Perhaps, but if we penalised stupidity harshly enough to remove people from the gene pool (!) then governments around the world would be decimated.
There'd probably be only a handful of people running the planet.
Of course, being super-intelligent (or at least, not morons) they'd probably work together to ensure a new golden age of peace and prosperity for the planet.
Thanks heavens we live in a civilised world, where even the sub-moronic have the right to breed and populate the world in their image.
My iBook has a 60GB drive (55 'real' GBs) and 23GB of that is music.
I know what you mean, but then if your iPod is stolen you have to go back to a digital copy or re-rip your collection again.
A new iPod is AUS$500, but spending 20-40 hours re-ripping my entire CD collection seems even more expensive to me.
I have the iBook as my primary music source, then my external hard drive as my backup, and finally my fiancee's iPod as a last resort backup. I don't understand using an iPod as the only digital copy you have.
So how do you search for (example) all images emailed to a family member in the two weeks before Christmas?
Spotlight can do this.
What about Excel files printed in the last week? Spotlight can do this too.
Or dog photos added to Pages documents that were subsequently sent to a friend?
With a little image metadata ("it's a dog") Spotlight can do this as well.
Organisation is great, but it's only giving you one part of the picture. Spotlight also tracks what you've done with those files, allowing you to effectively search your usage history *as well as* the file contents/names/etc.
Sony have a hard time seeing the present of portable music, let alone the future. That's why they are barely a blip in that market.
If you're going to talk about usability, how does DRM affect the user? I ripped about 200 CDs yesterday for my fiance's new iPod. No DRM. Of course, here in Australia I can't buy from the iTMS, but even if I could, Apple's DRM is the least restrictive.
We don't have the choice between DRM or no DRM with online music. The music industry will never allow that, and after years of online piracy, I have to say that seems fair - people have shown time and again that they'd rather get something for nothing. The industry's been bitten and are responding with DRM to protect their copyrighted music. That's not to say that I believe that their tactics of suing file-sharers are anything but dubious, but they have the right to protect their stuff in the face of rampant piracy.
So given that we are going to have DRM on legally retailed music, what sort of DRM would you like? Apple's model trusts the user more than most.
I'm digressing a bit though.
Moving music *from* a portable device is a bit of an odd thing. I've got the music on my computer already, so why would I want to send it back to my computer? Unless you're talking about backups (better handled by an external HD anyway) or piracy, I can't think of a reason to do this.
As for battery replacements - the thing lasts for about two years! It's a bummer that we can't easily change the batteries ourselves, but that's not a deal-breaker and it's not a usability issue (unless you want to change the batteries every week).
The iPod is where it is for a reason - it's the best mp3 player on the market. It's not just the ads (which many people I know haven't even seen) or marketing, but the device is actually a really good one. After seeing my fiancee take to hers (and she's not a Mac user or Apple fan) I have to say that it's almost trivial to learn how to use it.
Rogue and Nethack were great, but Angband refined them into perfection.
It inspired clones, such as Diablo (which started life as a turn-based game, *very* similar to Angband) and still garners many players around the world.
I've sunk more hours into Angband than any other game I've ever had, and best of all - it's free!
While you've at it, you'd better get Steve Jobs on the phone and let him know how to *really* run Apple properly. People around here have known for quite some time how to bring Apple profitability up, and there's been great disappointment that he just keeps getting it wrong. (I think we get a lot of retired CEOs around here.)
It's obvious. Just licence the OS and start clone programs. Or keep cloning dead and create a seperate x86 (or 64-bit Athlon) OS X. Or... don't do that, but buy a big gaming house and start releasing Apple-only games and Half-Life 2. Or release an Office-killer (this time with Excel replacement). Or...
Maybe it's better just to release sub-notebooks and micro-sub-notebooks and chuck in a few nano-notebooks for good measure. They're bound to sell, because some guy on the Internet said he'd buy one, and no doubt he's indicative of all people.
