You sir, are a hero. I've had so little use for Mission Control or launchpad that I never even played with them enough to find that. I'd searched for how to enable Spaces when I first upgraded, but couldn't find anything, and the guy at the Genius Bar told it was gone, so I just sort of forgot about the whole thing till I mentioned it in this post. Thanks!
Really dude? I think this ship sailed already. Lots of people have tablets, your inability to find a use case for them does not make them a terribly niche device that no serious person actually wants. Apple has not sold a few, or a fair number, they've sold tens of millions. There are still waits to get iPad 2's at some Apple stores (well maybe not since they announced the new one, but until recently). Add in the smaller number of stock Android tablets, and the fairly huge number of non-stock Android devices like the Kindle Fire and the Nook Color/Tablet, and you're talking about a device class that can now probably boasts 30-40% market penetration in a reasonable chunk of the developed world.
Back when the iPad was a new idea, you might be forgiven for seeing this all as some sort of fad.The odds were probably 50-50 that tablets would take off this time (I think that it was always going to happen eventually, there has been a steady march toward smaller and smaller computers since the first laptops; but it was maybe 50-50 that this was the right product at the right time). At this point the damn is broken. People want the things. People have uses for the things. People are coming up with new uses for the things all the time.
Apple isn't the only one selling them like hot cakes. Barnes and Noble and Amazon are too. The fact is that at the high end, only Apple is doing well because only Apple has a really standout product. They were first to market, and no one has really released anything that seems better enough to pay the same price or more for. The book sellers went low; and built solid but unexceptional products that they priced as solid, but unexceptional. Viola, profit. Now the Android guys have a new problem, the iPad 2 is even cheaper. Still not cheap enough to compete with the Kindle/Nook, but cheap enough that Samsung and company need to lower their margins even more f they want to compete. Or come out with something that really jumps in front and is worth the same price or more as Apple's offerings.
They're trying to copy Apple's use of a partial mobile UI in places on Lion and Mountain Lion. The big difference is that Apple realized most of their core users wouldn't want to use a Mobile style UI most of the time, so they basically made it a thing that you could do, but not the default. Even then a lot of people don't really see the point. I can't say that I've ever used Mission Control, and I'm honestly a bit miffed that they sacrificed my virtual desktops to put it in. Still, it's not much of annoyance (beyond the loss of virtual desktops) that's it's there, since I don't have to use it. Microsoft went the step further (and I think the step to far) of making Metro the default UI. Worse, you can't every really entirely get a "classic" UI. You can run the desktop as an app, but from what I've seen it almost feels like a virtual machine or remote desktop deal. You almost feel like you're not running on the local hardware.
They go out of their way to show you that you're "supposed" to be using Metro. The idea seems pretty insane to me.
I suspect more like: "wave hand in front of phone instead of swiping". You'll probably still have to type on the screen or get a hardware keyboard, but this could free up some of the constant tapping and swiping across your viewing surface that you need to do for even the grossest control movement on a phone or tablet. Between this and improved dictation you could remove most of the need to touch the screen, but you're not going to completely eliminate it without a either a physical keyboard of someone coming up with a completely new paradigm.
Well, I'm pretty sure that they can't get a warrant to search my account, and I *know* that it's illegal for them to hack it. I must therefore theorize that since they didn't get me to log in for them, they didn't look at anything that wasn't public. Clearance background checks are quite thorough, but they don't break laws or obtain warrants to conduct them. They don't need to, if you don't provide what they need to complete the investigation you don't get the clearance.
No, employers need an employee more than you need them. If you're the only applicant, that certainly gives you an advantage. The chances that you're the only applicant are slim though, and much slimmer for a menial job that anyone can do like Walmart checker. For a highly skilled programmer or senior network/system/database admin position it might be said that the employer needs "you"; for a security guard or cashier's job the employers needs a body. If your body walks out, the next one will probably do just as well. What the article talks is some bullshit, and something should be done, but telling a guy with a mortgage and two kids to just "walk out" on a position when he's unemployed is bullshit too.
These days I'm lucky enough to be in the pool of people with skills and experience sufficient that employers want "me", not just someone; but I've been in the position of guy who needs a job and needs it now. It's not a fun place to be.
Of course, that does assume the ability to walk away from a job opportunity without excessive repercussions...
Therein lies the problem, of course. My first reaction on seeing this was "Right, I'm not taking that job... I'm not even finishing the interview." Then I thought back to a few periods in my life where my ability to live without outside support had been put into serious question by lack of employment; and realized that while I may say that now, there have been times and may be times again where I needed the job. It's easy to be choosey from the relative comfort of a pretty good paying job. I have enough savings now that I'd be fine for several months at least in the event of job loss, so I don't see me being that desperate any time soon. But let's face it. Life's sometimes a bitch. Anything could happen.
