"But the technology has thus far failed to become ubiquitous in the consumer realm, and it remains to be seen whether the new iPhone — which is all but guaranteed to sell millions of units — can popularize something that consumers don't seem to want."
This is not how Apple thinks of design. Instead of asking people "Do you want a fingerprint scanner?" the question they ask themselves is "How do we make security easier if not completely transparent to the end user?" If you asked people if they wanted to be secure without having to do anything at all, your answer would be different. The fingerprint scanner just happens to be the right solution to the problem (in Apple's opinion).
Now please start working on a replacement for my liver.
Seriously though, I wonder how long it will be before brain diseases such as Alzheimer's, Pick's disease and the like are considered the most catastrophic things that can happen to you as other body parts become easier to grow and replace.
SpaceX has nothing to do with space exploration - the business model is making money with commercial space flight.
I respectfully disagree. Saying the above is like saying that ship building in the 1700s had nothing to do with world exploration. The reasons for building them were pretty much the same - commerce and defence. But doing so leads to a foundation upon which "economical" exploration can be achieved.
That said, I used the term exploration to encompass the pursuit of commerce in an environment that is very much still exploratory, but your point is well taken (and completely valid). I should have said "...dismissing space innovation..." and that would have been more accurate.
Look up some of the speeches Elon has given about re-thinking spaceflight and you may agree that SpaceX is very much exploratory in nature (still). Fascinating stuff.
"The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in." --Robert A. Heinlein.
I understand what you are saying, but I just don't agree. Despite what Hollywood tells you, when that asteroid is on its way Bruce Willis will not be able to save you. We need options, and the sooner the better. "A footnote of history" will be a meaningless phrase (though apropos) if there is nobody to write or read it.
Although somehow it would be fitting if the only thing to survive were the space robots...
"I guess it's fun, because you shoot rockets up in the air," he said. "But it's not an area that I'll be putting money into."
Sounds like he has no more vision now than he did when he was running Microsoft. I am totally in favour of his philanthropic work, and I agree with him that we should solve the difficult people problems first, but dismissing space exploration or the benefits of connectivity for the purposes of educating the third world out of poverty is short sighted.
Yes, all completely true. One year college course in jewellery, moved to a small town to take a full-time job in the business, and she moves into her new house tomorrow. Mind you the house needs a lot of work, but that's really the point isn't it? She could be sitting in an apartment handing her money over to someone else and complaining about how the house of her dreams is out of reach and the people with all the money just keep getting richer. Instead she is building equity and settling for what she can afford.
And she doesn't have a car. She walks to work, though it takes her about 30 minutes to do so. No public transit in the small town.
As it turns out, I completely agree with you with respect to growing up in a system complete with a free market economy, a social safety net, and a democratically elected system of government. And I have posted as much in this thread. That I left that out in my first post was about TFA which was about US workers in a US warehouse owned by a US company and an American president.
And while it was fun to read your lengthy assessment of my character after reading a few sentences of mine, you are completely off the mark with respect to how I feel about the less fortunate. Again, TFA was about EMPLOYED workers in the US and the middle class.
In the US there are 14 cans of beans. And 15 people. (unemployment rate of ~7.5%) 14 people each get a can of beans, they are allowed to eat only 70% of the can and have to give 30% to the government. The government spends their 30% making sure that their hill of beans is protected from outside forces, that their supply of beans is secure and stable, that the 15 people have access to medical coverage, clean water, sewage systems, etc. The 15th person has access to the infrastructure the government purchased with the 30% of the other 14 people, and is given food stamps to get some beans of his own.
The 15th person complains he is poor. The other 14 people complain about government waste and how the government should be doing more for the 15th person (without raising their taxes). Meanwhile in other countries without free markets and social programs there is one can of beans and 10 people...
I completely agree with you. If you don't live in a country with free markets, which has a strong social safety net, and which is democratically organized, getting ahead in life (if you want that) is very difficult if not impossible. The people who do not, but want to, try to immigrate.
