No need to quote 'sweatshops'. They are sweatshops.
Re: your question, 'Would they be better off...' understates the complexity of the economic factors. In an either/or situation, workers have no real choice, so I agree with the short view that the job is good. But, albalbo has it right: Nike perpetuates the environmental conditions that provide this either/or choice in the first place. Not only that, but when corporations exercise the option to employee workers in violation of US labor laws, they subvert the sound labor policies in this country. Why care? The implications of this choice affect U.S. productivity. In is not in the interest of the U.S. to allow U.S. corporations to behave in this way. Whether the U.S. has the right to legislate a remedy is a separate question, but in my opinion it is the right thing to do.
Ucklak, you may be playing the Devil's advocate by making a case for free markets rather than human rights. That's fine, but the economics of the free market are skewed by the low-cost labor overseas.
AS, I mention in a previous post, I believe this is only in effect at the Business School, where the default access settings prevent student access.
I have been in both environments, and have seen what a difference it makes. There is always far greater ratio goofing off with the internet available. It is sad that a few rotten students ruin it for others.
I did bother to finish the book as well, and agree that it is not worth the read.
There was one mildly interesting anecdote about a phone hack from jail, but still not worth the price.
Instead, I suggest "Cuckoo's Egg" by Cliff Stoll is an enjoyable classic. The technology is more interesting from a historical perspective, though some hacks mentioned are still relevant today. And these are real system hacks, not social-engineering hacks which can be tiresome to read after a while.
If you're willing to venture into non-fiction, a couple of interesting books that lightly touch upon technology, are "Tipping point" and "Emergence" (which mentions slashdot to illustrate a point.
Well, think about how many software widgets follow from physical design.
If you spent most of your time adjust color balances for images, a slider on the keyboard makes more sense than use a mouse/keys to get to the 'software' slider that you would move with a mouse...
I think you last question
How much of that is because "it's the way work is done" and how much is because "When we invented these things, you actually had to throw switches, bring capacitors on-line, etc"?
is exactly the kind of thinking that will lead to the next generation of keyboards.
Realize that the PC revolution was fueled by worprocessing and spreadsheet software, which both lend themselves to keyboard/keypad input devices.
At some point -- aren't we living in the future yet? -- the input devices must make an evolutionary leap.
If you look in the video editing and medical imaging field, the input devices reflect the nature of how the work is done (dials, sliders, toggle buttons).
A fictional example of one possibility is the type of 3d input device used in Minority Report.
We still are mostly creatures of the keyboard (damn blogs!), but at some point, the next killer app may bring about the emergence of a better input device.
Oh yeah, and voice recognition might not suck so much someday;-)
-duck
I couldn't agree more about the benefits of simplifying the end-user experience.
Although for years I prided myself on working in CLI mode, I have begin to rethink the idea of a "user experience."
My idea of a user experience, is probably much like the rest of the/. crowd: assemble some miscellaneous hw, download and install various distros, and just hack away - sometimes just for the sake of learning, rather than implementing a specific solution -- nothing wrong with that, mind you.
But at some point, there is not enough time left in the day (older geeks do get married and have kids!), and you don't want to swap hw components, or explain to the family about compiling device drivers.. they just want to look at a website, play a game, whatever.
Recently, I bought a digital camera and was explaining to my wife all the things she *could* do , but once I saw the glazed look in her eye, it finally hit me: she just wants to see the pictures on the screen.
Ok, some of you are wondering what my problem is. I'll tell you. I could spend literally all night working on a mysql-droven prictures db with a php front end.. then how about a jsp front end, and hey, I could actually set up a distributed computing environment with RMI and EJBs, and this could scale to thousands of users, and I could abstract the rendering layer so that my wireless palm gets the low bandwith view based on the XSLT engine I put together... but where are the freaking pictures, buddy.
So I take a cue from my wife and just plug in the camera to an Mac G3 with iPhoto, and she get to see her pictures, as a slideshow.. with music even. And she seems so happy, so I shut up and don't even think about explaing how this solution doesn't scale, isn't portable, etc.
