I am, a little, if only because it actually requires more work to create the error-state that causes it to spit-back the answer regarding subscriptions than it does to simply search from the rest of the available information on the Internet, such that two different users may get different results depending on what's in Apple's database that may not be available to one of them.
Why bother with ruby when perl has served us so well for so long? Or, further afield, why consider Wordpress when we already have wikis - or why not just keep maintaining a website with a text editor as your only tool? Sometimes I think it helps an IT person if they can learn to set aside their technical hat for a while, and try to see it from the other person's eyes.
As someone that first had a web page in 1994 through a BBS that decided to connect itself to the Internet and give us all SLIP accounts, I see the biggest advantage in advanced tools for website management is being able to commit changes on a large scale and to meet all dependencies without having to commit the same rote data entry dozens, hundreds, or thousands of times. I look at it as the same reason why I switched from Slackware to a package-based distribution and ultimately had settled on Debian, if I have to take care of one box it's one thing, but if I have to take care of dozens or hundreds of boxes it's a lot easier if they can analyze their installed packages for dependency and take care of updating everything without requiring a lot of input from root to do so.
On the other hand, the tool has to do a good job of what it's advertised to do. Before I ended up on Debian I had tried SuSE. SuSE was RPM-based but was not usually compatible with Redhat-sourced packages. It didn't fix dependencies properly on its own very well either. Now, for website development, for a long time the non-text-editor web page authoring tools churned out complete and utter garbage. They could rewrite whole sites to change styling or add things, but the code was GARBAGE and at the time when users still were heavily dependent on dialup it was not a good solution, and even into the broadband age a lot of web authoring tools were still turning out unacceptable crap. It may have gotten better lately, but the disconnect between website writers and systems administrators will be hard to overcome.
Then there's the issue of software that matured to the point that there's no reason to upgrade but we're expected to anyway. For products like Microsoft Office, most users could get away with Office 4.3 and not miss any features. A few others might want to go as far as Office 97 when grammar checking was added to Word, but other than a few users that actually need the increased table sizes in Excel there's no reason to keep upgrading Office. In fact, with the crap UI that's been added there's every reason to not upgrade. For Microsoft OSes, I was fine with XP. I didn't care for some of the UI changes that were done following Windows 2000, but it seemed quite stable. Windows 7 also has seemed quite stable. Eight made my work harder (no start menu?! WTF?!), and Ten seems to take Eight's problems and pile others on top.
Or tired of the ever growing bloat required to implement the same old thing you already had 10 years ago under a different name.
This is what tires me the most. I've been through revisions of systems, and usually despite the marketing hype that sells the new systems they end up being used much like the old systems that replaced them. I won't deny that sometimes IT people drag their feet about upgrading when it really truly is time to upgrade, but there are far more times when someone that doesn't directly understand the technology makes a decision to make the change when it is change simply for its own sake. I guess I'm a borderline-cynic, but I want to see a demonstration of improvement before it's widely implemented.
Only CARB states may requires testing, but the VINs of the affected vehicles can simply be submitted to states' motor vehicle departments, and given the nature of Federal highway funding to the states, plus it actually being against Federal law to tamper with the emissions controls of a vehicle, it would not be difficult to compel states MVDs to deny registration of affected vehicles without manufacturer-submitted proof that the manufacturer-created tampering was not corrected.
These Federal laws are specifically on the books for cases of fraud for profit. The EPA isn't going to go after some private owner taking the catalytic converters of of their '77 Monte Carlo or removing the smog pump from their '76 Mustang or blocking the EGR crossover and removing the charcoal canister from their '79 Magnum, they're going to go after the people that make a business of removing the emissions controls on relatively modern vehicles in quantity or violate the law from the point of original manufacture. This predominately means dealerships and manufacturers.
Kind of hard to talk about something that hasn't happened yet.
The vast majority of the Syrians that have fled their country have ended up in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. Kind of hard to holocaust White Europeans from there...
Besides, this isn't Camp of the Saints. Pre-war, Syria had one of the best educated and least religious populations of the nominally Islamic nations. The Syrians would be much better able to integrate into the workforce to actually contribute to the countries they resettle in, and not simply drag the economy down. This isn't some mass of rural-villagers or subsistence farmers, there was an actual economy and education system in Syria before the civil war.
Yep. A lot of blustering VW owners will suddenly change their tune when they go in to renew their tags or else receive mail that tells them that the car will not be registerable past a certain date...
