Yes, but the Matias Tactile Pro suffers from other issues, IMHO.
I bought one a while back, thinking it was the perfect solution for my Mac. (The clear plastic with white keys complimented my Mac really well, and the key-caps were labeled with Mac-specific information too.)
But the letters started wearing off of mine, after only 2-3 months of use. After "A" was all gone and the top part of "S" was coming off, I did a warranty exchange for another one. (Matias tech. support claimed they had a bad production run of some keyboards where this happened.) The replacement did the same thing. This time, Matias sent me a 3rd. replacement without even asking for the old one back (which was good!), but a plastic "foot" on the 3rd. one snapped off after a couple months, so I was unable to raise the keyboard up at an angle to type comfortably on it. I tried opening it to clean some grit out of it too, and the clear plastic case developed several small cracks from snapping it apart.
My conclusion was, the Tactile Pro *would* have been my ideal Mac keyboard, but it needed a better quality of case construction and better QC for the keycap printing process.
Home-grown talent that cheated their way into jobs either A) gets frustrated by their poor performance reviews and inability to succeed in their chosen field, and gets out, or B) actually learns to be competent over time (at the expense of whoever the sucker was who employed them first).
I saw a lot of both A and B over the years, even with a few buddies of mine.
EG. I once knew a guy who was pretty much your stereotypical "happy, go lucky, wanna-be beach bum" type. He got into I.T. as an entry-level coder using relatively high-level programming tools like "Powerbuilder". All he really did was minor code maintenance (such as, "Please change things so the clock time is displayed here, instead of here, on our screens"). He wound up scoring a support job at Oracle, earning at least 3x his former pay, with no real Oracle experience, all because he crash-course studied the thing for like 2 weeks after finding out he had an interview scheduled. Only REAL reason he wanted that job? He got to re-locate to Colorado, where he wanted to ski really badly. But his friendly personality and willingness to "cram" to know "just enough" to get by in a given situation got him through.....
Heh... that's true for you, obviously. But I wouldn't try to apply that reasoning to everyone, unless you want to come off as arrogant and unyielding in a belief that your personal experiences should be shared by ALL comers.
I started out learning to program years ago, writing my own computer bulletin board system in BASIC. I actually sold a few copies of the resulting product, and enjoyed maintaining it for several years after that.
But technology constantly changes, and before long, nobody was coding anything useful in BASIC anymore. Meanwhile, I got further and further into the enjoyment of actually *using* the software made by others.
No man is an island, as they say... and I quickly discovered that OTHER people had FAR better ideas in their software than I would have ever though to code on my own, if I was writing a given app myself.
I went back and tried to learn C programming in college, and HATED it. I got slightly past coding the "Hello World" stuff, and got a headache trying to keep all the logic straight with recursion, pointers to variables, etc. etc.
These days, I enjoy troubleshooting computer hardware, doing network support and administration, and finding software packages that are a "best solution" to someone's problem. I don't want to code another line, if I can help it - yet I don't think that's "pathetic" at all.
There's some sort of "balance" you have to strike when it comes to adjusting minimum wage.
If you let it get too low, everyone else in the country gets a "pay cut", in the form of paying for more welfare programs and tax cheating.
(You might be surprised how many low-income families just manage to survive, using a combination of 2 people earning near min. wage pay, claiming childcare tax deductions of people who aren't really their own kids, and collecting all the welfare benefits possible to claim.)
It seems to me that Stephen Hawking's contribution really catapulted him into pop-culture. He's been drawn in a number of cartoon TV shows, including Family Guy and I believe The Simpsons. (He had a cartoon role in a Dilbert TV cartoon as well, but of course, that's far less mainstream.)
First off, the dry-cleaners I've been to always returned my clothing on steel hangers wrapped in paper with their info printed on them. Therefore, the hanger served as advertising material, as well as a supposed convenience for the customer.
Second, if you're the one throwing away metal hangers all the time, it seems like YOU are the one being environmentally irresponsible... not the dry-cleaning business! I'm fine with them offering a discount for taking clothing back without the hanger. Just makes sense to give people more options when you can. But really, I see people throwing away the wire hangers while buying MORE of the plastic colored ones. (2 of my ex-g/f's did that constantly.) What's with that?? The plastic ones just break after a while, and it's getting difficult to find good, wire ones unless you're saving them up from places like the cleaners.
Next time you lock your keys in your car, you might be thankful someone gave you a wire hanger, too.
As we've seen with our telecommunications infrastructure here in America, other nations can easily leapfrog over our entrenched systems, reaping the benefits of not being "first" with something.
Just because China openly says they have a goal of raising their nation's standards to the same as what's enjoyed in the U.S. doesn't mean they have to follow our same path to get there. They'd be foolish to use oil and gasoline the way we do here.
It will take us decades to transition away from petroleum-based energy here, because so much is invested already in machinery and power plants that use it.
Well, see... the first paragraph of your reply is pretty much in agreement with what I was saying. People aquiring random possessions that don't even wind up getting much use or making them happy is just "hoarding", and taken to extremes, we classify it as a mental disorder. My point was simply that having material things is not inherently "bad", "wrong", or undesireable.
