Apple is also wise to set this price point. It is just pricey-enough-sounding to make the device a little more elitist than the $49 Razr that every 12 year old seems to have. Getting the superstars and Paris-Hilton-models using their phone will make everyone want one, and as sales go up, prices tend to go down. Apple's biggest problem in the short run will be supply -- I guarantee they won't have enough to keep up with demand, even at $500.
Keep in mind that the Razr started as a $500 elitist product. This pricing strategy is known as walking down the price curve. It generally maximizes revenue, accounts for low volume parts and initial production runs with low yields, fits in very well with the customer's *willingness* to pay, etc.
I think you are mistaken regarding its popularity though. It may be too large and the screen may be too vulnerable. I think it is more of a competitor for blackberry devices than mass market phones.
"There exist several illegal cd-keys that you can use to unlock the demo program. If Display Eater detects that you are using these, it will erase something... If this level of piracy continues, development will stop."
Uh, no. Development will stop as the police collect your computers as evidence that you are the developer and distributor of software that intentionally erases files without user permission.
Uh, the bnetd folks have played the boycot card before, no one cared. Bnetd is a non-issue to the vast majority, even here on slashdot. Burning crusade set a day one sales record, a sell through of over 2 million in US and Europe in the first 24 hours, http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft-expansi on/757971p1.html. The preceding bnetd inspired boycott that targeted the original World of Warcraft a couple of years ago met the same fate, record breaking sales.
Too funny that Chinese labour gets better treatment under Communist rule than US labour gets under the current Corporatist setup.
I used the think that a communist government would favor labor over non-state management but a Discovery Channel episode cleared up that fallacy. The episode, who's title escapes me, had a segment showing a lawyer who specializes in representing workers who were injured at work. Injured as in lost limbs in industrial machinery! When a worker was injured the company would declare that the worker violated safety protocols and was therefore ineligible for any compensation and fired. Government backs the factory owners, the police regularly beat up the lawyer who files lawsuits against the companies.
Nothing has really changed, it still boils down to not supporting the current interests of the state. Woe to the citizen who does so.
In most cases the value to the thief is not in the object itself but in its resale value. If they know that the laptops will be bricked before they can shift them, it might deter some people from swiping them.
It will deter few. I recall looking at computer equipment in a pawn shop. I was excited as I saw some IBM Model M keyboards. Upon inspection I found that the keyboards had not been unplugged, the cables had been cut. I expect many thieves will have difficulty telling OLPC systems from normal systems at the time of the robbery. I also expect that highly organized thieves will not shy away from stealing a large shipment of these laptops, and stripping the RAM and HD for salvage.
Also, "resale value" may be misleading. It is rarely sale to an end user, rather a middleman, as in pawned, laundered, fenced, etc.
... if Microsoft weren't a neo-conservative fascist's wet dream
Nancy Pelosi, Charles Rangel, Dianne Feinstein, Edward Kennedy, etc will be shocked to find out they are neo-con fascists. They all take Micorosoft's money. Of course, Microsoft's involvement is natural given the governments suits against them, they tried to avoid Washington DC but that was naive I suppose.
What should people who are interested in a paper but not currently seeking a degree (e.g. already graduated) do?
The journals are often in the library stacks and accessible by anyone, just like books and magazines. Of course I am used to dealing with State Universities where you can just walk in, I'm not sure what private Universities tend to do.
If you are in need of some service, such as inter-library loan, then you may be able to obtain that service as a benefit of alumni membership.
Yet another bad guess on your part. I've been an independent since I turned 18, I couldn't figure out which party I could trust, I'm still in that mindset. It may be hard for you to grasp. but when you are not a political zealot, you don't really want either party erroneously blamed, and the real culprits provided cover. I apologize if you are not a political zealot, and are merely a naive follower of political zealots.
... let's pick a topic you fuckers are notorious for harping about: "personal responsibility".
It's the U.S. automakers own damn fault if they produce crappy gas-sucking cars that break down after a few months on the road that nobody want. It's been clear for 30 years, people have been jumping to ricers in droves, yet the U.S. automakers have yet to clue-in on this fact.
