Where do you think your economy is going to be heading without cheap computers, TV, appliances and gadgets from China? You might want to ask your dad or grandpa what they had to put down for a TV set. They'll probably tell you an amount not far from what you have to pay for one today. With the difference, though, that this was what they made in wages in a month or maybe two.
Hmm... thinking about it, considering how the "generation internship" is working, that's not too different to what it's like today...
Now imagine that TV doesn't cost 300 bucks but 3,000 bucks. Made with pride in the USA, no doubt. Sold... erh... well, nowhere, because nobody abroad would pay 3k bucks for a TV and nobody can afford it in that proud USA.
I feel kinda odd for suggesting something I saw in a MS product, but how about the Excel approach? When you start to type in a field, it offers you a known text that would complete what you started.
Don't get me wrong, I certainly ain't anti-science. But with this kind of research we get contradicting results every other year. First milk was important for you, now milk is harmful. Eggs used to be the way to an early grave, now eggs are the fountain of youth. Cholesterol was deadly, now we need it like a drug.
Or maybe it is already the other way around again, I don't keep track to be honest.
And in between all that we have various other food crazes from low-carb to neanderthal diet. What the fuck, people?
It starts to remind me of the old times in the East Bloc where "scientists" came up with any sort of revelation every time something was in shortage or for some odd reason there was suddenly a surplus. You could bet your ass that the revelation was that eggs are an important source for any kind of vitamins but meat makes you sick.
Same shit now. What happened, did the olive harvest turn out to be the harvest of the century?
Not everyone gets that kind of calls. Some don't get called at all anymore, like me.
Steal their time. Keep them talking and keep them busy with you, make sure they waste at least 15-30 minutes. Yes, that takes 15-30 minutes of your time, but only once. Once you're identified as a time waster, you're blacklisted.
And while they may have that with their cellphones, they don't have that potential in the laptop market. That is firmly in the hands of MS and various hardware makers that are firmly and deeply entrenched.
Aiming at a mass market in a segment that is already cornered by someone else is not going to work, especially if your products have fewer features and cost more.
Last time I checked that Apple laptop my dad got (don't know what they call it, don't care, it's a flat, silvery thing with a far too small screen), it had a few USB-ports and a reader slot for about every memory card you could possibly have. Maybe they did that before they took off, I don't know, but that thing is actually pretty neat when it comes to hardware.
Office buildings around the place I live. It's strange, put on a boilersuit, put some PC-Company looking logo on it, when asked something grunt something back in a foreign language and show a sheet of paper that says you're supposed to pick up a PC, grab a PC and leave.
Apple was a "just works" solution for people who didn't want to be bothered with their computer to do what they actually wanted to do. And Apple delivered that beautifully. Not to me, I never got my mind wrapped around the "Apple way" of thinking, but I could easily see it with the various people I used to admin PCs for. They quickly fell in love with the intuitive interface (beats me how this is intuitive, but they thought so) and how "naturally" everything felt (personally, I felt it was all wrong). But it wasn't for me, it was for them, and for them, it worked perfectly. There also was never an issue with odd drivers or having to upgrade them, Apple did that for you. There was also never an issue with having to buy some additional reader for whatever esoteric memory medium your digital cam used, your Apple could read it. Out of the box. Without you having to install anything. Even the most cryptic format nobody heard about, your Apple would read it and seamlessly let you work with it, it organizes your files for you, it was the perfect computer for people who just wanted to do stuff without having to learn how to do it.
Quite frankly, Apple's engineers apparently spent a lot of time employing people like my dad telling them what they want to do and they designed the software to "think" for the user. That was the key asset for Apple. And they threw that away.
No, not with the software. That probably still works the way it did. But with the hardware. Again, one of the key selling points for Apple was that their machines could read anything you could possibly throw at them. And that is simply no longer the case. They can't even read USB out of the box anymore. Instead you are supposed to buy a lot of additional crap, various cables for various reasons that confuse and overwhelm people. Which one do I need? And I don't want to buy the wrong one, they're all quite expensive.
Apple replaced total compatibility with absolute incompatibility. They saw that they can cram it down their users' throats in the phone market and tried the same stunt with their computers. And now they get to learn the MS lesson: Just 'cause you can piss on your customers in a market you dominate doesn't mean that it will work everywhere.
That's what I'm talking about. First of all, most YT videos are NOT in HD. But compared to Comcast et al, they sure look like they were.
Once you've actually SEEN high definition, you wonder how you can even watch TV anymore. You'd feel like you would feel now watching an old 60s TV show on an old 60s TV.
Look, MS. You can paint the turd, you can put a cherry on top of it, you can even dress it up and pretend it can tap dance, as long as you sell a turd as chocolate ice cream, people will still puke on your feet once they ate it. No matter how you sugar coat it.
That's how TV develops. We watch less and less watchable programming on better and better systems, until we will have the most realistic experience of an experience we don't want to have.
You will see the compression artifacts, flickering and pixelation with more colors now. Awesome.
Face it, no matter how great the TV, as long as networks compress the signals badly enough to make YouTube look like HD in comparison, it will still suck.
Slashdot Mirror
Game over for whom, though?
Where do you think your economy is going to be heading without cheap computers, TV, appliances and gadgets from China? You might want to ask your dad or grandpa what they had to put down for a TV set. They'll probably tell you an amount not far from what you have to pay for one today. With the difference, though, that this was what they made in wages in a month or maybe two.
Hmm... thinking about it, considering how the "generation internship" is working, that's not too different to what it's like today...
Now imagine that TV doesn't cost 300 bucks but 3,000 bucks. Made with pride in the USA, no doubt. Sold ... erh ... well, nowhere, because nobody abroad would pay 3k bucks for a TV and nobody can afford it in that proud USA.
