Yes, if your phone is encrypted then I could probably do it. I'd kind of like to see it in the wild, so to speak, before I actually tried it. Kind of old school I guess:-)
in their defense, if they had not bought SUN where would SUN be today? In the Tech trash heap, along with Digital Equipment and others. SUN had a lot of assets - great hardware, intellectual property, etc - but they couldn't sell anything.
Oracle, to their credit, recognized this and bought them up. For what seems now like a bargain price. They realized that they had a great database product but didn't have the enterprise applications to go with it. So they bought PeopleSoft and JD Edwards and some other pieces. With SUN they got the hardware and middleware to round it out. Now they have the whole stack.
Oracle was late to the game in Cloud but their combined assets allowed them to ramp up rather quickly. You better believe that Workday and Salesforce are looking over their collective shoulders. Oracle is gaining fast on them and they have the money to outlast either of them.
About the same I do with my wallet and phone. The point is, if someone gets my keys then the worst they can do is steal my car and I have insurance for that. If someone steals my phone they have access to my email, twitter feed, LinkedIn account and whatever else I decide to put on there. Potentially a lot more damage.
Getting a stolen car replaced, no problem. Having your identify stolen...not so much.
What's wrong with carrying a key fob? So if someone steals my phone they also, by extension, steal my car? Sorry...I'm not willing to put that on a device (phone) that is often stolen and frequently hacked.
The first generation iPad was a hit because they were first to market. And the first generation one still holds up well even against the newer Android tablets. My wife has a 1st gen iPad that she still uses every day. Her only complaint was the weight of it so I got her an iPad mini and she loves it. Both of them are built like a tank and the battery life is still amazing even after umpteen charges.
That's why I say it's like a microwave. It does all the basic functions really well and they don't break down. The boundaries of the tablet have been pushed pretty much to the limit. Anything beyond that and you're into laptop territory.
So the government is dropping the case because some third party might have a way to break into the phone? Might have a way? So they haven't even verified that it works before dropping the case? Why not let the case proceed and if they come to find out later that the 3rd party method works then drop the case?
Surely it can't be to save taxpayer money. That has never been a criteria for any branch of government when it comes to prosecution (errr...persecution). Maybe the FBI had a way to break into the phone all along and this was just a shakedown of Apple.
Are we really to believe that some mysterious "3rd party" just suddenly appears a day before the case is to go to court? I call BS on this whole thing.
Math was something I enjoyed and was quite good at. But for many people it was a real struggle in high school. I saw it as being similar to music. Some people, no matter how hard they tried, could not play an instrument to save their lives. It doesn't mean they are dumb, it's just that some people are wired differently. The difference, or course, is that you could get through high school just fine without ever taking a music class. Not so with math.
So I agree somewhat with the article but I'm not sure that Statistics is the answer either. Personally, at the high school level, I would prefer that people are taught more practical things. Like how to open a bank account, how to balance a checkbook, how to make a budget, how to cook, the basics of investing, etc. For most people high school is as far as they get in formal education. Only something like 25% of Americans graduate from college.
There is the argument that math teaches you how to think logically and how to solve problems - both important skills. But we should not be creating barriers to success just because someone has trouble with algebra.
This is pretty much straight from the government playbook. First, deny that the incident occurred in the first place. Anyone that challenges you is automatically branded as some tin foil hat wearing malcontent. Second, when the news does finally come out then lie about the extent of it. Third, slowly let out the real numbers (or close to it). By then the public has forgot about the scandal and moved on to the next one.
This is why I don't trust these bastards to do anything right. Next up, massive data breach from healthcare.gov. The government lies to us constantly. Nearly every program they undertake ends up being a massive failure. And yet so many people still look to the government to solve their problems. The government does not solve problems. Government IS the problem.
Make no mistake, they are lining up behind Apple on this because if they don't the FBI will come after them next. It could just as easily been an Android phone or a Microsoft phone or a Facebook account that the FBI wants to get its mitts on. And once that door is open it will never close again.
The FBI could have chose to negotiate with Apple about this privately but they chose to take it public. Why? As Rahm Emanuel famously once said "never let a crisis go to waste". The government is once again using the excuse of "terrorism" to take away individual freedoms and rights. This is not just about getting into one iPhone. This is about getting into ALL phones. It always starts like this and little by little our freedoms erode.
