They are being biased against the "right" kind of people. So it's all fine. Remember: Racism, sexism, etc, etc are all fine so long as you are targeting the Right People(tm) and so long as you are doing it For The Greater Good(tm).
Apple is a software company fundamentally. What makes a mac different from a PC is OS X. What makes an iPhone different from an Android phone is iOS. The hardware is basically the same underneath. So Apple sells you their software but won't sell it without a fairly nice device to go along with it. However an important feature in this is that Apple has design chops and retail experience in their DNA. Microsoft doesn't. So Microsoft has to replicate what Apple is doing without the design culture that makes Apple successful at doing it.
I'd have to disagree with this. While the major components of a PC are no longer designed and built by the manufacturer (CPU, memory, drives), Apple does do more with hardware design than the next manufacturer. Sure in PCs, they don't design their own CPUs but they still design motherboards and the overall case. While the like of Dell and HP and Lenovo offer very bland models with little differences, Apple does make some interesting design choices in their computers.
For example, the Macbook Air is Apple's answer to the netbook. Instead of shrinking the whole laptop in all dimensions (and making it hard to type on), Apple went thin. Now that seems like there isn't much engineering but to make it thin, Apple did have to design motherboards much smaller, use customized Intel chips, use SSD instead of HDD in laptops years before it was the norm, remove many I/O plugs from the case. These were not without criticism but years later and after refinement, the MacBook Air is the direction almost all PC manufacturers are going with.
Another example is the MacPro. The newest version is dramatically different than other workstations. First of all, it's not boxy. There's little expansion. It uses PCIe SSD drives. Cooling wise everything does up instead of through and the main components are separated on 3 different boards instead one motherboard.
Controlling the software does make Apple better at integration but Apple does make an attempt at hardware differentiation.
Works very well. You can set it at any height you like. Not too expensive either, at least as compared to other motorized adjustable desks. I'm pleased with it overall.
That bears repeating with regards to Germany's debts: What happened after WWI was the winning countries said "You have to pay us back for all the costs of the war." Never mind any of the other problems, something like that was totally unsustainable. Germany was being made to pay the (often inflated) costs incurred by other countries in the war. That was devastating economically. Forgiving that is really a no brainer as it should not have happened int eh first place.
Also let's not forget the other part of the post war issues: Germany got occupied and told what was what (same with Japan). It isn't like this was a negotiation where they said "Can you forgive some of our debt?" and the allies said "Oh ok." No, they surrendered, unconditionally, and the country was occupied and split. On the East side it was straight out annexed and made part of the USSR, and on the West side there was heavy allied military presence and participation in running the country.
I mean I guess if Greece wants the same, they want someone else to come in and take over their country and dictate how things are going to be for years, or decades, then ok. However seems a little silly to say you want the kind of financial consideration that happened in wartime, but none of the rest of what came with it.
A big one is just that the US controls both its currency and its monetary policy (meaning taxing and spending). That manes that it can take the steps it feels necessary to deal with loan repayments, such as increased inflation and/or a weaker currency. It doesn't have to convince other countries of it, it runs the currency.
An even bigger one at this point is that the dollar is the world's reserve currency. Things are settled in dollars on the international stage, meaning that the US can't have a current account crisis. It makes the dollars, things are paid for in dollars, so it can make more dollars to pay for things. It is unique in that situation. While it could change, that is how it stands.
In fact, that is part of the reason the US is able to borrow so much, and in some ways needs to. People and nations want to put their money in what they see as a safe reserve, and the dollar is one they seek. To make that possible, the US has to issue debt instruments. They have to be able to buy US dollars.
Yet another difference is that the US has high tax compliance. Most people in the US pay their taxes. There are those that cheat or outright evade, but they are the minority. That, combined with a generally quite low tax burden (compared to most first world nations the US has very low taxes), means that raising taxes in the US is a very valid strategy. People won't be happy, but they'll pay. Greece has real issues with tax avoidance which makes tax increases problematic.
