Get an unlocked phone with a removable SIM card (which excludes anything Verizon sells). Once she gets to Scotland have her buy a local SIM card and pop it in the phone. That way she will avoid costly international roaming charges. When she gets back to the US just pop the original SIM back in and you're good to go. The other option is to simply buy a phone in the UK.
Indeed. I think that Microsoft is probably Apple's "friendliest" rival. Bing is actually a pretty good search engine so maybe this will be a good fit. I also like the fact that DuckDuckGo will now be available on the iPhone. It's a nod towards internet privacy and a subtle dig at Google, me thinks.
Apple simply must do a better job with the Maps program and, as you point out, not having a Transit option is a glaring weakness. I'm pretty sure that Apple will shore that up. Google Navigation is one of the few must have apps for me but more and more I just don't trust Google with any of my information. I'd be happy to dump it for Apple Maps but it's got to be good. I expect that it will be much improved after the embarrassing initial rollout.
Her first mistake was walking into a store with no idea of what phone she wanted. Do a little research first or at least talk to one of your "geek" friends and ask them for an honest opinion.
Her second mistake was taking the advice of a salesman. They are going to steer you towards whatever phone pays them the best commission. That's their job - to move product and to make money. You can't just walk in and expect a salesperson to give you honest advice. Maybe a few of them actually will but I wouldn't bet on it because salesmen are, well, pricks.
Apple and Google are now clearly rivals. Just like Samsung and Apple are rivals. So every chance they get they will take a poke at the opposition. Frankly, I think it's good to see a little fire in Tim Cook's belly. If Apple expects to continue to do well in the smartphone arena they are going to have to fight for it. It's a zero sum game - people will either buy an iPhone or something else, but rarely both of them. And once people get used to a particular way of doing things it's hard to get them to change.
So the battle lines are pretty clearly drawn. On the Android side you have the ability to customize your phone to a great degree and generally have more choices. On the Apple side you have less choice but, arguably, better vertical integration and "flow". Android phones come in all price ranges. Apple, not so much but the build quality is excellent across the line. One thing that is beginning to worry me is mobile malware which seems to be almost entirely an Android problem.
I've had both and currently have an Android phone. But if Apple introduces an iPhone with a larger screen I might switch back. My wife has a 5S and she loves it but to me it feels like a toy compared to my LG G2. The fact that I'm using a MacBook Pro makes for a compelling case to switch back to the iPhone. Sure, the G2 works fine but it's not nearly as slick as the all Apple solution. I'll be watching closely this week to see what new hardware comes out.
as long as people are not being excluded from jobs specifically because of their gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. - what difference does it make? If someone has the skills but doesn't get hired because they are Black or Hispanic or a woman or...whatever...then I have a problem with that. Just like I have a problem with white males who are qualified not getting hired because some mysterious "quota" is not being met.
What is it with this obsession in trying to artificially level the playing field? Imposing hiring quotas comes with the implicit suggestion that you, as the hiring manager, are a racist, sexist bigot and need to be told who to hire.
When I look back to my college days (admittedly quite a while ago) I just don't remember seeing very many black or hispanic kids in my Engineering classes. Could that be because maybe they just weren't that interested in Engineering as a career option? I don't know. But it seems to me that if you have fewer minorities graduating with Engineering degrees then you are naturally going to have fewer minorities working in this field.
The real problem with trying to artificially tilt the playing field is that it truly is a zero sum game. For every minority you "include" you "exclude" a white guy. Does that really solve the problem (assuming there was a problem in the first place)? Or is it just more feel-good, group-hug stuff to make some feel as if they are "making a difference" while all it really does is create resentment where none existed before?
The first thing you should probably do is an honest skills assessment. What are you good at? What are you not so good at? What do you enjoy or not enjoy doing? Most of the IT people I know tend to be more on the analytical side, good at problem solving, meticulous, etc. If it's just programming that you don't want to do then you could maybe try your hand at IT Security, Systems Administration, maybe even teaching if you want to show others how to do what you no longer want to do:-)
If you are comfortable taking a leadership role, can talk in front of large groups and are a bit more outgoing then you might be good at IT Sales, Project Management or Technical Management.
