Great podcast, talented musician making great music.

But for the record, she's certainly not unique in this technique or even necessarily pioneering. Skerrik (of the Seattle band Sadhappy, Critters Buggin', etc.) could often be seen in the mid-90's at New City Late Night Club (a monthly variety show presented in two acts). With the same kind of equipment, and a saxaphone, he would tear up the house with his amazing performances.

Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be much online about Skerrik or the Late Night Club (I haven't been in over a decade, but maybe it's still around/back).

Not that this diminishes Keating's accomplishments at all; I just think it's better viewed in context. :)

my question is, if someone makes copies of our book and turns it into a pdf and freely distributes it, is that or is that not stealing?

Why would it not be? Unless you've specifically licensed it for free distribution or reuse (e.g. Creative Commons), you own the copyright. One might argue that if you've already sold all 100 copies that you originally created, the theft is of little consequence. But it still undermines potential future value of your work. Aren't the PDF copies still theft, assuming they are unauthorized?

Personally as someone who has pirated i realize there is a general sentiment that stealing from [goliath band/studio] is okay, but stealing from say the HPLHS who are fans who made "Call of Cthulhu" is not. Smaller creative groups a lot of times are just struggling to recoup the costs of producing something.

Personally, I think this way of thinking is fallacious and undermines not only the interests of the "smaller creative groups" (because consumers often don't make the subtle distinctions you'd like them to) but also those interests of those who would normally be able to make fair use of content owned by "goliath groups" (because the "goliath groups" then turn rabid and go overboard in protecting their perceived interests).

I hate copy protection of all kinds, and it's my opinion that in the long run, content owners do themselves no good by engaging in it. But it's not hard to see that their motivations appear not in a vacuum, but rather in an environment where people rationalize illegal copying selfishly. As ignorant as DRM might be, consumers who don't respect copyright are themselves to blame as well.

Respect all copyright, not just the copyright you think should apply to you. The big goliath groups have every bit as much expectation that their rights will be respected as the smaller groups.

(Noting here that by "copyright" I mean the legal idea, not necessarily the implementation. For example, I don't consider the DMCA in any way part of valid copyright law and have no compunctions at all about violating the DMCA as long as I'm not violating the actual legal idea of copyright).

For example, your DVDs have value as discs you put in a player, which you pay for when you buy them at a store. But when you rip the disc and put it on a portable player, then you realize some new value. According to "if value, then right," the studio that made the DVD has the right to be compensated for that new value. Otherwise, you're stealing.

As demonstrated by Weinberger's list, the whole idea of "if value, then right" is a bit iffy. But at the very least, it's too vague to be truly useful as a guideline.

With respect to the DVD/portable question, the conclusion assumes that the "new value" was in the DVD, rather than in the portable player. But it seems to me one can just as easily argue that the "value" licensed when the DVD is purchased is the common-sense right to use that content for personal use in any context, and that that doesn't change even if one adds value by introducing some device like a portable media player.

Now, if the person had stolen the portable media player (where the "new value" actually lies), then sure...there's a theft there. But that's of no concern to the author of the content on the DVD.

Simply by rearranging the inputs, one gets different conclusions from the same rule "if value, then right". That makes the rule fairly useless in any case, even if it didn't have the other flaws Weinberger's pointing out.

"...of all stable elements, save the radioactive ones."

Are there any stable elements that are radioactive? I thought the two were mutually exclusive.

What I love about these "let's make fun of the old advertising" posts is that marketing hasn't changed at all since these ads were created.

Forty years from now, people will be making fun of all the dopey, manipulative social stereotypes that are leveraged in advertising today.

The fact is, this sort of ad was a well-designed, effectively-targeted application of social engineering. We laugh now only because we find the social ideas that existed forty years ago backward and amusing. But it was effective in its time and in forty years, many of today's social ideas will seem just as backward and amusing.

Fortunately, marketing will always be doing this and in the future we'll have no shortage of examples of advertising that manipulate those ideas for the benefit of marketers that we can use to laugh at ourselves of today. :)

You act like we live in some kind of democracy or something. How quaint.

Actually, we live in a republic. But whatever. You act like the general public has absolutely no hope of affecting public policy. How pitiful.

It appears that you're not very subtly pushing a libertarian let-em-die agenda

It appears how? Only a person who has failed to read what I wrote could possibly think that, given how often I've stated the exact opposite.

I don't understand how criticizing people without insurance is a way to open discussion about a more responsible health care system. It sounds more like you are sitting in judgement.

