I'm an American. Join the club. Unfortunately our political system is turning into a plutocracy where the money of a few drowns out the voice of the many. A lot of us are beyond genuinely disgusted too - but have little choice in the matter.
It's totally the employee's fault. They violated the store policy in exactly the way that you're saying. I'm not agreeing with, or condoning it. I knew enough not to make that mistake, but knowing what I know about the pressures put on you as an Apple salesperson, I was saying I can totally see how someone less experienced or who didn't give a shit would do that.;)
I'm totally not disagreeing with you at all. If you've spent any time in Retail, you'll know that 90% of the time, Customers really have no idea what they want or what the rules are. Most customers are pretty dumb. Hell, I couldn't even trust them to remember a password that they JUST created minutes before. They are the absolute WRONG source of any useful information - especially about transactions.
Exactly. Apple Store employees (or Retail Employees in General) couldn't give a shit when they're incredibly busy. One person on a (somewhat) busy day could easily make up 10 times whatever revenue was lost due to that bad transaction.
I used to work at The Apple Store. And that's really the way it should work. However, from my time there, we had credit cards declined all of the time. The Apple Store is a huge place for fraudulent purchases and credit cards routinely auto-blocked access when purchases were for Apple and outside of typical purchases. We actually had the VP of BOEING's Business credit card declined. The standard procedure was to have the customer call the bank, validate that they were them, and that they indeed DID want to make the purchase. After about a minute, we could re-run the card and it'd work.
Now, when the payment device asked for an Override code, it was the job of the EMPLOYEE to got to the back and call up the bank. We're provided special numbers to call and special codes we have to type in. It's a horribly clunky and long process which everyone hated to do, but that was it. So, this is completely the employee's fault - albeit it's really a training issue and the blame rests with Apple. I can totally see why an employee would
#1) Not want to go through that process when they need to get to the next sale
#2) Possibly be new and not completely understand the process
#3) Be susceptible to some clever social engineering - ie: There are some cases where the customer must call the bank. I need an override code from the bank to process this. The customer is calling the bank, so that means I don't have to!
So it's a big f-up, but I can totally understand how and why it happened.
I do have 3D vision, my strabismus is very slight compared to when I was younger. The surgery did work! I was worried that I would actually have to have surgery again because of how my eyes were acting up when I had my normal glasses and I would have to change focus from near to far to near again. Fortunately, the bifocal lenses help that tremendously to the point where it's not even an issue. I'm about 10-20 years younger than most people who need bifocals, but I can't argue with the results!
I love reading and I'm a data analyst, so I use computers all the time - I think my eyes get a lot of training!:D As far as Lasik goes, it really doesn't seem like a worthwhile proposition because it won't really change anything for me! Thanks for the contemplation though... My appointment is coming up soon, maybe I'll look into it!
My eyes don't line up in the exact same place when I look at things. I had surgery when I was 15 to correct it, after 20 years, it's coming back a little (although to a much less significant degree). Fortunately, it's small enough that I can use lenses to correct it - I have to wear bifocals now - but that also means that Lasik will never work for me to improve my vision. I could have better than perfect vision in each eye and I'd still need corrective lenses.:|
I see what you're saying. My takeaway was that he wasn't saying robots weren't more competent at specific things (in fact, he commented on how they can do very specific things much better than humans) but that they're not competent in replacing all human tasks. In the example he gave, he said a car-welding robot could weld faster and better than a human, but if asked to install upholstery in the car, it'd probably destroy it.
As part of that, cars are looking like they're going to be robots that are significantly more competent at driving than we'll ever be - but they'd make horrible robots to help an old lady go the bathroom in a nursing home, or any number of tasks not related to driving.
They're not competent in their ability to be "Bishop" from Aliens, but they are/will be plenty competent in driving.:)
I have to agree. When I was there, it was easily 40% H1B workers in my department. Walking around the halls and cafes, I could see even more. I never actually sat down and counted anyone, but I would say that 40-50% of the people were H1Bs, easy.
If particular species have gone extinct, then I would assume their environment could no longer support them. If we manage to bring back those species, and introduce them into environments that could support them, it seems that we have the potential to unbalance that ecosystem by introducing an invasive species which has no natural predator there. How would you manage this risk?