As for the last part of what you wrote, I ageee it is interesting how people can come away with two completely different interpretations of the same behaviors. I still maintain that carefully chosen possessions do nothing but ADD to one's "interesting experiences" in life. Again, looking back to my first interest in musical instruments... my friends all purchased electric guitars and either taught themselves to play, or took some music lessons. Although I hung out with them regularly and was considered a "best friend" of theirs, I felt like I was missing out - all because I didn't own an instrument, and so couldn't participate in that interest of theirs. When I finally bought one of their used ones, a whole new world of experiences suddenly opened up. I wound up learning enough from them to get started, practiced a bit on my own, and eventually got to play rhythm guitar in a band they put together. Some of my fondest memories were from us playing out at clubs around town on weekends - even though it made me practically no money.
It's not that "studying computers will get you further" than a good handle on a basic, "blue collar" job. I'm living proof that it won't.
The big benefit I see for something like a career in computers is, you won't tear up your body earning your living. The extra money you might make doing construction work or what-not won't mean much if you're stuck with big medical bills for, say, skin cancer from being outdoors in the sun for long hours, day after day. Even if nothing nearly that "extreme" ever happens to you, you still have to come home with an aching body on a regular basis, and are likely to develop bad knees and other ailments as the years go by.
Plus, for SOME people, there's need to keep the mind agile and constantly solving problems. Blue collar jobs don't give your brain a whole lot of opportunities for this.
I often hear people complain about how "materialistic" we've all become, and how much happier we're supposed to be if we learn to reject some of this.
Isn't that the same promise the Catholic religion has been hawking for the last 2,000 years or so?
No, your possessions don't literally equate to your "life"... but at the same time, I think they can (even SHOULD) help define a person. Looking at myself, I realize that my purchases directly reflect the things I enjoy doing in life. For example, I own several computer systems. Well, that's been my main "hobby interest" for close to 20 years now, and it led me to my career choice. Computers are the key to what makes me a "productive citizen", earning a regular paycheck. I also have a decent-sized music collection, and even some musical instruments (electric guitar, synthesizer, etc.). Sure, they're not necessities in life, but they're enjoyable distractions for me, and reflect on my interest in music in general.
The people who worry me the MOST are the ones who don't seem to have any clear "hobbies" or interests that involve ownership of property! I've had friends like this, who seem like they're wandering aimlessly through life - spending their money on "intangible entertainment" like movie tickets, amusement park passes or sporting events. Ultimately, they have little to show for the work they do.
The scary thing is, there are already employers in the USA who do a similar thing! I was just reading about an insurance company in the U.S. that started requiring regular health checkups, and penalizing people who were overweight.
The general attitude of the employees seemed to be surprisingly accepting of the whole thing, too. There were comments along the lines of, "Well, it's probably a good thing. It gives me the motivation I needed to watch my weight."
Granted, this is far different than it being instituted as policy on a national level... but it's a leap that could be taken in one big stride, if the majority of Americans become that complacent and willing to let go of their individual freedom. (Your own BODY SIZE/SHAPE seems like an awfully personal thing to let OTHERS dictate for you!)
Honestly, I think a lot of women go back and forth on what they "want" out of relationships. If they just got out of a long relationship with a stereotypical "bad boy", there's a good chance the next thing they want is a "nice, sweet" type of guy. But once they DO find him, I give it 6-12 months, tops, before it's over. Why? Because after she gets bored with having something "totally different" than the last guy she was still mad at, the old desires creep back in.
Women with an interest in the "bad" types of guys typically like those relationships partially because deep down, they don't like having to make many decisions. It's more "comfortable" for them to be with a real assertive guy who says "Hey, we're going HERE tonight!" instead of the "nice" guy who is really concerned she might not like the place he was initially thinking of going out to dinner, or truly has an "I don't care... I enjoy doing pretty much ANYTHING with you, baby!" attitude.
Of course, if you make all the decisions and she consistently dislikes them, then you get labeled the "asshole" too. So the successful "bad boy" also has to pull off the ability to REALLY show her a good time, while he's making all those entertainment choices for her.
I'd tend to agree with you, if we were talking about adults trying to take care of their families. Surely, there are at least SOME desperate people out there who feel like govt. has caused much of their financial hardship in recent years - and they have to "step things up a notch" to get back out of the hole they've fallen into.
But we're talking about a high-school student here. His biggest responsibility in life is probably his schooling, and *earning* his grades. I think it's a stretch to claim his cheating via computer hacking was motivated by post 9-11 events. Rather, it's the simple desire to find short-cuts to "get ahead by any means possible".
I agree with the people who say he probably "learned something" with his hacking efforts. I also agree that they're brining a lot of "trumped up" charges against him here. (Conspiracy charges? Uh, right..... His scheme SURELY was really all about undermining our government to overthrow it with his fake A in math!)
Nonetheless, they can't just let this go with a "slap on the wrist" either. Too many students spent a whole year of their lives working to earn those letter grades the right way.
Maybe old habits just die hard or something, but I never really took to using RSS on my home computers or notebook. I've always felt like if I have time to read the content, I have the time to view the actual web site and view it the way it was intended to be viewed.
Where I do like RSS is on my jailbroken iPhone, where I use a freeware RSS feed manager program. It came pretty much pre-configured to view feeds from Digg and Engaget, so I read those on there. (Limited bandwidth and the small screen size make it a lot more practical to view a lightweight version of news and information.)
