Inconvenient: having $200 cash stolen. More inconvenient: having $2000 cash taken spent because your credit card number was used, and long times on the phone trying to sort this out. Even more inconvenient: having your identity stolen because you only have an online life and all your purchases are digital and tracked.
If I buy some clothes at the store, handing over cash is fast. If I hand over the credit card it is always slower. With secure chip and pin it is even slow than that. And having someone at the front of the line whining about how they should be using cashless transactions from the digital dongle they have is amazingly inconvenient.
I do get it though. There is a major push from financial transaction companies to go cash-less, the marketing is full on. Ie, "FinTech" companies. This is not a grass roots campaign to get rid of cash, it is engineered astroturfing from Visa, Mastercard, etc. There's a push to make you feel weird and out of touch if you use cash, like a modern luddite. For example, http://www.mobilepaymentstoday.... With all that constant pressure to always be cool and hip, with giant corporations feeding you messages about how cash is not cool and hip, no wonder that people are being convinced that cash is inconvenient.
Is there such a thing as a truly free electronic payment system? What company would build up such a system with no expectation of reaping huge profits? Even the bitcoin founders did it so that they could be at the top of the pyramid and start mining before anyone else.
Right. I carry mine around sometimes. But when it's not at my desk it is always more inconvenient. No mouse, tiny keyboard, tiny display. I can't work that way, the most I can do is take some notes at the meeting until I get back to a proper work environment.
Yes, I would prefer a desktop, but the laptop is what they gave me at work. Well, Linux would work too as a preference. Besides the Apple desktops are either very expensive (mac pro desktop), too underpowered (mac mini) or the combo monitor/computer (iMac).
Who's carrying it? Do people type on their laptop while carrying it around a lot? I suspect they put it on their desk; except for the few who insist on sitting all day in a cafe to do their coding but you can't fix that kind of broken.
I like the info which I had heard before about Germans preferring cash. I was thinking this whole cashless hipsterism was everywhere in Europe, but I guess not. Mostly just a subset of Europeans exercising another opportunity to laugh at American barbarians.
And the reasons why Germans prefer cash are indeed very great reasons. First, you know how much money you have on you if you have cash. When you run out of cash then you stop paying. With a credit card you don't necessarily stop when you hit your limit. And getting out of hand with credit cards has put so many Americans into debt that there's an entire industry devoted to getting people out of debt (I wonder how many companies in Germany are devoted to consolidating debt). Fiscal responsibility means not spending money when you don't have to, whereas Apple Pay is all about eliminating any hesitation by the consumer to spend. I remember having converted Dollars to Finnmarks, and Finnmarks to Krooni, and being left with a set of paper bills whose value was uncertain to me without a calculator handy, but at least I know I had to make that amount last all day and not spend more than ha,f of it for lunch.
Second, cash is anonymous. If you like privacy then anonymity is very useful. Even innocent people have stuff to hide, even though modern culture likes to treat any aversion to ubiquitous spying as suspicious. The government needs to know how much I make (and they will since I'm honest) but they don't need to know how much I spend or where I spend it. And Apple certainly doesn't need to know either, or Google, or Visa.
I also like the notion near the end that the point isn't that Germans love cash, but instead that Germans hate debt.
Banks charge a fee for using a credit cards, and banks charge a fee for Apple Pay transactions. So you're paying the bank twice to fill up your Apple Pay by credit card. And all that double filling up can be more inconvenient than the stop at the ATM. Not to mention all that wasted time trying to find a store dumb enough to take Apply Pay, and time wasted while the clerk tries to make it work and the line behind you gets angry.
Credit cards cost money to use. You don't normally see it so people forget that it's not free. But the stores have to pay to process transactions and that cost gets passed to the consumers. At some places the price difference is made obvious (ie, gasoline is usually cheaper with cash). So when I use a credit card it is for things where cash is more inconvenient than normal, or for large transactions. But you can use credit cards for most things in the US, even grocery stores.
I use cash more than credit cards. Also the people tracking my credit card are not serving me ads. I get tracked at the local store but in return I get a discount which is an acceptable use for me. Whereas with Apple you get tracks, you get extra ads, and the fees are going to trickle back to the users eventually.
If I were to use an alternative to cash, it would not be with a company that's going to skim some off of the top, requires using only certain high priced devices, and was Apple. If I don't have the cash then I have the credit card. If I don't have either then I don't actually need to buy the item anyway.
(Yes they're not charging the users they claim, but they are charging banks and that cost will come back to the consumers in some way.)
"Retina"? Seriously, that's beyond stupid. No one over 20 can make out the resolution on the normal screen anyway, so putting it on a touch bar is idiotic. And by the say, "retina" display has nothing at all to do with how the eye works much less the retina, it's must marketing bullshit to make hipsters happy about spending more money.
Or just use an external keyboard. Looking at the actual pictures, the whole keyboard has gotten smaller to make room for a bigger touchpad. So you really will be able to type better if you attach a real keyboard. At this point, I think losing the escape key is the least of their design screwups here.
