So it's a good bet that MS has even now not yet recouped the losses from developing the xbox
It's pretty unclear to me from the numbers you cite, but it seems like the XBox could be even less profitable than you're making it sound.
For example, when you say that MS lost $4 billion on XBoxes, it's not clear to me what that number includes. R&D? Marketing? Selling the consoles at below cost as a loss-leader? The $1 billion number for bricked XBoxes in the Wikipedia article was from June 2007, and I know people who are still getting their XBoxes replaced due to the red ring of death. Finally, when you say that their entertainment division made a $312 profit, that doesn't necessarily mean that the XBoxes were responsible for that profit. What else is in the entertainment division?
(And please note, I'm not making any real claim about whether or not the XBox 360 has turned a profit yet. I don't know. And as the parent posted, MS has enough money to wait years to recoup the investment, and even has enough money to simply take the loss.)
Maybe the reviewer only bothers to write reviews for books he likes.
I'm not saying you're wrong to be suspicious. I'm just pointing out that there's at least one valid reason why a reviewer would trend toward positive reviews.
I wouldn't call Android a long-running or well-established OS
I didn't say it was mature. I stated in the first sentence what the purpose of my post was: to question what is intended when the author says Android is "in its infancy". The author mostly seems to be comparing Android to Blackberry's OS and the iPhone OS, but the iPhone was only released a couple of years ago.
If the point is just to say "Blackberries have been around longer and their development is more mature than either the iPhone or the Android," then of course that's true. Of course, on the other side of that, the Blackberry OS is showing its age a bit, and RIM has had a problem with their servers going down, knocking out Blackberry users all over the place.
But anyway, when a technology is "in its infancy" is pretty relative. Relative to the wheel, books are still "in their infancy." Relative to books, audio recordings are still "in their infancy". I'd like a little more specificity here on what it means for Android to be "in its infancy".
Well for one thing, there's a rumor that the screen will be sort of a hybrid LCD/e-paper screen, and another rumor that it will have a built-in modem for mobile broadband. It may be less of a low-end laptop and more of a super high-end Kindle.
But then some rumors seem to indicate that it might be a somewhat new class of device. There's been talk about the input interaction being unlike things that we've seen before, the possibility of docking stations, and other weird stuff. It's really hard to tell at this point, since it's all speculation.
I think you're on to something, but the reasons are a little more complicated than, "they want to release gadgets in generations".
First is the fact that their development method is just different from a lot of other companies. Most companies take an idea an idea like a portable MP3 player and say, "Lets put every feature we can into this thing for launch. I want it to have a radio, and have it play lots of games, and maybe have a built-in toaster oven!" So they make a list of features and put them all into a prototype. They polish the prototype until it kind of works, and then release that design as a product. In its first version, it only kind of works, but has lots of problems from having a lot of not-quite-ready features crammed in. They try to fix these problems in the next version.
In contrast, if Apple sets out to design an mp3 player, then there's a decent chance that the product will only have 1 major feature: playing mp3s. Instead of making the first version have loads of features, they'll spend their development time making sure that using the product as an mp3 player is easy, intuitive, and works very well. They'll add features over the next few versions, but they'll do so relatively slowly because each time, they're making sure the new features are integrated well into the existing design.
Those are two different design philosophies which bring different results. In the first way of doing things, you start with a more feature-rich product, but in the second way you start with a more polished product.
Beyond that, there's something else going on in Apple's marketing that is pretty obvious once you notice it, but a lot of people don't notice it. Most tech manufacturers are constantly trying to introduce new products and drive down the price. When Apple introduces a new product, they tend to keep the price stable for a very long time. Watch iPod prices or Macbook prices, and you'll notice that the price very rarely goes down. As new technology comes out, Apple keeps upgrading the product to be smaller, lighter, or more feature rich in order to justify the current price, but they don't really drop the price.