Because, unfortunately in some regards, (almost) everyone uses Excel for EVERYTHING. Most people outside of Slashdot could probably name one Database program (Microsoft Access) that they've heard of, and I'm willing to bet most of them don't know how to use it.
Because this is Slashdot. Anytime there's ANY post (positive or negative) about Apple, Microsoft, or any other large technology company, there will always be an inane, anti-"whichever company is being discussed" comment from the person who says, "You still use [product/software/operating system] from [company]?? The only true way to use a computer is by using the command line on [random Linux distro] running off of a Beowulf Cluster of Raspberry Pi's - Just like I have setup!!! If you use anything else, you're a loser!"
And there's always that guy somewhere. It's uncanny.
Well.. technically... wouldn't they need LESS recreation time if they're living in a time-dilated frame of reference? They'd only need minutes per day. If you gave them hours, it'd be like a week-long vacation from prison!
I was in the Geology department and I also ran the Geology 100 "Rocks for Jocks" lab;). There were a lot of athletes (not just football players) who took that class. We had to have them measure something on a Map for a lab in millimeters, and then convert that measurement into Kilometers. I wish I was joking, but multiple came up and asked us for new rulers. When asked why, they said (and I have to reiterate, this was MULTIPLE people, not just one person) that the instructions said to measure in Millimeters and their rulers only had Inches and Centimeters on them. At first, we thought they were having fun, but we realized they really didn't know the dashes between the centimeters were millimeters. Again, in a COLLEGE-level class, we had to write on the board, "1 Centimeter = 10 Millimeters".
If you were in the honors program AND you played football, that's awesome! I have nothing but respect for you. However, I remember my roommate in college who played football. He took a Bio 100 class and one of his assignments was to cut apart paper bonds and tape them together to form paper molecules. In COLLEGE. And he told me how the coaches would give the football players lists of classes and which professors to take because they were easier to pass. You must realize you're an exception to the rule? And I'm not saying that all football players are dumb - I've listened to and learned about some pro-players and they're incredibly intelligent. But while you were studying and making honor roll, think about the majority of your teammates. Looking back, do you think we should still we should still put such a significant amount of money into football instead of investing that in education? Intelligent people can enjoy football, but do you really believe that football (or most sports) encourages the development of an intelligent society when a large amount of people don't have to be intelligent to play it?
It depends on the type of content
on
How DRM Won
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· Score: 3, Insightful
And it depends on your tastes. I used to have a remote job traveling around the country. I have several hundred DVD's that I purchased and have since ripped onto a hard drive. I have instant access to hundreds of movies and dozens of TV shows that I legally paid for. But honestly, I watch Netflix and Hulu more than any of the giant library I have because...well, I've already seen my movies and TV Shows. At this point in my life, I don't have a burning desire to watch every video I have again. So, I have a giant video library that gets used rarely. Streaming content is significantly better in this area for me because I don't have time/want to watch video again after I see it once.
Now music, on the other hand, is completely different. If there's music that I like, I go out and actually by the CD's and rip the music myself. Music IS something I consume repeatedly and it is very worth the money for me to have a big library of my own music. Pandora has its uses, I've found several artists I like through it!
Streaming isn't destroying anything and as long as there are people somewhere who are willing to pay to watch or listen to something as many times as they want, other people will sell it that way. If there is a demand, there will be a supply. And demand is generated by your tastes. It's kind of silly to think of a future where EVERYTHING is ONLY streaming ALL THE TIME because that won't happen as long as there is money to be made!
You have no idea. If there's anything wrong with your iPhone software, there's no other recourse but to wipe it. Like I said, I was never a tech, but I frequently helped them check in people when it was busy. I would say at least 70% of mobile appointments ended the customer restoring the phone, or leaving to do a backup to come back and have the techs do it. It's also hard to believe how few people actually back up their mobile devices.
I doubt it, there's probably some weird reason, but I couldn't tell you exactly why. I personally have a mac mini connected to my TV with iTunes open all the time. I have it set to auto download any purchases I make and my phone is set to wirelessly sync with it when its charging. All of that is to make sure the library on my computer always has all my files. That way, if I ever NEED it, I can always re-sync. It has come in handy for the few apps I have that are no longer on the App Store!