I am sorry that you don't understand what I'm writing. I have no idea where you get the idea that I am criticizing "people without insurance" generally. I made it clear that I've made no such judgment about this particular person, or of anyone for that matter except for those where I have first-hand information (I certainly do have knowledge of counter-examples, but I also have dealt with plenty of people without insurance for circumstances outside their control).

As for "why push an agenda?", well...if the agenda isn't pushed, doesn't this sort of thing just keep happening?

And for the record, I don't know the official definition of "social Darwinist", but I'm certainly not against the idea of survival of the fittest. Especially since it's an unavoidable truth (though many people misunderstand what "fittest" means in that context). Being against that would be like being against gravity.

But that's not mutually exclusive with a sense of compassion and generosity.

Anyway, I see that my point is repeatedly being misconstrued as an attack on poor people and I don't know how to fix that. In spite of saying repeatedly that that's not what I mean, people keep reading my words that way. So, whatever...as you were, plugging the holes in the dike with your fingers rather than actually fixing the whole system. Good luck with that.

(by Anthony) Artist, here. I went 12 years without insurance, during which time I drained my parent's wallets falling ill and breaking bones, etc

A familiar story to me. My brother would have done the same, so my parents just bit the bullet and maintained a "catastrophic" policy for him, so that his medical expenses wouldn't ruin them. He was more than happy to let them take responsibility for his own health care costs. But he could well have afforded the insurance, even on his relatively small income. He just chose to use the money on other things.

(by Mark F.) I don't know the artist. I've never heard of him or seen his work until this morning when I read the post at Drawn.ca.

Okay...even so, you've every right to advertise for him. :)

(by Talia) No offense, but I do not understand why the "its too expensive" is not an acceptable answer

None taken. In fact, to some extent the question as to why that is or is not an acceptable answer is the interesting one. In particular, it seems to me that health care is the very next priority after food, clothing, and shelter. And it's debatable whether it's a lower priority than shelter.

If a person can't afford health insurance, they certainly can't afford a car, or a computer, or books, or television, or CDs, or any of the other luxuries that most Americans, including poor Americans, take for granted.

A person can choose to do without insurance, of course...but then they are at the mercy of their own body's ability to maintain itself. That's the choice they've made. If they've chosen to opt out of our medical care system (however screwed up it is), that's their right. But to use the health care system without paying for it, that seems like mooching to me. And in many of the situations I'm aware of, people are going without health insurance, but still spending their money on other relative luxuries.

If we are going to succesfully lobby in favor of socialized medicine, we need to explain why it is that not all people without insurance are like that, as well as why it's so important that everyone pay their fair share for the whole health care system (so that those who can afford insurance don't have the option of not paying for it but still taking advantage of public funding for their health care).

My wife and I are involved with helping the local homeless here, and it's not that I don't understand that there are some people who literally cannot pay for even the basic necessities. But these people are clearly destitute, having an obvious lifestyle to match.

Later in the same post:

(by Talia again) After all health insurance isn't going to do much for you if you can't afford to pay the rent

But I beg to differ. For the most part, the homeless folks I deal with would be much better off having health insurance but no place to live, rather than a place to live but no insurance.

Regardless, so many of the uninsured I hear of are otherwise living a pretty good life. Perhaps not up to the lofty, American corporate-consumerism standard set by Madison Avenue, but certainly by any reasonable standard of what a human being really needs in order to be healthy and happy, plus luxuries.

Let's not blame them for being too poor to buy health coverage.

To be clear, this isn't my intent. In fact, to the contrary if you'll read my message more carefully, I'm specifically making the assumption that there's some good reason why a person who is otherwise participating in the conventional American lifestyle cannot afford health care coverage. It's not about blame. It's about spotlighting the issues that exist in society that prevent each and every person from having adequate coverage.

As one example:

I wish I lived "so far outside the social demographic where health coverage is not the norm that it's hard to understand." ... I wasn't making enough money to pay for both insurance and my NYC rent ... This is incredibly common in the rest of America that lies beyond whatever ivory tower you live in

Now, if I were a person in that situation, I would live somewhere less expensive than NYC. What is it that causes a person to be so constrained that they cannot even change their own living situation so that they can afford both housing and insurance?

A number of the homeless locally here in the Seattle area move around quite a bit as they look for work. How is it that someone who's actually able to stay employed is unable to muster the resources to adjust their living situation so that their expenses are better-matched to their income?