Honestly, the IBM (now Lenovo) Thinkpads are probably one of the few models of laptops that *may* make a little sense to "refurbish", to get more life out of them.
Their utilitarian, black plastic cases tend to take more abuse than most before really looking "worn out" or "old". (No fancy silver paint to flake off, or aluminum shells to get dents or real obvious scratches in them, etc.) I've also noticed that batteries for most of them can be had for less money than many other brands.
At the same time, much of their userbase tends to be people not interested in flashy "extras". They just need a reliable "not too thin/breakable" portable to connect to the Internet with, edit documents, and other such basics.
But even given all of THAT, I'd question the point to the whole thing. I mean, do we need this article to tell us the common sense that "Hey, if you upgrade your system's hard drive and RAM, it'll run as much as 30% faster!" ??
Yeah, that's been true for pretty much every computer, laptop or desktop, throughout history... and it's often a good idea to do during the *viable life* of the system (first 1-3 years of use). After that, the cost/benefits tilt towards just buying a whole new machine, if you're feeling the need to spend ANY more money on the one you've got.
Essentially, you're correct, but I think the motivation is closer to what another previous poster stated. China is trying to ensure they're in the best possible position, if they're going to be pushed "up against the wall" by other nations like the U.S.A. to enforce copyright law.
In countries like ours, sure, most people "pirate" a few things here and there without a lot of guilt. But if you asked the average American citizen if doing so was "wrong" or not, they'd TYPICALLY categorize it as "wrong" - with some sort of justification for doing it anyway. (EG. Well, it's not really "right".... but I did buy 10 movies already this year, so they got enough of my money. Or, "It's illegal, but that damn recording industry keeps screwing over the artists - so this is my way of getting back at them!")
I really don't think Asian cultures (Chinese, Vietnamese, etc.) think this way. They really feel that "If you're able to get a copy, then you can have a copy." As just one example, my g/f went to get her nails done recently at a Vietnamese salon. The newly released in theaters, "Iron Man", was showing on the TV for their customers to watch while they got their nails done!
How does one prove that a particular statement "lowered the opinion of the other person"? Do you take a poll, in the general public, to see what effect the statement had (if any)?
Do you simply ask the *judge* if his/her personal opinion of the individual was lowered in his/her eyes?
It seems to me that Anarcho-capitalism would be *unlikely* to reach the point you speak of (where a corporation or group thereof becomes large enough to collude or become a de-facto state).
The nature of free-market capitalism works to prevent any one company from growing to these extremes. Almost all the cases you could point to in today's reality where companies have grown to anywhere NEAR this size can be traced directly to govt. regulations giving them an unfair advantage during their prime period of growth.
(EG. One could point to, say, AT&T - but they'd be looking at an industry that had govt. monopoly status for decades, while they built their infrastructure of copper wire. Sure, we "broke them up" - but that was more of a gesture than reality, because all the pieces still profited immensely from that infrastructure they built under monopoly status. All they've done now is re-assembled those powerful pieces back into a whole again.)
Without any regulation or govt. intervention, it just doesn't make a lot of logical sense that one and only one company could become SO good at delivering a service or making their product(s) that NOBODY else would even try to compete, and take some of that revenue for themselves!
I agree Ford is pretty stupid most of the time, but I'll also say this: I owned a Ranger truck, and the things weren't all that practical, really. The ones everybody got interested in were near base-models, priced around $10-14K, new. (At that price point, people like myself bought one - simply because an economy car was priced about the same anyway. A truck seemed more versatile than some Dodge Neon or Chevy Cavalier or what-not.)
The *problem* is, when you started upgrading a Ranger with options like the "extended bed" or "extended cab", all of a sudden, the thing jumped up in price to where you could go with a basic F-150 for about the same (or less!) money.
The basic Ranger limits you to, essentially, a 2-seater vehicle with a bed that's too short to haul most building materials without them hanging way out the back of it. The places I usually saw them used were for jobs like couriering around auto-parts. (Frankly, this could have been done just as well with a regular old CAR, assuming it was a hatchback with fold-down rear seats.)
My 4-cylinder 1999 Ranger got about 22MPG, too. Not that great, when you consider its limitations.
I don't get complaints like yours. Seriously, if Apple is doing you *such* a disservice by not providing 100% full support for your 3+ year old Mac purchases, why are you with them in the first place? What alternatives do you have in mind that will do so much "better" for you?
Apple is like any other industry leader. They keep moving FORWARD with new things, which means obsoleting the old. (Take, for just one example, Canon and their "Digital Rebel" line of cameras. Pro photographers everywhere use and rely on these products, yet you can spend thousands on a high-end Rebel, only to find it's out of production and considered "obsolete" in the industry within just 2 or 3 years.)
So what? Your options are simply; A. Keep using what you've invested in, since it should still do today exactly what it was doing for you yesterday, or B. Sell off your equipment for fair market value, and spend the difference to upgrade to the latest and greatest thing.
I think it's been pretty clear ALL ALONG that Apple is primarily focused on markets other than enterprise business sales. They have certain "niches" they go pretty deep into, like video editing and production, music editing and production, or desktop publishing -- but by and large, they're interested in making the best PERSONAL COMPUTER experience. Even as far back as the Mac + and SE days, they were far more worried about the educational market than enterprise business sales.
