Having a fairly common name and a early gmail where I snagged first initial + last name I get a lot of junk there. Password reset attempts aplenty, people's airline tickets, house listings, closing documents...
Those I want off of I send a nice mail to support at the company and claim fraudulent use of my email address to register with them. You'd be amazed how fast your email will be off their account (sometimes the account survives that, sometimes... the id10t gets to get a new account -- have fun with that!).
Same here. Once got onto a string of lawyers emails. Most people are nice and thank you when you reach out, as I do when it is an obvious mistake. Only once did an id10t insist it was the right address. I said fine, but I have no responsibility to protect all that private information you are sending me. Eventually it stopped, I assume when the intended receipient asked about it and was told 'but I've been sending it for months...'
...which is unbelievably fallacious. Just because someone didn't go to, or finish, college, doesn't mean they lack the aptitude or drive to stock shelves for money.
All of which is irrelevant in the real work job market. Companies do that, and that is what non-degreed job seekers face.
>As one professor pointed out in an econ class - the real value of a degree is the signal it sends - you are someone who at least can stick to something long enough to finish it. Simply put, it takes some of the workload off of the person looking to hire.
Did he also mention that it proves that even when you won't make money doing something, or worse, that you might even lose money doing it, you stick to it and complete it anyways? For years on end? Even while you accumulate the send largest debt load of your life?
"18.5 per cent of those graduates earn less than half of the country’s median income of $37,002"
Face it, your professor just wants you to feel good about getting your degree.
Actually no, since virtually all of my classmates (98%) had jobs after graduation; many starting in 6 figures. His point was correct - while many of us could take the job we got after graduation before we started school and done just as well the companies would not consider that w/o the signal the degree sent. It may be stupid, we may disagree with it (using a degree as a signal), but it is reality.
"As one professor pointed out in an econ class - the real value of a degree is the signal it sends - you are someone who at least can stick to something long enough to finish it..."
But, then again, I'd have to wonder why someone with a college degree is applying for a file clerk position. After all, taking on a huge debt just to get a job as a file clerk makes so much sense.
But, then AGAIN, this is Slashdot. I wonder how much money Dice was paid by the Association of American Colleges and Universities for this article.
In the current economic climate, I know of a lot of people, with degrees, doing such work because they need a job.Will they move on? Sure, once the market heats up but right now the reality is there are enough job seekers with degree that will take jobs below their qualifications that many companies do not need to even consider candidates w/o a degree.
The Econ professor should have mentioned that the supply of college graduates is so high that non-college graduates with high school diplomas are now the rarer commodity. Within reason, it is now actually more admirable to pass on college. (within reason = did well in HS and showed commitment, competence, and drive in your post HS jobs)
The problem is the non-degree resume never makes it past the ignore pile.
'When you get 800 résumés for every job ad, you need to weed them out somehow,'
As one professor pointed out in an econ class - the real value of a degree is the signal it sends - you are someone who at least can stick to something long enough to finish it. Simply put, it takes some of the workload off of the person looking to hire.
No guns drawn on us, but my wife and I, who really like Happy Jack's in Fort Erie, have lost a bit of desire to go there for lunch because of the assholes manning the US side of the border. On special occasions, we'll push our luck and go, and the Canadians are always cool about it. The Americans are almost always total power-tripping buttheads.
Canadian Customs and Immigration can be butt heads as well. I've had friends detained for hours because an official decided a Canadian could do the work (never mind he was teaching on a very specific subject and methodology that he had years of expertise implementing - and the work fell under NAFTA Professional Categorization). At one point it was looking like I was going to run the session and do the setup all by myself if my coworkers got sent back. We finally decided to simply move the future sessions to the US and avoid the hassle.
In many ways the degr is not about leading but signaling prospective employers or clients that you can learn and stick it out through time. If you wind up competing with people who have degrees you may find yourself at a disadvantage no matter how good you are. In addition, as others have pointed about the degree is about learning theory and concepts that you can broadly apply; not building a specific but perishable skill set.
Right. So how's the roaming between USA, Canada and Mexico? That's what i thought.