You can get the 13" model w/o the touchbar and get a real escape key. Though of course, this being Apple, the more practicality you get in a laptop the slower the CPU.
Also, still only 256GB SSD. That's just a wee bit too small I am discovering, especially as I need multiple VMs.
Agreed. Anyone that's a touch typist is used to ESC being in one and only one place. Even people with muscle memory know where it is. If someone is still typing by hunt and peck then they should use a tablet instead.
However I don't use my laptop as a laptop, it's a desktop computer for me with stuff plugged into it. I'd be happier with a Dell that ran linux and with the money saved get a dumb tablet to carry to meetings. I've used a lot of Dell computers in the past that were very good. Just don't get the cheap consumer crap.
I think I need to get IT to update my macbook pro now, so I get a good one instead of the new model. Basically Apple doesn't understand that "Pro" means professionals.
The feeling at the time though, amongst young adult partiers, was that things were treatable. They were wrong but there you have it. Even today, now that there are more effective treatments for HIV there is indeed a rise in other forms of STDs, presumably because people aren't as scared and not using condoms as often.
No one knew this was a thing back then. For the known dangerous STDs that people knew about you just took some penicillin. The information about "gay cancer" came out slowly and the cause was not determined until after the epidemic was well underway.
See also Wilt Chamberlain. Or Mae West who also boasted similar numbers.
The researchers were stunned because in their experience it takes lots of work over a very long time to get a female to say yes.
During this time period there was a LOT of casual sex going on in the big cities, gay or straight. Everyone was partying, X rated movies showing up in mainstream theaters, drugs were wide spread, etc.
Well, if your customer is a utility, and they've got an angry mob outside your office wondering why all their data has been stolen... A city manager may care that the traffic lights aren't hacked. And so on. Those people ARE responsible. The home hipster though probably isn't concerned that his wifi coffee maker is being spied on, he just wants a cool gadget to prove to his friends that he's not a luddite. But if home hipster causes damage to others through his own negligence he will be held liable in a courtroom.
Really? I thought Visual Studio was junk. It's built in help was useless, it's UI was structured badly, incredibly difficult to manage products, and it was slow. Ok, it's better than Eclipse but not better than the basic command line. Visual Studio is my go-to example for everything wrong with the IDE concept.
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Inconvenient: having $200 cash stolen. More inconvenient: having $2000 cash taken spent because your credit card number was used, and long times on the phone trying to sort this out. Even more inconvenient: having your identity stolen because you only have an online life and all your purchases are digital and tracked.
If I buy some clothes at the store, handing over cash is fast. If I hand over the credit card it is always slower. With secure chip and pin it is even slow than that. And having someone at the front of the line whining about how they should be using cashless transactions from the digital dongle they have is amazingly inconvenient.
I do get it though. There is a major push from financial transaction companies to go cash-less, the marketing is full on. Ie, "FinTech" companies. This is not a grass roots campaign to get rid of cash, it is engineered astroturfing from Visa, Mastercard, etc. There's a push to make you feel weird and out of touch if you use cash, like a modern luddite. For example, http://www.mobilepaymentstoday.... With all that constant pressure to always be cool and hip, with giant corporations feeding you messages about how cash is not cool and hip, no wonder that people are being convinced that cash is inconvenient.
Is there such a thing as a truly free electronic payment system? What company would build up such a system with no expectation of reaping huge profits? Even the bitcoin founders did it so that they could be at the top of the pyramid and start mining before anyone else.
Right. I carry mine around sometimes. But when it's not at my desk it is always more inconvenient. No mouse, tiny keyboard, tiny display. I can't work that way, the most I can do is take some notes at the meeting until I get back to a proper work environment.
Yes, I would prefer a desktop, but the laptop is what they gave me at work. Well, Linux would work too as a preference. Besides the Apple desktops are either very expensive (mac pro desktop), too underpowered (mac mini) or the combo monitor/computer (iMac).
But then there would be the danger that the laptop bends under its own weight.
Ha, I can see someone doing that then scratching their head and wondering why it doesn't work.
Who's carrying it? Do people type on their laptop while carrying it around a lot? I suspect they put it on their desk; except for the few who insist on sitting all day in a cafe to do their coding but you can't fix that kind of broken.
Swipe the iphone on the hooker, and make little lines of blow on the phone's screen.
I like the info which I had heard before about Germans preferring cash. I was thinking this whole cashless hipsterism was everywhere in Europe, but I guess not. Mostly just a subset of Europeans exercising another opportunity to laugh at American barbarians.
And the reasons why Germans prefer cash are indeed very great reasons. First, you know how much money you have on you if you have cash. When you run out of cash then you stop paying. With a credit card you don't necessarily stop when you hit your limit. And getting out of hand with credit cards has put so many Americans into debt that there's an entire industry devoted to getting people out of debt (I wonder how many companies in Germany are devoted to consolidating debt). Fiscal responsibility means not spending money when you don't have to, whereas Apple Pay is all about eliminating any hesitation by the consumer to spend. I remember having converted Dollars to Finnmarks, and Finnmarks to Krooni, and being left with a set of paper bills whose value was uncertain to me without a calculator handy, but at least I know I had to make that amount last all day and not spend more than ha,f of it for lunch.
