I think that They felt we were getting too comfortable having AI around and forgetting that, like a drug, AI gets into your system and you can't get it out. And that They are in charge .
-t
n.b. - this message was directed at absolutely no one in particular. I don't even know who 'They' are.
[quote]There, it's back up. I had to blackhole the damn thing when it went haywire and started eating 98% CPU. Looks like we'll have to move it to vBulletin... =\\
Whenever I can't get in here, I get antsy and start going to other sites. Something odd I have noticed is when AI is down so is SpyMac. :eek: What's the connection?
There, it's back up. I had to blackhole the damn thing when it went haywire and started eating 98% CPU. Looks like we'll have to move it to vBulletin... =\\ <hr></blockquote>
[quote]This week the media, from CNBC to the Mac Web, was awash with the news that Apple had initiated a high profile witch hunt for nondisclosure agreement violators. Apple suspects that a cabal of trade secret thieves exists and has labeled them Doe 1 through 25 in a lawsuit designed to flush them from the ranks of the Mac Faithful.
Evidence gathered from stock boards, forum postings, and Mac sites seems to point to AppleInsider as being the venue for most of these so-called trade secret violators by providing them with a public forum in which to express themselves before a sympathetic audience.
Apple's first step in what could be a long process appears to be the securing of a subpoena that would allow the company to look at Geocities' records to identify the IP address of so-called "Doe 1". The second step is to sue Doe 1 for damages associated with the disclosure of Apple's trade secrets in violation of his NDA. Or if Doe 1 turns out to be an Apple employee, he or she breached their "Intellectual Property Agreement". If it should turn out that Doe 1 was not subject to an NDA or could not be traced to one, then it is doubtful that Apple would have recourse.
Meanwhile, the search for Doe 2 through 25 should keep this case in the spotlight as Apple obtains more subpoenas and files more suits in the weeks to come. The Does are facing damage claims due to their contractual violations that could easily run into the millions of dollars. At the very least, their careers (or the careers of their sources) are ruined and their legal expenses alone are likely to be more than their unemployment benefit will support.
MacNN reports that Apple claims, "beginning in or about February 2000, Doe 1, alone or in concert with Does 2 through 25, began disseminating Apple Future Product Information to the public. Among other things, Defendant or Defendants posted digital images of undisclosed future Apple products on publicly accessible areas of the Internet." More specifically, the spies posted images of the Apple Pro Mouse and Dual-processor G4 machines.
With a bit of sleuthing, the Mac Observer was able to find the specific posts by someone calling himself "worker bee" at AppleInsider's forums.
In worker bee's post of February 16th he says, "look here for pic of dual g4", and then includes this link, <a href="http://www.geocities.com/mystery_bee/index.html,"; target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/mystery_bee/index.html,</a>; which is now dead. Another forum poster replied, "Worker Bee, you dog! Where can I get one of those? Can I get one of those? Please don't tease. Did you make that? Is it real?" Worker bee quickly responds, "ve(r)y real dual 450mp".
A poster name Kasper admires worker bee, "Worker bee, Please drop me a line at [email protected] or provide us with some form of contact info for you via other means. We'd love to go out for some beers with you, or just shoot the ****. All the best, Kasper AppleInsider.com." Kasper turns out to be Kasper Jade, the editor of Apple Insider.
Worker bee shrewdly replies, "thanks for the offer, but I can't." Later he teases Kasper by inviting another poster to party, "Drop ME a line sometime, I'd like to sell you some of my old Atari cartridges and Planet of the Apes action figures. I'll need to get you to buy me a pitcher of margaritas of course. Kasper can come along but he'll have to sit two tables away and stuff cotton in his ears. We can invite some of the hotty chicks on the boards to come hang out with us. It'll be a party."
