Guess what? Apple does NOT give 'serious discounts' to education customers. [snip]
OK. I agree that on a school level, Apple doesn't give big discounts. We didn't get any. We were typically better off dealing with vendors and buying recent (but not absolute latest) equipment at a good discount. Or even Apple refurbs, if the budget was tight.
However, if you want to buy Apple equipment on a *state* level -- think Maine, perhaps -- I suspect they will give you better than 10% off. This $2 million project in Boston sounds like a pilot.....
Nevermind. I just looked up the Maine program and did some rough analysis and it looks like they didn't get any more discount. That's crazy. But hey, there is that great support thing......
Well, I'm sure Apple is giving them a serious discount, but "achieve the same goal" is debatable. Do you want seventh-graders to have to click on Windows "Confirm or Deny" security alerts while they work? Or worry about malware on the Internet? If you want, you could switch them to generic laptops running Linux -- but either way your support costs increase. Like it or not, a fleet of Macs is much cheaper to support than a fleet of Windows or Linux boxes. When I worked as the senior Mac tech support guy for a mid-size university, I was single-handedly able to support nearly four times the number of computer boxes than any of the Windows techs. Seriously.
TerraPass sells carbon offsets for personal and business use. If you look at TerraPass for Business, you'll see they estimate something for servers in a data center. I have heard that the number includes an average power draw for the electronics, plus cooling, security, networking, and related materials -- somewhere over 500 watts.
We're considering TerraPass, though we haven't come to any conclusions yet.
As it turns out, the guy whose motherboard was replaced twice by Dell, finally wrote a strongly-worded complaint to them. They have apparently decided to give him a brand new Dell of equivilent cost to what he originally paid. E.g. they've given up on fixing it.
I've also heard quite the opposite, and my own experience bears out that Apple tends to be more reliable. My wife's Powerbook is more than eight years old and has never needed repair (though it is well-used); my own PowerBook didn't need repair until year 3, and then only after being dropped for the fifth time. Meanwhile, I have several friends with Dell laptops who have gone through multiple service iterations in the first year, some quite extreme (like having a motherboard replaced TWICE).
The only problem with laptops is that fact that it's not very easy to add new ram compared to desktops or iMacs...
I guess you haven't seen the PowerBooks or MacBook Pros of the last few years. Just take your little Phillips screwdriver, unscrew the memory panel on the bottom of your laptop, insert memory, replace panel, done. Apple will even give you pretty pictures to follow for doing it. If you're fast with the screwdriver, you'll be done in two minutes or less.
40 minutes?! If you do it often enough it should be a lot closer to your 4 minutes. I've only done it once to an MBP, though experience from previous Apple laptops as well as instructions like this kept the total time down to 15 minutes or less.
But even if it took an hour, it would be worth the $$$ you save doing it yourself.
I don't know about weak genes, but your will is only a very small factor in being overweight. If you aren't overweight, it's hard to understand. Once you have been overweight long enough that your metabolism decides its ideal weight is now your current [over]weight, will is almost useless in combating it. You won't even notice when you eat something you shouldn't.
I've talked with nutrition instructors at medical schools about stuff like this, and more than once I've heard that the most effective long-term thing is a reduced diet (as much as a person can willfully sustain) and stomach-reduction surgery. Seriously.
Go out and play. Get a tan. Drink some coffee. Have some beer with those salty chips. Lets see, did I forget any of the other discredited cancer scares?
Yeah, charbroiled meat. I can't tell you how many times people tell me that eating charbroiled burgers, sausages, whatever, is going to give me cancer... particularly ironic when some of them smoke cigarettes.
...I was more of a fan of Josh Kinberg's Bikes Against Bush, though the prototype was confiscated by the police (and its creator jailed for a few days).
how many other companies use the term "deliverables"?
Every company I've worked at over the last 15 years has used this term -- from tech companies, to marketing agencies, to international nonprofits. It's universal.
There is no benefit for the oil companies to develop and market an alternative technology until all the oil is gone.
Although the article does not speculate on it, I wonder if the oil companies could create "blends" of crude oil with this biochemically-produced "oil 2.0" (as the article calls it). If so, and biochem oil can be produced cheaply en masse, it could cut their production costs dramatically. Of course, they'd sell it at the same price they currently do. Big win for them, financially.
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I am sooo reminded of The Talking Moose. Want him to be friendly? Sure. Sarcastic? Yep. Religious, even, if you like.
It also gets a bit mystical, and is much darker and harder to read than Lewis's Narnia series. That Hideous Strength in particular.
In a completely different vein, I'd also suggest William Gibson's books, particularly Neuromancer.
Five years. Though I'm gone, I stay in touch with the other Mac techs there, and the situation is still largely the same.
What's your experience?
OK. I agree that on a school level, Apple doesn't give big discounts. We didn't get any. We were typically better off dealing with vendors and buying recent (but not absolute latest) equipment at a good discount. Or even Apple refurbs, if the budget was tight.