That said, I've held a security clearance, and known people with even higher security ratings; and even the Feds don't go demanding to see your Facebook profile. This shit is ridiculous.
My wife spent a year in Boston before I got a job up here; and she broke her leg while up here alone. She made use of Peapod wile incapacitated. She has a generally favorable impression of the service, but still prefers to just go to the store now that she's mobile. Food is one of those things that I don't think the majority of people will ever want delivered as a matter of preference. Picking out the meat and produce that you want (as in the particular pieces rather than just type and cut), being able to be reminded that you need toilet paper by walking by it, even the impulse purchases, are all things that people like. For special situations (my wife's broken leg) or particular people (guys like the OP who can't be bothered), Peapod and similar are definitely nice to have, but at least for the foreseeable future I think most people will prefer to go to the store most of the time.
You really, really had to stretch for that one didn't you, I mean other than the word "closet" there's absolutely no support for your joke in the whole post.
Stop and Shop in Boston does this already. You need a loyalty card and it relies on a handheld barcode scanner instead of a Kinect in your cart, but it's great.
The Stop and Shop chain in the Boston area has a scan and bag system that totally relies on customer honesty. You swipe your reward card at a kiosk and it gives you a handheld barcode scanner. You scan and bag your items as you go (they have scales near the produce and loose dry good sections that print a bar code for the scanner), and when you get to the check out you swipe your reward card again. The system wirelessly transfers your purchases from the barcode scanner currently affiliated with your card, and you pay. The items never leave your bag once you've scanned and bagged them. It's tremendously convenient when we remember to grab a scanner. Checkout literally takes seconds, This just takes the same theory one step further and lets you pay at the cart instead of needing to sync with a register.
I'd bring up two points. The first is that pushing a cart around hardly qualifies as "more exercise" than having it follow you. A friend of mine who is severely obese always wants to be the one to push the cart if we are out somewhere that has them. She calls it her "walker" and it actually makes walking easier for her (at least she doesn't use those damned electric chairs, and to be fair she's lost 40 pound in the last 6 months or so, so she's trying). I don't particularly care if my cart follows me around or not, so I can't say I see the benefit her, but I don't think it's just and "even more laziness" situation exactly either.
The second is that the cart following you part seems like it's more of a secondary thing. The shopping assistant seems both more primary and more useful.
It really depends on the store. The original Whole Foods in New Orleans was, as we all used to joke, like shopping with 50 of your closest friends in a closet (It was by far the smallest non-family-owned grocery store I've every been in, even the A&P in the French Quarter was larger). When they built the new one uptown it was much more open and nicer. Now that I'm in the Boston area, the ones in Cambridge (near Mass Ave) and Woburn are definitely smallish and occasionally uncomfortable, the other one in Cambridge (near Alewife) and the one in Dedham are great though. As much or more room than any normal grocery store. I think a lot depends on age and location. The earliest ones were built where ever they could get the cheapest rent, as time went on 9and profits went up) they went to the medium sized stores for smaller markets or already served areas, and actually large nice store for flagship locations.
Re:That's why I like the basic Kindle
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The eBook Backlash
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There's tradeoffs either way. I love the fact that my Nook (I use the Color and don't personally have any trouble with headaches or distractions, though I can see how people might) has dozens of books in one place. When I moved recently I literally had hundreds of paperback that I donated, gave away, and generally had to get rid of. Even after that culling I have four large shelves (and a few smaller ones) full of books in an apartment that's really too small for it. Since then I have bought all e-books, and they all fit into my one Nook. I'll still go for the dead tree on a few specific authors and series that I have in all hardback, but for my habit of consuming a paperback in three days, e-books are much more efficient.
You're still not looking at this from the point of view of a large scale deployment and minimizing long term costs. A $1200 Dell computer (purchased with corporate discount and in volume) is a machine that comes with 3 year onsite maintenance, it's powerful enough that it won't have to be replaced before those three years are up, it has a 23-24 inch monitor that is comfortable to use and won't cause eye strain, it has software license for all the tools the employees (or student in this case) needs... In short it's a computer that I can put on a desk and not worry about for three to four years. If it breaks, I can call Dell and it will be fixed. It's not a high end workstation, but I can be reasonably confident that it'll be usable in 4 years.
