Nosce te ipsum

We're living, right now, in Apple's world, a time and place in which the normal rules of commerce no longer seem to apply to the once much-beaten-down firm. Contrary to all expectations, the company has seen a string of huge hits in the past few years. The iPod is bigger than Jesus. Apple is literally selling these things faster than it can make them.

David Gelernter, a computer scientist and tech visionary at Yale, likens today's PC market to the American automobile market of the early 1970s. At the time, Americans were buying American-made junk -- and because they didn't know any better, they were putting up with the junk. "So what happened?" Gelernter asks. "What happened was that Japan started exporting huge numbers of Hondas and Toyotas, and people saw that for a reasonable price they could buy a car that didn't fall apart in two weeks. When you picked it up at the dealer all the parts were in it, the whole thing worked. Until that happened, people were satisfied with the garbage they were getting from Detroit."

An interesting and fairly balanced article about the current Apple environment relative to the rest of the world. You can get a free day pass from Salon to view the whole article for free.

For example: The interviewer will make a remark about the never ending stream of viruses, attacks, ad-ware, spyware, exploits, etc that keep making headlines across the world and how difficult it is for average people to even have a hope of keeping their machines safe. Gates comes back with a response saying something about how Microsoft Windows XP is their most secure operating system to date and they are continuing to work to improve it - painting a picture that things are just A-OK and there is no need to worry.

Interview

• Part 1: Bill Gates plots a Windows future
'People don't want lots and lots of single purpose devices.... The PC has more software, more competition, more richness than anything else.' Slashdot Discussion | Video
• Part 2: Security
The BBC interviews Bill Gates about Windows, viruses, security, spam, 'trustworthy computing', Longhorn and being anti-competitive Slashdot Discussion | Video

Student Suspended Over Suspected Use of PHP

Topeka, KS - High school sophomore Brett Tyson was suspended today after teachers learned he may be using PHP.

"A teacher overheard him say that he was using PHP, and as part of our Zero-Tolerance policy against drug use, he was immediately suspended. No questions asked," said Principal Clyde Thurlow. "We're not quite sure what PHP is, but we suspect it may be a derivative of PCP, or maybe a new designer drug like GHB." Parents are frightened by the discovery of this new menace in their children's school, and are demanding the school do something. "We heard that he found out about PHP at school on the internet. There may even be a PHP web ring operating on school grounds," said irate parent Carol Blessing. "School is supposed to be teaching our kids how to read and write. Not about dangerous drugs like PHP."

In response to parental demands the school has reconfigured its internet WatchDog software to block access to all internet sites mentioning PHP. Officials say this should prevent any other students from falling prey like Brett Tyson did. They have also stepped up locker searches and brought in drug sniffing dogs.

Interviews with students suggested that PHP use is wide spread around the school, but is particularly concentrated in the geeky nerd population. When contacted by BBspot.com, Brett Tyson said, "I don't know what the hell is going on dude, but this suspension gives me more time for fraggin'. Yee haw!"

It's amazing how utterly clueless people can be when have such strict rules in place that allow no 'reality check' to be applied. Well, congratulations to this Topeka KS High School, you are now officially the laughing stock of the web. Yep, this is what we expect from a red state. In addition to apparently being the drug of choice for geek teens in Kansas, PHP was also awarded programming language of 2004