Let's just imagine that some git had taken delivery of an Intel iMac recently. Let's further imagine that the said git had lately been in the practice of using the admirable freeware package MacThe Ripper (no link provided—feel free to Google, but the Macrovision folks have apparently gone on a pogrom against sites detected carrying links to it, and does IWT need that kind of grief?) to make archival and/or evaluation copies of selected titles from his vast DVD library, using a G4 Powerbook linked via FireWire to a nice DVD burner. Let's suppose that very few titles had caused any problems, and that he (assuming that our git is a "he"...could be a woman...I certainly don't know) had happily made many copies to lend to friends—to lend, for example, to a 55 year-old millionaire, born to millionaires, who has times past returned original DVD media scuffed and scratched and laden with fingerprints, and who airily advised our git that he (or she) was "too attached to material things" (easy for you to say, you scion of privilege, as our git might retort). Anyway. Anyway.

Let us further imagine that our git has installed "MacTheRipper" on his (or her) new Intel iMac, duly placing it in the "Applications" folder. What a surprise when the insertion of a DVD launches the "DVD Player" application, but fails to mount the DVD on the Desktop, and what a further surprise when the "DVD Player" application announces that each and every DVD inserted is "unsupported"—even those DVDs that had played perfectly well before the installation of "MacTheRipper."

Imagine finally how relieved our git would be when he (or it) copies the application to the external FireWire HD, removing it from the boot drive, and finds that "DVD Player" and "MacTheRipper" now each function as they ought to.

I'm just speculating, you understand.

cordially,

[edit: thaipoes]