It's unacceptable that a 3 year old mac could not run the latest Mac OS.
Most Mac users don't even care what version of OS they are using because the brand has been really good since about 10.3. Only geeks can tell the difference between 10.5 and 10.8 (I'm using the dev preview). Random Mac user tooling around with Leopard doesn't even know what they are missing in Mountain Lion, so it's NOT unacceptable to them in the least. This is not ripping on random Mac user -- it's just a realistic observation. I'd rather use OS X 10.4 over any version of WinXP, so complaining that my 12 year old G4 can't move beyond 10.5 (7.75 years later) is pretty dumb. Considering same 12 year old Mac has worked just fine for the past 4.75 years "stuck" on 10.5 and my 5 year old Compaq PC is worthless (even using the same OS it shipped with) says enough.
I've always been baffled at people buying Mac, hardware to me it's a bit like console gaming, which also baffles me these days, as it's got all the hassles PC gaming has these days with none of the flexibility.
Even more baffling is your grammar and choice of punctuation.
I have a 1999 G4 Mac that runs just fine (but only supported up to 10.3 or something). It's a freakin' 13 year old computer that runs better than most 5 year old commodity grade PCs running WinXP so I fail to see any "smack in the face".
While I agree with your sentiment 100%, keep in mind that the types of industry that use Unions are those where the workers are viewed as expendable, regardless if they are highly productive or totally worthless. In the eyes of the working man, the big bad rich guy has plenty of profit to give said working man a small raise for being loyal and productive. In the eyes of the rich man, he can hire a low skilled 18-year old for half the pay. I see the point in both views (and am not making any judgment either way), which is why we need Unions and arbitration.
Personally, I'd never work in an industry that depended on their Union (which is why I'm a private industry technology educator and not in public education).
Saying that a business or an individual who refuses to hire you because you are associated with somebody is a violation of your right completely mises another point. If you can force a person to hire somebody that the employer doesn't want to associate with, then you are violating the right of an employer to free association as well.
Which is why government has to step in with regulation via those pesky "protected classes". Sure, the business can't deny anyone of rights, but the government can by not regulating that business and forcing the business to comply with federal law.
Stack ranking is basically applying a forced curve distribution on all employees at the same level
This is fundamentally flawed. Peer-referenced criterion is not an appropriate measurement of one's worth to an organization. Performance-based criterion is more effective. With peer-referenced, you are assuming that there is some sort of naturally occurring bell curve, which may or may not be true. You eliminate the possibility that 5 out of 5 employees might all be really good and instead are saying "John is the best and Frank is the worst". If Frank is performing well above the performance requirements, then what's the problem?
This same problem is prevalent in education. Pitting student against student has no educational value of measuring if a student can learn what they are supposed to learn. Johnny is the best at 4th grade math (got 100%!) and Frank is the worst, even though Frank got a 92% when the standard is 70%.
Well I know this won't be popular, but you shouldn't build a "business" out of a charity. You should, however, run your charity like a business to make sure it is efficient. If you make your charity a true business then it is no longer a charity...it's a business. I'm thinking not-for-profit or non-profit here, but I am not intelligent enough to understand the nuances.
Where is the money supposed to come from, tooth fairies?
This is a story about how philanthropic Bill Gates is, so yeah, the money comes from him. That's the whole point of charity -- you give away portions of your wealth for a cause.
Sorry bout that. I was talking in the pure customer service sense of an business "exception", not the simple fact that some people make exceptions off the cuff just because they want to be nice. Business exceptions are calculated under the guise of "doing what's best for the customer", when in reality it simply means, "making the customer think you are doing something special for them while still protecting the bottom line". Like giving the obnoxiously loud patron a refund so he'll just get the hell out of your theater and stop scaring the other patrons.
And while I did say "you can't", I meant to juxtapose that with the situation where you can get a refund if there's something wrong with the projector or the environment, no exception needed. Rereading it makes it sound like I meant you can never ever under any circumstance get your money back just because you didn't like it. What I meant to say is that you don't deserve to get your money back (in my opinion) and it is the business' right not to.