It's worth understanding that the price points are often chosen by marketing, and then a product is designed to fit that price. I believe the first iPod was $400, and right now that's also the price of the most expensive iPod. There's a reason for this. It's not that Apple couldn't create a really snazzy $700 iPod, but that if they did, Jobs would probably say, "Let's put that on ice until we can make it cheaper." Ultimately, they don't want to release a $700 iPod and then two years later sell the same iPod for $400. Along with everything else, that creates the impression of a product whose value is dropping. They'd much rather sell a crappy $400 iPod this year and then two years later sell you the super-snazzy iPod for $400, so that you have the impression of a product which preserves its value by continually improving.
They actually said in that case that they were announcing early because they had to file papers with the FCC, which would essentially make the product public knowledge anyway.
The other time that they frequently announce products ahead of release is OS upgrades, but that's usually done around the time they're starting to release developer builds of the OS.
Personally I think stuff like that is pretty good. If you want to motivate people to work hard, sometimes you just have to show them that their work is appreciated. There are a wide variety of ways to show it, so pick one. Showing your appreciation becomes all the more important in these sorts of collaborative efforts where contributors aren't being paid.
Also I'd question what the article means by Android being "in its infancy". Android is based on a well-tested OS that's been around for a while (Linux), the first phone running Android came out about a year ago, and the OS is past v2 (though version numbers don't necessarily tell you anything). I wouldn't call Android a long-running or well-established OS, but it's not like it was slapped together from scratch 6 months ago.
Whoa, whoa, there seems to be a lot of misplaced anger in your post. Now I think you should settle down and apologize, but either way I'm not going to take too much offense.
I'm more than "partially correct". I'm free to work my own land? Well sure I am. Or I'm free to work for other companies who pay me some respect, and I'm also free to start my own company. I'm also free to join a commune or work for the government. We all really have a lot of options, but so what?
In a certain sense, it's true that my company owes me nothing. In exactly the same sense, it's true that I owe my company nothing. We don't exist specifically to serve each other, but we do serve each other, since we've worked out this mutually beneficial system where we both benefit from mutual service. If my company did not serve me, then why on earth would I show up to work?
So yes, from my side of the relationship, the relationship exists for my company to serve my needs. Do you really think that there's something wrong with seeing things that way? What, do you think I should be working for free at a job where I get treated badly? No company is entitled to my work, because they're not why I exist. They earn my work by paying me respect, paying me money, and yes, perhaps by paying me coffee.
Oh, I'm not trying to bash you. I'm really just trying to point out that the problem isn't specifically that IT people don't get the respect they deserve. The problem is that most of us don't get the respect we deserve.
Well I think part of the point here is that there's no "perfect security". It all has trade-offs in terms of cost, accessibility, and even opening new security holes.
For example, if you put a bunch of robots in charge and have no people present, that means that there's no one monitoring the robots. If a robot is hacked, it could do absolutely anything. Not having a single conscious person on the flight means that if a terrorist somehow gets on, no one will be there to take him down. Or there's this:
In case of emergency, all crates have auto-ejectors.
That seems like something you could exploit. Even if you can't cause an actual problem on the flight, if you can cause enough of an appearance of a problem to trigger the auto-ejectors, then you could potentially dump the passengers anywhere along the flight course you wanted. Given the right flight plan, you might be able to dump everyone into a volcano or something. At the very least, you could probably find a way to drop the crates into a building or drop them into an inhospitable place (the middle of an ocean, maybe...?).
There is no perfect security. The goal should be to find a balance which discourages attackers and makes it more likely that attackers will be caught without inconveniencing innocent people too much.
And then there's this:
Passengers are hooked up to neural interface, and last years crappy films are played directly into their minds.
I thought the purpose was to prevent people being terrorized...?
I don't think anyone has a problem with scripting in the applications. It's putting scripts into the documents that concerns people.
Part of the problem, as I see it, is that computers have an conceptual division between documents and applications. Applications actively do things when they're run, and so you never want to run an application from an untrusted source. Documents, on the other hand, are supposed to be passive and not do things on their own. Opening a document from an unknown source shouldn't be too dangerous, since it shouldn't be able to do anything on its own. If the viewer installed on your system isn't designed to do anything malicious, then the document shouldn't be able to do anything malicious just by viewing it.
Now that distinction isn't entirely clear or necessary, but that's the way all of our desktop/document metaphors were designed. However, when you allow scripting and macros to be embedded in the document itself, the documents sort of straddle the line between "document" and "application". Even if it requires some kind of viewer in order to run, a PDF still becomes an executable file, and therefore cannot be trusted.
