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Intel tells Harvard, 'Cover that Mac!'
datarealm writes "In a story on yahoo, Intel badgered Harvard into covering all iMac kiosks during an Intel sponsored event. Apparently the Intel provided covers trapped heat, forcing the machines to not only be covered, but also powered down." How much of is this happening in donations to education, and what questions need to be asked when companies sponsor these kind of things?
guest: what was that thing over there?
really smart harvard guy: what thing? (acting nonchalant)
guest: that thing...it looks like an imac with a cover over it?!?!
really smart harvard guy: that...uh...that was a pigeon!
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
A lot of the same stuff (brand wars) is going on in junior high and high schools with Pepsi and Coke - Not just early advertising, but downright force of product in order to get donations. Is it just me, or is brand-consciousness going WAAAAY overboard here?
It's not like Intel was totally in the wrong in not wanting competitor products in the faces of the participants, but this kind of in-your-face no-holds-barred product endorsement smells almost like extortion to me.
"I'm not even supposed to BE here today!"
But we in the U.S. had schools free of this nonsense for two hundred years.
I think it has little to nothing to do with our economic model; I think it has to do with a declining sense of morals and ethics among educators, and really among people in general.
It's simply ethically wrong for a school to enter into these types of arrangements. But the focus in education in the U.S. over the past twenty years has been money, money, money. The teachers' unions have been pushing for more money every election, despite the obvious fact that money (above a certain baseline) has no relationship to the quality of education. Our most horrendous schools in the U.S. happen to be in the school districts (like Washington, D.C.) with the highest per-student expenditures.
Our privately-run schools tend to do a much better job, while spending a fraction of the money of the state-run schools. The figures from a few years back were, I think, in Los Angeles, $7,200 per student in the L.A. Unified School District vs. $3,000 per student in the Catholic schools there. And the Catholic schools were turning out better educated students, even though they also had a reasonable share of economically disadvantaged students.
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Intel Guy: If you can't see them, they can't see you
Havard Guy: Uh? Are you referering to the Macs?
Intel Guy: They don't exist, if I can't see them they don't exist
Havard Guy: Sure they do look [removing cover to reveal an iMac]
Intel Guy: PUT IT BACK ON!!!! PUT IT BACK ON!!!!
Havard Guy: [quickly re-covers the iMac]
Intel Guy: [starts rocking back and forth] STEVE JOBS IS THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, STEVE JOBS IS THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, STEVE JOBS IS THE CATCHER IN THE RYE!
Havard Guy: Are you alright Sir, can I get you a glass of water or something?!?
Intel Guy: [is still rocking back and forth] STEVE JOBS IS THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, STEVE JOBS IS THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, STEVE JOBS IS THE CATCHER IN THE RYE!
Havard Guy: Please settle down, can I get your anything, you want to sit down, a glass of water?
Intel Guy: [still rocking back and forth] THEY DON'T EXIST, MY CEO TOLD ME SO, THEY DON'T EXIST, MY CEO TOLD ME SO. THEY TOOK US INTO A ROOM AND GAVE US THESE SUGAR CUBES AND MADE US WATCH IMACS GET BROKEN AND SMASHED. THE VIDEO HAD MILLIONS OF MACS GETTING DESTORIED, THEY SAID THEY DESTORIED ALL OF THEM, THEY SAID THEY DON'T EXIST!! THEY DON'T EXIST, MY CEO TOLD ME SO, STEVE JOBS IS THE CATCHER IN THE RYE!
Havard Guy: [being sly] the Mac's died in the 1990's when Intel realsed the pentium that destoried them all [??]
Intel Guy: [shaking and in a cold sweat] what is going on, where am I, what happened?
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
The point is not that Intel took some hits from demanding that these iMacs be convered. The point is that any other college budget approver, looking to see what he can do to optimize funding, may fear purchasing an iMac because Intel may pass them over.
That's the idea. Buy Apple, and your students suffer. Buy Intel, and your bribe is on its way.
There's a strong difference, of course, between the certainly legitimate and healthy educational activism of Intel and straight bribery. What Intel's staff failed to recognize was that by harassing Harvard's staff, they converted whatever positive good will they could get from the event into a negative, tainted force.
Fear can buy you alot. Respect buys you more. That's a hard lesson to learn; hopefully Intel will learn from this. Paranoid responsibility is valuable. Paranoid violence leads to the very press-connected Harvard getting harassed. Oops.
They'll learn. It's in their character--or at least, it was. If it still ain't, well, AMD can pop open some champagne glasses...
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Direct link to Crimson Story without all the inane Yahoo editorializing.
Intel, Microsoft, AOL, other companies - we've seen them judged as evil, manipulating, grasping, etc. One trait that is not often considered is that they are also out of touch - and the case of the "Mac War" is an excellent example.
Remove Macs in use in a department that's 90% Mac? Threaten to pull funding over a childish tiff? Forget any moral questions - how stupid can people be?
This does nothing more than make people bitter and angry and make the company look bad. It's made national news, its been displayed here, and now Intel looks a bit stupider. Is anyone involved in this fiascon on the Intel side thinking?
Some of the big Info/Tech/Soft companies remind me of companies in Hollywood - churning out product and making policy with no idea what's going on or what the repercussions are. I have to wonder how long they can dodge real life.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Actually, the really scary thing here has nothing do with Intel and market share, but how much an educational institution can be beholden to one of its benefactors. This was simply a case of a corportation donating money to a university, then dictating to that university how things ought to be run...
As long as our educational institutions feel the need to play along with corporate sponsors, these situations will continue to occur. And with all the big money grants and donations available, more and more schools will feel the urge to get some of that money for themselves. Unfortunately, this can only hurt the students and faculty, ultimately.
If an institution of higher learning is beholden to _any_ interest, corporate or otherwise, they can longer freely pursue their academic interests in _all_ avenues, if a free, unfettered way. That would be a greater blow to our freedom than anything MS or Intel or any other monopoly has done to date.
Of course I use Microsoft. Setting up a stable unix network is no challenge
Not only was I an exhibitor right next to the covered Macs in question, but 5 years ago I was a student using those same Mac terminals to check my email.
The Macs in question were directly (2 feet) behind 3 exhibitors - for students to use the terminals they would have had to have been continuouslly tromping through the the exhibits. There were 20+ exhibits in all - Intel had one, and it happened to be the one in front of the email terminals (the iMacs) - they would have wanted them shut down no matter what brand they were. They were covered to keep students from walking up and booting them up (which they would still occasionally do anyway.)
Finally, Harvard left a number of Mac terminals open at the edges of the exhibit hall, in plain view. It was only the terminals that sat in the middle of the exhibits that were turned off and covered.
This whole thing smacks of a bunch of whiny Ivy league kids with nothing better to do. Remember Intel spent a _bundle_ funding that conference and the majority of exhibitors and participants were from non-profit organizations. Give the company some credit when it deserves it.
+--------------------- You idiot! I told you we were facing the wrong way!
Of course they did. They also had every right to ask the entire Harvard faculty to drop and give them twenty. Microsoft has every right to ask for our firstborn children in their next EULA. I have every right to ask you to kiss my bum.
The point is, Harvard should not have knuckled under and handed Intel whatever they asked for on an iridium platter. I think we should expect a little more backbone from one of our most prestigious educational institutions. It's not Intel who deserves the most criticism here.
(Come to think of it, whose fault is it really, that Microsoft gets away with those EULAs?)
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You are in a twisty little maze of open source licenses, all different.