"Less" doesn't mean none. Even the best designed and manufactured devices can have failures. Plus, particularly with cars, people get into accidents, or just do dumb things, and need repairs afterwards.

If it were *only* sales, yeah, this would be illogical. But if you factor in service and repairs, they could actually, in fact, make money, while losing money on initial sales.

Nah, that's not right. Conservative dogma is, "If I don't like it, it shouldn't be allowed." Throw something in there for, "Live by my rules, but I'm not bound by yours."

For background context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

See, you take the specs from customers, and hand them over to the software people. Used to be, you needed people skills for that. Now, you need AI skills. What is wrong with you people?

True, but vi isn't for "simple." You can do regexes; you can do myriad split screens, same text file or not; you can delete five lines with "5dd"; you can do the same action you just did with '.'; you can set up macros to do all kinds of unique, crazy shit. If anything, vi is a programming language - decidedly not simple - whose output is text. A couple of critical concepts and commands to know - same as any other programming language - and you're in business. If you like that sort of thing, cool. If not, there's Nano or Pico.

The problem with our population is that they are dumb enough that a moderately clever advertising campaign could get them to happily waive all of their rights in perpetuity for a pack of stale Tootsie Rolls. They really aren't smart enough to know what's good for them. Which, with their voting rights, makes them perfect for manipulation by the political class, who then get to say, "It was all done democratically." And, technically, it was, but it's like getting a class full of developmentally disabled people to vote for their demise in the gas chambers. Yes, I give them that little credit.

"Sharp edges"? How so? Give a noob "esc", a, i, o, ":w", ":q", ":x", and they're pretty much ready to go. They'll either grok it or they won't. Everything else can be googled.

This tired old saw? Look, among any crowd, you're going to have a mix of motivations. Is it possible that some people bought Apples to be cool? Sure. Mum would say they have more money than brains.

In my professional experience, however, when given the choice of machine to use, 9 out of 10 folks chose a Mac. Why?
- Because it works, and it's one less thing to mess up your day - usually: every machine can suffer hardware faults;
- it has *NIX built in, so it's familiar if we're supporting Linux machines, but without the hassle of installing and managing Linux;
- and for me, personally, I prefer some of the tools available, like OmniFocus, that aren't available on other platforms.

So it's also possible that people buy Macs just because they prefer it over other options. Not every Mac user is an insufferable, pretentious jackass.

And that one guy who chose something other than a Mac? Yeah, he chose Linux, and then spent hours re-installing the OS every other week because he wanted the latest and greatest kernel, or he didn't like some kernel option, or he wanted to try Arch instead of Ubuntu, etc. He was weird like that.

Oh, I'm aware: I've wanted Xcode on iOS for years, but it hasn't happened - yet. In my last job, as a sysadmin for a 24x7 operation, I didn't necessarily want a laptop, but it was necessary: I got support calls at all hours, literally; sometimes while driving. In fact, I installed a customer's Scality system while riding to a funeral in a snowstorm in NW PA. There were times when a laptop, even, was too onerous - no place to set it down - so I'd use my iPad. It had SSH, and access to corp email, so I was mostly set.

For example, there was the time I was at a show on Broadway, and got a support call. I had to go outside and peck on the screen keyboard on my iPad. That one was kind of amusing, in an after-the-fact way: the vestibule was warm, but got no signal, so I had to step outside, literally on Broadway, which was cold in November, and for which I wasn't dressed, because I wasn't expecting to stand outside and fix a problem like that.

Because iPad isnâ(TM)t MacOS. At least for now.

When I used an iPad as a prime machine, I used the keyboard - on screen if I couldnâ(TM)t use the physical - extensively, and the touch only occasionally. I could just as easily have done without the touch. So, touch or no touch, meh.

Would it matter? We're not dealing with statisticians, here, or even moderately smart people. Cops get hired not because they're smart; in fact, intelligence is sometimes a disqualifying aspect. So you have a cop who has a job where results are expected, and he gets a "result," right or wrong, and he acts on it. It's not surprising. Now, somewhere up the line, someone else smarter than the front line cop should've asked some clarifying questions to see if they made a mistake.

Ok, but out of how many threats have people died? Is it more or less than, say, statistical likelihood for any other death?

Trump's can't be verified, and don't count. For all we know, they were self-staged.

I'm not saying we should threaten people; I'm saying it most often comes to naught. Again, for all the threats people make, nothing ever really happens.

I have a 2012 27" Intel iMac on which I installed Ubuntu, but that was entirely because I couldn't upgrade MacOS beyond whatever the last version was. Otherwise, I'd have been perpetually happy with MacOS. It's a fine machine, in all other respects.