.
RTFA. Corporation doesn't want any stories published, and wants to know who leaked the story. Court allows the newspapers to print their articles, and to protect their source. What is the innovation you refer to, and in what way is turning down most of the corporation's request acting directly in their interest?
The letters raise a serious issue about the climate of censorship in the UK, where one can apparently easily obtain a censorship order -- a judge made law -- that everyone is meant to obey, but no one is meant to know.
Does it? From the linked newspaper article:
But the judge, Mr Justice Tugendhat, rejected a more stringent prohibition that Northern Rock had sought - to ban news coverage of the memo on FT.com and other websites.
"We were looking at funding a principled legal case about news that was looking increasingly historic by the day," said Paul Murphy, the editor of Alphaville.
Northern Rock failed to win an injunction against the Telegraph after the paper revealed details of the sales document sent out to prospective bidders.
The bank failed to force the Daily Telegraph to reveal its source for the article and failed to get the newspaper to remove its article.
Even as a British taxpayer, I struggle to work up much concern about "censorship" when clearly no-one's freedom of speech is being curtailed. A judge says newspapers can't publish private documents, and the newspaper drops the "public interest" appeal because it's already become old news. In the meantime, newspapers remained free to publish their articles and protect their sources.
It's quite a leap to go from those decisions to taking a mercenary law firm's typically overstated demands as being a "serious issue".
p.s. on the subject of not being serious, I can't be the only one who would struggle to take a judge called "Tugendhat" seriously. Tug who's end into who's hat, I'd like to know...
I see your argument, but I can see a point, in part driven by fear of the unknown which is why you shouldn't necessarily like it but can I think appreciate it.
Businesses and legal departments typically do not like open ended obligations. This will never change because someone, somewhere would start a class action lawsuit over the fact that they rented a movie, didn't get a chance to watch it, and 20 years later they want their money back. If all stakeholders - studios, actors who get part of gross in their fees, Apple, the customer - are clear on where they stand on a month to month basis, then basically the system works. There may even be accounting issues that make the rental model more attractive and manageable than a one-shot viewing time period.
The rental model is therefore a practical approach to solving such problems, establishes the necessary trust between Apple and all the studios to engage in a new business venture, is readily understood by the customer, and as implemented pretty much imposes no practical restrictions on the customer - assuming as I do that people are smart enough to rent things when they plan to use them within the rental period. You would effectively pay just as much to Netflix to leave a DVD unwatched for 30 days, so it's comparable in terms of cost-and-benefit to the consumer as well.
Maybe things will change over time as trust in the model is further established, or it is proven that concerns such as the ones I mention are in fact irrelevant. In the meantime - it looks like a good service to me, I'm man enough to make minimally risky $5 spending decisions, and I think Apple deserves kudos for being able to get all the studios into the same arrangement.
What complete and utter bullshit. You can't have it both ways, being uncompromising on e.g. viewing quality, while compromising on e.g. having to wait an unknown number of days to see a particular title that may or may not be available on HD-DVD. If you're going to pick and choose criteria to fit your own preferences, then of course you will be able to justify to yourself why Apple's new business is a bad one. I hope you are in fact good at your job, because that kind of approach is in my experience an indicator of mediocre thinking. Being concerned about spending $229 on a reasonably capable, small item of consumer electronics that would represent just about 20% of a decent 1080p screen doesn't suggest a great deal of perspective, either.
There is nothing innovative about this model as you postulate
Actually, I didn't. Is "accuracy" missing from your vocabulary, too? Apple's offering is nothing but an online recreation of a proven business model. Nothing new here. So what? Would you also criticise a good quality restaurant for coming up with nothing better than serving good food?
I keep looking to Apple to have business models and pricing structures that are as innovative as their hardware
Why? What's the problem you're trying to solve? How does the use of a an extremely popular, tried and tested business model provide evidence that the customer is not #1?
So tell me again why this is a good deal?
Good selection of movies - could well become better than any rental store or subscription service in time due to their limitations of relying on physical media. Reasonable price and conditions. Fantastically quick delivery. 720p content with 1080i upscaled quality - excellent quality for an online service, comparable to HDTV broadcasts, better than DVD. Rental pricing scheme means that in addition to my Netflix subscription, I have the option of renting from Apple. For social reasons, I imagine online access to a new release will be handy on occasion. Only needs iTunes, so I can use my existing media server rather than buy any Apple hardware.
