Jobs isn't interested in entering the TV market unless it's HDTV. Plans have been underway for some time but the US HDTV market hasn't come up to speed as quickly as hoped.
In addition to trouble with Apple Records, I recall that Apple was sued(?) by McIntosh, maker of high-end stereo gear. Up to the date of release of the Mac in 1984, the coming out party was in doubt because they couldn't get a release on using the name. There was an off site meeting of the Mac development team and morale was flagging. To pick things up, Steve announced to the group that the name Macintosh was indeed clear for them to use, even though it had not yet been cleared. The trick worked and the team was ecstatic at the announcement. Things worked out a few months later, but at the time it was pure RDF.
Nice backhand. I'm neither unethical, a lackey, or both. A consultant also needs to be pragmatic. The 90's are over.
The original poster stated the problem as: "(if not on a daily basis) asked to do something that isn't in the best interest of the company." The consultant is being asked to perform this action (probably) by an employee of the company. His boss hired him to make decisions that are good for the company, and so on up the chain to the head of the organization. It's assumed that the company has made good decisions to hire these people, who then made the decision to hire the consultant. The consultant is a guest, they are not the proxy CEO, no matter how smart they may be (or think they are). If there's a litany of bad decisions "on a daily basis" either the "ethical" consultant has already left, and the question is moot, or they make the best of the situation. By the nature of being a "consultant", or even an employee, if you are involved in solving a problem or performing a task, "questioning the decision" is the nature of work. You state your case, hopefully an informed one, supervision approves or disapproves, and the task is performed as requested. These decisions are not binary, if it's an informed decision, many factors must be weighed. The consultant, as a guest, probably does not have complete understanding of all of those factors. Most times, it's not just a technological problem, but also a political / temporal / financial one. If the supervisor assigns responsibility to an unqualified employee because it's his brother-in-law, or the cute girl in Dept. A, what can you do other than leave, and at that point, the question posed by the original poster is again, moot.
A last point. Success, in any endeavor, is rare. That's why it's so cherished. Assuming that, the odds of making the "best" decision, especially in the long run is less than 80%, probably more like 50%. If the consultant is so good that they can hit above 80%, they should be working for themselves and doing a photo shoot for next month's cover of Fortune.
Otherwise, fight the good fight, hold your water, and be glad to put food on the table because the next decision that the powers that be are considering is farming out the whole operation to Bangalore, and your next gig will be a year as an unpaid tester of monster.com's search engine.
Could it be that the govt. *started* the anthrax scare to shut down mail delivery?
No, what the anthrax scare let them do is have full, unsupervised access to all of the Congressional offices so they could go thru all of the files to find out all sorts of useful information. It was so clean, so ingenious, you almost have to admire it. Everyone runs out, they've got keys to every room, every file cabinet. Things could be moved around without any questions. Guys carrying out boxes in and out that nobody wants to get near. Bug planted, spyware installed. Anything to get and maintain power. But me, I've learned to love Big Brother.
...There are very specific and effective safeguards...to prevent the Brownshirts from marching outward into the countryside and beating randomly selected citizens with big sticks....
That's the point with bringing this out in the open. Systematically, the current US government is removing these safeguards. This isn't speculative paranoia, the PATRIOT act (and other related legislation, with more coming) is reality.
...WE ARE AT WAR. Deal with it...
Yes, it does need to be dealt with. Amazing how "We're at war" is suddenly supposed to make existing laws inadequate or not applicable. No discourse, no dissent. Rally 'round the flag boys!
What a wonderfully convenient concept. No wonder that we are now told that we've always been at war (since 9/11) and will always be at war for the foreseeable future (with Iraq, Iran, Syria, Eastasia, Eurasia, whatever, wherever, forever).
The US fabricates this war and then hey, we're supposed to just deal with it. The thing that is difficult to deal with is the unprecedented shock and awe of the tremendous bullshit storm blowing in from DC.
We're at war...coming soon to the county detention center near you.
