I am not a mathematician, but I have always considered the Monty Hall trick to be more of a word trick than any basis in mathematics. Look at it this way:
If you pick one door out of a million and Monty Hall opens 999,998 others and it's between yours and the other door, there's a good chance Monty Hall knew where the car was since the chances of him doing that at random are so small, so of course your chance is better if you switch to the other door since there is a strong probability he didn't miss that one door just by chance.
On the other hand, if Monty opens 999,998 doors at random and still hasn't revealed the car, despite the unliklihood of that happening, then the odds are still 50/50 that you have the right door. The odds at first might have been 1 in a million, but now they are 1 in 2 since the other 999,998 have been eliminated without a biased factor (Monty's choice).
It's the human element that always seems to get lost here. The real question is whether the other 999,998 doors are eliminated by someone who knows where the car is (Monty) or by chance.
Isn't it "nice" to be living in the US while seeing a steadily increasing move towards arresting/detaining/suing people who "might" commit a crime, instead of actually waiting until they commit it?
And you don't even have to threaten to do so anymore. All you need to do is have the ethnicity/equipment/political affiliation that labels you as someone who "could" commit a crime.
I have an MP3 player at home and MP3's on my PC, so I *MUST* be downloading copyrighted music. I have a CD Burner in my laptop, so I *MUST* be copying software. I am not a Republican, so I *MUST* be engaging in sedicious activity.
And alot of people/politicians/companies seem to be jumping on the through crime/preventive detention/suing before the fact bandwagon these days.
Also, what company buys it's business products from best buy? It took about 0.1seconds for me to see str8 through you.
Apparently you didn't read my post. My company buys Compaq PC's.. I personally made the mistake of buying an HP CD Burner for my own personal use (at home you see, make sense now?) that I never did get to work, despite the endless hours working on it.
Took me about 0.1 seconds to see you didn't bother reading what I posted, just what you wanted to hear.
And yes, I am an Apple Hater and HP Flamer (If by "flaming" you mean relating an actual experience). 12 years of supporting their equipment (and a few more than that as far as using Macs) has given me enough experience to have an informed opinion of both:
I don't like the Mac interface, and I can't trust HP's to work reliably, or provide useful support when they don't. I'm glad we're finally rid of HP's and pushing Compaq out the door. It will definitely make my job easier. If only we could get rid of those last few Macs...:)
HP's printers may be okay (though definitely not the industry's best), but their customer service and many of their products (especially peripherals like CD burners) are so horrendously bad, that my company has also banned all HP products. And by the recent acquisition, we have also cancelled our Compaq contracts as well and are in the process of looking for replacements for our Compaq PC's.
I also had the experience of spending probably a month (plus lots of my own money on their non-toll-free support line) trying to get a CD burner of theirs to work (this was a few years ago) and eventually I was told that they couldn't guarantee it would be compatable with my system since my system was self-built! Huh? I was so mad I literally cracked the phone when I slammed it down. Fortunately Best Buy let me return the product past the 15 day return limit (though only for credit) because the person I spoke to said that they have seen this type of thing with HP peripherals before, too many times to count.
Keep up the good work, HP. Would the last one at HP please turn off the light.
I work for a company that makes genuine ink cartridges and the main problem we find in our testing is that refill cartridges clog the nozzles on the printer. When you're going at 1440 and 2880 DPI, even one grain of dust introduced into the system will clog those nozzles, and those nozzles are in the printer, not the cartridge. There's a reason ink cartridges are made in a clean room environment.
I personally have no problem if someone wants to put a refill cartridge in their printer, but as far as I'm concerned, when it comes to warranty or tech support, they are on their own at that point. I have seen ideas that will be able to identify by a code printed by a printer whether a refill cartridge has been used, and I have no problem with that.
As far as I'm concerned, if you want to water down the gas in your car to get cheaper refills, that's fine with me. But don't go crying to the dealer when it won't start after 10,000 miles.
So if they keep up the attacks on Microsoft, then the evil empire can just do what the Government and the states want: Close up shop, release all businesses from their contracts when they expire, and everybody can go get their own OS, one that is truly stable, user friendly, everyone already has experience with, bundled with the utilities they need, inexpensive, and guaranteed to be more compatible with all of the other computers that everyone has to deal with on a daily basis.
And then everyone would be happy, right?
I remember the wonderful days of the past when everyone had a different OS and everything worked on everyone else's computer.
