The other factor of course is that the number of women entering technical/mathematical courses is falling in both absolute terms and as a percentage - so the gains made through the 50s to the 1980s are in reverse.
It also needs to be said that engineering, physics, maths and IT are increasingly unpopular with students of either sex, so girls may actually just be ahead of the curve.
One thing that comes out of a lot of these surveys is the negative attitudes a lot of students, particularly girls, feel towards these areas. Sociologists and feminists then seem to say that IT or physics have to change to make themselves more appealing - no one ever seems to be willing to question why students no longer want to study something that is hard for it's own sake, or worry why peer opinion and popularity has become such an important factor in people's decision making.
In fact, while I'm ranting away, the same thing is also happening with foreign languages (my wife is a languages teacher) - again, the kids are turning away from subjects that are known to be 'difficult'.
I think if people were to address the underlying turn away from intellectual pursuit overall, a lot of these other problems would fall into place. It is a typical modern behaviour to think that the problem can be solved with better marketing.
I'm surprised. I've been using Macs again since the Mini (first time since the 80s), and I've not really experienced that many sites requiring IE / Windows anymore. Even my bank has quietly fixed the bugs in their site. About the only ones I've really had issues with are the photo-upload ones.
I think the main driver on this has been the disability goods and services law in the UK/Europe (which doesn't affect free / information based sites, but anything that sells stuff) - sites legally need to be 'accessible' - which might mean having a separate cut-down version, or alternatively keeping your site standards compliant.
The other would be the popularity of Firefox, particularly in mainland Europe. As a business, are you going to develop your site twice, or do it the right way?
Did make me think though. My father's an art teacher and has his own lab of Macs (in an otherwise PC school). Now he's pretty computer literate, but he wouldn't think to lock the kids down to that extent, whereas I know from my days at school that I'd have tried to break in just for the hell of it. Or more likely to have done it to a display machine in a shop.
I think what would be good would be providing an extra option, when configuring a user, of 'max security'. Although as you say it's nothing that 5 minutes work couldn't achieve.
You definitely can't get from the evidence presented to the conclusion. Methinks he is relying on the average readers lack of understanding of computers, or the journalist is sensationalising what was said. It's certainly doesn't come across as very professional. Maybe he's looking for a job at Gartner?
I guess there is an issue in schools running Macs - i.e. a smart kid could you some of these workarounds to get admin or root access, although most of them require access to the Unix prompt. From what I can see, 95% of these vulnerabilities would be eliminated by ensuring that non-admin accounts can't access terminal. (Can they anyway?). Although given the level of security in most schools, they're probably logged in as admin already.
Still, got a lot more attention that finding a flaw in IE, and I bet Apple have hired Suresec to come and look over some more BSD source code. (I guess this is the danger of commercial firms using open-source software - you suddenly become responsible for it).
A. All development tools are peanuts compared to developer salaries. Management do not object to spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a product if they get that much back in saved productivity. The fact that Eclipse is so good and free is a major plus point, but tool cost is pretty much irrelevant.
(Which isn't to say that Sparkle can't win - it just might win on the grounds that it is more productive as it fits in with Visual Studio, which seems to be the way many things are going - i.e. SQL Server uptake. It's a clever strategy - not targeting developers so much as those who set platform policy).
As far as I can see, the only thing you can do is sell your whole iTMS collection, as there is no way of separating the song from the iTMS account (at least not without stripping it of it's DRM). To me that's the biggest argument against the whole 'Apple are great, 99c a song is perfect because the record companies just want to screw us for more' thing - there's no possibility of a second hand market, no possibility of selling something you bought but no longer listen to, which is one way a lot of people recouped the money they spent on music.
I'm sure Apple COULD add such a facility (ability to transfer a tune from one iTMS account to another, at a price agreed by the two sellers) but somehow I don't see it happening. Not while RIAA and related organisations are talking about tackling the sale of second hand CDs.
I mean soon you'll only be able to buy or sell things if you're marked with the number of the beast.
Hmm, if I sell two things this year, compared to last year, I'll be growing FASTER than AMD. Bit like Apple growing faster than Dell/Microsoft - always easier for the minor player to grow.
The MEPs have already rejected it once, showing good sense, and I think a victory for organised grass-roots lobbying, including the EFF,NTK, and/.
