Setting aside Apple TV portion of this thread for a moment, I think you've missed some recent happenings in the Mac space. The last few revisions of the iMac hardware have definitely had a focus on gaming performance. And no, this doesn't mean they have a good price-to-performance ratio, but it does mean some people on the fence (like me) can now at least consider the trade-off when it was previously not a viable option.

In terms of general ecosystem, the increase of gaming performance is also echoed in Parallels' and Fusion's focus on gaming optimizations in their latest versions. I expect the hardware refocus also in part led to Steam's migration to the Mac platform. Finally, the Mac App store does have "real games" on it and they are selling; it's not just Angry Birds HD.

Circling back on the Apple TV, I think media/blogs are making a mountain out of a molehill, and we're all pointing to the mountain and saying "Oh Apple, you're so stupid, this isn't a mountain." I would be surprised if apps didn't appear on the Apple TV, and as we've seen in both the iPhone and iPad, apps directly lead to people making games. That doesn't suggest that it will compete directly with the PS3/XBox/Wii systems, or that Apple is even trying to. It's just the spread of the application eco-system.

No it's not disallowed as of September 2010 (it came up in April 2010)

I very seriously doubt that this is where we are heading in the short or mid-term. I know it's fun to speculate on worst-case scenarios, there haven't been any indications so far that OS X is being groomed to be locked down. Apple has continued to treat the Macintosh as the center of the Apple ecosystem (hell one of the big techie complaints about the iPad is that it requires a computer to set up and that it is not a stand-alone device).

If something like this were to happen, I think it is much more likely that it would take the form of the Mac App Store being sufficiently popular with Mac users that it's just not practical to sell software outside of it as the user base has become blind to it. (This is more or less what what intellitech was talking about) While that is in effect the same situation you're talking about, in that case it would be the users who essentially decided (with their wallets) that is how they prefer to acquire applications, not something that was imposed on users or developers by Apple itself.

I think that's a fair concern, but I'm a little skeptical. There were similar concerns about Steam being a go-Steam-or-go-home platform for game developers, but so far it's been that the major players decide for themselves if they want to use it and it's been a boon for indie game developers who might never have the attention of potential buyers.

There are going to be plenty of firmly-established OS X application developers that are not going to want to use the Mac App Store because they want/prefer their own purchasing platform or can't provide their software within the requirements of a Mac Store Application (system modifications, OS integration, etc). I wouldn't be surprised if Adobe was one of them; despite the tiff over Flash, they are important to the customer base for their other tools.

Even assuming they want to, Apple isn't going be able to tell them to play ball or go home. As long as that door is open, the Mac Store will be the go to place for general consumer applications (convenience, price) and independent development (exposure, low entry point).

That's not an analogous situation though. In the case of iOS, you can only install an application if it's available in the iOS App Store (ignoring jail breaking and such, of course). The only way around that would be to have a web application, which in many ways is a poor substitute for having a native app. But in the case of OS X, you can still install/build any application you'd like. It's not as though using Steam prevents you from buying Starcraft II from Blizzard. In fact, the Mac App Store model is explicitly meant for types of applications that don't have to make system changes or integrate with the OS, something entire classes of desktop applications need to be able to do. Unlike iOS, this isn't attempting to be the only avenue for application installation, it's simply meant to be convenient. (can use your Apple ID, download and update your apps through one central location, develop and distribute paid applications without having to have your own purchasing infrastructure, etc)

Not that we should be arguing with an AC, but I've found a good PM or BA to be essential in productive dev teams, noticeably absent in bad dev environments, and it's hard to replace a good one.

I can't comment on the kids part, I don't have any. But I'm married, we started seeing each other five years ago, and we almost never call each other. We do send emails throughout the day, and we do spend most of our evenings together (giggity). I'm in the opposite boat, I have no idea how people spend more than a few minutes minutes EVERY DAY on the phone with their girlfriend/boyfriend unless they're not seeing each other at all that day. I'd feel like I'd be treading near co-dependency territory if I started doing that. Sure I'd love to chat, and I do, and I can wait until I get home to do it. (Again, kids and kid-related calls aside. They're supposed to be needy and troublesome, it's part of their charm!)

So you'd prefer that hobbyists buy a $3000 Mac Pro instead, and then you'd come to Apple's defense when people complained about the price of their servers saying "yea but think how ridiculous it would be to sell a low-end server", right?

So if grandma unwittingly downloads some botnet-style application, and you'd prefer the carrier to kill her phone rather than nuke the offending application? That's... erm, bold. :)

Yea it was absolutely terrible getting +1 gold per turn for every city in the world with the same religion as the holy building I just built that spreads automatically and I can spread myself for free. I do not think he was playing the same game. As I started playing the harder difficulties I pretty much optimized my early build to make sure I got at least two of the first three early religions and at least one of the later ones.

I'll let him call me wife if his son gets to soup my bowl at the party

I'd hope a $1600 game of scrabble would be cool.

You've misunderstood the complaint, I think. The concern isn't that the show isn't all about fictional science and instead about characters. The whole point is that science fiction exposes new ways of looking at the human condition, so that would be a self-defeating stance to take.

The problem is one of these uses science fiction to make a point, the other uses science fiction to weasel out of one.

[Some series of] Star Trek will start with a story that could have happened in any setting, and in order to ensure it has a happy ending, will lean on some techno-babble to resolve a mundane conflict. Not only does it not provide new insights because it wasn't creative or innovative, it was lazy because conventional fiction would have needed to weave the resolution into the characters, whereas lazy science fiction can wave it away with 5 minutes of nonsense. That's not making it about characters at all.

Other science fiction starts with a situation that only could have happened in a fictional world (e.g. a seemingly normal human is actually a machine manufactured sleeper agent). They apply this situation to humans as we understand them to create dramatic tension (the sleeper agent is still functionally human, but has all the evidence she needs to realize she's something else). The resolution then spans the entire length of an episode, season, or even the show, watching how the writer feels a human we know and understand would react to this impossible scenario (lies to herself, lies to others, gets depressed/suicidal, etc).

And, hopefully, if the writer has treated the characters seriously and with humanity, you'll gain some new insight into the every day world. For example, the difficult transition of a homosexual from living most of their lives "knowing" and assuming they are straight, denying all the urges and feelings of being gay, lying to themselves and others, and eventually having to reveal to your family and friends you've been betraying them with secrets because you were afraid of what you are.

Yes, of course, BSG and Firefly had their lazy moments (lol, software firewalls and cylon viruses) but they're very rare, compared to newer Star Trek series and SG-1, which are structured around it entirely.