Er... More likely the sysadmin didn't know the software was pirated - after all, it appeared to be legitimate, and HE didn't have to crack it. He assumed that some one, somewhere, long ago, bought the software, and called the vendor to receive support.
That kind of error can be accounted for by tracking their batting averages over time. If we have a model for batting average deterioration due to stress, then the simulation will still work as a good approximation.
Right now, naturally. But in the end IT decisions and software development is shaped by users, not developers. When a large number of people in the company are brought up on Macs, things will change. Not to mention that there's no user-end difference between running OSX and Windows, at all, except for the main barrier: unavailability of software necessary for enterprise operation. With many apps moving web-based, and the increasing adoption of Macs driving the porting of others, this problem will *eventually* be solved. I'm certainly not saying that Macs are enterprise-ready today, in most cases they are not, but the time will come, if Apple can keep selling MacBooks to college kids.
I don't think *any* telemarketers are in their jobs because they *want* to be there. Sometimes you just don't have a choice - I for one do not blame someone if they choose to pester me with phone calls instead of starving.
I don't think the job market is really as sweet as you are making it out to be. For one thing, the economy goes up and down, people are unemployed constantly, and entire industries even seem to collapse occasionally. I wouldn't be surprised if some dotcommers had to make ends meet in call centers for a few years.
Not to mention you are assuming these people have the qualifications or experience necessary to take a better job than a phone monkey. Sometimes, due to life, laziness, or any number of factors, people don't get the education they need. As for government cushy jobs... most of these guys are college graduates, who often had to fight through bureaucratic hell to get to the positions they are in today. Staying in such a position is easy, but getting there is often more difficult than your not-so-cushy day job!
IMHO the best move Apple made was banking on the young/college crowd. In my college there are now an incredible number of Macs (as compared to when I started merely 3 years ago), and all of these people will graduate with a preference for Macs. Apple can stand to take over the enterprise market by simply waiting out the old guard Windows users, and replacing them with young Macheads.
"Only" wasn't the right word I suppose. When I switched, Mac market share was barely 6%, and now it's grown massively, at double-digit percentages each year. I cannot imagine switching back to Windows at this point, there are simply so many aspects of it that piss me off to no end. Heck, the mere concept of mounting drive images as a means for distributing and installing software is so natural to me now, that handling obfuscated.cab files and running convoluted InstallShield processes will probably make me hurl my machine out the window. I'd rather compile something from source.
Actually, TFA claims that ATI was responsible for 9.3% of Vista crashes, in comparison. This may be due to their lower market share, but it's still food for thought.
Unlikely. Apple only owns about 14% of the laptop market right now. Just look at the iPod - initially it certainly did impart some coolness on its owners, but in the end it simply became a hip commodity item, like driving a hybrid.
Until we see another company as consumer-savvy as Apple come along as the next underdog chic electronics manufacturer, I think Apple's position is pretty safe.
As a Mac user I can only see the pattern continue. The Mac has seen an explosion of popularity ever since the Intel switch (the best move ever, really), and that has started to remove the main weakness of the platform: lack of software. Many app developers are now clamoring to port apps to the Mac, and most encouragingly a lot of open source projects now have stable Mac ports as well. As the software barrier becomes removed it will only become easier to switch to the Mac.
Until you realize that, historically anyways, higher education is *not* vocational training. Higher education is meant to do exactly that - educate, in any subject that might tickle the learner's interests. Vocational training belongs in trade school - and I bet most engineers have too big of an ego to go to the same school as the mechanics and the plumbers.
Disclaimer: I am an engineer, but I'm routinely frustrated with how our kind tend to think we're better than everyone else, simply because we have a starting salary higher than most other degrees (note that I said starting, this relationship doesn't hold as time goes on).
The books do tend to suck a lot more than non-engineering subjects. I suspect it's because engineers who are well-versed in their respective fields have trouble breaking down concepts for relative newcomers. It's not surprising for me to find an advanced concept wedged into the introductory chapters, and helpful beginners' explanations stuck curiously near the end of the book.
I cannot even begin to count the number of times where I've been doing my course readings, and completely not understanding a concept... and then running across a neat little paragraph explaining it all in a very concise way... in an unrelated chapter, half a book later.
I've been in school four years now, and I've had maybe 3 textbooks that I felt were truly helpful. The rest were just shameless wastes of my dollars and many trees. In their defense, all the information is in there somewhere, but rarely where you'd expect it to be.