Depends on your plan; but then again the US , Canada and Mexico don't claim to be one common borderless market. the EU carriers have managed to find an excuse to stick it to their customers because you cross an internal border; that would be like the big 4 US carriers charging roaming fees because someone went from Atlanta to Miami. Years ago they did it but that has all but gone away. The US market has evolved differently and pretty much gone to an unlimited use model for calls - given that after hours and mobile to mobile calls don't use minutes.
Sorry......I might be late with the reply but I have to.....
You complain about roaming in Europe compared to the US?
Newsflash:
Europe consists of _different_ countries!!
My apologies, but your post suggests that you have no idea.
/C
Actually I do; and think if people want to bit h about the US carriers than comparing service areas and prices is not unreasonable. The US not only has 48 contiguous states but also a number of independent nations plus 2 non-contiguous states and a number of territories. So, apology accepted and perhaps you need to answer the clue phone when it rings to discuss cell phone markets. After all, if consumer protection were so important and the EU so grand who cares about things like national borders if yo gruel are one market with one set of boundary less rules?
Euro problems or not, but for the customers its great here in Europe.
I never had the situation here that a mobile provider tried to force me onto a certain mobile phone. The reason for this is that the European union has a lot of laws regarding the availability of services everywhere and that no competitor may have a disadvantage by closed markets. In the same way the mobility of the cititzens should not be limited.
Soemthing like: "If you use the phone which we did not sell you, we charge extra" would bring you into an overkill of lawsuits.
Actually, US carriers don't charge extra - they just don't offer a discount and non-contract plans as you go plans are often targeted to people who are total price sensitive (i.e. is it $10 or 430 per card) rather than to the actual cost per minute. There is some movement to offering cheaper no contract plans - Walmart is starting to advertise unsubsidized iPhones with lower per month rates; although their "unlimited" data is really "use more than 2GB per months for a few months and we may not let you renew..." according to the sales rep I talked to when considering it for a second phone.
OTOH, the EU is still in the dark ages when it comes to roaming - why can't my UK SIM work the same way throughout the EU - no charge for incoming calls, same low per minute or text rate everywhere? Roaming fees may be capped but why should there be any? After all, in the US you can roam virtually anywhere; at least with the big 4, for one flat rate.
Tim already said it is coming. The email has been confirmed by Apple. "Apple confirmed to Macworld that the message is indeed from Cook."
No ones doubting the message, just its interpretation. "... something really great late next year..." could mean a new MP desktop or something completely different. People want to believe Apple will continue to build a high end expandable MP but their idea of "really great" may not be that. Hell, it could be an iMac Pro or Mini Pro my point is nowhere in the email does Cook explicitly say a new MP is in the works. The email is classic corporate speak that let's everyone read into it what they want to hear.
it reminds me of the old board game Diplomacy - never make a specific promos is but say things in a way that makes people think you are on their side.
Apple: New Mac Pro that will amaze you in 2013.
iHaters: Hardly a solid statement on the MP future.
Fair enough - were did Apple definitely state that - rather than it being the conclusion from a series of non-definitive statements? Personally, I'd love to see a new MP but am not holding my breath.
Apple does not plan to modify their machines and will simply pull them from market in the EU.
In all likelihood it's because they've got a new Mac Pro model ready to launch. The Mac Pro hasn't had a significant update in years, it's the only Mac that doesn't have a Thunderbolt port, for example.
While a new MP may be coming - all the referenced articles said were - MP customers are important, great things are coming to the desktop in 2013, we are working on MP designs which probably will be coming in 2013. Hardly a solid statement on the MP future.
I would avoid punctuation as people will get it wrong and not realize the intended person did not get it. Worse, I have an account with a provider that ignores punctuation even though you can put it in your email address so first.last and first last both go to me. I had an idiot admin insist he had the correct email even though I told him I was getting emils with private information from him. He refused to verify the addy and suggested I change mine. I declined and said since I notified him of the privacy violation I had no responsibility for any fallout.