That's not really true for automakers. Self-driving cars are not permitted but automakers are developing them. Car companies are able to get exceptions for manufacturing and testing purposes all of the time when they want to drive on public roads, and they have miles and miles and miles of test track on which to run unlicensed vehicles. Plus they test components and systems outside of vehicle chassis too.
If your argument was true then there would be no auto racing as basically none of those cars are street legal.
I doubt it. I expect that emissions and inspections will scrutinize these cars more to confirm that they're conforming, not less. They may even issue software updates to their OBD-II/CANBUS emissions test controllers to check the veracity of the software in the car's computer. Then again, if there's still any question there's always a tailpipe test on a dyno.
It points out that some drivers could refuse to have their cars "fixed" out of fear that the diesel engine will lose gas efficiency and power output.
Tbh that is what I would do. It's almost guaranteed that the fix will lose gas efficiency and power output.
And then I would never buy another VW again.
And, if you didn't get it fixed, you'd go to renew your tags through your motor vehicle department only to find that your car is ineligible to be registered.
most cars sold are sold by dealerships owned by large chains that span counties or states. you might call them regional businesses, but very few of them are small enough to be considered local.
If anything, the manufacturers are putting ever-increasing requirements on the franchised-dealers, such that many smaller dealers lose their franchises. Several years ago Chrysler ended agreements with probably a third of their dealers, many of them their oldest franchises, because those dealerships would not modernize their facilities and did not contribute much in the way of promotions. Ironically most of those dealerships were on land that was paid-off, so they didn't really have to sell many cars to keep afloat so long as the service department was successful. Not selling cars isn't good for the manufacturer though.
The only real services that dealerships offer that I value are new-car prep and warranty/recall service. I do not value their out-of-warranty or other paid-service, and I do not value the purchase process. Both are much more trouble than they're worth.
As far as corporate vs franchise, there are plenty of industries where there are both corporate end-retail locations and there are franchise end-retail locations. Restaurants immediately come to mind.
No, it's a case of the libertarian-loved nongovernment scrip being co-opted by business at the expense of the individual.
Bitcoin mining has reached a point where the lone individual won't really be able to 'win' anymore. Those already wealthy, with access to resources, will find the bulk of the rest of the keys. If Bitcoin is considered money, then these organizations have literally found a way to make money.
On top of that, since corporate taxation is not especially good even with real money, and taxation in-general is even harder when it isn't official currency (see the Whiskey Rebellion) I expect this to be an even easier means for corporations to avoid taxes.
...how did the $75,000 figure come to be? Is that what it costs for computer time to brute-force something? Is that what someone that holds a huge list of brute-calculated keys charges to do a lookup and provide the reverse-engineered private key?
Have you ever visited a construction site after construction was stopped for any significant amount of time?
I've been to a couple of commercial construction sites (ie, mostly steel and concrete, versus wood for residential) where construction had stalled for a couple of years after the property value collapse, and crews were literally having to break-up concrete because unfinished exposed rebar ends had rusted and that rust expanded the rebar down into the concrete, causing cracks to begin in that concrete.
That was after only a couple of years. Imagine how bad it would get after close to 30 years. Buildings already have enough problems when they're finished if they don't get regular maintenance over the course of decades, but unfinished buildings that are not environmentally sealed will undoubtedly fare far, far worse.
I know that nuclear reactors are supposed to be structurally overengineered simply due to the nature the forces they contain, but starting out with a handicap due to building structural problems doesn't sound like the greatest plan, and that's before account for all of the other technical changes that have been engineered through the decades. We've already seen problems in younger reactors that were finished approximately on their original timetables, this seems like it's asking for more.
I think we have differing views on what is acceptable. I'm typing this on a 15" 1440:900 display and it's just fine so long as the UI programmer for a given application didn't go off the deep end.
Sears does the same thing. I've had that happen when trying to buy stuff at the Sears Outlet stores, and what's further aggravating is that they know the quantities on-hand in the stores on the website.
I don't buy from Sears anymore. I can buy my tools on used market and if anything Craftsman breaks I will get it exchanged, but from now on it'll cost Sears money any time I walk in, rather than make them money.
I don't think that brick-and-mortar retailers like Walmart will really ever get how to do online commerce.