Any comments based on running an 8600/300 would not be relevant for the last 5 years or so. You have "experience" on various Macs and use an 8600? Uh. ok.
CVS? They're a Microsoft shop. Nothing but M$ products for them. VSS I suppose. Make sure you do those backups.
In addition to the standards document, you should make sure that you'll have the appropriate budget for buying new dev tools and training every year. I'd also beef up your end-user support budget, you'll probably need it. Also make sure that your current products will be well supported and viable for the next year or so because you'll be late on delivery of your C# and.net based rollout.
but MS products generally are better than competing products...
That's OK. It's not your fault that you've had limited exposure to quality products. I guess if people don't use Mac OS X they can muddle along with M$ dreck and homegrown Linux. I'm almost envious that you'll be able to visit an Apple Store nearby and discover anew how wonderful computing can really be. It will be a whole new enlightening experience. Come join us.
RCA has not been an American company for some time...
1986 - RCA acquired by GE. A year-and-a-half later, General Electric sold its RCA and GE consumer electronics business to Thomson.
1988 - Thomson completes purchase of RCA and GE consumer electronics businesses from General Electric, creating Thomson Consumer Electronics. Thus Thomson Grand Public became Thomson Consumer Electronics (TCE) with Pierre Garcin as Chairman.
I've got a Decwriter III hooked to the network. Paper is cheap, ribbon is really cheap. and I can type on it as my console and get a continous log on fanfold paper. And it goes brrrrrt, clunk, brrrrrrrrrt, clunk, clunk.
Hard to find these days but it was built to last for 30 years.
Having a printer with a keyboard is really handy, especially for doing things like configuring a Cisco. Nobody has made 'em for years.
If you really want what this article implies, but doesn't deliver, get a Samsung SIR-T165. It'll receive both traditional and HD over-the-air broadcasts, has S-video, component, DB15 VGA, DVI, and FireWire out. You can find 'em on eBay for a little over $500. It's got some quirks, but at least it can turn your computer monitor into a real HDTV.
Is that the best strategy? I do care, and we all should. If we let 'em sink, we all suffer in measurable and immeasurable ways. Higher crime, lower national productivity, plus everyone deserves to reach their potential, even if they may not have the financial means. It's more likely that the kids that are going to school on Daddy's buck, with a job waiting for them in the family corp. (or the White House) are the ones that are blowing off classes and sucking the bong. An illiterate population, except for the wealthy/ruling class, isn't the way to build a more advanced society. (In spite of what Rush is telling his flock every day for three hours.)
This whole self-centered greed complex contributes to the need to build these high-ticket weapons.
I'd rather see our limited resources (and they are) be put to better use than finding high tech ways of killing each other. A high tide raises all boats.
Yeah. Totally bitchin' to get the US involved in between NK launching missiles towards Japan and get things even more complicated. Maybe instead of just flying one over Japan (like in a previous test), it'll knock it off course, hit Japan, and kill thousands. Totally bichin'. Good grief.
Great. The US sure loves its weaponry. It's so cool, we even make glib jokes about it. How many Billions did this baby cost? How many college semesters could this have paid for instead? Oh that's right. This is a war economy and a war society. Who needs training except for military training. That's why the other countries are jealous. We love our freedom. And our Big Fuckin' Guns. Well, don't worry, I'll go back and put my Liberal head back in the sand. Right after I finish putting up the duct tape. Soon, we'll see one of these babies doing it's raster scan over protesters in DC. We're all flame bait now.
Slashdot Mirror
Jobs isn't interested in entering the TV market unless it's HDTV.
Plans have been underway for some time but the US HDTV market
hasn't come up to speed as quickly as hoped.
In addition to trouble with Apple Records, I recall that Apple was sued(?)
by McIntosh, maker of high-end stereo gear. Up to the date of release
of the Mac in 1984, the coming out party was in doubt because they couldn't
get a release on using the name. There was an off site meeting of the Mac
development team and morale was flagging. To pick things up, Steve announced
to the group that the name Macintosh was indeed clear for them to use, even though
it had not yet been cleared. The trick worked and the team was ecstatic at the
announcement. Things worked out a few months later, but at the time it was pure RDF.