Feel free to maintain your uncompromising self-image by, erm, compromising on the quality of service you receive. I think Apple is correct in betting that people are capable of only renting movies when they have time that month to watch them, and sufficiently responsible to be trusted with $5 spending decisions. You'd really have to be a screwed up individual to feel hard done by for losing a few bucks by renting something you didn't use within the rental period. There's all sorts of implications to a the rental model (such as having a clearly time limited obligation from company to customer, and between studio and Apple) that will likely have made it a business necessity for Apple to implement it in order to get deals signed with all the major studios. As I say, you don't have to like it - certainly we appear to have established that nothing's good enough for you - but there is a reason for it.
Yes, there is. You don't have to like it, but there is. There's a clue in the word "rental" - try and figure it out if you can. See if you can come up with an argument against it that doesn't essentially assume people are too stupid to either figure out that a rented something doesn't last forever, or to make their own decisions of whether they'll get a chance to watch their movie within a month of forking out a few bucks.
your "rentals" are no good anywhere but your TV or your iPlod
Or your computer. I reckon that TVs and computers combined cover the vast majority of the movie watching public.
Finally the rentals are 720p which speaks for itself if you have a 1080p set.
1080p films would be ideal of course, but they cope fine with 720p signals as well. You must be one of those "the best option on the market isn't good enough for me, because my standards are so much higher" types. Bet you're fun to work with, too.
The big difference between the two is that Apple is making a genuine try at starting a business: they've revamped the Apple TV after the first attempt didn't get a great reaction, they've cut deals with all the movie studios, they let people do the obvious thing with movies, namely watch them on the TV.
NetFlix, on the other hand, may be smart enough to realise that internet access to movies is inevitable, but only came up with some shitty "on your computer only" service, with bandwidth restrictions. It's a little experiment without serious backing. My bet is that whoever within NetFlix has responsibility for the online service has little power within the company, and is probably seen as competition to the main DVDs-by-post business. Apple's announcement probably gave that person a rare bit of clout to argue to the rest of the company that unless the NetFlix streaming service improves, it will simply become a laughing stock.
All that said - if they deliver on easy access via the TV, their model of "classic" and hard-to-find material plus their que idea is a great one. Hope the online person now gets the respect and funding they deserve. They've got to prepare for the future where the postal service just ain't necessary for their business model.
That's because you're listening to the gist of Slashdot comments, not the target market. What you need is to go back to basics. Imagine a number of well paid professionals, or executives, or trust fund kids, whose use case is checking email, editing documents, surfing the net, doing presentations and filling in paperwork on the move. This use case might not apply when they're at their desks, especially for professionals, but does apply to most of their trips and interactions with customers outside of their office. Some professionals spend a lot of time on the move, so this describes their most common set of use cases.
If you can realistically describe a number of scenarios whereby any of those features you mention is actually used on any kind of regular basis, then you've got a point. I doubt the real world would provide much evidence for you though. I've never replaced a battery in a laptop myself, for instance, simply because corporate policy is to refresh laptops every three years and in the meantime if the battery starts to die you're just stuck with it because replacement batteries cost money. But forget the reason and focus on the result - most people do not swap or replace batteries in laptops anyway, and most replacements that do take place will be carried out by IT or a service center.
In short - the answer to not getting it is simply to observe what happens out there. You'll see very little to justify why those missing features are a bad design decisiosn when the goal was "strip out the non-essentials and make it small".
I can't understand why it lacks simple connectors like an Ethernet port or more than one USB port.
Well, I've only had a MacBook for four months, which isn't a huge amount of time to go on, but I've not used the Ethernet port once so I'm guessing because it's not necessary. And in eight years of doing the whole road warrior thing with PC laptops - ditto on two USB ports. I know many of my colleagues would disagree because of a need for USB mouse + memory stick. But presumably there's enough people like me out there for whom the design does provide something we need.
As for the "new, smaller chip design", no, it's not new - but Apple wants you to think it is.
I'm pretty sure the 22mm package is new, but I'm happy to be corrected if you can provide a reference.