Right, because (sorry all you Capitalists out there) people aren't simply motivated by money. People need money. They need enough money to get by, even though the definition of "enough" varies from person to person. Beyond that, they're motivated by things like the desire for respect or the desire to have their day be more pleasant. Money may be the way they hope to find respect or to make their day more pleasant, but it's not really the money they're after.
If you want people to work harder, it's often better to make them feel more appreciated than it is to simply give them a raise. If you want people to be more productive, it's often better to make them happy than to make them fearful.
No, we (IT) has been viewed as a cost center since the 90s. And sometimes as glorified janitors...
And honestly, I don't have a problem with that. We are glorified janitors and maintenance men. What bothers me more is the idea that janitors and maintenance men aren't deserving of respect. Being a janitor isn't easy or fun work, but it needs to be done. Spend a little time thinking about what your company would be like if not for the janitors.
Calling tech support "glorified janitors" doesn't need to be an insult.
I've never worked a place with free coffee, so I don't get the big deal.
It's not a big deal, but if your company systematically cutting back on all the little perks, then morale is going to take a hit.
But also, cutting back on coffee is probably just a dumb move. Lots of companies offer free coffee, but it's not even just to be nice to employees. They're basically feeding their employees a stimulant, which is commonly thought to make the workers more productive. Plus, if you don't keep a public pot of coffee, that means everyone has to make their own coffee or else go out for coffee-- either of which will take up more money in employee man-hours than the cost of coffee.
Well I often think it's not possible to specify in detail how you'd like the job done in every circumstance. It's especially in the case of specialized fields like IT. Many employers don't know what they want the IT department to do because they don't know what IT departments do. There lack of understanding of IT is exactly why they've hired an IT staff.
I think the industries we're producing that are so dependent on the absence of competition is (as predicted) making business stupid.
I don't think it's just a lack of competition. I think a big part of it is a natural psychological factor that we tend to ignore. Have you ever read about the Stanford prison experiment? It was a powerful example of how human behavior can change drastically depending on context, and it demonstrated that otherwise decent people can become abusive of others if you place them in a context which encourages such abuse. Well... these psychological effects don't just happen in prisons. I believe that something similar happens often between bosses and underlings, between businesses and customers, and between the rich and the poor.
I think a subtle but meaningful change must have happened whenever we stopped talking about "customers" and started talking about "consumers". The label "consumer" implies someone whose job it is to consume whatever producers provide them with, rather than thinking of people as independent decision-makers.
I'm straying a little off the topic, but this sort of subtle change in mindset can also greatly affect the employer/employee relationship. Contrary to what some people will tell you, employees are often not working to get the most money possible from their companies with the least amount of effort. Very often, given the right circumstances, people will take pride in their work and want to do a good job regardless of financial incentives. They may even work extra-hard in order to impress and please their boss, not just because they hope for raises or promotions, but simply because their boss is the person evaluating their work. A desire to impress and please other people is inborn into people, and they particularly like to please authority figures.
Often, companies take advantage of this asymmetrical relationship, and executives begin thinking of their employees as lesser beings who leach from the company and don't really deserve to be treated very well. This is also a instinctual social dynamic. They begin to abuse their employees similarly (though to a lesser degree) to the way the prison guards abused their inmates in the experiment.
Yeah, I'd say that it's sort of fair to say that employers are free to not-provide free coffee, and if you don't like it you can quit. That goes both ways, though. Employees are free to not go the extra mile, or they're even free to do a half-assed job. If the employers don't like it, they can fire the employees.
However, none of that tells you how employers and employees should be treating each other. Ideally I think that it should be considered a free and equitable trade of labor for money, and both parties should try to make sure that they other is happy with the trade. That's a best case scenario, though, and it's unlikely to work that way under most circumstances.
Nope. In as much as the business's job is to maximize profit for shareholders, the employee's job is to do what he has to in order to get paid. Those descriptions don't really cover everything, but if you want to over-simplify...
