A higher up made the call to sell to the girl, almost certainly after asking her whether she intended to send the iPad to Iran, at which point she lied and said no. The law is very clear. You can look it up.
I think you asked more than twice. And I replied to you above, but I'll do so again here. Go to ANY US hardware (and quite a bit of software) manufacturer's web page, read the terms of sale you must click on to complete the purchase, and note the bit about not intending to export, or transfer to anyone intending to export, the device.
In this case the sale was in person, and has gotten a lot of publicity. Perhaps Apple employees are better trained than other retailers' employees. Perhaps it's rare for someone to be stupid enough to seek publicity for failing to commit a crime. Perhaps most news crews aren't dumb enough to run stories like this. Or perhaps it's just that Apple is the evil company du jour. The law, stupid as it is, is very clear regarding Apple's and Apple's employees' responsibilities.
"I sincerely doubt that an $11.00 an hour clerk at an Apple store has the knowledge and judgement to interpret and apply complex trade sanctions."
It's not particularly complex, and there's an Apple clerk up a bit in the discussion who says that Apple employees DO get training on export restrictions. It's not surprising, since Apple is liable if the law is broken.
"Finally let's get real here - There's not likely to be much in an iPad that would represent a big jump on whatever technology Iran is using already."
Sure, this particular application of the law is stupid. Nevertheless, it is the law and Apple and it's employees were following it.
"Does an Apple employee have the right to prevent the purchase merely because someone said something?"
No. But he does have a legal obligation to do so. As silly as it is, once that employee knew that the girl intended the iPad to go to Iran, it would have been a crime, of which he and Apple would be guilty, for him to sell the iPad to her.
There you go, the laws themselves, and interpretive guidance papers from the US Treasury Department. US law does indeed prohibit export to Iran (what the girl was planning to do) and knowingly selling embargoed equipment to persons who intent to export it (what the clerk refused to do).
I'm not American, and I think that law is kind of stupid as it is, but it is the law in the USA.
I can do one better than giving you examples of other large retailers following that law - you can experience it for yourself. Go to dell.com and pick out a computer. Click through until you get to the box that asks you to accept the terms of sale. Now go read them. You'll notice this line:
The Products and Services may not be exported, re-exported, sold, leased or otherwise transferred to restricted end-users (including those on the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security "Entity List," the U. S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control "Specially Designated Nationals List," and other U.S. government lists of denied parties) or to countries subject to a U.S. export embargo (currently Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria). In addition, the Products and Services may not be exported, re-exported, sold, leased or otherwise transferred to, or utilized by, an end-user engaged in any activities related to weapons of mass destruction, including any activities related to the design, development, production or use of (a) nuclear weapons, materials, or facilities, (b) missiles or the support of missile projects, or (c) chemical or biological weapons. You agree to apply the requirements of Section 13.A to any agreement you enter with any party for the resale or distribution of the Products or Services provided under this Agreement.
Now, since you DO intend to export the computer to Iran, click "I DO NOT AGREE to Dell's Terms and Conditions of Sale." and see if you can buy the computer.
No, they're not. Everyone trusts and likes people they know more than people they don't. Some people, who are "racist" (using the term broadly, as people do), don't trust or like anyone of a particular skin colour, nationality, ethnic background etc. There's a difference between the first, which is human nature, and the second.
Her story is that she WAS going to send the iPad to Iran, she just didn't tell the clerk that. So how likely is it that the clerk decided to refuse to sell her an iPad for some reason of his own, made up a story that he heard her say she was going to export it, and it turns out, coincidentally, she was going to do just that?
Or maybe the simpler explanation is true - she told a little lie to the TV crew to make her story sound better.
The clerk and Apple face criminal charges if they aid someone in exporting to an embargoed country. It sounds likely that the clerk heard her mention her intentions (of course she denies it) and decided he didn't want to go to jail.
As for freedom, I crossed the Canada/US border last week, whereupon my passenger and I were ordered out of the car at gunpoint by fifteen border guards, handcuffed, dragged off to holding cells and chained to benches until the customs agents realized I, a most definitely white redhead, was not the tattooed, black, international criminal they were looking for. If you (or your name) is on the US government's shit list, there isn't a whole lot of freedom.