Haha, that's funny. But it makes a perfect point. You found it boring, yet it won critical acclaim. Why should you get a refund just because YOU didn't like it? I liked the 45 minute section I caught on HBO the other day...dvr'd it for the rest and still trying to figure out why all my friends hate it..must be the other parts I haven't seen yet.
Then again, I'm one of maybe 3 people on slashdot that loved Lost in Translation as well. That's my great litmus test of movies. Perhaps Tree of Life will replace it.
Yes, the concept of "exceptions" is not lost on any business. If it makes sense to go against policy to maintain a positive customer experience or loyalty, then most companies will make exceptions to return/warranty/whatever policy. Most video game stores are not in the business of making exceptions for dubious claims made by ornery teens who have no money in the first place.
Because it would be so hard to just go to any of the other Game Stops, Best Buys, Targets, WalMarts, etc. etc. in a 10 mile radius from me? Even if all of those stores had a 3-strike policy, I've never returned that much merchandise in my entire life, let alone just tech/games stuff.
Why? You can secretly love the movie, but pretend it "sucks" (what defines sucks, btw?) and take it back. Free rental isn't a good business model for anyone.
You can't watch a movie, then go back to the ticket counter for a refund because you didn't like it. You CAN, however, if the sound cut out half way through, or the audience unduly interfered with your ability to watch the movie. You can't get your money back for a football game that sucked. Entertainment follows completely different rules when it comes to consume r ights. Was the game played in its entirety, without undue distraction or delays? Then what's the problem? Oh, your team didn't win (you didn't like the book, you hated the movie, you don't like the singers voice)? That's a shame. You still got the product that was promised as part of the contract between you and the content provider when you purchased the "ticket".
Curious to know what your gripe is against GM (mine is they make crappy cars), Ford, and Toyota (other than they make soulless cars). I'm pretty sure I can find something "evil" about any "for-profit" company on the planet. It's a matter of tolerable evil for me.
I dunno, my OS dictionary says "to express in the terms of currency", which sounds like what it says above to me. I can express the value of a router in currency terms rather easily, actually.
I don't drink good beer from countries like England and Germany in the United States because it's not very good by the time it gets here, or it is massed-produced by one of our crappy megabreweries and relabeled as "Becks" or "Guiness" or "Staropramen"...(not that these are excellent beers, only that they are extra not good as import beer in the US).
Most craft brewers in the US worth their name in salt wont even ship to other states, let alone foreign countries.
And I have no idea what the etymology of "...name in salt" is.
And here I thought we Americans were the ignorant ones. Americans make some of the best craft beers on the planet, if not the best. Stereotypes are a bitch.
I'd rather have a core OS infringement than a hardware infringement. Seems easy to fix the software, but changing the hardware would be a huge business expense. Then again, (not to troll here), maybe Samsung shouldn't tread on such dangerous waters and come up with something that's easy to differentiate. Seems hundreds of other brand/model combinations have figured it out.
I use Safari, as do most of my coworkers (roughly 5000 Macs). I also use Firefox for some stuff and I use Chrome (on my Win7 partition). Why do you think it isn't possible to remove Safari? Applications>Safari...drag to trash, empty trash...done.
Here's a hint...most people don't care what web browser they use until it can't do something they need. Most Mac users use Safari because it's what's on the machine and it mostly works. There's no need for 90% of Mac users to use Firefox or Chrome...and by no need I mean hey don't know (or care) what web browser they are using.
Bad car analogy (but great car that BMW)...I've been driving for 26 years, and have never owned an automatic, to include my two current BMWs (1-series, 3-series wagon). Are you suggesting BMW no longer makes manual transmissions, or BMW no longer makes great cars?
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It's unacceptable that a 3 year old mac could not run the latest Mac OS.