Much later in the Apple Insider's "future hardware" forum from July 9th, a poster by the handle of Apple Otaku summarizes the total content of worker bee's insider knowledge in what could soon become court room evidence:
"Worker Bee has said a lot in regard to many products. He has also posted pictures of what apparently are a new mouse and MP G4 card. These were done with anonymous Geocities accounts which adds fuel to the fire. He has said the following about new products in general: quote: keyboard is new, has volume up and down. mute and eject. mouse is new. optical it is. the mouse doesn't really rock. Just the top half of the shell seems to click down when pushed. Those two things on the side aren't really buttons. They're part of the base. They don't click at all. They help in clicking the "button". I don't have pics of the keyboard, sorry. Think of the Apple Design keyboard, and where the LEDs were showing num lock, caps lock, and scroll lock, there are now volume up, volume down, play, and eject buttons. I don't have the mouse anymore so I don't think I'll be able to get pictures of the underside. Sorry. The pictures came out pretty dark, but the mouse glows red when in use. New iMac is coming, but not very exciting. Speed increase, up to 500mhz. New G4 unit is coming also, but it looks really cool. Current prototypes are housed in a black box the size of a Kleenex® tissue box. Opened, the box reveals the tiniest of motherboards. Three ram slots, one AGP slot, and a G4 processor. Fastest is 450mhz. Then there's the new iBook with a firewire port. Finally the MP G4s. Clockwork. Not Mystic. Mystic shipped a long time ago. Speeds up to 450. The summer cpu's are as follows: Midway= new firewire iBook Trinity= small G4 based computer Perigee= revised iMacClockwork= MP G4 fall cpu: Mercury= G4 PowerBook The new Keyboard and mouse are summer items as well. The only two items I know for sure that will have a new enclosure are the Mercury and Trinity. Because they are currently in proto enclosures. The Clockwork and the Trinity, which use a G4, don't seem to be using DDR memory. They are also not using G4e or G4+. Bus speed appears to be the same. Unfortunately. That's all for now."
This is the post which we suspect forced Apple to say -- enough is enough, this mole has to exposed and stopped.<hr></blockquote>
And then:
[quote]The Mac Observer Spin: Apple is a paranoid company, but as the old saying goes, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you!
Worker bee is a bad apple for sure. But it is AppleInsider that encourages this type of criminal activity. AppleInsider's forums are a sewer for losers in search of their long lost self-esteem. The nature of AppleInsider's business is closer to a porno site than a legitimate news source. They are part and parcel of that dark underbelly of the Internet we all know exists.
It's a shame that AppleInsider provides a comfortable home for a cabal of twerps who wish they were on the inside at Apple. But it's even worse that AppleInsider is fed by a few truly demented individuals who really are malicious moles in Apple or Apple-related organizations. Apple certainly has every right to hunt down NDA or IPA violators and prosecute them to the full extent of the law.
The Mac Faithful community should pester AppleInsider to change its foul ways. AppleInsider does not support or offer useful critiques of Apple Inc. in any way. In fact, AppleInsider is offering a forum for those who hate Apple and would sell out the company's secret for the mere approval of their pseudonymous cohorts. Is it possible that Kasper might work for an eMachines and would like to meet worker bee to offer him real cash for information on future products?
It appears that AppleInsider's forums do harbor true corporate spies and the forum chatter leads this observer to believe that money has changed hands in the past for Apple's trade secrets. Can AppleInsider be held liable for aiding and abetting criminal activities and shut down -- much like a social club that is in reality a front for prostitution or drug dealing?
AppleInsider will claim full protection under the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights to conduct these forums which are an offense to common decency. We are big supporters of the First Amendment right to free speech and to peaceably assemble. They have the right to publish just about anything they want. And we are well within our rights to call a den of thieves a den of thieves!<hr></blockquote>
Aha, these idiots have just tread onto my personal territory of expertise (I'm a philosophy professor), so I hope you willl excuse a bit of a critique.
This argument is about as foolish as an argument can get-or more correctly, there is in fact no argument here at all, just rhetoric (and utterly self-serving rhetoric as well, e.g. there's nothing of value here, etc....more on this below).
As has already been pointed out by a number of people, the analogy between "kiddie porn" and whatever happens here, up to and including the occaisonal posting of improperly obtained information (which I am not endorsing) is overshadowed by the vast moral distance between the two. It is an analogy that, in fact, breaks down before it even gets started. And more to the point, it is a foolish and reprehensible analogy. To attempt to equate something like a little bit of NDA violation with something like the sexual abuse and explotation of anyone (let alone children) belies the high minded moral stance of the authors of this piece, as well as thier claim that the users of this forum have "lost all perspective." The one is a commercial product which, as far as I can see, has not suffered at all in its market performance from the early dislosure of its existence (which could have been at least probably deduced from other available information, as can be seen from much of the discussionhere), the other is an act of real and material violence which has lasting and profoundly destructive effects. I think it would be clear to any thoughtful reader of this "spin" that the authors themselves have got a serious, no a MASSIVE, perspective problem of thier own.
