You clearly never studied math at university level. Proofs can be written in different ways, some easier some harder to read. The choice of which theorems to include and which to leave out also means a lot. Having good exercises lists is also part of being a good book. Sometimes, some math techniques lose relative importance, because their applications lose relative importance.

Also, in older books it was prohibitively expensive to include many figures or graphs. Equations were also expensive to typeset, so older books have less equations. Even the choice of how to write equations was different (as typesetting a large fraction of many variables was much more expensive than just doing "alpha^2 beta bla bla * / ( \int_{x=0}^{1000} gamma bla bla bla)" on a single line of text.

When I was in university, I used books written by the professor teaching the course itself. That happened with 3 different professors.

One of them would let us have the .PS file of his book and print it out ourselves (actually, many of us had access to his LaTeX files). A second required us to buy his book or check it out of the library. The third guy was a very senior man, who had already been legally retired but couldn't care less and still taught all sorts of Analysis courses (mostly functional analysis). Many of his books were not in print anymore, but regardless of being in print or not (he still owned the copyright to all of them) and had clear instructions on the university copy shop that anyone at anytime could make a copy of them.

Not all scientific authors are like (Oxford's?) Atkins ("Physical Chemistry") who made a small fortune selling textbooks.

> Apple can try what it wants but if anyone makes a simple complaint, Apple is going to lose. Even this new thing is meaningless. In Europe, you got two years warranty at least. Take Apple to court, you will win since the law leaves no room for interpretation.

Some people prefer not having to take a seller to court in order to have the law honored. Most people do not have the time nor the inclination to bring a random seller to court. So this matters because it settles the record straight for all consumers without any of them having to bother much (other than paying for the taxes that bring both the law and its enforcement).

Perhaps if you are a lawyer or has lawyers as close friends of family, "taking someone to court" is going to be easy, but it sure as hell not as trivial as "coming back to the shop where product was bought and handling in (without any arguing) for repair".

This story is also about Apple not publicly acknowledging that they had to honor a 2 year warranty and doing that by default as well.

I think it does matter what is Apple's stated default warranty duration. There is a difference between having a certain right and having this right being effectively respected without hassles. I don't doubt that before this you would be able to get the 2 year warranty honored, the question is whether that would take a visit to the shop, or if that would take pursuing a legal complaint of some sort. Perhaps you if are a lawyer, that is trivial to do, but if you have no idea how to bring them into legal compliance (say, you are an expat and don't even speak the local language correctly), it can be a real PITA.

Think about getting a refund for your Windows license because you refused the EULA and the EULA tells you to talk to the seller to get your money back. Regardless of your legal merit, shops -in general- won't reimburse you for your Windows license. People that go as far as getting a lawyer involved get their money back (and get a Slashdot story), most people don't bother.

The only issue with that is that people keep repeating it since about 1997. (I use Linux as my *only* OS since 95 ;-))

+1000.

Most FOSS projects are eternally locked into a cycle between effective version 0.3 and 0.6. One they reach 0.6, people decide to rewrite everything, because of a new library, new paradigm, or just new developers who can't be bothered to deal with the old code. Then the actual version is increased, but the effective version goes back to 0.3.

Features are dropped, working stable code is deleted, and the bozos^H^H^H, er, devs start all over while users are left in the rain.

That is why even people who CAN / WOULD bother to download and install a different OS (than the one that came with their computers) are not bothering with Linux.

People who have to fill government provided PDFs have to 'edit PDFs'. Your government may not need that, but for me I either fill PDF forms (and get to keep a digital copy) or I need to print and fill. Guess which one I prefer?

Dosing a "minor issue"? I'd say that dosing (necessary to cause certain effects) is a fairly major issue for anything you consume. Water will put you in a coma after drinking a high enough "dosage" of it.

What was the worse medical consequences you ever saw in a person due to caffeine addiction? What about the worse medical consequences due to cocaine addiction? Get serious.

I use "paper camera" (a image processing app that post-process photos adding effects). It is slow'ish when taking the pictures and post-processing. The time it takes to be able to take the next shoot is much larger than for "normal" photos (i.e. those that don't require special post processing). The last time I tried (there was an update since) a video with 'paper camera' also had lower resolution because of processing constraints. (I own a Galaxy Nexus.)

