No exaggeration. This is one of the only tech news stories that I've actually heard about IRL instead of the internet. Someone actually looked at me on the sidewalk and said "Oh my God, Steve Jobs retired!"
I said "FIRST PSOT!!!!" and was trying to think how to use HTML formatting to link to a relevant XKCD before I realized it was a conversation and not slashdot. But it's okay, I'm safely back in Mom's basement now.
Trading video games is what they have a monopoly on, in terms of stores. You can buy videogames everywhere, yes, but gamestop makes only a small fraction of their revenue off of selling new games. That's basically just to get you to come into the store.
Anyway, a store and a website are not the same thing, especially not to their customer base (I buy most of my games online, I'm not representative of their customers.)
I didn't have to put up with any sales pitches over frequent shopper cards or subscriptions to lame-ass magazines either.
I wish there was a code word or short phrase for "I don't mean to be rude, and I know you are required by your employer to ask, but stop trying to upsell me or get me to sign up for stuff." When I was working there, I'd prefer it when people would just ignore my greeting, which was supposed to be followed up with an annoying sales pitch. I'm not sure others would agree though.
Indeed, and it's only gotten more ridiculous. It's 2011 and you STILL cannot drag and drop MP3s to your i device, you STILL cannot delete songs from your i device without a computer and you STILL cannot use your i device to transfer files to a new computer.
Those were features which were common a decade ago.
And while yes, one can simply not buy apple products, I don't think that's sufficient. Even if you don't buy, everyone else is, and together they're helping define your data as "someone else's property."
+1 to that. I worked at a gamestop about 6 years ago. Gamestop makes its money on people who don't realize they could get much better deals online, they're not exactly "informed" customers.
I regularly had to tell people "The display console is off. That controller you're holding and mashing buttons on while grunting? That's not powered on. You're not playing a game right now. Put it down. No, see, it's not on. Nothing. Zero....
Why are you still staring at it and pressing buttons? Videogames need electricity to work, the power button... (sigh) fuck it. You're about to win!"
They'll boycott gamestop if and only if the employees mug them at gunpoint when they come in.
By reasonable standards, yes, but Gamestop used to sell used games as new. This is basically a monopoly that abuses their customers. And their customers are largely under 18 year olds with more disposable income than experience or common sense, so they keep shopping there.
The fact that you can't remove the stocks app on the iphone is one of the world's great mysteries. What's funny is the apple fanboys trying to justify it. "Why would you want to remove it? It's a free feature. And you might learn something about the stock market!"
Sometimes, we just need to admit that it's a lost cause. It's a situation that can't be salvaged.
Can't be salvaged? Well that's just idiotic. Education is not a goal that we can just give up on. It would be colossally stupid to just give up on future generations like that. It's already bad enough that we are cheating them like this, but to say we can't possibly fix it is more selfish than even we are.
It's not as if we're out of ideas either. We have plenty of our own, and if none of those appeal to you, look at countries that are doing it well, and the differences in how we do it and how they do it, and then model ourselves after that. Be prepared to spend more money on it. Throwing money at it is not a magic solution, sure, but saving money is not a goal worth sacrificing the education system for.
Nice it up a little and I don't know that you'd do badly. It sounds like a bunch of these stupid patents were granted out of ignorance, not a policy or intention to stifle innovation.
They all look the same, feel the same, and even smell the same (okay, that last one, I don't know what I'm talking about.)
As well they should. Myspace did one thing right: it proved that you should not allow users to make custom backgrounds, change the layout or [shudder] make music play when you land on their profile.
By the way, that's the smell. Myspace allowed you to stink up your apartment with crappy music. Facebook and google plus make sure you keep them odor-free, just like any good landlord.
Competing with each other is another way of putting it. Making stuff private is not exactly "copying" each other so much as it is "giving customers what they want."
Maybe you should educate your child and allow him / her to contribute positively to your conversations social life rather than expecting them to play dumb games and keep quiet?
Do you expect a 3 year old to stay interested in a conversation about the newly adopted C+ standards?
Are you saying the only education you can give your child is about newly adopted C+ standards, or are newly adopted C+ standards just the only things you have conversations about? Because I feel like there is plenty of middle ground for both that doesn't involve anything as dry as C+ standards, but isn't playing ipad games.
Indeed. When I was in Japan, I was surprised that everyone carried umbrellas with them all day if there was a cloud in the sky, they had little umbrella wrapping machines outside of buildings to make sure as little moisture as possible got inside. People were very concerned they might get wet.
A mild earthquake on the other hand, people continued getting onto elevators, didn't stop to look around to make sure nothing was falling over onto them.
I think what you meant to say was that it was like pushing on the frame of the car as opposed to pushing on an open door. You're on slashdot, a little earthquake is no excuse to go using a metaphor that doesn't involve cars.
Nice theory, but I just don't see proof that it's a significant problem. I have no doubt you could find individuals who fit that, and there are probably enclaves where that is the prevailing culture, but everywhere? No. Just no. I was in school up to 2000, I knew very few classmates who figured they would drop out and be a singer, or a gangster, or what have you. I see no proof that it has wildly increased in the 10 years since I was in high school either.