You have this awful sense of entitlement. Free coffee? Have to justify travel expenses? C'mon the company does not exist to serve you, you exist to work for them and provide value at a minimum of expense.
No, we really don't exist to work for companies and provide them with maximum value at minimum expense. Thinking we do... now that's an awful sense of entitlement.
Some of the answers are obvious; I'm not sure what's unsatisfying about them. It works well. It's not complicated to set up. It's functional as an iPod, which lots of people already owned. The web browser renders pages normally, the way a desktop computer would. It's mail application connects to mail servers normally, the way a desktop application would. "Visual voicemail" works the way voicemail should work-- no more "if you would like to listen to this message, please press 1". Apple proved that a touchscreen can work on a phone if it's executed properly. If you own a Mac and use iTunes already, then the phone will integrate extraordinarily well with your system in a convenient way. The iPhone had 8GB of storage built in for audio and video when most phones came with something more like 32 megs of internal storage. Apple managed to get a large set of developers to produce applications for their phone. The interface is simple and elegant, pretty, and responsive.
Android's success doesn't surprise me either. In a lot of ways, I think it's a validation of Apple's approach, and it proves that Apple's success wasn't simply based on hype and trendiness. The Android phones that are now enjoying success actually resemble the iPhone much more than any of the pre-iPhone smartphones. Look at the iPhone and the Motorola Q, and ask yourself which smartphone the Droid has more in common with. Apple was successful because they made a well designed product. Now Motorola is enjoying success because they've made a well designed product.
Well what the "Optimize for best performance" does in XP is it turns off the "Fisher Price UI" (as you call it) as well as turning off font antialiasing and UI animations. It's generally not a huge difference, but it can be noticeable on older hardware. If you're going to use the "Windows Classic" theme in XP, you can also kill the "Themes" service, but I don't think that actually helps very much. With as fast as modern PCs are, however, none of this should really be necessary.
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So it's a good bet that MS has even now not yet recouped the losses from developing the xbox
It's pretty unclear to me from the numbers you cite, but it seems like the XBox could be even less profitable than you're making it sound.
For example, when you say that MS lost $4 billion on XBoxes, it's not clear to me what that number includes. R&D? Marketing? Selling the consoles at below cost as a loss-leader? The $1 billion number for bricked XBoxes in the Wikipedia article was from June 2007, and I know people who are still getting their XBoxes replaced due to the red ring of death. Finally, when you say that their entertainment division made a $312 profit, that doesn't necessarily mean that the XBoxes were responsible for that profit. What else is in the entertainment division?
(And please note, I'm not making any real claim about whether or not the XBox 360 has turned a profit yet. I don't know. And as the parent posted, MS has enough money to wait years to recoup the investment, and even has enough money to simply take the loss.)
Maybe the reviewer only bothers to write reviews for books he likes.
I'm not saying you're wrong to be suspicious. I'm just pointing out that there's at least one valid reason why a reviewer would trend toward positive reviews.
I wouldn't call Android a long-running or well-established OS
I didn't say it was mature. I stated in the first sentence what the purpose of my post was: to question what is intended when the author says Android is "in its infancy". The author mostly seems to be comparing Android to Blackberry's OS and the iPhone OS, but the iPhone was only released a couple of years ago.
If the point is just to say "Blackberries have been around longer and their development is more mature than either the iPhone or the Android," then of course that's true. Of course, on the other side of that, the Blackberry OS is showing its age a bit, and RIM has had a problem with their servers going down, knocking out Blackberry users all over the place.
But anyway, when a technology is "in its infancy" is pretty relative. Relative to the wheel, books are still "in their infancy." Relative to books, audio recordings are still "in their infancy". I'd like a little more specificity here on what it means for Android to be "in its infancy".
The huge borders of enTourage eDGe really put me off.
The article says that it's a prototype, and the production version is supposed to be a lot more sleek.
Well for one thing, there's a rumor that the screen will be sort of a hybrid LCD/e-paper screen, and another rumor that it will have a built-in modem for mobile broadband. It may be less of a low-end laptop and more of a super high-end Kindle.
But then some rumors seem to indicate that it might be a somewhat new class of device. There's been talk about the input interaction being unlike things that we've seen before, the possibility of docking stations, and other weird stuff. It's really hard to tell at this point, since it's all speculation.