You are mixing quite a bit of misinformation, or more accurate cherry picking the situation of the 1970s. US automakers improved quality quite a bit since the 70s. "Gas sucking" vehicles were a response to consumer demand, not contrary to it, US automakers also offer high mileage and alternative fuel vehicles. You greatly overstate any disparity between domestic and Japanese automakers. The fact remains that US consumers have for decades given nearly no consideration to their contribution to the domestic job situation. It is a classic 'tragedy of the commons" example. My objection is to the "blame the politicians" meme. In truth US consumers have made a significant contribution to the decline in high paying manufacturing jobs and the increase in low paying service sector jobs, at WalMart for example. If anything politicians deserve a little credit for not going the overly protectionist route and make a bad situation even worse.
The market forces are controlled by the U.S. so even though it is not effected by guns and warships but rather through bonds and money, the net result is the same: financial empires run by croporations that suck middle-east countries dry while being run by puppet dictators.
Actually the energy market is largely affected by the emerging economies not the US.
Again the "personal responsibility" harp, eh? How about financial institution misleading and predatory lending? I know, "caveat emptor"... This is companies preying on people's ignorance.
More accurately preying on people's greed. Do you really think homebuyers failed to understand that adjustable rate morgages can increase? That interest only payments leave you in perpetual debt? No, some homebuyers chose to gamble that home prices would continue to wildly appreciate and reduce their debt to equity to a reasonable level. Other first time homeowners played it safe, and went for more reasonably priced smaller properties and more traditional mortgages. This latter group is doing well and I don't think they are any more sophisticated than the former overspending group, if anything they probably more often represent the less sophisticated end of the spectrum since they are buying and living in less affluent middle class neighborhoods.
"Untrue, our public school failings have little to do with federal or state funding. Per capita spending is extremely high yet public school results are exceptionally low. Have to blame that on a few decades of liberal social experimentation and bureaucratic waste diverting money from the classrooms to administration, not on the republicans. Disinterested parents and a culture of dependency don't help either, of course that brings us back to several decades of liberal social experimentation doesn't it?
Sure, blame the victims. It's their own fault if the rich have skimmed the cream.
Sorry, I attended public school in an economically depressed area. Other schools in more affluent areas were far better funded. Funding made little difference, you got what you put into it. The problem was that there was largely no pressure to excel,
"Who made your car? For those of you who answer Honda, Toyota, Nissan, etc. Well then you are far more to blame than "republicans"."
Honda has manufacturing plants in the USA -- in Alabama, Ohio, South Carolina, Georgia, and others.
Companies like Ford and GM are cutting jobs and closing plants across the US, and opening plants in places like Mexico and India.
So, I'm sorry, what was your point again?
That US consumers have made a significant contribution to the decline in high paying manufacturing jobs and the growth in low paying service jobs like those at WalMart. That Japanese automakers now offer some "crumbs" due to political pressure, and domestic automakers are forced to outsource, does not alter this fact. My objection to the GP was his "blame the politicians" attitude for the job situation, in truth the situation is the result of decades of consumer behavior. Thankfully the politicians did not make a bad situation even worse by taking an excessive protectionist route.
"Last I checked, unemployment was at record lows."
For dismally paying part-time crappy service jobs...
Who made your car? For those of you who answer Honda, Toyota, Nissan, etc. Well then you are far more to blame than "republicans".
"Gasoline is nearly back to $2 a gallon."
Thanks to aggressive imperialistic foreign policies that piss-off the rest of the planet against 'mericans.
Actually it is due to market economics, if anything military actions in the mid-east make oil prices go up. Also its not imperialism if you don't want the land, we never did, we wanted regime change. We fully expected that the new regime would act just like the Saudis and the Kuwaitis, ie in their own interest not ours.
"Home ownership is among the highest (possibly THE highest) in the entire world."
With a record number of people squeezed tight by the balls by the banks, living paycheque to paycheque, trying to make ends meet while working an unsecure job, racking up record stress levels to the point of being psychotic...
Not really, long term homeowners were able to refinance at far lower rates and divert a significant chunk of their monthly income from interest payments to spending money. Some recent homeowners are having problems because they over extended themselves with credit, they bought too fancy of a place, went for exotic variable or interest-only mortgages, and gambled that ever increasing valuations will make it all work out. Those who did not over indulge in credit and went for traditional fixed mortgages are doing very well.
