There were times when I knew I was taking risks. I didn't know what would happen when I told Steve Ballmer that his leadership on the gay rights bill wasn't good
Don't let the chair hit you up the butt on your way out of Ballmer's office.
China is a much different animal than you might think.
Nearly all large companies (including Apple) practice a policy of using middlemen to control their workers. For example:
If I live in China and have heart trouble, I might need a pacemaker. I would like to buy the pacemaker directly from Guidant/whoever but their business in China is very limited because of the goverenment. Instead, Guidant goes to a broker company based in China and the patient pays $5000 to the broker. The broker divides the money up, the doctor gets $1000, Guidant gets $3500, and the broker gets $500
Everything in China is revolved around a certain mentality. To most Chinese, taking a cut off the profits this has been going on for thousands of years and there seems to be no reason to change their culture. I'm not saying it's a good system, but it works for them.
Apple is almost certainly using another company as a proxy in China. This proxy handles all the money, employment, and products. A US consumer says, "I want an iPod," and the following things happen:
The buyer pays $300
Apple goes to their distributor in China and says, "Here's $200, send more iPod"
The distributor says, "Ok, i'll take another $20 off of that, and since it costs us $170 to make an iPod, that leaves us with $10 to pay our workers with.
The third party distributor is directly responsible for paying the employees, Apple has no part in it. The distributor pays off the appropriate officials, takes some money for themselves, and that does not leave much for workers. If you want to complain to Apple about labor practices complain to the officials in Beijing first.
This is reality. China does not work like a western country. They've been doing this for thousands of years (think about the silk road). The government will ask Apple for money if they have operations in China. Apple can cut its losses by going with a third party, so they do. All this comparing to western civilization is completely meaningless, and the parent obviously has no idea that our cultures are much different. In China, you play by Chinese rules or you don't play at all.
I work in an IT department for a company that has about 250 employees. We do business all around the world, so we often have to prepare data and fix computers that get viruses and spyware. Right now, there are 4 IT employees for the entire building. One of them is full time, another a consultant, and there are two of us interns. Companies like this want the world of you, they want every single outlook, web service, directory service, etc. located in one place that people can access via regular http (not https!). A major project we are doing right now is a total overhaul of the company website. I happen to be the only person in the company who knows how to program in Perl/PHP (although many of the engineers use Python) as well as creating html documents from scratch.
We also had to do a physical audit of every single computer, printer, UPS, laptop docking station, and monitor. On each computer Automatic updates were turned on as well as auto anti-virus updates. Our cublcies are beige and totally disgusting. Do I feel like Dilbert? No. This is because life is what I make of it, and I can make decisions that affect an entire corporation. We spent five hours this Saturday getting half of the computers updated, and we will have to do the other half early in the morning or late at night when no one is at their workstation. I have some simple advice: keep a positive attitude towards the whole thing and do not let your bosses bury you with projects.
My source is a professor on an NPR program I heard last August. I recall when I was listening to it, too, so if you really care I could probably track down who it was.
First of all, much of NPR has unfortunately turned into partisan rhetoric, and college professors are nutouious for being opinionated in that area, so I seriously doubt you got an unbiased opinion. It is always important to consider the motives of the speaker and question his assertions. The more you question, the more knowledge you gain from the medium to which you are listening.
What was the professor merely trying to explain something or does coming on NPR with a left-wing or right-wing idea mean there's some hidden agenda going on? In this case, just because we may or may not agree with something does not make it more or less true.
Apple has made a career out and a fortune out of portraying their competitors as evil and dominating, and people who buy their competitors' products as boring and conforming. It is only fair that when Apple dominates a market, others do the same thing to them.
I think it is important to make a distinction between Apple and zealous Apple users. Apple as a corporation pokes fun at Microsoft some times, but those times have been in good taste. What you are referring to, I believe, is a gross generalization that anything Apple goes against Microsoft, MS being the "dominator."
You can turn on the laser in the optical music port via API as well. If you've run Windows on a MacBook, then you know the red glow that comes out of that port. Maybe the writers can get together and when "Lightsaber" is clicked both the sound and the laser turn on. That would be insanely great.
How can dell sell monitors at 200 dollars but apple can't?
Apple could sell monitors like dell, but they choose not to. Here are some reasons:
Most Dell LCD's lack the brightness, contrast, and color demanded by the creative market.
Apple will not sell a product with a $360 mail-in rebate attached to it.
Apple is concerned about its brand image. If they produced cheap computers/monitors like Dell, Apple's image in the eyes of the consumer would go down.
Steve Jobs likes insanely great things like 30" Cinema HD Displays and avocados.
I support the Chinese people, however the government is absolutely terrible on human rights and free speech. China wants to become modern and more capitalistic, rising their way to being a first-world nation. However, as long as China continues to treat its citizens like third-world citizens, China will remain third-world.
Sometimes it amazes me what people do with the C programming language, for good or for bad. Take some pro programmers who I caught using gets() instead of fgets(). I'm not a rocket scientist, but I'd say anything that uses gets() is a serious problem, since that function does no bounds checking and is prone to attacks.
How do people learn to code like this? Is it just early habits that do not go away?
Since I'm taking the online course in AP Computer Science next year, I have yet to figure out how one would do programming without a compiler installed.
...Just so you know, computer science has almost nothing to do with programming.
This is very true- computer science is the study of algoritms. AP ComS classes tend to allow people to get credit toward 100 level courses, not the 200 level courses that you would think. If you want to learn to code, get a good book and learn yourself... if you can't do that, a ComS major is going to be very hard for you.