Hell, friggin' Sears, that operated one of the most successful catalog businesses that we've ever seen, essentially closed-down their catalog service. Sears could have been what Amazon now is, and probably have been even more successful with it, as Sears has physical presence in so many markets that it would have been easy for them to adapt their distribution model to quick-turnaround shipping and home delivery. They could have offered next-day or same-day home delivery for many more products in many more markets than Amazon can based on their retail locations, and could have offered more total products out of their regional distribution facilities for more markets quicker than Amazon can.
Unfortunately they never figured out how to make an online store that didn't suck. Then they got bought by K-Mart (which took their name for itself) and started making their division compete amongst each other, and the whole thing is falling apart.
I don't disagree with having a large portion of the habitat underground, but for the long term mental health of the occupants there would need to be above-ground portions and probably portions with windows.
If humans are going to live on Mars, as opposed to just going on a very expensive camping trip, heavy equipment will be necessary beyond the construction of a settlement.
We run ours monthly. It's about the size of a conventional school bus. It's run monthly in-part to confirm that it works and in-part to refresh the fuel in the tank. It gets run during regular office hours. It's also when we test that the transfer switch is actually working right.
Ours happens to be about 500' from the nearest residential property and literally on the far-side of a two storey building from that residence, but I could easily see someone closer to it complaining about it while it runs.
Why should the government, or anyone not financially involved in the design, construction, and operation of the datacenter pay if the datacenter is not operating within the parameters that it was licensed for?
It probably depends on where the cited flaws in the original assessment were found. If it's demonstrated that noise and other nuisances associated with the study were downplayed by the company that owns the datacenter, then they'll probably simply be on the hook. If an outside company did the assessment and screwed it up, if France requires companies to post bonds for this kind of work, then their bond will be pulled.
Either way, if the operating conditions of the datacenter don't match what was promised to the neighborhood and licensed, it should not be the neighborhood's responsibility to put up with it.
Is this based on anything other than being pretty and allowing NASA to have some PR?
I doubt that it's more than PR, given how they're referencing 3d printing as a hot technology right now. Mind you, NASA needs PR as it is constantly threatened with being scaled-back, but I don't think that any of these concepts would do more than influence small portions of a final engineered design.
I'm sure that some will say I'm a cynic, but if one looks at the entire history of spacefight as-imagined versus as-implemented, no functional space equipment has ever looked as sleek or smooth as the concept artists' work promised. Even the Shuttle, in its technological glory and areodynamic flight, does not look like the early prototypes of a spaceplane as envisioned by artists and dreamers.
Technology is often ugly because it is designed for function first. Form, past function, is a luxury. A nation-state that is already arguing about funding is not going to spend extra to make something that looks cool if it costs more to look cool. It will be built out of the simplest materials that are expected to achieve the desired result. If it doesn't need coverings it won't get coverings. If it's simpler to run a conduit or pipe exposed and there's no problem running it exposed, it will be run exposed.
The first Martian structures built from local materials will probably be some form of adobe or regolith-poured structure with a binder. They will be thick, they will be strong, they will match the soil of which they're constructed and will be ugly. They may even be like the anti-hurricane structures used in the Pacific, a lightweight polystyrene mold filled with the regolith and binding agent as a form of concrete. Bulky, but light and cheap, and if mass is more of a problem than volume, probably easier to transport to Mars, or if the expanded foam could be generated on-site, the blocks could be made of brought materials with equipment on-site, stacked, and filled with regolith.
It simply won't be done expensively when it can be done less expensively.
I don't know how one could judge the human-scale pallet against the machine-scale shipping container. Both revolutionized their particular aspect of shipping and storage, and they're definitely intermingled. I've watched an idiot that was too stupid to go to the warehousing and materiel department to get spare pallets and stretchwrap force a crew of eight to manually pack hundreds of old computer cases into a shipping container for storage, only to have to unload the cases when the container had to be moved, and then repack them again manually. Had he had half a brain he would have gotten about 20 pallets, had the computer cases stacked and wrapped (and inventoried on each pallet with packing slip under the outermost layer of stretchwrap, but that's another story) and and then one or two guys in the course of an afternoon could have packed and unpacked that container with nothing more than an unpowered pallet jack.
It's true that there might have been some loss of useful volume in using pallets, as there needs to be enough space around the wrapped contents to let them pass each other inside, but the ultimate fate of these computer cases was to be scrapped. It would have been easier at all levels had he simply used pallets, as even the container probably could have been moved while full as the wrapped pallets wouldn't have shifted as much as individually stacked cases would have.
