Requirements:

Make it better than the old system.

Make it work the same way as the old system.

Make it compatible with every else's system.

The only trade-off allowed is cost, since it's just tax dollars.

Anime fan. You forgot that bit. And people always try to rationalise his flight to HK as something other than "it's basically the only place in East Asia that's not a dictatorship, or practically US occupied".

Lots of businesses refuse to open cases to upgrade. They just scrap the old machine (or sell it, or give it to someone less important), and buy a new one. This is businesses, with professional IT staff.

Consumers are mostly even worse.

So the number of people who'll bother opening their cases is very small. The number of people who'll do so, and buy Macs is even smaller.

With thunderbolt, you can do a lot of upgrades just by plugging in a box. This makes upgrading a lot easier for most customers. And since that will be the only upgrade path, there'll be more (and cheaper) components than there are today. Plus, the resale of these components should be higher, since they won't just be sold to geeks.

So I'd say that the new MacPro will be *more* upgradable, to most people, even most professionals. Especially the ones who buy Macs.

> If all Linus is going to do is mouth off then perhaps it's time he just STFU and GTFO

Rubbish. I bet 99.99% of the time he's calm, collected, and insightful. But Slashdot doesn't report on "Linus explains why the new patch improving memory use in large systems is a great example of OO-style C".

> This is a huge blow for Apple

I doubt it. I've said (when Scott Forstall stepped down) that Apple realised that it's not in the data industry. Sure, they can do a bit in-house, but they just don't have the resources to cross the moat that Google has with its infrastructure, code, and expertise.

Apple does hardware, interfaces, and marketing very well. It leverages other company's products (its kernal, the BSD userland, GCC / LLVM, and Google's online stuff) when it lacks any real competitive advantage. Google is a harder pill to swallow (since they can't just fork it and modify things to suit their needs), but it's a battle they've chosen not to have.

Android and Glasses are what they should be focus on beating, and they won't beat them if they lumber their own devices with half-assed clones of the things Google does best.

IIRC, Intel did a lot of work on the whole system (including motherboards - I think they actually worked with other manufacturers too), not just the chip. Not all the savings are from the CPU.

It's not 12.

China is a huge market for Mac hardware (phones, but also laptops). It's also a place where the only operating systems of note are pirated XP, pirated Windows 7, and bundled OEM Windows (various versions).

Have you heard of pagerank? The algorithm which google ran on? Larry and Sergy couldn't sell it. Your algorithm is worth less.

Sell a product. If you don't have the skills (or time) to make a "Photoshop for videos", make a one-touch "video-improver" app. Explain how it could be extended.

Threatening violence isn't passive aggressive. Passive aggression was invented by the military, to refer to underhanded insubordination. "Sorry sir, I was pinned down, so I couldn't get myself shot in battle. Maybe next time."

It's a perfectly rational response to an idiot in command (or, an idiot who thinks they are in command).

Saying you *want* to slap someone is outright aggressive. Saying you want to slap someone who's not here could be passive aggressive (if it's directed against a superior, or someone who'd hit you back). More likely, it's just tall talk.

"No True Scotsman" is a funny thing.

Atheists don't (or shouldn't) believe there is any real difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. It's a sliding scale between atheism, agnosticism, casual belief, and fanatical belief. Nor is there any reason to believe that one camp is really better in every possible way.

Lots of fanatical Christians *do* believe there are two camps - the "real" Christians, and everyone else. That's why they play the "No True Scotsman" game - most of them actually believe there is a real difference between "real" Christians, and the rest; and that "real" Christians are morally better in every way. So if a "real" Christian does something (or worse - believes something) they don't agree with, they obviously weren't a "real" Christian.

(OK, that's a bit of a simplification - they still think that "real" Christians do bad things, but then God forgives them and they try not to do it again ... but they should certainly all *try* to live by the same moral code, since God is guiding them).

Well, it can't be any harder than building a working space elevator. At which point we can just beam solar power down. :/

They asked professionals what they wanted. The answer was "Windows 7, fuck another upgrade".

Windows 8 is aimed at consumers, not professionals. It's not even aimed at making consumers happy, it's aimed at training consumers in Microsoft's touch UI, so the consumers will consider getting a Surface Pro / RT, or a Windows phone.

Microsoft realised, after about 10 years of Apple kind its ass, that touch devices are here to stay. So they are trying to leverage their PC dominance to drive the sales of post-PC devices.

Will this upset professionals? Most of them won't upgrade anyway. Windows 7 is good enough for them.

Wow. That Quora post has a lot of buzzwords.

You'd need a lot of reinsurance, because there's a chance a flaw in the system could result in an insurer-bankrupting class action. To get re-insurance, you call up a guy like Warren Buffett (Global Re), who scratches his head, runs the figures, then says "OK, here's the price". He can afford to take the risk.

This is how IP laws keep growing.

Every time 2 countries decide to "rationalize" their IP laws, they add their restrictions together, instead of compromising. You tend to end up with the longest term, the lowest bar, and the heaviest penalties.