I think you mean Beatles.
If you did mean Beetles, then that would be the Rolling Beetles!!!
And if the Universal deal goes through, they would be Apple artists!
In my game tranquility, I'm seeinga solid 10% increase in frame rate. Very nice Apple! Thanks.
..cuz it would be 0.0.0.0?
Nice backhand. I'm neither unethical, a lackey, or both.
A consultant also needs to be pragmatic. The 90's are over.
The original poster stated the problem as: "(if not on a daily basis) asked to do something that isn't in the
best interest of the company." The consultant is being asked to perform this action (probably)
by an employee of the company. His boss hired him to make decisions that are good for
the company, and so on up the chain to the head of the organization. It's assumed that the
company has made good decisions to hire these people, who then made the decision to
hire the consultant. The consultant is a guest, they are not the proxy CEO, no matter how
smart they may be (or think they are). If there's a litany of bad decisions "on a daily basis"
either the "ethical" consultant has already left, and the question is moot, or they make the
best of the situation. By the nature of being a "consultant", or even an employee, if you are
involved in solving a problem or performing a task, "questioning the decision" is the nature
of work. You state your case, hopefully an informed one, supervision approves or disapproves,
and the task is performed as requested. These decisions are not binary, if it's an informed decision, many
factors must be weighed. The consultant, as a guest, probably does not have complete
understanding of all of those factors. Most times, it's not just a technological problem, but
also a political / temporal / financial one. If the supervisor assigns responsibility to an
unqualified employee because it's his brother-in-law, or the cute girl in Dept. A, what can
you do other than leave, and at that point, the question posed by the original poster is again, moot.
A last point. Success, in any endeavor, is rare. That's why it's so cherished.
Assuming that, the odds of making the "best" decision, especially in the long run is less than 80%,
probably more like 50%. If the consultant is so good that they can hit above 80%, they
should be working for themselves and doing a photo shoot for next month's cover of Fortune.
Otherwise, fight the good fight, hold your water, and be glad to put food on the table because
the next decision that the powers that be are considering is farming out the whole operation
to Bangalore, and your next gig will be a year as an unpaid tester of monster.com's search engine.
Could it be that the govt. *started* the anthrax scare to shut down mail delivery?
No, what the anthrax scare let them do is have full, unsupervised
access to all of the Congressional offices so they could go thru
all of the files to find out all sorts of useful information. It was
so clean, so ingenious, you almost have to admire it. Everyone
runs out, they've got keys to every room, every file cabinet.
Things could be moved around without any questions. Guys
carrying out boxes in and out that nobody wants to get near.
Bug planted, spyware installed. Anything to get and maintain
power. But me, I've learned to love Big Brother.
A wise consultant once told me this advice:
Yours is not to question why,
yours is but to bill them high.
Sure, it's not the way to engineer a perfect world,
but at some places (like AT&T), if you questioned
every poor decision, nothing would get done.
...ethanol and nicotinimide adenine dinucleotide...
A laptop that runs on booze and cigarettes.
Just like Keith Richards.
That's the point with bringing this out in the open.
Systematically, the current US government is removing these safeguards. This isn't speculative paranoia, the PATRIOT act (and other related legislation, with more coming) is reality.
Yes, it does need to be dealt with. Amazing how "We're at war" is suddenly supposed to make existing laws inadequate or not applicable. No discourse, no dissent. Rally 'round the flag boys!
What a wonderfully convenient concept. No wonder that we are now told that we've always
been at war (since 9/11) and will always be at war for the foreseeable
future (with Iraq, Iran, Syria, Eastasia, Eurasia, whatever, wherever, forever).
The US fabricates this war and then hey, we're supposed to just deal with it.
The thing that is difficult to deal with is the unprecedented
shock and awe of the tremendous bullshit storm blowing in from DC.
We're at war...coming soon to the county detention center near you.