Microsoft has a right to protect its trade secrets, just as Apple does. Even companies like Enron have that right.
The difference is when it's not a trade secret being protected, but a case of corruption, fraud or some other criminal activity.
In that case, Microsoft, Apple, Enron and every other company (or person) has no right to protect that information.
These two cases are easily distinguished, and the Think Secret example is obviously not a case of criminal activity being rightfully exposed, but a case of a company's trade secrets being exposed.
Trying to confabulate the two is an error, and serves to confuse readers.
If this was a story about Microsoft and a website, then we'd see a large number of people damning Microsoft, a smaller number defending them and a bunch of misinformed people apparently making stuff up. Just like we do in this Apple case.
Wow. Games designed primarily to attract certain people.
I bet we'll see anime-style characters, with huge eyes, tiny mouths and weird icons appearing next to them to indicate emotions. Maybe they'll have special moves like flying or fireballs. Who can tell?
But what's next? When we're targeting specific groups with games, why not design games for other groups? How about a game set in the US 'hoods with streetwise urban R&B African Americans vying for top spot on a rap chart. Or maybe target that lucrative Hispanic market with a game based around getting out of Cuba or from South America into the good old US of A.
I can see it now. Commitees set up to determine the makeup of focus groups, who in turn will be asked for all the features they want in a game. And then the designer will collate those features and pump out code and artwork, and hey presto! Another demographic added to the score.
Heaven forfend that a designer might have their own ideas or goals. They are subservient to their masters now - the focus groups, the demographic, the marketing people.
I can't wait to see more gaming ideas put up by marketing people. After all - we all know they have the best ideas, and they'll make the best games.
Your own examples prove my point.
I did note that brevity can be part of art. Perhaps you shoudl re-read my post.
But then you brought out your 'big guns'. eMacs was developed in the 50s. By your argument, this application should have had absolutely no changes since then. No modifications, no updates, no security patches, no alterations to bring it into line with modern operating systems.
But that's not true, is it? The application, possibly perfect when developed, needed updates to run on other computers, in other operating systems. It had to be maintained.
And yet your whole point is that a perfect app needs no maintenance.
Give up. Code is not timeless. The best example you could come up with is fundamentally flawed.
I have to agree with another poster earlier - you're being paid to write code. You should do your job well and write code that can be maintained by another programmer. Doing just the code is not doing the job.
I really can't believe this has been modded so highly.
Saying that it should just work is great, but what does that mean when an OS is being developed, and what happens if it doesn't just work?
What happens if circumstances change and the code needs to be modified to take a new situation into account?
This philosophy ties the programmer to the code for life. That means you don't get promoted, you don't get to work overseas, you don't get much. And if you leave, the code will be replaced eventually, no matter how perfect it was at the time.
Code is not an eternal thing. It is not timeless. If it were, your point would stand.
I suspect there are a lot of developers on Slashdot who like to think they're artists, and that's why your posts are being modded so highly. You may be the best programmer on the face of the planet, but then your error is in assuming that every other programmer is as good as you.
Art, however, can have the ability to stand apart from Time. A great work of literature, music, painting or physical movement can be enjoyed hundreds of years after it was created. Some are not meant to last that long, and their brevity adds to their enjoyment.
Face it. Code is not timeless. All code will require updating or replacing at some future point. You're setting your code up for removal by writing something that only makes sense to yourself.
But there are *very* few great programmers out there. What do the rest of the programming world do?
There's room for great talent in coding, but if the cost is that the code cannot be maintained that talent itself becomes a business risk.
If your boss can't understand your code, that's not really such an issue. But if you tell your boss that you are the only one who can now, or will ever be able to maintain that code, you will see a very different reaction to the one you seem to be expecting.
Coding is not an art. It's a science. No matter how good the code is, it can be taken apart and understood by others. After all - it's written in a known language (unless you roll your own languages just to code an app). It's not in the realms of Picasso, but more in the realm of engineering.
