qudin, you don't get it.

The professional associations of both lawyers and doctors do not allow the general public to see complaint reports the associations keep so people can judge and pick the best lawyers and doctors for themselves.

Yes, it is taboo to call some doctors good and some doctors bad. It is taboo to call some lawyers good and some lawyers sleeze and greedy. According to themselves and the their respective professional associations, we must respect and admire them all.

Plumbers have saved more lives then doctors. If you challenge me on that statement, then you are having a knee jerk reaction.

These aren't stereotypes. I don't worship "movie stars", "sports stars", politicians, doctors, lawyers. They are all people. Some good, some bad. But to call a doctor or a lawyer bad. Watch out. They have dedicated their lives to the betterment of society. They have a higher calling and we should be grateful.

We can't fire bad employees without being sued. We have to have 5 warning stickers on ladders so we don't get sued. Doctors can't deliver babies in some counties becasue they can't afford the lawsuit insurance.

The problem is not lawyers. The problem is there are too many lawyers. They have to invent problems so they can make money.

Most probably they ran out of minis in the first day...

Most probably they ran out of Mac minis in the first day...

...period. The differences between Apple and Microsoft are narrowing very fast, and not only inside the boxes.

A friend was at the Apple store the day the promo was announced and the promo only applied to purchases that were bought from the online store, not any of the bricks and mortal stores.

He ended up buying a Mini, a 250 GB external firewire drive and an iControl GarageBand controller.

This from the guy who said he'd never own a Mac and he already owns an iPod.

Well, here's a guess as to what happened.

Someone pointed out the rather obvious fact that quite a few people might do the following:

- order your mini - as soon as you get it, clone the TIger and the iLife DVD.

- Return the mini saying the hard drive is too slow or something.

You just got yourself a free copy of TIger and iLife and Apple loses a fair bit of money.

For the avoidance of doubt, I have legal copies of Tiger, iLife and iWork.

But when I read about the offer, I thought: these guys are crazy.

Sad thing is: there are plenty of people out there who would take advantage of the offer for all the wrong reasons.

Order the Mini from Apple, ship it back to them, that takes a couple of weeks before you get the refund and costs you postage and possible interest charges on your credit card.

Download Tiger and iLife from Peer-2-Peer, you get instant gratification and less risk. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

I mean, just because someone's a criminal doesn't mean that they're stupid.

I see. Guess I'm stupid because I'm not a criminal...

Thought that might be one reason...

lawyers, doctors, the apple marketing department.... every last one of you... all stupid. the reason they pulled the plan is because armageddon is coming.

Apple has a track record of putting a lot of thought into what they do. While I like the idea of putting Macs in peoples' hands, they probably had a very good reason to withdraw the offer. I don't know how the timing aligned with the expectation or arrival of hurricane Katrina, but certainly many in business have the sensitivity to back away from promotions or festivities during such an emotionally intense period.

If this idea looked good enough to Apple for them to get as far as it did, they'll probably give it another shot later.

I really doubt that the promotion was cancelled over a flood of morons with no real interest in buying abusing the offer to copy software. I suspect someone slimy enough to try that would end up only getting access to a software restore DVD with the system and apps, not retail installers that would work on other models. Most mentally challenged enough to do something that rude probably lack the cash or credit to participate.