"Americans can go to school, work hard, become successful, more readily than anywhere else in the world."
Only if their parents have the money to send them to schools that don't suck, thanks to the rich gutting the public school networks.
Untrue, our public school failings have little to do with federal or state funding. Per capita spending is extremely high yet public school results are exceptionally low. Have to blame that on a few decades of liberal social experimentation and bureaucratic waste diverting money from the classrooms to administration, not on the republicans. Disinterested parents and a culture of dependency don't help either, of course that brings us back to several decades of liberal social experimentation doesn't it?
If your going to slam the republicans at least pick the topics they are truly to blame for.
... the last couple times I've been there I had great service from a particular employee. In both cases I made a point to call up the store's regional manager and praise this person. Two months later I found out that this employee had not received any mention, acknowledgement or recognition.
Two theories
(1) Such quality service may be the expected day-to-day norm, so management may have put the employee in the "meeting expectations" bucket and hence warranted no attention. As opposed to the "needs improvement" bucket which does warrant attention.
(2) Providing "too much" service to a single customer is a negative in management's eyes and you did the employee no favor with your praise. When a store's strategy is price leadership cost cutting may rule customer interaction. Employees may be expected to always be exceptionally friendly and polite but offer little more than telling you what isle to find something on. More expensive retailers that focus on customer service would be more appreciative of your call. Say a Macy's sales rep in a clothing department spending 5 minutes with you picking matching shirts and ties. In short, "good" varies with corporate strategy.
IIRC, there was a big splash last year about Walmart selling Linux PC's.
Perhaps the Linux PCs didn't sell very well and WarMart decided that there was no need to support Linux at the customer level.
IIRC there was a more recent article about WarMart using Linux internally. That would be no surprise since WarMart has been a pioneering and aggressive user of technology since the 1960s. I believe they have been using a common UNIX platform worldwide since around 1991.
Imagine that, a company shuts down what turns out to be a money sink hole rather than a profit generator. I hardly see that as evil, and in fact were I a share holder, I would see that as a very good decision.
Apparently you missed some posts. The point is that the GP declares Microsoft to be evil for doing so, and then suggests that Apple does no such thing. Now if we want to follow your tangent regarding sound business decisions, then we can say the same for Microsoft squashing the competition while not being evil. I don't care if either company is evil or not, just that we judge both by the same set of rules.
Which independents were killed off? The only one seems to be MacAdam or whatever the fuck it was called and anyone who shopped there agreed it was a shitty place to shop.
Apple has a long history of screwing independent dealers. I'm referring to over a decade of history, not merely your personal experience.
Microsoft, meanwhile, well almost everything they have done to leverage their monopoly to prevent competition is in a whole different ballpark. It directly hurts consumers by preventing competitors from staying in business and making new stuff, and by raising prices. That's evil.
You must have missed the Apple clone era where Apple licensed, and then shut down all the cloners because they turned out to be competitors.
You must have missed Apple's long standing abuse of independent dealers, culminating with Apple retail stores that killed off the independents for the most part.
I could go on with example from various business areas and time periods, but the point is made.
Particulates in the atmosphere actually have a "warming" effect with respect to melting snow packs and ice. They become part of the snowflake, but they absorb rather than reflect solar radiation, snow/ice melts too quickly.
I completely disagree. I think there is enourmous demand for a widscreen touch screen iPod...
I believe "enormous" is an overstatement, the trend in iPod sales is that the less expensive smaller units dominate the sales. While I agree that there is a desire for a widescreen touchscreen iPod it is in Apple's best interest to deliver the functionality that satisifies the desire via the iPhone rather than the iPod. More revenue and pump up sales of the new unproven product, iPod functionality would be a big part of the iPhones competitive advantage.
... the next round of video iPods will also include an iPhone-esque wide touchscreen...
I expect that this analysis is wrong. iPods are getting smaller and that is making people happy and driving sales. Also, the iPhone will be pretty damn expensive and needs to have a bunch of upscale features to justify it. Keep in mind that phones and digital music players are converging, what I expect to happen is that an "iPod" will be effectively built into the iPhone.