It was also rejected in the UK in the 1970s - in fact an explicit exclusion was made AGAINST the patenting of computer algorithms. (I believe under the grounds that they are an extension of mathematics and logic, rather than 'devices', and a formula cannot be patented)
I would imagine that many US judges would also share the same opinion and understanding of the law (the differences between patent and copyright, and what benefits/costs they have to society). What they probably lack is as much influence over the legislature, or rather industry may have more say that it does in the UK. (It already has a substantial say).
>The more interesting possibility for many users will not be directly booting or dual-booting Windows XP, but rather running Windows XP at essentially the full speed of >the underlying hardware in a virtual machine, right alongside Mac OS X. Sure, for some game and direct hardware access applications, you would want to - or you may >have to - boot Windows directly. But for the vast majority of access to Windows productivity and/or other software not available on Mac OS X, running Windows >alongside Mac OS X is likely more desirable than dual-booting anyway.
Indeed - one advantage that Virtual PC will continue to have over dual-booting is the ability to cut/paste between certain apps on the two O/S.
>As has been noted, however, it is indeed extremely likely that Windows Vista will directly boot on Intel-based Macs with EFI. Be interesting to see how Vista will play under Virtual PC - wheras legacy apps and XP should be quite happy with the virtual hardware, from what I understand, Vista is more like Tiger, in that it will benefit from using the GPU to run some of the graphics heavy tasks, compositing, etc, which is going to be interesting.
The other thing is cost - VPC + XP is the same price as the cheapest PC you can get. Even getting XP as a dual-boot OS is expensive, if you actually want to do it legitimately. If I was in MS position, I can see a market for something round the $100 mark that would provide the minimum amount of Windows required for dual-booting and running games (but not Office) on a Mac. Would be a great blow against Mac game developers, and keep that side of the market dead.
It's still too expensive for me, especially as like most people I get a fair amount of ad-free hosting with my ISP. If.Mac WAS an ISP, then I might think about it (my parents have a Mac and my Dad would love to video-chat). As is, it really doesn't add enough.
One thing they should do is give 1 years free.Mac with each new computer. A one month demo is too short for it to become indispensable. Also, they should go for monthly charging via your iTMS account (with maybe a few 'free' tracks a month?).
The parent article is missing the point though : Apple are aware that their margins on hardware and O/S sales are going to fall - they're under many of the same pressures as Microsoft, and web applications are fast eating into the territory of iPhoto, etc..Mac is one of a number of strategies for making revenue that isn't licence / hardware sale based.
3 times more likely to already have a massive CD collection? 3 times more likely to be adults on a reasonable income? 3 times less likely to be computer literate enough to download a p2p client?
In it's most basic form, yes. However, I presume they're not just going to be using it to write another blogging app or content management system, nor do I expect any government institution would be allowed to use any product without formal support. After all, higher ups have spent the last 15 years making sure they're not dependent on in-house solutions / IT staff, so saying it can be developed/supported in-house is not a winner.
I'd also presume they're paying for the same services they'd expect from a proprietary vendor. While hobbyist developers are quite happy to spend their own time working round problems, large organisations don't want to. If you need to set up a large cluster as a one-off job, might be cheaper to get someone in than to pay your own staff to figure it out. (Only if it's not something they're going to do again).
It's worth remembering, licence fees were never the only way firms made money, and near-free software has always existed as a way of getting consultants in the door. The important thing about open source isn't the price, it's that the source is open.
Strangely, I seem to remember it was only yesterday, the Slashdot and wider techno-libertarian communities were indeed taking a pitchfork to Apple.
I think there is one small essential difference though - one is collecting data for unknown reasons, which always makes people paranoid. In this case you can see what the purpose is (hell, Apple don't even keen a record of what you bought - at least that's what they say to customers who've lost their collection).
You're quite right about the dialog box - and after this debacle, they may think twice in future.
I think a wider improvement would be an ability to set an overall user security policy that apps could read.
Re:Big Brother and the iTunes Company
on
iTunes is Malware?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
It looks like disabling the store then re-enabling gets rid of the ministore (even if you quit and re-enter iTunes).
To be honest, I think there's a case of having a bit of perspective.
It should certainly be easier to turn on/off, but music recommendation has always been a popular thing in p2p clients, nor does it indicate they're holding client specific information on their servers. (Considering Apple don't even hold a record of what you've bought - i.e. if your machine is wiped you cannot re-download - it seems unlikely).