On the topic of introvert vs. extrovert: if you are an extrovert you're going to have more options. It's that simple. Extroverts are generally seen as being better "management material", mainly because other managers tend to be like that. And they like to hang out with people that are like them. Nearly every Sales person I have met has been an extrovert - many of them annoyingly so.
Being an introvert doesn't mean that you can't do these jobs. Just know that the vast majority of your peers are going to lean towards the extroverted side. Most importantly, if you're an introvert don't try to pretend that you're an extrovert. In the end, you'll be unhappy. Embrace who you are and find something you enjoy doing. That's the most important thing.
3D tv, 4K tv...it's all diminishing returns. Yes it's a better picture but it's not THAT much better. Certainly not worth the steep premium. It's the same reason that I'm still rocking my 5 year old MacBook Pro. Sure the new ones are faster but I'm happy with mine.
This is the challenge that all hardware makers face. Whether it's refrigerators, stereos, cars, cellphones. Nearly every category is really good - good enough for most everyone. There will always be the early adopters but many people - like me - are perfectly happy with what they have.
"I can't see the point of touch, unless you're walking around with it" - Bingo. If you need a device on the shop room floor or a warehouse then maybe the Surface is a good choice. Or perhaps you work in a hospital and need something to record patient notes.
But that's a pretty limited market. The fact of the matter is that the laptop is already the best form factor for productivity type work. Keyboard, mouse, good sized screen. Tablets are for goofing around on for the most part. Let's keep the two form factors separate.
and so too is Surface. It's trying to do too much and ends up not doing anything very well. Who wants a 12 inch tablet? Nobody. How about a 12 inch laptop? Could be ok for some tasks but it's a crappy keyboard - and it runs Windows 8.
The Macbook Air, which it's being compared to, is a far superior productivity device than the Surface. It has a real keyboard included (and a good one too).
Sorry but I just don't see Surface as best of breed. I can see people buying them hoping to have some sort of magical all in one device and ending up bringing another tablet along anyway. Because the Surface doesn't cut it as a tablet.
7 inch tablets are the way to go if you're going to have one and MS made a huge strategic miss by not offering one. Larger tablets are dying off in popularity now so who is this thing marketed to?
In principle it's supposed to stop telemarketers from bugging you. But in reality you still get calls because companies that you are currently doing business with are allowed to solicit you. Companies lobbied Congress for a loophole and got it.
As long as Do Not Track is voluntary it will be ineffective.
Actually Windows Phone is pretty good. But their market penetration is miniscule. The problem at MS is that they don't know how to market anything. They have made lots of good products (Zune comes to mind) that have failed in the marketplace. Lots. This new Surface just smells like another one to me.
it's a question of who is in power vs. who is not in power. When Obama was a Senator he was against mass surveillance (and Guantanamo for that matter) but when he gets in power he sees things differently. Same thing would have happened if Romney or McCain got elected.
The problem is that to ascend to those levels you have to make so many deals with big business and assorted money men. Then when you get in power they are all knocking at your door looking for favors.
The American government has brainwashed it's citizens into believing that there is an actual "terrorist" threat (whatever the hell that means) and that the only way to contain it is to collect information on everyone. Bullshit. You want "terrorists" to leave us alone? Then stop taking sides in the Middle East conflict. The US has, and will always be, strongly Pro-Israel. At the same time, they present themselves as mediators. How can a country be a mediator when it is so clearly in favor of one side over the other?
The United Nations has looked into it and passed numerous sanctions against Israel, mainly concerning the occupied territories and the continuing settlement building. All of them are ignored.
then Google can start collecting information on how often I open my fridge and then cross reference that with information from the supermarket (captured on those "loyalty" cards) that tells them the types of food I buy. From that they will determine that my diet is too high in trans fats and immediately notify every insurance company on earth to NOT sell me an insurance policy because of my poor dietary habits.
Do no evil my ass. I don't trust any of those Google pricks with my information. Same goes for Facebook.
Nothing - provided I'm right and they actually sell a lot in the enterprise market. That remains to be seen as the other two Surface tables haven't exactly set the world on fire.