The OQO is "incredibly small". The MacBook Air is not. Similarly sized and sometimes lighter PC notebooks have been on the market for years
Oh, come on. Yes, the OQO is smaller but it's a handheld. Yes, similarly sized PC notebooks have been on the market for years and guess what - I think they're incredibly small too! And dearly wish I got something like that from my work. However, from an engineering perspective I can also recognise the effort and achievement in the shape of the MacBook Air, because the tapered shape means less space to work in. Engineering at the margins is usually tough. The M300 damn sure wasn't $300 when it came out - it was $1000 more expensive.
When you drop the optical drive and use a smaller (1.8") HDD, it's easy to make a small notebook.
It's even easier to bullshit online, and the lack of comparable alternatives available suggests you're full of it.
It's not about us "understanding your perspective"
Actually, it is. When intelligent, experienced, successful IT people say "I like the look of that product, it's what I need for mobile computing" and you can't understand it - that is a problem with you. And if you can't understand, just walk away.
The sad part is, their fanboys will buy it hook, line and sinker.
Yeah, gee, I'm such a sucker. Spending a few weeks wages on something that I know fits my requirements based on years of experience. How ever do I manage to get through life? My last expensive purchase was an American Deluxe Series Ash Telecaster. Pretty basic, no fancy paint job, simple wiring, no humbuckers, no auto-tuning, no whammy bar, no B-Bender, no onboard processing, no mother of pearl scratch plate, no trim, no access to the 24th fret, etc etc. But hey, I've got other guitars. This one looks great, feels great, and provides all the functionality I need from a guitar when I want to just pick up and play. I know my tools, I know their limitations, and I'm willing to part with cash for designs I like. Just because Springsteen's guitar lacks the functionality of Steve Vai's doesn't mean Bruce doesn't get good artistic and/or commercial results out of it. I can live with a single tone control. If that kind of thinking makes me a fanboy, so be it. Having experienced the joy of going from opening my notebook lid to recording riffs within seconds, I'm currently believing Apple have an overall better understanding of what I want from a computer than any other vendor.
You remind me of every fuckwit manager/luser I've ever encountered who doesn't have a damn clue what good design, good value, or good business is.
For instance, releasing a new iPhone model at a quarter of the price of the very first model, which has been out for less than a year and still has a significant target to meet? What do you have for brains, muesli?
I pity anyone with the misfortune to work for someone like you or the idiots who modded your post up.
There are three consistently important things about portable devices - size, weight and battery life. Many people who can afford it are willing to pay for smaller, lighter and longer. It's that simple. If this perspective does not make sense to you - simply write yourself out of the target audience and get on with that which is important to you.
Many users do not need a removable battery, optical drive or additional connectors. It's that simple. If you do, simply write yourself out of the target audience and get on with that which is important to you.
There's a lot to be said about being able to understand another person's perspective and requirements. On a geek site, an engineering achievement such as an incredibly small laptop that (for instance) required Intel to produce a new, smaller chip design is worthy of respect rather than puerile comments about shiny toys. Reducing height by 25% and weight by 40% is a tough design goal. But if you can't understand the user, or appreciate the engineering - just get on with other things.
From my point of view: MacBook Air + my Edirol PCR-1 slim USB keyboard = Incredibly powerful music composing tool, usable in dark because of backlit keyboard, only 5lbs total weight, less than 2" thick. Fantastic! And in my mind Apple keeps up its tradition of design by working with Intel to get a new, smaller chip layout.
One side-effect of working enough to be able to afford such a doohickey is that I no longer get much time for my creative pursuits. With my MacBook Pro I can be getting things done in GarageBand (for later export to Logic) within seconds of opening the lid - but in a small cramped seat thin and light really does have value. With the Air I'll be able to use both laptop and keyboard even in coach (it's just a bit too tricky with the larger machine). That means more time to be creative - that means good value for money for me.
Yes, proper recording requires an external firewire drive, a single USB port isn't enough, and during serious music making you want ready access to a CD drive whether for listening or burning a CD, etc etc. I'm sure photographers have similar issues. But if you need an external device anyway, surely by definition your use case means that thinness and lightness are not priorities?
Wow. The primary product feature is "thin", you don't care about thin, and you're not buying one. I wonder how long Apple are going to try to persuade other "I'm not even interested in that kind of notebook" customers to buy one?
I'm posting this because I've had a shitty day and and take pathetic pleasure in mindless sarcasm. What's your excuse?
Outside of the USA not everyone fears the words "socialist", "marxist" or even (to a lesser extent) "communist".