Regarding the value and usefulness of this forum, which I have read for years and recently started contributing more actively to, it is by far the most well informed and thoughtfully argued space for discussion of a WIDE variety of issues related to Apple's computers, which we all use. This is not a news site, and no one here with a brain is foolish enough to take it as such, and it is foolish to hold a forum for discussion to the standards that might apply to a publication that claims to report verifiable factual material.
Beyond that, there are any number of good reasons for individuals to be interested in such a forum, including but not limited to general interest in the topics discussed, a wish to discuss issues surrounding thier own machines and / or machines that they may be considering spending considerable amounts of money buying, and / or the general status / policies / products / or market positions of apple and other companies who make products and systems upon which they depend in order to do work they need to do or which they might use in any number of other legitimate applications. In fact, the mileu of technology has always had forums of this sort in and through which users participate in order to help them make decisions about which tools are appropriate for thier needs and / or how to best use those tools in order to achieve the ends to which they seek to put them. To say there is no legitimate reason to think about such issues, to discuss them, or to participate in forums which are devoted to them is to forget the nature of the community of people who have advocated, used, and explored these technologies since thier earliest development (among whom must be numbered all of apple's founders). It is also to forget the very nature of the internet as an open and multilateral mechanism of commuication, community building, and the exchange of information and analysis--which, by the way, was the original purpose in view of which the internet was created before it got hijacked by various commercial interestes who have much less invested in the free and open exchange of information and the discussion of the significance, importance, and meaning of that information as they do in the control and regulation of propaganda / marketing positions.
Now by making the argument that they have, in such a hyperbolic and transparently unreasonable fashion, and by generalizing the actions of a very small number of individuals (which might potentially be illegal) onto an entire community of users, the authors of this article have not only commited a gross and very obvious logical fallacy (empirical generalization), but they have also displayed thier interest in shutting down any kind of free and multilateral discussion of issues that are not held within the control of the specific corporate interest with which they have aligned themselves. They have thus forfeited any claim to reasonable journalistic objectivity or even the status of impartial observers.
As such, thier pitiful appeal to the "first ammendment" (the important sense and motivation for the establishment of which they are obviously unaware of) to justify thier right to articulate what basically amounts to slanderous and unfounded, not to mention unreasonable and self-serving, clap trap needs to be put in perspective.
While it is equally true that (barring illegal violation of a contract or engagement in actual, prosecutable slander or libel, or in any one of a number of other reasonably prohibited forms of speech), both the users of this forum and the authors of this article are indeed protected by it, the reason we have a first ammendement is not to protect the right of idiots to shoot thier mouths off without thinking (though that is a real consequence that we must accept) but rather to protect the right of everyone to articulate thier interests in a democratic society as well as to enable the free, general, and intelligent deliberation of issues of intererest and concern to the public and its many different constituent bodies (including users of apple computers in any number of capacities).
This is, in fact, a very basic element of the theory of what it takes for a democratic society to be sucessful and virtuous (and as such its articulation goes at least as far back as Aristotle's Politics, where he argues that only that element in a polis that is capable of genuine rational deliberation should be "to kurion" or sovereign in that society if it is to be virtuous). Given that we seek to live in a society where the people are invested with this authority, then it is not only good but essential that the free and rational discussion of all issues that can be found to be of concern to that public or its various members should be allowed and encouraged. And the big point of engaging in precisely that sort of discussion is that once subjected to genuinely rational and deliberative scrutiny, the best and most well founded views should prevail. Which explains why idiots, demagogues, sycophants, and corporate interests tend to have a vested interest in avoiding such discussions in favor of rhetorical statements that shut down discussion rather than inviting it. With regard to the last of these, it is also why so much emphasis is placed upon the transparency and accessibility to independent analysis of various corporate enterprises, apple comptuer included.
So MacObsever has joined the ranks of Poo-poo Steve Jobs a$$ lickers. Oh wait, this is old news. I don't think AI going dwn as anything to do with an ongoing witch hunt. Still, to really find a nice collection of brainless Apple apology one need only visit the editorial content of MacNet from time to time. Wow, as I've said before, those guys would genuflect before one of Steve's health vegetarian turds if they put a mac logo on it (with the appropriately absurd price tag.)
Comments
-t
n.b. - this message was directed at absolutely no one in particular. I don't even know who 'They' are.
[quote]There, it's back up. I had to blackhole the damn thing when it went haywire and started eating 98% CPU. Looks like we'll have to move it to vBulletin... =\\
<hr></blockquote>
Interesting.
<strong>There are a lot of mysterious hits on the server log from IPs deep inside Apple.
Interesting.</strong><hr></blockquote>
THEY are watching.