I don't see this thing as a laptop replacement. I see it as a big tablet trying to be a laptop. A laptop with an optional keyboard. A flimsy rubber keyboard. All of the best tablet apps are either android or iOS and Surface won't run any of them.
Maybe I'm wrong here but I think it's going to be a flop. They have already lost hundreds of millions of dollars on the Surface line. Not only that but tablet sales in general are in decline. So even the good ones are not getting sold at the same pace.
Sure, the hardware specs look good. Nice processor, screen, etc. Light weight. Promises of great battery life.
But here's the problem...it's still running Windows 8 which nearly everyone seems to hate. Same thing with the phone. Nice Nokia hardware but shitty OS.
MS continues to make the mistake of comparing their hardware to the Mac hardware by only examining the hardware specs. They fail to look at it holistically. What's cool about Macs is that they run so smoothly. It's not about horsepower, it's about design. Something that is sorely lacking in Windows 8.
I predict that MS will sell quite a few of these in the enterprise market and almost none in the consumer space (well, almost none compared to the number of android and iPads that get sold).
What everyone seemed to want was a 7 inch Surface not a 12 inch Surface. Once again, MS fails to give consumers what they are asking for. Even Apple swallowed it's pride and came out with a 7 inch iPad. Why? Because it was obvious that consumers wanted it and tons of android tables with that form factor were flying off the shelves. So Apple was late to that market but at least they had enough sense to realize that they had made a mistake.
MS still has that monopolistic mindset. They don't seem to want to listen to what people want. They send out product after product to the marketplace only to lose millions of dollars on it and abandon it shortly thereafter.
What MS desperately wants to stop is the notion that you can get everything done without using any MS software or hardware. And that day is rapidly approaching if it's not already here. This new Surface will do nothing to slow that down.
BB is done. Some of their new products are interesting but BB has been irrelevant for too long. At one time they made the best smartphone on the market, certainly the most secure. Then they got fat and lazy and Apple and Android sped past them.
I had one of the older BB phones with the small screen and physical keyboard. Loved it. Great battery life, good call quality, secure. But no apps to speak of. Poor quality handsets (I know a lot of people that had to return them due to hardware failures). Then I got an iPhone and never looked back. Well, never looked back at BB. I did look at (and own) Android phones.
Now it's a two horse race. To me, BB is kind of like Windows phones. Yeah, some nice features but I'm not about to buy one. So long BB...we hardly knew ya.
There was this guy that used to live up the street from me. He had a sports car, a trailer, an SUV, a boat...basically every toy you can imagine. One day I'm driving by and I notice a sign on his front door. The bank foreclosed on his house. What an idiot. He surrounds himself with these stupid toys and neglects to pay his mortgage.
Sadly, the world is full of people like this. More concerned with trying to look rich than making the sacrifices to actually be rich. Short term gains. The guy riding the junk car with $3000 worth of tires and rims.
I look down my street and see all of these expensive cars and I just know that 8 out of 10 people can't afford them. Yet they sign up for leases and drive the things and get another one 2 years down the road. Great way to stay in debt forever.
Yeah, this GM internet thing is just going to take off for people like that.
yet another in car distraction, courteous of GM. Looks to me like a solution trying to find a problem. What, exactly, would one do with in-car internet? Catch up on the latest House of Cards episode while barrelling down the freeway at 70 mph? Fill in your fantasy football picks? While driving....in a car....possibly at high speed...certainly with a lot of distractions.
Do you think that maybe, just maybe, we could leave the internet behind until we're done driving? It's one thing to be surfing the web over a hot latte and another thing entirely to be doing it while piloting a 3000 lb. missile down the road. If you make a mistake at Starbuck's you spill your coffee. If you make a mistake in your car then maybe someone dies as a result of it.
Back in the day, unions were established to stop worker exploitation. One of the most visible of the exploited workers was the coal mine workers. They were forced to work in unsafe conditions and endure very long work hours. All so that greedy business owners could make more money off the backs of their employees.
Fast forward to today and it's a similar condition for today's tech workers. Many of them are forced to work very long hours without any overtime pay. All so that greedy business owners could make more money off the backs of their employees.
Although unions have become somewhat of a dirty word these days I can see the case for having unions for tech workers.