I used to work at an Apple Store. I was never a tech, so take this with a grain of salt. It's PROBABLY not related to the system update but more than likely something bad on the phone itself. If you see the usage and standby meters the same like you do, you're right, something is hung up in the background. The best thing to do is to make sure you have a backup and restore the phone. If there's something hanging in the background for a while, you'll start to notice your phone acting funny. Like the battery life problem. Left alone for long enough and you'll start getting corrupted data into the phone because of it which will make your phone act really strange. Apps constantly crashing to the point of unusability, it can become unresponsive on certain parts of the screen, etc. And that corrupted data can eventually get copied into the backup file - meaning that any restore from the backup will bring that problem right back.
To Back Up - First copy all photos and videos from the phone to the computer. They will fill up your iCloud space really fast. Then look for Apps that hold documents. Most apps are really just portals to websites so they contain little to no data. However, for apps that contain files, make sure you have those files backed up somewhere. Then backup the phone to either iCloud or by plugging it into iTunes. Plug it into iTunes in either case and also right-click on the phone and hit Transfer Purchases. That will transfer any apps, music, movies, etc that are not currently on the computer from the phone.
So easiest to hardest steps after backing up all data:
1: Reset All Settings: Go to Settings>General>Reset All Content and Settings. Then restore from backup. This can kill a lot of problems and takes maybe 15 minutes. However, if the problem is deep in the system...
2: Restore from Backup: Plug the phone into iTunes and do a System Restore. This will do a clean install and will clear a lot more problems. Then restore from backup. Now, if the problem persists, your backup is more than likely corrupted so...
3: Restore the Phone: Do the same process as above but do not restore from the backup. You can re-sync to iCloud for contacts and re-sync apps from the computer (or re-download them). Essentially you're starting with a fresh system and just copying the apps back over. You'll lose your app data, so maybe some high scores in some games, nothing too bad. However, if the problem persists even after doing this...
4: DFU Restore: Look up how to do this online. If none of the above have fixed it, there's some bad juju on your phone. A DFU will reinstall the system AND the firmware. Just to be on the safe side, I would advise not restoring from backup. If your phone was borked enough that it needed a DFU restore, don't take the chance of putting stuff back on there. Just copy the apps back.
All in all, they're very easy steps to do and when all is said and done, you can have your phone back up and running in about 30 min with any of the above steps. Hope it helps, Cheers!
Apple (and other big companies) are inundated with ridiculous patent trolling lawsuits weekly. By all of these companies filing frivolous lawsuits, doesn't the precedence set by the rulings both for and against them mean that it makes it that much harder for patent trolls to win? Do you think a multi-billion dollar company like Apple could give two shits about whether or not it wins some dumb lawsuit as long as it can say to a judge "Well, the case of this patent troll currently suing us doesn't hold water because the rulings on this case, this case, and this case all show his point is invalid."?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm an American. Join the club. Unfortunately our political system is turning into a plutocracy where the money of a few drowns out the voice of the many. A lot of us are beyond genuinely disgusted too - but have little choice in the matter.
It's totally the employee's fault. They violated the store policy in exactly the way that you're saying. I'm not agreeing with, or condoning it. I knew enough not to make that mistake, but knowing what I know about the pressures put on you as an Apple salesperson, I was saying I can totally see how someone less experienced or who didn't give a shit would do that. ;)
I'm totally not disagreeing with you at all. If you've spent any time in Retail, you'll know that 90% of the time, Customers really have no idea what they want or what the rules are. Most customers are pretty dumb. Hell, I couldn't even trust them to remember a password that they JUST created minutes before. They are the absolute WRONG source of any useful information - especially about transactions.
Exactly. Apple Store employees (or Retail Employees in General) couldn't give a shit when they're incredibly busy. One person on a (somewhat) busy day could easily make up 10 times whatever revenue was lost due to that bad transaction.
Now, when the payment device asked for an Override code, it was the job of the EMPLOYEE to got to the back and call up the bank. We're provided special numbers to call and special codes we have to type in. It's a horribly clunky and long process which everyone hated to do, but that was it. So, this is completely the employee's fault - albeit it's really a training issue and the blame rests with Apple. I can totally see why an employee would
#1) Not want to go through that process when they need to get to the next sale
#2) Possibly be new and not completely understand the process
#3) Be susceptible to some clever social engineering - ie: There are some cases where the customer must call the bank. I need an override code from the bank to process this. The customer is calling the bank, so that means I don't have to!