And why shouldn't you? Given the content of Twitter, I'd say that's pretty much what everyone does.
Just, please, be so kind and be that person that starts the trend of flushing your turd instead of sending it.
The ones that care.
To the rest: Learn to read or get off the internet. No sympathy.
I feel kinda odd for suggesting something I saw in a MS product, but how about the Excel approach? When you start to type in a field, it offers you a known text that would complete what you started.
Don't get me wrong, I certainly ain't anti-science. But with this kind of research we get contradicting results every other year. First milk was important for you, now milk is harmful. Eggs used to be the way to an early grave, now eggs are the fountain of youth. Cholesterol was deadly, now we need it like a drug.
Or maybe it is already the other way around again, I don't keep track to be honest.
And in between all that we have various other food crazes from low-carb to neanderthal diet. What the fuck, people?
It starts to remind me of the old times in the East Bloc where "scientists" came up with any sort of revelation every time something was in shortage or for some odd reason there was suddenly a surplus. You could bet your ass that the revelation was that eggs are an important source for any kind of vitamins but meat makes you sick.
Same shit now. What happened, did the olive harvest turn out to be the harvest of the century?
IBM keyboards have been able to stop bullets for about 40 years now.
Not everyone gets that kind of calls. Some don't get called at all anymore, like me.
Steal their time. Keep them talking and keep them busy with you, make sure they waste at least 15-30 minutes. Yes, that takes 15-30 minutes of your time, but only once. Once you're identified as a time waster, you're blacklisted.
I was just about as flabbergasted. I thought it's illegal to bring charges against managers and executives.
Only then I noticed that this story isn't about the US and instead I wondered what the fuck the FBI is doing there.
Unless you're willing to break a few laws and are not generally against the idea of an asshole getting physically harmed.
And while they may have that with their cellphones, they don't have that potential in the laptop market. That is firmly in the hands of MS and various hardware makers that are firmly and deeply entrenched.
Aiming at a mass market in a segment that is already cornered by someone else is not going to work, especially if your products have fewer features and cost more.
Last time I checked that Apple laptop my dad got (don't know what they call it, don't care, it's a flat, silvery thing with a far too small screen), it had a few USB-ports and a reader slot for about every memory card you could possibly have. Maybe they did that before they took off, I don't know, but that thing is actually pretty neat when it comes to hardware.
Office buildings around the place I live. It's strange, put on a boilersuit, put some PC-Company looking logo on it, when asked something grunt something back in a foreign language and show a sheet of paper that says you're supposed to pick up a PC, grab a PC and leave.
Apple was a "just works" solution for people who didn't want to be bothered with their computer to do what they actually wanted to do. And Apple delivered that beautifully. Not to me, I never got my mind wrapped around the "Apple way" of thinking, but I could easily see it with the various people I used to admin PCs for. They quickly fell in love with the intuitive interface (beats me how this is intuitive, but they thought so) and how "naturally" everything felt (personally, I felt it was all wrong). But it wasn't for me, it was for them, and for them, it worked perfectly. There also was never an issue with odd drivers or having to upgrade them, Apple did that for you. There was also never an issue with having to buy some additional reader for whatever esoteric memory medium your digital cam used, your Apple could read it. Out of the box. Without you having to install anything. Even the most cryptic format nobody heard about, your Apple would read it and seamlessly let you work with it, it organizes your files for you, it was the perfect computer for people who just wanted to do stuff without having to learn how to do it.
Quite frankly, Apple's engineers apparently spent a lot of time employing people like my dad telling them what they want to do and they designed the software to "think" for the user. That was the key asset for Apple. And they threw that away.
No, not with the software. That probably still works the way it did. But with the hardware. Again, one of the key selling points for Apple was that their machines could read anything you could possibly throw at them. And that is simply no longer the case. They can't even read USB out of the box anymore. Instead you are supposed to buy a lot of additional crap, various cables for various reasons that confuse and overwhelm people. Which one do I need? And I don't want to buy the wrong one, they're all quite expensive.
Apple replaced total compatibility with absolute incompatibility. They saw that they can cram it down their users' throats in the phone market and tried the same stunt with their computers. And now they get to learn the MS lesson: Just 'cause you can piss on your customers in a market you dominate doesn't mean that it will work everywhere.
Ok, I'm game. Let's get it going.
This is really cruel. I hate it when people do that.
Even worse, how can he continue being fabulous with only 8 millions to blow?
That's what I'm talking about. First of all, most YT videos are NOT in HD. But compared to Comcast et al, they sure look like they were.
Once you've actually SEEN high definition, you wonder how you can even watch TV anymore. You'd feel like you would feel now watching an old 60s TV show on an old 60s TV.
I can't remember faces to save my life. It's great, you get to meet a lot of new people every day...
It is on topic. The whole data mining bullshit is the huge white elephant in the Windows 10 room that won't go away.
If not, why do you wake me?
Look, MS. You can paint the turd, you can put a cherry on top of it, you can even dress it up and pretend it can tap dance, as long as you sell a turd as chocolate ice cream, people will still puke on your feet once they ate it. No matter how you sugar coat it.
Only 8 millions! How will he possibly survive?
Folks, let's start a Patreon for him, we cannot let him starve.
Nah. On a scale of white to black, this is at best Mexican.
That's how TV develops. We watch less and less watchable programming on better and better systems, until we will have the most realistic experience of an experience we don't want to have.
You will see the compression artifacts, flickering and pixelation with more colors now. Awesome.
Face it, no matter how great the TV, as long as networks compress the signals badly enough to make YouTube look like HD in comparison, it will still suck.