Off street parking - now there's a quaint notion. I remember hearing real estate agents gush about off street parking as if it were some huge benefit. Turns out that it was a huge benefit. Where I live now, everyone has off street parking. And on street parking. Heck, you just park wherever the heck you want to. No lines, no waiting.
There are a few things I miss about Boston (not many but a few) but parking is definitely not one of them.
I have no doubt that the results of this poll are accurate. It just stands to reason. Even if you happened to actually enjoy all the content of those 200 channels how could you possibly watch it all? There are just not enough hours in the day.
For me, about the only thing I watch live on cable is sporting events. Or the local news. Rarely movies because of all the commercials. Same with weekly TV series. The commercials just ruin the flow of it for me. The rest of it I will DVR and watch later - while skipping over the commercials. Almost all the movies and weekly series that I watch now come from Netflix.
The TV Cartels...oops, Cable Providers - know full well that most people only watch a small fraction of the available TV channels. They will continue to fight a la carte programming tooth and nail. Why? Because the current model makes them more money. As always, the bottom line is the bottom line.
As the technology improves it becomes easier to cut the cord. Personally the only reason I even have cable is that my wife likes to watch some programming that's not available anywhere else. So I keep it to keep her happy. Happy wife, happy life:-)
Were it only me in the household, I could easily see going to Netflix only. I might miss the sports for a while but eventually I'd find something better to do with my time and probably wonder why I even watched sports in the first place.
Meanwhile, the TV cartels sit by and watch as the technology makes it easier and easier to escape from their filthy grip.
I lived in Boston for a while and the parking is just as bad there as it is in SF. For those of you that have not visited the fine city of Boston, allow me to enlighten you. Boston is an historical city and, as such, has numerous historical buildings. Buildings that cannot be knocked down in order to widen roads. The road that Paul Revere travelled on is just as wide now as it was then.
Lots of one way streets and lots of one hour parking. The cops there would ride around with little bits of chalk. The first time through they would put a chalk mark on the tires of the cars in the one hour parking zone. An hour later they return and any car there with chalk on the tire gets a ticket. So of course it became a game of cat and mouse - cop puts chalk, car owner rubs it off.
When it snows it's worse because the snow plows can't get through so you would have to park on alternate sides of the street depending on the day of the week. If you're caught on the wrong side when the snow plows come through they just tow your car.
The moral of the story is that if you live in Boston, or SF for that matter, take public transportation whenever you can. Driving and parking in either of those cities is a pain in the ass and is to be avoided at all costs.
One of the reasons I left Boston was the traffic and parking. I got sick of it.
Naturally, this app is going to get banned. You don't own the land you are parking your car on. The owner of the parking lot sets the price, not the person renting the spot.
First of all, Stanford does not own $18B in coal stocks. 18B is the ENTIRE endowment amount. Coal stocks are a small fraction of the total.
Now that that little correction is out of the way....
Stanford seems to me to be making an entirely political statement. Selling all of their coal stock is not going to change the supply of coal by even an ounce. Someone else will simply buy the shares.
I wonder how many of those coal plants are producing electricity that powers all those Teslas that I see on the roads here? The electricity has to come from somewhere and there are not enough Solar panels to meet the need. Other options? Nuclear? Not in California.
Almost any way you slice it, power generation is a dirty business.
Shouldn't the responsibility of the endowment trustees be strictly fiduciary? In other words, manage the money and leave the political grandstanding to someone else.
I'm not so sure about that. If BR disks were available tomorrow for $5-10 each I think you might find a lot of people buying them. But, once again, greed reins supreme in Hollywood. They remain stubbornly fixated on "pirates" and refuse to budge on the price. BR has a lot of benefits. It's just that, for me, the cost outweighs the benefits.
I suppose that for the serious audiophile/videophile there is no substitute for BR. It does have outstanding sound and video quality. But for me, life goes on and I just don't have the time to devote to such "hobbies" any longer. I'm sort of at the "plop down on the sofa and see what's on the tube" kind of mentality. Convenience trumps quality.
The fact that NetFlix is cheaper is just icing on the cake.
