I think they used an entire tree to produce the box. [...] Trees don't get 'used up.' At least, not the kind of tree grown to make pulp for paper.
Sheesh, it was a joke! Laugh.
But anyway, maybe I phrased it poorly, but the point isn't that some poor 2,000 year old redwood got chopped down, but that a lot of resources went into the box. It does take energy to transform a tree into a box, and it takes energy to transform a box back into recyclable paper.
I don't really care about the environmental effect that much (again, it was a joke), but I'd really like the $5 back that it probably cost to produce the box. I could buy lunch with that.
You know, I have no love for Apple (I actually hate the company), but I did buy an iPhone, because it has the best browser and best map application (I wanted a browser with a phone, not a phone with a browser).
That said, I have to say one thing. The iPhone came in the nicest box and packaging I've ever seen. It's almost decadent, how thick the cardboard is and how nicely constructed it is. The iPhone comes cradled in this thick, thick, clear plastic holder. The manual came in an elegant black envelope. You have to see the thing to believe it.
I seriously can't bring myself to throw it away. It's utterly useless at this point, but it's so nice, it feels like I'm being wasteful by putting in the trash.
It actually gives me another reason to hate Apple. There is absolutely no reason that this box is necessary, and it really is a waste of resources. I think they used an entire tree to produce the box.
We shouldn't bother to see doctors, since we should be able to treat that sniffle or cancer all by ourselves.
I haven't the faintest idea how you jumped from the idea that people should be responsible for their own agreements with others to the above. The point is that people shouldn't look for handouts. If they think an employer isn't giving them adequate compensation (whatever it is), then renegotiate or go somewhere else. Adults negotiate. Children whine about fairness.
The unlevel playing field is that any given employee can leave IBM, and IBM will contine just fine. At the same time, IBM can fire someone, who, depending on the job market, may end up losing their house, car and going into bankruptcy.
And exactly whose fault is it that the employee is so overextended that losing their job will cause loss of house, car and going into bankruptcy? It's not IBM's responsibility to ensure their employees are financially responsible adults.
I don't like the idea that as individuals we lose a lot of freedom because another "individual" decides if we can eat or not.
That's the fundamental problem with today's society. People think it's someone else's job to feed them. Sorry, but it's your job to feed yourself by entering into agreements with others to exchange work for money.
Will all of them be able to? No, and that's the reality of it; some are now getting a paycut because a petty company broke fair labor laws and got smacked for it.
Every single employee could leave if they wanted to. Exactly which ones can't? And if they can't find another job where they are, then they should move. That's how responsible adults act. The biggest lesson in life that everyone seems to learn sooner or later is that NO ONE OWES YOU ANYTHING. And that's the way life should be. It's a better world when people take care of themselves.
In any case, the reason IBM did the pay cut was so that the net pay would stay the same. So the employees are working the same number of hours for the same net amount of money (I'm sure there are some variations here and there). The only difference is in how the hours are counted. Some employees will probably make more money since they're working more hours.
The free market only works if everyone is on a level playing field. The employees of IBM and IBM itself are far from being on a level playing field.
I don't understand this attitude. The employees and IBM are entered into a business agreement. At any time, either can negotiate the payment. Either can decide to no longer continue the agreement at any time. Where's the unlevel playing field?
Employees think it's unlevel because they don't understand that they're ALWAYS independent contractors. Now, you could argue that labor unions and employers (for different reasons) work hard to convince employees that they're helpless children who can't take care of themselves... but that's not the reality.
Why can't groups learn to cultivate talent, take it on the road...I'll give Led Zeppelin as an example.
Hell, go back to the biggest of them all... the Beatles. People think the Beatles sprung from the womb as legends, but it wasn't like that. They worked like *dogs* for like four years, playing in dives, doing multiple concerts every night with hardly a day off. They honed their skills for years before they became "THE BEATLES". And even after that, if you look at their concert schedule, it's completely insane. It's no wonder they gave up touring.:)
On the other hand, you have to say that some of the Beatle's best music was studio-only that couldn't be reproduced very easily on stage (e.g., Day in the Life), so there is room for studio-only music.