I think you're on to something, but the reasons are a little more complicated than, "they want to release gadgets in generations".
First is the fact that their development method is just different from a lot of other companies. Most companies take an idea an idea like a portable MP3 player and say, "Lets put every feature we can into this thing for launch. I want it to have a radio, and have it play lots of games, and maybe have a built-in toaster oven!" So they make a list of features and put them all into a prototype. They polish the prototype until it kind of works, and then release that design as a product. In its first version, it only kind of works, but has lots of problems from having a lot of not-quite-ready features crammed in. They try to fix these problems in the next version.
In contrast, if Apple sets out to design an mp3 player, then there's a decent chance that the product will only have 1 major feature: playing mp3s. Instead of making the first version have loads of features, they'll spend their development time making sure that using the product as an mp3 player is easy, intuitive, and works very well. They'll add features over the next few versions, but they'll do so relatively slowly because each time, they're making sure the new features are integrated well into the existing design.
Those are two different design philosophies which bring different results. In the first way of doing things, you start with a more feature-rich product, but in the second way you start with a more polished product.
Beyond that, there's something else going on in Apple's marketing that is pretty obvious once you notice it, but a lot of people don't notice it. Most tech manufacturers are constantly trying to introduce new products and drive down the price. When Apple introduces a new product, they tend to keep the price stable for a very long time. Watch iPod prices or Macbook prices, and you'll notice that the price very rarely goes down. As new technology comes out, Apple keeps upgrading the product to be smaller, lighter, or more feature rich in order to justify the current price, but they don't really drop the price.
It's worth understanding that the price points are often chosen by marketing, and then a product is designed to fit that price. I believe the first iPod was $400, and right now that's also the price of the most expensive iPod. There's a reason for this. It's not that Apple couldn't create a really snazzy $700 iPod, but that if they did, Jobs would probably say, "Let's put that on ice until we can make it cheaper." Ultimately, they don't want to release a $700 iPod and then two years later sell the same iPod for $400. Along with everything else, that creates the impression of a product whose value is dropping. They'd much rather sell a crappy $400 iPod this year and then two years later sell you the super-snazzy iPod for $400, so that you have the impression of a product which preserves its value by continually improving.
They actually said in that case that they were announcing early because they had to file papers with the FCC, which would essentially make the product public knowledge anyway.
The other time that they frequently announce products ahead of release is OS upgrades, but that's usually done around the time they're starting to release developer builds of the OS.
Personally I think stuff like that is pretty good. If you want to motivate people to work hard, sometimes you just have to show them that their work is appreciated. There are a wide variety of ways to show it, so pick one. Showing your appreciation becomes all the more important in these sorts of collaborative efforts where contributors aren't being paid.
Also I'd question what the article means by Android being "in its infancy". Android is based on a well-tested OS that's been around for a while (Linux), the first phone running Android came out about a year ago, and the OS is past v2 (though version numbers don't necessarily tell you anything). I wouldn't call Android a long-running or well-established OS, but it's not like it was slapped together from scratch 6 months ago.
Well now you're anthropomorphizing your computers, which is just silly.
And besides, they don't like it when you do that.
Whoa, whoa, there seems to be a lot of misplaced anger in your post. Now I think you should settle down and apologize, but either way I'm not going to take too much offense.
I'm more than "partially correct". I'm free to work my own land? Well sure I am. Or I'm free to work for other companies who pay me some respect, and I'm also free to start my own company. I'm also free to join a commune or work for the government. We all really have a lot of options, but so what?
In a certain sense, it's true that my company owes me nothing. In exactly the same sense, it's true that I owe my company nothing. We don't exist specifically to serve each other, but we do serve each other, since we've worked out this mutually beneficial system where we both benefit from mutual service. If my company did not serve me, then why on earth would I show up to work?
So yes, from my side of the relationship, the relationship exists for my company to serve my needs. Do you really think that there's something wrong with seeing things that way? What, do you think I should be working for free at a job where I get treated badly? No company is entitled to my work, because they're not why I exist. They earn my work by paying me respect, paying me money, and yes, perhaps by paying me coffee.