I would use this feature. I generally check for stock on a particular item before I head out to the store to pick it up - stores like Future Shop and Best Buy here in Canada are notorious for running out of stock on moderately popular items. These two stores, coincidentally, also have some of the hardest to navigate sites I've ever had to use. Finding a particular product, or even a category of products, is an exercise in randomness and futility.
If someone suffers from Google's new feature, they have only themselves to blame. Why wouldn't I use the site's own search tool if it was any good at all? The fact that I'm clamoring for an alternative is only evidence that they are sucking.
Absolutely agreed. I've seen some of the Reverend's comments, and they appear to come from a man genuinely disappointed in his country, and not flame-baiting or hate-mongering. Are we so blind by national pride that we cannot see the faults in our own government and our own people? Don't damn the reverend for daring to say what we're all thinking, damn the people who refuse to criticize themselves.
I get the feeling Obama waited as long as he did to distance himself from the Reverend because he knew the whole thing was blown out of proportion. But unfortunately he did cave to media pressure in the end. The power of the media to latch onto a message and be blind to all other interpretations.
Besides, since when did criticizing America become unpatriotic? I would think it's the most patriotic thing to do.
What you're not understanding is that challenging free speech, altering laws and habits, and coercing others into obedience is very decidedly not a religious trait. It is a trait of all power-hungry corrupt leaders and nations. Look at Soviet Russia and China, both are extremely guilty of all of the above, and both are atheist nations. Do not target the religion, when it is corrupt leaders who are using it as an excuse for their own goals.
Did Bush go to war in Iraq because he truly believes God told him so? Hell no. Religion has been used as an excuse to do all sorts of bad things since time immemorial.
The GP at least had anecdotal evidence that Muslims in general abhor terrorism. You on the other hand have *no evidence whatsoever* to support your statement. Way to go, smartass.
Get out of homogeneous-culture America for a second. I know many Muslims, and *none* of them support Osama or any other act of terrorism. Several of my friends' mosques even have youth programs educating them in that regard.
Once you get out of your sheltered Christian-biased media reporting, you will realize quickly that Islam is in many ways just like Christianity. There are the majority of believers who by most definitions are not devout, and born/educated into the religion. Then there are the vocal fundamentalist few. And within *those* are the crazies who will kill, maim, and destroy for the religion.
And just like Christianity, Islam is most often abused for money and power, not for some real religious reason.
Actually, I for one wish that computer makers put better graphics chipsets in low-end machines. I got an iPhone a few months ago, and it's really proven to me the value of having graphics, even withut gaming. Things like swiping in and out of hierarchical screens, objects animating to their destinations, etc, it has done wonders where other phones have produced convoluted, confusing UIs. IMHO we need to do more of the same for desktops and laptops.
There's an MS Office install on it that will expire. Also, Comic Life, as frickin' awesome as the app is, does occasionally nag for pay upgrades, and some of the other games that come with the machine will also have upgrade reminders after a round.
Other than that, not so much. If you're looking to optimize on hard drive space (a factory OS X install is MASSIVE) I'd recommend nuking all the apps you don't want - Garage Band in particular is a size monster.
The good news is that Mac software tend to be contained in.app bundles, so deleting the application will ensure full and total "uninstall" of the app. The exception to the rule is Adobe Creative Suite and MS Office (among a few others) that are IMHO poorly designed, and will not remove cleanly without running their uninstall app.
True. I find the bundled software on Macs to be in general far superior to their PC counterparts. Nothing loads at boot, nothing alters your UI, or adds floating buttons to your desktop, etc. That being said, if MS had a say on bundled software I'm pretty sure won't see half the useless stuff guys like Sony and Gateway pack in with their machines.
In fact, the only thing I really don't like about the bundled software on OS X is MS Office. The other bundled apps tend to be reduced-functionality apps that have no expiry - you can use it as much as you want, and purchase it to unlock its full potential. MS Office on the other hand will expire, and IMHO that's not in fitting with the spirit of bundling.
Hate to rain on your party as a fellow Mac user... But that's not quite true. Macs come out of the box with a junkload of pre-load software. Granted, the quality of them far exceed the kind of apps you see bundled on Dells and Sonys, but nonetheless, MacOS X isn't quite so clean out of the box.
Oh, and a clean install of OS X takes FAR less room than what you would see on a Mac out of the box. I've done it before. Things like Garage Band take up a huge amount of space, and while I do like the app, most users will probably never run it.