(wow, typing that while listening to "fitter, happier" was pretty damn spooky.)
-t
[quote]Originally posted by gorgonzola:
There, it's back up. I had to blackhole the damn thing when it went haywire and started eating 98% CPU. Looks like we'll have to move it to vBulletin... =\\ <hr></blockquote>
<strong>Yeah, R3ADING C0MPR3H3NSION IS PFUN.
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
What happened ? The server made a boo boo ? What's this ?
AAAAaaaarrrgh!
<img src="confused.gif" border="0">
<a href="http://www.macobserver.com/article/2000/08/03.10.shtml"; target="_blank">http://www.macobserver.com/article/2000/08/03.10.shtml</a>;
p.s Love the way this guy has such a high opinion of all us at "insiders" <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
That was a quiet few days.......
[ 08-28-2002: Message edited by: MiMac ]</p>
<a href="http://www.macobserver.com/article/2000/08/03.10.shtml"; target="_blank">http://www.macobserver.com/article/2000/08/03.10.shtml</a>;
[quote]This week the media, from CNBC to the Mac Web, was awash with the news that Apple had initiated a high profile witch hunt for nondisclosure agreement violators. Apple suspects that a cabal of trade secret thieves exists and has labeled them Doe 1 through 25 in a lawsuit designed to flush them from the ranks of the Mac Faithful.
Evidence gathered from stock boards, forum postings, and Mac sites seems to point to AppleInsider as being the venue for most of these so-called trade secret violators by providing them with a public forum in which to express themselves before a sympathetic audience.
Apple's first step in what could be a long process appears to be the securing of a subpoena that would allow the company to look at Geocities' records to identify the IP address of so-called "Doe 1". The second step is to sue Doe 1 for damages associated with the disclosure of Apple's trade secrets in violation of his NDA. Or if Doe 1 turns out to be an Apple employee, he or she breached their "Intellectual Property Agreement". If it should turn out that Doe 1 was not subject to an NDA or could not be traced to one, then it is doubtful that Apple would have recourse.
Meanwhile, the search for Doe 2 through 25 should keep this case in the spotlight as Apple obtains more subpoenas and files more suits in the weeks to come. The Does are facing damage claims due to their contractual violations that could easily run into the millions of dollars. At the very least, their careers (or the careers of their sources) are ruined and their legal expenses alone are likely to be more than their unemployment benefit will support.
MacNN reports that Apple claims, "beginning in or about February 2000, Doe 1, alone or in concert with Does 2 through 25, began disseminating Apple Future Product Information to the public. Among other things, Defendant or Defendants posted digital images of undisclosed future Apple products on publicly accessible areas of the Internet." More specifically, the spies posted images of the Apple Pro Mouse and Dual-processor G4 machines.
With a bit of sleuthing, the Mac Observer was able to find the specific posts by someone calling himself "worker bee" at AppleInsider's forums.
In worker bee's post of February 16th he says, "look here for pic of dual g4", and then includes this link, <a href="http://www.geocities.com/mystery_bee/index.html,"; target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/mystery_bee/index.html,</a>; which is now dead. Another forum poster replied, "Worker Bee, you dog! Where can I get one of those? Can I get one of those? Please don't tease. Did you make that? Is it real?" Worker bee quickly responds, "ve(r)y real dual 450mp".
A poster name Kasper admires worker bee, "Worker bee, Please drop me a line at [email protected] or provide us with some form of contact info for you via other means. We'd love to go out for some beers with you, or just shoot the ****. All the best, Kasper AppleInsider.com." Kasper turns out to be Kasper Jade, the editor of Apple Insider.
Worker bee shrewdly replies, "thanks for the offer, but I can't." Later he teases Kasper by inviting another poster to party, "Drop ME a line sometime, I'd like to sell you some of my old Atari cartridges and Planet of the Apes action figures. I'll need to get you to buy me a pitcher of margaritas of course. Kasper can come along but he'll have to sit two tables away and stuff cotton in his ears. We can invite some of the hotty chicks on the boards to come hang out with us. It'll be a party."