You'd get used to it. As a musician I routinely work under conductors who wave their arms around wildly for many hours at a time. They don't get tired. And believe me, they don't have any sort of super human strength or stamina.
Sure, it's certainly possible, but you're also talking about professionals who have done it for years. I don't think one should have to athletically train to use a computer interface.:)
MS did not come up with the idea of a multi-touch display.
Yeah, yeah, and Apple didn't invent the GUI. Who cares? The one who gets the credit is the one who delivers the *practical* product, not the first solution. We say "like Microsoft Surface" because we don't have anything to refer to.
Unfortunately, these sort of interfaces suffer from the same problems that doomed touch screen and light pens 20 years ago ("They can just touch the screen! How easy is that??") Users liked them at first, but holding your arm up is tiring. Try reaching out to your monitor and trace your Slashdot window for five minutes and see how long you last. It's *hard*.
There's a reason people in the Old Days wrote on flat tables, and didn't write on easels. That's also why artists who do use easels typically do "stroke and rest" (and why cartoonists use a flatter table)
A touch table is far superior for this sort of thing for that reason.
George W Bush is many things. But he is not a fool.
I agree with you, I don't think he's a fool, or that he's stupid. I've also defended his verbal gaffs, similar to the way you do -- I don't care about speechmaking, I care about results.
So, speaking as a Republican, what the hell *is* wrong with him? Is it arrogance? Hubris? I really can't defend much of what he's done. He's allowed spending like a drunken sailor. The war has been so totally mismanaged I literally can't believe it ("Wait, you mean we weren't keeping people there after we cleared out the town ALL ALONG?? WTF?") The idiotic waffling on what torture is or isn't. That supreme court nomination that even Rush Limbaugh couldn't stomach. The arrogant dismissals of Europe.
Again, I don't think he's a fool -- that's media created. But based on results, you can't conclude that he's anything but stunningly incompetent, and I don't understand where it all went so wrong. He had such grand opportunities at the start of his presidency, and it was all pissed away.
They shouldn't be held liable. You buy a product and modify it the manufacture can't, and shouldn't, be held responsible for the results.
No, Apple shouldn't be held liable, but they *should* be strongly condemned for locking it down in the first place and forcing people to resort to these measure so as to have true ownership of THEIR (not Steve's) hardware.
It's not even a *bad* corporate tool. It's a consumer device and was never meant (in its current incarnation) to be used for corporate uses. You can't even get one if your AT&T number is registered via a business account. It's like saying "this plum isn't a very good orange."
I don't know about your world, but in my world I use what I buy wherever I want, without permission from corporate overlords who insist my device is only for specific purposes.
It's like saying "this plum isn't a very good orange."
I think a better analogy is buying a 500 HP sports car that could explode if you take it on the freeway, but comes with a little wink-wink tag that says, "this is for street use only."
we will NEVER run out of oil. NEVER. It will just get more expensive until something else replaces it [...] Shall I say anything? Nah.
People seem to think producing oil is like extracting it from a gas tank, and it just goes dry. That's not how it works. But hey, I'd love to read your scenerio where we will actually run out of oil.
The problem is the smartest people around think "technology" will fix the "resource" problem. Given unlimited energy and resources, perhaps this is true, but we don't live in a world where there are unlimited resources.
Sheesh. Every century seems to have people who think, "Yeah, the good times are rolling now, but judgment day is coming! Repent now!
Will there be problems in the future? Of course there will. But then "magically" something will come along to solve them. To use the cliche, "necessity is the mother of invention." Look around you. We have supercapacitors that are being invented because of concern about oil prices (by the way, we will NEVER run out of oil. NEVER. It will just get more expensive until something else replaces it). We can fire up nuclear plants (and breeder reactors) anytime we want (and really, really need to). We've just had an article the other day about new solid-state solar stirling engines, and another one about mass-production solar cells to reduce cost. Some of them will pan out, some of them won't. But it is absolutely true that civilization isn't going to collapse. In fact, civilization is, at most, going to be slightly inconvenienced. SUVs will always be available (thank God).
The solar system is FLOODED with energy. It really is effectively unlimited.