This is part of what I'm getting at. I readily admit that I live a somewhat insulated life, and that's in spite of actively seeking out the underprivileged and trying to help them and understand their plight better. It's really hard to truly comprehend unless you've lived through it yourself.

Thus my previous post and questions. The fact is, however "incredibly common" this might be, it's clearly not affecting the majority of Americans, at least not to the extreme degree. If it were, this would be a top priority politically, instead of people electing their government based on hot-button-but-demographically-infrequent issues like abortion, gay rights, etc. I may be a relatively extreme example of "ivory tower living", but it seems obvious to me that I'm not the only person in the country who doesn't fully understand these situations.

I am, as I thought I'd made clear, completely in favor of a socialized health care system. It's my opinion that as a society, we have a moral obligation to help those in need, and to make sure that everyone has access to the bare necessities. Edible, healthy food, safe water, clothing against the elements, some form of housing however minimal, and yes, health care. As it happens, I also believe that as a society we would be much better off economically if we provided these things, as doing so would create a more productive society, and cost us less in other ways in the long run. But even if that weren't true, I believe we are better off morally by taking care of the needy.

But the fact remains, there's a strong sentiment still alive and well in the US that asserts that individuals should be solely responsible for themselves, and that society shouldn't be "coddling" people by providing even these necessities.

It's my opinion that to successfully move forward to a socialized health care system, it's important to address those objections. And an important element in addressing those objections is to talk about case studies such as this one, in a way that explains exactly why it is the (potentially) naïve answers related to simply rearranging one's lifestyle so that the health care costs are properly prioritized and payable, why those answers aren't working.

So, sure...you can assert that "it's too expensive" is a sufficient answer. But that's not the kind of answer that will lead to solutions, especially since it leaves a large voting contingent in this country unsatisfied (because they simply don't believe it...they will always say that if something is too expensive, it's just because you have mismanaged your life).

And again, to be clear: I'm not the one saying that "if something is too expensive, it's just because you have mismanaged your life". I agree that's the case in a great many situations, but I also have seen that it's not universally true. But for better or worse, that's the argument that needs to be refuted, and thus simply stating the conclusion isn't sufficient.

In other words, as I tried to explain in my original post: this seems like a good opportunity to raise some talking points as to why socialized health care is a good and important thing. It's not that I don't believe it is. I do. But nothing helps drive a point home better than some real-world examples and details.

Not to co-opt a legitimate advertisement for the services of a friend of the Boing Boing editors (it's my opinon that BB has the right to advertise for whomever they want, and certainly the idea of working to pay for one's bills is hardly contentious), but...

I wonder if in situations like this (there's also the guy with the brain injury) it would be helpful to explain why they aren't covered under a medical insurance policy.

The idea of people without medical insurance can be pretty abstract to some, and frankly I think it's not uncommon for some people to react with a thought along the lines of "well, why didn't they buy insurance?" The obvious answer, "it's too expensive", doesn't really work because the same thing could be said about a variety of other necessities (and yes, insurance is a necessity...no one is immune from medical problems, so everyone is pretty much guaranteed to eventually need medical care). And I doubt that "the person just expects society to take care of them" covers it either, at least in most cases.

It's an invasion of a person's privacy, so obviously this sort of information would only be offered by the victim themselves, under their own terms. And granted, no single individual story will adequately illuminate the broader problem. But it could still be helpful in terms of the public conversation about why socialized medicine is so important (and yes, no matter how you frame it, true "universal healthcare" is "socialized medicine").

Anyway, just a thought. I admit, I do find myself wondering why a person who is habitually involved with large, dangerous demonstrations would not make sure that they had adequate health coverage. A spider bite is more random, but even there I still am so far outside the social demographic where health coverage is not the norm that it's hard to understand.

I personally take as granted, until proved otherwise, that the lack of coverage is for some good reason. But not all would, and in any case assuming there is a good reason, this seems like a great opportunity to elaborate, as a way of helping buttress the case in favor of socialized medicine.

Sorry for the essay, and yes I realize that this isn't what the original post was about, but it still seems like an opportunity to me. :)

Bardfinn: you seem to be under the misconception that contradiction is a valid form of argument or debate.

You're wrong.

Antinous: thank you, for one of the most concisely insightful comments here.