Disagree on the Eee PC front. A friend of mine got one, and as light and nice as it is, the keyboard is simply unworkable. If I'm on the road and need to type up a long email, or just to take notes at a conference, the Eee PC would have my fingers aching in no time at all. IMHO the two sides of the rift are the MacBook Pro/ThinkPad/workhorse laptop, and a 12-13" notebook like the MacBook, XPS M1330, etc. The sub-10" market IMHO will not replace this, and will remain a relative niche.
On the contrary, it failed terribly at its job. While it's true that it took forever to crack, it also dragged countless legitimate customers in with it. Many people who bought the game were *unable* to play it due to StarForce and its paranoid level of "protection".
Think about what you're saying for a second. Sure, a tech-savvy kid can easily find cracks and apply them, but such skills are still relatively rare in the marketplace as a whole. Not to mention the fact that if you picked 1000 random people out of game shops around the world and asked them about bnetd, the VAST majority would probably not know what it is!
I still remember when Counter-Strike got popular... All the kids at school were playing it, and the VAST majority had legal copies - despite being otherwise shameless pirates in every other way. Some enterprising individuals tried to circumvent the protection via key sharing, etc, but in the end all of THEM just went out and bought it for sheer convenience (having WON kick you off for duplicate keys sucks). I have ZERO doubt in my mind that Valve took a fair chunk of piracy out just by using something as simple as a CD key.
Then there's the other end of the spectrum... Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. It ran random crap in the background that will refuse to run if ANY semblance of a virtual CD driver is present, or certain models of CD drives... Suffice it to say it generated LOADS of false positives and was a pain in the ass. IMHO that game is the TEXTBOOK example of how NOT to implement anti-piracy in your software.
Significantly less to develop? Care to back that up? I would say *marginally* less - the level of content required is the same, the level of code support also... SDKs also cost an arm and leg... Licensing fees are comparable to industry averages. You might get away with a bit less cost since you don't have to care about purty graphics so much, but I don't think it's really THAT much cheaper. We know that game dev costs are going up, and this is true for all consoles.
Here in the states -- the biggest game market -- flash carts owners are a minority.
Hee. Maybe because I'm a young 20-something, but EVERY SINGLE PERSON I know with a DS has a flash cart. The problem is so serious that Nintendo has actively gone after R4 - not even Sony targeted a single modchip in their quest to stop pirates.
The Wii and DS are decimating the 360 and PS3.
Again, hee. In terms of hardware sales the Wii and DS are owning the hell out of 360/PS3, but in terms of software sales it doesn't even come close. Developers are still on the 360/PS3 train because the attach rates ($ spent on games per console) is MUCH higher on the 360/PS3 than it is on the Wii. People buy the Wii, play Wii Sports, and basically nothing else. Now that we have Brawl we might see some adoption on that - but the vast majority of Wii owners I know have maybe 2-3 games they play... As compared to the average PS3/360 owner, who has a shelf full.
What the 360/PS3 lack in user base, they MORE than make up for in the fact that hardcore gamers spend MANY times more money on games and accessories than casual gamers.
Actually... I think the top franchise of the last generation is still The Sims... sadly. This is also somewhat hilarious, given how badly the *rest* of the PC gaming industry is doing...
Developers aren't stupid. They know what proportion of PS3 players are gamers, and what proportion aren't. Hell, people have been tracking attach rates (average $ spent per console owner) for all of the major consoles.
I agree BD players are too expensive for me to invest in right now, but honestly, getting a PS3 just to play it doesn't seem like THAT bad of a deal.
I mean, hell, I have an Xbox 360, I'm definitely no Sony fanboy, but even I have to admit that the PS3 is a MUCH better built piece of technology than the flimsy red-ring-a-minute 360... Now if only it had some real games that didn't involve androgynous long-haired pretty boys prancing about with swords bigger than themselves...
Actually, I know some night club bouncers, and they would probably be insulted to be compared to TSA screeners. The bouncers I know are in general quite intelligent, capable of quick, rational risk assessment, in addition to being built like a castle. They might not have Ph.D's in quantum physics, but their intelligence is WAY further along the scale than your average TSA monkey.
Isn't that the problem entirely? I have no problems yielding to the authority of those better qualified than I am. In this case, though, better qualified they are not. Not to mention the fact that the fact that I make 3 times more than they do at half their age is MORE incentive for them to jam things in incorrect places. It wouldn't surprise me at ALL to find out that TSA screeners routinely take out their frustrations on travelers.