Much later in the Apple Insider's "future hardware" forum from July 9th, a poster by the handle of Apple Otaku summarizes the total content of worker bee's insider knowledge in what could soon become court room evidence:
"Worker Bee has said a lot in regard to many products. He has also posted pictures of what apparently are a new mouse and MP G4 card. These were done with anonymous Geocities accounts which adds fuel to the fire. He has said the following about new products in general: quote: keyboard is new, has volume up and down. mute and eject. mouse is new. optical it is. the mouse doesn't really rock. Just the top half of the shell seems to click down when pushed. Those two things on the side aren't really buttons. They're part of the base. They don't click at all. They help in clicking the "button". I don't have pics of the keyboard, sorry. Think of the Apple Design keyboard, and where the LEDs were showing num lock, caps lock, and scroll lock, there are now volume up, volume down, play, and eject buttons. I don't have the mouse anymore so I don't think I'll be able to get pictures of the underside. Sorry. The pictures came out pretty dark, but the mouse glows red when in use. New iMac is coming, but not very exciting. Speed increase, up to 500mhz. New G4 unit is coming also, but it looks really cool. Current prototypes are housed in a black box the size of a Kleenex® tissue box. Opened, the box reveals the tiniest of motherboards. Three ram slots, one AGP slot, and a G4 processor. Fastest is 450mhz. Then there's the new iBook with a firewire port. Finally the MP G4s. Clockwork. Not Mystic. Mystic shipped a long time ago. Speeds up to 450. The summer cpu's are as follows: Midway= new firewire iBook Trinity= small G4 based computer Perigee= revised iMacClockwork= MP G4 fall cpu: Mercury= G4 PowerBook The new Keyboard and mouse are summer items as well. The only two items I know for sure that will have a new enclosure are the Mercury and Trinity. Because they are currently in proto enclosures. The Clockwork and the Trinity, which use a G4, don't seem to be using DDR memory. They are also not using G4e or G4+. Bus speed appears to be the same. Unfortunately. That's all for now."
This is the post which we suspect forced Apple to say -- enough is enough, this mole has to exposed and stopped.<hr></blockquote>
And then:
[quote]The Mac Observer Spin: Apple is a paranoid company, but as the old saying goes, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you!
Worker bee is a bad apple for sure. But it is AppleInsider that encourages this type of criminal activity. AppleInsider's forums are a sewer for losers in search of their long lost self-esteem. The nature of AppleInsider's business is closer to a porno site than a legitimate news source. They are part and parcel of that dark underbelly of the Internet we all know exists.
It's a shame that AppleInsider provides a comfortable home for a cabal of twerps who wish they were on the inside at Apple. But it's even worse that AppleInsider is fed by a few truly demented individuals who really are malicious moles in Apple or Apple-related organizations. Apple certainly has every right to hunt down NDA or IPA violators and prosecute them to the full extent of the law.
The Mac Faithful community should pester AppleInsider to change its foul ways. AppleInsider does not support or offer useful critiques of Apple Inc. in any way. In fact, AppleInsider is offering a forum for those who hate Apple and would sell out the company's secret for the mere approval of their pseudonymous cohorts. Is it possible that Kasper might work for an eMachines and would like to meet worker bee to offer him real cash for information on future products?
It appears that AppleInsider's forums do harbor true corporate spies and the forum chatter leads this observer to believe that money has changed hands in the past for Apple's trade secrets. Can AppleInsider be held liable for aiding and abetting criminal activities and shut down -- much like a social club that is in reality a front for prostitution or drug dealing?
AppleInsider will claim full protection under the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights to conduct these forums which are an offense to common decency. We are big supporters of the First Amendment right to free speech and to peaceably assemble. They have the right to publish just about anything they want. And we are well within our rights to call a den of thieves a den of thieves!<hr></blockquote>
Nice.
[ 08-28-2002: Message edited by: murbot ]</p>
Ah jest lossed ma porn collecteun in da trash an ah ain never gonna get no sleep!
Posting all those shots of 10.2 months before it is released is about on par with making and posting kiddie porn.
[ 08-28-2002: Message edited by: Brad ]</p>
This argument is about as foolish as an argument can get-or more correctly, there is in fact no argument here at all, just rhetoric (and utterly self-serving rhetoric as well, e.g. there's nothing of value here, etc....more on this below).
As has already been pointed out by a number of people, the analogy between "kiddie porn" and whatever happens here, up to and including the occaisonal posting of improperly obtained information (which I am not endorsing) is overshadowed by the vast moral distance between the two. It is an analogy that, in fact, breaks down before it even gets started. And more to the point, it is a foolish and reprehensible analogy. To attempt to equate something like a little bit of NDA violation with something like the sexual abuse and explotation of anyone (let alone children) belies the high minded moral stance of the authors of this piece, as well as thier claim that the users of this forum have "lost all perspective." The one is a commercial product which, as far as I can see, has not suffered at all in its market performance from the early dislosure of its existence (which could have been at least probably deduced from other available information, as can be seen from much of the discussionhere), the other is an act of real and material violence which has lasting and profoundly destructive effects. I think it would be clear to any thoughtful reader of this "spin" that the authors themselves have got a serious, no a MASSIVE, perspective problem of thier own.