Oh, I'm not trying to bash you. I'm really just trying to point out that the problem isn't specifically that IT people don't get the respect they deserve. The problem is that most of us don't get the respect we deserve.
Well I think part of the point here is that there's no "perfect security". It all has trade-offs in terms of cost, accessibility, and even opening new security holes.
For example, if you put a bunch of robots in charge and have no people present, that means that there's no one monitoring the robots. If a robot is hacked, it could do absolutely anything. Not having a single conscious person on the flight means that if a terrorist somehow gets on, no one will be there to take him down. Or there's this:
In case of emergency, all crates have auto-ejectors.
That seems like something you could exploit. Even if you can't cause an actual problem on the flight, if you can cause enough of an appearance of a problem to trigger the auto-ejectors, then you could potentially dump the passengers anywhere along the flight course you wanted. Given the right flight plan, you might be able to dump everyone into a volcano or something. At the very least, you could probably find a way to drop the crates into a building or drop them into an inhospitable place (the middle of an ocean, maybe...?).
There is no perfect security. The goal should be to find a balance which discourages attackers and makes it more likely that attackers will be caught without inconveniencing innocent people too much.
And then there's this:
Passengers are hooked up to neural interface, and last years crappy films are played directly into their minds.
I thought the purpose was to prevent people being terrorized...?
I don't think anyone has a problem with scripting in the applications. It's putting scripts into the documents that concerns people.
Part of the problem, as I see it, is that computers have an conceptual division between documents and applications. Applications actively do things when they're run, and so you never want to run an application from an untrusted source. Documents, on the other hand, are supposed to be passive and not do things on their own. Opening a document from an unknown source shouldn't be too dangerous, since it shouldn't be able to do anything on its own. If the viewer installed on your system isn't designed to do anything malicious, then the document shouldn't be able to do anything malicious just by viewing it.
Now that distinction isn't entirely clear or necessary, but that's the way all of our desktop/document metaphors were designed. However, when you allow scripting and macros to be embedded in the document itself, the documents sort of straddle the line between "document" and "application". Even if it requires some kind of viewer in order to run, a PDF still becomes an executable file, and therefore cannot be trusted.
Right, because (sorry all you Capitalists out there) people aren't simply motivated by money. People need money. They need enough money to get by, even though the definition of "enough" varies from person to person. Beyond that, they're motivated by things like the desire for respect or the desire to have their day be more pleasant. Money may be the way they hope to find respect or to make their day more pleasant, but it's not really the money they're after.
If you want people to work harder, it's often better to make them feel more appreciated than it is to simply give them a raise. If you want people to be more productive, it's often better to make them happy than to make them fearful.
No, we (IT) has been viewed as a cost center since the 90s. And sometimes as glorified janitors...
And honestly, I don't have a problem with that. We are glorified janitors and maintenance men. What bothers me more is the idea that janitors and maintenance men aren't deserving of respect. Being a janitor isn't easy or fun work, but it needs to be done. Spend a little time thinking about what your company would be like if not for the janitors.
Calling tech support "glorified janitors" doesn't need to be an insult.
I've never worked a place with free coffee, so I don't get the big deal.
It's not a big deal, but if your company systematically cutting back on all the little perks, then morale is going to take a hit.
But also, cutting back on coffee is probably just a dumb move. Lots of companies offer free coffee, but it's not even just to be nice to employees. They're basically feeding their employees a stimulant, which is commonly thought to make the workers more productive. Plus, if you don't keep a public pot of coffee, that means everyone has to make their own coffee or else go out for coffee-- either of which will take up more money in employee man-hours than the cost of coffee.
Well I often think it's not possible to specify in detail how you'd like the job done in every circumstance. It's especially in the case of specialized fields like IT. Many employers don't know what they want the IT department to do because they don't know what IT departments do. There lack of understanding of IT is exactly why they've hired an IT staff.
I think the industries we're producing that are so dependent on the absence of competition is (as predicted) making business stupid.