Yes, I missed a part of the definition - all three masts must be square rigged. Schooners use a fore and aft rig. Dictionary.com also omits the requirement to have a bowsprit. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ship
Ship did have a precise definition, and what you said about sea-faring isn't really true because most of the designs were copied by cultures in contact with one another. Also, the English navy (a central authority) gave everything they saw, and it's those names and definitions, and descendants thereof, that we use in English today.
Technically, a ship was a surface water craft (a boat) that had three masts and a bowsprit. Everything else had other names. When large boats no longer had masts or bowsprits the definition changed. Subs have just always been boats, no matter how large.
"Only difference this time is that Apple doesn't have quite the same market stranglehold that Microsoft did/does."
Yeah, that's generally a prerequisite for a charge of abusing your monopoly power.
"It does make one wonder though - given the mass shift away from desktop PCs towards more portible devices, and if Apple did come to utterly dominate the laptop/mobile market, how long would it take for Apple to wind up in a courtroom?"
"always making the menu bar take up the maximum possible space"
How does having one menu bar take up more space than having one on every window? Unless you only have one window open, probably maximized like a lot of Windows users seem to do. But in that case, there's no difference between the two styles, is there?
On Titan you're surrounded by combustable fuel, but you have to go looking for oxidizer. On Earth, we're surrounded by oxidizer but have to go looking for fuel. As far as fire is concerned, it's the same thing.
Physics?Biology? Note, the biology link is not about clinical science, it's about basic petrie dish and rat cell biology, biochemistry and genetics. Note also that clinical trials have been very good at failing drugs based on incorrect or non-transferrable basic biology findings.
Every branch of science has screwups. In every branch of science you can do your stats, design your experiments, correctly, or incorrectly. When there's a failure in clinical research you tend to hear about it because it affects a lot of people. Not so much when someone in a physics lab misplaces a decimal point.
Most magazines are ad supported. You pay a subscription fee, yes, but if you haven't noticed, most magazines are coming perilously close to the point where they're more advertising than they are content. Journals generally have very little or no advertising. Particularly now that few people actually read paper journals anyway.
Most magazines publish mostly articles from staff or corresponding writers. If they publish articles from random contributors, they're in a small, self contained section. Journals publish almost exclusively articles submitted by outsiders.
Magazines usually make most of their money through sales to individuals. Journals make almost none of their money that way, with most sales being institutional subscriptions.
Writing (and reading) magazine articles is usually highly optional. Writing and reading journal articles, for a scientist, is compulsory.
I used to carry three batteries for my old MBP, with replaceable batteries. Then I got a new one without - the built in battery lasts longer than two of the old batteries, and the thing charges so fast that it's rarely (actually never) a problem.
I tend to hit hard drive limits well within the expected lifetime of my laptop. As in, there's a half decent chance the drive will die completely. As the other poster said, write limits aren't so bad because the failure is predictable, and wear levelling is pretty good at evening things out. Compiling isn't bad at all, and neither is photography - the amount of data that is changed and needs to be rewritten is small.
You are wrong. It's a 2880x1800 display. You can address each and every one of those pixels individually.
If your code editor uses Lion's text rendering APIs but is not aware that the display is high DPI, Lion will lie to it and tell it that it's on a lower resolution screen so the text isn't ridiculously small. If your code editor IS aware that it's on a high DPI screen, it can display the text as small as your tired eyes wish.
Appliance buyers don't tear down their refrigerators very often either.
So how often do you "repair" your daughter's T30? Is half an hour off the "repair" time, once every couple of years, REALLY worth carrying around the extra fittings to give you easily accessible components?
How many normal people do you think ever upgrade any piece of electronics they own, by themselves? Cell phone batteries were about the only thing user replaceable until companies realized that people were just chucking their phones after two years anyway.
I consider the slight hassle (have to find screwdriver!) of changing the "non-replaceable" battery in an iPhone once every couple of years, for example, much better than having an externally accessible battery fall out periodically.
It IS too bad they're soldering the RAM, but again, I'd much rather have a lighter, more durable notebook and buy my RAM now, than save maybe $100 by buying it next year. If you disagree, there are lots of plastic monsters to choose from other manufacturers.