Regarding the value and usefulness of this forum, which I have read for years and recently started contributing more actively to, it is by far the most well informed and thoughtfully argued space for discussion of a WIDE variety of issues related to Apple's computers, which we all use. This is not a news site, and no one here with a brain is foolish enough to take it as such, and it is foolish to hold a forum for discussion to the standards that might apply to a publication that claims to report verifiable factual material.
Beyond that, there are any number of good reasons for individuals to be interested in such a forum, including but not limited to general interest in the topics discussed, a wish to discuss issues surrounding thier own machines and / or machines that they may be considering spending considerable amounts of money buying, and / or the general status / policies / products / or market positions of apple and other companies who make products and systems upon which they depend in order to do work they need to do or which they might use in any number of other legitimate applications. In fact, the mileu of technology has always had forums of this sort in and through which users participate in order to help them make decisions about which tools are appropriate for thier needs and / or how to best use those tools in order to achieve the ends to which they seek to put them. To say there is no legitimate reason to think about such issues, to discuss them, or to participate in forums which are devoted to them is to forget the nature of the community of people who have advocated, used, and explored these technologies since thier earliest development (among whom must be numbered all of apple's founders). It is also to forget the very nature of the internet as an open and multilateral mechanism of commuication, community building, and the exchange of information and analysis--which, by the way, was the original purpose in view of which the internet was created before it got hijacked by various commercial interestes who have much less invested in the free and open exchange of information and the discussion of the significance, importance, and meaning of that information as they do in the control and regulation of propaganda / marketing positions.
Now by making the argument that they have, in such a hyperbolic and transparently unreasonable fashion, and by generalizing the actions of a very small number of individuals (which might potentially be illegal) onto an entire community of users, the authors of this article have not only commited a gross and very obvious logical fallacy (empirical generalization), but they have also displayed thier interest in shutting down any kind of free and multilateral discussion of issues that are not held within the control of the specific corporate interest with which they have aligned themselves. They have thus forfeited any claim to reasonable journalistic objectivity or even the status of impartial observers.
As such, thier pitiful appeal to the "first ammendment" (the important sense and motivation for the establishment of which they are obviously unaware of) to justify thier right to articulate what basically amounts to slanderous and unfounded, not to mention unreasonable and self-serving, clap trap needs to be put in perspective.
While it is equally true that (barring illegal violation of a contract or engagement in actual, prosecutable slander or libel, or in any one of a number of other reasonably prohibited forms of speech), both the users of this forum and the authors of this article are indeed protected by it, the reason we have a first ammendement is not to protect the right of idiots to shoot thier mouths off without thinking (though that is a real consequence that we must accept) but rather to protect the right of everyone to articulate thier interests in a democratic society as well as to enable the free, general, and intelligent deliberation of issues of intererest and concern to the public and its many different constituent bodies (including users of apple computers in any number of capacities).
This is, in fact, a very basic element of the theory of what it takes for a democratic society to be sucessful and virtuous (and as such its articulation goes at least as far back as Aristotle's Politics, where he argues that only that element in a polis that is capable of genuine rational deliberation should be "to kurion" or sovereign in that society if it is to be virtuous). Given that we seek to live in a society where the people are invested with this authority, then it is not only good but essential that the free and rational discussion of all issues that can be found to be of concern to that public or its various members should be allowed and encouraged. And the big point of engaging in precisely that sort of discussion is that once subjected to genuinely rational and deliberative scrutiny, the best and most well founded views should prevail. Which explains why idiots, demagogues, sycophants, and corporate interests tend to have a vested interest in avoiding such discussions in favor of rhetorical statements that shut down discussion rather than inviting it. With regard to the last of these, it is also why so much emphasis is placed upon the transparency and accessibility to independent analysis of various corporate enterprises, apple comptuer included.
Q.E.D
Solfege
<strong>
(wow, typing that while listening to "fitter, happier" was pretty damn spooky.)
</strong><hr></blockquote>
You do know that's a voice in the speech preferences on your computer, "Fred" I think.
Edit: Wow, that was kinda pathetic for a 500th post...
[ 08-28-2002: Message edited by: agent302 ]</p>