The "guy quoting Voltaire" was quoting Voltaire's views on how ridiculous Christians are, in the context of how ridiculous Christians are, with respect to defending their own worldview

Voltaire had some legitimate criticisms of the Christian establishment (i.e. The Church), but he wasn't an atheist or anti-Christian per se.

Regardless, his quote applies quite directly to the anti-religious comments on this post, no matter what Voltaire was commenting on initially.

I just wish atheists would a) stop pretending they aren't holding religious views themselves, and b) stop berating those who hold different religious views. There's already enough examples of people expressing hypocritical religously-based ideas without the atheists adding to the problem. Yet, that's exactly what many of them do (including the vast majority represented here).

Lm pst, clearly intended to be inflammatory and completely missing the point of the demonstration (it wasn't meant to "prove" anything).

On the other hand, it was a surprisingly effective way to draw out all the trolls. The guy quoting Voltaire had it exactly right: the trolls are doing a wonderful job presenting themselves as ridiculous.

You maybe miss my point. The emphasis on there being one MILLION names on the list is what demands perspective

Interesting that you're referencing "Innumeracy" but haven't done the math.

With as many a 2 million passengers per day, even if only 0.3% are selected via the watch list (and as I pointed out, because of duplicate names within the population, the number could be much higher), that's still 6000 people being harassed every day.

Now, you may think that's a reasonable number, but personally I don't. I don't think anyone should be harassed without probable cause, and there's simply no probable cause associated with this list of names.

Whatever the count, it's under-estimating to say "that's a million suspected terrorists...who will [be harassed]", because many of the names are shared by many people.

A million names on the list could easily be 10 million people who will be harassed.

A "successfuly" Pinball 2000 would have still yeilded profits that would have been too small to even matter to stockholders.

Furthermore, the pinball market had shrunk considerably since the early 90s.

Pure speculation. Granted, speculation with justification, especially given the effect that home video game consoles have had on the arcade business generally. But there's a surprising amount of disposable income running around, and the pinball market has shifted quite a lot toward personal collections rather than arcades.

I stand by my comment that without actually having seen the experiment through and allowing P2K to mature as a technology, it's impossible to say one way or the other whether it would have been successful. More important, there was a not-insignificant chance that it would have been. After all, anyone who had seem Microsoft Windows in the late 80's would never have guessed that that operating system would dominate the GUI marketplace today.

You can't make accurate predictions about the future by assuming that it will be like the present. :)

By the way, for all those who are wondering where to see all those pins they miss...in Vegas there's the Pinball Hall of Fame Pinball Museum, and there are various shows/conventions around the country from time to time (check out the Pinball Usenet newsgroup, also available on Google Groups, for notices).

Pinball is not dead! It's also very satisfying to see someone take the time to make a documentary such as "Tilt", to give a bit of an insider's look at what happened as the industry finally collapsed (for good?).

They were terrible, both from a players perspective, and from a business perspective.

As an avid pinball player, I have to disagree. I have both "Revenge From Mars" and "Star Wars: Episode I" in my collection, and they have plenty of replay value. "Revenge From Mars" in particular carries on the wonderful tradition of humor and adventure found in games like "Medieval Madness", "Addams Family", and yes, "Attack From Mars" (among many others...one thing I've always loved about Williams games is their playful, tongue-in-cheek nature).

"Episode I" could have been better (especially if they'd left out Jar Jar :p ), but you can't expect a home run with every new design. It's still a strong playing game, with lightsaber battles, pod racing, great loops, laser guns, and more.

No, I think the real issue with Pinball 2000 is summed up by Louis's comment:

P2K never had the full opportunity to mature and develop into all it was meant to be

As ground-breaking as the P2K machines were, they still had their teething pains, and were in some ways ahead of their time.

The blending of video with the playfield was a stroke of genius, but the CRT's can be maintenance hogs. Likewise, there are still a large number of incandescent lights on the playfield, and of course I hate having to replace the burned out ones all the time. Advances in LCD and LED technologies would have helped address these things, but of course P2K was killed off before it had a chance to enjoy those advances.

Another issue was the relatively high cost of manufacture. As near as I can tell, these games still had a lot of hand-assembly, including the wiring harnesses. Today, more than half of all Stern's machines (Stern being the only manufacturer left in business) go straight to collectors. But the high cost of production means high retail price, which limits the audience. I would like to think that, given the chance, Williams would have developed a more automated manufacturing process that would have dramatically reduced the retail prices of the games, to open up the market.