Even if the FBI gets past the lock screen all of the data on the phone is encrypted separately. It will be useless to them, assuming there is anything useful on there in the first place. We don't know that. The FBI doesn't know that. Nobody knows that. For all we know there is nothing but Angry Birds on that phone.
But let's just suppose that we give the FBI the benefit of the doubt and let them crack the phone. How is that going to make us any safer against terrorists? It's the same deal with the NSA. Heck, the TSA for that matter. Gigantic waste of fucking time. Maybe if these idiots would spend less time bickering with the CIA I might cut them some slack. But they can't because they are Federal drones, programmed to engage in political infighting, waste, fraud, and general dick-headery.
I used to do consulting work for the Feds. Every place I went was more or less the same. The managers were almost uniformly stone cold morons. Whose bosses were politicians that wouldn't know efficient business practice if it kicked them square in the nuts. I went in hoping to change things for the better. I left vowing never to return no matter how much they offered to pay me. It was a shock something akin to someone that gets their first hospital bill. You know it's going to be bad but you have no idea until you experience it for yourself.
This is exactly the kind of politically correct garbage that has led to the rise of Donald Trump. Be careful what you wish for. What Brown, and many other Universities I suspect, is doing is reverse discrimination. Plain and simple. White males are getting screwed over at the expense of people of color.
Were there injustices in the past? Sure, just ask the Jewish, Irish, Chinese and Italians. Not to mention Native Americans. But how does tipping the scales the other way help? All it does is promote resentment. Meanwhile the diversity fanboys prance around claiming the world is a better place.
What ever happened to earning your way based on merit? Schools, of all places, aught to be promoting this. Education should be the great equalizer. It is one of the few areas where you can succeed solely on hard work, talent and drive. There are countless examples of people that have succeeded in higher education despite coming from disadvantaged backgrounds and despite not being a white male.
What really makes this infuriating is the corporations lining up to support it. The end game for them is more H1-B visas. By promoting diversity they help to indoctrinate the idea that we should have more people of color in IT jobs. And where do you suppose those people are coming from? Well, they are not coming from the UK or Europe. They are coming primarily from India, China and increasingly from Vietnam and the Philippines. It is nothing more than a cheap source of labor.
Now getting back to Trump. Love him or hate him events like this are giving rise to people like him. People that see America getting taken advantage of again and again. People that see our generosity being taken for granted. People that observe others that shun our laws. People that see our jobs disappearing. They see all of this and they are pissed off. Pissed off that our elected officials not only stand by and allow it to occur - they actively participate in it.
Another Executive Order? Is that the only way that things get done these days? Did Obama even bother to try to work with Congress? I think not. The only thing coming out of the Oval Office these days are EO's so the process is obviously being abused.
I think we should change the rules on what Executive Orders are and how they can be used. Currently they are being used as a way to push forward whatever the President wants - regardless of what Congress votes on or what the majority of American citizens want. If Congress cannot come to an agreement on a bill then it should not become a law.
If we are going to have a system of government where the President passes all the laws (and, by the way, an EO is NOT a law) then we should just abolish the Congress and have a King. Welcome to Indonesia West.
I'm not suggesting that FB is the only time waster. As you point out, there are many avenues for that. My main point was comparing Zuckerberg to a few other people that have amassed vast fortunes. The others, not without their flaws by the way, at least created something of great value. Something enduring.
What has FB created? Yes, there have been some positive benefits such as people locating long lost friends, etc. But you have to dig pretty deep to find them and it was probably more by accident than by design. Sorry but clicking the "Like" button does not qualify as a boon to mankind in my books.
Even if you look at people that were not rich - Hemingway, Shakespeare, Mother Theresa, Isaac Newton, Alexander Fleming - each of them contributed to the betterment of the human race in their own ways. Contributions that far outlived them.
What will become of FB in 20 years time? Sure, it's all the rage right now. But how long until some shiny new thing comes along? How long before people get bored of clicking Like?
I don't care who gets elected they will find some way to allow the program to continue. If they can, they will expand it. NSA Mass Surveillance is a power grab, plain and simple. None of them have the guts to get rid of it because the moment they do, and there is any sort of attack no matter how small, that politician will have blood on their hands.
So it gets sold to the American public as something that is for our own good. Big brother to the rescue. Never mind that our government has blown billions of our tax dollars so far on this charade with little to nothing to show for it. If anything the attacks have increased, not decreased. But in typical government fashion, when something doesn't work throw money at it until it does. Meanwhile our freedoms continue to erode.