Besides, if you're in a line of work that can cost-justify maxxing a Mac Pro's memory out, hard disk space out, adding a costly hardware RAID controller to it, etc. etc. -- you really SHOULD be doing some kind of work with it that has a big payback?? If you can't justify your return on investment with a full 3 years of use of that Mac Pro configuration, maybe you simply over-bought?
From what I gathered over on Ars Technica, OS X 10.6 is *not* supposed to really do much as far as "new features" go.
Rather, it sounds like it's aimed as a performance-boosting alternative to 10.5 for people using Intel-based Macs, who can take advantage of it.
Users of PPC Macs will (theoretically) be able to continue using 10.5 Leopard and not really see any visual or functional differences between it and 10.6.
If true, this seems like very smart marketing on Apple's part. This way, they can help nudge people to upgrade to newer Intel-based Macs, while not prematurely making PPC owners feel like they're losing out on anything. (By the time a 10.7 release comes along, anyone *still* on PPC architecture will have had enough time using it so they won't feel too "ripped off", having to upgrade to run OS X with the latest new features again.)
At this point, I think Ron Paul's book might be the best thing he's been able to offer America. I still drive around with my "Ron Paul for President" bumper sticker -- but we all know that's just a gesture at this point in time.
I don't expect America under Obama to accomplish a whole lot. As I've said before though, I'm at the point where I'd vote for him simply to break up the "dynasty" of Bush/Clinton we've had in power for the last 20 years or so. (There's no way I'd accept *another* 4-8 years of a Clinton in office, and McCain? Well, he's too close to a Bush copy-cat - even if he's not from the same family.)
I see Obama further screwing up our health-care system, with some sort of flawed "socialized medicine" initiative. I also seeing him putting an end to the war in Iraq, though, and possibly improving our foreign relations across the board. There's a good chance we'll see some economic improvement in the short-term, just because consumer confidence will increase - knowing there's a "change of guard" in the presidency. But longer-term, he'll probably try to raise a lot of taxes for programs he perceives we all "need", like most Democrats.
It's interesting how everyone seems to have their favorite "pet" cellular provider, that they swear up and down is FAR better than the competition.
I'm honestly convinced that MUCH of this is just "voodoo" - caused by complex interactions among multiple factors. (EG. You have the right make and model of phone, happen to live and work in the right places that are close to a certain carrier's towers, and/or haven't had any billing hassles with your present carrier.)
I believed all the "hype" and claims of various "review" web sites and magazines, and stuck with Verizon for years. Their service was what I'd call "decent", although I had my share of dropped calls and calls that had cross-talk on them, requiring I hang up and redial. I also paid through the nose though. For a while, I was really heavily using my phone during "peak" hours, and kept getting nailed with overage charges. Verizon flat out refused to offer me a plan with enough monthly minutes in it to solve my problem!
I finally decided I had enough, and tried switching to US Cellular. With all incoming calls free, I saved a *bundle*, and the Moto Razr phone I got with the service worked quite well for me. (I saw tons of complaints about these phones, but the one I had was flawless for over a year and a half. I finally had the battery wear out once, but that was about it.) Furthermore, I had *no* dropped calls, EVER. I don't believe I ever got a "bad line" with other conversations bleeding over on my call either.
Now, because I wanted the iPhone when it came out, I'm with AT&T. My experience is, they drop a lot of calls on me in certain areas, but the data plan with the iPhone package is FAR more generous than anything the other carriers ever offered me before. It'll be interesting to see if the 2nd. gen. iPhone keeps calls connected any better. (I'm still unsure if my poor signal issues are REALLY all AT&T's fault, or if it's partially due to the iPhone's design with the metal casing and so on.)
This may be an "unpopular" stance, but at least hear me out. I'm not even sure the banning of possession of images of real children is "as it should be"?
The real *crime* involved in the whole "child porn" thing is the potential of adults forcing themselves on under-age kids who aren't capable of fully understanding the consequences of the actions (or who are, but had these acts done to them against their wishes).
Mere possession of photographs, while surely "supportive evidence" in building a case against someone, doesn't necessarily strike me as criminal, in and of itself? I know, at least here in the USA, it currently IS considered criminal. I just question the logic.
The only "criminal" part I can see for this activity is the actual photographing of the child taking place. And even here, it should be subject to intent and permission. (EG. If I take a picture of my own kids playing, naked, in the bath-tub - it's a perfectly innocent act, presumably done because I thought it was a "cute" photo they'd like to see and laugh about when they get older.)
On the other hand, someone photographing every kid he/she can trick into getting naked for their camera, would pretty clearly be in the wrong. (If nothing else, they certainly didn't have the permission of the parents or legal guardians of those kids to take their pictures -- and you'd assume they'd need that.)
I'd actually have to argue that Windows '98, 2nd. edition was Microsoft's real "high point" - though I get the reasoning behind picking '95. (It was such a big jump from the look and feel, plus functionality of Windows 3.x.)
My experience with Windows '95 was that it tended to "self destruct" due to memory leaks and poor design choices for the internal "stack" it kept. It was pretty typical that a monthly reboot for Win '95 was required, if you didn't want it to progressively get unstable and sluggish.
It seemed like by the '98SE version, they'd hammered out a ton of those types of glitches and bugs. It wasn't perfect, but was probably about as close as they could get on that basic foundation.