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Er... More likely the sysadmin didn't know the software was pirated - after all, it appeared to be legitimate, and HE didn't have to crack it. He assumed that some one, somewhere, long ago, bought the software, and called the vendor to receive support.
That kind of error can be accounted for by tracking their batting averages over time. If we have a model for batting average deterioration due to stress, then the simulation will still work as a good approximation.
Right now, naturally. But in the end IT decisions and software development is shaped by users, not developers. When a large number of people in the company are brought up on Macs, things will change. Not to mention that there's no user-end difference between running OSX and Windows, at all, except for the main barrier: unavailability of software necessary for enterprise operation. With many apps moving web-based, and the increasing adoption of Macs driving the porting of others, this problem will *eventually* be solved. I'm certainly not saying that Macs are enterprise-ready today, in most cases they are not, but the time will come, if Apple can keep selling MacBooks to college kids.
I don't think *any* telemarketers are in their jobs because they *want* to be there. Sometimes you just don't have a choice - I for one do not blame someone if they choose to pester me with phone calls instead of starving.
I don't think the job market is really as sweet as you are making it out to be. For one thing, the economy goes up and down, people are unemployed constantly, and entire industries even seem to collapse occasionally. I wouldn't be surprised if some dotcommers had to make ends meet in call centers for a few years.
Not to mention you are assuming these people have the qualifications or experience necessary to take a better job than a phone monkey. Sometimes, due to life, laziness, or any number of factors, people don't get the education they need. As for government cushy jobs... most of these guys are college graduates, who often had to fight through bureaucratic hell to get to the positions they are in today. Staying in such a position is easy, but getting there is often more difficult than your not-so-cushy day job!
IMHO the best move Apple made was banking on the young/college crowd. In my college there are now an incredible number of Macs (as compared to when I started merely 3 years ago), and all of these people will graduate with a preference for Macs. Apple can stand to take over the enterprise market by simply waiting out the old guard Windows users, and replacing them with young Macheads.
"Only" wasn't the right word I suppose. When I switched, Mac market share was barely 6%, and now it's grown massively, at double-digit percentages each year. I cannot imagine switching back to Windows at this point, there are simply so many aspects of it that piss me off to no end. Heck, the mere concept of mounting drive images as a means for distributing and installing software is so natural to me now, that handling obfuscated .cab files and running convoluted InstallShield processes will probably make me hurl my machine out the window. I'd rather compile something from source.
Actually, TFA claims that ATI was responsible for 9.3% of Vista crashes, in comparison. This may be due to their lower market share, but it's still food for thought.
Unlikely. Apple only owns about 14% of the laptop market right now. Just look at the iPod - initially it certainly did impart some coolness on its owners, but in the end it simply became a hip commodity item, like driving a hybrid.
Until we see another company as consumer-savvy as Apple come along as the next underdog chic electronics manufacturer, I think Apple's position is pretty safe.
As a Mac user I can only see the pattern continue. The Mac has seen an explosion of popularity ever since the Intel switch (the best move ever, really), and that has started to remove the main weakness of the platform: lack of software. Many app developers are now clamoring to port apps to the Mac, and most encouragingly a lot of open source projects now have stable Mac ports as well. As the software barrier becomes removed it will only become easier to switch to the Mac.
Until you realize that, historically anyways, higher education is *not* vocational training. Higher education is meant to do exactly that - educate, in any subject that might tickle the learner's interests. Vocational training belongs in trade school - and I bet most engineers have too big of an ego to go to the same school as the mechanics and the plumbers.
Disclaimer: I am an engineer, but I'm routinely frustrated with how our kind tend to think we're better than everyone else, simply because we have a starting salary higher than most other degrees (note that I said starting, this relationship doesn't hold as time goes on).
The books do tend to suck a lot more than non-engineering subjects. I suspect it's because engineers who are well-versed in their respective fields have trouble breaking down concepts for relative newcomers. It's not surprising for me to find an advanced concept wedged into the introductory chapters, and helpful beginners' explanations stuck curiously near the end of the book.
I cannot even begin to count the number of times where I've been doing my course readings, and completely not understanding a concept... and then running across a neat little paragraph explaining it all in a very concise way... in an unrelated chapter, half a book later.
I've been in school four years now, and I've had maybe 3 textbooks that I felt were truly helpful. The rest were just shameless wastes of my dollars and many trees. In their defense, all the information is in there somewhere, but rarely where you'd expect it to be.
