Honestly, why even upgrade to the 3g at all? The old iPhone you have works perfectly for you now. The only thing different about the new iPhone is the 3g, otherwise everything else is the same.
I didn't get the old iPhone partially because it didn't have 3G. (Also, AT&T: I was ready to bite the bullet and switch to AT&T until they pulled the tethering software: I won't switch to AT&T until I have something in writing that assures me I won't have my service canceled for tethering my iPhone to my laptop.)
Interestingly, I find it fairly insightful to see how the great unwashed masses are complaining about this, yet, for the most part, Apple is getting a "free pass" from pundit's, media, and most of the public because of past marketing.
What would the reaction have been if this was some other company?
Just a though that rattles around in my brain.
Not only is it "past marketing," it's the clamorous fan-base that sends death-threats to columnists who say negative things about Apple products that make them very reluctant to criticize too quickly.
The RDF is real. When I used Windows, if something was broken or I needed some application to do something, I would get a range of suggestions and, frequently, sympathetic remarks from other Windows users with the same problems. The attitude from Apple forums is generally that if an Apple product doesn't meet my needs or expectations, there's something wrong with my needs and expectations. There is a lot I like about my MacBook, but I'm getting fed up.
I want you to walk through a week, thinking about that: doing all your shopping, all your activities in the local economy, and imagine all the "shit jobs" being automated.
It won't happen. And would result in a redefinition of the "shit job," anyway... many of us went to graduate school to avoid doing the "shit jobs" that others here are pursuing (e.g., baseline IT support.)
If everyone in the world has a PhD, can do higher math, and is literate in 3 languages, then what it will mean is that the guy who makes your burgers, the woman who works in the factory that makes your shoes, and the man who sneaks into the country to pick your vegetables will all have PhDs, do higher math, and be literate in 3 languages.
Education is a differentiator only to the extent that it is unevenly distributed. When it is not, then we might see a return to pure nepotism.
My wife's career involves providing assistance to the homeless, originally in the UK. We now live in the US. While there is homeless in Europe and the UK, they have more reliable access to services. The kind of situation you situation you see in US cities isn't tolerated.
I've been to Seattle and worked there for a while. No, it's not as bad as San Francisco or DC, but it's still worse than most European cities by a long shot.
Another reason it fails in the U.S. is that it has a much larger homeless and mentally ill population roaming the streets of its major cities than just about any other first-world country I can name.
What drives the perception of poverty is usually stress, not relative number of possessions. If you are one paycheck away from losing your house, one payment away from losing your car, and one critical illness away from bankruptcy plus all of the above, then the fact that you have some things today will not make you feel less poor.
The effect is particularly pronounced for a family.
There's a really, really big gap between the "animosity" of former corporate rivals that work together when one completely capitulates to the other in the main market in which they were competing, and the animosity of over-excitable children about whose toy is better than whose. The only continuity between the two is that there may be marketing teams in the former who will cynically exacerbate the latter.
This was hashed out in the previous thread, too: conspicuous consumption can be beneficial.
If the people who purchased the application legitimately can certify it, as well, then they actually may have made a successful investment. It is a very limited edition of art work (by the developer's own description) that has achieved world-wide notoriety. The 6 phones which have that application installed in it may well for several thousand or more each in the open art market.
The label doesn't tell you anything. The same label can have one excellent line of shoes, and then an "entry-level" line that milks the good reputation of the former. The first pair may be made in Italy, and the latter in China, yet they both say the same thing on them.
I personally recommend Mephisto's, although I actually also like some of the better-made Clark's.
Self-made rich people often engage in conspicuous consumption, however, because, if they came from modest origins, they may feel they have more to prove, particularly if they are identified with a group that is traditionally not wealthy:
See this for an explanation, in a Freakanomcs vein.
Oh, I know that I'm speaking against the grain by de-valorizing geek tastes. But if you think that clothes fashions are just about impressing strangers, you're wrong.
Here's a dirty little secret: it's fun. It's a kind of aesthetic play in itself. It's a way of manipulating cultural semiotics and actually saying things, implicitly, about sociocultural roles. It is how classes maneuver for position.
And, like I said, it's fun.
The indifference to one's public appearance evinced by some geeks is, in my view, a kind of rudeness, or at least an inability to recognize that we not only perceive our environments: we are also part of them, part of the visual landscape for everyone else. (The kind of solipsism that I'm talking about is the sort of thing you see when, as David Sedaris puts it, Americans visit European cities dressed as if to mow its lawns.)
The fact that you modded your case does not make it superior. It may be a piece of crap. However, it may have been fun to do, and I'll agree that the experience of making something is more valuable than the experience of just buying it. That does not tell us anything about the value of the object, however: I could make you a cheese sandwich, but I assure you it will be inferior to anything you could buy at the French Laundry.