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Get an unlocked phone with a removable SIM card (which excludes anything Verizon sells). Once she gets to Scotland have her buy a local SIM card and pop it in the phone. That way she will avoid costly international roaming charges. When she gets back to the US just pop the original SIM back in and you're good to go. The other option is to simply buy a phone in the UK.
Indeed. I think that Microsoft is probably Apple's "friendliest" rival. Bing is actually a pretty good search engine so maybe this will be a good fit. I also like the fact that DuckDuckGo will now be available on the iPhone. It's a nod towards internet privacy and a subtle dig at Google, me thinks.
Apple simply must do a better job with the Maps program and, as you point out, not having a Transit option is a glaring weakness. I'm pretty sure that Apple will shore that up. Google Navigation is one of the few must have apps for me but more and more I just don't trust Google with any of my information. I'd be happy to dump it for Apple Maps but it's got to be good. I expect that it will be much improved after the embarrassing initial rollout.
Her first mistake was walking into a store with no idea of what phone she wanted. Do a little research first or at least talk to one of your "geek" friends and ask them for an honest opinion.
Her second mistake was taking the advice of a salesman. They are going to steer you towards whatever phone pays them the best commission. That's their job - to move product and to make money. You can't just walk in and expect a salesperson to give you honest advice. Maybe a few of them actually will but I wouldn't bet on it because salesmen are, well, pricks.
Apple and Google are now clearly rivals. Just like Samsung and Apple are rivals. So every chance they get they will take a poke at the opposition. Frankly, I think it's good to see a little fire in Tim Cook's belly. If Apple expects to continue to do well in the smartphone arena they are going to have to fight for it. It's a zero sum game - people will either buy an iPhone or something else, but rarely both of them. And once people get used to a particular way of doing things it's hard to get them to change.
So the battle lines are pretty clearly drawn. On the Android side you have the ability to customize your phone to a great degree and generally have more choices. On the Apple side you have less choice but, arguably, better vertical integration and "flow". Android phones come in all price ranges. Apple, not so much but the build quality is excellent across the line. One thing that is beginning to worry me is mobile malware which seems to be almost entirely an Android problem.
I've had both and currently have an Android phone. But if Apple introduces an iPhone with a larger screen I might switch back. My wife has a 5S and she loves it but to me it feels like a toy compared to my LG G2. The fact that I'm using a MacBook Pro makes for a compelling case to switch back to the iPhone. Sure, the G2 works fine but it's not nearly as slick as the all Apple solution. I'll be watching closely this week to see what new hardware comes out.
as long as people are not being excluded from jobs specifically because of their gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. - what difference does it make? If someone has the skills but doesn't get hired because they are Black or Hispanic or a woman or...whatever...then I have a problem with that. Just like I have a problem with white males who are qualified not getting hired because some mysterious "quota" is not being met.
What is it with this obsession in trying to artificially level the playing field? Imposing hiring quotas comes with the implicit suggestion that you, as the hiring manager, are a racist, sexist bigot and need to be told who to hire.
When I look back to my college days (admittedly quite a while ago) I just don't remember seeing very many black or hispanic kids in my Engineering classes. Could that be because maybe they just weren't that interested in Engineering as a career option? I don't know. But it seems to me that if you have fewer minorities graduating with Engineering degrees then you are naturally going to have fewer minorities working in this field.
The real problem with trying to artificially tilt the playing field is that it truly is a zero sum game. For every minority you "include" you "exclude" a white guy. Does that really solve the problem (assuming there was a problem in the first place)? Or is it just more feel-good, group-hug stuff to make some feel as if they are "making a difference" while all it really does is create resentment where none existed before?
The first thing you should probably do is an honest skills assessment. What are you good at? What are you not so good at? What do you enjoy or not enjoy doing? Most of the IT people I know tend to be more on the analytical side, good at problem solving, meticulous, etc. If it's just programming that you don't want to do then you could maybe try your hand at IT Security, Systems Administration, maybe even teaching if you want to show others how to do what you no longer want to do :-)
If you are comfortable taking a leadership role, can talk in front of large groups and are a bit more outgoing then you might be good at IT Sales, Project Management or Technical Management.