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man insists on adapting the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
All of these laws were repealed by the Reagan Administration...
It sounds evil when you put it this way, but God Bless Ronald Reagan for repealing that IDIOTIC 55 mile-an-hour speed limit. I don't remember what Carter's other idiotic ideas were, but Carter deserves a post-presidency impeachment for that.
but if they had stayed in effect, who knows what improvement they might have brought to our current situation, in terms of overall carbon emissions and in geo-political terms.
Effectively zero. Conservation and pain will never be the solution. The only solution is better technology that preserves and improves our way of life.
Businesses do NOT have rights; only individuals do.
Yes, but the owners of businesses have rights as well.
If he wants to go into a line of work where fraud is so prevalent, that's his problem; he can't make all hundreds of millions of other residents pay with their liberty so he can make a buck.
Part of the government's function is to ensure the smooth functioning of commerce. Fraud doesn't just punish business, it punishes everyone because of higher prices. I have no problem with a way for people to "opt out" of having a reliable way of proving their identity to an online business (or any other business). But those people shouldn't be surprised when certain businesses opt out of doing business with them.
And, just to be clear, there is zero proof that a mechanism to prove identity would have ANY effect on individual liberty. Quite the opposite, in fact. More people being able to trust that I am who I say I am opens quite a few doors.
Great, somebody running an online payday loan business is complaining about fraud? You have got to be joking. Payday loan businesses are one of the most abusive forms of lending imaginable (APRs run 400%+), and should be illegal.
You know, I used to kind of agree with you, until I saw the people who use payday loan services. You'd think the business would be rolling in money at those interest rates, but, at least for my friend's business, it barely makes any profit. People basically take out loans to steal the money. People use these services because no one else will give them money -- for good reason.
I've become a lot more cynical about the "poor, innocent people getting taken advantage of by payday loan companies." There's nothing innocent about these people. My friend's rates are actually lower than a lot of companies, but he's actually looking at selling off the business, because he hates the customers. I remember one customer who worked in IT at a hospital and submitted a bunch of loans using stolen SSNs. She ripped him off for like $4000.
I'm pretty "whatever" on the subject of airplanes, but the US *really* needs a reliable way to prove who you are. A friend of mine has an online payday loan business, and the level of fraud is *insane*. Probably 19 out of 20 applications are fraudulent, because people know that they'll never get tracked down. Most of the fraud can be caught through SSN verification, but it's not a very reliable tool. This business is an extreme example, but credit card fraud happens every day online.
I'm not necessarily in favor of mandatory identification by government on a whim, but there needs to be a way to prove identity. Just as consumers should be able to know they're doing business with a legit business, a business should be able to know exactly who they're doing business with. In the old days when nearly all business was face-to-face and mostly local, it wasn't as much of a problem, but that world is dead.
I live in the capital of Canada, and if I were to get a car--even if I were given one with all expenses (such a parking, insurance, gas, etc.) paid--it would significantly decrease my quality of life.
I live in Southern California where it's fairly impossible to have a decent quality of life without a car, assuming you want to leave the house. Where I live in particular (up in the hills), I need a car to get to the grocery store, though I suppose I could use delivery services, if I *really* wanted to stay in the house. Taking the bus would be literally hours to get anywhere. Things are far too spread out here to make public transportation practical.
Anyway, one of the fundamental freedoms of life is the freedom of travel, and I consider a car a fundamental human right. Nothing improves standards of living like mobility.
I found the comments from the Greens very enlightening. Notice the lack of joy for the poor who will now be able to drive. Their comments fall in the "let them eat cake" category.
To be fair, the Greens would prefer that we *all* eat cake and live like the poorest indians (excepting other Green leaders and spokespeople, of course).:)
Slashdot Mirror
I think they used an entire tree to produce the box. [...] Trees don't get 'used up.' At least, not the kind of tree grown to make pulp for paper.
Sheesh, it was a joke! Laugh.
But anyway, maybe I phrased it poorly, but the point isn't that some poor 2,000 year old redwood got chopped down, but that a lot of resources went into the box. It does take energy to transform a tree into a box, and it takes energy to transform a box back into recyclable paper.
