Macs don't come with Blu-Ray drives, and some of the newer models don't have optical drives at all. Apple may be trying to kill off removable media. They've done it before. Remember the shock of the first iMac? "How can any computer function without a floppy drive?!!" Yet today floppy drives are nowhere to be seen. Apple has shown a willingness to declare certain technologies as dead or dying long before the rest of the industry. Given what they're trying to do with iCloud, it wouldn't surprise me if optical drives continued to disappear from their product line.

This is getting old and tired. Not everyone finds "walled gardens" to be a problem. If you do, you're free to use something else.

Apple's patching of the vulnerability only means they acknowledge its existence and feel it's worth correcting. Nobody is disputing that. It's not even the first vulnerability for Macs nor the first to be patched. It is, however, the first to my knowledge to have such a widespread infection. THAT is what I would like to see corroborated.

As with any other claimed discovery, I'd like to see independent corroboration. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, just that I personally haven't seen it. Everything I've read credits Dr.Web as the source. Has nobody else confirmed their findings?

I guess I'm not understanding how using a "controlled" platform hinders me.

Giving the one and only copy to another party is risks losing it. Basic life lesson.

Seems like it's always the App Store which gets all the credit for being bad for society. Why don't we ever hear about the PlayStation Store, or the Xbox Marketplace, or the Wii's Shop Channel? These also sell screened, platform-specific software, some of which you cannot get any other way. Oh, but they're just games, right?

Simple. They are not you. They have different priorities and they value different things. What is important to you is not necessarily as important to others.

And then there are those who are mechanically inclined and perfectly capable of doing it themselves, yet they choose not to because they simply have other things that require their attention. Their time is better spent elsewhere.

Here here.

I think many are getting caught up in terminology and forgetting (or perhaps they never knew) that the overall general purpose of any testing is to eliminate assumptions. Do the requirements really reflect what the customer wants? Does the system really meet the specs? Does component X really perform its job? Or are these things just assumed to be true? Testing gives one the ability to find out.

Now the decision of what to test and what to ignore is an important one, and ultimately it comes down to recognizing one's assumptions. What is one willing to assume, and what must they really know for certain?

It's highly distressing to encounter these people, but many, tech and manager alike, actually think there's nothing wrong with working on production systems. To them that's just how it's done. They know no other way. Trying to educate them is met with blank stares and sometimes even harsh resistance.

A simple to-do list and lab notebooks. The trick with the to-do list is for the tasks to be small enough that you can reasonably do them quickly, and thus you never have a partially complete task.

Ever heard of Sony or Nintendo? Last I checked, PS3 and Wii discs were not readable on a PC -- technological measures and all that. In addition, their respective software licenses specifically forbid any copying whatsoever, a step required if one is going to use the titles on anything other than the intended hardware.

I agree. A similar scenario can be found in World of Warcraft in the initial quests for Death Knights. But that is obviously fantasy so it's ok, right?