Be careful what you wish for, you may just get it.
Apple has been playing the "style over substance" card for years now. And not too successfully, from my point of view.
Their boxes are ugly.. this one maybe most of all.
And not only that, they are overpriced. That's a pretty small niche they are going for there.
I've always found Apple's interface to be clunky and difficult to use.. and their latest attempts at trying to put pretty, pricey boxes on our desks has made it ever less likely that I would ever consider purchasing one.
Obviously you haven't quite had the blessing living through a really hard winter yet, or you might be a little less upset about being forced to stay in your warm car.
I lived in Minnesota for 3 1/2 years. I still would prefer to pump my own gas.
Climatalogically speaking, Oregon is two
states. The west west side, and the frozen east side. Studs are essential in the east, and absurd in the west. You legislate a way out of that one.
Simple. Place a significant damage tax on studded tires. Make them pay for their own damage
I've lived in Oregon for 4 1/2 years now, and I can tell you this is a very weird place to live.
1. The fact that I can't pump my own gas still amazes me. There's nothing like waiting 10 minutes to do something that should only take 5.
2. Oregon has something called a "kicker check" which means that if the government doesn't spend all of the money it collected in taxes, it refunds the difference to the taxpayers. Great concept, but it's actually a farce because the money is such a political hot potato that you don't dare spend that money or the people complain. So the government deliberately underspends so they can send out a kicker. This year the state is hundreds of millions short of what it needs, but guess what? The kicker still went out.
3. Oregon has a referendum system that has run amok, mostly because of one person named Bill Sizemore. He's always complaining about Oregon having high taxes (which is untrue, Oregon's total tax burden is about 38th highest, mostly because there is NO sales tax). But he's managed to get some taxes cut, further hurting the state. I'm sure he has plans to put a referendum out there to eliminate taxes completely.
4. Oregon's roads are torn to shreds every year because they allow studded tires starting October 1. A section of interstate between my home and work was paved only a few years ago, and already the studs have cut deep ruts into the road.
5. Portland has an "urban growth boundary" that is roughly a circle 20 miles in radius around Portland that sets a limit as to how far you can "sprawl" the city. Since the boundary is mostly full already, the local governments want to increase the population density (with all of the wonderful side-effects), but won't authorize any new freeways to alleviate what is already the 6th worst traffic in the country. There is some light rail (which is a great idea), but it still isn't nearly as extensive as it needs to be to make any difference. So Portlanders are packed in even tighter, and traffic gets worse every year.
Add to that the fact that the state only has one major newspaper (which is lousy), terrible local TV news (a recent study confirmed this), and housing costs that are way too high (partly because of the already mentioned urban growth boundary), and it makes me wonder why I stay here. For now, I'm happy to stay put, but it seems like Oregon is always doing something to urge people to leave. Of course, since I moved here from out of state, I've always known that I wasn't welcome here anyway. That's just the way Oregon is.
One of the underlying themes that runs through the thread anytime Apple is brought up seems to be "converting Wintel users to Mac". Does this really happen? I mean, I've periodically had to use Macs since 1984 and I don't like the interface. Never have, still don't. Sure, there are always going to be arguments going back about which one is faster, which one is easier, which one is a better bang for the buck. But I find it pointless.
Does anyone actually see people going from the Wintel environment to Mac? How about the other way around? It seems to me that Mac's market share has been pretty stagnant for awhile, and I just don't see anything changing it as this point.
This seems to be Apple trying to solidify their own market, and push out into a currently unexplored market. But even if a few Wintel users drop the $400 for the device, I seriously doubt that many are going to buy a Mac to go with it. I still see both machines at targeted at different markets, different consumers.
Face it, both Apple and Wintel are good at what they do. I sometimes think that the perception that there is a market for "converting" people between these two platforms is ludicrous. I don't think Apple thinks they can convert people to Mac with this device because I don't think that market really exists in any significant number.
Especially when you see the bitterness between the two camps.
Similar war within our own borders
on
Globalization
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· Score: 1
the conflict now underway between the United States and some extremist fundamentalists was inevitable. Cosmopolitans welcome technology and cultural diversity, while fundamentalists find it disturbing and dangerous.