I can just take the shots and post-process them later, but that is less fun than just shooting directly.

> I fly several times a year between US, South america, Europe and Asia and I have never had any problems bringing anything I need on the plane.

Good for you AC. Though I bet you never travelled with a baby, did you?

I travelled with an 8 month old. We walked in with loads of items and containers that would otherwise not be allowed. You know why that is allowed? Because parents would sue airlines to the end of the Earth for the inconvenience and discomfort that that would cause their babies (babies can be picky eaters); and when some scare monger US politician got to it, everyone watching TV would ALREADY be thinking about the children by the moment the bozo started talking about al'quaida.

All these security measures are just a ridiculous freedom and privacy take down first put in place in the US, later in Europe and then exported everywhere else. Parents will walk in with everything when caring babies, because that is beyond the limit of what society would put up with AND because, truth is, there is no security risk to justify not taking liquids in.

The question is whether the physical design of a tablet such as Apple's deserves to be a "registered design". Apple has claimed to own the design concept of a tablet with a "thin screen with a rounded black border". My point is that that is downright bullshit, there were tablet concept designs that looked just like that, and I believe that the fact that there TVs and photo displays that looked just like that are pertinent.

Try googling for the suggestions they made in the US about how a tablet would have to be NOT to infringe their design. The answer was hilarious. IIRC the judge in California told Apple to take a hike.

A rectangular screen with a black border around it. Do you actually believe Apple invented the design of "screen with a black border around it"? How many digital photo displays are "screens with a black border around it"? Oh, perhaps you meant "a rectangular screen with a black border around it and a single round button"?

FYI, All older Samsung TVs (I own one) were "rectangular screens with a black border around it with a single round button in the middle". Or you are going to say that as the tablets have a touch screen, any other design without a touch screen won't apply?

Do you also believe that mobile video calling was invented by Apple when they released the "iphone with a video camera in the front"?

As the owner of a Galaxy Nexus bought from Amazon.DE and as a person that makes a living writing software, I am delighted to hear that Apple (or any other company) will have to make their 'buck' by making awesome products, and will not be allowed to curb competition because some idiot allowed them to patent 'list scrolling', or "whatever-shit-we-did-before BUT NOW ON A TOUCH-SCREEN MOBILE PHONE".

There is a difference between would like to occupy/own a market, and be actively working to grab that market. Apple is not fighting for the corporate market. Not saying that they are not go for it at some point, they are not into it now.

On the non-biased side: it remains impossible to buy a computer running a normal Linux desktop in a 'normal/mainstream' computer shop. Most gadgets I own, only have software support for using it with Windows or Macs, say, the image processing software that came with my photo and video cameras.

FWIW, someone answered to a post of mine (in this thread) saying "happy I don't care about OS popularity". That misses the point. I can't safely upgrade the firmware in my cameras using Linux. I can't use the (very nice) image processing software provided with my cameras within Linux (crashes under wine). So at the end of the day, at least for me, OS popularity has actual negative consequences. (it is not the end of world, but it makes a difference).

Regardless of the reasons. It fell. Linux does not exist (in any significant way) in netbooks anymore. My point is that the netbook gain in market share was an ephemeral thing.

Apple tries to occupy a very different market. Linux has been pushed as the 'ideal' public service desktop for years and years and years.

FWIW I very, very much doubt Apple has less of a desktop/laptop presence than Linux. This is probably MS trying to downplay the importance of Apple in their (MS) home market.

Judging from all my acquaintances, I can tell you that: (about 10 years ago) when I started my PhD many of my colleagues used Linux at home. With the years, each and every one of them migrated to Apple. Many of the colleagues I had after my PhD, (people that work all day on Linux desktops) migrated from Linux to Apple 'at home' in recent years. The amount of people I know personally that runs Linux at home has only been shrinking.

The text you quoted talked about 'netbooks' running Linux. Suuure. How many *new* netbooks running Linux have you seen for sale in the last 2 years?