So it's a big f-up, but I can totally understand how and why it happened.
Definitely my favorite internet quote! :D
From TFS: "If you were feeling especially paranoid, but wanted to keep the hardware intact for the next user, what would you do? "
I do have 3D vision, my strabismus is very slight compared to when I was younger. The surgery did work! I was worried that I would actually have to have surgery again because of how my eyes were acting up when I had my normal glasses and I would have to change focus from near to far to near again. Fortunately, the bifocal lenses help that tremendously to the point where it's not even an issue. I'm about 10-20 years younger than most people who need bifocals, but I can't argue with the results! I love reading and I'm a data analyst, so I use computers all the time - I think my eyes get a lot of training! :D As far as Lasik goes, it really doesn't seem like a worthwhile proposition because it won't really change anything for me! Thanks for the contemplation though... My appointment is coming up soon, maybe I'll look into it!
Save up some money to go to Europe and do the treatment there?
My eyes don't line up in the exact same place when I look at things. I had surgery when I was 15 to correct it, after 20 years, it's coming back a little (although to a much less significant degree). Fortunately, it's small enough that I can use lenses to correct it - I have to wear bifocals now - but that also means that Lasik will never work for me to improve my vision. I could have better than perfect vision in each eye and I'd still need corrective lenses. :|
As part of that, cars are looking like they're going to be robots that are significantly more competent at driving than we'll ever be - but they'd make horrible robots to help an old lady go the bathroom in a nursing home, or any number of tasks not related to driving.
They're not competent in their ability to be "Bishop" from Aliens, but they are/will be plenty competent in driving. :)
I have to agree. When I was there, it was easily 40% H1B workers in my department. Walking around the halls and cafes, I could see even more. I never actually sat down and counted anyone, but I would say that 40-50% of the people were H1Bs, easy.
If particular species have gone extinct, then I would assume their environment could no longer support them. If we manage to bring back those species, and introduce them into environments that could support them, it seems that we have the potential to unbalance that ecosystem by introducing an invasive species which has no natural predator there. How would you manage this risk?
*sniff* Smells ok to me.
Because, unfortunately in some regards, (almost) everyone uses Excel for EVERYTHING. Most people outside of Slashdot could probably name one Database program (Microsoft Access) that they've heard of, and I'm willing to bet most of them don't know how to use it.
And there's always that guy somewhere. It's uncanny.
I see what you did there :)
I'm pretty sure that the Phone Booth is the International Symbol for Britain.
Well.. technically... wouldn't they need LESS recreation time if they're living in a time-dilated frame of reference? They'd only need minutes per day. If you gave them hours, it'd be like a week-long vacation from prison!
I was in the Geology department and I also ran the Geology 100 "Rocks for Jocks" lab ;). There were a lot of athletes (not just football players) who took that class. We had to have them measure something on a Map for a lab in millimeters, and then convert that measurement into Kilometers. I wish I was joking, but multiple came up and asked us for new rulers. When asked why, they said (and I have to reiterate, this was MULTIPLE people, not just one person) that the instructions said to measure in Millimeters and their rulers only had Inches and Centimeters on them. At first, we thought they were having fun, but we realized they really didn't know the dashes between the centimeters were millimeters. Again, in a COLLEGE-level class, we had to write on the board, "1 Centimeter = 10 Millimeters".
If you were in the honors program AND you played football, that's awesome! I have nothing but respect for you. However, I remember my roommate in college who played football. He took a Bio 100 class and one of his assignments was to cut apart paper bonds and tape them together to form paper molecules. In COLLEGE. And he told me how the coaches would give the football players lists of classes and which professors to take because they were easier to pass. You must realize you're an exception to the rule? And I'm not saying that all football players are dumb - I've listened to and learned about some pro-players and they're incredibly intelligent. But while you were studying and making honor roll, think about the majority of your teammates. Looking back, do you think we should still we should still put such a significant amount of money into football instead of investing that in education? Intelligent people can enjoy football, but do you really believe that football (or most sports) encourages the development of an intelligent society when a large amount of people don't have to be intelligent to play it?