I find it ironic that people are so horrified by bin Laden's holy war against American "technology and cultural diversity" (aka, freedom), yet don't blink when Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and other extreme fundamentalists declare war on the very same thing here at home. In case you haven't noticed, it was American extreme fundamentalists who have launched campaigns to filter the internet, ban books, control television, outlaw homosexuality, and do everything they can to silence anyone who disagrees with them. Instead of blowing up the WTC, their followers blow up abortion clinics, kill doctors, and call for a holy war against homosexuals.
What bin Laden and other terrorists have done to our country by declaring a holy war and killing our citizens is appaling and should be dealt with through a forceful retaliation. But don't be so naive to think that there aren't factions within our own country (with the assistance of members of congress who are on their payroll) who aren't engaging in the same thing here at home.
Right now, Americans are living in the same fear that those who have been targeted by this country's right-wing fundamentalists have been living in for years. Fear for their lives just because of who they are, and because war has been declared on them.
I purchased an HP external (USB) CD burner earlier this year. The burner could read CD's just fine but could not burn a CD to save it's life. I made sure all the settings on my PC were optimum for burning a CD, no luck. It always failed 30 seconds or so into burning a disk with the same error "unknown error". I returned the drive and got another. Same problem. I phoned HP (at my expense, no toll free number) and they basically went through everything I had done already. They told me I had bad CD's (They don't like Imation, only HP CD-R's). I replaced them. On the next call they started questioning my PC, and insisted they didn't support Windows ME. I had to actually refer the tech to the webpage that stated that they DID support ME for this device.
Then they found out I built my system myself, and they promptly blamed my system. They basically told me I was on my own and there wasn't anything they could do. They said the device was fine, my PC was at fault. My return period at the store had expired, plus I didn't want to return the same device twice, but I had been completely screwed by HP so I called the store manager and told him exactly what happened. He couldn't give me a refund, but gave me store credit, and said that HP devices account for a striking majority of their returned PC components.
I swapped it for a new Yahama drive and it worked from day one (imagine that). When I told the story to a few of my coworkers, I learned that that one of them has the same HP CD burner and they've never been able to get it to work, and another has an HP printer that failed shortly after she purchased it.
With shoddy products and shoddy support, how does a company like this even stay in business?
This is from the above-referenced article about Fry's requiring that no more than 10% of Egghead's customer's opt out:
"As part of the proposed $10 million sale, Fry's is requiring that no more than 10 percent of active customers--anyone who bought something at Egghead in the last two years--can "opt out" of a plan to transfer their information over to Fry's Electronics, according to a bankruptcy filing at U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California."
Well, I have NEVER purchased anything from Egghead.com. I purchased a single printer from Onsale back in 1997. The part about "two years" is a lie. I would imagine that when Egghead and Onsale "merged", all of the accounts were "reset".
Does anyone really believe they'd voluntarily drop your name after two years?
It seems to me that this could also bring about another niche for programmers... software that goes through a companies systems and completely wipes out data. I'm sure this would cause havoc with a company's ISO procedures, but with more and more companies getting caught because of e-mail or other data that is archived on their tapes, I could see the need to make sure that they have control over the "evidence" that exists on their own systems.
I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, or even that it's legal, but since most companies are not even aware of what data they do have backed up, and what is retrievable and what isn't, I could see this happening, if it hasn't already.
The iMac
Sure you're stuck with a small monitor, limited expandability, and it only benchmarks well on benchmarks specifically designed for it, but just see how pretty it is!
The Cube
Sure it's overpriced and has cracks in it, and doesn't live up to the "supercomputer" label we gave it, but just see how pretty it is!
OS X
blah blah blah slow, blah blah blah stable, but just see how pretty it is!
When a company's advertising compaign is totally focused on the fact that their products are wrapped in pretty packages, I find it hard to take them seriously. And despite the fact that Apple has always praised their interface as the simplest to use, I've always found it awkward, difficult to use, and not intuitive.
Apple had a solid market niche back in the 80's with machines that were ahead of their time. Maybe Steve Jobs will wake up someday and realize it's not 1985 anymore.
My company (a high-tech company in the Silicon Forest) placed one ad (one day!)for one helpdesk analyst position. The result? Nearly 100 applicants, many of them former database administrators, network administrators, and programmers.
What did they all have in common? For the most part, they were all in their 30's and 40's, had been laid off from local large tech companies, and most were paid much better in their previous jobs.
My roommate has been searching for a job for 18 months in the midst of this "shortage".