If you're telling me that there is "mass unemployment" in the US, I'm calling BS. It's 7.6% in the US, 7.7% in the UK, and 7.1% in Canada. I suppose there is supposed to be some conspiracy against youth. After my daughter moved to a new city to go to college she called me to ask for money (before her student loans came in). I told her to get a part-time job instead. She called me back in 20 minutes to say she had one, in the same vertical she was going to school for, and that it paid $12/hr. Meanwhile people her age were camped out in parks smoking dope, texting each other on their cell phones, and telling the cameras they were the disenfranchised youth of today and we should all feel sorry for them.
I know, I know. If you grow up in the middle of nowhere (like I did), you can't just walk out your door and get a job. That's why I sold worms, cut grass, and pumped gas while I tried my hand at writing articles and submitting them for publication to magazines like Compute! and Compute's Gazette.
I'll take your bet. I've got two daughters making the same climb. Without my help. The first one started off selling doughnuts and coffee three years ago, she now has a college diploma, is in the jewellery business, and just bought her first house. Again, I gave her advice, but nothing else.
Boo hoo hoo. Life is hard.
Apparently I'm using up my 10 years of good karma in a single thread... What the hell.
You're right, the people who have it all don't work for it, they've already got it and now they spend their days on the golf course making the hard decisions of which division to amputate in order to make this quarter's numbers look good enough for a bonus.
I get up at 5am and am on my way out by 6am. I get home around 6:30pm at which point I make dinner for myself and my wife, check to see what the ACs on Slashdot have posted, and then go to bed so I can do it all again the next day. I don't have a TV, a stereo, a video game console, or for that matter a microwave.
I don't play golf and I spend most weekends trying to get caught up on the around-the-house work that I don't have the time or energy to do during the week.
You my AC friend are either self deluded, have been taken in by the mainstream media, or both. And everybody I know with my kind of responsibility is still working their asses off after 25 years of working their asses off. Oh, and I willingly pay ALL the taxes I owe, every dime.
It's not a popular message, but I'm sick of hearing the bitching. You want it, you have to work for it. Your whole fucking life. You don't want to work that hard? No problem, but don't complain about the people who do.
Oh, and "golf-playing megalomaniacs like me" hire people and CARE about their well being. I hired a Lync/Exchange/Windows guy yesterday. I am paying him VERY well and he chose to work for me because I can offer him a better work/life balance.
Okay everyone, pick up your stones and throw. I don't give a shit anymore.
Seriously. I sold dew worms to fishermen for a year to buy my first computer (which I had to solder together myself). I taught myself to program, got hired to train other people, worked at solution delivery for a while, moved into architecture, then management, and now I'm the 1% that people complain about.
Everybody wants it all but doesn't want to work for it. Guess what? It doesn't work that way. Bitching and whining about what you don't have and how others have it all and how come you don't blah blah blah won't cut it. You have to work hard. While I was building my first computer my house didn't even have running water.
Working in a location that pays higher dollars makes perfect sense if you are also investing that money in a house/condo in the same area. Why? Because it is not a bad retirement plan. You sell your $1m condo in downtown whereever and buy a nice home in a country setting for less than half that and live off the rest. Risk the housing market will go down? Yes, but not as much risk as in less dense areas, and IMHO lower than the risk of investing in the stock/bonds/currencies/minerals/commodities markets.
You should still have some retirement savings, but living and working in a high standard of living area and then moving out later is a good idea. If you can stand it.
What we really need is a committee of reasonable, well adjusted, intelligent and WELL PAID people to review all the stupid ideas every government department comes up with and reject most of them. The only money you get to spend is the time required to submit your idea to the "stupid idea review committee" and not a dime more unless they agree that your idea has merit.
Anyone found lobbying the "stupid idea committee" is shot by firing squad in a public ceremony.
I hire programmers, and frankly at this point I am more inclined to hire an older programmer than a younger. The issue is about focus and discipline. Of course there are lots of young people who have learned how to focus on something for more than 30 seconds at a time, and I'm sure there are also some that have the self discipline to organize their life in ways that make them the most productive. But wisdom comes with age and for my particular management style someone who is self propelled and who has these qualities is desirable.
I think your only issue is going to be one of experience as you go forward with other job prospects. You'll just need to stand on what you have learned as someone who takes their career seriously, and is paying attention.
Totally correct, and thanks for replying. I was thinking of the airline industry exclusive of the actual flying of the plane. I have nothing but praise for the pilots and for that matter the air traffic controllers. I can remember a time when it wasn't uncommon to circle an airport for 20 minutes before landing. That just never happens now.