What Apple really need to do is let you set a privacy policy as a whole for your account, from tin-foil hat to 'hey man, my front door has no locks'.
No,/. has become a haven for an irrational hive-mind.
You get to be +5 insightful for saying 'They should go for an open source solution' about anything. Even where it's not appropriate (since when has 'many eyes good' produced a good novel or film).
Any study that doesn't show Linux or mySql is the best must be biased, and everything Microsoft does is wrong (or copied from Apple). Even if we then copy it. 'Do not fight monsters, less ye become one' as I think it runs?
You can't say anything positive about copyright - because technology lets you break it easily, it must be copyright that is wrong and needs to give way. Whereas of course if a company or government misuses the potential of technology (say for surveillance or in warfare) then that usage must be prohibited as bad for society.
Oh, and my favourite 'we don't need X, we need new business models'. Uh-huh, just like new business models were going to be how everyone was going to make money in the.com boom.
I do actually wonder how most/. people make a living and I'd wager the majority of them are working in the type of 'traditional' business they profess to despise.
Still, it's better than trying to criticise Apple on an Apple forum!
I believe, although not from personal experience, that shrink-wrapped copies of Tiger, rather than 'OEM' copies, can still be installed on multiple machines. As you say, that does mark a change in strategy - will they be phoning home to check for genuine Apple Advantage next??
That's always got to be balanced against the benefits of your customers upgrading, even if illegally. Developers will only take advantage of O/S specific features if they know there is / will be a large installed base, which will be the biggest problem for MS with Vista - it's going to take some time before software houses are going to start developing Vista only applications - unless there are developer oriented features (equivalent to, say, CoreImage) that dramatically cut development time. Even then, the economics of it would probably dictate towards spending the extra time doing an XP version, wheras I guess the economics of Apple software development are currently different - far smaller sales / dev teams mean that productivity benefits have a bigger effect.
What I do hope they continue to do is bring the price down as the volumes increase - as has also happened with iWork (you now get 2 apps for cheaper than Keynote). It might just be the effect of the $ but Tiger was cheaper than Jaguar in the UK.
If you really want to see a nice piece of Tiger development, check out steelskies.com for CoverFlow - I can't think of a better advert for what one person can do rapidly using Cocoa.
>Sometimes whats best for consumers is not best for the companies who make the products
While I would not dispute for a second that Apple's products are over-priced (it's public fact that they've been one of the most profitable computer manufacturers in the last year), I do wonder about the assumption that cheaper goods are always better for consumers i.e. in food and clothing, let alone computing, competition eventually drives quality downwards, as well as cost - or more precisely, good quality goods become a niche/premium market.
There seems remarkably little business in the middle ground (good value goods) - it's either high-volume, low-margin, low-quality or low-volume, high-margin.
One thing is that O/S upgrade revenue has been pretty important to Apple over the last few years - I believe Tiger has had a far higher take-up amongst existing OS/X customers compared to the first 12 months of XP, and that's not insignificant money.
The question is whether they've grown used to that cashflow, or whether it's been a short term strategy (i.e. there have been a lot of software upgrades in the last 12 months - were they to keep momentum until the new hardware).
I think it's called a metaphor. As in explaining that the widgets are presented on a layer 'over' the desktop. Maybe a metaphor that didn't compare one piece of software to another might be better 'it's like a transparency sheet'.
Personally, I'd prefer them 'on' the desktop and to bring them up via Expose, but that's me.
The thing I like about it is that, as commented, if you know 'C', you can learn the syntax in minutes. Compared to C++ it has a lot of elegance, which is attractive to some programmers.
That said, most of what you need to take advantage of most languages these days are the standard packages and frameworks, rather than the syntax. I guess that's another debate altogether - simple languages with large standard libraries vs complex languages.
I use it to keep track of a lot of occasionally updated (rather than daily updated) sites - it's quite useful to know there's a new technical article or bunch of reviews posted on a site that might be updated once a month or two weeks without having to remember to go back and check it's contents every day.
Oh, and I usually just open the 'headline' view, then tab out the individual articles I want to read - I couldn't imagine using an RSS reader as, well, a reader - but as a mechanism for indicating web site updates it's great.
Slashdot Mirror
I wasn't aware there was any need to get any more men into literature - I thought the complaint was that it was full of dead white males?
The other factor of course is that the number of women entering technical/mathematical courses is falling in both absolute terms and as a percentage - so the gains made through the 50s to the 1980s are in reverse.