Second, cash is anonymous. If you like privacy then anonymity is very useful. Even innocent people have stuff to hide, even though modern culture likes to treat any aversion to ubiquitous spying as suspicious. The government needs to know how much I make (and they will since I'm honest) but they don't need to know how much I spend or where I spend it. And Apple certainly doesn't need to know either, or Google, or Visa.
I also like the notion near the end that the point isn't that Germans love cash, but instead that Germans hate debt.
Banks charge a fee for using a credit cards, and banks charge a fee for Apple Pay transactions. So you're paying the bank twice to fill up your Apple Pay by credit card. And all that double filling up can be more inconvenient than the stop at the ATM. Not to mention all that wasted time trying to find a store dumb enough to take Apply Pay, and time wasted while the clerk tries to make it work and the line behind you gets angry.
Profits.
Credit cards cost money to use. You don't normally see it so people forget that it's not free. But the stores have to pay to process transactions and that cost gets passed to the consumers. At some places the price difference is made obvious (ie, gasoline is usually cheaper with cash). So when I use a credit card it is for things where cash is more inconvenient than normal, or for large transactions. But you can use credit cards for most things in the US, even grocery stores.
I use cash more than credit cards. Also the people tracking my credit card are not serving me ads. I get tracked at the local store but in return I get a discount which is an acceptable use for me. Whereas with Apple you get tracks, you get extra ads, and the fees are going to trickle back to the users eventually.
Cash is amazingly convenient. People only want this because it's Apple and their cult leaders tell them that they want it.
If I were to use an alternative to cash, it would not be with a company that's going to skim some off of the top, requires using only certain high priced devices, and was Apple. If I don't have the cash then I have the credit card. If I don't have either then I don't actually need to buy the item anyway.
(Yes they're not charging the users they claim, but they are charging banks and that cost will come back to the consumers in some way.)
Yes the horse was dead. But I saw it twitching when applied to a new device.
"Retina"? Seriously, that's beyond stupid. No one over 20 can make out the resolution on the normal screen anyway, so putting it on a touch bar is idiotic. And by the say, "retina" display has nothing at all to do with how the eye works much less the retina, it's must marketing bullshit to make hipsters happy about spending more money.
Or just use an external keyboard. Looking at the actual pictures, the whole keyboard has gotten smaller to make room for a bigger touchpad. So you really will be able to type better if you attach a real keyboard. At this point, I think losing the escape key is the least of their design screwups here.
You can get the 13" model w/o the touchbar and get a real escape key. Though of course, this being Apple, the more practicality you get in a laptop the slower the CPU.
Also, still only 256GB SSD. That's just a wee bit too small I am discovering, especially as I need multiple VMs.
Agreed. Anyone that's a touch typist is used to ESC being in one and only one place. Even people with muscle memory know where it is. If someone is still typing by hunt and peck then they should use a tablet instead.
However I don't use my laptop as a laptop, it's a desktop computer for me with stuff plugged into it. I'd be happier with a Dell that ran linux and with the money saved get a dumb tablet to carry to meetings. I've used a lot of Dell computers in the past that were very good. Just don't get the cheap consumer crap.
I think I need to get IT to update my macbook pro now, so I get a good one instead of the new model. Basically Apple doesn't understand that "Pro" means professionals.
The feeling at the time though, amongst young adult partiers, was that things were treatable. They were wrong but there you have it.
Even today, now that there are more effective treatments for HIV there is indeed a rise in other forms of STDs, presumably because people aren't as scared and not using condoms as often.
No one knew this was a thing back then. For the known dangerous STDs that people knew about you just took some penicillin. The information about "gay cancer" came out slowly and the cause was not determined until after the epidemic was well underway.
See also Wilt Chamberlain. Or Mae West who also boasted similar numbers.
The researchers were stunned because in their experience it takes lots of work over a very long time to get a female to say yes.
During this time period there was a LOT of casual sex going on in the big cities, gay or straight. Everyone was partying, X rated movies showing up in mainstream theaters, drugs were wide spread, etc.
Well, if your customer is a utility, and they've got an angry mob outside your office wondering why all their data has been stolen... A city manager may care that the traffic lights aren't hacked. And so on. Those people ARE responsible. The home hipster though probably isn't concerned that his wifi coffee maker is being spied on, he just wants a cool gadget to prove to his friends that he's not a luddite. But if home hipster causes damage to others through his own negligence he will be held liable in a courtroom.
Really? I thought Visual Studio was junk. It's built in help was useless, it's UI was structured badly, incredibly difficult to manage products, and it was slow. Ok, it's better than Eclipse but not better than the basic command line. Visual Studio is my go-to example for everything wrong with the IDE concept.