True with respect to socialism, although I've yet to meet a Marxist with their feet on the ground. I'd say there is widespread disregard for pseudo-Marxist bullshit, particularly from people who think that spouting multiple lines of self-serving argument to justify why they should profit handsomely from other people's efforts demonstrates how intellectually superior they are. It is with good reason that the line "The lady doth protest too much" is a popular quote. Anyone spouting puerile caricatures of their opposition's position whilst simultaneously claiming moral and intellectual superiority is pretty much deserving of contempt as far as I'm concerned.
It's great that Sweden is having this discussion, and of course the reality is that filesharing and P2P has to be defended. But it's a logical fallacy to respect someone purely because their profits rely on winning that argument. Personally, I find it difficult to like someone whose arguments always seem to rely upon how nasty the enemy is, or how they simply cannot be stopped. Comparing yourself to Gandhi while staunchly defending your profits is distasteful. It reminds me of extreme right-wingers who likewise care little for the law, as long as their money and their self-righteousness can be safely defended using high minded platitudes.
You're protesting something and accusing others of exploiting death, and yet you make no judgement? At best you're being disingenuous. But at worst, it may be that you consider yourself so inherently better than others, to the extent that you need not form a judgement in order to be able to look down upon their words.
At least they are being honest in their reaction. You however actually go to the effort of using tags to emphasis your "humility" - do you realise how self-contradictory that is?
BTW a 9/11 copy cat attack is now pretty much impossible.
So what? The aim of terrorism is to inspire fear, not fly planes into buildings. They can surely find another way of inspiring fear, especially with the government so keen to help. It is your kind of complacent, self-congratulatory thinking that allows such monumental fuckups as the thousands of troops the government sent to die in Iraq, delivering Bin Laden a far more successful result for 9/11 than Al Qaeda could ever have achieved on its own. Something like 9/11 will happen again. Even better, they won't need to achieve such a spectacular event, because the rampant paranoia will make even a minor attack just as effective. People will ask why the attack happened, when people like you were exuding such confidence that things were safe.
there is a real benefit to better ids that can be checked and trusted.
Sure. Except that while all ID systems can be checked, they can only be 100% trusted if you're an idiot. All systems have vulnerabilities. The better the system and the more the terrorists are given incentives to break it, the more spectacular the break when it happens. Real ID will not deliver any meaningful increase in security, gives the terrorists just another target, and marks the collapse in confidence of a government willing to stand up for the principles the US was founded upon.
Of course, much like it took a number of years and a few hundred thousand dead innocents to demonstrate that Bush is not cut out to be a leader, no doubt it will take a similar amount of time and consequence before you'll ever acknowledge any problem with the current plans.
RTFA: "The American Civil Liberties Union has fiercely objected to the effort, particularly the sharing of personal data among government agencies. The DHS and other officials say the only way to make sure an ID is safe is to check it against secure government data;"
That is a federated system - this is a federal ID. Putting quotes around "federal ID" is being either dismissive or ignorant of the ACLU's concerns.
They are not perfect - of course. On what basis do you say they fall victim to groupthink, however? An election itself is subject to groupthink, and as events occur during an election process then it is reasonable for a prediction market to change to reflect group reactions to those events. Predictions should change as e.g. Obama wins the Iowa caucus. For evidence of groupthink, you need to show a prediction that is out of line with a reasonable interpretation of the available facts. For something as unpredictable as election results a long time before a closely run election, it isn't possible to draw conclusions on the flaws of the predictive market.
My understanding was that predictive markets reduce your vulnerability to groupthink. I don't see any reason to change that impression here.
RTFA. The argument is not made that IT is dead, just the IT department. Can't say I've ever heard of a farm with a separate pasteurization department, headed up by Chief Pasteurization Officer. Pasteurization is just another process, and the chances are slim that farms keep their own engineers on staff to design new pasteurization systems. Or if you use TFA's analogy, it is not being suggested that when companies no longer found it viable to generate their own electricity, electricity was dead - it remains a hugely important area, with a lot of investment currently.
It is often argued that the failure of many in IT to understand business as well as technology only encourages outsourcing by companies. You appear to be part of the problem.
"the dully obedient lines were bred out repeatedly."
Gotta love the dull way in which you repeat that bullshit. Don't know what race you are, but according your own standards you appear to be "inferior stock".
Frankly - fuck off with your attitude. I'm not American. But I am caucasian and more at risk abroad than I used to be because of the land of the wiretapped and the home of the scared.