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Yes, but the Matias Tactile Pro suffers from other issues, IMHO.
I bought one a while back, thinking it was the perfect solution for my Mac. (The clear plastic with white keys complimented my Mac really well, and the key-caps were labeled with Mac-specific information too.)
But the letters started wearing off of mine, after only 2-3 months of use. After "A" was all gone and the top part of "S" was coming off, I did a warranty exchange for another one. (Matias tech. support claimed they had a bad production run of some keyboards where this happened.) The replacement did the same thing. This time, Matias sent me a 3rd. replacement without even asking for the old one back (which was good!), but a plastic "foot" on the 3rd. one snapped off after a couple months, so I was unable to raise the keyboard up at an angle to type comfortably on it. I tried opening it to clean some grit out of it too, and the clear plastic case developed several small cracks from snapping it apart.
My conclusion was, the Tactile Pro *would* have been my ideal Mac keyboard, but it needed a better quality of case construction and better QC for the keycap printing process.
Home-grown talent that cheated their way into jobs either A) gets frustrated by their poor performance reviews and inability to succeed in their chosen field, and gets out, or B) actually learns to be competent over time (at the expense of whoever the sucker was who employed them first).
I saw a lot of both A and B over the years, even with a few buddies of mine.
EG. I once knew a guy who was pretty much your stereotypical "happy, go lucky, wanna-be beach bum" type. He got into I.T. as an entry-level coder using relatively high-level programming tools like "Powerbuilder". All he really did was minor code maintenance (such as, "Please change things so the clock time is displayed here, instead of here, on our screens"). He wound up scoring a support job at Oracle, earning at least 3x his former pay, with no real Oracle experience, all because he crash-course studied the thing for like 2 weeks after finding out he had an interview scheduled. Only REAL reason he wanted that job? He got to re-locate to Colorado, where he wanted to ski really badly. But his friendly personality and willingness to "cram" to know "just enough" to get by in a given situation got him through.....
Heh... that's true for you, obviously. But I wouldn't try to apply that reasoning to everyone, unless you want to come off as arrogant and unyielding in a belief that your personal experiences should be shared by ALL comers.
I started out learning to program years ago, writing my own computer bulletin board system in BASIC. I actually sold a few copies of the resulting product, and enjoyed maintaining it for several years after that.
But technology constantly changes, and before long, nobody was coding anything useful in BASIC anymore. Meanwhile, I got further and further into the enjoyment of actually *using* the software made by others.
No man is an island, as they say ... and I quickly discovered that OTHER people had FAR better ideas in their software than I would have ever though to code on my own, if I was writing a given app myself.
I went back and tried to learn C programming in college, and HATED it. I got slightly past coding the "Hello World" stuff, and got a headache trying to keep all the logic straight with recursion, pointers to variables, etc. etc.
These days, I enjoy troubleshooting computer hardware, doing network support and administration, and finding software packages that are a "best solution" to someone's problem. I don't want to code another line, if I can help it - yet I don't think that's "pathetic" at all.
There's some sort of "balance" you have to strike when it comes to adjusting minimum wage.
If you let it get too low, everyone else in the country gets a "pay cut", in the form of paying for more welfare programs and tax cheating.
(You might be surprised how many low-income families just manage to survive, using a combination of 2 people earning near min. wage pay, claiming childcare tax deductions of people who aren't really their own kids, and collecting all the welfare benefits possible to claim.)
It seems to me that Stephen Hawking's contribution really catapulted him into pop-culture. He's been drawn in a number of cartoon TV shows, including Family Guy and I believe The Simpsons. (He had a cartoon role in a Dilbert TV cartoon as well, but of course, that's far less mainstream.)
A few things...
First off, the dry-cleaners I've been to always returned my clothing on steel hangers wrapped in paper with their info printed on them. Therefore, the hanger served as advertising material, as well as a supposed convenience for the customer.
Second, if you're the one throwing away metal hangers all the time, it seems like YOU are the one being environmentally irresponsible ... not the dry-cleaning business! I'm fine with them offering a discount for taking clothing back without the hanger. Just makes sense to give people more options when you can. But really, I see people throwing away the wire hangers while buying MORE of the plastic colored ones. (2 of my ex-g/f's did that constantly.) What's with that?? The plastic ones just break after a while, and it's getting difficult to find good, wire ones unless you're saving them up from places like the cleaners.
Next time you lock your keys in your car, you might be thankful someone gave you a wire hanger, too.
As we've seen with our telecommunications infrastructure here in America, other nations can easily leapfrog over our entrenched systems, reaping the benefits of not being "first" with something.
Just because China openly says they have a goal of raising their nation's standards to the same as what's enjoyed in the U.S. doesn't mean they have to follow our same path to get there. They'd be foolish to use oil and gasoline the way we do here.
It will take us decades to transition away from petroleum-based energy here, because so much is invested already in machinery and power plants that use it.
Well, see... the first paragraph of your reply is pretty much in agreement with what I was saying. People aquiring random possessions that don't even wind up getting much use or making them happy is just "hoarding", and taken to extremes, we classify it as a mental disorder. My point was simply that having material things is not inherently "bad", "wrong", or undesireable.