This has nothing to do with First Sale; it doesn't affect your ability to sell the phone. In-fact, there are specific exception in place for used phones. It even opens a huge loop-hole for unlocking. As used phones are exempt from this decisions all you need to do it "sell" your phone to the person unlocking it for say $1, let them unlock it, and then "buy" it back for $1.
oddly enough, the FAQ linked in the summary states it applies only to phones bought from a carrier - so if I buy my iPhone from a Apple or a reseller who get sthe subsidy it seems the rule does not apply. IANAL but that seems to be another loophole.
In the UK you can buy phones on contract unlocked, and usually cheaper too
You can in the US as well - Sprint and Verizon sell phones with GSM SIM unlocked; and you can buy it at the contract price. You can't take a Verizon Phone to sprint (and vice versa) on the CDMA side even though you can roam on each other's network; but that's not due to locking, in the GSM sense, but do to the way they register phone serials in their database.
>Apparently the free market has failed in the US, because it was able to buy laws designed to distort it in the phone company's favour.
I'm not sure how you come to this conclusion - I can buy an unlocked phone at full retail, a subsidized but locked phone at a discount, or a CDMA phone with the GSM SIM unlocked. Nothing in a free market says someone has to sell you what you want at a price you want; or that failure to offe ryou what you want is a failure of a free market.
You couldn't automate calling every number in the phone book. I agree with you that this is vastly overhyped, but digital storage can't be directly compared to paper storage.
You could also buy databases of all listed US numbers - I've used them in the past to help company's analyze business opportunities by identifying the number and types of businesses in various locations. When I did, it was trivially easy to dump the entire database into Excel or Access and build queries to return the needed information.
last time I went for a haircut, the first thing they asked me was my name. fine, they can call me when the next haircutter is open.
then they wanted my phone #. really? for a date, maybe?;) (some of they are definitely cute).
reminds me of a rental app I was once asked to fill in. it had the usual ss#, date of birth, full name - but they also asked mothers maiden name. now, I realize that with some work, you can get that from public records, but you have to work for it and its still partially a password of sorts that banks use to verify your ID when you call on the phone (or lost your password for online). a housing rental that wanted pretty much all the info that the bank would ask me to verify my id. yeah, sure, I'll just give you that (not!). when I called the realtor on this, he simply said 'good luck in your search'. basically, he knew he was asking more than he had a right to and simply avoided admitting it.
watch what you give out, people. think about every bit of info and if they don't need it, don't give it to them.
Why do people assume you have to give everyone real info? They have no way of knowing what your mother's maidan name and simply picking something you can remember such as some random street name you like. Unless you pick something truly bizzare, like West 52nd or Avenue of the Americas, Lindy or Ruby should be fine. Oddly enough, the only person I know who has had an issue is because her maiden name only has a few consonants (thanks to the immigration guy at Ellis Island when her grandfather emigrated) and gets questioned when she gives her name. I've done that, along with giving a long defunct corporate phone number and never had an issue; in fact 555-1212 with a random area code works fine for affinity cards.
Intel seems fixated on the idea that users want some sort of convergence device that combines a tablet with a traditional PC. They see the iPad's sales numbers and think: "If only it had a keyboard and ran a PC OS..."
Adding a touch screen to an ultrabook doesn't address the fundamental flaw in such an approach: users interact differently with touch screen devices than PCs. Slapping a touchscreen on top of an OS that isn't really geared to the way users interact with a tablet device won't address that; all you wind up with is a device that does many things poorly, For example:
You wind up with a UI designed for keyboard and mouse; with programs that primarily rely on a keyboard for input. Sure you can navigate with a touchscreen but will still be forced back to a keyboard for most work unless software developers add in touch input capability beyond just an onscreen keyboard. Without that, you have a big touchpad that needs a keyboard anyway.
Screen resolution is more important on a tablet than a PC. The iPad's Retina display makes it really good as a reader; to do a similar display on a PC quickly drives up the cost. So you wind up with a cost vs quality issue; making the tablet part less compelling.
Portability suffers as well. Tablets are nice because of their size; which makes them ideal for casual reading, email, watching video or web browsing. You can easily carry an iPad around all day where a PC quickly gets cumbersome.