I could go on -- there are probably a dozen obvious improvements that could have been made to the P2K platform to make it even better -- but that'd be beating a dead horse. They all point to the same thing: Pinball 2000 was a huge advance, and had the potential to redefine the game, but it wasn't given the chance to mature into the industry-changing force that was its birthright.

And that's to the detriment of pinball fanatics everywhere. :(

Surely this (the actual customer service experience, that is...I agree that there's no evidence that this referenced presentation is literally how Comcast views their customer service) is a regional issue. My own experience with Comcast's customer service has been nothing but excellence.

Now, granted...they need excellent customer service, because their technical competence is severely lacking. But I really liked that when they screwed up, at least they did it with a smile, and always worked hard to fix my problems.

In my short 2+ month relationship with them, they managed to send a guy later than his appointed time, bill me when they shouldn't have, credit me when they shouldn't have, and generally just mess everything up. But every time I called them, they cleared things up right away and did so in the friendliest way.

Frankly, given how many screw-ups I run into on a regular basis who act like their screw-ups are just par for the course, it was refreshing to find a company who was actually apologetic and helpful about their screw-ups. Sure, I'd rather deal with someone who's not screwing up, but that's a pipe dream.

Weird. When I first Googled that "Tucson Citizen" article, I was able to read it, but now (just five minutes later) it appears to require a login (free registration). Sorry about the inconvenience. I copied the most pertinent info in my previous comment, for what it's worth. :)

According to this March 17, 2008 article in the "Tucson Citizen" paper, the Hut nightclub has agreed to take it. The article mentions that the costs for moving and restoration will require a fundraiser, so if you're interested in helping out, it might be worth contacting the Hut's management.

Apparently, Valley of the Moon (where many of the other pieces from Magic Carpet Golf are going) is itself in need of financial support, to the tune of $500,000. Excess proceeds from the Hut's fundraiser will be donated to Valley of the Moon, but according to the article you can also contact their spokesman, Charlie Spillar, to help them directly (presumably either to donate money, or as the article mentions, to provide a home for excess pieces Valley of the Moon can't house).

As for the question of "tiki" vs "moai", I suppose technically "moai" is most precise. However, inasmuch as "tiki" describes not just a specific kind of carved statue, but also a sort of pop culture, and inasmuch as the Easter Island-style moai show up in tiki culture, I think "tiki" is reasonably correct. :)

I played 9 holes at Magic Carpet about four years ago, and it was sad to see how dilapidated it had become. I'm sorry to hear it finally failed. Mini-golf in Tucson will never be the same!

If you must know...

No, it's just that this was the first article since the new commenting system was rolled out that struck a nerve so strongly that I felt motivated to bother registering to make a comment.

By the way, this is my fifth comment. :p

we also don't come here to read nonsensical rants against something as hack a subject as Apple Store "Geniuses".

Speak for yourself. :p Some of “we” come here for just that, and don't even necessarily find the rants “nonsensical”.

Jokes, slams and comments against them appeared years ago when they first appeared.

Yet, Apple persists in keeping them timely. Odd. But that's Apple's fault, not the pundit's. Until Apple gets the hint, their “geniuses” are fair game.

And when you distill it to it's [sic] core it's simply the same old "Those people at the repairshop know nothing..." premise. You can say the same thing about contractors, garage mechanics and others. Customer service rants (pro or con) are not new and it's tiresome.

If you distill the writing to its semantic essence, sure. You're left with just the semantics and you've lost the art of the author. So, don't distill it!

You can get drunk on pure ethanol or on a nice aged whiskey. If you distill the latter, you get the former. That doesn't mean that there's no point in the latter.

@#81

I guess it depends on who you classify as "evil “douches” who use their positions of power to take advantage of the weak and disadvantaged".

However, Doctorow is (or should be) well-known for his general abusive description of any software developer that should happen to displease him. He consistently pursues the anti-Microsoft theme, regularly using the phrase "crapware" to describe IE, Windows, and any other Microsoft software that he's upset with at the moment, as well as commonly characterizing Microsoft employees in no uncertain negative terms.

I admit, given the BB demographic, many people reading this comment will wonder "well, what's wrong with that?" But suffice to say, it's the same sort of blanket generalizing the people are criticizing Brownlee here for. If anything, it's worse because at least Brownless has had personal, first-hand experience with at least one of these supposed "douches", whereas I think it's highly unlikely that Doctorow has ever had a first-hand personal interaction with any of the Microsoft employees who are personally responsible for implementing any of the software Doctorow spends so much time criticizing.