So now, I'm looking at iMacs, and I wouldn't even think of installing Yellow Dog Linux on it, b/c I want my wife to be happy. So maybe I've rationalized/compromised, or maybe there is room in the world from free solutions *and* proprietary solutions to live together.... And you could still run mysqld off your iMac...;-)
>What a fantastic marketplace! There could be... dozens of folks like that! No, really - I'm CERTAIN there are at least 30!
Interesting point, though, what did the marketing report look like? Targeted demographics?
From their site:
# Sales Engineers were burning out from the physical and mental stress of carrying and shipping full size desktop equipment to customer sites. click here for more
# With portable Sun equipment, they could perform more demonstrations per month, which linked directly with the number of sales closed and therefore their bottom line.
That's right, thery are tagetting other salespeople. The economy must be worse than we though if the the saleforce of the U.S. is trying to feed on itself!
Linux was my first thought too, since I work in a Unix environment and my employers supply me with an Intel-based laptop.
HW is inexpensive, but also supports a number of OS choices, including Linux.
I suppose a more apt comparison to this new laptop would be with a Solaris-on-Intel laptop, but then we would be stuck arguing questions like, "Why is CDE still a viable window manager?"
Seriously, Linux a good all-around choice for those who do a little work on Unix. Otherwise, you are correct that a strict technical need for a Solaris laptop would exclude discussions of Linux... but then really that's the point of questioning this product. How many folks *need* Solaris? Some, but not most.
Realistically, four out of your five points don't require a Solaris laptop.
I would guess more admins (and managers) would agree that it is more useful to keep your Solaris server in the datacenter and ssh into it from your mobile workstation running your preferred OS.
It's more likely a laptop will fail -- fragile hw, jostling, theft,... batteries dying;-) -- than expecting a well-maintained server on a UPS will be unavailable.
Not to mention the security issues if you configure this free-floating device to be a hot spare.
Slashdot Mirror
Re: your question, 'Would they be better off...' understates the complexity of the economic factors. In an either/or situation, workers have no real choice, so I agree with the short view that the job is good. But, albalbo has it right: Nike perpetuates the environmental conditions that provide this either/or choice in the first place. Not only that, but when corporations exercise the option to employee workers in violation of US labor laws, they subvert the sound labor policies in this country. Why care? The implications of this choice affect U.S. productivity. In is not in the interest of the U.S. to allow U.S. corporations to behave in this way. Whether the U.S. has the right to legislate a remedy is a separate question, but in my opinion it is the right thing to do.
Ucklak, you may be playing the Devil's advocate by making a case for free markets rather than human rights. That's fine, but the economics of the free market are skewed by the low-cost labor overseas.
Have you considered this policy was enacted after after it was misused?
I have been in both environments, and have seen what a difference it makes. There is always far greater ratio goofing off with the internet available. It is sad that a few rotten students ruin it for others.
Instructors may override this per student, or per class when needed.
I do use it and find it to be a good client, but do get annoyed by it (more so under Linux..) So I wonder what other faults do people have with it?
I had to switch back from Evolution b/c it seemd buggy and flaky.
I've been *stuck* with mozilla for a while (for cross platform purposes, though I do like it for other reasons.)
The only other option that seems tempting is mutt.
There was one mildly interesting anecdote about a phone hack from jail, but still not worth the price.
Instead, I suggest "Cuckoo's Egg" by Cliff Stoll is an enjoyable classic. The technology is more interesting from a historical perspective, though some hacks mentioned are still relevant today. And these are real system hacks, not social-engineering hacks which can be tiresome to read after a while.
If you're willing to venture into non-fiction, a couple of interesting books that lightly touch upon technology, are "Tipping point" and "Emergence" (which mentions slashdot to illustrate a point.
for (;reading_slashdot==TRUE;++nerdiness,--social_life ){;}
If you spent most of your time adjust color balances for images, a slider on the keyboard makes more sense than use a mouse/keys to get to the 'software' slider that you would move with a mouse...