When you spend $600 on a machine, even just a machine for a secretary or sales guy (or student in this case), you get a machine that probably only has a one year self service or mail off warranty. There's a huge increase in support costs over time and many systems. You get a machine that's much more likely to need replacing much earlier. Either because it breaks after the support period or just because it can't run new software. You get no monitor or a small crappy monitor that is hard to work on over any length of time (an argument *might* be made that a sacrifice here isn't as big a deal for a school, since kids aren't using the computers all day. Still, it's not a whole lot extra per unit to get something much nicer to use). It gets you a machine with only basic software. Software is a huge expense for school systems. Few computers are straight "general use" system. Math classes want math software, journalism and publishing classes need special software. Microsoft gives away VS student version for free, but I believe they charge schools at least a token amount for large installs. Lab machines might need all of the software installed on the different types of classroom computers, since you never know what class a individual student is taking when they sit down
Again, going to Dell's website and finding the cheapest computer you can, or even a computer one or two steps up from that, doesn't cut it for determining "cost". Add in support costs, add in software, add in a bit of future proofing and it adds up. Also note that this plan being proposed is for a ten year cycle. That's at least one replacement for every piece of hardware involved, no matter how skillfully you keep it limping along.
And who is going to support these "changing every week because we can't source the same components this month that we did last month" monstrosities built with little to no quality control by teenagers in training? Who's going to make sure that they have consistent software loads when an image is good for for all of a month before a new one has to be made due to significant hardware change?
Also, have you ever done work in a build factory? Back in the day when I was first getting into this industry, my first job was doing tech support for an early Dell/Gateway competitor. Back when there were dozens of mom and pop operations doing mail order whitebox systems. As part of my "training" I spent a week on the line building computers. Talk about useless. Once you see how motherboards screw in, how you slide in PCI cards (actually they were ISA and PCI at the time), how you seat CPUs and RAM; well, you've seen it. Do it once it's an experience, two or three times it's a novelty. After the fourth time you've learned all you need to. And you need thousands of computers for a school district. Either every kid builds a few, or a small number of kids who take the wrong elective become slave labor.
Meanwhile, what have they been "trained" for? Building PCs in industry is largely an automated process now, or done by cheap Chinese workers for a dollar an hour. There's no "good jobs" in building PCs. There's money to made as a skilled IT person or a development engineer, but building computers isn't even 2% of what people like that do. The only computer I've built in the last 10 years is the one I use at home. Very occasionally I put in a PCI card or add RAM to a box, but there's not really much "skill" there. You can't learn valuable IT or programming skills when your class is tasked with providing the school system 1000 computers this year either.
Have you ever bought gear from Dell as a non-consumer? Sometimes I wonder about the people on this site, aren't we supposed to be techs? My company typically spends between $1200 and $1500 on every Dell we buy. Sure you can get one for $400: it will be obsolete before it's delivered, includes one year of self service warranty, has no monitor, and is generally the last thing you want for wide scale deployment.
You also can't just say "Get one computer per 2 students." It doesn't work like that. They don't buy computers based on students, they buy them based on classroom space. You need 32 computers in a 32 seat classroom if that classroom is going to be used for computers classes, you might need no computers in an English classroom. You need labs, which are often fully stocked with a computer on every desk, but except during crunch times probably not 100% utilized. You need computers for teachers, or are they supposed to just teach the computer classes from the chalkboard? In elementary schools you can probably get away with a simple two or three computers per student, in high schools and middle schools where students change classrooms every hour or so it's a lot more complicated.
Have you ever run a wide scale deployment? Have you ever worked in a school district? My guess is no to both.
How can so many people not have read a single paragraph question. He's moving internally. Worse, he's moving internally at a university, an institutional type notorious for politics, good old boy deals, resource sharing, etc. There's a very good chance that his new and old boss are friends and serve on committees together. There's a small but existent chance they hate each other and his old boss will use a poor transition as ammunition against the new boss (It wasn't enough to just poach my employee, oh no, Bob also made sure that my new guy got next to no training."). Even if they don't know each other very wells (unlikely given the overlap of their responsibilities), at the very least the new boss will see an opportunity to earn a few favors from the old boss by providing OP whenever there's an issue that new guy can't handle.
You can get away with that shit when you're leaving a company, though it's an asshole move in my opinion and unnecessarily burns bridges, but OP needs to handle this transition well. At the barest minimum it will prevent embarrassing encounters at the student center while grabbing lunch.