It also needs to be said that engineering, physics, maths and IT are increasingly unpopular with students of either sex, so girls may actually just be ahead of the curve.
One thing that comes out of a lot of these surveys is the negative attitudes a lot of students, particularly girls, feel towards these areas. Sociologists and feminists then seem to say that IT or physics have to change to make themselves more appealing - no one ever seems to be willing to question why students no longer want to study something that is hard for it's own sake, or worry why peer opinion and popularity has become such an important factor in people's decision making.
In fact, while I'm ranting away, the same thing is also happening with foreign languages (my wife is a languages teacher) - again, the kids are turning away from subjects that are known to be 'difficult'.
I think if people were to address the underlying turn away from intellectual pursuit overall, a lot of these other problems would fall into place. It is a typical modern behaviour to think that the problem can be solved with better marketing.
I'm surprised. I've been using Macs again since the Mini (first time since the 80s), and I've not really experienced that many sites requiring IE / Windows anymore. Even my bank has quietly fixed the bugs in their site. About the only ones I've really had issues with are the photo-upload ones.
I think the main driver on this has been the disability goods and services law in the UK/Europe (which doesn't affect free / information based sites, but anything that sells stuff) - sites legally need to be 'accessible' - which might mean having a separate cut-down version, or alternatively keeping your site standards compliant.
The other would be the popularity of Firefox, particularly in mainland Europe. As a business, are you going to develop your site twice, or do it the right way?
Did make me think though. My father's an art teacher and has his own lab of Macs (in an otherwise PC school).
Now he's pretty computer literate, but he wouldn't think to lock the kids down to that extent, whereas I know from my days at school that I'd have tried to break in just for the hell of it. Or more likely to have done it to a display machine in a shop.
I think what would be good would be providing an extra option, when configuring a user, of 'max security'.
Although as you say it's nothing that 5 minutes work couldn't achieve.
You definitely can't get from the evidence presented to the conclusion. Methinks he is relying on the average readers lack of understanding of computers, or the journalist is sensationalising what was said. It's certainly doesn't come across as very professional. Maybe he's looking for a job at Gartner?
I guess there is an issue in schools running Macs - i.e. a smart kid could you some of these workarounds to get admin or root access, although most of them require access to the Unix prompt. From what I can see, 95% of these vulnerabilities would be eliminated by ensuring that non-admin accounts can't access terminal. (Can they anyway?). Although given the level of security in most schools, they're probably logged in as admin already.
Still, got a lot more attention that finding a flaw in IE, and I bet Apple have hired Suresec to come and look over some more BSD source code. (I guess this is the danger of commercial firms using open-source software - you suddenly become responsible for it).
A. All development tools are peanuts compared to developer salaries. Management do not object to spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a product if they get that much back in saved productivity. The fact that Eclipse is so good and free is a major plus point, but tool cost is pretty much irrelevant.
(Which isn't to say that Sparkle can't win - it just might win on the grounds that it is more productive as it fits in with Visual Studio, which seems to be the way many things are going - i.e. SQL Server uptake. It's a clever strategy - not targeting developers so much as those who set platform policy).
I was thinking about this only this morning.
As far as I can see, the only thing you can do is sell your whole iTMS collection, as there is no way of separating the song from the iTMS account (at least not without stripping it of it's DRM). To me that's the biggest argument against the whole 'Apple are great, 99c a song is perfect because the record companies just want to screw us for more' thing - there's no possibility of a second hand market, no possibility of selling something you bought but no longer listen to, which is one way a lot of people recouped the money they spent on music.
I'm sure Apple COULD add such a facility (ability to transfer a tune from one iTMS account to another, at a price agreed by the two sellers) but somehow I don't see it happening. Not while RIAA and related organisations are talking about tackling the sale of second hand CDs.
I mean soon you'll only be able to buy or sell things if you're marked with the number of the beast.
Hmm, if I sell two things this year, compared to last year, I'll be growing FASTER than AMD. Bit like Apple growing faster than Dell/Microsoft - always easier for the minor player to grow.
The MEPs have already rejected it once, showing good sense, and I think a victory for organised grass-roots lobbying, including the EFF,NTK, and /.