Re: Hard landings. Landed in Las Vegas on Sunday and actually bounced. First time for me. No complains though, no way in hell I could do it...
Let's face it. The reason people drag all of their worldly possessions with them as carry-on is because we don't trust the baggage handlers to not destroy/steal/lose our stuff. I see this every time I fly. People don't actually want to lug a 49.9 lb wheeled bag onto the plane and then try to find/lift/get help to put it in an overhead compartment.
The carry-on problem is being caused by the baggage problem. If you solve the baggage problem, TSA security would be checking small handbags or pocket change not hockey sticks, LAN party servers, thirty pairs of shoes, etc.
Oh, and charging people for checked bags is making the problem worse, not better. What is it about the airline industry that has made every decision maker involved utterly stupid? The only aspect of air travel I can think of that doesn't operate in a wrong-headed way are the mechanics who keep the planes from falling out of the sky.
I notice they do not include a picture of the wireheaded rats (only an artists impression). Probably wise. While I for one believe that the advancement of science to be the greatest height to which a rat could aspire, I have a feeling that others (and possibly the rats) do not feel the same way.
You can also change the e-mail address on your Apple account. No loss of your previous purchases.
I think I would do this on anything where they had my CC info on file. Then pick a strong password for both your old and new e-mail address and wait for them to go away.
Yes, poor name, but the BBC recently put together a decent documentary about Hacktivists amongst other cyber security topics called The Hackers. Nothing in it may be news to you but it may be a useful resource for someone you know who doesn't understand the point or how it is done. True to the documentary form, they spent most of it on interviews with the people involved.
Slashdot Mirror
"But the technology has thus far failed to become ubiquitous in the consumer realm, and it remains to be seen whether the new iPhone — which is all but guaranteed to sell millions of units — can popularize something that consumers don't seem to want."
This is not how Apple thinks of design. Instead of asking people "Do you want a fingerprint scanner?" the question they ask themselves is "How do we make security easier if not completely transparent to the end user?" If you asked people if they wanted to be secure without having to do anything at all, your answer would be different. The fingerprint scanner just happens to be the right solution to the problem (in Apple's opinion).
I'm with you. The iPhone is just getting too damn small for my 2000 year-old eyes to see anymore. Make it bigger FFS! Stupid kids...
Can we please at least spell check the title? Thanks.
Now please start working on a replacement for my liver.
Seriously though, I wonder how long it will be before brain diseases such as Alzheimer's, Pick's disease and the like are considered the most catastrophic things that can happen to you as other body parts become easier to grow and replace.
SpaceX has nothing to do with space exploration - the business model is making money with commercial space flight.
I respectfully disagree. Saying the above is like saying that ship building in the 1700s had nothing to do with world exploration. The reasons for building them were pretty much the same - commerce and defence. But doing so leads to a foundation upon which "economical" exploration can be achieved.
That said, I used the term exploration to encompass the pursuit of commerce in an environment that is very much still exploratory, but your point is well taken (and completely valid). I should have said "...dismissing space innovation..." and that would have been more accurate.
Look up some of the speeches Elon has given about re-thinking spaceflight and you may agree that SpaceX is very much exploratory in nature (still). Fascinating stuff.
Cheers!
"The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in."
--Robert A. Heinlein.
I understand what you are saying, but I just don't agree. Despite what Hollywood tells you, when that asteroid is on its way Bruce Willis will not be able to save you. We need options, and the sooner the better. "A footnote of history" will be a meaningless phrase (though apropos) if there is nobody to write or read it.
Although somehow it would be fitting if the only thing to survive were the space robots...
"I guess it's fun, because you shoot rockets up in the air," he said. "But it's not an area that I'll be putting money into."
Sounds like he has no more vision now than he did when he was running Microsoft. I am totally in favour of his philanthropic work, and I agree with him that we should solve the difficult people problems first, but dismissing space exploration or the benefits of connectivity for the purposes of educating the third world out of poverty is short sighted.