I don't think it's just a lack of competition. I think a big part of it is a natural psychological factor that we tend to ignore. Have you ever read about the Stanford prison experiment? It was a powerful example of how human behavior can change drastically depending on context, and it demonstrated that otherwise decent people can become abusive of others if you place them in a context which encourages such abuse. Well... these psychological effects don't just happen in prisons. I believe that something similar happens often between bosses and underlings, between businesses and customers, and between the rich and the poor.
I think a subtle but meaningful change must have happened whenever we stopped talking about "customers" and started talking about "consumers". The label "consumer" implies someone whose job it is to consume whatever producers provide them with, rather than thinking of people as independent decision-makers.
I'm straying a little off the topic, but this sort of subtle change in mindset can also greatly affect the employer/employee relationship. Contrary to what some people will tell you, employees are often not working to get the most money possible from their companies with the least amount of effort. Very often, given the right circumstances, people will take pride in their work and want to do a good job regardless of financial incentives. They may even work extra-hard in order to impress and please their boss, not just because they hope for raises or promotions, but simply because their boss is the person evaluating their work. A desire to impress and please other people is inborn into people, and they particularly like to please authority figures.
Often, companies take advantage of this asymmetrical relationship, and executives begin thinking of their employees as lesser beings who leach from the company and don't really deserve to be treated very well. This is also a instinctual social dynamic. They begin to abuse their employees similarly (though to a lesser degree) to the way the prison guards abused their inmates in the experiment.
Oxygen withdrawal isn't really that bad. You feel uncomfortable for a minute or two, but that feeling goes away.
And employers will replace them with 20-something go-getters with better attitudes
eh... have you met the "20-something go-getters"? They don't really go-get. They want their free coffee more than anyone.
Yeah, I'd say that it's sort of fair to say that employers are free to not-provide free coffee, and if you don't like it you can quit. That goes both ways, though. Employees are free to not go the extra mile, or they're even free to do a half-assed job. If the employers don't like it, they can fire the employees.
However, none of that tells you how employers and employees should be treating each other. Ideally I think that it should be considered a free and equitable trade of labor for money, and both parties should try to make sure that they other is happy with the trade. That's a best case scenario, though, and it's unlikely to work that way under most circumstances.
Nope. In as much as the business's job is to maximize profit for shareholders, the employee's job is to do what he has to in order to get paid. Those descriptions don't really cover everything, but if you want to over-simplify...
You have this awful sense of entitlement. Free coffee? Have to justify travel expenses? C'mon the company does not exist to serve you, you exist to work for them and provide value at a minimum of expense.
No, we really don't exist to work for companies and provide them with maximum value at minimum expense. Thinking we do... now that's an awful sense of entitlement.
Some of the answers are obvious; I'm not sure what's unsatisfying about them. It works well. It's not complicated to set up. It's functional as an iPod, which lots of people already owned. The web browser renders pages normally, the way a desktop computer would. It's mail application connects to mail servers normally, the way a desktop application would. "Visual voicemail" works the way voicemail should work-- no more "if you would like to listen to this message, please press 1". Apple proved that a touchscreen can work on a phone if it's executed properly. If you own a Mac and use iTunes already, then the phone will integrate extraordinarily well with your system in a convenient way. The iPhone had 8GB of storage built in for audio and video when most phones came with something more like 32 megs of internal storage. Apple managed to get a large set of developers to produce applications for their phone. The interface is simple and elegant, pretty, and responsive.
Android's success doesn't surprise me either. In a lot of ways, I think it's a validation of Apple's approach, and it proves that Apple's success wasn't simply based on hype and trendiness. The Android phones that are now enjoying success actually resemble the iPhone much more than any of the pre-iPhone smartphones. Look at the iPhone and the Motorola Q, and ask yourself which smartphone the Droid has more in common with. Apple was successful because they made a well designed product. Now Motorola is enjoying success because they've made a well designed product.
Well what the "Optimize for best performance" does in XP is it turns off the "Fisher Price UI" (as you call it) as well as turning off font antialiasing and UI animations. It's generally not a huge difference, but it can be noticeable on older hardware. If you're going to use the "Windows Classic" theme in XP, you can also kill the "Themes" service, but I don't think that actually helps very much. With as fast as modern PCs are, however, none of this should really be necessary.