I think you last question
is exactly the kind of thinking that will lead to the next generation of keyboards.very good point, though at some point high level programming may just involve some kind of UML palette.
Realize that the PC revolution was fueled by worprocessing and spreadsheet software, which both lend themselves to keyboard/keypad input devices. At some point -- aren't we living in the future yet? -- the input devices must make an evolutionary leap. If you look in the video editing and medical imaging field, the input devices reflect the nature of how the work is done (dials, sliders, toggle buttons). A fictional example of one possibility is the type of 3d input device used in Minority Report. We still are mostly creatures of the keyboard (damn blogs!), but at some point, the next killer app may bring about the emergence of a better input device. Oh yeah, and voice recognition might not suck so much someday ;-)
-duck
Although for years I prided myself on working in CLI mode, I have begin to rethink the idea of a "user experience."
My idea of a user experience, is probably much like the rest of the /. crowd: assemble some miscellaneous hw, download and install various distros, and just hack away - sometimes just for the sake of learning, rather than implementing a specific solution -- nothing wrong with that, mind you.
But at some point, there is not enough time left in the day (older geeks do get married and have kids!), and you don't want to swap hw components, or explain to the family about compiling device drivers.. they just want to look at a website, play a game, whatever.
Recently, I bought a digital camera and was explaining to my wife all the things she *could* do , but once I saw the glazed look in her eye, it finally hit me: she just wants to see the pictures on the screen.
Ok, some of you are wondering what my problem is. I'll tell you. I could spend literally all night working on a mysql-droven prictures db with a php front end.. then how about a jsp front end, and hey, I could actually set up a distributed computing environment with RMI and EJBs, and this could scale to thousands of users, and I could abstract the rendering layer so that my wireless palm gets the low bandwith view based on the XSLT engine I put together... but where are the freaking pictures, buddy.
So I take a cue from my wife and just plug in the camera to an Mac G3 with iPhoto, and she get to see her pictures, as a slideshow.. with music even. And she seems so happy, so I shut up and don't even think about explaing how this solution doesn't scale, isn't portable, etc.
So now, I'm looking at iMacs, and I wouldn't even think of installing Yellow Dog Linux on it, b/c I want my wife to be happy. So maybe I've rationalized/compromised, or maybe there is room in the world from free solutions *and* proprietary solutions to live together. ... And you could still run mysqld off your iMac ... ;-)
DOCTOR: Well, When I was on the river I heard a strange sound, a sort of babble of inhuman voices. Didn't you Romana?
ROMANA: Yes.
PROFESSOR: Oh just undergraduates talking to each other I expect. I've trying to have it banned....
figured it might be buried, thanks for posting it
bad enough when people take their work home with them, even worse when they take the server home with them!
Interesting point, though, what did the marketing report look like? Targeted demographics? From their site:
That's right, thery are tagetting other salespeople. The economy must be worse than we though if the the saleforce of the U.S. is trying to feed on itself!HW is inexpensive, but also supports a number of OS choices, including Linux.
I suppose a more apt comparison to this new laptop would be with a Solaris-on-Intel laptop, but then we would be stuck arguing questions like, "Why is CDE still a viable window manager?"
Seriously, Linux a good all-around choice for those who do a little work on Unix. Otherwise, you are correct that a strict technical need for a Solaris laptop would exclude discussions of Linux... but then really that's the point of questioning this product. How many folks *need* Solaris? Some, but not most.
I would guess more admins (and managers) would agree that it is more useful to keep your Solaris server in the datacenter and ssh into it from your mobile workstation running your preferred OS.
It's more likely a laptop will fail -- fragile hw, jostling, theft, ... batteries dying ;-) -- than expecting a well-maintained server on a UPS will be unavailable.
Not to mention the security issues if you configure this free-floating device to be a hot spare.