Along with portability is battery life. Most tablets have really good battery life relative to PCs. A tablet that goes dead twice as fast as those on the current market is not very compelling; or you have to add expensive batteries to get reasonable useful run times which drives of cost. Alternatively; you could add big batteries but that then hits the portability issue.
Is convergence possible? Sure, and I think it will happen but it will be driven by software, not hardware. Once the software delivers an experience that lets people use a PC less and less the transition will occur. At that point, however, your less likely to see a laptop with a touch screen than a tablet that has a wireless external keyboard / trackpad for times when a finger on screen just won't cut it.
s>looking at the converse question is rather illuminating: why aren't more programmers entrepreneurs? a meritocratic mindset is very inefficient if what you want is to make money in a society which does not directly appreciate merit.
While I agree it is mindset, it's not a meritocratic one but rather an unwillingness to leap from a known and relatively safe position into the unknown and much more risky situation.
I never believed the whole "95% of interviewees fail the FizzBuzz test" until I started interviewing candidates. People with 15 years of "experience" on their resume would regularly fail or give up. I also encouraged googling, including just searching for the exact problem, and I encouraged questions and told them that both behaviors were seen as a good thing. IDK how someone could possibly get through a CS program and still fail this test, but it happened regularly.
Ok, but you could do that with a single BASIC print command and some pencil and paper work and a quick google of "Multiples of 3 color chart." Should take about 2 minutes or so; and I have no coding experience beyond Fortran in college. If you are looking for problem solving skills it might be a good exercise ; come to think of it I might use it next time a do a round of consultant new hire interviews. Break up the "Why are manhole cover's round?" monotony.
Slashdot Mirror
Having a fairly common name and a early gmail where I snagged first initial + last name I get a lot of junk there. Password reset attempts aplenty, people's airline tickets, house listings, closing documents...
Those I want off of I send a nice mail to support at the company and claim fraudulent use of my email address to register with them. You'd be amazed how fast your email will be off their account (sometimes the account survives that, sometimes... the id10t gets to get a new account -- have fun with that!).
Same here. Once got onto a string of lawyers emails. Most people are nice and thank you when you reach out, as I do when it is an obvious mistake. Only once did an id10t insist it was the right address. I said fine, but I have no responsibility to protect all that private information you are sending me. Eventually it stopped, I assume when the intended receipient asked about it and was told 'but I've been sending it for months...'
...which is unbelievably fallacious. Just because someone didn't go to, or finish, college, doesn't mean they lack the aptitude or drive to stock shelves for money.
All of which is irrelevant in the real work job market. Companies do that, and that is what non-degreed job seekers face.
>As one professor pointed out in an econ class - the real value of a degree is the signal it sends - you are someone who at least can stick to something long enough to finish it. Simply put, it takes some of the workload off of the person looking to hire.
Did he also mention that it proves that even when you won't make money doing something, or worse, that you might even lose money doing it, you stick to it and complete it anyways? For years on end? Even while you accumulate the send largest debt load of your life?
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/university-education-no-guarantee-of-earnings-success/article4182805/?service=mobile
"18.5 per cent of those graduates earn less than half of the country’s median income of $37,002"
Face it, your professor just wants you to feel good about getting your degree.
Actually no, since virtually all of my classmates (98%) had jobs after graduation; many starting in 6 figures. His point was correct - while many of us could take the job we got after graduation before we started school and done just as well the companies would not consider that w/o the signal the degree sent. It may be stupid, we may disagree with it (using a degree as a signal), but it is reality.
"As one professor pointed out in an econ class - the real value of a degree is the signal it sends - you are someone who at least can stick to something long enough to finish it..."
But, then again, I'd have to wonder why someone with a college degree is applying for a file clerk position. After all, taking on a huge debt just to get a job as a file clerk makes so much sense.
But, then AGAIN, this is Slashdot. I wonder how much money Dice was paid by the Association of American Colleges and Universities for this article.
In the current economic climate, I know of a lot of people, with degrees, doing such work because they need a job.Will they move on? Sure, once the market heats up but right now the reality is there are enough job seekers with degree that will take jobs below their qualifications that many companies do not need to even consider candidates w/o a degree.