Can you name a single example of an American abroad being killed by terrorists (or by a dude in an alley in Paris) where the motive was the victim being from America, as compared to any wealthy nation?
Slashdot Mirror
RTFA. Corporation doesn't want any stories published, and wants to know who leaked the story. Court allows the newspapers to print their articles, and to protect their source. What is the innovation you refer to, and in what way is turning down most of the corporation's request acting directly in their interest?
Does it? From the linked newspaper article:
But the judge, Mr Justice Tugendhat, rejected a more stringent prohibition that Northern Rock had sought - to ban news coverage of the memo on FT.com and other websites.
"We were looking at funding a principled legal case about news that was looking increasingly historic by the day," said Paul Murphy, the editor of Alphaville.
Northern Rock failed to win an injunction against the Telegraph after the paper revealed details of the sales document sent out to prospective bidders.
The bank failed to force the Daily Telegraph to reveal its source for the article and failed to get the newspaper to remove its article.
Even as a British taxpayer, I struggle to work up much concern about "censorship" when clearly no-one's freedom of speech is being curtailed. A judge says newspapers can't publish private documents, and the newspaper drops the "public interest" appeal because it's already become old news. In the meantime, newspapers remained free to publish their articles and protect their sources.
It's quite a leap to go from those decisions to taking a mercenary law firm's typically overstated demands as being a "serious issue".
p.s. on the subject of not being serious, I can't be the only one who would struggle to take a judge called "Tugendhat" seriously. Tug who's end into who's hat, I'd like to know...
I see your argument, but I can see a point, in part driven by fear of the unknown which is why you shouldn't necessarily like it but can I think appreciate it.
Businesses and legal departments typically do not like open ended obligations. This will never change because someone, somewhere would start a class action lawsuit over the fact that they rented a movie, didn't get a chance to watch it, and 20 years later they want their money back. If all stakeholders - studios, actors who get part of gross in their fees, Apple, the customer - are clear on where they stand on a month to month basis, then basically the system works. There may even be accounting issues that make the rental model more attractive and manageable than a one-shot viewing time period.
The rental model is therefore a practical approach to solving such problems, establishes the necessary trust between Apple and all the studios to engage in a new business venture, is readily understood by the customer, and as implemented pretty much imposes no practical restrictions on the customer - assuming as I do that people are smart enough to rent things when they plan to use them within the rental period. You would effectively pay just as much to Netflix to leave a DVD unwatched for 30 days, so it's comparable in terms of cost-and-benefit to the consumer as well.
Maybe things will change over time as trust in the model is further established, or it is proven that concerns such as the ones I mention are in fact irrelevant. In the meantime - it looks like a good service to me, I'm man enough to make minimally risky $5 spending decisions, and I think Apple deserves kudos for being able to get all the studios into the same arrangement.
What complete and utter bullshit. You can't have it both ways, being uncompromising on e.g. viewing quality, while compromising on e.g. having to wait an unknown number of days to see a particular title that may or may not be available on HD-DVD. If you're going to pick and choose criteria to fit your own preferences, then of course you will be able to justify to yourself why Apple's new business is a bad one. I hope you are in fact good at your job, because that kind of approach is in my experience an indicator of mediocre thinking. Being concerned about spending $229 on a reasonably capable, small item of consumer electronics that would represent just about 20% of a decent 1080p screen doesn't suggest a great deal of perspective, either.
Actually, I didn't. Is "accuracy" missing from your vocabulary, too? Apple's offering is nothing but an online recreation of a proven business model. Nothing new here. So what? Would you also criticise a good quality restaurant for coming up with nothing better than serving good food?
Why? What's the problem you're trying to solve? How does the use of a an extremely popular, tried and tested business model provide evidence that the customer is not #1?
Good selection of movies - could well become better than any rental store or subscription service in time due to their limitations of relying on physical media. Reasonable price and conditions. Fantastically quick delivery. 720p content with 1080i upscaled quality - excellent quality for an online service, comparable to HDTV broadcasts, better than DVD. Rental pricing scheme means that in addition to my Netflix subscription, I have the option of renting from Apple. For social reasons, I imagine online access to a new release will be handy on occasion. Only needs iTunes, so I can use my existing media server rather than buy any Apple hardware.
