They're laughing because you're trolling hard based on nothing more than cynicism.

You see one product line and assume that all product lines are going that way. There's no rationale behind your assumption, you're just waving your hands and hoping people are too distracted by the movements to notice that you're just making stuff up.

What happened to /. ? I started reading around the 200K user ID mark (didn't register for another 600K) and somewhere around 1M it went to trolling hell. It used to be just GNAA trolling and abuse trolls. Now it's flavour-of-the-month trolling. This month, it's cool to hate Apple. You'll get easy mod points. Last month it was Microsoft. Next month... maybe back to Microsoft, or keep flaming Apple? So many choices, so few intelligent comments.

If you want to spend all your days keeping your machines working, go nuts. I did that in the 80s (when some of us soldered the damn things together as the first step), I kept Windows and MacOS running in the 90s and I keep them running well today. I don't feel that system maintenance is worth any of my time whatsoever.

Apple are offering something new. Why not talk about where that can go, or better yet, leave Apple out of the equation (which is easy with all their screw-ups) and think about new ways to use computers. Too many /.'ers just can't think of anything outside their little box of "but this is how I've always done it" and damn but that's sad.

I think it's time to drop /. from my bookmarks. Other sites present better, more informed discussions with better moderation of trolls. Other sites present the news earlier, and actually give an article instead of a link.

This place is dead to me now. It's all bitching and no substance, and the trolls are modded up when they say nothing at all.

Good for you, it's great that some people can afford to give so much to the community at large.

I actually do mean that - it's a great thing to write something, get it out there and see others take it up.

It helps me overlook your insultingly stupid comment about me being brainwashed merely because my opinion differs from yours.

My issue comes from those that choose to sell their work. They should have every right to do so if they choose, and not caring if their copyrights are violated (ie their work is pirated) deprives them of that right, and possibly their living. That's not reasonable, not moral and not legal. The last may not be the biggest concern (given the risk of being caught is so tiny), but the other two should be.

Your rights end where the rights of others begin. I believe this to be an absolute truth, and that this should always be the case.

I'm not trying to stop anyone, and neither do I want to. I'm just saying that people who believe they have the right to do anything must realise their rights end where someone else's begin.

I can't see why people react as though that's unreasonable. I suspect most of you are reading my post as though I'm some totalitarian supporter of current copyright laws. I'm not. I'd love to see laws changed dramatically, so that a reasonable maximum period exists (ten years?) and cannot be extended.

Until laws are changed, people who act against them are taking a risk. It's a small risk, yes, but it's still a risk and can result in them being toally screwed over by some huge corporation, who'll write off their expenses a trivial, while the little guy has to sell their house.

It's the old sense of the word, not the new one.

What? Slashdotters are now ashamed to be called "hackers?" Have all the neckbeards shaved?

Giving the "no true Scotsman" line a run, eh?

Good trolling there.

You deserve to be modded down for that tripe.

Bootcamp exists only to help Windows play nicely with an installed OS X. You can simply erase the hard drive and install either Windows or Linux as a fresh install and never touch Apple software again.

The rest of your post is just inane trolling, and not worth commenting.

It's not really accurate to call Apple a computer company anymore...

Absolute rubbish. Total tosh of the highest quality.

Of course Apple are a computer company. Everything they do has its roots in computing.

I can understand the anti-Apple stance taken by a lot of /. posters, but you're starting to wander into total fantasy now.

Not a fast one at all, I'm just showing how your absolutism fails with a trivial example. People who talk in absolutes generally fail pretty badly.

You don't care if someone's copyrights are violated? Well, people who create nothing of value generally don't care about copyright. Perhaps you're one of them.

unless Apple's insidious plan involves breaking into people's homes and replacing their gear with free iPads...

Those bastards!

Extreme example shows the logical flaw: You buy a gun. You simply cannot do anything you like with it.

Okay, so now we're into the world of laws and rights, aka the real world.

You're talking about computers? Well, I can easily build a page turner for a shop-bought scanner, and set up a book scanning service. From there I can use OCR and finally distribute the resulting text files around the world.

Do you believe your rights extend that far?

You never had the freedom to do anything you liked with anything you owned. Ever. When you start to impinge upon the rights of others, your freedom ends.

Focus on the reality, not this hand-waving "I should be able to do anything!" crap. You never could, and never will.