The other consideration here in my opinion is that he's not even really "moving on". I've worked in universities, changing departments is certainly changing jobs, but you're not going to get out of being helpful that easily. I spent at least a few hours a weeks helping out other departments, and I wasn't even in the position OP is in of having moved internally. Barring some kind of university politics that make Old Boss and New Boss hate each other, universities tend to be friendly places with lots of resource sharing. All it will take is for the old department head to call down and be like "$newkid is having some issues can you spare Soulskill for an hour or so?" and new boss will not only probably agree, he'll likely be glad to help. Old department head is likely a friend, and at the very least having him owe a favor is worth a few minutes of the new hire's time. Much better to just accept ahead of time that another day, or at least half day, is likely to be needed a couple of weeks in, and plan accordingly.
My parents use mine and my wife's old iPhones on AT&T without data (and the phones show up on the website as iPhones), so I think they may have changed that.
I also hate to point out that these articles are constantly pushing back the age at which people become digital natives. People the OPs age (also my brother's age) were "digital natives" when these articles were first being written 5-10 years ago. Now they're too old to be real digital natives. What constitutes this mysterious age group? My brother has had a computer in the house literally as long as he can remember. My parents got the first computer in our house in 1986 when I was 12 and he was 2. Unless his lack of opportunity to Google "learn how to walk and talk" disqualifies him, he's a digital native.
Basically they moved the bar from "had a computer since infancy" to "had access to the Internet since infancy" after they realized that the first "digital natives" were no better with computers than anyone else. At some point they'll realize that having had access to the Internet since infancy isn't enough to magically impart computer skills either and they'll move the bar again. Ten years from now they'll be talking about the kids in their early twenties who have had access to mobile computing devices since infancy and are the real "digital natives". Meanwhile some tech will still be cursing while he cleans up the viruses on some "digital native's" computer because the kid is no smarter than any other kid and got his box owned looking for porn.
There's not magic in being younger. To do anything more substantial that basic word processing and web browsing you still need a combination of mindset and training whether you're 15, 25, or 65. The basics are somewhat easier if you've been around computers all your life, but beyond that I don't think it matters much.
So you're fine with private organizations imposing fines on a whim? And that a school teaches its students to submit to such arbitrary authority?
They're not imposing fines on a whim. You sent your kids to their school, their rules were agreed to. I disagree with some of the rules (they get fined for hot chips? really?), but if I chose to send my kids to that school, I chose to make it so that every bag of chips my kid brings is expensive. Any organization can impose fees and fines on member who agree to abide by certain rules. You can avoid those fees and fines by severing your affiliation with the group. In this case by enrolling your kid in a normal public school.
And the rich pay less than their fair share of taxes because they have used the power their riches bring to bring it about. They deserve no more praise than a mugger who calls an ambulance for his victim would.
You're making several assumptions here. The first and most important is that every rich person agrees with what every other rich person does. Let's say you and I are both billionaires. I spend a lot of money lobbying to make sure that the fourth jet purchased by any single person is tax deductible. You buy a fourth jet and your accountant deducts it from this year's taxes. Does that make you culpable? Maybe in some ways, but in all probability you didn't even know the damned thing was deductible when you bought it. You might have been perfectly fine just paying the extra taxes. Warren Buffet has been rather vocal that he feels he should be paying more taxes than he is. Does that make him culpable for a tax rate he didn't have anything to do with setting?
The rich are like politicians or lawyers: there might be a few who are honest or even decent, but as a group, they have earned their reputation.
But again, does that mean we shouldn't reward positive behavior? Maybe if enough rich people receive enough positive feedback, more of them will be more willing to help. Even one billionaire parting with even 5% of his/her fortune is able to make more of a difference than I could if I gave away everything I ever made.
Not to mention that it's not even an apples to apples comparison. A phone or tablet device (iPhone, Android or what have you) is typically loading an application with a size on the orders of single to double digit megabytes from non-seeking storage, a PC is usually loading an application with a size on the order of three to four digit megabytes from a seeking storage. There no possible way you can load more data from a slower data source and not have it take longer. Infinity Blade (a rather large iPhone app) takes much longer to load on my phone than say Putty does on my PC. The Old Republic Takes a lot longer to load on my PC than the calculator on my phone. When you have a long load time, a splash screen makes a lot sense. It lets the user know that something is happening. Tiny apps don't have splash screens in any OS, large apps usually have splash screens in any OS.
Oh sure, when you own all, or the vast majority, of the land and you want to build something that people will mostly be happy to have it often goes smoothly. If you own just enough land to install your factory and intend to set it up to belch forth air and noise pollution, it's a lot harder. Rezoning happens all the time, but even with stuff people want, like malls, it doesn't always go smoothly and can be a risky enterprise. What Lightsquared is trying to do is more analogous to a noisy factory across the street from my house than a nice mall half a mile away. Unless the "town" is desperate for manufacturing jobs and you make a lot of concessions to the neighbors it probably won't happen.