As for the last part of what you wrote, I ageee it is interesting how people can come away with two completely different interpretations of the same behaviors. I still maintain that carefully chosen possessions do nothing but ADD to one's "interesting experiences" in life. Again, looking back to my first interest in musical instruments ... my friends all purchased electric guitars and either taught themselves to play, or took some music lessons. Although I hung out with them regularly and was considered a "best friend" of theirs, I felt like I was missing out - all because I didn't own an instrument, and so couldn't participate in that interest of theirs. When I finally bought one of their used ones, a whole new world of experiences suddenly opened up. I wound up learning enough from them to get started, practiced a bit on my own, and eventually got to play rhythm guitar in a band they put together. Some of my fondest memories were from us playing out at clubs around town on weekends - even though it made me practically no money.
It's not that "studying computers will get you further" than a good handle on a basic, "blue collar" job. I'm living proof that it won't.
The big benefit I see for something like a career in computers is, you won't tear up your body earning your living. The extra money you might make doing construction work or what-not won't mean much if you're stuck with big medical bills for, say, skin cancer from being outdoors in the sun for long hours, day after day. Even if nothing nearly that "extreme" ever happens to you, you still have to come home with an aching body on a regular basis, and are likely to develop bad knees and other ailments as the years go by.
Plus, for SOME people, there's need to keep the mind agile and constantly solving problems. Blue collar jobs don't give your brain a whole lot of opportunities for this.
I often hear people complain about how "materialistic" we've all become, and how much happier we're supposed to be if we learn to reject some of this.
Isn't that the same promise the Catholic religion has been hawking for the last 2,000 years or so?
No, your possessions don't literally equate to your "life" ... but at the same time, I think they can (even SHOULD) help define a person. Looking at myself, I realize that my purchases directly reflect the things I enjoy doing in life. For example, I own several computer systems. Well, that's been my main "hobby interest" for close to 20 years now, and it led me to my career choice. Computers are the key to what makes me a "productive citizen", earning a regular paycheck. I also have a decent-sized music collection, and even some musical instruments (electric guitar, synthesizer, etc.). Sure, they're not necessities in life, but they're enjoyable distractions for me, and reflect on my interest in music in general.
The people who worry me the MOST are the ones who don't seem to have any clear "hobbies" or interests that involve ownership of property! I've had friends like this, who seem like they're wandering aimlessly through life - spending their money on "intangible entertainment" like movie tickets, amusement park passes or sporting events. Ultimately, they have little to show for the work they do.
The scary thing is, there are already employers in the USA who do a similar thing! I was just reading about an insurance company in the U.S. that started requiring regular health checkups, and penalizing people who were overweight.
The general attitude of the employees seemed to be surprisingly accepting of the whole thing, too. There were comments along the lines of, "Well, it's probably a good thing. It gives me the motivation I needed to watch my weight."
Granted, this is far different than it being instituted as policy on a national level ... but it's a leap that could be taken in one big stride, if the majority of Americans become that complacent and willing to let go of their individual freedom. (Your own BODY SIZE/SHAPE seems like an awfully personal thing to let OTHERS dictate for you!)
Honestly, I think a lot of women go back and forth on what they "want" out of relationships. If they just got out of a long relationship with a stereotypical "bad boy", there's a good chance the next thing they want is a "nice, sweet" type of guy. But once they DO find him, I give it 6-12 months, tops, before it's over. Why? Because after she gets bored with having something "totally different" than the last guy she was still mad at, the old desires creep back in.
Women with an interest in the "bad" types of guys typically like those relationships partially because deep down, they don't like having to make many decisions. It's more "comfortable" for them to be with a real assertive guy who says "Hey, we're going HERE tonight!" instead of the "nice" guy who is really concerned she might not like the place he was initially thinking of going out to dinner, or truly has an "I don't care... I enjoy doing pretty much ANYTHING with you, baby!" attitude.
Of course, if you make all the decisions and she consistently dislikes them, then you get labeled the "asshole" too. So the successful "bad boy" also has to pull off the ability to REALLY show her a good time, while he's making all those entertainment choices for her.
I'd tend to agree with you, if we were talking about adults trying to take care of their families. Surely, there are at least SOME desperate people out there who feel like govt. has caused much of their financial hardship in recent years - and they have to "step things up a notch" to get back out of the hole they've fallen into.
But we're talking about a high-school student here. His biggest responsibility in life is probably his schooling, and *earning* his grades. I think it's a stretch to claim his cheating via computer hacking was motivated by post 9-11 events. Rather, it's the simple desire to find short-cuts to "get ahead by any means possible".
I agree with the people who say he probably "learned something" with his hacking efforts. I also agree that they're brining a lot of "trumped up" charges against him here. (Conspiracy charges? Uh, right..... His scheme SURELY was really all about undermining our government to overthrow it with his fake A in math!)
Nonetheless, they can't just let this go with a "slap on the wrist" either. Too many students spent a whole year of their lives working to earn those letter grades the right way.
Maybe old habits just die hard or something, but I never really took to using RSS on my home computers or notebook. I've always felt like if I have time to read the content, I have the time to view the actual web site and view it the way it was intended to be viewed.
Where I do like RSS is on my jailbroken iPhone, where I use a freeware RSS feed manager program. It came pretty much pre-configured to view feeds from Digg and Engaget, so I read those on there. (Limited bandwidth and the small screen size make it a lot more practical to view a lightweight version of news and information.)