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I am, a little, if only because it actually requires more work to create the error-state that causes it to spit-back the answer regarding subscriptions than it does to simply search from the rest of the available information on the Internet, such that two different users may get different results depending on what's in Apple's database that may not be available to one of them.
Why bother with ruby when perl has served us so well for so long? Or, further afield, why consider Wordpress when we already have wikis - or why not just keep maintaining a website with a text editor as your only tool? Sometimes I think it helps an IT person if they can learn to set aside their technical hat for a while, and try to see it from the other person's eyes.
As someone that first had a web page in 1994 through a BBS that decided to connect itself to the Internet and give us all SLIP accounts, I see the biggest advantage in advanced tools for website management is being able to commit changes on a large scale and to meet all dependencies without having to commit the same rote data entry dozens, hundreds, or thousands of times. I look at it as the same reason why I switched from Slackware to a package-based distribution and ultimately had settled on Debian, if I have to take care of one box it's one thing, but if I have to take care of dozens or hundreds of boxes it's a lot easier if they can analyze their installed packages for dependency and take care of updating everything without requiring a lot of input from root to do so.
On the other hand, the tool has to do a good job of what it's advertised to do. Before I ended up on Debian I had tried SuSE. SuSE was RPM-based but was not usually compatible with Redhat-sourced packages. It didn't fix dependencies properly on its own very well either. Now, for website development, for a long time the non-text-editor web page authoring tools churned out complete and utter garbage. They could rewrite whole sites to change styling or add things, but the code was GARBAGE and at the time when users still were heavily dependent on dialup it was not a good solution, and even into the broadband age a lot of web authoring tools were still turning out unacceptable crap. It may have gotten better lately, but the disconnect between website writers and systems administrators will be hard to overcome.
Then there's the issue of software that matured to the point that there's no reason to upgrade but we're expected to anyway. For products like Microsoft Office, most users could get away with Office 4.3 and not miss any features. A few others might want to go as far as Office 97 when grammar checking was added to Word, but other than a few users that actually need the increased table sizes in Excel there's no reason to keep upgrading Office. In fact, with the crap UI that's been added there's every reason to not upgrade. For Microsoft OSes, I was fine with XP. I didn't care for some of the UI changes that were done following Windows 2000, but it seemed quite stable. Windows 7 also has seemed quite stable. Eight made my work harder (no start menu?! WTF?!), and Ten seems to take Eight's problems and pile others on top.
This is what tires me the most. I've been through revisions of systems, and usually despite the marketing hype that sells the new systems they end up being used much like the old systems that replaced them. I won't deny that sometimes IT people drag their feet about upgrading when it really truly is time to upgrade, but there are far more times when someone that doesn't directly understand the technology makes a decision to make the change when it is change simply for its own sake. I guess I'm a borderline-cynic, but I want to see a demonstration of improvement before it's widely implemented.
Only CARB states may requires testing, but the VINs of the affected vehicles can simply be submitted to states' motor vehicle departments, and given the nature of Federal highway funding to the states, plus it actually being against Federal law to tamper with the emissions controls of a vehicle, it would not be difficult to compel states MVDs to deny registration of affected vehicles without manufacturer-submitted proof that the manufacturer-created tampering was not corrected.
These Federal laws are specifically on the books for cases of fraud for profit. The EPA isn't going to go after some private owner taking the catalytic converters of of their '77 Monte Carlo or removing the smog pump from their '76 Mustang or blocking the EGR crossover and removing the charcoal canister from their '79 Magnum, they're going to go after the people that make a business of removing the emissions controls on relatively modern vehicles in quantity or violate the law from the point of original manufacture. This predominately means dealerships and manufacturers.
Kind of hard to talk about something that hasn't happened yet.
The vast majority of the Syrians that have fled their country have ended up in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. Kind of hard to holocaust White Europeans from there...
Besides, this isn't Camp of the Saints . Pre-war, Syria had one of the best educated and least religious populations of the nominally Islamic nations. The Syrians would be much better able to integrate into the workforce to actually contribute to the countries they resettle in, and not simply drag the economy down. This isn't some mass of rural-villagers or subsistence farmers, there was an actual economy and education system in Syria before the civil war.
Yep. A lot of blustering VW owners will suddenly change their tune when they go in to renew their tags or else receive mail that tells them that the car will not be registerable past a certain date...