The whole thing just reminds me of those home alarm company commercials where they try to scare you into buying the alarm to keep away the "bad guys". You're better of just putting a sign on your lawn that says you have an alarm. Just as effective.
Zuckerberg becomes one of the richest people in the world by building...the biggest waste of time ever devised.
Bill Gates is a prick. But at least his company built something - Windows - that makes people productive. Andrew Carnegie was a prick. But his companies built railroads that allowed for westward expansion and are still in use today. Jay Gould was a prick. But he too built railroads that helped to expand the economy.
What has Zuck done, exactly? He created a program that is such a time waster that many companies simply block it for fear of their employees surfing cousin Sally's wedding photos on the company dime. Sure, it has helped to reunite some families and I applaud that. And maybe it helped you find that long lost high school chum from 20 years ago. But maybe if you haven't heard from them in 20 years then they don't really give a shit about you? But I digress....
And the advertising...I mean does anyone really look at those things? If i buy a copy of Car & Driver then I'm really into cars and if I see an ad for car stuff I'm likely to at least read it. But if I'm looking at Sally's wedding photos do I really care about adds for car stuff?
I know that it makes money for Facebook but the whole thing just seems like a giant house of cards to me.
You know, I don't know why Apple or some other tech company with vast amounts of idle cash doesn't just buy Comcast. I think that customers would be thrilled. At the very least you wouldn't have to worry about incorrect bills and shitty customer service. Not only that, it would be the ideal delivery mechanism for Apple and their products. They could tie it in with iTunes for music and movie streaming.
Well, CEO's used to have a pay package similar to that. They called it stock options. When the company did well they did really, really well. When the company didn't do so well they still did really well. So now they just pay them a shitload of money up front with a golden parachute on the back end to ease the landing. Must be nice.
I have heard Jerry Seinfeld make the same statement. Bill Mahr too I think. It seems that these days pretty much everything is off limits for jokes. About the only exceptions are political jokes (Dems making fun of Republicans and vice versa) and redneck jokes. Other joke types will get you branded as the following:
Jokes referring to ethnicity of any kind (other than white, or course) = Flaming Bigot Gay jokes = Homophobe Gender based jokes (unless it's jokes about white guys) = Anti-women Any joke with the N word in it (unless you're black, then it's fine) = Racist
It still seems to be ok to refer to Scottish people as cheap and Irish people as drunks. But you can't refer to Mexicans or Puerto Ricans as lazy. That's off limits ( see Flaming Bigot above). Making fun of Eastern European accents (Arnold....I'll be back) or Russian seems to be acceptable.
It's all quite simple if you just follow the rules...
and if this is like any other layoff I have seen then management probably had 24 hours or less to decide who to let go and who to keep. Without adequate time to do any real analysis then the brown-nosers, game players and golf buddies get to stay. The ratio of dead wood to productive employee then swings even further to the dead wood side.
Then the good employees that did manage to make the cut see the writing on the wall and start sending out resumes. The exodus continues.
By any measure, Mayer has done an absolutely terrible job during her tenure. Granted, she inherited some challenges but she knew this going in. If you are working for Yahoo my advice would be to get out as soon as you can. This ship is sinking fast.
is to convince people that their phone has the same cachet as the iPhone. Apple has managed to do that and that's what allows them to charge premium prices. From a performance/features standpoint the Nexus is on par with the iPhone. Same things from an Apps standpoint.
What Google needs to do is convince customers that they are getting a luxury item. One that is not only worth the money but is desirable and enviable. Apple customers are not only willing to spend the money, they are happy to do so.
Luxury customers don't care about custom ROMs and SD cards. They care about phones that look, feel, and operate in a premium way. They want chic not geek. Google should focus on build quality and longer battery life. Put in really good speakers and better headphones. Give people a way to customize the phone - like the ability to add an etched monogram or high end leather cover on the back.
Instead of some crappy SD card option just give everyone 64GB as a minimum right off the bat with the option to upgrade to more - at a reasonable price. For people that are really into audio strike a deal with a maker of some good high end headphones (Bose maybe?) and offer it as a package deal for those that want it. Offer a super high end camera option for folks that are really into photography and video. In other words, make it customizable to fit the needs of a diverse customer base.
