> The new iMac and the Macbook pro both ship with retina.

In other words: screw all of the legacy users where legacy means last years model.

This is the problem with Apple's idea of "forward thinking". They don't just offer a new new features, they prevent you from using the old ones.

If real life hasn't caught up to the future quite yet, that puts you in a bind.

> I'm sure some elder statesman of the Unix world would ask "Why would you ever want a GUI on a UNIX system? "

This would be the "green screen" myth that certain trolls like to fixate on so much.

The truth is that GUIs were commonplace on Unix workstations long before they were widely adopted on DOS kludge clones. However, this fact does not mean that this feature has to be force fed to everyone all the time.

The key feature of a Unix GUI is that it is HIGHLY OPTIONAL. It also does not sabotage anything else. It doesn't require abandoning the Unix design philosophy. A GUI is not fundementally incompatible with the rest of Unix.

If you want an all-singing-all-dancing-crap-of-the-world style logfile, leave the originals alone and create a new set of tools that build on top of what's already there and leave what's there alone.

There's no need to sabotage other people's stuff.

I'm glad that there is a virtual lynch mob around willing to shout down bad ideas. Some things are just bad ideas. They are very well understood as to why they are bad ideas. Yet people proceed (and kid themselves) despite of a lot of sound reasoning and appeals to first principles.

Past a certain point you have to turn the volume up to 11 just to get dissent to register to some people.

Never mind Tesla. I don't even want to deal with dealers for conventional cars. I would rather order the thing online direct from the factory (or Amazon) and just have it delivered. There is so much crap an nonsense you have to deal with at a car dealership, it's not even funny.

This "upselling" thing is a sickness that seems to have infested everything.

Nah. The real question is what took them so long? They should have been first in line to suck up to Detroit.

I was once in a position to observe a larger and more significant population of mice. While a population of 10 wasn't large enough to observe the appearance of a "prodigy", a population of roughly 100 was.

Yes. Not automatically running untrusted code is MUCH MORE secure than just sticking your fingers in your ears and assuming the problem will be handled.

Modern webpages are a rats nest of external scripts coming from who knows where. Browsers should not be enablers of this.

Patents and trade secrets are the same thing.

Patents are supposed to be useful trade secrets that have been disclosed for consideration. The patent monopoly is that consideration. The point being that it's more productive to make that trade secret public knowledge.

Patents aren't meant to be an anti-competitive bludgeon or a virtual land grab.

Their original intent is more like an adhoc sort of peer reviewed technical journal except those things probably didn't exist when modern patents systems were first created.

That said, patents are pretty much worthless for disclosure purposes. They are designed for litigation, not useful disclosure. The treble damages rule also discourages everyone from actually trying to use patents as the storehouse of knowledge they're supposed to be.

> So software patents should be abolished because some patents were incorrectly granted...

Not "some", the vast majority. The error rate for software patents is more like 99%.

> Should prisons be abolished because some prisoners were incorrectly sentenced?

If this were happening 99% of the time, then sure?

Software patents are so bad that it would be simpler just to abolish them. Although the real problem is the assumption from the Ayn Rand types that avarice is the mother of invention.

The obvious problem with that is that your past work may very well be someone else's property.

You may simply have no standing to grant a license to your past work.

...here's an even more novel idea: just store data on your phone and stop worrying about Rube Goldberg machines meant to get around the limitations of locked down and crippled mobile platforms.

This sounds like an alternative to a network hard drive and likely to be used for similar reasons.

Spamming the world may not be it's actual intent.

The web is probably supported by your highly proprietary mobile device even if nothing else is. Probably simple to use too.

Once you stop keeping a low profile, being noticed by your ISP is really the least of your worries.

These are not the WMDs were were told were in Iraq. While Saddam's history with chemical weapons was well known at the time, they were NOT what people were concerned about. This stuff was not what was used as the excuse to go to war and invade.

They were not part of the sales pitch.

Also, these finds were well reported when they happened. They aren't a surprise. They're hardly news.

This sounds like a bad attempt at rewriting history. Someone is hoping that we all have short memories.

Hospitals have always been places of death. People have just been able to successfully kid themselves in the last few decades. It's basic logic. You take everyone with any kind of medical problem and concentrate them in one location.

Even with diligent medical practices, they are bound to be breeding grounds and exchange points for all kinds of nasty things.

I don't know about that. Everyone in the West is constantly brainwashed into the idea that they can get this stuff for free and that they should get it for free and that it should be some kind of "right" like the right to a trial by jury.

People are used to not directly paying for this stuff. Americans are certainly inclined to devalue any free product or service. People in general seem to devalue everyone else's profession and get huffy when you actually expect them to pay.

Paying $100 for a nail spa: no problem.

Paying $50 for a doctors visit: Oh the humanity.

Doctors and nurses need to stop being lumped in with free government cheese before there is any hope that the general public will cherish them.