True, but the post I responded to had an example that was merely a call to printf.
I'm not really an expert in assembly but the addition of for example logical statements and loop structures in a language really do make a difference. And that is not library stuff.
FWIW, many CISC instruction sets have loop instructions, in x86:
for (i = 10; --i; ) { [some work] }
mov ecx, 10; label: [some work]; loop label;
The high level control structures are merely a convenience, something that is portable and more readable for the masses. Logical and loop operations in C typically only generate two or three assembly instructions in x86.
A higher level language is usually considered a higher level language partly because its library.
Too much theory, not enough practical. If you can't apply the theory that you learn, what's the point in learning so much of it?
Theory often lasts much longer, the practical is often temporary, the fashion of the day. I learned a lot of theory and applied it a little bit with FORTRAN in some classes, Pascal in some other classes, C in some later classes,... Now I sometimes reapply those old theories in C++ and perl. We used old dinosaur mainframes running BSD Unix, students bitched-and-moaned that there were no practical classes where we could learn Windows programming,... We learned graphics on dedicated graphics terminals with GPUs that implemented the low-level details for us, students bitched-and-moaned that we were not learning the more practical SVGA raster graphics programming...
WTF???
Based on that statement, I wouldn't hire you, nor would I work for you if your job involved anything more technical than "Do this project". Please tell me exactly where the similarities between these two programs lie (besides what they actually DO):
[snipped DOS int 21 "Hello" and C StdLib "Hello"]
Actually the GP has the better understanding on this one. You may want to consider that you were not comparing C and x86 asm per se, you were really comparing the libraries the respective languages come with. Using "library" loosely wrt the DOS asm interface. C is often considered a medium level language since it generally maps onto an architecture much more directly than other high level languages. Hence the comparison to asm.
Actually, in my experience, it's the total opposite. Nearly everyone I've met/hired/worked with over the years that has gone to school for computers turn out to be totally incompetent. From their total lack of understanding of how programming works to complete sytems built on idiotic quick hacks tied together with shoe strings of copy-and-paste code from google, CS majors tend to be like paper MCSE's of the.com boom; They look good on paper but have no clue what they're doing typically because they don't even care about technology, they're just here to make a quick buck.
Having been both self-taught and formally trained, worked full-time before and during the university, I believe that you are either biased or have had limited exposure. Formally trained or self-taught has very little to do with competence as a programmer. The real factor is whether the individual has a genuine interest in programming, or if they became a programmer merely because it seemed to be a good career opportunity. I've seen plenty of people with both motivations in both training categories, the career path folks seem to make up the majority of both camps as well. Programmers guilty of the shoddy work you describe are found in both camps.
The one area that the self-taught often falls behind in is breadth. Very few self-taught individuals read and study an equivalent breadth, they tend to focus on fewer areas, often merely what interests them. Breadth has an advantage because problems to solution often come from unexpected areas. For example a self-taught individual fixated on gaming may study graphics and AI and skip database and operating systems, failing to realize that important concepts will come from the later two.
My current employer actually hired me because I don't have a CS degree. I'm completely self taught in technology/programming which directly states that I love it enough to learn it and do it during my free time. I actually care about my work and about technology in general.
I think you are deluding yourself, or perhaps you have misdiagnosed yourself. What make you better is not being self-taught, it is having an inherent interest in the work. Myself and many others who have the formal training also love it and do it for fun in our spare time, many of the self taught are also doing it merely for the paycheck and have no inherent interest in programming. Those who love the work are a minority in both camps.
Naturally, after thanking me for bringing the "issue" to their attention, Mr. Brown ignored my last email. Maybe now, Mr. Brown will take the time out of his busy day to respond.
If he is busy why would he bother to respond to you?
Slashdot Mirror
You're enjoying someone's hard work without giving them anything, but you aren't taking anything away from them.
Theft covers both property and services. It is therefore appropriate to use the word theft with respect to software piracy.
Apple is also wise to set this price point. It is just pricey-enough-sounding to make the device a little more elitist than the $49 Razr that every 12 year old seems to have. Getting the superstars and Paris-Hilton-models using their phone will make everyone want one, and as sales go up, prices tend to go down. Apple's biggest problem in the short run will be supply -- I guarantee they won't have enough to keep up with demand, even at $500.