I find the pattern easy to see. Experienced american high-tech workers are looking to finally get compensated for the hard work they have put in during the tech boom. And how are they rewarded? By being cut back, to be replaced by H1B visa holders and kids fresh out of college, more than willing to be burned out for low pay, to be replaced by the next batch of H1B visa holders and college grads.
If I hear "shortage of high tech workers" one more time I'll throw up. It's just not the reality of the situation.
Those of you who posted that there really isn't a shortage of high-tech workers are absolutely right. I live in an area with a concentration of high-tech companies (the Silicon Forest) and my roommate, who has several years of tech support experience, has been unable to find a job over the last 18 months.
Why? It's not that she's not qualified. It's that she's 41, black, female, and has some experience. A former coworker of mine is also in her forties, and she also had trouble finding work.. and when she did, it was at an extrememly low salary.
A shortage of high-tech workers??!! Hardly!!! There is a shortage of inexperienced college graduates who they can hire for $20,000 a year and burn out.. to be replaced by another disposable employee.
Our government talks big when talking about "illegal drugs", while pushing the most deadly drugs (tobacco and alcohol) to an addicted country and the rest of the world. Of course they want to cut out information about "illegal drugs". These people are trying to cut in on their action!
While I agree that the DMCA and recent actions by Time Warner and Disney are reprehensible, when it comes to the bottom line, we don't matter.
If a company like TimeAOLWarner boosts their profits by 30% by turning introducing some type of pay-per-play media, but end up alienating 15% of the population, it's a major bonus for someone in the company for boosting company revenue!
And even if there was some type of backlash towards a company, TimeAOLWarner and Disney (for example) have a large enough control of the media to squelch any dissent, and line the pockets of congress deep enough keep their actions protected.
Our basic rights are being bought and sold, and as the rich get richer and the big players merge, it's going to be difficult if not impossible to do anything about it. And if the government gets the snooping rights to the net that they are pushing for, well.. it's game over.
Slashdot Mirror
I am not a mathematician, but I have always considered the Monty Hall trick to be more of a word trick than any basis in mathematics. Look at it this way:
If you pick one door out of a million and Monty Hall opens 999,998 others and it's between yours and the other door, there's a good chance Monty Hall knew where the car was since the chances of him doing that at random are so small, so of course your chance is better if you switch to the other door since there is a strong probability he didn't miss that one door just by chance.
On the other hand, if Monty opens 999,998 doors at random and still hasn't revealed the car, despite the unliklihood of that happening, then the odds are still 50/50 that you have the right door. The odds at first might have been 1 in a million, but now they are 1 in 2 since the other 999,998 have been eliminated without a biased factor (Monty's choice).
It's the human element that always seems to get lost here. The real question is whether the other 999,998 doors are eliminated by someone who knows where the car is (Monty) or by chance.
That was supposed to be "thought crime", not "through crime"
Isn't it "nice" to be living in the US while seeing a steadily increasing move towards arresting/detaining/suing people who "might" commit a crime, instead of actually waiting until they commit it?
And you don't even have to threaten to do so anymore. All you need to do is have the ethnicity/equipment/political affiliation that labels you as someone who "could" commit a crime.
I have an MP3 player at home and MP3's on my PC, so I *MUST* be downloading copyrighted music.
I have a CD Burner in my laptop, so I *MUST* be copying software.
I am not a Republican, so I *MUST* be engaging in sedicious activity.
And alot of people/politicians/companies seem to be jumping on the through crime/preventive detention/suing before the fact bandwagon these days.
Scary indeed.
".. including immigrants wotj ties to some of the countries in question.."
Glad to see the New York Times have their spellcheckers working correctly.
Also, what company buys it's business products from best buy? It took about 0.1seconds for me to see str8 through you.
:)
Apparently you didn't read my post. My company buys Compaq PC's.. I personally made the mistake of buying an HP CD Burner for my own personal use (at home you see, make sense now?) that I never did get to work, despite the endless hours working on it.
Took me about 0.1 seconds to see you didn't bother reading what I posted, just what you wanted to hear.
And yes, I am an Apple Hater and HP Flamer (If by "flaming" you mean relating an actual experience). 12 years of supporting their equipment (and a few more than that as far as using Macs) has given me enough experience to have an informed opinion of both: I don't like the Mac interface, and I can't trust HP's to work reliably, or provide useful support when they don't. I'm glad we're finally rid of HP's and pushing Compaq out the door. It will definitely make my job easier. If only we could get rid of those last few Macs...