Most Mac users don't even care what version of OS they are using because the brand has been really good since about 10.3. Only geeks can tell the difference between 10.5 and 10.8 (I'm using the dev preview). Random Mac user tooling around with Leopard doesn't even know what they are missing in Mountain Lion, so it's NOT unacceptable to them in the least. This is not ripping on random Mac user -- it's just a realistic observation. I'd rather use OS X 10.4 over any version of WinXP, so complaining that my 12 year old G4 can't move beyond 10.5 (7.75 years later) is pretty dumb. Considering same 12 year old Mac has worked just fine for the past 4.75 years "stuck" on 10.5 and my 5 year old Compaq PC is worthless (even using the same OS it shipped with) says enough.
What a great example of OSX fanboyism, someone archive parents comment.
Call me an OSX fanboy, but what in the hell does this sentence even mean?
I've always been baffled at people buying Mac, hardware to me it's a bit like console gaming, which also baffles me these days, as it's got all the hassles PC gaming has these days with none of the flexibility.
Even more baffling is your grammar and choice of punctuation.
Your Dell laptop was crap in 2006 (spare me the details, valid statement for every Dell laptop made). It will still be crap with Windows 8.
I have a 1999 G4 Mac that runs just fine (but only supported up to 10.3 or something). It's a freakin' 13 year old computer that runs better than most 5 year old commodity grade PCs running WinXP so I fail to see any "smack in the face".
10.7 dropped support my 1st gen $2000 MacBook Pro, which otherwise still runs perfectly (but with only 10.6).
So what you are saying is that it still runs perfectly. No one is forcing you to update beyond 10.6.
Unions grow in power where employee rights legislation falls short of what people expect
Well stated. I've always thought, if government did its job properly, there'd be no need for unions.
While I agree with your sentiment 100%, keep in mind that the types of industry that use Unions are those where the workers are viewed as expendable, regardless if they are highly productive or totally worthless. In the eyes of the working man, the big bad rich guy has plenty of profit to give said working man a small raise for being loyal and productive. In the eyes of the rich man, he can hire a low skilled 18-year old for half the pay. I see the point in both views (and am not making any judgment either way), which is why we need Unions and arbitration.
Personally, I'd never work in an industry that depended on their Union (which is why I'm a private industry technology educator and not in public education).
Saying that a business or an individual who refuses to hire you because you are associated with somebody is a violation of your right completely mises another point. If you can force a person to hire somebody that the employer doesn't want to associate with, then you are violating the right of an employer to free association as well.
Which is why government has to step in with regulation via those pesky "protected classes". Sure, the business can't deny anyone of rights, but the government can by not regulating that business and forcing the business to comply with federal law.
Stack ranking is basically applying a forced curve distribution on all employees at the same level
This is fundamentally flawed. Peer-referenced criterion is not an appropriate measurement of one's worth to an organization. Performance-based criterion is more effective. With peer-referenced, you are assuming that there is some sort of naturally occurring bell curve, which may or may not be true. You eliminate the possibility that 5 out of 5 employees might all be really good and instead are saying "John is the best and Frank is the worst". If Frank is performing well above the performance requirements, then what's the problem?
This same problem is prevalent in education. Pitting student against student has no educational value of measuring if a student can learn what they are supposed to learn. Johnny is the best at 4th grade math (got 100%!) and Frank is the worst, even though Frank got a 92% when the standard is 70%.
Well I know this won't be popular, but you shouldn't build a "business" out of a charity. You should, however, run your charity like a business to make sure it is efficient. If you make your charity a true business then it is no longer a charity...it's a business. I'm thinking not-for-profit or non-profit here, but I am not intelligent enough to understand the nuances.
Where is the money supposed to come from, tooth fairies?
This is a story about how philanthropic Bill Gates is, so yeah, the money comes from him. That's the whole point of charity -- you give away portions of your wealth for a cause.
Sorry bout that. I was talking in the pure customer service sense of an business "exception", not the simple fact that some people make exceptions off the cuff just because they want to be nice. Business exceptions are calculated under the guise of "doing what's best for the customer", when in reality it simply means, "making the customer think you are doing something special for them while still protecting the bottom line". Like giving the obnoxiously loud patron a refund so he'll just get the hell out of your theater and stop scaring the other patrons.