When one buys clothes, one assembles outfits. (Why do you think it's so mortifiying of 2 people show up at a party wearing the same clothes?)
I don't care whether or not you or anyone else is into it. What annoys me is the solipsistic inability to recognize that one's own consumption habits are probably just as complicit as anyone else's.
My experience with the nerd/geek subculture is that they really don't understand aesthetics very well, but will go gaga over an expensive gadget or a life-size Batman mannequin. I think of geeks as actually being pretty normal and conventional, and don't understand how you divide the world into "geeks" and everyone else. Subcultures aren't counter-cultures: you should probably learn about the difference.
I guess I'm really getting tired of geek self-congratulation.
Often, when people are buying things in that way - they aren't spending their own money. Were a lot of those purchases coming in toward the end of the fiscal year?
There are plenty of designer originals. And most case mods are still built from kit components. Buying the "evil" looking case at Fry's hardly qualifies as creative work.
The claim with designer clothes isn't that you have a unique item, anyway, although one's assembling an outfit might be unique. It's that one has good taste and a keen aesthetic eye. (I know, this is Slashdot: I may as well by typing in Wolof.
The $20,000 watch is probably more effective conspicuous consumption. There are real benefits to letting people know you can afford a $20,000 watch: you probably will get better service, and you can probably get laid a lot. It's a "membership card" of sorts.
The "I Am Rich" app does not perform that function.
While the "I Am Rich" app is laughable, a lot of this thread is an exercise in relative perceptions.
Having two pairs of shoes is an extravagance to someone struggling for food and drinkable water. I would probably never spend more than $8,000 on a car - and would probably never spend less than $100 on shoes (and I do have shoes that are worth a lot more.) For myself, there are two "luxuries" that actually really are worth the money you spend on them: shoes and beds. (Kitchenware is up there, too.)
There are people on this thread who have modified their computers to look like the Death Star, who think themselves superior to people who buy designer clothes.
Slashdot Mirror
The relationship isn't symmetrical, by the way. Artists know that they can't code. Too many programmers think that they can do art.
Honestly, why even upgrade to the 3g at all? The old iPhone you have works perfectly for you now. The only thing different about the new iPhone is the 3g, otherwise everything else is the same.
I didn't get the old iPhone partially because it didn't have 3G. (Also, AT&T: I was ready to bite the bullet and switch to AT&T until they pulled the tethering software: I won't switch to AT&T until I have something in writing that assures me I won't have my service canceled for tethering my iPhone to my laptop.)
"Just Works" post.....
Interestingly, I find it fairly insightful to see how the great unwashed masses are complaining about this, yet, for the most part, Apple is getting a "free pass" from pundit's, media, and most of the public because of past marketing.
What would the reaction have been if this was some other company?
Just a though that rattles around in my brain.
Not only is it "past marketing," it's the clamorous fan-base that sends death-threats to columnists who say negative things about Apple products that make them very reluctant to criticize too quickly.
The RDF is real. When I used Windows, if something was broken or I needed some application to do something, I would get a range of suggestions and, frequently, sympathetic remarks from other Windows users with the same problems. The attitude from Apple forums is generally that if an Apple product doesn't meet my needs or expectations, there's something wrong with my needs and expectations. There is a lot I like about my MacBook, but I'm getting fed up.
I want you to walk through a week, thinking about that: doing all your shopping, all your activities in the local economy, and imagine all the "shit jobs" being automated.
It won't happen. And would result in a redefinition of the "shit job," anyway... many of us went to graduate school to avoid doing the "shit jobs" that others here are pursuing (e.g., baseline IT support.)
If everyone in the world has a PhD, can do higher math, and is literate in 3 languages, then what it will mean is that the guy who makes your burgers, the woman who works in the factory that makes your shoes, and the man who sneaks into the country to pick your vegetables will all have PhDs, do higher math, and be literate in 3 languages.
Education is a differentiator only to the extent that it is unevenly distributed. When it is not, then we might see a return to pure nepotism.
My wife's career involves providing assistance to the homeless, originally in the UK. We now live in the US. While there is homeless in Europe and the UK, they have more reliable access to services. The kind of situation you situation you see in US cities isn't tolerated.
I've been to Seattle and worked there for a while. No, it's not as bad as San Francisco or DC, but it's still worse than most European cities by a long shot.
Well, everyone poops.
Another reason it fails in the U.S. is that it has a much larger homeless and mentally ill population roaming the streets of its major cities than just about any other first-world country I can name.
What drives the perception of poverty is usually stress, not relative number of possessions. If you are one paycheck away from losing your house, one payment away from losing your car, and one critical illness away from bankruptcy plus all of the above, then the fact that you have some things today will not make you feel less poor.