HP's printers may be okay (though definitely not the industry's best), but their customer service and many of their products (especially peripherals like CD burners) are so horrendously bad, that my company has also banned all HP products. And by the recent acquisition, we have also cancelled our Compaq contracts as well and are in the process of looking for replacements for our Compaq PC's.
I also had the experience of spending probably a month (plus lots of my own money on their non-toll-free support line) trying to get a CD burner of theirs to work (this was a few years ago) and eventually I was told that they couldn't guarantee it would be compatable with my system since my system was self-built! Huh? I was so mad I literally cracked the phone when I slammed it down. Fortunately Best Buy let me return the product past the 15 day return limit (though only for credit) because the person I spoke to said that they have seen this type of thing with HP peripherals before, too many times to count.
Keep up the good work, HP. Would the last one at HP please turn off the light.
I work for a company that makes genuine ink cartridges and the main problem we find in our testing is that refill cartridges clog the nozzles on the printer. When you're going at 1440 and 2880 DPI, even one grain of dust introduced into the system will clog those nozzles, and those nozzles are in the printer, not the cartridge. There's a reason ink cartridges are made in a clean room environment.
I personally have no problem if someone wants to put a refill cartridge in their printer, but as far as I'm concerned, when it comes to warranty or tech support, they are on their own at that point. I have seen ideas that will be able to identify by a code printed by a printer whether a refill cartridge has been used, and I have no problem with that.
As far as I'm concerned, if you want to water down the gas in your car to get cheaper refills, that's fine with me. But don't go crying to the dealer when it won't start after 10,000 miles.
So if they keep up the attacks on Microsoft, then the evil empire can just do what the Government and the states want: Close up shop, release all businesses from their contracts when they expire, and everybody can go get their own OS, one that is truly stable, user friendly, everyone already has experience with, bundled with the utilities they need, inexpensive, and guaranteed to be more compatible with all of the other computers that everyone has to deal with on a daily basis.
And then everyone would be happy, right?
I remember the wonderful days of the past when everyone had a different OS and everything worked on everyone else's computer.
Be careful what you wish for, you may just get it.
Or does the Time article read like Apple actually wrote it? It's more of a paid advertisement than an actual news article, if you ask me.
I'll still never buy anything made by Apple. Never.
Apple has been playing the "style over substance" card for years now. And not too successfully, from my point of view.
Their boxes are ugly.. this one maybe most of all.
And not only that, they are overpriced. That's a pretty small niche they are going for there.
I've always found Apple's interface to be clunky and difficult to use.. and their latest attempts at trying to put pretty, pricey boxes on our desks has made it ever less likely that I would ever consider purchasing one.
Obviously you haven't quite had the blessing living through a really hard winter yet, or you might be a little less upset about being forced to stay in your warm car. I lived in Minnesota for 3 1/2 years. I still would prefer to pump my own gas. Climatalogically speaking, Oregon is two states. The west west side, and the frozen east side. Studs are essential in the east, and absurd in the west. You legislate a way out of that one. Simple. Place a significant damage tax on studded tires. Make them pay for their own damage
I've lived in Oregon for 4 1/2 years now, and I can tell you this is a very weird place to live.
1. The fact that I can't pump my own gas still amazes me. There's nothing like waiting 10 minutes to do something that should only take 5.
2. Oregon has something called a "kicker check" which means that if the government doesn't spend all of the money it collected in taxes, it refunds the difference to the taxpayers. Great concept, but it's actually a farce because the money is such a political hot potato that you don't dare spend that money or the people complain. So the government deliberately underspends so they can send out a kicker. This year the state is hundreds of millions short of what it needs, but guess what? The kicker still went out.
3. Oregon has a referendum system that has run amok, mostly because of one person named Bill Sizemore. He's always complaining about Oregon having high taxes (which is untrue, Oregon's total tax burden is about 38th highest, mostly because there is NO sales tax). But he's managed to get some taxes cut, further hurting the state. I'm sure he has plans to put a referendum out there to eliminate taxes completely.
4. Oregon's roads are torn to shreds every year because they allow studded tires starting October 1. A section of interstate between my home and work was paved only a few years ago, and already the studs have cut deep ruts into the road.
5. Portland has an "urban growth boundary" that is roughly a circle 20 miles in radius around Portland that sets a limit as to how far you can "sprawl" the city. Since the boundary is mostly full already, the local governments want to increase the population density (with all of the wonderful side-effects), but won't authorize any new freeways to alleviate what is already the 6th worst traffic in the country. There is some light rail (which is a great idea), but it still isn't nearly as extensive as it needs to be to make any difference. So Portlanders are packed in even tighter, and traffic gets worse every year.
