@strugee - thanks for the article. I tend to agree w/ several of his points, though one thing most ppl forget is that computers were always meant as a means to an end. The ipad is just the latest manifestation of this. The majority of people have always wanted to just use them to do work, it's a small segment of the population that has been interested in tinkering w/ them to better understand how they work.

It's no different than say cars. Most have no interest in them other than to move them from point A to B.

right, I agree that the iPad is nice. the point of the article, though, is that that small segment wouldn't exist right now if the iPad was around a couple decades ago. no one would be tinkering because they wouldn't have been able to discover anything on the iPad.

@strugee - yeah I got that too, but I guess I disagree only in the sense that cars are pretty closed and yet ppl are still tinkering with them. There is always a segment of the population that wants to tinker, doesn't matter how open/closed a thing is. It's nicer if it's open but ppl will still do it. Just look at how many ppl are willing to jailbreak or tear down their ipads to show what's going on inside of it.

that's true. but I would argue that a car is less closed than an iPad: you can open the hood. but there's no such equivalent for the iPad, not even physically.

I'm glad, we have no votes to migrate that away!

Just to close as unclear, or as off-topic. But not for belongs on Superuser.

So the word about not migrating junk has gotten around.