A final thought - there are many, many projects whose complexity makes the most detailed application or operating system look like a kid's crayon drawing. The engineers behind these projects put massive effort into developing them and making sure that everyone involved is crystal clear on what's going on. These sorts of projects rarely (if ever) fail. They're not art, although some approach it. On those sort of projects, a developer who couldn't explain what they were doing would be lethal, and would be sacked immediately.
Mis-type a URL when the new URL goes to a cleverly written piece of Java designed specifically to hack your OS X and you'll be compromised.
Mis-type the other 99.999999% (+/- 0.0000001% error) of URLs and you'll be fine.
Still, you're correct on the bit about Safari not prompting you to run a Java applet. I think you can turn Java off though (not in front of the iBook right now, can't recall). The update fixes a potentially big hole.
Project Gutenburg is on much more shaky ground though, as it depends on national copyright laws. An example is that some works it holds are in breach of some Australian copyright laws while complying with US laws.
Google might be a bit nervous about getting involved with that, as it opens them up to legal challenges (as Proj Gutenburg is).
A big part of a server is also that the drives are rated for high usage. Desktop drives, even the nice 3.5" 7200rpm ones, are generally not rated for constant usage.
Personal serving would be fine. Serving a small workgroup would cause drive failures as you approach the MTBF point with the drive in use well beyond its specced limit.
"If they're so focused on software they should release OS X for the x86."
I see this argument based in two points. * PC hardware is so much cheaper than Mac hardware that users can't afford to buy a Mac to try it * PC users want the operating system (and maybe iLife apps) from Apple because it's so good.
The first point is rebutted nicely by the Mac Mini. Now it's relatively cheap to buy a new Mac. Sure, it's not the most powerful Apple available, but if I wanted to try out something to see if I like it, I wouldn't buy the top of the line and hope that I *really* like it a lot; I'd buy a cheap model and test it.
So Mac hardware isn't that expensive for users wanting to try out the Mac Mini. With resale values being reasonably good, a user could buy a Mac Mini, use it for three months and sell it at a total loss of maybe US$100.
The second point is a 'grass is greener' point. Although I happen to believe that the grass actually is greener on the Mac side, I wonder how users will go when they realise that not a single application they own or use will be available for OS X on x86 for some time.
That's right - even if Apple release OS X for PC hardware tomorrow, you won't be able to run anything with it. There's no software at all for it. Every single app will have to be recompiled to x86 binaries.
Sure, we might have a 'fat' binary like we used to with 680X0/PPC and now do with PPC32/PPC64, but there'd be precious few of them around. Adobe took over a year (from memory) to get Photoshop to OS X. Carbonising was a process a single engineer did in a weekend, but the company waited until they had a full release before they moved.
Over time, apps would be released. Apple would include a full development IDE with the OS to increase uptake. That's all fine, but it doesn't change the fact that it'd be a long wait for commercial software.
And then - why should a company like Adobe release PhotoShop for OS X PPC, OS X x86 and Windows? If a user already has the PC hardware, why code up a new version for the same hardware? Every version costs money to develop and maintain, and what would be the return? The new platform would be a new thing, and it's success would be entirely unknown. Any developer looking to make money from it might conclude that there's no market there. After all - business users already buy the hardware that runs the software they want. Wouldn't the customers of Adobe already be happy with the hardware?
And would Apple put this out for x86, or for AMD64 only? Why worry about an old technology? I suspect they'd just go for 64-bit on the PC and not even try to support 32-bit x86. The PC industry will move from 32-bit to 64-bit completely over the next few years, so why bother supporting technology that is being obseleted (rhymes with 'deleted')?
What about the average users? They're sold on the idea that Windows has everything they need. It's got Office, games, just about anything they want. Why should they buy into OS X on PC hardware? It gives them nothing new. They won't have Office or any games. They'll have Apple's iLife, Mail, Safari and Chess, but what else? Why should non-hobbyists (ie the vast majority) buy this?