What is interesting to me here is the charge of gender discrimination. Typically you would expect this to be levied by a female. In this case it appears to be a guy that is alleging discrimination. Reverse discrimination basically and it flies in the face of what Silicon Valley and indeed corporate America have been promoting for quite some time now.
To me this is a perfect example of how two wrongs don't make a right. This guy had nothing to do with what happened in the past so why must he be made to suffer for it?
You know, it occurs to me that if some radical group really wanted to cause havoc at the Super Bowl they could. But they won't and it's not because of the security theater. It's because if such a thing were to occur the outrage would be so great that our politicians would be forced to act upon it. Every plane, every ship, every gun would be pointed squarely at those responsible and in a matter of days we could wipe them from the face of the earth.
Instead they engage in attacks that are much smaller in scale. Their objective is not to kill everyone. Their objective is to strike fear into everyone. And these smaller scale attacks are very successful at that. Not only that, it gives politicians cover by allowing them to claim that these are "isolated incidents" and not large scale attacks. Such is the nature of guerrilla warfare.
I am generally not in favor of quotas but when it comes to people with disabilities I think we should do all we can to help them get engaged in the workforce. The key is to find a job where that individual will be given the chance to excel. Just sayin.
"Go get some exercise, quit smoking," - Typical liberal - attack the person not the issue. I do exercise and I don't smoke so go fuck yourself.
"The San Bernadino massacre was at an office holiday party, and TV and the internets have been full of people saying how it should have been full of armed citizens." - You're not seriously suggesting that this was just some random office party shoot up are you?
"And upping the number of people carrying won't magically increase the percentage of them using holsters and gun safes correctly." - No but proper training will. I don't think that anyone should possess a firearm without proper training. If the government is to play a role in this at all it should be in setting up mandatory training.
I really feel that the media plays a big part in all this. It's all about ratings. If it bleeds it leads. Ever notice how every evening news program is exactly the same formula? 25 minutes of death, horror, murder. Then the last story is about someone that saves a cat from a burning house. Or some similar feel good story. Every single time. It doesn't just occur randomly like that - it's scripted. So people are left with the impression that 90% of all news stories are bad news and the whole planet is in a death spiral.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, if your phone is encrypted then I could probably do it. I'd kind of like to see it in the wild, so to speak, before I actually tried it. Kind of old school I guess :-)
in their defense, if they had not bought SUN where would SUN be today? In the Tech trash heap, along with Digital Equipment and others. SUN had a lot of assets - great hardware, intellectual property, etc - but they couldn't sell anything.
Oracle, to their credit, recognized this and bought them up. For what seems now like a bargain price. They realized that they had a great database product but didn't have the enterprise applications to go with it. So they bought PeopleSoft and JD Edwards and some other pieces. With SUN they got the hardware and middleware to round it out. Now they have the whole stack.
Oracle was late to the game in Cloud but their combined assets allowed them to ramp up rather quickly. You better believe that Workday and Salesforce are looking over their collective shoulders. Oracle is gaining fast on them and they have the money to outlast either of them.
About the same I do with my wallet and phone. The point is, if someone gets my keys then the worst they can do is steal my car and I have insurance for that. If someone steals my phone they have access to my email, twitter feed, LinkedIn account and whatever else I decide to put on there. Potentially a lot more damage.
Getting a stolen car replaced, no problem. Having your identify stolen...not so much.
What's wrong with carrying a key fob? So if someone steals my phone they also, by extension, steal my car? Sorry...I'm not willing to put that on a device (phone) that is often stolen and frequently hacked.
The first generation iPad was a hit because they were first to market. And the first generation one still holds up well even against the newer Android tablets. My wife has a 1st gen iPad that she still uses every day. Her only complaint was the weight of it so I got her an iPad mini and she loves it. Both of them are built like a tank and the battery life is still amazing even after umpteen charges.
That's why I say it's like a microwave. It does all the basic functions really well and they don't break down. The boundaries of the tablet have been pushed pretty much to the limit. Anything beyond that and you're into laptop territory.
So the government is dropping the case because some third party might have a way to break into the phone? Might have a way? So they haven't even verified that it works before dropping the case? Why not let the case proceed and if they come to find out later that the 3rd party method works then drop the case?
Surely it can't be to save taxpayer money. That has never been a criteria for any branch of government when it comes to prosecution (errr...persecution). Maybe the FBI had a way to break into the phone all along and this was just a shakedown of Apple.