It was also rejected in the UK in the 1970s - in fact an explicit exclusion was made AGAINST the patenting of computer algorithms. (I believe under the grounds that they are an extension of mathematics and logic, rather than 'devices', and a formula cannot be patented)
I would imagine that many US judges would also share the same opinion and understanding of the law (the differences between patent and copyright, and what benefits/costs they have to society). What they probably lack is as much influence over the legislature, or rather industry may have more say that it does in the UK. (It already has a substantial say).
Wonder how much cheaper they'll be in 6 months, once the queue of people who'd been holding out for a G5 laptop have spent their money?
>The more interesting possibility for many users will not be directly booting or dual-booting Windows XP, but rather running Windows XP at essentially the full speed of >the underlying hardware in a virtual machine, right alongside Mac OS X. Sure, for some game and direct hardware access applications, you would want to - or you may >have to - boot Windows directly. But for the vast majority of access to Windows productivity and/or other software not available on Mac OS X, running Windows >alongside Mac OS X is likely more desirable than dual-booting anyway.
Indeed - one advantage that Virtual PC will continue to have over dual-booting is the ability to cut/paste between certain apps on the two O/S.
>As has been noted, however, it is indeed extremely likely that Windows Vista will directly boot on Intel-based Macs with EFI.
Be interesting to see how Vista will play under Virtual PC - wheras legacy apps and XP should be quite happy with the virtual hardware, from what I understand, Vista is more like Tiger, in that it will benefit from using the GPU to run some of the graphics heavy tasks, compositing, etc, which is going to be interesting.
The other thing is cost - VPC + XP is the same price as the cheapest PC you can get. Even getting XP as a dual-boot OS is expensive, if you actually want to do it legitimately. If I was in MS position, I can see a market for something round the $100 mark that would provide the minimum amount of Windows required for dual-booting and running games (but not Office) on a Mac. Would be a great blow against Mac game developers, and keep that side of the market dead.
It's still too expensive for me, especially as like most people I get a fair amount of ad-free hosting with my ISP. If .Mac WAS an ISP, then I might think about it (my parents have a Mac and my Dad would love to video-chat). As is, it really doesn't add enough.
.Mac with each new computer. A one month demo is too short for it to become indispensable. Also, they should go for monthly charging via your iTMS account (with maybe a few 'free' tracks a month?).
.Mac is one of a number of strategies for making revenue that isn't licence / hardware sale based.
One thing they should do is give 1 years free
The parent article is missing the point though : Apple are aware that their margins on hardware and O/S sales are going to fall - they're under many of the same pressures as Microsoft, and web applications are fast eating into the territory of iPhoto, etc.
3 times more likely to already have a massive CD collection?
3 times more likely to be adults on a reasonable income?
3 times less likely to be computer literate enough to download a p2p client?
In it's most basic form, yes. However, I presume they're not just going to be using it to write another blogging app or content management system, nor do I expect any government institution would be allowed to use any product without formal support. After all, higher ups have spent the last 15 years making sure they're not dependent on in-house solutions / IT staff, so saying it can be developed/supported in-house is not a winner.
I'd also presume they're paying for the same services they'd expect from a proprietary vendor. While hobbyist developers are quite happy to spend their own time working round problems, large organisations don't want to. If you need to set up a large cluster as a one-off job, might be cheaper to get someone in than to pay your own staff to figure it out. (Only if it's not something they're going to do again).
It's worth remembering, licence fees were never the only way firms made money, and near-free software has always existed as a way of getting consultants in the door. The important thing about open source isn't the price, it's that the source is open.
Strangely, I seem to remember it was only yesterday, the Slashdot and wider techno-libertarian communities were indeed taking a pitchfork to Apple.
I think there is one small essential difference though - one is collecting data for unknown reasons, which always makes people paranoid.
In this case you can see what the purpose is (hell, Apple don't even keen a record of what you bought - at least that's what they say to customers who've lost their collection).
You're quite right about the dialog box - and after this debacle, they may think twice in future.
I think a wider improvement would be an ability to set an overall user security policy that apps could read.
It looks like disabling the store then re-enabling gets rid of the ministore (even if you quit and re-enter iTunes). To be honest, I think there's a case of having a bit of perspective. It should certainly be easier to turn on/off, but music recommendation has always been a popular thing in p2p clients, nor does it indicate they're holding client specific information on their servers. (Considering Apple don't even hold a record of what you've bought - i.e. if your machine is wiped you cannot re-download - it seems unlikely). What Apple really need to do is let you set a privacy policy as a whole for your account, from tin-foil hat to 'hey man, my front door has no locks'.