I don't know who would buy OS X for PC hardware. I don't know what software developers would sell software for that platform, and I don't know why the average user should switch. I see lots of questions, but no answers. I don't believe this idea will work very well at all.
Finally! Now it'll join such brilliant game to movie adaptations as... * Mario Brothers * Tomb Raider * That fighting one with Raul Julia and Kylie Minogue * Final Fantasy * Mortal Combat * Another Tomb Raider, with the same plot devices
And unless someone puts a plot into this one, it'll suck just like they did.
Is it just that producers see dollar signs everywhere in games, so think they can cash in with minimal work, that the people buying the games are stupid enough to flock to a crap movie just because it ties to the games?
I suspect they forget that games require less plot and character development than movies, as the players themselves supply either or both by the way they play. The result is that Tomb Raider was execrable, Final Fantasy (while having a plot) was dull in the extreme and that in general, games make really bad movies.
The best thing that could be hoped is that the movie would be so action packed with whiz-bang effects that it would distract people from the lack of a plot, pacing or character development so typical of game movies.
I'm not overly hopeful of this one. You can tell, can't you?
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps, but if we penalised stupidity harshly enough to remove people from the gene pool (!) then governments around the world would be decimated.
There'd probably be only a handful of people running the planet.
Of course, being super-intelligent (or at least, not morons) they'd probably work together to ensure a new golden age of peace and prosperity for the planet.
Thanks heavens we live in a civilised world, where even the sub-moronic have the right to breed and populate the world in their image.
My iBook has a 60GB drive (55 'real' GBs) and 23GB of that is music.
I know what you mean, but then if your iPod is stolen you have to go back to a digital copy or re-rip your collection again.
A new iPod is AUS$500, but spending 20-40 hours re-ripping my entire CD collection seems even more expensive to me.
I have the iBook as my primary music source, then my external hard drive as my backup, and finally my fiancee's iPod as a last resort backup. I don't understand using an iPod as the only digital copy you have.
"cure cancer" ?
So... Longhorn will finally kill off Linux?
So how do you search for (example) all images emailed to a family member in the two weeks before Christmas?
Spotlight can do this.
What about Excel files printed in the last week? Spotlight can do this too.
Or dog photos added to Pages documents that were subsequently sent to a friend?
With a little image metadata ("it's a dog") Spotlight can do this as well.
Organisation is great, but it's only giving you one part of the picture. Spotlight also tracks what you've done with those files, allowing you to effectively search your usage history *as well as* the file contents/names/etc.
Have a read of posts by "As Seen on TV". You might need to dip into his recent post history to see what I mean.
He's an Apple software engineer, and gives a good insight into exactly what Spotlight can do.
It's not just searching by content, and it's not just the metadata that we've known for ages.
I'd elaborate, but he's already explained it much better.
Sony have a hard time seeing the present of portable music, let alone the future. That's why they are barely a blip in that market.
If you're going to talk about usability, how does DRM affect the user? I ripped about 200 CDs yesterday for my fiance's new iPod. No DRM. Of course, here in Australia I can't buy from the iTMS, but even if I could, Apple's DRM is the least restrictive.
We don't have the choice between DRM or no DRM with online music. The music industry will never allow that, and after years of online piracy, I have to say that seems fair - people have shown time and again that they'd rather get something for nothing. The industry's been bitten and are responding with DRM to protect their copyrighted music. That's not to say that I believe that their tactics of suing file-sharers are anything but dubious, but they have the right to protect their stuff in the face of rampant piracy.
So given that we are going to have DRM on legally retailed music, what sort of DRM would you like? Apple's model trusts the user more than most.
I'm digressing a bit though.
Moving music *from* a portable device is a bit of an odd thing. I've got the music on my computer already, so why would I want to send it back to my computer? Unless you're talking about backups (better handled by an external HD anyway) or piracy, I can't think of a reason to do this.