Slashdot Mirror
A higher up made the call to sell to the girl, almost certainly after asking her whether she intended to send the iPad to Iran, at which point she lied and said no. The law is very clear. You can look it up.
I think you asked more than twice. And I replied to you above, but I'll do so again here. Go to ANY US hardware (and quite a bit of software) manufacturer's web page, read the terms of sale you must click on to complete the purchase, and note the bit about not intending to export, or transfer to anyone intending to export, the device.
In this case the sale was in person, and has gotten a lot of publicity. Perhaps Apple employees are better trained than other retailers' employees. Perhaps it's rare for someone to be stupid enough to seek publicity for failing to commit a crime. Perhaps most news crews aren't dumb enough to run stories like this. Or perhaps it's just that Apple is the evil company du jour. The law, stupid as it is, is very clear regarding Apple's and Apple's employees' responsibilities.
"I sincerely doubt that an $11.00 an hour clerk at an Apple store has the knowledge and judgement to interpret and apply complex trade sanctions."
It's not particularly complex, and there's an Apple clerk up a bit in the discussion who says that Apple employees DO get training on export restrictions. It's not surprising, since Apple is liable if the law is broken.
"Finally let's get real here - There's not likely to be much in an iPad that would represent a big jump on whatever technology Iran is using already."
Sure, this particular application of the law is stupid. Nevertheless, it is the law and Apple and it's employees were following it.
"Does an Apple employee have the right to prevent the purchase merely because someone said something?"
No. But he does have a legal obligation to do so. As silly as it is, once that employee knew that the girl intended the iPad to go to Iran, it would have been a crime, of which he and Apple would be guilty, for him to sell the iPad to her.
Sorry, but the claim of a publicity seeking person who has admitted to planning to commit a crime isn't really very good evidence.
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Pages/iran.aspx
There you go, the laws themselves, and interpretive guidance papers from the US Treasury Department. US law does indeed prohibit export to Iran (what the girl was planning to do) and knowingly selling embargoed equipment to persons who intent to export it (what the clerk refused to do).
I'm not American, and I think that law is kind of stupid as it is, but it is the law in the USA.
I can do one better than giving you examples of other large retailers following that law - you can experience it for yourself. Go to dell.com and pick out a computer. Click through until you get to the box that asks you to accept the terms of sale. Now go read them. You'll notice this line:
Now, since you DO intend to export the computer to Iran, click "I DO NOT AGREE to Dell's Terms and Conditions of Sale." and see if you can buy the computer.
"Everyone's a racist."
No, they're not. Everyone trusts and likes people they know more than people they don't. Some people, who are "racist" (using the term broadly, as people do), don't trust or like anyone of a particular skin colour, nationality, ethnic background etc. There's a difference between the first, which is human nature, and the second.
Her story is that she WAS going to send the iPad to Iran, she just didn't tell the clerk that. So how likely is it that the clerk decided to refuse to sell her an iPad for some reason of his own, made up a story that he heard her say she was going to export it, and it turns out, coincidentally, she was going to do just that?
Or maybe the simpler explanation is true - she told a little lie to the TV crew to make her story sound better.
The clerk and Apple face criminal charges if they aid someone in exporting to an embargoed country. It sounds likely that the clerk heard her mention her intentions (of course she denies it) and decided he didn't want to go to jail.
As for freedom, I crossed the Canada/US border last week, whereupon my passenger and I were ordered out of the car at gunpoint by fifteen border guards, handcuffed, dragged off to holding cells and chained to benches until the customs agents realized I, a most definitely white redhead, was not the tattooed, black, international criminal they were looking for. If you (or your name) is on the US government's shit list, there isn't a whole lot of freedom.
You did say aircraft. My apologies.
Yes, I missed a part of the definition - all three masts must be square rigged. Schooners use a fore and aft rig. Dictionary.com also omits the requirement to have a bowsprit. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ship
Ship did have a precise definition, and what you said about sea-faring isn't really true because most of the designs were copied by cultures in contact with one another. Also, the English navy (a central authority) gave everything they saw, and it's those names and definitions, and descendants thereof, that we use in English today.