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You sir, are a hero. I've had so little use for Mission Control or launchpad that I never even played with them enough to find that. I'd searched for how to enable Spaces when I first upgraded, but couldn't find anything, and the guy at the Genius Bar told it was gone, so I just sort of forgot about the whole thing till I mentioned it in this post. Thanks!
Really dude? I think this ship sailed already. Lots of people have tablets, your inability to find a use case for them does not make them a terribly niche device that no serious person actually wants. Apple has not sold a few, or a fair number, they've sold tens of millions. There are still waits to get iPad 2's at some Apple stores (well maybe not since they announced the new one, but until recently). Add in the smaller number of stock Android tablets, and the fairly huge number of non-stock Android devices like the Kindle Fire and the Nook Color/Tablet, and you're talking about a device class that can now probably boasts 30-40% market penetration in a reasonable chunk of the developed world.
Back when the iPad was a new idea, you might be forgiven for seeing this all as some sort of fad.The odds were probably 50-50 that tablets would take off this time (I think that it was always going to happen eventually, there has been a steady march toward smaller and smaller computers since the first laptops; but it was maybe 50-50 that this was the right product at the right time). At this point the damn is broken. People want the things. People have uses for the things. People are coming up with new uses for the things all the time.
Apple isn't the only one selling them like hot cakes. Barnes and Noble and Amazon are too. The fact is that at the high end, only Apple is doing well because only Apple has a really standout product. They were first to market, and no one has really released anything that seems better enough to pay the same price or more for. The book sellers went low; and built solid but unexceptional products that they priced as solid, but unexceptional. Viola, profit. Now the Android guys have a new problem, the iPad 2 is even cheaper. Still not cheap enough to compete with the Kindle/Nook, but cheap enough that Samsung and company need to lower their margins even more f they want to compete. Or come out with something that really jumps in front and is worth the same price or more as Apple's offerings.
They're trying to copy Apple's use of a partial mobile UI in places on Lion and Mountain Lion. The big difference is that Apple realized most of their core users wouldn't want to use a Mobile style UI most of the time, so they basically made it a thing that you could do, but not the default. Even then a lot of people don't really see the point. I can't say that I've ever used Mission Control, and I'm honestly a bit miffed that they sacrificed my virtual desktops to put it in. Still, it's not much of annoyance (beyond the loss of virtual desktops) that's it's there, since I don't have to use it. Microsoft went the step further (and I think the step to far) of making Metro the default UI. Worse, you can't every really entirely get a "classic" UI. You can run the desktop as an app, but from what I've seen it almost feels like a virtual machine or remote desktop deal. You almost feel like you're not running on the local hardware.
They go out of their way to show you that you're "supposed" to be using Metro. The idea seems pretty insane to me.
I suspect more like: "wave hand in front of phone instead of swiping". You'll probably still have to type on the screen or get a hardware keyboard, but this could free up some of the constant tapping and swiping across your viewing surface that you need to do for even the grossest control movement on a phone or tablet. Between this and improved dictation you could remove most of the need to touch the screen, but you're not going to completely eliminate it without a either a physical keyboard of someone coming up with a completely new paradigm.
Well, I'm pretty sure that they can't get a warrant to search my account, and I *know* that it's illegal for them to hack it. I must therefore theorize that since they didn't get me to log in for them, they didn't look at anything that wasn't public. Clearance background checks are quite thorough, but they don't break laws or obtain warrants to conduct them. They don't need to, if you don't provide what they need to complete the investigation you don't get the clearance.
No, employers need an employee more than you need them. If you're the only applicant, that certainly gives you an advantage. The chances that you're the only applicant are slim though, and much slimmer for a menial job that anyone can do like Walmart checker. For a highly skilled programmer or senior network/system/database admin position it might be said that the employer needs "you"; for a security guard or cashier's job the employers needs a body. If your body walks out, the next one will probably do just as well. What the article talks is some bullshit, and something should be done, but telling a guy with a mortgage and two kids to just "walk out" on a position when he's unemployed is bullshit too.
These days I'm lucky enough to be in the pool of people with skills and experience sufficient that employers want "me", not just someone; but I've been in the position of guy who needs a job and needs it now. It's not a fun place to be.
Of course, that does assume the ability to walk away from a job opportunity without excessive repercussions...
Therein lies the problem, of course. My first reaction on seeing this was "Right, I'm not taking that job... I'm not even finishing the interview." Then I thought back to a few periods in my life where my ability to live without outside support had been put into serious question by lack of employment; and realized that while I may say that now, there have been times and may be times again where I needed the job. It's easy to be choosey from the relative comfort of a pretty good paying job. I have enough savings now that I'd be fine for several months at least in the event of job loss, so I don't see me being that desperate any time soon. But let's face it. Life's sometimes a bitch. Anything could happen.