As for battery replacements - the thing lasts for about two years! It's a bummer that we can't easily change the batteries ourselves, but that's not a deal-breaker and it's not a usability issue (unless you want to change the batteries every week).
The iPod is where it is for a reason - it's the best mp3 player on the market. It's not just the ads (which many people I know haven't even seen) or marketing, but the device is actually a really good one. After seeing my fiancee take to hers (and she's not a Mac user or Apple fan) I have to say that it's almost trivial to learn how to use it.
Angband!
Rogue and Nethack were great, but Angband refined them into perfection.
It inspired clones, such as Diablo (which started life as a turn-based game, *very* similar to Angband) and still garners many players around the world.
I've sunk more hours into Angband than any other game I've ever had, and best of all - it's free!
While you've at it, you'd better get Steve Jobs on the phone and let him know how to *really* run Apple properly. People around here have known for quite some time how to bring Apple profitability up, and there's been great disappointment that he just keeps getting it wrong. (I think we get a lot of retired CEOs around here.)
It's obvious. Just licence the OS and start clone programs. Or keep cloning dead and create a seperate x86 (or 64-bit Athlon) OS X. Or... don't do that, but buy a big gaming house and start releasing Apple-only games and Half-Life 2. Or release an Office-killer (this time with Excel replacement). Or...
Maybe it's better just to release sub-notebooks and micro-sub-notebooks and chuck in a few nano-notebooks for good measure. They're bound to sell, because some guy on the Internet said he'd buy one, and no doubt he's indicative of all people.
Microsoft has a right to protect its trade secrets, just as Apple does. Even companies like Enron have that right.
The difference is when it's not a trade secret being protected, but a case of corruption, fraud or some other criminal activity.
In that case, Microsoft, Apple, Enron and every other company (or person) has no right to protect that information.
These two cases are easily distinguished, and the Think Secret example is obviously not a case of criminal activity being rightfully exposed, but a case of a company's trade secrets being exposed.
Trying to confabulate the two is an error, and serves to confuse readers.
If this was a story about Microsoft and a website, then we'd see a large number of people damning Microsoft, a smaller number defending them and a bunch of misinformed people apparently making stuff up. Just like we do in this Apple case.
Wow. Games designed primarily to attract certain people.
I bet we'll see anime-style characters, with huge eyes, tiny mouths and weird icons appearing next to them to indicate emotions. Maybe they'll have special moves like flying or fireballs. Who can tell?
But what's next? When we're targeting specific groups with games, why not design games for other groups? How about a game set in the US 'hoods with streetwise urban R&B African Americans vying for top spot on a rap chart. Or maybe target that lucrative Hispanic market with a game based around getting out of Cuba or from South America into the good old US of A.
I can see it now. Commitees set up to determine the makeup of focus groups, who in turn will be asked for all the features they want in a game. And then the designer will collate those features and pump out code and artwork, and hey presto! Another demographic added to the score.
Heaven forfend that a designer might have their own ideas or goals. They are subservient to their masters now - the focus groups, the demographic, the marketing people.
I can't wait to see more gaming ideas put up by marketing people. After all - we all know they have the best ideas, and they'll make the best games.
Remember Poochy from The Simpsons?
Your own examples prove my point. I did note that brevity can be part of art. Perhaps you shoudl re-read my post. But then you brought out your 'big guns'. eMacs was developed in the 50s. By your argument, this application should have had absolutely no changes since then. No modifications, no updates, no security patches, no alterations to bring it into line with modern operating systems. But that's not true, is it? The application, possibly perfect when developed, needed updates to run on other computers, in other operating systems. It had to be maintained. And yet your whole point is that a perfect app needs no maintenance. Give up. Code is not timeless. The best example you could come up with is fundamentally flawed. I have to agree with another poster earlier - you're being paid to write code. You should do your job well and write code that can be maintained by another programmer. Doing just the code is not doing the job.