Every modern computer has a compiler. Often times it is just an Internet browser like Firefox, Mozilla, Safari, IE, Opera, etc... can compile JavaScript applications. JavaScript is a great language to learn on because it teaches you about an object-oriented model. I recommend the "Rhino Book"- JavaScript: The Definitive Reference from O'Reilly. JavaScript IS a programming language as well as a scripting language and it has very nice c-like syntax.
Slashdot Mirror
Sosumi
Don't let the chair hit you up the butt on your way out of Ballmer's office.
Nearly all large companies (including Apple) practice a policy of using middlemen to control their workers. For example:
If I live in China and have heart trouble, I might need a pacemaker. I would like to buy the pacemaker directly from Guidant/whoever but their business in China is very limited because of the goverenment. Instead, Guidant goes to a broker company based in China and the patient pays $5000 to the broker. The broker divides the money up, the doctor gets $1000, Guidant gets $3500, and the broker gets $500
Everything in China is revolved around a certain mentality. To most Chinese, taking a cut off the profits this has been going on for thousands of years and there seems to be no reason to change their culture. I'm not saying it's a good system, but it works for them.
Apple is almost certainly using another company as a proxy in China. This proxy handles all the money, employment, and products. A US consumer says, "I want an iPod," and the following things happen:
The third party distributor is directly responsible for paying the employees, Apple has no part in it. The distributor pays off the appropriate officials, takes some money for themselves, and that does not leave much for workers. If you want to complain to Apple about labor practices complain to the officials in Beijing first.
This is reality. China does not work like a western country. They've been doing this for thousands of years (think about the silk road). The government will ask Apple for money if they have operations in China. Apple can cut its losses by going with a third party, so they do. All this comparing to western civilization is completely meaningless, and the parent obviously has no idea that our cultures are much different. In China, you play by Chinese rules or you don't play at all.
We also had to do a physical audit of every single computer, printer, UPS, laptop docking station, and monitor. On each computer Automatic updates were turned on as well as auto anti-virus updates. Our cublcies are beige and totally disgusting. Do I feel like Dilbert? No. This is because life is what I make of it, and I can make decisions that affect an entire corporation. We spent five hours this Saturday getting half of the computers updated, and we will have to do the other half early in the morning or late at night when no one is at their workstation. I have some simple advice: keep a positive attitude towards the whole thing and do not let your bosses bury you with projects.
First of all, much of NPR has unfortunately turned into partisan rhetoric, and college professors are nutouious for being opinionated in that area, so I seriously doubt you got an unbiased opinion. It is always important to consider the motives of the speaker and question his assertions. The more you question, the more knowledge you gain from the medium to which you are listening.
What was the professor merely trying to explain something or does coming on NPR with a left-wing or right-wing idea mean there's some hidden agenda going on? In this case, just because we may or may not agree with something does not make it more or less true.
Sir, you exclude all those alcoholics who spend three years as a freshman. For shame. ;)
Heck, StarCraft is one of the best rts games available and people still play it on bnet.
I think it is important to make a distinction between Apple and zealous Apple users. Apple as a corporation pokes fun at Microsoft some times, but those times have been in good taste. What you are referring to, I believe, is a gross generalization that anything Apple goes against Microsoft, MS being the "dominator."
Stay away from Bubba.
Could we have a silicon valley on slashdot? Let's see:
1. nerds (check)
2. rich people (...)
browse the internets with the wiimote.
Now I'm not usually a grammar Nazi, but it's "I"nternet and there is only one of them. Zonk, please make sure your updates are coherent.
Mac means "pimp" en français. Thought that was rather funny.
You can turn on the laser in the optical music port via API as well. If you've run Windows on a MacBook, then you know the red glow that comes out of that port. Maybe the writers can get together and when "Lightsaber" is clicked both the sound and the laser turn on. That would be insanely great.
There will be hell to pay if that happens.
All I have to say is:
:(
He is redundantly male, in case there were any questions.
Well, they got a legal bill of 5 million pounds to pay for... at least that will keep the lawyers happy.
Apple could sell monitors like dell, but they choose not to. Here are some reasons:
I support the Chinese people, however the government is absolutely terrible on human rights and free speech. China wants to become modern and more capitalistic, rising their way to being a first-world nation. However, as long as China continues to treat its citizens like third-world citizens, China will remain third-world.
How do people learn to code like this? Is it just early habits that do not go away?
Bill Gates can play the part of the Emperor, Steve Jobs or Woz can be Yoda.
Les gens la se peut enculer. :P
Your compensation is to know that for every line of code you write, one chair meets its end at Microsoft.
While I admire your resolve, this statement is not correct. From an authoritative source (forgive me for copyright infringement):
This is very true- computer science is the study of algoritms. AP ComS classes tend to allow people to get credit toward 100 level courses, not the 200 level courses that you would think. If you want to learn to code, get a good book and learn yourself... if you can't do that, a ComS major is going to be very hard for you.
Every modern computer has a compiler. Often times it is just an Internet browser like Firefox, Mozilla, Safari, IE, Opera, etc... can compile JavaScript applications. JavaScript is a great language to learn on because it teaches you about an object-oriented model. I recommend the "Rhino Book"- JavaScript: The Definitive Reference from O'Reilly. JavaScript IS a programming language as well as a scripting language and it has very nice c-like syntax.