Keep in mind that the Razr started as a $500 elitist product. This pricing strategy is known as walking down the price curve. It generally maximizes revenue, accounts for low volume parts and initial production runs with low yields, fits in very well with the customer's *willingness* to pay, etc. I think you are mistaken regarding its popularity though. It may be too large and the screen may be too vulnerable. I think it is more of a competitor for blackberry devices than mass market phones.
"There exist several illegal cd-keys that you can use to unlock the demo program. If Display Eater detects that you are using these, it will erase something ... If this level of piracy continues, development will stop."
Uh, no. Development will stop as the police collect your computers as evidence that you are the developer and distributor of software that intentionally erases files without user permission.
Uh, the bnetd folks have played the boycot card before, no one cared. Bnetd is a non-issue to the vast majority, even here on slashdot. Burning crusade set a day one sales record, a sell through of over 2 million in US and Europe in the first 24 hours, http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft-expansi on/757971p1.html. The preceding bnetd inspired boycott that targeted the original World of Warcraft a couple of years ago met the same fate, record breaking sales.
Well then how about making a game where you're fighting America for a change?
Uh, the game is for export not domestic consumption.
Too funny that Chinese labour gets better treatment under Communist rule than US labour gets under the current Corporatist setup.
I used the think that a communist government would favor labor over non-state management but a Discovery Channel episode cleared up that fallacy. The episode, who's title escapes me, had a segment showing a lawyer who specializes in representing workers who were injured at work. Injured as in lost limbs in industrial machinery! When a worker was injured the company would declare that the worker violated safety protocols and was therefore ineligible for any compensation and fired. Government backs the factory owners, the police regularly beat up the lawyer who files lawsuits against the companies.
Nothing has really changed, it still boils down to not supporting the current interests of the state. Woe to the citizen who does so.
In most cases the value to the thief is not in the object itself but in its resale value. If they know that the laptops will be bricked before they can shift them, it might deter some people from swiping them.
It will deter few. I recall looking at computer equipment in a pawn shop. I was excited as I saw some IBM Model M keyboards. Upon inspection I found that the keyboards had not been unplugged, the cables had been cut. I expect many thieves will have difficulty telling OLPC systems from normal systems at the time of the robbery. I also expect that highly organized thieves will not shy away from stealing a large shipment of these laptops, and stripping the RAM and HD for salvage.
Also, "resale value" may be misleading. It is rarely sale to an end user, rather a middleman, as in pawned, laundered, fenced, etc.
... if Microsoft weren't a neo-conservative fascist's wet dream
Nancy Pelosi, Charles Rangel, Dianne Feinstein, Edward Kennedy, etc will be shocked to find out they are neo-con fascists. They all take Micorosoft's money. Of course, Microsoft's involvement is natural given the governments suits against them, they tried to avoid Washington DC but that was naive I suppose.
What should people who are interested in a paper but not currently seeking a degree (e.g. already graduated) do?
The journals are often in the library stacks and accessible by anyone, just like books and magazines. Of course I am used to dealing with State Universities where you can just walk in, I'm not sure what private Universities tend to do.
If you are in need of some service, such as inter-library loan, then you may be able to obtain that service as a benefit of alumni membership.
Well, since you're a republican ...
... let's pick a topic you fuckers are notorious for harping about: "personal responsibility".
It's the U.S. automakers own damn fault if they produce crappy gas-sucking cars that break down after a few months on the road that nobody want. It's been clear for 30 years, people have been jumping to ricers in droves, yet the U.S. automakers have yet to clue-in on this fact.
Yet another bad guess on your part. I've been an independent since I turned 18, I couldn't figure out which party I could trust, I'm still in that mindset. It may be hard for you to grasp. but when you are not a political zealot, you don't really want either party erroneously blamed, and the real culprits provided cover. I apologize if you are not a political zealot, and are merely a naive follower of political zealots.