I really can't believe this has been modded so highly.
Saying that it should just work is great, but what does that mean when an OS is being developed, and what happens if it doesn't just work?
What happens if circumstances change and the code needs to be modified to take a new situation into account?
This philosophy ties the programmer to the code for life. That means you don't get promoted, you don't get to work overseas, you don't get much. And if you leave, the code will be replaced eventually, no matter how perfect it was at the time.
Code is not an eternal thing. It is not timeless. If it were, your point would stand.
I suspect there are a lot of developers on Slashdot who like to think they're artists, and that's why your posts are being modded so highly. You may be the best programmer on the face of the planet, but then your error is in assuming that every other programmer is as good as you.
Art, however, can have the ability to stand apart from Time. A great work of literature, music, painting or physical movement can be enjoyed hundreds of years after it was created. Some are not meant to last that long, and their brevity adds to their enjoyment.
Face it. Code is not timeless. All code will require updating or replacing at some future point. You're setting your code up for removal by writing something that only makes sense to yourself.
Creating fiction is art.
Creating code is not.
You resist.
You confuse the two.
You make logical errors.
You know I'm right.
Your position is no longer defensible.
Coding is not a solitary function unless you are doomed to small projects.
You must yield.
Consider the fish. Meditate upon its nature and discern the link between that nature and your programming.
You must yield.
But there are *very* few great programmers out there. What do the rest of the programming world do?
There's room for great talent in coding, but if the cost is that the code cannot be maintained that talent itself becomes a business risk.
If your boss can't understand your code, that's not really such an issue. But if you tell your boss that you are the only one who can now, or will ever be able to maintain that code, you will see a very different reaction to the one you seem to be expecting.
Coding is not an art. It's a science. No matter how good the code is, it can be taken apart and understood by others. After all - it's written in a known language (unless you roll your own languages just to code an app). It's not in the realms of Picasso, but more in the realm of engineering.
A final thought - there are many, many projects whose complexity makes the most detailed application or operating system look like a kid's crayon drawing. The engineers behind these projects put massive effort into developing them and making sure that everyone involved is crystal clear on what's going on. These sorts of projects rarely (if ever) fail. They're not art, although some approach it. On those sort of projects, a developer who couldn't explain what they were doing would be lethal, and would be sacked immediately.
Unless you run a server, Apache isn't an issue. A security hole should be in something that is actually being used in some manner.
Yes but USB (or USB2) aren't as good for sustained high speed data transfers.
How many dropped frames would you be prepared to suffer in your DV? Or HD-DV?
FireWire is the better high-speed, large-data standard. USB is the better high-speed small-data standard.
... not quite.
Mis-type a URL when the new URL goes to a cleverly written piece of Java designed specifically to hack your OS X and you'll be compromised.
Mis-type the other 99.999999% (+/- 0.0000001% error) of URLs and you'll be fine.
Still, you're correct on the bit about Safari not prompting you to run a Java applet. I think you can turn Java off though (not in front of the iBook right now, can't recall). The update fixes a potentially big hole.
Oooh! But what's the question!
Project Gutenburg is on much more shaky ground though, as it depends on national copyright laws. An example is that some works it holds are in breach of some Australian copyright laws while complying with US laws.
Google might be a bit nervous about getting involved with that, as it opens them up to legal challenges (as Proj Gutenburg is).
"I wonder if my many tweaks to the system files have affected it"
Almost certainly.
You're probably seeing a server update and a user update, or maybe a rolled-up one and a non-rolled-up one.
Why on Earth would you want to screw around with the System files? And what did you do?
A big part of a server is also that the drives are rated for high usage. Desktop drives, even the nice 3.5" 7200rpm ones, are generally not rated for constant usage.
Personal serving would be fine. Serving a small workgroup would cause drive failures as you approach the MTBF point with the drive in use well beyond its specced limit.