And while I did say "you can't", I meant to juxtapose that with the situation where you can get a refund if there's something wrong with the projector or the environment, no exception needed. Rereading it makes it sound like I meant you can never ever under any circumstance get your money back just because you didn't like it. What I meant to say is that you don't deserve to get your money back (in my opinion) and it is the business' right not to.
Haha, that's funny. But it makes a perfect point. You found it boring, yet it won critical acclaim. Why should you get a refund just because YOU didn't like it? I liked the 45 minute section I caught on HBO the other day...dvr'd it for the rest and still trying to figure out why all my friends hate it..must be the other parts I haven't seen yet.
Then again, I'm one of maybe 3 people on slashdot that loved Lost in Translation as well. That's my great litmus test of movies. Perhaps Tree of Life will replace it.
Yes, the concept of "exceptions" is not lost on any business. If it makes sense to go against policy to maintain a positive customer experience or loyalty, then most companies will make exceptions to return/warranty/whatever policy. Most video game stores are not in the business of making exceptions for dubious claims made by ornery teens who have no money in the first place.
Because it would be so hard to just go to any of the other Game Stops, Best Buys, Targets, WalMarts, etc. etc. in a 10 mile radius from me? Even if all of those stores had a 3-strike policy, I've never returned that much merchandise in my entire life, let alone just tech/games stuff.
Why? You can secretly love the movie, but pretend it "sucks" (what defines sucks, btw?) and take it back. Free rental isn't a good business model for anyone.
You can't watch a movie, then go back to the ticket counter for a refund because you didn't like it. You CAN, however, if the sound cut out half way through, or the audience unduly interfered with your ability to watch the movie. You can't get your money back for a football game that sucked. Entertainment follows completely different rules when it comes to consume r ights. Was the game played in its entirety, without undue distraction or delays? Then what's the problem? Oh, your team didn't win (you didn't like the book, you hated the movie, you don't like the singers voice)? That's a shame. You still got the product that was promised as part of the contract between you and the content provider when you purchased the "ticket".
Curious to know what your gripe is against GM (mine is they make crappy cars), Ford, and Toyota (other than they make soulless cars). I'm pretty sure I can find something "evil" about any "for-profit" company on the planet. It's a matter of tolerable evil for me.
I dunno, my OS dictionary says "to express in the terms of currency", which sounds like what it says above to me. I can express the value of a router in currency terms rather easily, actually.
I don't drink good beer from countries like England and Germany in the United States because it's not very good by the time it gets here, or it is massed-produced by one of our crappy megabreweries and relabeled as "Becks" or "Guiness" or "Staropramen"...(not that these are excellent beers, only that they are extra not good as import beer in the US).
Most craft brewers in the US worth their name in salt wont even ship to other states, let alone foreign countries.
And I have no idea what the etymology of "...name in salt" is.
And here I thought we Americans were the ignorant ones. Americans make some of the best craft beers on the planet, if not the best. Stereotypes are a bitch.
I'd rather have a core OS infringement than a hardware infringement. Seems easy to fix the software, but changing the hardware would be a huge business expense. Then again, (not to troll here), maybe Samsung shouldn't tread on such dangerous waters and come up with something that's easy to differentiate. Seems hundreds of other brand/model combinations have figured it out.
I use Safari, as do most of my coworkers (roughly 5000 Macs). I also use Firefox for some stuff and I use Chrome (on my Win7 partition). Why do you think it isn't possible to remove Safari? Applications>Safari...drag to trash, empty trash...done.
Here's a hint...most people don't care what web browser they use until it can't do something they need. Most Mac users use Safari because it's what's on the machine and it mostly works. There's no need for 90% of Mac users to use Firefox or Chrome...and by no need I mean hey don't know (or care) what web browser they are using.
Bad car analogy (but great car that BMW)...I've been driving for 26 years, and have never owned an automatic, to include my two current BMWs (1-series, 3-series wagon). Are you suggesting BMW no longer makes manual transmissions, or BMW no longer makes great cars?
Mac Pro is not as expandable or upgradable as a real PC.
Wait, what? Have you ever used a Mac Pro?
By "not as expandable or upgradeable" do you mean, "just as expandable and upgradable and a lot less bloody knuckling"?