You are mixing quite a bit of misinformation, or more accurate cherry picking the situation of the 1970s. US automakers improved quality quite a bit since the 70s. "Gas sucking" vehicles were a response to consumer demand, not contrary to it, US automakers also offer high mileage and alternative fuel vehicles. You greatly overstate any disparity between domestic and Japanese automakers. The fact remains that US consumers have for decades given nearly no consideration to their contribution to the domestic job situation. It is a classic 'tragedy of the commons" example. My objection is to the "blame the politicians" meme. In truth US consumers have made a significant contribution to the decline in high paying manufacturing jobs and the increase in low paying service sector jobs, at WalMart for example. If anything politicians deserve a little credit for not going the overly protectionist route and make a bad situation even worse.
The market forces are controlled by the U.S. so even though it is not effected by guns and warships but rather through bonds and money, the net result is the same: financial empires run by croporations that suck middle-east countries dry while being run by puppet dictators.
Actually the energy market is largely affected by the emerging economies not the US.
Again the "personal responsibility" harp, eh? How about financial institution misleading and predatory lending? I know, "caveat emptor"... This is companies preying on people's ignorance.
More accurately preying on people's greed. Do you really think homebuyers failed to understand that adjustable rate morgages can increase? That interest only payments leave you in perpetual debt? No, some homebuyers chose to gamble that home prices would continue to wildly appreciate and reduce their debt to equity to a reasonable level. Other first time homeowners played it safe, and went for more reasonably priced smaller properties and more traditional mortgages. This latter group is doing well and I don't think they are any more sophisticated than the former overspending group, if anything they probably more often represent the less sophisticated end of the spectrum since they are buying and living in less affluent middle class neighborhoods.
"Untrue, our public school failings have little to do with federal or state funding. Per capita spending is extremely high yet public school results are exceptionally low. Have to blame that on a few decades of liberal social experimentation and bureaucratic waste diverting money from the classrooms to administration, not on the republicans. Disinterested parents and a culture of dependency don't help either, of course that brings us back to several decades of liberal social experimentation doesn't it?
Sure, blame the victims. It's their own fault if the rich have skimmed the cream.
Sorry, I attended public school in an economically depressed area. Other schools in more affluent areas were far better funded. Funding made little difference, you got what you put into it. The problem was that there was largely no pressure to excel,
"Who made your car? For those of you who answer Honda, Toyota, Nissan, etc. Well then you are far more to blame than "republicans"."
Honda has manufacturing plants in the USA -- in Alabama, Ohio, South Carolina, Georgia, and others. Companies like Ford and GM are cutting jobs and closing plants across the US, and opening plants in places like Mexico and India. So, I'm sorry, what was your point again?
That US consumers have made a significant contribution to the decline in high paying manufacturing jobs and the growth in low paying service jobs like those at WalMart. That Japanese automakers now offer some "crumbs" due to political pressure, and domestic automakers are forced to outsource, does not alter this fact. My objection to the GP was his "blame the politicians" attitude for the job situation, in truth the situation is the result of decades of consumer behavior. Thankfully the politicians did not make a bad situation even worse by taking an excessive protectionist route.
"Last I checked, unemployment was at record lows."
For dismally paying part-time crappy service jobs...
Who made your car? For those of you who answer Honda, Toyota, Nissan, etc. Well then you are far more to blame than "republicans".
"Gasoline is nearly back to $2 a gallon."
Thanks to aggressive imperialistic foreign policies that piss-off the rest of the planet against 'mericans.
Actually it is due to market economics, if anything military actions in the mid-east make oil prices go up. Also its not imperialism if you don't want the land, we never did, we wanted regime change. We fully expected that the new regime would act just like the Saudis and the Kuwaitis, ie in their own interest not ours.
"Home ownership is among the highest (possibly THE highest) in the entire world."
With a record number of people squeezed tight by the balls by the banks, living paycheque to paycheque, trying to make ends meet while working an unsecure job, racking up record stress levels to the point of being psychotic...
Not really, long term homeowners were able to refinance at far lower rates and divert a significant chunk of their monthly income from interest payments to spending money. Some recent homeowners are having problems because they over extended themselves with credit, they bought too fancy of a place, went for exotic variable or interest-only mortgages, and gambled that ever increasing valuations will make it all work out. Those who did not over indulge in credit and went for traditional fixed mortgages are doing very well.