On the topic of introvert vs. extrovert: if you are an extrovert you're going to have more options. It's that simple. Extroverts are generally seen as being better "management material", mainly because other managers tend to be like that. And they like to hang out with people that are like them. Nearly every Sales person I have met has been an extrovert - many of them annoyingly so.
Being an introvert doesn't mean that you can't do these jobs. Just know that the vast majority of your peers are going to lean towards the extroverted side. Most importantly, if you're an introvert don't try to pretend that you're an extrovert. In the end, you'll be unhappy. Embrace who you are and find something you enjoy doing. That's the most important thing.
3D tv, 4K tv...it's all diminishing returns. Yes it's a better picture but it's not THAT much better. Certainly not worth the steep premium. It's the same reason that I'm still rocking my 5 year old MacBook Pro. Sure the new ones are faster but I'm happy with mine.
This is the challenge that all hardware makers face. Whether it's refrigerators, stereos, cars, cellphones. Nearly every category is really good - good enough for most everyone. There will always be the early adopters but many people - like me - are perfectly happy with what they have.
"I can't see the point of touch, unless you're walking around with it" - Bingo. If you need a device on the shop room floor or a warehouse then maybe the Surface is a good choice. Or perhaps you work in a hospital and need something to record patient notes.
But that's a pretty limited market. The fact of the matter is that the laptop is already the best form factor for productivity type work. Keyboard, mouse, good sized screen. Tablets are for goofing around on for the most part. Let's keep the two form factors separate.
and so too is Surface. It's trying to do too much and ends up not doing anything very well. Who wants a 12 inch tablet? Nobody. How about a 12 inch laptop? Could be ok for some tasks but it's a crappy keyboard - and it runs Windows 8.
The Macbook Air, which it's being compared to, is a far superior productivity device than the Surface. It has a real keyboard included (and a good one too).
Sorry but I just don't see Surface as best of breed. I can see people buying them hoping to have some sort of magical all in one device and ending up bringing another tablet along anyway. Because the Surface doesn't cut it as a tablet.
7 inch tablets are the way to go if you're going to have one and MS made a huge strategic miss by not offering one. Larger tablets are dying off in popularity now so who is this thing marketed to?
In principle it's supposed to stop telemarketers from bugging you. But in reality you still get calls because companies that you are currently doing business with are allowed to solicit you. Companies lobbied Congress for a loophole and got it.
As long as Do Not Track is voluntary it will be ineffective.
Actually Windows Phone is pretty good. But their market penetration is miniscule. The problem at MS is that they don't know how to market anything. They have made lots of good products (Zune comes to mind) that have failed in the marketplace. Lots. This new Surface just smells like another one to me.
it's a question of who is in power vs. who is not in power. When Obama was a Senator he was against mass surveillance (and Guantanamo for that matter) but when he gets in power he sees things differently. Same thing would have happened if Romney or McCain got elected.
The problem is that to ascend to those levels you have to make so many deals with big business and assorted money men. Then when you get in power they are all knocking at your door looking for favors.
The American government has brainwashed it's citizens into believing that there is an actual "terrorist" threat (whatever the hell that means) and that the only way to contain it is to collect information on everyone. Bullshit. You want "terrorists" to leave us alone? Then stop taking sides in the Middle East conflict. The US has, and will always be, strongly Pro-Israel. At the same time, they present themselves as mediators. How can a country be a mediator when it is so clearly in favor of one side over the other?
The United Nations has looked into it and passed numerous sanctions against Israel, mainly concerning the occupied territories and the continuing settlement building. All of them are ignored.
then Google can start collecting information on how often I open my fridge and then cross reference that with information from the supermarket (captured on those "loyalty" cards) that tells them the types of food I buy. From that they will determine that my diet is too high in trans fats and immediately notify every insurance company on earth to NOT sell me an insurance policy because of my poor dietary habits.
Do no evil my ass. I don't trust any of those Google pricks with my information. Same goes for Facebook.
Nothing - provided I'm right and they actually sell a lot in the enterprise market. That remains to be seen as the other two Surface tables haven't exactly set the world on fire.