Are we really to believe that some mysterious "3rd party" just suddenly appears a day before the case is to go to court? I call BS on this whole thing.
Math was something I enjoyed and was quite good at. But for many people it was a real struggle in high school. I saw it as being similar to music. Some people, no matter how hard they tried, could not play an instrument to save their lives. It doesn't mean they are dumb, it's just that some people are wired differently. The difference, or course, is that you could get through high school just fine without ever taking a music class. Not so with math.
So I agree somewhat with the article but I'm not sure that Statistics is the answer either. Personally, at the high school level, I would prefer that people are taught more practical things. Like how to open a bank account, how to balance a checkbook, how to make a budget, how to cook, the basics of investing, etc. For most people high school is as far as they get in formal education. Only something like 25% of Americans graduate from college.
There is the argument that math teaches you how to think logically and how to solve problems - both important skills. But we should not be creating barriers to success just because someone has trouble with algebra.
This is pretty much straight from the government playbook. First, deny that the incident occurred in the first place. Anyone that challenges you is automatically branded as some tin foil hat wearing malcontent. Second, when the news does finally come out then lie about the extent of it. Third, slowly let out the real numbers (or close to it). By then the public has forgot about the scandal and moved on to the next one.
This is why I don't trust these bastards to do anything right. Next up, massive data breach from healthcare.gov. The government lies to us constantly. Nearly every program they undertake ends up being a massive failure. And yet so many people still look to the government to solve their problems. The government does not solve problems. Government IS the problem.
Make no mistake, they are lining up behind Apple on this because if they don't the FBI will come after them next. It could just as easily been an Android phone or a Microsoft phone or a Facebook account that the FBI wants to get its mitts on. And once that door is open it will never close again.
The FBI could have chose to negotiate with Apple about this privately but they chose to take it public. Why? As Rahm Emanuel famously once said "never let a crisis go to waste". The government is once again using the excuse of "terrorism" to take away individual freedoms and rights. This is not just about getting into one iPhone. This is about getting into ALL phones. It always starts like this and little by little our freedoms erode.
Even if the FBI gets past the lock screen all of the data on the phone is encrypted separately. It will be useless to them, assuming there is anything useful on there in the first place. We don't know that. The FBI doesn't know that. Nobody knows that. For all we know there is nothing but Angry Birds on that phone.
But let's just suppose that we give the FBI the benefit of the doubt and let them crack the phone. How is that going to make us any safer against terrorists? It's the same deal with the NSA. Heck, the TSA for that matter. Gigantic waste of fucking time. Maybe if these idiots would spend less time bickering with the CIA I might cut them some slack. But they can't because they are Federal drones, programmed to engage in political infighting, waste, fraud, and general dick-headery.
I used to do consulting work for the Feds. Every place I went was more or less the same. The managers were almost uniformly stone cold morons. Whose bosses were politicians that wouldn't know efficient business practice if it kicked them square in the nuts. I went in hoping to change things for the better. I left vowing never to return no matter how much they offered to pay me. It was a shock something akin to someone that gets their first hospital bill. You know it's going to be bad but you have no idea until you experience it for yourself.
I'm not suggesting that they are minorities. My point is that they have been persecuted.
This is exactly the kind of politically correct garbage that has led to the rise of Donald Trump. Be careful what you wish for. What Brown, and many other Universities I suspect, is doing is reverse discrimination. Plain and simple. White males are getting screwed over at the expense of people of color.
Were there injustices in the past? Sure, just ask the Jewish, Irish, Chinese and Italians. Not to mention Native Americans. But how does tipping the scales the other way help? All it does is promote resentment. Meanwhile the diversity fanboys prance around claiming the world is a better place.
What ever happened to earning your way based on merit? Schools, of all places, aught to be promoting this. Education should be the great equalizer. It is one of the few areas where you can succeed solely on hard work, talent and drive. There are countless examples of people that have succeeded in higher education despite coming from disadvantaged backgrounds and despite not being a white male.
What really makes this infuriating is the corporations lining up to support it. The end game for them is more H1-B visas. By promoting diversity they help to indoctrinate the idea that we should have more people of color in IT jobs. And where do you suppose those people are coming from? Well, they are not coming from the UK or Europe. They are coming primarily from India, China and increasingly from Vietnam and the Philippines. It is nothing more than a cheap source of labor.
