<quote>OS X isn't Apple's downfall, its the fact their computers are so annoyingly expensive that most people won't buy them. </quote>

Ugh. The expensive computers aren't their downfall, they are their business model. Say it with me, folks: "Apple is a HARDWARE company." OS X is a value-add, maybe the biggest one in history, to sell more hardware. They don't make cheaper hardware because enough people will buy their expensive hardware to keep them profitable. Apple doesn't make discount computers for the same reason you can't buy a Cadillac subcompact: they are a premium hardware company. Making cheap computers will cut into their profit (why make $50/computer when you can make $300/computer?) and turn out crappier 'value' Macs, further diluting the brand. For the same reason, they don't offer OS X for other platforms. It's designed to sell their hardware. Selling it for PC eats into their hardware sales while upping the numbers of people who install OS X inexpertly or on wacky hardware and then decide it's unreliable.

Rate this -1 or +1, but make sure it says 'Obvious'.

Uhh, all breading/battering jokes aside, we don't breed tuna. We catch them wild. I assume that there are probably some tuna farms, but the vast majority of tuna are wild-caught and thus have not been shaped by the genetic engineering via selective breeding that has happened to cows, pigs, sheep, etc.

-SB

The opposite would be a wholesale store, like Costco or Sam's Club, or a warehouse with a storefront that sells only to businesses in that industry.

I loved your joke, but.... Facts were missing, and I was compelled to fill them in.

It might be that they mean "Designed by Apple in California" and not "Designed by Apple in Shanghai". I love California even less than most people, but the bottom line is, jobs (small "j") in California are jobs in the USA.

On the original topic, I paid a premium for my Mac, knowing that I could get similar specs for cheaper on a PC, for two reasons. I prefer OS X, and I enjoy the fact that the hardware and software, including a number of included, free applications, are pre-integrated for me and function as a cohesive whole. I'm pretty nerdy, I could set up an easy workflow for my tasks on a PC or other OS given enough time, but I don't want to spend the time. So I spent the money.

It's not that one is inherently better than the other, it's that they are different value propositions. Certainly they have different strengths and weaknesses, and I would have thought that this community, if not the general public, would understand this by now.

Can you post model names/numbers for those baby monitors? I'd love to be able to pick one that has channel-switching built in, rather than learning the hard way.

Hmm. I could probably round up half a dozen Korean-speakers who can run a disk-recovery application properly, given an hour or two. Ok, so, I live in a university town and I have an advantage, I'll admit it.

But I think that it's entirely possible that someone who has run a couple of small scams successfully could parlay that cash into buying several hundred hard drives. Finding name/SSN sets on one of these hard drives has plenty of value for identity thieves right here in the U. S. of A. It's not only the launch codes that have value, it's also all the other data.

Ok, so they ask if attacks are increasing, and 45% say they are, presumably meaning 55% said no. That's an increase? That sounds like a decrease.

51% say the technical sophistication is increasing? Well, as time goes on, technology gets more sophisticated. It seems like attacks would follow that trend too.

This doesn't sound like a real story, it sounds like someone coming up with an idea and trying to make the statistics sound right. Didn't Mark Twain say something about lies, d*mn lies and statistics?

So why don't we submit the austrailian government's web sites? And Amazon.com? And everything else that's useful? Once the internet starts to get too blocked, some MP's kid will throw a shit fit and daddy (or mommy) will sponsor a bill to make things a bit more sane.

Or just submit so many sites that they can't keep up.

The best part is that they really shouldn't be accepting submissions at all. I mean, any submission of sites with illegal content (depicting abuse of minors, etc.) implies that the user visited the site, which is illegal.

There is a difference, but you're cutting it very thin. Applications that a first-time user finds easy are often (not always, but usually) also easy for experienced users. If you can walk up to something and 'get it' right away, it's often an indication that the designer has really captured the user's mental model for the task. If you find something usable only after months of practice, that application is not usable for most values of the word usable.

I think if anything, the last 16 years has done the opposite- the power of congress (the *only directly elected representatives* we have in Washington) has been greatly diminished compared to the the presidency.

The congress used to have exclusive rights to the declaration of war, yet neither of the last two wars (nor any since WWII) were 'declared' by the congress and indeed would have proceeded without their approval.

The congress used to have the 'power of the purse' yet when they declined to prop up the car companies the president did it anyway.

The congress used to have not just the power to oversee, but the *responsibility* for oversight. Yet when they asked to see documents concerning various potential violations of the law, including items regarding the outing of Valerie Plame, CIA interrogation techniques, warrantless wiretapping etc. the President refused to acknowledge their subpoenas.

I for one want my directly elected representatives to be given their power back. I have some respect for Obama, and I hope that he will have the balls to put the power back where it belongs.

Or in /. terms: Obama- please be Galadriel, not Saruman. Thanks.

I figure all of Apple's customers thought differently once. That was when they decided not to go with Windows. Then they stopped.

As a software designer, I think Jobs and Co. are the tech equivalent of a movie director, author or musician who insists on their work being created without outside editing. 90% of them are crap, but there are shining examples of artistic visions being fully realized and truly great works resulting.

I think the unique thing about Jobs is not his "I'm right and everyone else is wrong" attitude, it's the fact that he IS right. Not that Macs are perfect, but that they are a fully realized vision that successfully meets the needs of a specific segment of the population.

If only there were Jobs-like companies to fill all the other niches...