The effect is particularly pronounced for a family.
There's a really, really big gap between the "animosity" of former corporate rivals that work together when one completely capitulates to the other in the main market in which they were competing, and the animosity of over-excitable children about whose toy is better than whose. The only continuity between the two is that there may be marketing teams in the former who will cynically exacerbate the latter.
This was hashed out in the previous thread, too: conspicuous consumption can be beneficial.
If the people who purchased the application legitimately can certify it, as well, then they actually may have made a successful investment. It is a very limited edition of art work (by the developer's own description) that has achieved world-wide notoriety. The 6 phones which have that application installed in it may well for several thousand or more each in the open art market.
Increasingly, the difference between low-end and high-end in things like laundry detergents is about what they don't have, like allergens, etc.
I buy shampoos without parabens, for example.
Trust me, it's not confirmation bias. Better-made shoes hurt less and last longer.
The label doesn't tell you anything. The same label can have one excellent line of shoes, and then an "entry-level" line that milks the good reputation of the former. The first pair may be made in Italy, and the latter in China, yet they both say the same thing on them.
I personally recommend Mephisto's, although I actually also like some of the better-made Clark's.
Self-made rich people often engage in conspicuous consumption, however, because, if they came from modest origins, they may feel they have more to prove, particularly if they are identified with a group that is traditionally not wealthy:
See this for an explanation, in a Freakanomcs vein.
Oh, I know that I'm speaking against the grain by de-valorizing geek tastes. But if you think that clothes fashions are just about impressing strangers, you're wrong.
Here's a dirty little secret: it's fun. It's a kind of aesthetic play in itself. It's a way of manipulating cultural semiotics and actually saying things, implicitly, about sociocultural roles. It is how classes maneuver for position.
And, like I said, it's fun.
The indifference to one's public appearance evinced by some geeks is, in my view, a kind of rudeness, or at least an inability to recognize that we not only perceive our environments: we are also part of them, part of the visual landscape for everyone else. (The kind of solipsism that I'm talking about is the sort of thing you see when, as David Sedaris puts it, Americans visit European cities dressed as if to mow its lawns.)
The fact that you modded your case does not make it superior. It may be a piece of crap. However, it may have been fun to do, and I'll agree that the experience of making something is more valuable than the experience of just buying it. That does not tell us anything about the value of the object, however: I could make you a cheese sandwich, but I assure you it will be inferior to anything you could buy at the French Laundry.
When one buys clothes, one assembles outfits. (Why do you think it's so mortifiying of 2 people show up at a party wearing the same clothes?)
I don't care whether or not you or anyone else is into it. What annoys me is the solipsistic inability to recognize that one's own consumption habits are probably just as complicit as anyone else's.
My experience with the nerd/geek subculture is that they really don't understand aesthetics very well, but will go gaga over an expensive gadget or a life-size Batman mannequin. I think of geeks as actually being pretty normal and conventional, and don't understand how you divide the world into "geeks" and everyone else. Subcultures aren't counter-cultures: you should probably learn about the difference.
I guess I'm really getting tired of geek self-congratulation.
Often, when people are buying things in that way - they aren't spending their own money. Were a lot of those purchases coming in toward the end of the fiscal year?
There are plenty of designer originals. And most case mods are still built from kit components. Buying the "evil" looking case at Fry's hardly qualifies as creative work.
The claim with designer clothes isn't that you have a unique item, anyway, although one's assembling an outfit might be unique. It's that one has good taste and a keen aesthetic eye. (I know, this is Slashdot: I may as well by typing in Wolof.
The $20,000 watch is probably more effective conspicuous consumption. There are real benefits to letting people know you can afford a $20,000 watch: you probably will get better service, and you can probably get laid a lot. It's a "membership card" of sorts.
The "I Am Rich" app does not perform that function.
While the "I Am Rich" app is laughable, a lot of this thread is an exercise in relative perceptions.
Having two pairs of shoes is an extravagance to someone struggling for food and drinkable water. I would probably never spend more than $8,000 on a car - and would probably never spend less than $100 on shoes (and I do have shoes that are worth a lot more.) For myself, there are two "luxuries" that actually really are worth the money you spend on them: shoes and beds. (Kitchenware is up there, too.)
There are people on this thread who have modified their computers to look like the Death Star, who think themselves superior to people who buy designer clothes.
Agreed, but I prefer the train for 2 t 5.
You do know that the bridge is owned by a consortium of four companies? It will transfer to the federal government in 2032.
It hasn't been a waste of money, either: it has resulted in a substantial growth of food exports from PEI.
I never understood why they just don't make the whole airplane out of the stuff they make the black boxes from...