I would use this feature. I generally check for stock on a particular item before I head out to the store to pick it up - stores like Future Shop and Best Buy here in Canada are notorious for running out of stock on moderately popular items. These two stores, coincidentally, also have some of the hardest to navigate sites I've ever had to use. Finding a particular product, or even a category of products, is an exercise in randomness and futility.
If someone suffers from Google's new feature, they have only themselves to blame. Why wouldn't I use the site's own search tool if it was any good at all? The fact that I'm clamoring for an alternative is only evidence that they are sucking.
Absolutely agreed. I've seen some of the Reverend's comments, and they appear to come from a man genuinely disappointed in his country, and not flame-baiting or hate-mongering. Are we so blind by national pride that we cannot see the faults in our own government and our own people? Don't damn the reverend for daring to say what we're all thinking, damn the people who refuse to criticize themselves.
I get the feeling Obama waited as long as he did to distance himself from the Reverend because he knew the whole thing was blown out of proportion. But unfortunately he did cave to media pressure in the end. The power of the media to latch onto a message and be blind to all other interpretations.
Besides, since when did criticizing America become unpatriotic? I would think it's the most patriotic thing to do.
What you're not understanding is that challenging free speech, altering laws and habits, and coercing others into obedience is very decidedly not a religious trait. It is a trait of all power-hungry corrupt leaders and nations. Look at Soviet Russia and China, both are extremely guilty of all of the above, and both are atheist nations. Do not target the religion, when it is corrupt leaders who are using it as an excuse for their own goals.
Did Bush go to war in Iraq because he truly believes God told him so? Hell no. Religion has been used as an excuse to do all sorts of bad things since time immemorial.
The GP at least had anecdotal evidence that Muslims in general abhor terrorism. You on the other hand have *no evidence whatsoever* to support your statement. Way to go, smartass.
Get out of homogeneous-culture America for a second. I know many Muslims, and *none* of them support Osama or any other act of terrorism. Several of my friends' mosques even have youth programs educating them in that regard.
Once you get out of your sheltered Christian-biased media reporting, you will realize quickly that Islam is in many ways just like Christianity. There are the majority of believers who by most definitions are not devout, and born/educated into the religion. Then there are the vocal fundamentalist few. And within *those* are the crazies who will kill, maim, and destroy for the religion.
And just like Christianity, Islam is most often abused for money and power, not for some real religious reason.
Actually, I for one wish that computer makers put better graphics chipsets in low-end machines. I got an iPhone a few months ago, and it's really proven to me the value of having graphics, even withut gaming. Things like swiping in and out of hierarchical screens, objects animating to their destinations, etc, it has done wonders where other phones have produced convoluted, confusing UIs. IMHO we need to do more of the same for desktops and laptops.
There's an MS Office install on it that will expire. Also, Comic Life, as frickin' awesome as the app is, does occasionally nag for pay upgrades, and some of the other games that come with the machine will also have upgrade reminders after a round.
Other than that, not so much. If you're looking to optimize on hard drive space (a factory OS X install is MASSIVE) I'd recommend nuking all the apps you don't want - Garage Band in particular is a size monster.
The good news is that Mac software tend to be contained in .app bundles, so deleting the application will ensure full and total "uninstall" of the app. The exception to the rule is Adobe Creative Suite and MS Office (among a few others) that are IMHO poorly designed, and will not remove cleanly without running their uninstall app.
True. I find the bundled software on Macs to be in general far superior to their PC counterparts. Nothing loads at boot, nothing alters your UI, or adds floating buttons to your desktop, etc. That being said, if MS had a say on bundled software I'm pretty sure won't see half the useless stuff guys like Sony and Gateway pack in with their machines.
In fact, the only thing I really don't like about the bundled software on OS X is MS Office. The other bundled apps tend to be reduced-functionality apps that have no expiry - you can use it as much as you want, and purchase it to unlock its full potential. MS Office on the other hand will expire, and IMHO that's not in fitting with the spirit of bundling.
Hate to rain on your party as a fellow Mac user... But that's not quite true. Macs come out of the box with a junkload of pre-load software. Granted, the quality of them far exceed the kind of apps you see bundled on Dells and Sonys, but nonetheless, MacOS X isn't quite so clean out of the box.
Oh, and a clean install of OS X takes FAR less room than what you would see on a Mac out of the box. I've done it before. Things like Garage Band take up a huge amount of space, and while I do like the app, most users will probably never run it.