In truth, both Apple and Microsoft deserve some criticism for some of their behavior. Both of those companies' involvement in DRM is a clear violation of "do no evil", for example, and neither has ever released any software that's truly bug-free.

But in the same vein, neither are truly deserving of blanket generalizations. At least with Brownlee's article, there's a strong hint of intentional hyperbole that justifies the writing as "engaging" and "thought-provoking" whereas with Doctorow's tirades I always get the feeling that he really genuinely means every word he says and is just trying to be mean.

@#57 "You spill your drink into your expensive Mac laptop and you get mad at... Apple?"

Read much? Obviously not.

I very clearly said I had no problem paying for repairs related to the spill (a sticky mouse button), and I had made that very clear to Apple's representatives.

My anger at the so-called "genius" and, by association, Apple was because of their attempt to use that issue as justification for rejecting an otherwise valid warranty claim (a different and entirely unrelated problem that by the "genius"'s own admission was a valid claim). Finding this practice to be insitutionalized (i.e. repeated by the phone support technician) made it that much more offensive (in other words, it wasn't just some random idiot at the Apple Store...it's apparently official Apple policy to lie and misrepresent their own warranty).

I hope you invest more reading comprehension effort in things that actually matter. I admit, whether you properly understood my comment or not probably isn't important. But hopefully you're not as knee-jerk in the rest of your life.

Sue Grant is correct that it's not nice to make sweeping, negative generalizations. In that sense, perhaps this article is a bit over the top.

On the other hand, unless Brownlee patronizes the same Apple Store at University Village in Seattle that I went to, and talked to the same phone support tech at Apple that I did, we're not just talking about an isolated bad individual either.

A few months after buying my first Mac I'd owned since 20 years prior (professional circumstances prevented any previous justification for owning any others after my Mac II), I visited said Apple Store for service. I had called ahead, but no one had bothered to tell me that no one at the store would speak to me until I'd signed in with the "Concierge". And let's be honest, describing an automated appointment system as "Concierge" and your technical staff as "Genuis" just reeks of snobbery.

The earliest appointment that was available was more than two hours later. However, as the lone helpful person in the store (a retail assistant) explained to me, most people never are present when their name is called, so if I stuck around until the next appointment slot, I'd probably be able to get help as they worked their way through the list of names of no-shows. If that's not a great indicator of a lousy queuing system, I don't know what is.

Sure enough, a little later no one else who had signed up was actually there and I got someone to speak to me. Only to have them tell me that because one of the problems was caused by a liquid spill (which I was willing to pay for), the other problem was no longer eligible for warranty service (in spite of them readily admitting it was a warranty issue). The alternative presented to me was to pay nearly half the retail value of the computer (about $1000) to have it repaired.

Seriously. I wanted to punch the guy in the nose. And no, I wasn't being snarky to him. Up until the point where it was clear he wasn't going to provide any real assistance, I was extremely polite, and even after that I limited my comments to explaining that if this was how Apple managed their repair support, this was the last Apple product I'd ever own.

Fast-forward past various discussions with some other stores, including a local Mac Store whose staff also refused to provide any assistance but where another customer suggested, when he overheard my discussion, that I call Apple tech support directly. By this time I'd reviewed the warranty carefully and noted that the only exclusion for spills was of whatever damage was actually caused by the spill, so I was a bit better prepared than when I'd visited the so-called "Genuis Bar".

Of course, Apple's tech support person told me the exact same thing: "spills invalidate the warranty altogether". Complete B.S. I asked the guy to read to me the part of the warranty that said that. He read the "spill" section. I explained to him why the words he read did not say what he claimed they said. He finally gave up and got me his supervisor.

Ironically, after weeks of arguing with various Apple staff and technical support, this guy not only offered no resistance at all, he readily agreed that I had a valid warranty issue, arranged for service, and the actual service experience was fantastic. They overnighted a box, had my computer fixed the same day I'd left it with the shipper, and it was delivered back to me the following day. I was computerless for less than 48 hours.

Which is how it's supposed to work.

No doubt there are some good, professional, helpful people working for Apple. And it would be unfortunate to paint them with the same brush as the rest of the "douchebags" (to use Brownlee's term). But it's just as clear that there's some endemic anti-consumer practices going on at Apple, and inasmuch as Apple treats their customers with such derision and condescension, it's not terribly surprising an occasional "snarky" article turns up now and then.

It's not really all that far off the mark, either.