Yes, all completely true. One year college course in jewellery, moved to a small town to take a full-time job in the business, and she moves into her new house tomorrow. Mind you the house needs a lot of work, but that's really the point isn't it? She could be sitting in an apartment handing her money over to someone else and complaining about how the house of her dreams is out of reach and the people with all the money just keep getting richer. Instead she is building equity and settling for what she can afford.
And she doesn't have a car. She walks to work, though it takes her about 30 minutes to do so. No public transit in the small town.
You sound angry.
As it turns out, I completely agree with you with respect to growing up in a system complete with a free market economy, a social safety net, and a democratically elected system of government. And I have posted as much in this thread. That I left that out in my first post was about TFA which was about US workers in a US warehouse owned by a US company and an American president.
And while it was fun to read your lengthy assessment of my character after reading a few sentences of mine, you are completely off the mark with respect to how I feel about the less fortunate. Again, TFA was about EMPLOYED workers in the US and the middle class.
But you have a big dick. You win. Go you.
This is the best analogy you've heard??
In the US there are 14 cans of beans. And 15 people. (unemployment rate of ~7.5%) 14 people each get a can of beans, they are allowed to eat only 70% of the can and have to give 30% to the government. The government spends their 30% making sure that their hill of beans is protected from outside forces, that their supply of beans is secure and stable, that the 15 people have access to medical coverage, clean water, sewage systems, etc. The 15th person has access to the infrastructure the government purchased with the 30% of the other 14 people, and is given food stamps to get some beans of his own.
The 15th person complains he is poor. The other 14 people complain about government waste and how the government should be doing more for the 15th person (without raising their taxes). Meanwhile in other countries without free markets and social programs there is one can of beans and 10 people...
I completely agree with you. If you don't live in a country with free markets, which has a strong social safety net, and which is democratically organized, getting ahead in life (if you want that) is very difficult if not impossible. The people who do not, but want to, try to immigrate.
If you're telling me that there is "mass unemployment" in the US, I'm calling BS. It's 7.6% in the US, 7.7% in the UK, and 7.1% in Canada. I suppose there is supposed to be some conspiracy against youth. After my daughter moved to a new city to go to college she called me to ask for money (before her student loans came in). I told her to get a part-time job instead. She called me back in 20 minutes to say she had one, in the same vertical she was going to school for, and that it paid $12/hr. Meanwhile people her age were camped out in parks smoking dope, texting each other on their cell phones, and telling the cameras they were the disenfranchised youth of today and we should all feel sorry for them.
I know, I know. If you grow up in the middle of nowhere (like I did), you can't just walk out your door and get a job. That's why I sold worms, cut grass, and pumped gas while I tried my hand at writing articles and submitting them for publication to magazines like Compute! and Compute's Gazette.
Sadly, they never published anything from me. ;)
I'll take your bet. I've got two daughters making the same climb. Without my help. The first one started off selling doughnuts and coffee three years ago, she now has a college diploma, is in the jewellery business, and just bought her first house. Again, I gave her advice, but nothing else.
Boo hoo hoo. Life is hard.
Apparently I'm using up my 10 years of good karma in a single thread... What the hell.
You're right, the people who have it all don't work for it, they've already got it and now they spend their days on the golf course making the hard decisions of which division to amputate in order to make this quarter's numbers look good enough for a bonus.
I get up at 5am and am on my way out by 6am. I get home around 6:30pm at which point I make dinner for myself and my wife, check to see what the ACs on Slashdot have posted, and then go to bed so I can do it all again the next day. I don't have a TV, a stereo, a video game console, or for that matter a microwave.
I don't play golf and I spend most weekends trying to get caught up on the around-the-house work that I don't have the time or energy to do during the week.
You my AC friend are either self deluded, have been taken in by the mainstream media, or both. And everybody I know with my kind of responsibility is still working their asses off after 25 years of working their asses off. Oh, and I willingly pay ALL the taxes I owe, every dime.
It's not a popular message, but I'm sick of hearing the bitching. You want it, you have to work for it. Your whole fucking life. You don't want to work that hard? No problem, but don't complain about the people who do.
Oh, and "golf-playing megalomaniacs like me" hire people and CARE about their well being. I hired a Lync/Exchange/Windows guy yesterday. I am paying him VERY well and he chose to work for me because I can offer him a better work/life balance.
