Really? I actually find it fairly hilarious, mainly because despite all the noise, nobody has really answered in any compelling way what I am supposed to want one of these for. If you think about your average Apple fanboy (I like their stuff, but don't count myself in that category), they likely already have:
-iPhone
-Mac laptop (macbook, macbook pro, etc)
-Mac desktop (iMac, etc)
Ok, so 2 and 3 might not be the rule, but still - what computing niche does this table fill that isn't already covered? The best I've heard so far is sitting on the couch/laying in bed. Seriously. People are justifying buying this hypothetical device because it might be more comfortable to use in bed or on the couch (not really sure how a laptop isn't better when sitting, though). I'm not sure how you can do anything but laugh at this (and maybe buy Apple stock).
Last time I checked, telling people about a company's product isn't illegal.
IANAL, but I can read Wikipedia (emphasis added):
Another significant development in U.S. law is the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (18 U.S.C. 1831–1839), which makes the theft or misappropriation of a trade secret a federal crime. This law contains two provisions criminalizing two sorts of activity. The first, 18 U.S.C. 1831(a), criminalizes the theft of trade secrets to benefit foreign powers. The second, 18 U.S.C. 1832, criminalizes their theft for commercial or economic purposes. (The statutory penalties are different for the two offenses.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_secrets
So, as an example, if Apple could argue that the information in question is a trade secret (and they have done so in the past) then divulging that information may very well be a crime.
PS: You should work on your reading comprehension before you go around calling people idiots.
It's actually pretty easy to change providers in IE - you just click on the drop down beside the search field and select 'Find more providers'. Brings up a page with numerous other search providers you can add (Google, ebay, etc). Also, I think if you go to google manually in IE, there is a prompt in the top right to switch (or at least there used to be - not sure if they killed this).
Also, if you were to apply the same logic, the marketshare gains by google would be non-trivial since they are the default homepage/provider in Firefox. Personally, while I do think the defaults do influence things, I also think you are overstating them slightly. Google's brand alone assures that a lot of non-savvy computer users will still go there despite defaults in their browser, simply because 'google' has become synonymous with 'search' to a large extent.
Microsoft, via the Gates Foundation, killed legislation that would have removed intellectual property restrictions from drug markets in poor countries. They actively and for their own gain perpetuate the death and suffering of millions and millions of people. Who gives a flying fuck what they did about innovation in the IT industry compared to that? They're no better than any other mass murderers.
Have anything to back this up, or are you just talking out of your ass?
What a fucking joke that this is +5 insightful. Yes, I do not agree with this opinion piece, but your wholesale dismissal of any good this person has done in their life and apparently wishing for them to die on that basis is absurd. I'm not naive enough to think that such morons don't exist on the internet, but lets try and maintain a higher standard here, please.
I have a hard time getting excited about this. Whether copyright expired in 1, 10 or 100 years, people would still violate it, whether it be by torrent or some other means of sharing. Copyright infringement has taken the same character as speeding to many people: while people get caught and fined, almost everyone does it to some degree or another, and almost nobody feels guilty about doing so.
To be fair Tyranids were ripped off from the movie Alien. That being said, I do agree with you on your implied point about Blizzard gettin too much credit sometimes. While they make polished games (which I can certainly appreciate) I've never found that they bring much new to the table. Just look at the upcoming SC2 vs Supreme Commander (on the tech side) or the Dawn of War series (for gameplay).
Technically he may have beaten the game, but spiritually he fails.
He fails 'spiritually' by not having an achievement that's impossible to get at present? If speculation is right, he'll get that in a couple weeks anyway. Agreed on the social fail, though (and I even play wow).
the world won't end if you can't access slashdot and your email for a few months
Check the time mentioned in the summary. I would normally agree with you, and don't typically even use internet cafes while gone for a few weeks. However, I can't imagine being totally unconnected to email for a whole year. Yes, I could do without Slashdot, but just checking the news back home and following up with friends and family would be mandatory.
Um, if it is not profitable, why buy the company and shut it down? Just let the company die on its own. And they're not buying them for the technology either, because they don't use it. They buy them and shut them own because they are worried that it will steal market share from them.
Can you actually back that up with specific, recent examples?