Feel free to maintain your uncompromising self-image by, erm, compromising on the quality of service you receive. I think Apple is correct in betting that people are capable of only renting movies when they have time that month to watch them, and sufficiently responsible to be trusted with $5 spending decisions. You'd really have to be a screwed up individual to feel hard done by for losing a few bucks by renting something you didn't use within the rental period. There's all sorts of implications to a the rental model (such as having a clearly time limited obligation from company to customer, and between studio and Apple) that will likely have made it a business necessity for Apple to implement it in order to get deals signed with all the major studios. As I say, you don't have to like it - certainly we appear to have established that nothing's good enough for you - but there is a reason for it.
Yes, there is. You don't have to like it, but there is. There's a clue in the word "rental" - try and figure it out if you can. See if you can come up with an argument against it that doesn't essentially assume people are too stupid to either figure out that a rented something doesn't last forever, or to make their own decisions of whether they'll get a chance to watch their movie within a month of forking out a few bucks.
Or your computer. I reckon that TVs and computers combined cover the vast majority of the movie watching public.
1080p films would be ideal of course, but they cope fine with 720p signals as well. You must be one of those "the best option on the market isn't good enough for me, because my standards are so much higher" types. Bet you're fun to work with, too.
Actually, it is. Laptop 1920 x 1200, TV only 720p. But this discussion isn't about me...
Am I supposed to be impressed by the $40m figure? NetFlix spends that amount of money in a single quarter alone on buying content.
I'm all for facts that support an argument - perhaps you would care to formulate one in addition to the clichéd attempt at sarcasm?
The big difference between the two is that Apple is making a genuine try at starting a business: they've revamped the Apple TV after the first attempt didn't get a great reaction, they've cut deals with all the movie studios, they let people do the obvious thing with movies, namely watch them on the TV.
NetFlix, on the other hand, may be smart enough to realise that internet access to movies is inevitable, but only came up with some shitty "on your computer only" service, with bandwidth restrictions. It's a little experiment without serious backing. My bet is that whoever within NetFlix has responsibility for the online service has little power within the company, and is probably seen as competition to the main DVDs-by-post business. Apple's announcement probably gave that person a rare bit of clout to argue to the rest of the company that unless the NetFlix streaming service improves, it will simply become a laughing stock.
All that said - if they deliver on easy access via the TV, their model of "classic" and hard-to-find material plus their que idea is a great one. Hope the online person now gets the respect and funding they deserve. They've got to prepare for the future where the postal service just ain't necessary for their business model.
"I think that $3 for a movie "rental" is way too expensive"
"Way" too expensive!? Rest assured, Apple is not interested in you anyway.
"One other thing that Netflix has over Apple, is no 30 day wait after a new release"
Yes, it's great isn't it? In fact, not only do they not impose a 30 day wait, they don't even offer brand new releases at all...
That's because you're listening to the gist of Slashdot comments, not the target market. What you need is to go back to basics. Imagine a number of well paid professionals, or executives, or trust fund kids, whose use case is checking email, editing documents, surfing the net, doing presentations and filling in paperwork on the move. This use case might not apply when they're at their desks, especially for professionals, but does apply to most of their trips and interactions with customers outside of their office. Some professionals spend a lot of time on the move, so this describes their most common set of use cases.
If you can realistically describe a number of scenarios whereby any of those features you mention is actually used on any kind of regular basis, then you've got a point. I doubt the real world would provide much evidence for you though. I've never replaced a battery in a laptop myself, for instance, simply because corporate policy is to refresh laptops every three years and in the meantime if the battery starts to die you're just stuck with it because replacement batteries cost money. But forget the reason and focus on the result - most people do not swap or replace batteries in laptops anyway, and most replacements that do take place will be carried out by IT or a service center.
In short - the answer to not getting it is simply to observe what happens out there. You'll see very little to justify why those missing features are a bad design decisiosn when the goal was "strip out the non-essentials and make it small".
Well, I've only had a MacBook for four months, which isn't a huge amount of time to go on, but I've not used the Ethernet port once so I'm guessing because it's not necessary. And in eight years of doing the whole road warrior thing with PC laptops - ditto on two USB ports. I know many of my colleagues would disagree because of a need for USB mouse + memory stick. But presumably there's enough people like me out there for whom the design does provide something we need.
I'm pretty sure the 22mm package is new, but I'm happy to be corrected if you can provide a reference.