What sort of workplace lets you bring your own computer in and connect to the network?
What a bizarre idea!
"If they're so focused on software they should release OS X for the x86."
I see this argument based in two points.
* PC hardware is so much cheaper than Mac hardware that users can't afford to buy a Mac to try it
* PC users want the operating system (and maybe iLife apps) from Apple because it's so good.
The first point is rebutted nicely by the Mac Mini. Now it's relatively cheap to buy a new Mac. Sure, it's not the most powerful Apple available, but if I wanted to try out something to see if I like it, I wouldn't buy the top of the line and hope that I *really* like it a lot; I'd buy a cheap model and test it.
So Mac hardware isn't that expensive for users wanting to try out the Mac Mini. With resale values being reasonably good, a user could buy a Mac Mini, use it for three months and sell it at a total loss of maybe US$100.
The second point is a 'grass is greener' point. Although I happen to believe that the grass actually is greener on the Mac side, I wonder how users will go when they realise that not a single application they own or use will be available for OS X on x86 for some time.
That's right - even if Apple release OS X for PC hardware tomorrow, you won't be able to run anything with it. There's no software at all for it. Every single app will have to be recompiled to x86 binaries.
Sure, we might have a 'fat' binary like we used to with 680X0/PPC and now do with PPC32/PPC64, but there'd be precious few of them around. Adobe took over a year (from memory) to get Photoshop to OS X. Carbonising was a process a single engineer did in a weekend, but the company waited until they had a full release before they moved.
Over time, apps would be released. Apple would include a full development IDE with the OS to increase uptake. That's all fine, but it doesn't change the fact that it'd be a long wait for commercial software.
And then - why should a company like Adobe release PhotoShop for OS X PPC, OS X x86 and Windows? If a user already has the PC hardware, why code up a new version for the same hardware? Every version costs money to develop and maintain, and what would be the return? The new platform would be a new thing, and it's success would be entirely unknown. Any developer looking to make money from it might conclude that there's no market there. After all - business users already buy the hardware that runs the software they want. Wouldn't the customers of Adobe already be happy with the hardware?
And would Apple put this out for x86, or for AMD64 only? Why worry about an old technology? I suspect they'd just go for 64-bit on the PC and not even try to support 32-bit x86. The PC industry will move from 32-bit to 64-bit completely over the next few years, so why bother supporting technology that is being obseleted (rhymes with 'deleted')?
What about the average users? They're sold on the idea that Windows has everything they need. It's got Office, games, just about anything they want. Why should they buy into OS X on PC hardware? It gives them nothing new. They won't have Office or any games. They'll have Apple's iLife, Mail, Safari and Chess, but what else? Why should non-hobbyists (ie the vast majority) buy this?
I don't know who would buy OS X for PC hardware. I don't know what software developers would sell software for that platform, and I don't know why the average user should switch. I see lots of questions, but no answers. I don't believe this idea will work very well at all.
Finally! Now it'll join such brilliant game to movie adaptations as...
* Mario Brothers
* Tomb Raider
* That fighting one with Raul Julia and Kylie Minogue
* Final Fantasy
* Mortal Combat
* Another Tomb Raider, with the same plot devices
And unless someone puts a plot into this one, it'll suck just like they did.
Is it just that producers see dollar signs everywhere in games, so think they can cash in with minimal work, that the people buying the games are stupid enough to flock to a crap movie just because it ties to the games?
I suspect they forget that games require less plot and character development than movies, as the players themselves supply either or both by the way they play. The result is that Tomb Raider was execrable, Final Fantasy (while having a plot) was dull in the extreme and that in general, games make really bad movies.
The best thing that could be hoped is that the movie would be so action packed with whiz-bang effects that it would distract people from the lack of a plot, pacing or character development so typical of game movies.
I'm not overly hopeful of this one. You can tell, can't you?
Sorry about the formatting...
I'll stick to plain old text from now on.