I don't see this thing as a laptop replacement. I see it as a big tablet trying to be a laptop. A laptop with an optional keyboard. A flimsy rubber keyboard. All of the best tablet apps are either android or iOS and Surface won't run any of them.
Maybe I'm wrong here but I think it's going to be a flop. They have already lost hundreds of millions of dollars on the Surface line. Not only that but tablet sales in general are in decline. So even the good ones are not getting sold at the same pace.
Sure, the hardware specs look good. Nice processor, screen, etc. Light weight. Promises of great battery life.
But here's the problem...it's still running Windows 8 which nearly everyone seems to hate. Same thing with the phone. Nice Nokia hardware but shitty OS.
MS continues to make the mistake of comparing their hardware to the Mac hardware by only examining the hardware specs. They fail to look at it holistically. What's cool about Macs is that they run so smoothly. It's not about horsepower, it's about design. Something that is sorely lacking in Windows 8.
I predict that MS will sell quite a few of these in the enterprise market and almost none in the consumer space (well, almost none compared to the number of android and iPads that get sold).
What everyone seemed to want was a 7 inch Surface not a 12 inch Surface. Once again, MS fails to give consumers what they are asking for. Even Apple swallowed it's pride and came out with a 7 inch iPad. Why? Because it was obvious that consumers wanted it and tons of android tables with that form factor were flying off the shelves. So Apple was late to that market but at least they had enough sense to realize that they had made a mistake.
MS still has that monopolistic mindset. They don't seem to want to listen to what people want. They send out product after product to the marketplace only to lose millions of dollars on it and abandon it shortly thereafter.
What MS desperately wants to stop is the notion that you can get everything done without using any MS software or hardware. And that day is rapidly approaching if it's not already here. This new Surface will do nothing to slow that down.
BB is done. Some of their new products are interesting but BB has been irrelevant for too long. At one time they made the best smartphone on the market, certainly the most secure. Then they got fat and lazy and Apple and Android sped past them.
I had one of the older BB phones with the small screen and physical keyboard. Loved it. Great battery life, good call quality, secure. But no apps to speak of. Poor quality handsets (I know a lot of people that had to return them due to hardware failures). Then I got an iPhone and never looked back. Well, never looked back at BB. I did look at (and own) Android phones.
Now it's a two horse race. To me, BB is kind of like Windows phones. Yeah, some nice features but I'm not about to buy one. So long BB...we hardly knew ya.
Spot on. A short tale from my recent past...
There was this guy that used to live up the street from me. He had a sports car, a trailer, an SUV, a boat...basically every toy you can imagine. One day I'm driving by and I notice a sign on his front door. The bank foreclosed on his house. What an idiot. He surrounds himself with these stupid toys and neglects to pay his mortgage.
Sadly, the world is full of people like this. More concerned with trying to look rich than making the sacrifices to actually be rich. Short term gains. The guy riding the junk car with $3000 worth of tires and rims.
I look down my street and see all of these expensive cars and I just know that 8 out of 10 people can't afford them. Yet they sign up for leases and drive the things and get another one 2 years down the road. Great way to stay in debt forever.
Yeah, this GM internet thing is just going to take off for people like that.
yet another in car distraction, courteous of GM. Looks to me like a solution trying to find a problem. What, exactly, would one do with in-car internet? Catch up on the latest House of Cards episode while barrelling down the freeway at 70 mph? Fill in your fantasy football picks? While driving....in a car....possibly at high speed...certainly with a lot of distractions.
Do you think that maybe, just maybe, we could leave the internet behind until we're done driving? It's one thing to be surfing the web over a hot latte and another thing entirely to be doing it while piloting a 3000 lb. missile down the road. If you make a mistake at Starbuck's you spill your coffee. If you make a mistake in your car then maybe someone dies as a result of it.
Back in the day, unions were established to stop worker exploitation. One of the most visible of the exploited workers was the coal mine workers. They were forced to work in unsafe conditions and endure very long work hours. All so that greedy business owners could make more money off the backs of their employees.
Fast forward to today and it's a similar condition for today's tech workers. Many of them are forced to work very long hours without any overtime pay. All so that greedy business owners could make more money off the backs of their employees.
Although unions have become somewhat of a dirty word these days I can see the case for having unions for tech workers.