Disagree on the Eee PC front. A friend of mine got one, and as light and nice as it is, the keyboard is simply unworkable. If I'm on the road and need to type up a long email, or just to take notes at a conference, the Eee PC would have my fingers aching in no time at all. IMHO the two sides of the rift are the MacBook Pro/ThinkPad/workhorse laptop, and a 12-13" notebook like the MacBook, XPS M1330, etc. The sub-10" market IMHO will not replace this, and will remain a relative niche.
On the contrary, it failed terribly at its job. While it's true that it took forever to crack, it also dragged countless legitimate customers in with it. Many people who bought the game were *unable* to play it due to StarForce and its paranoid level of "protection".
Think about what you're saying for a second. Sure, a tech-savvy kid can easily find cracks and apply them, but such skills are still relatively rare in the marketplace as a whole. Not to mention the fact that if you picked 1000 random people out of game shops around the world and asked them about bnetd, the VAST majority would probably not know what it is!
I still remember when Counter-Strike got popular... All the kids at school were playing it, and the VAST majority had legal copies - despite being otherwise shameless pirates in every other way. Some enterprising individuals tried to circumvent the protection via key sharing, etc, but in the end all of THEM just went out and bought it for sheer convenience (having WON kick you off for duplicate keys sucks). I have ZERO doubt in my mind that Valve took a fair chunk of piracy out just by using something as simple as a CD key.
Then there's the other end of the spectrum... Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. It ran random crap in the background that will refuse to run if ANY semblance of a virtual CD driver is present, or certain models of CD drives... Suffice it to say it generated LOADS of false positives and was a pain in the ass. IMHO that game is the TEXTBOOK example of how NOT to implement anti-piracy in your software.
Significantly less to develop? Care to back that up? I would say *marginally* less - the level of content required is the same, the level of code support also... SDKs also cost an arm and leg... Licensing fees are comparable to industry averages. You might get away with a bit less cost since you don't have to care about purty graphics so much, but I don't think it's really THAT much cheaper. We know that game dev costs are going up, and this is true for all consoles.
Here in the states -- the biggest game market -- flash carts owners are a minority.Hee. Maybe because I'm a young 20-something, but EVERY SINGLE PERSON I know with a DS has a flash cart. The problem is so serious that Nintendo has actively gone after R4 - not even Sony targeted a single modchip in their quest to stop pirates.
The Wii and DS are decimating the 360 and PS3.Again, hee. In terms of hardware sales the Wii and DS are owning the hell out of 360/PS3, but in terms of software sales it doesn't even come close. Developers are still on the 360/PS3 train because the attach rates ($ spent on games per console) is MUCH higher on the 360/PS3 than it is on the Wii. People buy the Wii, play Wii Sports, and basically nothing else. Now that we have Brawl we might see some adoption on that - but the vast majority of Wii owners I know have maybe 2-3 games they play... As compared to the average PS3/360 owner, who has a shelf full.
What the 360/PS3 lack in user base, they MORE than make up for in the fact that hardcore gamers spend MANY times more money on games and accessories than casual gamers.
Actually... I think the top franchise of the last generation is still The Sims... sadly. This is also somewhat hilarious, given how badly the *rest* of the PC gaming industry is doing...
Developers aren't stupid. They know what proportion of PS3 players are gamers, and what proportion aren't. Hell, people have been tracking attach rates (average $ spent per console owner) for all of the major consoles.
I agree BD players are too expensive for me to invest in right now, but honestly, getting a PS3 just to play it doesn't seem like THAT bad of a deal.
I mean, hell, I have an Xbox 360, I'm definitely no Sony fanboy, but even I have to admit that the PS3 is a MUCH better built piece of technology than the flimsy red-ring-a-minute 360... Now if only it had some real games that didn't involve androgynous long-haired pretty boys prancing about with swords bigger than themselves...
Actually, I know some night club bouncers, and they would probably be insulted to be compared to TSA screeners. The bouncers I know are in general quite intelligent, capable of quick, rational risk assessment, in addition to being built like a castle. They might not have Ph.D's in quantum physics, but their intelligence is WAY further along the scale than your average TSA monkey.
Isn't that the problem entirely? I have no problems yielding to the authority of those better qualified than I am. In this case, though, better qualified they are not. Not to mention the fact that the fact that I make 3 times more than they do at half their age is MORE incentive for them to jam things in incorrect places. It wouldn't surprise me at ALL to find out that TSA screeners routinely take out their frustrations on travelers.