There will always be individuals who are complete wastes, but that doesn't mean that education is a failure.
I think this is just the typical human reaction to watching younger generations which are actually different, but not actually better or worse. "Sex drugs and rock and roll" were said to be destroying society years before I was born. Society seems to have managed to stay basically the same. People are always people, no better, no worse. They're not going to hell in a handbasket just because they have the rap music and reality TV today, grandpa. I'll get off your lawn now.
Conservatives are against the destruction of an embryo for the purposes of scientific research.
Worth pointing out that since these are leftovers from IVF, the alternative is simply the incinerator. Scientific research or trash. That's the choice here, life is not a possibility for these embryos. Embryonic stem cells do not come from abortions, nor can they ever: by the time one would realize they had an unwanted pregnancy, the embryo's cells have begun to differentiate and are not useful pluripotent cells anymore.
People do need to be reminded that stem cells =/= embryonic stem cells, but they also need to be reminded that these embryos are going to be discarded one way or the other, and ESC research does NOT encourage abortion. Sadly, all three misconceptions are all too common among voters.
The US is better at building airplanes than Taiwan is. So, we trade -- the US builds airplanes while Taiwan manufactures electronic components. As a result, we get less expensive electronics and less expensive airplanes. That's a good thing which makes everybody better off.
So... you obviously didn't RTFA. The TLDR version is "No, you're wrong, that's too simplistic and there are good reasons to reevaluate that mantra." We're losing industries right and left, along with it the experience needed to do it competitively. TFA also points out that many engineering jobs follow manufacturing jobs, followed by whole corporations. It dispels the myth that manufacturing jobs can be outsourced with no other negative consequences.
And in the case of airplanes, I remember reading years ago that the US aerospace industry was facing a similar brain drain and is losing expertise. It too is an endangered specie.
If trends continue, and there seems to be no political will to stop those trends, we are going to be left with basically just importing, not exporting or making anything. That can only last for a very short time for obvious reasons.
Slashdot Mirror
No exaggeration. This is one of the only tech news stories that I've actually heard about IRL instead of the internet. Someone actually looked at me on the sidewalk and said "Oh my God, Steve Jobs retired!"
I said "FIRST PSOT!!!!" and was trying to think how to use HTML formatting to link to a relevant XKCD before I realized it was a conversation and not slashdot. But it's okay, I'm safely back in Mom's basement now.
Trading video games is what they have a monopoly on, in terms of stores. You can buy videogames everywhere, yes, but gamestop makes only a small fraction of their revenue off of selling new games. That's basically just to get you to come into the store.
Anyway, a store and a website are not the same thing, especially not to their customer base (I buy most of my games online, I'm not representative of their customers.)
I didn't have to put up with any sales pitches over frequent shopper cards or subscriptions to lame-ass magazines either.
I wish there was a code word or short phrase for "I don't mean to be rude, and I know you are required by your employer to ask, but stop trying to upsell me or get me to sign up for stuff." When I was working there, I'd prefer it when people would just ignore my greeting, which was supposed to be followed up with an annoying sales pitch. I'm not sure others would agree though.
The turtleneck will be retired. Start speculating now on what fashion Cook will be CEOing with. I'm guessing sweater vest, but bowtie is possible too.
It's unlikely, but I'm still hoping the new CEO will take to wearing codpieces.
Indeed, and it's only gotten more ridiculous. It's 2011 and you STILL cannot drag and drop MP3s to your i device, you STILL cannot delete songs from your i device without a computer and you STILL cannot use your i device to transfer files to a new computer.
Those were features which were common a decade ago.
And while yes, one can simply not buy apple products, I don't think that's sufficient. Even if you don't buy, everyone else is, and together they're helping define your data as "someone else's property."
Unless he says it will protect children from being run over by terrorists driving Toyotas.
+1 to that. I worked at a gamestop about 6 years ago. Gamestop makes its money on people who don't realize they could get much better deals online, they're not exactly "informed" customers.
I regularly had to tell people "The display console is off. That controller you're holding and mashing buttons on while grunting? That's not powered on. You're not playing a game right now. Put it down. No, see, it's not on. Nothing. Zero....
Why are you still staring at it and pressing buttons? Videogames need electricity to work, the power button... (sigh) fuck it. You're about to win!"
They'll boycott gamestop if and only if the employees mug them at gunpoint when they come in.
Good point (I think), the apple fanboy response DOES seem less ridiculous than many responses one would get on the internet.
Have you heard of this schmuck "Einstein!?!" He EVEN SAID "I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right."
He ADMITS to being right ONLY 1% OF THE TIME. How is it possible we continued to pay attention to him!?!
By reasonable standards, yes, but Gamestop used to sell used games as new. This is basically a monopoly that abuses their customers. And their customers are largely under 18 year olds with more disposable income than experience or common sense, so they keep shopping there.
The fact that you can't remove the stocks app on the iphone is one of the world's great mysteries. What's funny is the apple fanboys trying to justify it. "Why would you want to remove it? It's a free feature. And you might learn something about the stock market!"