Honestly, the IBM (now Lenovo) Thinkpads are probably one of the few models of laptops that *may* make a little sense to "refurbish", to get more life out of them.
Their utilitarian, black plastic cases tend to take more abuse than most before really looking "worn out" or "old". (No fancy silver paint to flake off, or aluminum shells to get dents or real obvious scratches in them, etc.) I've also noticed that batteries for most of them can be had for less money than many other brands.
At the same time, much of their userbase tends to be people not interested in flashy "extras". They just need a reliable "not too thin/breakable" portable to connect to the Internet with, edit documents, and other such basics.
But even given all of THAT, I'd question the point to the whole thing. I mean, do we need this article to tell us the common sense that "Hey, if you upgrade your system's hard drive and RAM, it'll run as much as 30% faster!" ??
Yeah, that's been true for pretty much every computer, laptop or desktop, throughout history... and it's often a good idea to do during the *viable life* of the system (first 1-3 years of use). After that, the cost/benefits tilt towards just buying a whole new machine, if you're feeling the need to spend ANY more money on the one you've got.
Essentially, you're correct, but I think the motivation is closer to what another previous poster stated. China is trying to ensure they're in the best possible position, if they're going to be pushed "up against the wall" by other nations like the U.S.A. to enforce copyright law.
In countries like ours, sure, most people "pirate" a few things here and there without a lot of guilt. But if you asked the average American citizen if doing so was "wrong" or not, they'd TYPICALLY categorize it as "wrong" - with some sort of justification for doing it anyway. (EG. Well, it's not really "right".... but I did buy 10 movies already this year, so they got enough of my money. Or, "It's illegal, but that damn recording industry keeps screwing over the artists - so this is my way of getting back at them!")
I really don't think Asian cultures (Chinese, Vietnamese, etc.) think this way. They really feel that "If you're able to get a copy, then you can have a copy." As just one example, my g/f went to get her nails done recently at a Vietnamese salon. The newly released in theaters, "Iron Man", was showing on the TV for their customers to watch while they got their nails done!
How does one prove that a particular statement "lowered the opinion of the other person"? Do you take a poll, in the general public, to see what effect the statement had (if any)?
Do you simply ask the *judge* if his/her personal opinion of the individual was lowered in his/her eyes?
It seems to me that Anarcho-capitalism would be *unlikely* to reach the point you speak of (where a corporation or group thereof becomes large enough to collude or become a de-facto state).
The nature of free-market capitalism works to prevent any one company from growing to these extremes. Almost all the cases you could point to in today's reality where companies have grown to anywhere NEAR this size can be traced directly to govt. regulations giving them an unfair advantage during their prime period of growth.
(EG. One could point to, say, AT&T - but they'd be looking at an industry that had govt. monopoly status for decades, while they built their infrastructure of copper wire. Sure, we "broke them up" - but that was more of a gesture than reality, because all the pieces still profited immensely from that infrastructure they built under monopoly status. All they've done now is re-assembled those powerful pieces back into a whole again.)
Without any regulation or govt. intervention, it just doesn't make a lot of logical sense that one and only one company could become SO good at delivering a service or making their product(s) that NOBODY else would even try to compete, and take some of that revenue for themselves!
I agree Ford is pretty stupid most of the time, but I'll also say this: I owned a Ranger truck, and the things weren't all that practical, really. The ones everybody got interested in were near base-models, priced around $10-14K, new. (At that price point, people like myself bought one - simply because an economy car was priced about the same anyway. A truck seemed more versatile than some Dodge Neon or Chevy Cavalier or what-not.)
The *problem* is, when you started upgrading a Ranger with options like the "extended bed" or "extended cab", all of a sudden, the thing jumped up in price to where you could go with a basic F-150 for about the same (or less!) money.
The basic Ranger limits you to, essentially, a 2-seater vehicle with a bed that's too short to haul most building materials without them hanging way out the back of it. The places I usually saw them used were for jobs like couriering around auto-parts. (Frankly, this could have been done just as well with a regular old CAR, assuming it was a hatchback with fold-down rear seats.)
My 4-cylinder 1999 Ranger got about 22MPG, too. Not that great, when you consider its limitations.
I don't get complaints like yours. Seriously, if Apple is doing you *such* a disservice by not providing 100% full support for your 3+ year old Mac purchases, why are you with them in the first place? What alternatives do you have in mind that will do so much "better" for you?
Apple is like any other industry leader. They keep moving FORWARD with new things, which means obsoleting the old. (Take, for just one example, Canon and their "Digital Rebel" line of cameras. Pro photographers everywhere use and rely on these products, yet you can spend thousands on a high-end Rebel, only to find it's out of production and considered "obsolete" in the industry within just 2 or 3 years.)
So what? Your options are simply; A. Keep using what you've invested in, since it should still do today exactly what it was doing for you yesterday, or B. Sell off your equipment for fair market value, and spend the difference to upgrade to the latest and greatest thing.
I think it's been pretty clear ALL ALONG that Apple is primarily focused on markets other than enterprise business sales. They have certain "niches" they go pretty deep into, like video editing and production, music editing and production, or desktop publishing -- but by and large, they're interested in making the best PERSONAL COMPUTER experience. Even as far back as the Mac + and SE days, they were far more worried about the educational market than enterprise business sales.