Off street parking - now there's a quaint notion. I remember hearing real estate agents gush about off street parking as if it were some huge benefit. Turns out that it was a huge benefit. Where I live now, everyone has off street parking. And on street parking. Heck, you just park wherever the heck you want to. No lines, no waiting.
There are a few things I miss about Boston (not many but a few) but parking is definitely not one of them.
I have no doubt that the results of this poll are accurate. It just stands to reason. Even if you happened to actually enjoy all the content of those 200 channels how could you possibly watch it all? There are just not enough hours in the day.
For me, about the only thing I watch live on cable is sporting events. Or the local news. Rarely movies because of all the commercials. Same with weekly TV series. The commercials just ruin the flow of it for me. The rest of it I will DVR and watch later - while skipping over the commercials. Almost all the movies and weekly series that I watch now come from Netflix.
The TV Cartels...oops, Cable Providers - know full well that most people only watch a small fraction of the available TV channels. They will continue to fight a la carte programming tooth and nail. Why? Because the current model makes them more money. As always, the bottom line is the bottom line.
As the technology improves it becomes easier to cut the cord. Personally the only reason I even have cable is that my wife likes to watch some programming that's not available anywhere else. So I keep it to keep her happy. Happy wife, happy life :-)
Were it only me in the household, I could easily see going to Netflix only. I might miss the sports for a while but eventually I'd find something better to do with my time and probably wonder why I even watched sports in the first place.
Meanwhile, the TV cartels sit by and watch as the technology makes it easier and easier to escape from their filthy grip.
I lived in Boston for a while and the parking is just as bad there as it is in SF. For those of you that have not visited the fine city of Boston, allow me to enlighten you. Boston is an historical city and, as such, has numerous historical buildings. Buildings that cannot be knocked down in order to widen roads. The road that Paul Revere travelled on is just as wide now as it was then.
Lots of one way streets and lots of one hour parking. The cops there would ride around with little bits of chalk. The first time through they would put a chalk mark on the tires of the cars in the one hour parking zone. An hour later they return and any car there with chalk on the tire gets a ticket. So of course it became a game of cat and mouse - cop puts chalk, car owner rubs it off.
When it snows it's worse because the snow plows can't get through so you would have to park on alternate sides of the street depending on the day of the week. If you're caught on the wrong side when the snow plows come through they just tow your car.
The moral of the story is that if you live in Boston, or SF for that matter, take public transportation whenever you can. Driving and parking in either of those cities is a pain in the ass and is to be avoided at all costs.
One of the reasons I left Boston was the traffic and parking. I got sick of it.
Naturally, this app is going to get banned. You don't own the land you are parking your car on. The owner of the parking lot sets the price, not the person renting the spot.
First of all, Stanford does not own $18B in coal stocks. 18B is the ENTIRE endowment amount. Coal stocks are a small fraction of the total.
Now that that little correction is out of the way....
Stanford seems to me to be making an entirely political statement. Selling all of their coal stock is not going to change the supply of coal by even an ounce. Someone else will simply buy the shares.
I wonder how many of those coal plants are producing electricity that powers all those Teslas that I see on the roads here? The electricity has to come from somewhere and there are not enough Solar panels to meet the need. Other options? Nuclear? Not in California.
Almost any way you slice it, power generation is a dirty business.
Shouldn't the responsibility of the endowment trustees be strictly fiduciary? In other words, manage the money and leave the political grandstanding to someone else.
I'm not so sure about that. If BR disks were available tomorrow for $5-10 each I think you might find a lot of people buying them. But, once again, greed reins supreme in Hollywood. They remain stubbornly fixated on "pirates" and refuse to budge on the price. BR has a lot of benefits. It's just that, for me, the cost outweighs the benefits.
Laserdisks - now there's a blast from the past :-)
I suppose that for the serious audiophile/videophile there is no substitute for BR. It does have outstanding sound and video quality. But for me, life goes on and I just don't have the time to devote to such "hobbies" any longer. I'm sort of at the "plop down on the sofa and see what's on the tube" kind of mentality. Convenience trumps quality.
The fact that NetFlix is cheaper is just icing on the cake.