Oh, come on. Yes, the OQO is smaller but it's a handheld. Yes, similarly sized PC notebooks have been on the market for years and guess what - I think they're incredibly small too! And dearly wish I got something like that from my work. However, from an engineering perspective I can also recognise the effort and achievement in the shape of the MacBook Air, because the tapered shape means less space to work in. Engineering at the margins is usually tough. The M300 damn sure wasn't $300 when it came out - it was $1000 more expensive.
It's even easier to bullshit online, and the lack of comparable alternatives available suggests you're full of it.
Actually, it is. When intelligent, experienced, successful IT people say "I like the look of that product, it's what I need for mobile computing" and you can't understand it - that is a problem with you. And if you can't understand, just walk away.
Yeah, gee, I'm such a sucker. Spending a few weeks wages on something that I know fits my requirements based on years of experience. How ever do I manage to get through life? My last expensive purchase was an American Deluxe Series Ash Telecaster. Pretty basic, no fancy paint job, simple wiring, no humbuckers, no auto-tuning, no whammy bar, no B-Bender, no onboard processing, no mother of pearl scratch plate, no trim, no access to the 24th fret, etc etc. But hey, I've got other guitars. This one looks great, feels great, and provides all the functionality I need from a guitar when I want to just pick up and play. I know my tools, I know their limitations, and I'm willing to part with cash for designs I like. Just because Springsteen's guitar lacks the functionality of Steve Vai's doesn't mean Bruce doesn't get good artistic and/or commercial results out of it. I can live with a single tone control. If that kind of thinking makes me a fanboy, so be it. Having experienced the joy of going from opening my notebook lid to recording riffs within seconds, I'm currently believing Apple have an overall better understanding of what I want from a computer than any other vendor.
You remind me of every fuckwit manager/luser I've ever encountered who doesn't have a damn clue what good design, good value, or good business is.
For instance, releasing a new iPhone model at a quarter of the price of the very first model, which has been out for less than a year and still has a significant target to meet? What do you have for brains, muesli?
I pity anyone with the misfortune to work for someone like you or the idiots who modded your post up.
> what are the advantages over a normal laptop?
There are three consistently important things about portable devices - size, weight and battery life. Many people who can afford it are willing to pay for smaller, lighter and longer. It's that simple. If this perspective does not make sense to you - simply write yourself out of the target audience and get on with that which is important to you.
Many users do not need a removable battery, optical drive or additional connectors. It's that simple. If you do, simply write yourself out of the target audience and get on with that which is important to you.
There's a lot to be said about being able to understand another person's perspective and requirements. On a geek site, an engineering achievement such as an incredibly small laptop that (for instance) required Intel to produce a new, smaller chip design is worthy of respect rather than puerile comments about shiny toys. Reducing height by 25% and weight by 40% is a tough design goal. But if you can't understand the user, or appreciate the engineering - just get on with other things.
From my point of view: MacBook Air + my Edirol PCR-1 slim USB keyboard = Incredibly powerful music composing tool, usable in dark because of backlit keyboard, only 5lbs total weight, less than 2" thick. Fantastic! And in my mind Apple keeps up its tradition of design by working with Intel to get a new, smaller chip layout.
One side-effect of working enough to be able to afford such a doohickey is that I no longer get much time for my creative pursuits. With my MacBook Pro I can be getting things done in GarageBand (for later export to Logic) within seconds of opening the lid - but in a small cramped seat thin and light really does have value. With the Air I'll be able to use both laptop and keyboard even in coach (it's just a bit too tricky with the larger machine). That means more time to be creative - that means good value for money for me.
Yes, proper recording requires an external firewire drive, a single USB port isn't enough, and during serious music making you want ready access to a CD drive whether for listening or burning a CD, etc etc. I'm sure photographers have similar issues. But if you need an external device anyway, surely by definition your use case means that thinness and lightness are not priorities?
Wow. The primary product feature is "thin", you don't care about thin, and you're not buying one. I wonder how long Apple are going to try to persuade other "I'm not even interested in that kind of notebook" customers to buy one?
I'm posting this because I've had a shitty day and and take pathetic pleasure in mindless sarcasm. What's your excuse?
Outside of the USA not everyone fears the words "socialist", "marxist" or even (to a lesser extent) "communist".