The Econ professor should have mentioned that the supply of college graduates is so high that non-college graduates with high school diplomas are now the rarer commodity. Within reason, it is now actually more admirable to pass on college. (within reason = did well in HS and showed commitment, competence, and drive in your post HS jobs)
The problem is the non-degree resume never makes it past the ignore pile.
'When you get 800 résumés for every job ad, you need to weed them out somehow,'
As one professor pointed out in an econ class - the real value of a degree is the signal it sends - you are someone who at least can stick to something long enough to finish it. Simply put, it takes some of the workload off of the person looking to hire.
No guns drawn on us, but my wife and I, who really like Happy Jack's in Fort Erie, have lost a bit of desire to go there for lunch because of the assholes manning the US side of the border. On special occasions, we'll push our luck and go, and the Canadians are always cool about it. The Americans are almost always total power-tripping buttheads.
Canadian Customs and Immigration can be butt heads as well. I've had friends detained for hours because an official decided a Canadian could do the work (never mind he was teaching on a very specific subject and methodology that he had years of expertise implementing - and the work fell under NAFTA Professional Categorization). At one point it was looking like I was going to run the session and do the setup all by myself if my coworkers got sent back. We finally decided to simply move the future sessions to the US and avoid the hassle.
In many ways the degr is not about leading but signaling prospective employers or clients that you can learn and stick it out through time. If you wind up competing with people who have degrees you may find yourself at a disadvantage no matter how good you are. In addition, as others have pointed about the degree is about learning theory and concepts that you can broadly apply; not building a specific but perishable skill set.
Their followers, however...will be outraged that the USA has less of something (anything!) than some other country.
Time to invade and protect our sun supply. Oh wait, we've already done that and are still there. never mind...
Right. So how's the roaming between USA, Canada and Mexico? That's what i thought.
Depends on your plan; but then again the US , Canada and Mexico don't claim to be one common borderless market. the EU carriers have managed to find an excuse to stick it to their customers because you cross an internal border; that would be like the big 4 US carriers charging roaming fees because someone went from Atlanta to Miami. Years ago they did it but that has all but gone away. The US market has evolved differently and pretty much gone to an unlimited use model for calls - given that after hours and mobile to mobile calls don't use minutes.
Sorry......I might be late with the reply but I have to.....
You complain about roaming in Europe compared to the US?
Newsflash: Europe consists of _different_ countries!!
My apologies, but your post suggests that you have no idea.
Actually I do; and think if people want to bit h about the US carriers than comparing service areas and prices is not unreasonable. The US not only has 48 contiguous states but also a number of independent nations plus 2 non-contiguous states and a number of territories. So, apology accepted and perhaps you need to answer the clue phone when it rings to discuss cell phone markets. After all, if consumer protection were so important and the EU so grand who cares about things like national borders if yo gruel are one market with one set of boundary less rules?
Euro problems or not, but for the customers its great here in Europe.
I never had the situation here that a mobile provider tried to force me onto a certain mobile phone. The reason for this is that the European union has a lot of laws regarding the availability of services everywhere and that no competitor may have a disadvantage by closed markets. In the same way the mobility of the cititzens should not be limited.
Soemthing like: "If you use the phone which we did not sell you, we charge extra" would bring you into an overkill of lawsuits.
Actually, US carriers don't charge extra - they just don't offer a discount and non-contract plans as you go plans are often targeted to people who are total price sensitive (i.e. is it $10 or 430 per card) rather than to the actual cost per minute. There is some movement to offering cheaper no contract plans - Walmart is starting to advertise unsubsidized iPhones with lower per month rates; although their "unlimited" data is really "use more than 2GB per months for a few months and we may not let you renew..." according to the sales rep I talked to when considering it for a second phone.