That said, I've held a security clearance, and known people with even higher security ratings; and even the Feds don't go demanding to see your Facebook profile. This shit is ridiculous.
My wife spent a year in Boston before I got a job up here; and she broke her leg while up here alone. She made use of Peapod wile incapacitated. She has a generally favorable impression of the service, but still prefers to just go to the store now that she's mobile. Food is one of those things that I don't think the majority of people will ever want delivered as a matter of preference. Picking out the meat and produce that you want (as in the particular pieces rather than just type and cut), being able to be reminded that you need toilet paper by walking by it, even the impulse purchases, are all things that people like. For special situations (my wife's broken leg) or particular people (guys like the OP who can't be bothered), Peapod and similar are definitely nice to have, but at least for the foreseeable future I think most people will prefer to go to the store most of the time.
You really, really had to stretch for that one didn't you, I mean other than the word "closet" there's absolutely no support for your joke in the whole post.
Stop and Shop in Boston does this already. You need a loyalty card and it relies on a handheld barcode scanner instead of a Kinect in your cart, but it's great.
The Stop and Shop chain in the Boston area has a scan and bag system that totally relies on customer honesty. You swipe your reward card at a kiosk and it gives you a handheld barcode scanner. You scan and bag your items as you go (they have scales near the produce and loose dry good sections that print a bar code for the scanner), and when you get to the check out you swipe your reward card again. The system wirelessly transfers your purchases from the barcode scanner currently affiliated with your card, and you pay. The items never leave your bag once you've scanned and bagged them. It's tremendously convenient when we remember to grab a scanner. Checkout literally takes seconds, This just takes the same theory one step further and lets you pay at the cart instead of needing to sync with a register.
I'd bring up two points. The first is that pushing a cart around hardly qualifies as "more exercise" than having it follow you. A friend of mine who is severely obese always wants to be the one to push the cart if we are out somewhere that has them. She calls it her "walker" and it actually makes walking easier for her (at least she doesn't use those damned electric chairs, and to be fair she's lost 40 pound in the last 6 months or so, so she's trying). I don't particularly care if my cart follows me around or not, so I can't say I see the benefit her, but I don't think it's just and "even more laziness" situation exactly either.
The second is that the cart following you part seems like it's more of a secondary thing. The shopping assistant seems both more primary and more useful.
It really depends on the store. The original Whole Foods in New Orleans was, as we all used to joke, like shopping with 50 of your closest friends in a closet (It was by far the smallest non-family-owned grocery store I've every been in, even the A&P in the French Quarter was larger). When they built the new one uptown it was much more open and nicer. Now that I'm in the Boston area, the ones in Cambridge (near Mass Ave) and Woburn are definitely smallish and occasionally uncomfortable, the other one in Cambridge (near Alewife) and the one in Dedham are great though. As much or more room than any normal grocery store. I think a lot depends on age and location. The earliest ones were built where ever they could get the cheapest rent, as time went on 9and profits went up) they went to the medium sized stores for smaller markets or already served areas, and actually large nice store for flagship locations.
There's tradeoffs either way. I love the fact that my Nook (I use the Color and don't personally have any trouble with headaches or distractions, though I can see how people might) has dozens of books in one place. When I moved recently I literally had hundreds of paperback that I donated, gave away, and generally had to get rid of. Even after that culling I have four large shelves (and a few smaller ones) full of books in an apartment that's really too small for it. Since then I have bought all e-books, and they all fit into my one Nook. I'll still go for the dead tree on a few specific authors and series that I have in all hardback, but for my habit of consuming a paperback in three days, e-books are much more efficient.
You're still not looking at this from the point of view of a large scale deployment and minimizing long term costs. A $1200 Dell computer (purchased with corporate discount and in volume) is a machine that comes with 3 year onsite maintenance, it's powerful enough that it won't have to be replaced before those three years are up, it has a 23-24 inch monitor that is comfortable to use and won't cause eye strain, it has software license for all the tools the employees (or student in this case) needs... In short it's a computer that I can put on a desk and not worry about for three to four years. If it breaks, I can call Dell and it will be fixed. It's not a high end workstation, but I can be reasonably confident that it'll be usable in 4 years.