Now getting back to Trump. Love him or hate him events like this are giving rise to people like him. People that see America getting taken advantage of again and again. People that see our generosity being taken for granted. People that observe others that shun our laws. People that see our jobs disappearing. They see all of this and they are pissed off. Pissed off that our elected officials not only stand by and allow it to occur - they actively participate in it.
Another Executive Order? Is that the only way that things get done these days? Did Obama even bother to try to work with Congress? I think not. The only thing coming out of the Oval Office these days are EO's so the process is obviously being abused.
I think we should change the rules on what Executive Orders are and how they can be used. Currently they are being used as a way to push forward whatever the President wants - regardless of what Congress votes on or what the majority of American citizens want. If Congress cannot come to an agreement on a bill then it should not become a law.
If we are going to have a system of government where the President passes all the laws (and, by the way, an EO is NOT a law) then we should just abolish the Congress and have a King. Welcome to Indonesia West.
I'm not suggesting that FB is the only time waster. As you point out, there are many avenues for that. My main point was comparing Zuckerberg to a few other people that have amassed vast fortunes. The others, not without their flaws by the way, at least created something of great value. Something enduring.
What has FB created? Yes, there have been some positive benefits such as people locating long lost friends, etc. But you have to dig pretty deep to find them and it was probably more by accident than by design. Sorry but clicking the "Like" button does not qualify as a boon to mankind in my books.
Even if you look at people that were not rich - Hemingway, Shakespeare, Mother Theresa, Isaac Newton, Alexander Fleming - each of them contributed to the betterment of the human race in their own ways. Contributions that far outlived them.
What will become of FB in 20 years time? Sure, it's all the rage right now. But how long until some shiny new thing comes along? How long before people get bored of clicking Like?
I don't care who gets elected they will find some way to allow the program to continue. If they can, they will expand it. NSA Mass Surveillance is a power grab, plain and simple. None of them have the guts to get rid of it because the moment they do, and there is any sort of attack no matter how small, that politician will have blood on their hands.
So it gets sold to the American public as something that is for our own good. Big brother to the rescue. Never mind that our government has blown billions of our tax dollars so far on this charade with little to nothing to show for it. If anything the attacks have increased, not decreased. But in typical government fashion, when something doesn't work throw money at it until it does. Meanwhile our freedoms continue to erode.
The whole thing just reminds me of those home alarm company commercials where they try to scare you into buying the alarm to keep away the "bad guys". You're better of just putting a sign on your lawn that says you have an alarm. Just as effective.
Zuckerberg becomes one of the richest people in the world by building...the biggest waste of time ever devised.
Bill Gates is a prick. But at least his company built something - Windows - that makes people productive.
Andrew Carnegie was a prick. But his companies built railroads that allowed for westward expansion and are still in use today.
Jay Gould was a prick. But he too built railroads that helped to expand the economy.
What has Zuck done, exactly? He created a program that is such a time waster that many companies simply block it for fear of their employees surfing cousin Sally's wedding photos on the company dime. Sure, it has helped to reunite some families and I applaud that. And maybe it helped you find that long lost high school chum from 20 years ago. But maybe if you haven't heard from them in 20 years then they don't really give a shit about you? But I digress....
And the advertising...I mean does anyone really look at those things? If i buy a copy of Car & Driver then I'm really into cars and if I see an ad for car stuff I'm likely to at least read it. But if I'm looking at Sally's wedding photos do I really care about adds for car stuff?
I know that it makes money for Facebook but the whole thing just seems like a giant house of cards to me.
You know, I don't know why Apple or some other tech company with vast amounts of idle cash doesn't just buy Comcast. I think that customers would be thrilled. At the very least you wouldn't have to worry about incorrect bills and shitty customer service. Not only that, it would be the ideal delivery mechanism for Apple and their products. They could tie it in with iTunes for music and movie streaming.
Maybe it's a bit far fetched but who knows?
Well, CEO's used to have a pay package similar to that. They called it stock options. When the company did well they did really, really well. When the company didn't do so well they still did really well. So now they just pay them a shitload of money up front with a golden parachute on the back end to ease the landing. Must be nice.