OTOH, the EU is still in the dark ages when it comes to roaming - why can't my UK SIM work the same way throughout the EU - no charge for incoming calls, same low per minute or text rate everywhere? Roaming fees may be capped but why should there be any? After all, in the US you can roam virtually anywhere; at least with the big 4, for one flat rate.
http://www.macworld.com/article/1167247/cook_apple_planning_professional_mac_for_2013.html#lsrc.twt_jsnell
Tim already said it is coming. The email has been confirmed by Apple. "Apple confirmed to Macworld that the message is indeed from Cook."
http://www.macworld.com/article/1167247/cook_apple_planning_professional_mac_for_2013.html#lsrc.twt_jsnell
Tim already said it is coming. The email has been confirmed by Apple. "Apple confirmed to Macworld that the message is indeed from Cook."
No ones doubting the message, just its interpretation. "... something really great late next year..." could mean a new MP desktop or something completely different. People want to believe Apple will continue to build a high end expandable MP but their idea of "really great" may not be that. Hell, it could be an iMac Pro or Mini Pro my point is nowhere in the email does Cook explicitly say a new MP is in the works. The email is classic corporate speak that let's everyone read into it what they want to hear.
it reminds me of the old board game Diplomacy - never make a specific promos is but say things in a way that makes people think you are on their side.
Apple: New Mac Pro that will amaze you in 2013. iHaters: Hardly a solid statement on the MP future.
Fair enough - were did Apple definitely state that - rather than it being the conclusion from a series of non-definitive statements? Personally, I'd love to see a new MP but am not holding my breath.
In all likelihood it's because they've got a new Mac Pro model ready to launch. The Mac Pro hasn't had a significant update in years, it's the only Mac that doesn't have a Thunderbolt port, for example.
A new Mac Pro is being released in 2013, confirmed by Apple.
While a new MP may be coming - all the referenced articles said were - MP customers are important, great things are coming to the desktop in 2013, we are working on MP designs which probably will be coming in 2013. Hardly a solid statement on the MP future.
I would avoid punctuation as people will get it wrong and not realize the intended person did not get it. Worse, I have an account with a provider that ignores punctuation even though you can put it in your email address so first.last and first last both go to me. I had an idiot admin insist he had the correct email even though I told him I was getting emils with private information from him. He refused to verify the addy and suggested I change mine. I declined and said since I notified him of the privacy violation I had no responsibility for any fallout.
Of course, anyone that can see the lights can monitor traffic undetected. Sort of or he old lihts on a modem.
This has nothing to do with First Sale; it doesn't affect your ability to sell the phone. In-fact, there are specific exception in place for used phones. It even opens a huge loop-hole for unlocking. As used phones are exempt from this decisions all you need to do it "sell" your phone to the person unlocking it for say $1, let them unlock it, and then "buy" it back for $1.
oddly enough, the FAQ linked in the summary states it applies only to phones bought from a carrier - so if I buy my iPhone from a Apple or a reseller who get sthe subsidy it seems the rule does not apply. IANAL but that seems to be another loophole.
In the UK you can buy phones on contract unlocked, and usually cheaper too
You can in the US as well - Sprint and Verizon sell phones with GSM SIM unlocked; and you can buy it at the contract price. You can't take a Verizon Phone to sprint (and vice versa) on the CDMA side even though you can roam on each other's network; but that's not due to locking, in the GSM sense, but do to the way they register phone serials in their database.
>Apparently the free market has failed in the US, because it was able to buy laws designed to distort it in the phone company's favour.
I'm not sure how you come to this conclusion - I can buy an unlocked phone at full retail, a subsidized but locked phone at a discount, or a CDMA phone with the GSM SIM unlocked. Nothing in a free market says someone has to sell you what you want at a price you want; or that failure to offe ryou what you want is a failure of a free market.
Rebaseline the count from say 2000; if it's good enough for the Pope to do it's good enough form me. And then we'd have Old Unix and GNU Unix
You couldn't automate calling every number in the phone book. I agree with you that this is vastly overhyped, but digital storage can't be directly compared to paper storage.