"Americans can go to school, work hard, become successful, more readily than anywhere else in the world."
Only if their parents have the money to send them to schools that don't suck, thanks to the rich gutting the public school networks.
Untrue, our public school failings have little to do with federal or state funding. Per capita spending is extremely high yet public school results are exceptionally low. Have to blame that on a few decades of liberal social experimentation and bureaucratic waste diverting money from the classrooms to administration, not on the republicans. Disinterested parents and a culture of dependency don't help either, of course that brings us back to several decades of liberal social experimentation doesn't it?
If your going to slam the republicans at least pick the topics they are truly to blame for.
... the last couple times I've been there I had great service from a particular employee. In both cases I made a point to call up the store's regional manager and praise this person. Two months later I found out that this employee had not received any mention, acknowledgement or recognition.
Two theories
(1) Such quality service may be the expected day-to-day norm, so management may have put the employee in the "meeting expectations" bucket and hence warranted no attention. As opposed to the "needs improvement" bucket which does warrant attention.
(2) Providing "too much" service to a single customer is a negative in management's eyes and you did the employee no favor with your praise. When a store's strategy is price leadership cost cutting may rule customer interaction. Employees may be expected to always be exceptionally friendly and polite but offer little more than telling you what isle to find something on. More expensive retailers that focus on customer service would be more appreciative of your call. Say a Macy's sales rep in a clothing department spending 5 minutes with you picking matching shirts and ties. In short, "good" varies with corporate strategy.
IIRC, there was a big splash last year about Walmart selling Linux PC's.
Perhaps the Linux PCs didn't sell very well and WarMart decided that there was no need to support Linux at the customer level.
IIRC there was a more recent article about WarMart using Linux internally. That would be no surprise since WarMart has been a pioneering and aggressive user of technology since the 1960s. I believe they have been using a common UNIX platform worldwide since around 1991.
How does one go about spotting RedHat employees in the street. What are the significent telltale markings ?
The red fedora of course.
Imagine that, a company shuts down what turns out to be a money sink hole rather than a profit generator. I hardly see that as evil, and in fact were I a share holder, I would see that as a very good decision.
Apparently you missed some posts. The point is that the GP declares Microsoft to be evil for doing so, and then suggests that Apple does no such thing. Now if we want to follow your tangent regarding sound business decisions, then we can say the same for Microsoft squashing the competition while not being evil. I don't care if either company is evil or not, just that we judge both by the same set of rules.
Which independents were killed off? The only one seems to be MacAdam or whatever the fuck it was called and anyone who shopped there agreed it was a shitty place to shop.
Apple has a long history of screwing independent dealers. I'm referring to over a decade of history, not merely your personal experience.
Microsoft, meanwhile, well almost everything they have done to leverage their monopoly to prevent competition is in a whole different ballpark. It directly hurts consumers by preventing competitors from staying in business and making new stuff, and by raising prices. That's evil.
You must have missed the Apple clone era where Apple licensed, and then shut down all the cloners because they turned out to be competitors.
You must have missed Apple's long standing abuse of independent dealers, culminating with Apple retail stores that killed off the independents for the most part.
I could go on with example from various business areas and time periods, but the point is made.
Particulates in the atmosphere actually have a "warming" effect with respect to melting snow packs and ice. They become part of the snowflake, but they absorb rather than reflect solar radiation, snow/ice melts too quickly.
I completely disagree. I think there is enourmous demand for a widscreen touch screen iPod ...
I believe "enormous" is an overstatement, the trend in iPod sales is that the less expensive smaller units dominate the sales. While I agree that there is a desire for a widescreen touchscreen iPod it is in Apple's best interest to deliver the functionality that satisifies the desire via the iPhone rather than the iPod. More revenue and pump up sales of the new unproven product, iPod functionality would be a big part of the iPhones competitive advantage.
... the next round of video iPods will also include an iPhone-esque wide touchscreen ...
I expect that this analysis is wrong. iPods are getting smaller and that is making people happy and driving sales. Also, the iPhone will be pretty damn expensive and needs to have a bunch of upscale features to justify it. Keep in mind that phones and digital music players are converging, what I expect to happen is that an "iPod" will be effectively built into the iPhone.