I'm in Canada and, as such, we don't have Black Friday either, so thanks for reminding me of this - managed to pick up Left 4 Dead and the THQ pack with 30 minutes remaining this morning. While the LucasArts pack was tempting as well, the THQ one was crammed full of amazing RTS games that I may have enjoyed from the... ahem... library in my younger days, along with a fairly new game (Red Faction: Guerilla) that sounded great but I never got around to trying. As for Left 4 Dead, that was kind of a no brainer (heh, zombies) at $7.50.
However, it's the equivalent of calling a Brain surgeon a Doctor
I really find this medical analogy apt, especially when extended a bit. Everyone in 'IT' does have some generalized knowledge, but that doesn't mean that the programmer is necessarily going to be able to help you figure out how to do something Word, just like a brain surgeon might not be the best person to help you with your ingrown toenail.
Good lord... 1.6Ghz CPU and a gig of RAM will make "doing more than one thing at once... painful"?? You must have a very low threshold for pain.
Perhaps I didn't phrase that properly. For tasks that I would actually want multiple monitors for, the specs are rather low, though for things I typically use my own netbook for (mostly web browsing) it's fine. Basically, to me, 2 screens on a netbook is overkill or low powered hardware in a dual screen laptop is not good enough.
'd love something like that just to have documentation on one screen while I code on the other.
You would actually want to code on a 10" netbook form factor keyboard? This is what I was trying to get at - 2 screens are admittedly awesome for tasks like that, but who would want to do those things on a netbook? Well, maybe you would:)
While I obviously understand not every product is tailored to my needs, I can't really see much of a need for this. The netbook level tech specs likely mean doing more than one thing at once would be painful. Plus, if you actually need a lot of screen real estate, you could likely get a larger laptop with more pixels (and more power under the hood) for around the same money.
Anyone around here think they would want one? Actually curious to hear about the appeal.
Example search terms to try are Mac OS, Linux, Ubuntu, Windows - the results and the fairness of the results are abysmal.
Can you actually back that up? I just tried searching for Linux, Ubuntu and MaC OS on bing and google and the results were very close. I didn't see any kind of fairness bias (in fact, Ubuntu results are possibly more useful on bing since it specifies the official homepage as the first result and there is a direct link to the Get Ubuntu page).
Slashdot Mirror
Really? I actually find it fairly hilarious, mainly because despite all the noise, nobody has really answered in any compelling way what I am supposed to want one of these for. If you think about your average Apple fanboy (I like their stuff, but don't count myself in that category), they likely already have:
-iPhone
-Mac laptop (macbook, macbook pro, etc)
-Mac desktop (iMac, etc)
Ok, so 2 and 3 might not be the rule, but still - what computing niche does this table fill that isn't already covered? The best I've heard so far is sitting on the couch/laying in bed. Seriously. People are justifying buying this hypothetical device because it might be more comfortable to use in bed or on the couch (not really sure how a laptop isn't better when sitting, though). I'm not sure how you can do anything but laugh at this (and maybe buy Apple stock).
So evil, in fact, that you just know that nobody else would ever do something like this. Oh wait...
Last time I checked, telling people about a company's product isn't illegal.
IANAL, but I can read Wikipedia (emphasis added):
Another significant development in U.S. law is the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (18 U.S.C. 1831–1839), which makes the theft or misappropriation of a trade secret a federal crime. This law contains two provisions criminalizing two sorts of activity. The first, 18 U.S.C. 1831(a), criminalizes the theft of trade secrets to benefit foreign powers. The second, 18 U.S.C. 1832, criminalizes their theft for commercial or economic purposes. (The statutory penalties are different for the two offenses.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_secrets
So, as an example, if Apple could argue that the information in question is a trade secret (and they have done so in the past) then divulging that information may very well be a crime.
PS: You should work on your reading comprehension before you go around calling people idiots.
What I've always said: "Anybody can generate $1 million in revenue, if they are given a $2 million marketing budget to do it with."
I will counter with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuil. Money may make things easier, but nothing is a sure thing.
It's actually pretty easy to change providers in IE - you just click on the drop down beside the search field and select 'Find more providers'. Brings up a page with numerous other search providers you can add (Google, ebay, etc). Also, I think if you go to google manually in IE, there is a prompt in the top right to switch (or at least there used to be - not sure if they killed this).