Technically, a ship was a surface water craft (a boat) that had three masts and a bowsprit. Everything else had other names. When large boats no longer had masts or bowsprits the definition changed. Subs have just always been boats, no matter how large.
Quite a bit slower than even run of the mill manned rockets actually. More than 2000 km/h.
And it sounds like what Safari already does on the iPad (except for the unnecessary button to bring up the interface). So what?
"Only difference this time is that Apple doesn't have quite the same market stranglehold that Microsoft did/does."
Yeah, that's generally a prerequisite for a charge of abusing your monopoly power.
"It does make one wonder though - given the mass shift away from desktop PCs towards more portible devices, and if Apple did come to utterly dominate the laptop/mobile market, how long would it take for Apple to wind up in a courtroom?"
Not very long at all.
"WP7 is an odd duck because it has to be used to be appreciated."
And there is the answer the the question.
"always making the menu bar take up the maximum possible space"
How does having one menu bar take up more space than having one on every window? Unless you only have one window open, probably maximized like a lot of Windows users seem to do. But in that case, there's no difference between the two styles, is there?
On Titan you're surrounded by combustable fuel, but you have to go looking for oxidizer. On Earth, we're surrounded by oxidizer but have to go looking for fuel. As far as fire is concerned, it's the same thing.
Physics? Biology? Note, the biology link is not about clinical science, it's about basic petrie dish and rat cell biology, biochemistry and genetics. Note also that clinical trials have been very good at failing drugs based on incorrect or non-transferrable basic biology findings.
Every branch of science has screwups. In every branch of science you can do your stats, design your experiments, correctly, or incorrectly. When there's a failure in clinical research you tend to hear about it because it affects a lot of people. Not so much when someone in a physics lab misplaces a decimal point.
Most magazines are ad supported. You pay a subscription fee, yes, but if you haven't noticed, most magazines are coming perilously close to the point where they're more advertising than they are content. Journals generally have very little or no advertising. Particularly now that few people actually read paper journals anyway.
Most magazines publish mostly articles from staff or corresponding writers. If they publish articles from random contributors, they're in a small, self contained section. Journals publish almost exclusively articles submitted by outsiders.
Magazines usually make most of their money through sales to individuals. Journals make almost none of their money that way, with most sales being institutional subscriptions.
Writing (and reading) magazine articles is usually highly optional. Writing and reading journal articles, for a scientist, is compulsory.
Then don't buy a MBP.
I used to carry three batteries for my old MBP, with replaceable batteries. Then I got a new one without - the built in battery lasts longer than two of the old batteries, and the thing charges so fast that it's rarely (actually never) a problem.
I tend to hit hard drive limits well within the expected lifetime of my laptop. As in, there's a half decent chance the drive will die completely. As the other poster said, write limits aren't so bad because the failure is predictable, and wear levelling is pretty good at evening things out. Compiling isn't bad at all, and neither is photography - the amount of data that is changed and needs to be rewritten is small.
You are wrong. It's a 2880x1800 display. You can address each and every one of those pixels individually.
If your code editor uses Lion's text rendering APIs but is not aware that the display is high DPI, Lion will lie to it and tell it that it's on a lower resolution screen so the text isn't ridiculously small. If your code editor IS aware that it's on a high DPI screen, it can display the text as small as your tired eyes wish.
Appliance buyers don't tear down their refrigerators very often either.
So how often do you "repair" your daughter's T30? Is half an hour off the "repair" time, once every couple of years, REALLY worth carrying around the extra fittings to give you easily accessible components?
"disposable mentality of the Apple product line"
How many normal people do you think ever upgrade any piece of electronics they own, by themselves? Cell phone batteries were about the only thing user replaceable until companies realized that people were just chucking their phones after two years anyway.
I consider the slight hassle (have to find screwdriver!) of changing the "non-replaceable" battery in an iPhone once every couple of years, for example, much better than having an externally accessible battery fall out periodically.
It IS too bad they're soldering the RAM, but again, I'd much rather have a lighter, more durable notebook and buy my RAM now, than save maybe $100 by buying it next year. If you disagree, there are lots of plastic monsters to choose from other manufacturers.