I think C adds a bit more than a library.
d libv1.html
True, but the post I responded to had an example that was merely a call to printf.
I'm not really an expert in assembly but the addition of for example logical statements and loop structures in a language really do make a difference. And that is not library stuff.
FWIW, many CISC instruction sets have loop instructions, in x86:
for (i = 10; --i; ) { [some work] }
mov ecx, 10; label: [some work]; loop label;
The high level control structures are merely a convenience, something that is portable and more readable for the masses. Logical and loop operations in C typically only generate two or three assembly instructions in x86.
A higher level language is usually considered a higher level language partly because its library.
I don't think so. For example consider the UCR standard library for x86:
http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AsmTools/MASM/stdlib/st
High level languages are primarily for portability and convenience. There is also specialization of the convenience motivation for specific audiences.
Too much theory, not enough practical. If you can't apply the theory that you learn, what's the point in learning so much of it?
... Now I sometimes reapply those old theories in C++ and perl. We used old dinosaur mainframes running BSD Unix, students bitched-and-moaned that there were no practical classes where we could learn Windows programming, ... We learned graphics on dedicated graphics terminals with GPUs that implemented the low-level details for us, students bitched-and-moaned that we were not learning the more practical SVGA raster graphics programming ...
Theory often lasts much longer, the practical is often temporary, the fashion of the day. I learned a lot of theory and applied it a little bit with FORTRAN in some classes, Pascal in some other classes, C in some later classes,
"Assembly is like C"
.com boom; They look good on paper but have no clue what they're doing typically because they don't even care about technology, they're just here to make a quick buck.
WTF???
Based on that statement, I wouldn't hire you, nor would I work for you if your job involved anything more technical than "Do this project". Please tell me exactly where the similarities between these two programs lie (besides what they actually DO):
[snipped DOS int 21 "Hello" and C StdLib "Hello"]
Actually the GP has the better understanding on this one. You may want to consider that you were not comparing C and x86 asm per se, you were really comparing the libraries the respective languages come with. Using "library" loosely wrt the DOS asm interface. C is often considered a medium level language since it generally maps onto an architecture much more directly than other high level languages. Hence the comparison to asm.
Actually, in my experience, it's the total opposite. Nearly everyone I've met/hired/worked with over the years that has gone to school for computers turn out to be totally incompetent. From their total lack of understanding of how programming works to complete sytems built on idiotic quick hacks tied together with shoe strings of copy-and-paste code from google, CS majors tend to be like paper MCSE's of the
Having been both self-taught and formally trained, worked full-time before and during the university, I believe that you are either biased or have had limited exposure. Formally trained or self-taught has very little to do with competence as a programmer. The real factor is whether the individual has a genuine interest in programming, or if they became a programmer merely because it seemed to be a good career opportunity. I've seen plenty of people with both motivations in both training categories, the career path folks seem to make up the majority of both camps as well. Programmers guilty of the shoddy work you describe are found in both camps.
The one area that the self-taught often falls behind in is breadth. Very few self-taught individuals read and study an equivalent breadth, they tend to focus on fewer areas, often merely what interests them. Breadth has an advantage because problems to solution often come from unexpected areas. For example a self-taught individual fixated on gaming may study graphics and AI and skip database and operating systems, failing to realize that important concepts will come from the later two.
My current employer actually hired me because I don't have a CS degree. I'm completely self taught in technology/programming which directly states that I love it enough to learn it and do it during my free time. I actually care about my work and about technology in general.
I think you are deluding yourself, or perhaps you have misdiagnosed yourself. What make you better is not being self-taught, it is having an inherent interest in the work. Myself and many others who have the formal training also love it and do it for fun in our spare time, many of the self taught are also doing it merely for the paycheck and have no inherent interest in programming. Those who love the work are a minority in both camps.
That's all good IF they have a warrant to authorize the tracking.
"Tracking" was always allowed, if you were walking/driving in public they could always follow you, no warrant was necessary.
Naturally, after thanking me for bringing the "issue" to their attention, Mr. Brown ignored my last email. Maybe now, Mr. Brown will take the time out of his busy day to respond.
If he is busy why would he bother to respond to you?