I don't really care about the environmental effect that much (again, it was a joke), but I'd really like the $5 back that it probably cost to produce the box. I could buy lunch with that.
You know, I have no love for Apple (I actually hate the company), but I did buy an iPhone, because it has the best browser and best map application (I wanted a browser with a phone, not a phone with a browser).
That said, I have to say one thing. The iPhone came in the nicest box and packaging I've ever seen. It's almost decadent, how thick the cardboard is and how nicely constructed it is. The iPhone comes cradled in this thick, thick, clear plastic holder. The manual came in an elegant black envelope. You have to see the thing to believe it.
I seriously can't bring myself to throw it away. It's utterly useless at this point, but it's so nice, it feels like I'm being wasteful by putting in the trash.
It actually gives me another reason to hate Apple. There is absolutely no reason that this box is necessary, and it really is a waste of resources. I think they used an entire tree to produce the box.
We shouldn't bother to see doctors, since we should be able to treat that sniffle or cancer all by ourselves.
I haven't the faintest idea how you jumped from the idea that people should be responsible for their own agreements with others to the above. The point is that people shouldn't look for handouts. If they think an employer isn't giving them adequate compensation (whatever it is), then renegotiate or go somewhere else. Adults negotiate. Children whine about fairness.
The unlevel playing field is that any given employee can leave IBM, and IBM will contine just fine. At the same time, IBM can fire someone, who, depending on the job market, may end up losing their house, car and going into bankruptcy.
And exactly whose fault is it that the employee is so overextended that losing their job will cause loss of house, car and going into bankruptcy? It's not IBM's responsibility to ensure their employees are financially responsible adults.
I don't like the idea that as individuals we lose a lot of freedom because another "individual" decides if we can eat or not.
That's the fundamental problem with today's society. People think it's someone else's job to feed them. Sorry, but it's your job to feed yourself by entering into agreements with others to exchange work for money.
Will all of them be able to? No, and that's the reality of it; some are now getting a paycut because a petty company broke fair labor laws and got smacked for it.
Every single employee could leave if they wanted to. Exactly which ones can't? And if they can't find another job where they are, then they should move. That's how responsible adults act. The biggest lesson in life that everyone seems to learn sooner or later is that NO ONE OWES YOU ANYTHING. And that's the way life should be. It's a better world when people take care of themselves.
In any case, the reason IBM did the pay cut was so that the net pay would stay the same. So the employees are working the same number of hours for the same net amount of money (I'm sure there are some variations here and there). The only difference is in how the hours are counted. Some employees will probably make more money since they're working more hours.
The free market only works if everyone is on a level playing field. The employees of IBM and IBM itself are far from being on a level playing field.
I don't understand this attitude. The employees and IBM are entered into a business agreement. At any time, either can negotiate the payment. Either can decide to no longer continue the agreement at any time. Where's the unlevel playing field?
Employees think it's unlevel because they don't understand that they're ALWAYS independent contractors. Now, you could argue that labor unions and employers (for different reasons) work hard to convince employees that they're helpless children who can't take care of themselves... but that's not the reality.
Why can't groups learn to cultivate talent, take it on the road...I'll give Led Zeppelin as an example.
Hell, go back to the biggest of them all... the Beatles. People think the Beatles sprung from the womb as legends, but it wasn't like that. They worked like *dogs* for like four years, playing in dives, doing multiple concerts every night with hardly a day off. They honed their skills for years before they became "THE BEATLES". And even after that, if you look at their concert schedule, it's completely insane. It's no wonder they gave up touring. :)
On the other hand, you have to say that some of the Beatle's best music was studio-only that couldn't be reproduced very easily on stage (e.g., Day in the Life), so there is room for studio-only music.
You'd get used to it. As a musician I routinely work under conductors who wave their arms around wildly for many hours at a time. They don't get tired. And believe me, they don't have any sort of super human strength or stamina.
Sure, it's certainly possible, but you're also talking about professionals who have done it for years. I don't think one should have to athletically train to use a computer interface. :)
That's the same reason that voice activated computers won't fully take over: people get tired of talking.