You could also buy databases of all listed US numbers - I've used them in the past to help company's analyze business opportunities by identifying the number and types of businesses in various locations. When I did, it was trivially easy to dump the entire database into Excel or Access and build queries to return the needed information.
last time I went for a haircut, the first thing they asked me was my name. fine, they can call me when the next haircutter is open.
then they wanted my phone #. really? for a date, maybe? ;) (some of they are definitely cute).
reminds me of a rental app I was once asked to fill in. it had the usual ss#, date of birth, full name - but they also asked mothers maiden name. now, I realize that with some work, you can get that from public records, but you have to work for it and its still partially a password of sorts that banks use to verify your ID when you call on the phone (or lost your password for online). a housing rental that wanted pretty much all the info that the bank would ask me to verify my id. yeah, sure, I'll just give you that (not!). when I called the realtor on this, he simply said 'good luck in your search'. basically, he knew he was asking more than he had a right to and simply avoided admitting it.
watch what you give out, people. think about every bit of info and if they don't need it, don't give it to them.
Why do people assume you have to give everyone real info? They have no way of knowing what your mother's maidan name and simply picking something you can remember such as some random street name you like. Unless you pick something truly bizzare, like West 52nd or Avenue of the Americas, Lindy or Ruby should be fine. Oddly enough, the only person I know who has had an issue is because her maiden name only has a few consonants (thanks to the immigration guy at Ellis Island when her grandfather emigrated) and gets questioned when she gives her name. I've done that, along with giving a long defunct corporate phone number and never had an issue; in fact 555-1212 with a random area code works fine for affinity cards.
Intel seems fixated on the idea that users want some sort of convergence device that combines a tablet with a traditional PC. They see the iPad's sales numbers and think: "If only it had a keyboard and ran a PC OS..."
Adding a touch screen to an ultrabook doesn't address the fundamental flaw in such an approach: users interact differently with touch screen devices than PCs. Slapping a touchscreen on top of an OS that isn't really geared to the way users interact with a tablet device won't address that; all you wind up with is a device that does many things poorly, For example:
You wind up with a UI designed for keyboard and mouse; with programs that primarily rely on a keyboard for input. Sure you can navigate with a touchscreen but will still be forced back to a keyboard for most work unless software developers add in touch input capability beyond just an onscreen keyboard. Without that, you have a big touchpad that needs a keyboard anyway.
Screen resolution is more important on a tablet than a PC. The iPad's Retina display makes it really good as a reader; to do a similar display on a PC quickly drives up the cost. So you wind up with a cost vs quality issue; making the tablet part less compelling.
Portability suffers as well. Tablets are nice because of their size; which makes them ideal for casual reading, email, watching video or web browsing. You can easily carry an iPad around all day where a PC quickly gets cumbersome.
Along with portability is battery life. Most tablets have really good battery life relative to PCs. A tablet that goes dead twice as fast as those on the current market is not very compelling; or you have to add expensive batteries to get reasonable useful run times which drives of cost. Alternatively; you could add big batteries but that then hits the portability issue.
Is convergence possible? Sure, and I think it will happen but it will be driven by software, not hardware. Once the software delivers an experience that lets people use a PC less and less the transition will occur. At that point, however, your less likely to see a laptop with a touch screen than a tablet that has a wireless external keyboard / trackpad for times when a finger on screen just won't cut it.
s>looking at the converse question is rather illuminating: why aren't more programmers entrepreneurs? a meritocratic mindset is very inefficient if what you want is to make money in a society which does not directly appreciate merit.
While I agree it is mindset, it's not a meritocratic one but rather an unwillingness to leap from a known and relatively safe position into the unknown and much more risky situation.
I never believed the whole "95% of interviewees fail the FizzBuzz test" until I started interviewing candidates. People with 15 years of "experience" on their resume would regularly fail or give up. I also encouraged googling, including just searching for the exact problem, and I encouraged questions and told them that both behaviors were seen as a good thing. IDK how someone could possibly get through a CS program and still fail this test, but it happened regularly.
Ok, but you could do that with a single BASIC print command and some pencil and paper work and a quick google of "Multiples of 3 color chart." Should take about 2 minutes or so; and I have no coding experience beyond Fortran in college. If you are looking for problem solving skills it might be a good exercise ; come to think of it I might use it next time a do a round of consultant new hire interviews. Break up the "Why are manhole cover's round?" monotony.