Sometimes, we just need to admit that it's a lost cause. It's a situation that can't be salvaged.
Can't be salvaged? Well that's just idiotic. Education is not a goal that we can just give up on. It would be colossally stupid to just give up on future generations like that. It's already bad enough that we are cheating them like this, but to say we can't possibly fix it is more selfish than even we are.
It's not as if we're out of ideas either. We have plenty of our own, and if none of those appeal to you, look at countries that are doing it well, and the differences in how we do it and how they do it, and then model ourselves after that. Be prepared to spend more money on it. Throwing money at it is not a magic solution, sure, but saving money is not a goal worth sacrificing the education system for.
Nice it up a little and I don't know that you'd do badly. It sounds like a bunch of these stupid patents were granted out of ignorance, not a policy or intention to stifle innovation.
They all look the same, feel the same, and even smell the same (okay, that last one, I don't know what I'm talking about.)
As well they should. Myspace did one thing right: it proved that you should not allow users to make custom backgrounds, change the layout or [shudder] make music play when you land on their profile.
By the way, that's the smell. Myspace allowed you to stink up your apartment with crappy music. Facebook and google plus make sure you keep them odor-free, just like any good landlord.
Competing with each other is another way of putting it. Making stuff private is not exactly "copying" each other so much as it is "giving customers what they want."
Maybe you should educate your child and allow him / her to contribute positively to your conversations social life rather than expecting them to play dumb games and keep quiet?
Do you expect a 3 year old to stay interested in a conversation about the newly adopted C+ standards?
Are you saying the only education you can give your child is about newly adopted C+ standards, or are newly adopted C+ standards just the only things you have conversations about? Because I feel like there is plenty of middle ground for both that doesn't involve anything as dry as C+ standards, but isn't playing ipad games.
Indeed. When I was in Japan, I was surprised that everyone carried umbrellas with them all day if there was a cloud in the sky, they had little umbrella wrapping machines outside of buildings to make sure as little moisture as possible got inside. People were very concerned they might get wet.
A mild earthquake on the other hand, people continued getting onto elevators, didn't stop to look around to make sure nothing was falling over onto them.
You can say that again. Oh, you meant no -earthquakes-. Yeah, there probably weren't any of those either.
Like hitting a pipe with a hammer.
I think what you meant to say was that it was like pushing on the frame of the car as opposed to pushing on an open door. You're on slashdot, a little earthquake is no excuse to go using a metaphor that doesn't involve cars.
The devastation in washington DC.
Nice theory, but I just don't see proof that it's a significant problem. I have no doubt you could find individuals who fit that, and there are probably enclaves where that is the prevailing culture, but everywhere? No. Just no. I was in school up to 2000, I knew very few classmates who figured they would drop out and be a singer, or a gangster, or what have you. I see no proof that it has wildly increased in the 10 years since I was in high school either.
There will always be individuals who are complete wastes, but that doesn't mean that education is a failure.
I think this is just the typical human reaction to watching younger generations which are actually different, but not actually better or worse. "Sex drugs and rock and roll" were said to be destroying society years before I was born. Society seems to have managed to stay basically the same. People are always people, no better, no worse. They're not going to hell in a handbasket just because they have the rap music and reality TV today, grandpa. I'll get off your lawn now.
What's next? "Candidate's love of tuna + mac-n-cheese is extreme and wildly outside the mainstream..."
I seem to recall Bush the first getting in trouble for saying he didn't like broccoli. So... no, not next, that already happened over a decade ago.
We've gotten quickly off-topic. Embryonic stem cells do not come from abortion. Ever. Don't confuse the two issues.
Conservatives are against the destruction of an embryo for the purposes of scientific research.
Worth pointing out that since these are leftovers from IVF, the alternative is simply the incinerator. Scientific research or trash. That's the choice here, life is not a possibility for these embryos. Embryonic stem cells do not come from abortions, nor can they ever: by the time one would realize they had an unwanted pregnancy, the embryo's cells have begun to differentiate and are not useful pluripotent cells anymore.
People do need to be reminded that stem cells =/= embryonic stem cells, but they also need to be reminded that these embryos are going to be discarded one way or the other, and ESC research does NOT encourage abortion. Sadly, all three misconceptions are all too common among voters.
The US is better at building airplanes than Taiwan is. So, we trade -- the US builds airplanes while Taiwan manufactures electronic components. As a result, we get less expensive electronics and less expensive airplanes. That's a good thing which makes everybody better off.
So... you obviously didn't RTFA. The TLDR version is "No, you're wrong, that's too simplistic and there are good reasons to reevaluate that mantra." We're losing industries right and left, along with it the experience needed to do it competitively. TFA also points out that many engineering jobs follow manufacturing jobs, followed by whole corporations. It dispels the myth that manufacturing jobs can be outsourced with no other negative consequences.
And in the case of airplanes, I remember reading years ago that the US aerospace industry was facing a similar brain drain and is losing expertise. It too is an endangered specie.
If trends continue, and there seems to be no political will to stop those trends, we are going to be left with basically just importing, not exporting or making anything. That can only last for a very short time for obvious reasons.