Well, at least until we get real A.I., when I can just say, "Balance the damn checkbook!" or "Send a letter to that pain-in-the-ass customer." :)
MS did not come up with the idea of a multi-touch display.
Yeah, yeah, and Apple didn't invent the GUI. Who cares? The one who gets the credit is the one who delivers the *practical* product, not the first solution. We say "like Microsoft Surface" because we don't have anything to refer to.
Two words: tired arms.
Unfortunately, these sort of interfaces suffer from the same problems that doomed touch screen and light pens 20 years ago ("They can just touch the screen! How easy is that??") Users liked them at first, but holding your arm up is tiring. Try reaching out to your monitor and trace your Slashdot window for five minutes and see how long you last. It's *hard*.
There's a reason people in the Old Days wrote on flat tables, and didn't write on easels. That's also why artists who do use easels typically do "stroke and rest" (and why cartoonists use a flatter table)
A touch table is far superior for this sort of thing for that reason.
You don't think that pissing away grand opportunities is foolish?
We're all foolish at one time or another. That doesn't mean we're all fools.
George W Bush is many things. But he is not a fool.
I agree with you, I don't think he's a fool, or that he's stupid. I've also defended his verbal gaffs, similar to the way you do -- I don't care about speechmaking, I care about results.
So, speaking as a Republican, what the hell *is* wrong with him? Is it arrogance? Hubris? I really can't defend much of what he's done. He's allowed spending like a drunken sailor. The war has been so totally mismanaged I literally can't believe it ("Wait, you mean we weren't keeping people there after we cleared out the town ALL ALONG?? WTF?") The idiotic waffling on what torture is or isn't. That supreme court nomination that even Rush Limbaugh couldn't stomach. The arrogant dismissals of Europe.
Again, I don't think he's a fool -- that's media created. But based on results, you can't conclude that he's anything but stunningly incompetent, and I don't understand where it all went so wrong. He had such grand opportunities at the start of his presidency, and it was all pissed away.
They shouldn't be held liable. You buy a product and modify it the manufacture can't, and shouldn't, be held responsible for the results.
No, Apple shouldn't be held liable, but they *should* be strongly condemned for locking it down in the first place and forcing people to resort to these measure so as to have true ownership of THEIR (not Steve's) hardware.
That's what I hear from my freshman-sophomore math majors nearly every day.
[old man voice]Back in MAH day, we knuckled down! We didn't take anything for granted, we worked our asses off!
Eh. I think every generation laments the work ethic of the next generation, and don't remember that their generation was just as whiny.
It's not even a *bad* corporate tool. It's a consumer device and was never meant (in its current incarnation) to be used for corporate uses. You can't even get one if your AT&T number is registered via a business account. It's like saying "this plum isn't a very good orange."
I don't know about your world, but in my world I use what I buy wherever I want, without permission from corporate overlords who insist my device is only for specific purposes.
It's like saying "this plum isn't a very good orange."
I think a better analogy is buying a 500 HP sports car that could explode if you take it on the freeway, but comes with a little wink-wink tag that says, "this is for street use only."
we will NEVER run out of oil. NEVER. It will just get more expensive until something else replaces it [...] Shall I say anything? Nah.
People seem to think producing oil is like extracting it from a gas tank, and it just goes dry. That's not how it works. But hey, I'd love to read your scenerio where we will actually run out of oil.
The problem is the smartest people around think "technology" will fix the "resource" problem. Given unlimited energy and resources, perhaps this is true, but we don't live in a world where there are unlimited resources.
Sheesh. Every century seems to have people who think, "Yeah, the good times are rolling now, but judgment day is coming! Repent now!
Will there be problems in the future? Of course there will. But then "magically" something will come along to solve them. To use the cliche, "necessity is the mother of invention." Look around you. We have supercapacitors that are being invented because of concern about oil prices (by the way, we will NEVER run out of oil. NEVER. It will just get more expensive until something else replaces it). We can fire up nuclear plants (and breeder reactors) anytime we want (and really, really need to). We've just had an article the other day about new solid-state solar stirling engines, and another one about mass-production solar cells to reduce cost. Some of them will pan out, some of them won't. But it is absolutely true that civilization isn't going to collapse. In fact, civilization is, at most, going to be slightly inconvenienced. SUVs will always be available (thank God).