I have heard Jerry Seinfeld make the same statement. Bill Mahr too I think. It seems that these days pretty much everything is off limits for jokes. About the only exceptions are political jokes (Dems making fun of Republicans and vice versa) and redneck jokes. Other joke types will get you branded as the following:
Jokes referring to ethnicity of any kind (other than white, or course) = Flaming Bigot
Gay jokes = Homophobe
Gender based jokes (unless it's jokes about white guys) = Anti-women
Any joke with the N word in it (unless you're black, then it's fine) = Racist
It still seems to be ok to refer to Scottish people as cheap and Irish people as drunks. But you can't refer to Mexicans or Puerto Ricans as lazy. That's off limits ( see Flaming Bigot above). Making fun of Eastern European accents (Arnold....I'll be back) or Russian seems to be acceptable.
It's all quite simple if you just follow the rules...
and if this is like any other layoff I have seen then management probably had 24 hours or less to decide who to let go and who to keep. Without adequate time to do any real analysis then the brown-nosers, game players and golf buddies get to stay. The ratio of dead wood to productive employee then swings even further to the dead wood side.
Then the good employees that did manage to make the cut see the writing on the wall and start sending out resumes. The exodus continues.
By any measure, Mayer has done an absolutely terrible job during her tenure. Granted, she inherited some challenges but she knew this going in. If you are working for Yahoo my advice would be to get out as soon as you can. This ship is sinking fast.
is to convince people that their phone has the same cachet as the iPhone. Apple has managed to do that and that's what allows them to charge premium prices. From a performance/features standpoint the Nexus is on par with the iPhone. Same things from an Apps standpoint.
What Google needs to do is convince customers that they are getting a luxury item. One that is not only worth the money but is desirable and enviable. Apple customers are not only willing to spend the money, they are happy to do so.
Luxury customers don't care about custom ROMs and SD cards. They care about phones that look, feel, and operate in a premium way. They want chic not geek. Google should focus on build quality and longer battery life. Put in really good speakers and better headphones. Give people a way to customize the phone - like the ability to add an etched monogram or high end leather cover on the back.
Instead of some crappy SD card option just give everyone 64GB as a minimum right off the bat with the option to upgrade to more - at a reasonable price. For people that are really into audio strike a deal with a maker of some good high end headphones (Bose maybe?) and offer it as a package deal for those that want it. Offer a super high end camera option for folks that are really into photography and video. In other words, make it customizable to fit the needs of a diverse customer base.
What is interesting to me here is the charge of gender discrimination. Typically you would expect this to be levied by a female. In this case it appears to be a guy that is alleging discrimination. Reverse discrimination basically and it flies in the face of what Silicon Valley and indeed corporate America have been promoting for quite some time now.
To me this is a perfect example of how two wrongs don't make a right. This guy had nothing to do with what happened in the past so why must he be made to suffer for it?
You know, it occurs to me that if some radical group really wanted to cause havoc at the Super Bowl they could. But they won't and it's not because of the security theater. It's because if such a thing were to occur the outrage would be so great that our politicians would be forced to act upon it. Every plane, every ship, every gun would be pointed squarely at those responsible and in a matter of days we could wipe them from the face of the earth.
Instead they engage in attacks that are much smaller in scale. Their objective is not to kill everyone. Their objective is to strike fear into everyone. And these smaller scale attacks are very successful at that. Not only that, it gives politicians cover by allowing them to claim that these are "isolated incidents" and not large scale attacks. Such is the nature of guerrilla warfare.
I am generally not in favor of quotas but when it comes to people with disabilities I think we should do all we can to help them get engaged in the workforce. The key is to find a job where that individual will be given the chance to excel. Just sayin.
"Go get some exercise, quit smoking," - Typical liberal - attack the person not the issue. I do exercise and I don't smoke so go fuck yourself.
"The San Bernadino massacre was at an office holiday party, and TV and the internets have been full of people saying how it should have been full of armed citizens." - You're not seriously suggesting that this was just some random office party shoot up are you?
"And upping the number of people carrying won't magically increase the percentage of them using holsters and gun safes correctly." - No but proper training will. I don't think that anyone should possess a firearm without proper training. If the government is to play a role in this at all it should be in setting up mandatory training.
I really feel that the media plays a big part in all this. It's all about ratings. If it bleeds it leads. Ever notice how every evening news program is exactly the same formula? 25 minutes of death, horror, murder. Then the last story is about someone that saves a cat from a burning house. Or some similar feel good story. Every single time. It doesn't just occur randomly like that - it's scripted. So people are left with the impression that 90% of all news stories are bad news and the whole planet is in a death spiral.