Still another difference is in what the economy produces. Despite what you may have heard on whiny online sites, the US makes a lot of stuff. It is the #2 producer of durable goods after China, and only slightly. It builds lots of things that others in the world want. A good example would be microprocessors. Both Intel and AMD are US companies, and Intel fabs most of their newest CPUs in the US. The chips that run most computers in the world come from the US. Makes the economic situation rather different than a place that relies heavily on tourism.
Finally there's the issue of who owns the debt. Most of the US's debt, about 65%, is owned by the US itself. Of that a large part is intragovernmental holdings, and then debt held by the federal reserve. Of the nations that do hold US foreign debt the two largest, Japan and China, do so for strategic reasons to keep their currency cheap compared to the dollar and thus have a strategic interest in keeping that debt. Greece on the other hand, owes most of its debt to other countries.
It is far to simplistic to look and say "Oh this is all the same!" Public debt is actually a pretty complex issue.
The claim that Sweden would hand him over to the US. Were I to worry about anyone in the EU doing that, it would be the UK. The US and UK have a relationship literally called the "special relationship." They back each other on diplomatic and intelligence matters in a way rarely seen among other nations. So they would be the one I would peg to hand him over all quiet like, if anyone.
The UK courts heard the matter, all the way to the top, and decided that it was a valid request. Your opinion on that doesn't particularly matter, only the opinion of their courts. That is how it works in any case of a nation which has an extradition treaty with another nation: The courts of the nation being asked to extradite decide if said request is allowable per the treaty. What that requires varies treaty by treaty.
In the EU, the extradition treaties are pretty strong. Countries don't have a lot of choice to say no. If a fellow EU member asks and the paperwork is all in order, you more or less have to comply. That is precisely what the British courts found in this case. They reviewed it, found it valid, he appealed, they found it valid and so on.
Doesn't matter if you don't like it, that is how the justice process works there. This was not a case that was handled in some shady back channel matter, it went through the court system properly and the rulings fell against him. That's all there is to it.
The UK now has a case against him, and a very strong one. He fled bail, and that is a crime. That crime is still ongoing since he's still fleeing said bail. So they can arrest and charge him for that. Doesn't matter if the original matter is log dropped, he is still on the hook for this.
That's the thing with court dates, bail, and all that jazz: Even if the case against you was going to be dismissed, if you skip bail you are now guilty of another crime. You have agreed to appear in court and a failure to do so is against the law.
The UK had no beef in this originally, they were just acting on an EU arrest warrant. Sweden said "We want this guy," the UK looked at the warrant and said "looks valid per the treaty" and thus arrested him. They had no interest or ability to decide on the validity of the charges, only if the request required them to act per treaty. It did so he was arrested, and then released on bail.
He challenged the extradition all the way up to the high UK court, but the courts found it was a valid request that the UK had to honour. Nothing to do with his guilt, just that the request was a valid one and they were bound by treaty to hand him over. Had he gone to Sweden then, that would have been the end of the UK's involvement. His bail would be returned and the UK would have no further interest in what happened.
However he fled rather than handing himself over. So at that point, he became a fugitive in the UK. They now have a case against him. It is totally separate from the original case, it is simply a case of skipping bail.
Likely they'll want to act on it too, since he's been flaunting it in their face for years.
If it's Ubuntu, it's a new problem, or only affects certain makes and models. I ran kubuntu on an Acer notebook for quite a while, and its wifi was far better than Windows.
I suspect it's an issue with drivers; Linux has had driver issues in the past, especially with newer equipment.
Not everyone has a brand-new computer; The manuscript of the book I'm about to publish is in Open Office Word, about 400 pages and full of large images, and autosave is a real pain because it takes minutes to save the file.
Like another commenter said, I wouldn't make it the most important thing, overall efficiency is. But software speed is important to anyone with an older computer, especially a Windows computer, because the computer slows as the registry grows, and the registry never gets smaller, only bigger.
HELP!!!! I'm being held prisoner in /usr/games/lib!