Add to that the fact that the state only has one major newspaper (which is lousy), terrible local TV news (a recent study confirmed this), and housing costs that are way too high (partly because of the already mentioned urban growth boundary), and it makes me wonder why I stay here. For now, I'm happy to stay put, but it seems like Oregon is always doing something to urge people to leave. Of course, since I moved here from out of state, I've always known that I wasn't welcome here anyway. That's just the way Oregon is.
One of the underlying themes that runs through the thread anytime Apple is brought up seems to be "converting Wintel users to Mac". Does this really happen? I mean, I've periodically had to use Macs since 1984 and I don't like the interface. Never have, still don't. Sure, there are always going to be arguments going back about which one is faster, which one is easier, which one is a better bang for the buck. But I find it pointless.
Does anyone actually see people going from the Wintel environment to Mac? How about the other way around? It seems to me that Mac's market share has been pretty stagnant for awhile, and I just don't see anything changing it as this point.
This seems to be Apple trying to solidify their own market, and push out into a currently unexplored market. But even if a few Wintel users drop the $400 for the device, I seriously doubt that many are going to buy a Mac to go with it. I still see both machines at targeted at different markets, different consumers.
Face it, both Apple and Wintel are good at what they do. I sometimes think that the perception that there is a market for "converting" people between these two platforms is ludicrous. I don't think Apple thinks they can convert people to Mac with this device because I don't think that market really exists in any significant number.
Especially when you see the bitterness between the two camps.
the conflict now underway between the United States and some extremist fundamentalists was inevitable. Cosmopolitans welcome technology and cultural diversity, while fundamentalists find it disturbing and dangerous.
I find it ironic that people are so horrified by bin Laden's holy war against American "technology and cultural diversity" (aka, freedom), yet don't blink when Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and other extreme fundamentalists declare war on the very same thing here at home. In case you haven't noticed, it was American extreme fundamentalists who have launched campaigns to filter the internet, ban books, control television, outlaw homosexuality, and do everything they can to silence anyone who disagrees with them. Instead of blowing up the WTC, their followers blow up abortion clinics, kill doctors, and call for a holy war against homosexuals.
What bin Laden and other terrorists have done to our country by declaring a holy war and killing our citizens is appaling and should be dealt with through a forceful retaliation. But don't be so naive to think that there aren't factions within our own country (with the assistance of members of congress who are on their payroll) who aren't engaging in the same thing here at home.
Right now, Americans are living in the same fear that those who have been targeted by this country's right-wing fundamentalists have been living in for years. Fear for their lives just because of who they are, and because war has been declared on them.
I purchased an HP external (USB) CD burner earlier this year. The burner could read CD's just fine but could not burn a CD to save it's life. I made sure all the settings on my PC were optimum for burning a CD, no luck. It always failed 30 seconds or so into burning a disk with the same error "unknown error". I returned the drive and got another. Same problem. I phoned HP (at my expense, no toll free number) and they basically went through everything I had done already. They told me I had bad CD's (They don't like Imation, only HP CD-R's). I replaced them. On the next call they started questioning my PC, and insisted they didn't support Windows ME. I had to actually refer the tech to the webpage that stated that they DID support ME for this device.
Then they found out I built my system myself, and they promptly blamed my system. They basically told me I was on my own and there wasn't anything they could do. They said the device was fine, my PC was at fault. My return period at the store had expired, plus I didn't want to return the same device twice, but I had been completely screwed by HP so I called the store manager and told him exactly what happened. He couldn't give me a refund, but gave me store credit, and said that HP devices account for a striking majority of their returned PC components.
I swapped it for a new Yahama drive and it worked from day one (imagine that). When I told the story to a few of my coworkers, I learned that that one of them has the same HP CD burner and they've never been able to get it to work, and another has an HP printer that failed shortly after she purchased it.
With shoddy products and shoddy support, how does a company like this even stay in business?
Yes, we know it's overpriced and underpowered, but it looks pretty so buy it.
Upgrades will be available when we fill the plastic mold machines with a different pigment. Buy those too.
Apple: Our boxes are prettier than your boxes.