That's not really true for automakers. Self-driving cars are not permitted but automakers are developing them. Car companies are able to get exceptions for manufacturing and testing purposes all of the time when they want to drive on public roads, and they have miles and miles and miles of test track on which to run unlicensed vehicles. Plus they test components and systems outside of vehicle chassis too.
If your argument was true then there would be no auto racing as basically none of those cars are street legal.
I doubt it. I expect that emissions and inspections will scrutinize these cars more to confirm that they're conforming, not less. They may even issue software updates to their OBD-II/CANBUS emissions test controllers to check the veracity of the software in the car's computer. Then again, if there's still any question there's always a tailpipe test on a dyno.
It points out that some drivers could refuse to have their cars "fixed" out of fear that the diesel engine will lose gas efficiency and power output.
Tbh that is what I would do. It's almost guaranteed that the fix will lose gas efficiency and power output. And then I would never buy another VW again.
And, if you didn't get it fixed, you'd go to renew your tags through your motor vehicle department only to find that your car is ineligible to be registered.
most cars sold are sold by dealerships owned by large chains that span counties or states. you might call them regional businesses, but very few of them are small enough to be considered local.
If anything, the manufacturers are putting ever-increasing requirements on the franchised-dealers, such that many smaller dealers lose their franchises. Several years ago Chrysler ended agreements with probably a third of their dealers, many of them their oldest franchises, because those dealerships would not modernize their facilities and did not contribute much in the way of promotions. Ironically most of those dealerships were on land that was paid-off, so they didn't really have to sell many cars to keep afloat so long as the service department was successful. Not selling cars isn't good for the manufacturer though.
The only real services that dealerships offer that I value are new-car prep and warranty/recall service. I do not value their out-of-warranty or other paid-service, and I do not value the purchase process. Both are much more trouble than they're worth.
As far as corporate vs franchise, there are plenty of industries where there are both corporate end-retail locations and there are franchise end-retail locations. Restaurants immediately come to mind.
No, it's a case of the libertarian-loved nongovernment scrip being co-opted by business at the expense of the individual.
Bitcoin mining has reached a point where the lone individual won't really be able to 'win' anymore. Those already wealthy, with access to resources, will find the bulk of the rest of the keys. If Bitcoin is considered money, then these organizations have literally found a way to make money.
On top of that, since corporate taxation is not especially good even with real money, and taxation in-general is even harder when it isn't official currency (see the Whiskey Rebellion) I expect this to be an even easier means for corporations to avoid taxes.
...how did the $75,000 figure come to be? Is that what it costs for computer time to brute-force something? Is that what someone that holds a huge list of brute-calculated keys charges to do a lookup and provide the reverse-engineered private key?
Have you ever visited a construction site after construction was stopped for any significant amount of time?
I've been to a couple of commercial construction sites (ie, mostly steel and concrete, versus wood for residential) where construction had stalled for a couple of years after the property value collapse, and crews were literally having to break-up concrete because unfinished exposed rebar ends had rusted and that rust expanded the rebar down into the concrete, causing cracks to begin in that concrete.
That was after only a couple of years. Imagine how bad it would get after close to 30 years. Buildings already have enough problems when they're finished if they don't get regular maintenance over the course of decades, but unfinished buildings that are not environmentally sealed will undoubtedly fare far, far worse.
I know that nuclear reactors are supposed to be structurally overengineered simply due to the nature the forces they contain, but starting out with a handicap due to building structural problems doesn't sound like the greatest plan, and that's before account for all of the other technical changes that have been engineered through the decades. We've already seen problems in younger reactors that were finished approximately on their original timetables, this seems like it's asking for more.
I think we have differing views on what is acceptable. I'm typing this on a 15" 1440:900 display and it's just fine so long as the UI programmer for a given application didn't go off the deep end.
I'm not sure how to interpret "swirls of electricity", either in terms of particles or in terms of field theory...
Sears does the same thing. I've had that happen when trying to buy stuff at the Sears Outlet stores, and what's further aggravating is that they know the quantities on-hand in the stores on the website.
I don't buy from Sears anymore. I can buy my tools on used market and if anything Craftsman breaks I will get it exchanged, but from now on it'll cost Sears money any time I walk in, rather than make them money.
I don't think that brick-and-mortar retailers like Walmart will really ever get how to do online commerce.