No, /. has become a haven for an irrational hive-mind.
.com boom.
/. people make a living and I'd wager the majority of them are working in the type of 'traditional' business they profess to despise.
You get to be +5 insightful for saying 'They should go for an open source solution' about anything. Even where it's not appropriate (since when has 'many eyes good' produced a good novel or film).
Any study that doesn't show Linux or mySql is the best must be biased, and everything Microsoft does is wrong (or copied from Apple). Even if we then copy it.
'Do not fight monsters, less ye become one' as I think it runs?
You can't say anything positive about copyright - because technology lets you break it easily, it must be copyright that is wrong and needs to give way.
Whereas of course if a company or government misuses the potential of technology (say for surveillance or in warfare) then that usage must be prohibited as bad for society.
Oh, and my favourite 'we don't need X, we need new business models'. Uh-huh, just like new business models were going to be how everyone was going to make money in the
I do actually wonder how most
Still, it's better than trying to criticise Apple on an Apple forum!
My guess is simply 'support' - you can download most of it separately yourself, but the majority of consumers this is aimed at are on XP.
I believe, although not from personal experience, that shrink-wrapped copies of Tiger, rather than 'OEM' copies, can still be installed on multiple machines. As you say, that does mark a change in strategy - will they be phoning home to check for genuine Apple Advantage next??
That's always got to be balanced against the benefits of your customers upgrading, even if illegally. Developers will only take advantage of O/S specific features if they know there is / will be a large installed base, which will be the biggest problem for MS with Vista - it's going to take some time before software houses are going to start developing Vista only applications - unless there are developer oriented features (equivalent to, say, CoreImage) that dramatically cut development time.
Even then, the economics of it would probably dictate towards spending the extra time doing an XP version, wheras I guess the economics of Apple software development are currently different - far smaller sales / dev teams mean that productivity benefits have a bigger effect.
What I do hope they continue to do is bring the price down as the volumes increase - as has also happened with iWork (you now get 2 apps for cheaper than Keynote). It might just be the effect of the $ but Tiger was cheaper than Jaguar in the UK.
If you really want to see a nice piece of Tiger development, check out steelskies.com for CoverFlow - I can't think of a better advert for what one person can do rapidly using Cocoa.
>Sometimes whats best for consumers is not best for the companies who make the products
While I would not dispute for a second that Apple's products are over-priced (it's public fact that they've been one of the most profitable computer manufacturers in the last year), I do wonder about the assumption that cheaper goods are always better for consumers i.e. in food and clothing, let alone computing, competition eventually drives quality downwards, as well as cost - or more precisely, good quality goods become a niche/premium market.
There seems remarkably little business in the middle ground (good value goods) - it's either high-volume, low-margin, low-quality or low-volume, high-margin.
One thing is that O/S upgrade revenue has been pretty important to Apple over the last few years - I believe Tiger has had a far higher take-up amongst existing OS/X customers compared to the first 12 months of XP, and that's not insignificant money.
The question is whether they've grown used to that cashflow, or whether it's been a short term strategy (i.e. there have been a lot of software upgrades in the last 12 months - were they to keep momentum until the new hardware).
I think it's called a metaphor. As in explaining that the widgets are presented on a layer 'over' the desktop. Maybe a metaphor that didn't compare one piece of software to another might be better 'it's like a transparency sheet'.
Personally, I'd prefer them 'on' the desktop and to bring them up via Expose, but that's me.
Hmm, care to name any other commercial OS known for poor security / response to security issues? Solaris, OS-X, BeOS?
The thing I like about it is that, as commented, if you know 'C', you can learn the syntax in minutes. Compared to C++ it has a lot of elegance, which is attractive to some programmers.
That said, most of what you need to take advantage of most languages these days are the standard packages and frameworks, rather than the syntax. I guess that's another debate altogether - simple languages with large standard libraries vs complex languages.
I use it to keep track of a lot of occasionally updated (rather than daily updated) sites - it's quite useful to know there's a new technical article or bunch of reviews posted on a site that might be updated once a month or two weeks without having to remember to go back and check it's contents every day.
Oh, and I usually just open the 'headline' view, then tab out the individual articles I want to read - I couldn't imagine using an RSS reader as, well, a reader - but as a mechanism for indicating web site updates it's great.