Besides, if you're in a line of work that can cost-justify maxxing a Mac Pro's memory out, hard disk space out, adding a costly hardware RAID controller to it, etc. etc. -- you really SHOULD be doing some kind of work with it that has a big payback?? If you can't justify your return on investment with a full 3 years of use of that Mac Pro configuration, maybe you simply over-bought?
From what I gathered over on Ars Technica, OS X 10.6 is *not* supposed to really do much as far as "new features" go.
Rather, it sounds like it's aimed as a performance-boosting alternative to 10.5 for people using Intel-based Macs, who can take advantage of it.
Users of PPC Macs will (theoretically) be able to continue using 10.5 Leopard and not really see any visual or functional differences between it and 10.6.
If true, this seems like very smart marketing on Apple's part. This way, they can help nudge people to upgrade to newer Intel-based Macs, while not prematurely making PPC owners feel like they're losing out on anything. (By the time a 10.7 release comes along, anyone *still* on PPC architecture will have had enough time using it so they won't feel too "ripped off", having to upgrade to run OS X with the latest new features again.)
At this point, I think Ron Paul's book might be the best thing he's been able to offer America. I still drive around with my "Ron Paul for President" bumper sticker -- but we all know that's just a gesture at this point in time.
I don't expect America under Obama to accomplish a whole lot. As I've said before though, I'm at the point where I'd vote for him simply to break up the "dynasty" of Bush/Clinton we've had in power for the last 20 years or so. (There's no way I'd accept *another* 4-8 years of a Clinton in office, and McCain? Well, he's too close to a Bush copy-cat - even if he's not from the same family.)
I see Obama further screwing up our health-care system, with some sort of flawed "socialized medicine" initiative. I also seeing him putting an end to the war in Iraq, though, and possibly improving our foreign relations across the board. There's a good chance we'll see some economic improvement in the short-term, just because consumer confidence will increase - knowing there's a "change of guard" in the presidency. But longer-term, he'll probably try to raise a lot of taxes for programs he perceives we all "need", like most Democrats.
It's interesting how everyone seems to have their favorite "pet" cellular provider, that they swear up and down is FAR better than the competition.
I'm honestly convinced that MUCH of this is just "voodoo" - caused by complex interactions among multiple factors. (EG. You have the right make and model of phone, happen to live and work in the right places that are close to a certain carrier's towers, and/or haven't had any billing hassles with your present carrier.)
I believed all the "hype" and claims of various "review" web sites and magazines, and stuck with Verizon for years. Their service was what I'd call "decent", although I had my share of dropped calls and calls that had cross-talk on them, requiring I hang up and redial. I also paid through the nose though. For a while, I was really heavily using my phone during "peak" hours, and kept getting nailed with overage charges. Verizon flat out refused to offer me a plan with enough monthly minutes in it to solve my problem!
I finally decided I had enough, and tried switching to US Cellular. With all incoming calls free, I saved a *bundle*, and the Moto Razr phone I got with the service worked quite well for me. (I saw tons of complaints about these phones, but the one I had was flawless for over a year and a half. I finally had the battery wear out once, but that was about it.) Furthermore, I had *no* dropped calls, EVER. I don't believe I ever got a "bad line" with other conversations bleeding over on my call either.
Now, because I wanted the iPhone when it came out, I'm with AT&T. My experience is, they drop a lot of calls on me in certain areas, but the data plan with the iPhone package is FAR more generous than anything the other carriers ever offered me before. It'll be interesting to see if the 2nd. gen. iPhone keeps calls connected any better. (I'm still unsure if my poor signal issues are REALLY all AT&T's fault, or if it's partially due to the iPhone's design with the metal casing and so on.)
This may be an "unpopular" stance, but at least hear me out. I'm not even sure the banning of possession of images of real children is "as it should be"?
The real *crime* involved in the whole "child porn" thing is the potential of adults forcing themselves on under-age kids who aren't capable of fully understanding the consequences of the actions (or who are, but had these acts done to them against their wishes).
Mere possession of photographs, while surely "supportive evidence" in building a case against someone, doesn't necessarily strike me as criminal, in and of itself? I know, at least here in the USA, it currently IS considered criminal. I just question the logic.
The only "criminal" part I can see for this activity is the actual photographing of the child taking place. And even here, it should be subject to intent and permission. (EG. If I take a picture of my own kids playing, naked, in the bath-tub - it's a perfectly innocent act, presumably done because I thought it was a "cute" photo they'd like to see and laugh about when they get older.)
On the other hand, someone photographing every kid he/she can trick into getting naked for their camera, would pretty clearly be in the wrong. (If nothing else, they certainly didn't have the permission of the parents or legal guardians of those kids to take their pictures -- and you'd assume they'd need that.)
I'd actually have to argue that Windows '98, 2nd. edition was Microsoft's real "high point" - though I get the reasoning behind picking '95. (It was such a big jump from the look and feel, plus functionality of Windows 3.x.)
My experience with Windows '95 was that it tended to "self destruct" due to memory leaks and poor design choices for the internal "stack" it kept. It was pretty typical that a monthly reboot for Win '95 was required, if you didn't want it to progressively get unstable and sluggish.
It seemed like by the '98SE version, they'd hammered out a ton of those types of glitches and bugs. It wasn't perfect, but was probably about as close as they could get on that basic foundation.