Any comments based on running an 8600/300 would not be relevant for the last 5 years or so.
You have "experience" on various Macs and use an 8600? Uh. ok.
What country has the skinny and smart ones?
CVS? They're a Microsoft shop.
.net based rollout.
Nothing but M$ products for them.
VSS I suppose. Make sure you do those backups.
In addition to the standards document, you should make
sure that you'll have the appropriate budget for buying
new dev tools and training every year. I'd also beef up
your end-user support budget, you'll probably need it.
Also make sure that your current products will be well
supported and viable for the next year or so because
you'll be late on delivery of your C# and
I've haven't???
Good grief it's late and past my bedtime. Sorry.
I try to be clever and blow it.
but MS products generally are better than competing products...
That's OK. It's not your fault that you've had limited exposure to quality products.
I guess if people don't use Mac OS X they can muddle along with M$ dreck and
homegrown Linux. I'm almost envious that you'll be able to visit an Apple Store
nearby and discover anew how wonderful computing can really be. It will be
a whole new enlightening experience. Come join us.
RCA has not been an American company for some time...
1986 - RCA acquired by GE. A year-and-a-half later, General Electric sold its RCA and GE consumer electronics business to Thomson.
1988 - Thomson completes purchase of RCA and GE consumer electronics businesses from General Electric, creating Thomson Consumer Electronics. Thus Thomson Grand Public became Thomson Consumer Electronics (TCE) with Pierre Garcin as Chairman.
mount a parabolic antenna...
Shouldn't that be an omnidirectional antenna?
Wow, that's a pretty big fungus.
I've got a Decwriter III hooked to the network.
Paper is cheap, ribbon is really cheap. and I can type
on it as my console and get a continous log on fanfold
paper. And it goes brrrrrt, clunk, brrrrrrrrrt, clunk, clunk.
Hard to find these days but it was built to last for 30 years.
Having a printer with a keyboard is really handy, especially
for doing things like configuring a Cisco. Nobody has made
'em for years.
If you really want what this article implies, but doesn't deliver, get a Samsung SIR-T165.
It'll receive both traditional and HD over-the-air broadcasts, has S-video, component,
DB15 VGA, DVI, and FireWire out. You can find 'em on eBay for a little over $500.
It's got some quirks, but at least it can turn your computer monitor into a real HDTV.
...is a hydrogen powered high definition television (that flies.)
wtf do you care? Let other kids sink or swim.
Is that the best strategy? I do care, and we all should. If we let 'em sink, we all suffer in measurable and immeasurable ways.
Higher crime, lower national productivity, plus everyone deserves to reach their potential, even if they may not
have the financial means. It's more likely that the kids that are going to school on Daddy's buck, with a job
waiting for them in the family corp. (or the White House) are the ones that are blowing off classes and sucking the bong.
An illiterate population, except for the wealthy/ruling class, isn't the way to build a more advanced society.
(In spite of what Rush is telling his flock every day for three hours.)
This whole self-centered greed complex contributes to the need to build these high-ticket weapons.
I'd rather see our limited resources (and they are) be put to better use than finding high tech ways of killing each other.
A high tide raises all boats.
My son lives there in Nagoya.
It's been a worry to us both.
Yeah. Totally bitchin' to get the US involved in between NK launching missiles towards Japan and get things even more complicated. Maybe instead of just flying one over Japan (like in a previous test), it'll knock it off course, hit Japan, and kill thousands. Totally bichin'. Good grief.
Great. The US sure loves its weaponry. It's so cool, we even make glib jokes about it.
How many Billions did this baby cost? How many college semesters could this have
paid for instead? Oh that's right. This is a war economy and a war society. Who
needs training except for military training. That's why the other countries are jealous.
We love our freedom. And our Big Fuckin' Guns. Well, don't worry, I'll go back and
put my Liberal head back in the sand. Right after I finish putting up the duct tape.
Soon, we'll see one of these babies doing it's raster scan over protesters in DC.
We're all flame bait now.