Hell, friggin' Sears, that operated one of the most successful catalog businesses that we've ever seen, essentially closed-down their catalog service. Sears could have been what Amazon now is, and probably have been even more successful with it, as Sears has physical presence in so many markets that it would have been easy for them to adapt their distribution model to quick-turnaround shipping and home delivery. They could have offered next-day or same-day home delivery for many more products in many more markets than Amazon can based on their retail locations, and could have offered more total products out of their regional distribution facilities for more markets quicker than Amazon can.
Unfortunately they never figured out how to make an online store that didn't suck. Then they got bought by K-Mart (which took their name for itself) and started making their division compete amongst each other, and the whole thing is falling apart.
I don't disagree with having a large portion of the habitat underground, but for the long term mental health of the occupants there would need to be above-ground portions and probably portions with windows.
If humans are going to live on Mars, as opposed to just going on a very expensive camping trip, heavy equipment will be necessary beyond the construction of a settlement.
We run ours monthly. It's about the size of a conventional school bus. It's run monthly in-part to confirm that it works and in-part to refresh the fuel in the tank. It gets run during regular office hours. It's also when we test that the transfer switch is actually working right.
Ours happens to be about 500' from the nearest residential property and literally on the far-side of a two storey building from that residence, but I could easily see someone closer to it complaining about it while it runs.
Why should the government, or anyone not financially involved in the design, construction, and operation of the datacenter pay if the datacenter is not operating within the parameters that it was licensed for?
It probably depends on where the cited flaws in the original assessment were found. If it's demonstrated that noise and other nuisances associated with the study were downplayed by the company that owns the datacenter, then they'll probably simply be on the hook. If an outside company did the assessment and screwed it up, if France requires companies to post bonds for this kind of work, then their bond will be pulled.
Either way, if the operating conditions of the datacenter don't match what was promised to the neighborhood and licensed, it should not be the neighborhood's responsibility to put up with it.
Is this based on anything other than being pretty and allowing NASA to have some PR?
I doubt that it's more than PR, given how they're referencing 3d printing as a hot technology right now. Mind you, NASA needs PR as it is constantly threatened with being scaled-back, but I don't think that any of these concepts would do more than influence small portions of a final engineered design.
I'm sure that some will say I'm a cynic, but if one looks at the entire history of spacefight as-imagined versus as-implemented, no functional space equipment has ever looked as sleek or smooth as the concept artists' work promised. Even the Shuttle, in its technological glory and areodynamic flight, does not look like the early prototypes of a spaceplane as envisioned by artists and dreamers.
Technology is often ugly because it is designed for function first. Form, past function, is a luxury. A nation-state that is already arguing about funding is not going to spend extra to make something that looks cool if it costs more to look cool. It will be built out of the simplest materials that are expected to achieve the desired result. If it doesn't need coverings it won't get coverings. If it's simpler to run a conduit or pipe exposed and there's no problem running it exposed, it will be run exposed.
The first Martian structures built from local materials will probably be some form of adobe or regolith-poured structure with a binder. They will be thick, they will be strong, they will match the soil of which they're constructed and will be ugly. They may even be like the anti-hurricane structures used in the Pacific, a lightweight polystyrene mold filled with the regolith and binding agent as a form of concrete. Bulky, but light and cheap, and if mass is more of a problem than volume, probably easier to transport to Mars, or if the expanded foam could be generated on-site, the blocks could be made of brought materials with equipment on-site, stacked, and filled with regolith.
It simply won't be done expensively when it can be done less expensively.
I don't know how one could judge the human-scale pallet against the machine-scale shipping container. Both revolutionized their particular aspect of shipping and storage, and they're definitely intermingled. I've watched an idiot that was too stupid to go to the warehousing and materiel department to get spare pallets and stretchwrap force a crew of eight to manually pack hundreds of old computer cases into a shipping container for storage, only to have to unload the cases when the container had to be moved, and then repack them again manually. Had he had half a brain he would have gotten about 20 pallets, had the computer cases stacked and wrapped (and inventoried on each pallet with packing slip under the outermost layer of stretchwrap, but that's another story) and and then one or two guys in the course of an afternoon could have packed and unpacked that container with nothing more than an unpowered pallet jack.
It's true that there might have been some loss of useful volume in using pallets, as there needs to be enough space around the wrapped contents to let them pass each other inside, but the ultimate fate of these computer cases was to be scrapped. It would have been easier at all levels had he simply used pallets, as even the container probably could have been moved while full as the wrapped pallets wouldn't have shifted as much as individually stacked cases would have.