However, if you want to buy Apple equipment on a *state* level -- think Maine, perhaps -- I suspect they will give you better than 10% off. This $2 million project in Boston sounds like a pilot.....
Nevermind. I just looked up the Maine program and did some rough analysis and it looks like they didn't get any more discount. That's crazy. But hey, there is that great support thing......
Well, I'm sure Apple is giving them a serious discount, but "achieve the same goal" is debatable. Do you want seventh-graders to have to click on Windows "Confirm or Deny" security alerts while they work? Or worry about malware on the Internet? If you want, you could switch them to generic laptops running Linux -- but either way your support costs increase. Like it or not, a fleet of Macs is much cheaper to support than a fleet of Windows or Linux boxes. When I worked as the senior Mac tech support guy for a mid-size university, I was single-handedly able to support nearly four times the number of computer boxes than any of the Windows techs. Seriously.
TerraPass sells carbon offsets for personal and business use. If you look at TerraPass for Business, you'll see they estimate something for servers in a data center. I have heard that the number includes an average power draw for the electronics, plus cooling, security, networking, and related materials -- somewhere over 500 watts.
We're considering TerraPass, though we haven't come to any conclusions yet.
Ouch.
As it turns out, the guy whose motherboard was replaced twice by Dell, finally wrote a strongly-worded complaint to them. They have apparently decided to give him a brand new Dell of equivilent cost to what he originally paid. E.g. they've given up on fixing it.
Probably true. I've heard that from others too.
I've also heard quite the opposite, and my own experience bears out that Apple tends to be more reliable. My wife's Powerbook is more than eight years old and has never needed repair (though it is well-used); my own PowerBook didn't need repair until year 3, and then only after being dropped for the fifth time. Meanwhile, I have several friends with Dell laptops who have gone through multiple service iterations in the first year, some quite extreme (like having a motherboard replaced TWICE).
As they say: YMMV.
Well duh. Buy from someone else, then. Newegg, perhaps, or Macsolutions, or OWC. All much cheaper than Apple.
I guess you haven't seen the PowerBooks or MacBook Pros of the last few years. Just take your little Phillips screwdriver, unscrew the memory panel on the bottom of your laptop, insert memory, replace panel, done. Apple will even give you pretty pictures to follow for doing it. If you're fast with the screwdriver, you'll be done in two minutes or less.
It's even sadder that he could have bought WiFi cards inexpensively and installed them himself
Mod parent up. This has been my experience as well, with both Apple and Dell.
40 minutes?! If you do it often enough it should be a lot closer to your 4 minutes. I've only done it once to an MBP, though experience from previous Apple laptops as well as instructions like this kept the total time down to 15 minutes or less.
But even if it took an hour, it would be worth the $$$ you save doing it yourself.
Actually the headline says "Sequence the Chocolate Genome" -- you cocoa/cacao purists must really have your shorts in a knot over that one.
That's true for a lot of Mars candy, to be sure, but they also own Dove, which actually turns out some reasonably good chocolate from time to time.
Actually I read it as new philosophy: "We don't need old theories anymore, just my new one!"
High-density moveable shelving is common in companies with lots of things to file. Check a hospital records office, for example.
There is such a thing as good genes, and it's called a fast metabolism.
Exactly. It isn't my fault that I am overweight -- it's my glands. They weigh 200 pounds each...
Honestly, I have the exact same muscles as Arnold Schwarzenegger. Really. His just are a little bigger.
I don't know about weak genes, but your will is only a very small factor in being overweight. If you aren't overweight, it's hard to understand. Once you have been overweight long enough that your metabolism decides its ideal weight is now your current [over]weight, will is almost useless in combating it. You won't even notice when you eat something you shouldn't.
I've talked with nutrition instructors at medical schools about stuff like this, and more than once I've heard that the most effective long-term thing is a reduced diet (as much as a person can willfully sustain) and stomach-reduction surgery. Seriously.
Yeah, charbroiled meat. I can't tell you how many times people tell me that eating charbroiled burgers, sausages, whatever, is going to give me cancer... particularly ironic when some of them smoke cigarettes.
...I was more of a fan of Josh Kinberg's Bikes Against Bush, though the prototype was confiscated by the police (and its creator jailed for a few days).
That's because Bungie was originally a Mac-only game developer. Then MS bought 'em for Halo, and nixed all their Mac development.
Every company I've worked at over the last 15 years has used this term -- from tech companies, to marketing agencies, to international nonprofits. It's universal.
Although the article does not speculate on it, I wonder if the oil companies could create "blends" of crude oil with this biochemically-produced "oil 2.0" (as the article calls it). If so, and biochem oil can be produced cheaply en masse, it could cut their production costs dramatically. Of course, they'd sell it at the same price they currently do. Big win for them, financially.