True with respect to socialism, although I've yet to meet a Marxist with their feet on the ground. I'd say there is widespread disregard for pseudo-Marxist bullshit, particularly from people who think that spouting multiple lines of self-serving argument to justify why they should profit handsomely from other people's efforts demonstrates how intellectually superior they are. It is with good reason that the line "The lady doth protest too much" is a popular quote. Anyone spouting puerile caricatures of their opposition's position whilst simultaneously claiming moral and intellectual superiority is pretty much deserving of contempt as far as I'm concerned.
It's great that Sweden is having this discussion, and of course the reality is that filesharing and P2P has to be defended. But it's a logical fallacy to respect someone purely because their profits rely on winning that argument. Personally, I find it difficult to like someone whose arguments always seem to rely upon how nasty the enemy is, or how they simply cannot be stopped. Comparing yourself to Gandhi while staunchly defending your profits is distasteful. It reminds me of extreme right-wingers who likewise care little for the law, as long as their money and their self-righteousness can be safely defended using high minded platitudes.
You're protesting something and accusing others of exploiting death, and yet you make no judgement? At best you're being disingenuous. But at worst, it may be that you consider yourself so inherently better than others, to the extent that you need not form a judgement in order to be able to look down upon their words.
At least they are being honest in their reaction. You however actually go to the effort of using tags to emphasis your "humility" - do you realise how self-contradictory that is?
So what? The aim of terrorism is to inspire fear, not fly planes into buildings. They can surely find another way of inspiring fear, especially with the government so keen to help. It is your kind of complacent, self-congratulatory thinking that allows such monumental fuckups as the thousands of troops the government sent to die in Iraq, delivering Bin Laden a far more successful result for 9/11 than Al Qaeda could ever have achieved on its own. Something like 9/11 will happen again. Even better, they won't need to achieve such a spectacular event, because the rampant paranoia will make even a minor attack just as effective. People will ask why the attack happened, when people like you were exuding such confidence that things were safe.
Sure. Except that while all ID systems can be checked, they can only be 100% trusted if you're an idiot. All systems have vulnerabilities. The better the system and the more the terrorists are given incentives to break it, the more spectacular the break when it happens. Real ID will not deliver any meaningful increase in security, gives the terrorists just another target, and marks the collapse in confidence of a government willing to stand up for the principles the US was founded upon.
Of course, much like it took a number of years and a few hundred thousand dead innocents to demonstrate that Bush is not cut out to be a leader, no doubt it will take a similar amount of time and consequence before you'll ever acknowledge any problem with the current plans.
RTFA: "The American Civil Liberties Union has fiercely objected to the effort, particularly the sharing of personal data among government agencies. The DHS and other officials say the only way to make sure an ID is safe is to check it against secure government data;"
That is a federated system - this is a federal ID. Putting quotes around "federal ID" is being either dismissive or ignorant of the ACLU's concerns.
They are not perfect - of course. On what basis do you say they fall victim to groupthink, however? An election itself is subject to groupthink, and as events occur during an election process then it is reasonable for a prediction market to change to reflect group reactions to those events. Predictions should change as e.g. Obama wins the Iowa caucus. For evidence of groupthink, you need to show a prediction that is out of line with a reasonable interpretation of the available facts. For something as unpredictable as election results a long time before a closely run election, it isn't possible to draw conclusions on the flaws of the predictive market.
My understanding was that predictive markets reduce your vulnerability to groupthink. I don't see any reason to change that impression here.
RTFA. The argument is not made that IT is dead, just the IT department. Can't say I've ever heard of a farm with a separate pasteurization department, headed up by Chief Pasteurization Officer. Pasteurization is just another process, and the chances are slim that farms keep their own engineers on staff to design new pasteurization systems. Or if you use TFA's analogy, it is not being suggested that when companies no longer found it viable to generate their own electricity, electricity was dead - it remains a hugely important area, with a lot of investment currently.
It is often argued that the failure of many in IT to understand business as well as technology only encourages outsourcing by companies. You appear to be part of the problem.
"the dully obedient lines were bred out repeatedly."
Gotta love the dull way in which you repeat that bullshit. Don't know what race you are, but according your own standards you appear to be "inferior stock".
Frankly - fuck off with your attitude. I'm not American. But I am caucasian and more at risk abroad than I used to be because of the land of the wiretapped and the home of the scared.
Can you name a single example of an American abroad being killed by terrorists (or by a dude in an alley in Paris) where the motive was the victim being from America, as compared to any wealthy nation?