When you spend $600 on a machine, even just a machine for a secretary or sales guy (or student in this case), you get a machine that probably only has a one year self service or mail off warranty. There's a huge increase in support costs over time and many systems. You get a machine that's much more likely to need replacing much earlier. Either because it breaks after the support period or just because it can't run new software. You get no monitor or a small crappy monitor that is hard to work on over any length of time (an argument *might* be made that a sacrifice here isn't as big a deal for a school, since kids aren't using the computers all day. Still, it's not a whole lot extra per unit to get something much nicer to use). It gets you a machine with only basic software. Software is a huge expense for school systems. Few computers are straight "general use" system. Math classes want math software, journalism and publishing classes need special software. Microsoft gives away VS student version for free, but I believe they charge schools at least a token amount for large installs. Lab machines might need all of the software installed on the different types of classroom computers, since you never know what class a individual student is taking when they sit down
Again, going to Dell's website and finding the cheapest computer you can, or even a computer one or two steps up from that, doesn't cut it for determining "cost". Add in support costs, add in software, add in a bit of future proofing and it adds up. Also note that this plan being proposed is for a ten year cycle. That's at least one replacement for every piece of hardware involved, no matter how skillfully you keep it limping along.
And who is going to support these "changing every week because we can't source the same components this month that we did last month" monstrosities built with little to no quality control by teenagers in training? Who's going to make sure that they have consistent software loads when an image is good for for all of a month before a new one has to be made due to significant hardware change?
Also, have you ever done work in a build factory? Back in the day when I was first getting into this industry, my first job was doing tech support for an early Dell/Gateway competitor. Back when there were dozens of mom and pop operations doing mail order whitebox systems. As part of my "training" I spent a week on the line building computers. Talk about useless. Once you see how motherboards screw in, how you slide in PCI cards (actually they were ISA and PCI at the time), how you seat CPUs and RAM; well, you've seen it. Do it once it's an experience, two or three times it's a novelty. After the fourth time you've learned all you need to. And you need thousands of computers for a school district. Either every kid builds a few, or a small number of kids who take the wrong elective become slave labor.
Meanwhile, what have they been "trained" for? Building PCs in industry is largely an automated process now, or done by cheap Chinese workers for a dollar an hour. There's no "good jobs" in building PCs. There's money to made as a skilled IT person or a development engineer, but building computers isn't even 2% of what people like that do. The only computer I've built in the last 10 years is the one I use at home. Very occasionally I put in a PCI card or add RAM to a box, but there's not really much "skill" there. You can't learn valuable IT or programming skills when your class is tasked with providing the school system 1000 computers this year either.
Have you ever bought gear from Dell as a non-consumer? Sometimes I wonder about the people on this site, aren't we supposed to be techs? My company typically spends between $1200 and $1500 on every Dell we buy. Sure you can get one for $400: it will be obsolete before it's delivered, includes one year of self service warranty, has no monitor, and is generally the last thing you want for wide scale deployment.
You also can't just say "Get one computer per 2 students." It doesn't work like that. They don't buy computers based on students, they buy them based on classroom space. You need 32 computers in a 32 seat classroom if that classroom is going to be used for computers classes, you might need no computers in an English classroom. You need labs, which are often fully stocked with a computer on every desk, but except during crunch times probably not 100% utilized. You need computers for teachers, or are they supposed to just teach the computer classes from the chalkboard? In elementary schools you can probably get away with a simple two or three computers per student, in high schools and middle schools where students change classrooms every hour or so it's a lot more complicated.
Have you ever run a wide scale deployment? Have you ever worked in a school district? My guess is no to both.
How can so many people not have read a single paragraph question. He's moving internally. Worse, he's moving internally at a university, an institutional type notorious for politics, good old boy deals, resource sharing, etc. There's a very good chance that his new and old boss are friends and serve on committees together. There's a small but existent chance they hate each other and his old boss will use a poor transition as ammunition against the new boss (It wasn't enough to just poach my employee, oh no, Bob also made sure that my new guy got next to no training."). Even if they don't know each other very wells (unlikely given the overlap of their responsibilities), at the very least the new boss will see an opportunity to earn a few favors from the old boss by providing OP whenever there's an issue that new guy can't handle.
You can get away with that shit when you're leaving a company, though it's an asshole move in my opinion and unnecessarily burns bridges, but OP needs to handle this transition well. At the barest minimum it will prevent embarrassing encounters at the student center while grabbing lunch.
The other consideration here in my opinion is that he's not even really "moving on". I've worked in universities, changing departments is certainly changing jobs, but you're not going to get out of being helpful that easily. I spent at least a few hours a weeks helping out other departments, and I wasn't even in the position OP is in of having moved internally. Barring some kind of university politics that make Old Boss and New Boss hate each other, universities tend to be friendly places with lots of resource sharing. All it will take is for the old department head to call down and be like "$newkid is having some issues can you spare Soulskill for an hour or so?" and new boss will not only probably agree, he'll likely be glad to help. Old department head is likely a friend, and at the very least having him owe a favor is worth a few minutes of the new hire's time. Much better to just accept ahead of time that another day, or at least half day, is likely to be needed a couple of weeks in, and plan accordingly.