Also, if you were to apply the same logic, the marketshare gains by google would be non-trivial since they are the default homepage/provider in Firefox. Personally, while I do think the defaults do influence things, I also think you are overstating them slightly. Google's brand alone assures that a lot of non-savvy computer users will still go there despite defaults in their browser, simply because 'google' has become synonymous with 'search' to a large extent.
Why wait?
Exactly - if Google waits any longer, China might get knocked up.
Have anything to back this up, or are you just talking out of your ass?
What a fucking joke that this is +5 insightful. Yes, I do not agree with this opinion piece, but your wholesale dismissal of any good this person has done in their life and apparently wishing for them to die on that basis is absurd. I'm not naive enough to think that such morons don't exist on the internet, but lets try and maintain a higher standard here, please.
Yeah, society would totally be better off without his work for Amensty International, AIDS awareness, Band Aid, Live Aid, etc. I'm sure you've done more than him, right?
Pffft - nobody uses Thorium anymore.
/duck
I have a hard time getting excited about this. Whether copyright expired in 1, 10 or 100 years, people would still violate it, whether it be by torrent or some other means of sharing. Copyright infringement has taken the same character as speeding to many people: while people get caught and fined, almost everyone does it to some degree or another, and almost nobody feels guilty about doing so.
Presumably only if search providers were part of the contract (i.e. doubtful).
How do you know those were all bogus?
To be fair Tyranids were ripped off from the movie Alien. That being said, I do agree with you on your implied point about Blizzard gettin too much credit sometimes. While they make polished games (which I can certainly appreciate) I've never found that they bring much new to the table. Just look at the upcoming SC2 vs Supreme Commander (on the tech side) or the Dawn of War series (for gameplay).
He fails 'spiritually' by not having an achievement that's impossible to get at present? If speculation is right, he'll get that in a couple weeks anyway. Agreed on the social fail, though (and I even play wow).
Check the time mentioned in the summary. I would normally agree with you, and don't typically even use internet cafes while gone for a few weeks. However, I can't imagine being totally unconnected to email for a whole year. Yes, I could do without Slashdot, but just checking the news back home and following up with friends and family would be mandatory.
Can you actually back that up with specific, recent examples?
I'm in Canada and, as such, we don't have Black Friday either, so thanks for reminding me of this - managed to pick up Left 4 Dead and the THQ pack with 30 minutes remaining this morning. While the LucasArts pack was tempting as well, the THQ one was crammed full of amazing RTS games that I may have enjoyed from the ... ahem ... library in my younger days, along with a fairly new game (Red Faction: Guerilla) that sounded great but I never got around to trying. As for Left 4 Dead, that was kind of a no brainer (heh, zombies) at $7.50.
I really find this medical analogy apt, especially when extended a bit. Everyone in 'IT' does have some generalized knowledge, but that doesn't mean that the programmer is necessarily going to be able to help you figure out how to do something Word, just like a brain surgeon might not be the best person to help you with your ingrown toenail.
Perhaps I didn't phrase that properly. For tasks that I would actually want multiple monitors for, the specs are rather low, though for things I typically use my own netbook for (mostly web browsing) it's fine. Basically, to me, 2 screens on a netbook is overkill or low powered hardware in a dual screen laptop is not good enough.
You would actually want to code on a 10" netbook form factor keyboard? This is what I was trying to get at - 2 screens are admittedly awesome for tasks like that, but who would want to do those things on a netbook? Well, maybe you would :)
While I obviously understand not every product is tailored to my needs, I can't really see much of a need for this. The netbook level tech specs likely mean doing more than one thing at once would be painful. Plus, if you actually need a lot of screen real estate, you could likely get a larger laptop with more pixels (and more power under the hood) for around the same money.
Anyone around here think they would want one? Actually curious to hear about the appeal.
I've got news for you - no amount of marketing money would make a name like GIMP gain wide acceptance.
You must be new here.
I know most of us would like to pretend IE doesn't exist, but they haven't even heard of IE 8?
If you're willing to spend $40,000/year to go to college already, I'm sorry but $400 isn't going to kill you. It's 1% - get over it.
Example search terms to try are Mac OS, Linux, Ubuntu, Windows - the results and the fairness of the results are abysmal.
Can you actually back that up? I just tried searching for Linux, Ubuntu and MaC OS on bing and google and the results were very close. I didn't see any kind of fairness bias (in fact, Ubuntu results are possibly more useful on bing since it specifies the official homepage as the first result and there is a direct link to the Get Ubuntu page).