The solar system is FLOODED with energy. It really is effectively unlimited.
Oh boy.
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man insists on adapting the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
but Nixon deserves a post-presidency impeachment for that.
Oops, you're right. I guess it only seemed like a Carter idea. :)
And I think I'm wrong about Reagan repealing it, I think was Bush #1. Ah well.
All of these laws were repealed by the Reagan Administration...
It sounds evil when you put it this way, but God Bless Ronald Reagan for repealing that IDIOTIC 55 mile-an-hour speed limit. I don't remember what Carter's other idiotic ideas were, but Carter deserves a post-presidency impeachment for that.
but if they had stayed in effect, who knows what improvement they might have brought to our current situation, in terms of overall carbon emissions and in geo-political terms.
Effectively zero. Conservation and pain will never be the solution. The only solution is better technology that preserves and improves our way of life.
Businesses do NOT have rights; only individuals do.
Yes, but the owners of businesses have rights as well.
If he wants to go into a line of work where fraud is so prevalent, that's his problem; he can't make all hundreds of millions of other residents pay with their liberty so he can make a buck.
Part of the government's function is to ensure the smooth functioning of commerce. Fraud doesn't just punish business, it punishes everyone because of higher prices. I have no problem with a way for people to "opt out" of having a reliable way of proving their identity to an online business (or any other business). But those people shouldn't be surprised when certain businesses opt out of doing business with them.
And, just to be clear, there is zero proof that a mechanism to prove identity would have ANY effect on individual liberty. Quite the opposite, in fact. More people being able to trust that I am who I say I am opens quite a few doors.
Great, somebody running an online payday loan business is complaining about fraud? You have got to be joking. Payday loan businesses are one of the most abusive forms of lending imaginable (APRs run 400%+), and should be illegal.
You know, I used to kind of agree with you, until I saw the people who use payday loan services. You'd think the business would be rolling in money at those interest rates, but, at least for my friend's business, it barely makes any profit. People basically take out loans to steal the money. People use these services because no one else will give them money -- for good reason.
I've become a lot more cynical about the "poor, innocent people getting taken advantage of by payday loan companies." There's nothing innocent about these people. My friend's rates are actually lower than a lot of companies, but he's actually looking at selling off the business, because he hates the customers. I remember one customer who worked in IT at a hospital and submitted a bunch of loans using stolen SSNs. She ripped him off for like $4000.
I'm pretty "whatever" on the subject of airplanes, but the US *really* needs a reliable way to prove who you are. A friend of mine has an online payday loan business, and the level of fraud is *insane*. Probably 19 out of 20 applications are fraudulent, because people know that they'll never get tracked down. Most of the fraud can be caught through SSN verification, but it's not a very reliable tool. This business is an extreme example, but credit card fraud happens every day online.
I'm not necessarily in favor of mandatory identification by government on a whim, but there needs to be a way to prove identity. Just as consumers should be able to know they're doing business with a legit business, a business should be able to know exactly who they're doing business with. In the old days when nearly all business was face-to-face and mostly local, it wasn't as much of a problem, but that world is dead.
I live in the capital of Canada, and if I were to get a car--even if I were given one with all expenses (such a parking, insurance, gas, etc.) paid--it would significantly decrease my quality of life.
I live in Southern California where it's fairly impossible to have a decent quality of life without a car, assuming you want to leave the house. Where I live in particular (up in the hills), I need a car to get to the grocery store, though I suppose I could use delivery services, if I *really* wanted to stay in the house. Taking the bus would be literally hours to get anywhere. Things are far too spread out here to make public transportation practical.
Anyway, one of the fundamental freedoms of life is the freedom of travel, and I consider a car a fundamental human right. Nothing improves standards of living like mobility.
I found the comments from the Greens very enlightening. Notice the lack of joy for the poor who will now be able to drive. Their comments fall in the "let them eat cake" category.
To be fair, the Greens would prefer that we *all* eat cake and live like the poorest indians (excepting other Green leaders and spokespeople, of course). :)