This is from the above-referenced article about Fry's requiring that no more than 10% of Egghead's customer's opt out:
"As part of the proposed $10 million sale, Fry's is requiring that no more than 10 percent of active customers--anyone who bought something at Egghead in the last two years--can "opt out" of a plan to transfer their information over to Fry's Electronics, according to a bankruptcy filing at U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California."
Well, I have NEVER purchased anything from Egghead.com. I purchased a single printer from Onsale back in 1997. The part about "two years" is a lie. I would imagine that when Egghead and Onsale "merged", all of the accounts were "reset".
Does anyone really believe they'd voluntarily drop your name after two years?
All those who didn't see this coming from a million miles away when Bush was appointed president raise their hands..
...anyone...
...anyone..???
It seems to me that this could also bring about another niche for programmers... software that goes through a companies systems and completely wipes out data. I'm sure this would cause havoc with a company's ISO procedures, but with more and more companies getting caught because of e-mail or other data that is archived on their tapes, I could see the need to make sure that they have control over the "evidence" that exists on their own systems.
I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, or even that it's legal, but since most companies are not even aware of what data they do have backed up, and what is retrievable and what isn't, I could see this happening, if it hasn't already.
The iMac
Sure you're stuck with a small monitor, limited expandability, and it only benchmarks well on benchmarks specifically designed for it, but just see how pretty it is!
The Cube
Sure it's overpriced and has cracks in it, and doesn't live up to the "supercomputer" label we gave it, but just see how pretty it is!
OS X
blah blah blah slow, blah blah blah stable, but just see how pretty it is!
When a company's advertising compaign is totally focused on the fact that their products are wrapped in pretty packages, I find it hard to take them seriously. And despite the fact that Apple has always praised their interface as the simplest to use, I've always found it awkward, difficult to use, and not intuitive.
Apple had a solid market niche back in the 80's with machines that were ahead of their time. Maybe Steve Jobs will wake up someday and realize it's not 1985 anymore.
My company (a high-tech company in the Silicon Forest) placed one ad (one day!)for one helpdesk analyst position. The result? Nearly 100 applicants, many of them former database administrators, network administrators, and programmers.
What did they all have in common? For the most part, they were all in their 30's and 40's, had been laid off from local large tech companies, and most were paid much better in their previous jobs.
My roommate has been searching for a job for 18 months in the midst of this "shortage".
I find the pattern easy to see. Experienced american high-tech workers are looking to finally get compensated for the hard work they have put in during the tech boom. And how are they rewarded? By being cut back, to be replaced by H1B visa holders and kids fresh out of college, more than willing to be burned out for low pay, to be replaced by the next batch of H1B visa holders and college grads.
If I hear "shortage of high tech workers" one more time I'll throw up. It's just not the reality of the situation.
Those of you who posted that there really isn't a shortage of high-tech workers are absolutely right. I live in an area with a concentration of high-tech companies (the Silicon Forest) and my roommate, who has several years of tech support experience, has been unable to find a job over the last 18 months.
Why? It's not that she's not qualified. It's that she's 41, black, female, and has some experience. A former coworker of mine is also in her forties, and she also had trouble finding work.. and when she did, it was at an extrememly low salary.
A shortage of high-tech workers??!! Hardly!!! There is a shortage of inexperienced college graduates who they can hire for $20,000 a year and burn out.. to be replaced by another disposable employee.
Our government talks big when talking about "illegal drugs", while pushing the most deadly drugs (tobacco and alcohol) to an addicted country and the rest of the world. Of course they want to cut out information about "illegal drugs". These people are trying to cut in on their action!
While I agree that the DMCA and recent actions by Time Warner and Disney are reprehensible, when it comes to the bottom line, we don't matter.
If a company like TimeAOLWarner boosts their profits by 30% by turning introducing some type of pay-per-play media, but end up alienating 15% of the population, it's a major bonus for someone in the company for boosting company revenue!
And even if there was some type of backlash towards a company, TimeAOLWarner and Disney (for example) have a large enough control of the media to squelch any dissent, and line the pockets of congress deep enough keep their actions protected.
Our basic rights are being bought and sold, and as the rich get richer and the big players merge, it's going to be difficult if not impossible to do anything about it. And if the government gets the snooping rights to the net that they are pushing for, well.. it's game over.
-a-
You'll have better luck if you link directly to a specific image (at least I did). Try this instead: http://www.te rraserver.com/image.asp?S=11&T=100&X=361&Y=56&Z=13 79&W=2