That Commodore was my first computer. In 1986 it was a pretty decent machine :-)
My parents use mine and my wife's old iPhones on AT&T without data (and the phones show up on the website as iPhones), so I think they may have changed that.
I also hate to point out that these articles are constantly pushing back the age at which people become digital natives. People the OPs age (also my brother's age) were "digital natives" when these articles were first being written 5-10 years ago. Now they're too old to be real digital natives. What constitutes this mysterious age group? My brother has had a computer in the house literally as long as he can remember. My parents got the first computer in our house in 1986 when I was 12 and he was 2. Unless his lack of opportunity to Google "learn how to walk and talk" disqualifies him, he's a digital native.
Basically they moved the bar from "had a computer since infancy" to "had access to the Internet since infancy" after they realized that the first "digital natives" were no better with computers than anyone else. At some point they'll realize that having had access to the Internet since infancy isn't enough to magically impart computer skills either and they'll move the bar again. Ten years from now they'll be talking about the kids in their early twenties who have had access to mobile computing devices since infancy and are the real "digital natives". Meanwhile some tech will still be cursing while he cleans up the viruses on some "digital native's" computer because the kid is no smarter than any other kid and got his box owned looking for porn.
There's not magic in being younger. To do anything more substantial that basic word processing and web browsing you still need a combination of mindset and training whether you're 15, 25, or 65. The basics are somewhat easier if you've been around computers all your life, but beyond that I don't think it matters much.
So you're fine with private organizations imposing fines on a whim? And that a school teaches its students to submit to such arbitrary authority?
They're not imposing fines on a whim. You sent your kids to their school, their rules were agreed to. I disagree with some of the rules (they get fined for hot chips? really?), but if I chose to send my kids to that school, I chose to make it so that every bag of chips my kid brings is expensive. Any organization can impose fees and fines on member who agree to abide by certain rules. You can avoid those fees and fines by severing your affiliation with the group. In this case by enrolling your kid in a normal public school.
And the rich pay less than their fair share of taxes because they have used the power their riches bring to bring it about. They deserve no more praise than a mugger who calls an ambulance for his victim would.
You're making several assumptions here. The first and most important is that every rich person agrees with what every other rich person does. Let's say you and I are both billionaires. I spend a lot of money lobbying to make sure that the fourth jet purchased by any single person is tax deductible. You buy a fourth jet and your accountant deducts it from this year's taxes. Does that make you culpable? Maybe in some ways, but in all probability you didn't even know the damned thing was deductible when you bought it. You might have been perfectly fine just paying the extra taxes. Warren Buffet has been rather vocal that he feels he should be paying more taxes than he is. Does that make him culpable for a tax rate he didn't have anything to do with setting?
The rich are like politicians or lawyers: there might be a few who are honest or even decent, but as a group, they have earned their reputation.
But again, does that mean we shouldn't reward positive behavior? Maybe if enough rich people receive enough positive feedback, more of them will be more willing to help. Even one billionaire parting with even 5% of his/her fortune is able to make more of a difference than I could if I gave away everything I ever made.
Not to mention that it's not even an apples to apples comparison. A phone or tablet device (iPhone, Android or what have you) is typically loading an application with a size on the orders of single to double digit megabytes from non-seeking storage, a PC is usually loading an application with a size on the order of three to four digit megabytes from a seeking storage. There no possible way you can load more data from a slower data source and not have it take longer. Infinity Blade (a rather large iPhone app) takes much longer to load on my phone than say Putty does on my PC. The Old Republic Takes a lot longer to load on my PC than the calculator on my phone. When you have a long load time, a splash screen makes a lot sense. It lets the user know that something is happening. Tiny apps don't have splash screens in any OS, large apps usually have splash screens in any OS.
Oh sure, when you own all, or the vast majority, of the land and you want to build something that people will mostly be happy to have it often goes smoothly. If you own just enough land to install your factory and intend to set it up to belch forth air and noise pollution, it's a lot harder. Rezoning happens all the time, but even with stuff people want, like malls, it doesn't always go smoothly and can be a risky enterprise. What Lightsquared is trying to do is more analogous to a noisy factory across the street from my house than a nice mall half a mile away. Unless the "town" is desperate for manufacturing jobs and you make a lot of concessions to the neighbors it probably won't happen.