Okay everyone, pick up your stones and throw. I don't give a shit anymore.
Seriously. I sold dew worms to fishermen for a year to buy my first computer (which I had to solder together myself). I taught myself to program, got hired to train other people, worked at solution delivery for a while, moved into architecture, then management, and now I'm the 1% that people complain about.
Everybody wants it all but doesn't want to work for it. Guess what? It doesn't work that way. Bitching and whining about what you don't have and how others have it all and how come you don't blah blah blah won't cut it. You have to work hard. While I was building my first computer my house didn't even have running water.
Ask me if I'm sympathetic.
I've been on Slashdot for (what seems like) forever, and this article summary is probably the best I have ever seen. Well done Nerval's Lobster!
Sadly I have nothing intelligent to say about the content.
Is there any rule-of-thumb that applies to California? ;)
Working in a location that pays higher dollars makes perfect sense if you are also investing that money in a house/condo in the same area. Why? Because it is not a bad retirement plan. You sell your $1m condo in downtown whereever and buy a nice home in a country setting for less than half that and live off the rest. Risk the housing market will go down? Yes, but not as much risk as in less dense areas, and IMHO lower than the risk of investing in the stock/bonds/currencies/minerals/commodities markets.
You should still have some retirement savings, but living and working in a high standard of living area and then moving out later is a good idea. If you can stand it.
What we really need is a committee of reasonable, well adjusted, intelligent and WELL PAID people to review all the stupid ideas every government department comes up with and reject most of them. The only money you get to spend is the time required to submit your idea to the "stupid idea review committee" and not a dime more unless they agree that your idea has merit.
Anyone found lobbying the "stupid idea committee" is shot by firing squad in a public ceremony.
We would save billions.
I hire programmers, and frankly at this point I am more inclined to hire an older programmer than a younger. The issue is about focus and discipline. Of course there are lots of young people who have learned how to focus on something for more than 30 seconds at a time, and I'm sure there are also some that have the self discipline to organize their life in ways that make them the most productive. But wisdom comes with age and for my particular management style someone who is self propelled and who has these qualities is desirable.
I think your only issue is going to be one of experience as you go forward with other job prospects. You'll just need to stand on what you have learned as someone who takes their career seriously, and is paying attention.
The National Post has an excellent graphic of the worlds nuclear stockpile that helps to put things into perspective.
Totally correct, and thanks for replying. I was thinking of the airline industry exclusive of the actual flying of the plane. I have nothing but praise for the pilots and for that matter the air traffic controllers. I can remember a time when it wasn't uncommon to circle an airport for 20 minutes before landing. That just never happens now.
Re: Hard landings. Landed in Las Vegas on Sunday and actually bounced. First time for me. No complains though, no way in hell I could do it...
Let's face it. The reason people drag all of their worldly possessions with them as carry-on is because we don't trust the baggage handlers to not destroy/steal/lose our stuff. I see this every time I fly. People don't actually want to lug a 49.9 lb wheeled bag onto the plane and then try to find/lift/get help to put it in an overhead compartment.
The carry-on problem is being caused by the baggage problem. If you solve the baggage problem, TSA security would be checking small handbags or pocket change not hockey sticks, LAN party servers, thirty pairs of shoes, etc.
Oh, and charging people for checked bags is making the problem worse, not better. What is it about the airline industry that has made every decision maker involved utterly stupid? The only aspect of air travel I can think of that doesn't operate in a wrong-headed way are the mechanics who keep the planes from falling out of the sky.
{rant/}
I notice they do not include a picture of the wireheaded rats (only an artists impression). Probably wise. While I for one believe that the advancement of science to be the greatest height to which a rat could aspire, I have a feeling that others (and possibly the rats) do not feel the same way.
Not hard.
How do I change my Apple ID
You can also change the e-mail address on your Apple account. No loss of your previous purchases.
I think I would do this on anything where they had my CC info on file. Then pick a strong password for both your old and new e-mail address and wait for them to go away.
Yes, poor name, but the BBC recently put together a decent documentary about Hacktivists amongst other cyber security topics called The Hackers. Nothing in it may be news to you but it may be a useful resource for someone you know who doesn't understand the point or how it is done. True to the documentary form, they spent most of it on interviews with the people involved.