Now music, on the other hand, is completely different. If there's music that I like, I go out and actually by the CD's and rip the music myself. Music IS something I consume repeatedly and it is very worth the money for me to have a big library of my own music. Pandora has its uses, I've found several artists I like through it!
Streaming isn't destroying anything and as long as there are people somewhere who are willing to pay to watch or listen to something as many times as they want, other people will sell it that way. If there is a demand, there will be a supply. And demand is generated by your tastes. It's kind of silly to think of a future where EVERYTHING is ONLY streaming ALL THE TIME because that won't happen as long as there is money to be made!
You have no idea. If there's anything wrong with your iPhone software, there's no other recourse but to wipe it. Like I said, I was never a tech, but I frequently helped them check in people when it was busy. I would say at least 70% of mobile appointments ended the customer restoring the phone, or leaving to do a backup to come back and have the techs do it. It's also hard to believe how few people actually back up their mobile devices.
I doubt it, there's probably some weird reason, but I couldn't tell you exactly why. I personally have a mac mini connected to my TV with iTunes open all the time. I have it set to auto download any purchases I make and my phone is set to wirelessly sync with it when its charging. All of that is to make sure the library on my computer always has all my files. That way, if I ever NEED it, I can always re-sync. It has come in handy for the few apps I have that are no longer on the App Store!
I used to work at an Apple Store. I was never a tech, so take this with a grain of salt. It's PROBABLY not related to the system update but more than likely something bad on the phone itself. If you see the usage and standby meters the same like you do, you're right, something is hung up in the background. The best thing to do is to make sure you have a backup and restore the phone. If there's something hanging in the background for a while, you'll start to notice your phone acting funny. Like the battery life problem. Left alone for long enough and you'll start getting corrupted data into the phone because of it which will make your phone act really strange. Apps constantly crashing to the point of unusability, it can become unresponsive on certain parts of the screen, etc. And that corrupted data can eventually get copied into the backup file - meaning that any restore from the backup will bring that problem right back.
To Back Up - First copy all photos and videos from the phone to the computer. They will fill up your iCloud space really fast. Then look for Apps that hold documents. Most apps are really just portals to websites so they contain little to no data. However, for apps that contain files, make sure you have those files backed up somewhere. Then backup the phone to either iCloud or by plugging it into iTunes. Plug it into iTunes in either case and also right-click on the phone and hit Transfer Purchases. That will transfer any apps, music, movies, etc that are not currently on the computer from the phone.
So easiest to hardest steps after backing up all data:
1: Reset All Settings: Go to Settings>General>Reset All Content and Settings. Then restore from backup. This can kill a lot of problems and takes maybe 15 minutes. However, if the problem is deep in the system...
2: Restore from Backup: Plug the phone into iTunes and do a System Restore. This will do a clean install and will clear a lot more problems. Then restore from backup. Now, if the problem persists, your backup is more than likely corrupted so...
3: Restore the Phone: Do the same process as above but do not restore from the backup. You can re-sync to iCloud for contacts and re-sync apps from the computer (or re-download them). Essentially you're starting with a fresh system and just copying the apps back over. You'll lose your app data, so maybe some high scores in some games, nothing too bad. However, if the problem persists even after doing this...
4: DFU Restore: Look up how to do this online. If none of the above have fixed it, there's some bad juju on your phone. A DFU will reinstall the system AND the firmware. Just to be on the safe side, I would advise not restoring from backup. If your phone was borked enough that it needed a DFU restore, don't take the chance of putting stuff back on there. Just copy the apps back.
All in all, they're very easy steps to do and when all is said and done, you can have your phone back up and running in about 30 min with any of the above steps. Hope it helps, Cheers!
Apple (and other big companies) are inundated with ridiculous patent trolling lawsuits weekly. By all of these companies filing frivolous lawsuits, doesn't the precedence set by the rulings both for and against them mean that it makes it that much harder for patent trolls to win? Do you think a multi-billion dollar company like Apple could give two shits about whether or not it wins some dumb lawsuit as long as it can say to a judge "Well, the case of this patent troll currently suing us doesn't hold water because the rulings on this case, this case, and this case all show his point is invalid."?