Ditto, I don't own any Apple products, I don't particularly agree with their closed approach, but I don't care if other people enjoy their products and Woz is a great engineering ambassador, I can't really see a reason why GP feels the need to attack the guy. Especially since it seems Woz also enjoys his Android gadgets (ironic that GP was telling others to get their facts straight). Didn't Woz even say that Android would be the dominant OS over time?
That doesn't make much sense. If you're saying he's doing this to enjoy the privilege of anonymity then it's massively counter productive because it just got his face in the media and splashed across a bunch of websites. Maybe those customers didn't know who he was yesterday but they will tomorrow. If he enjoyed the sensation of shopping without being recognised he would just wait a few weeks and buy the phone late night from an anonymous mall somewhere, joining a massive queue at a prominent store on day one is not going to help him enjoy any privacy. Besides, if you take a look at the guy's life, staying in the shadows doesn't really seem to be a priority of his.
Well I'm sure he wouldn't do it if he didn't enjoy it, but that doesn't mean it's also not a calculated attempt to generate publicity - the two are not mutually exclusive. And as for the iPhone not needing the attention to sell out, maybe that's true for this version, but a big part of the reason Apple devices are aspirational is that they're seen as a fun, on trend company and not a Microsoft-esque faceless corporation. That can change very quickly and it's easy for massive corporations to lose touch with their customers - this is probably not about promoting the current phone but about keeping the brand relevant. Considering Apple just lost their main figurehead, it's not going to hurt them at all to show that they have personality and are still a brand that it's fun to be associated with - this is about protecting their identity five, ten, twenty years down the line, not shifting some more phones this week.
He didn't say Apple is closed, XBOX is open. He specifically said closed systems like Apple AND XBOX Live. How you could read that and interpret it as him saying Apple are somehow the worst, I don't know. All he's saying is that yet another closed system in the living room is a bad thing, it doesn'tnecessarily matter who makes it, he just chose Apple as they're the most likely candidate at this point (it takes a lot of money, developer backing and know-how to enter the console market - the only other big player who could probably do this would be Google, but their theoratical device probably wouldn't support his anti-closed box rant).
And that challenges games consoles how, exactly? I hate to break it to you, but the average Gears of War player isn't just biding their time until they can get Angry Birds on the big screen. I don't know if Apple devices are capable of competing with the current gen of consoles - bearing in mind they're half a decade old, maybe so, but the bigger step is convincing developers to start producing AAA titles for the devices. Ignoring the lack of a proper gaming controller, the bigger issue here is that either App store customers need to get used to paying £40 for a game instead of 99p or Apple need to convince the likes of EA to start selling their AAA titles for under a quid. That to me seems like a huge hurdle in replacing existing consoles with Apple devices.
The business model with consoles seems to be that you have to accept short term pain (in terms of near zero or even negative profit margins) in order to put out a console that's good enough that people will still be buying it years down the line, when tech advances are such that you can finally leverage the cost savings. Nintendo tried the other route - put out a much simpler console and make profit from day one, but now they're suffering as their console can't handle the games people want today, they've milked the casual gamer market dry and they've been too slow to follow up.
Apple don't seem like the kind of company to bet the farm on releasing a beefed up console and taking two years of losses, even though they have more than enough cash to make that model work. They could go down the causal game system in the living room route, but they're already owning that market on mobiles, is it really a big enough market that they could sell a dedicated console (after all, part of Nintendo's problem is that people who want casual games want them on devices they already own, like phones, and don't want to buy extra hardware).
If Apple are going to get into this market it would have to be on the back of something like Apple TV. Some kind of device that people buy for some other primary purpose, not specifically for the games (on that note, I notice I can buy games and apps on my Samsung Smart TV now, so it looks like everyone is jumping on that bandwagon).
It's also not like he can even claim he had no way of tracking down the owner. He must have known exactly what he had if he sold it for $5k - how hard is it to pick up the phone to Apple and call it in. Of course, it might have been in Apple's interests to offer a finder's fee that exceeded the magazine's fee since they were at least partially responsible in letting an employee go visit bars without cuffing the phone to his wrist (I understand these things need to be tested in the wild, but at least give it to someone with a hint of responsibility).
You're asking the wrong question. If you'd said "If it was just another highly secret prototype model phone from a company who only produces a couple variant handsets at any one time and therefore has more vested in anyone one particular model than most manufacturers" then admittedly it wouldn't be as catchy but it would be more accurate. I also think the punishment was harsh considering he hardly mugged someone, just sold something he found in a bar, but this isn't the same as finding 1 Nokia model X of 357,489 sold so far - competitors seeing the model ahead of launch derive benefit at the manufacturer's cost and I'm sure that factored in the sentencing.
The other thing to consider is, if they're already paying him 7k less than what he's obviously worth, what does that say about their opinion of him as a valued employee? Most employers will be your friend if they think it'll help keep their costs down. You can only find out how they really feel when you ask for what you're worth.
Agreed, most places I've worked have singularly failed to realise the importance of documentation until it's too late. Unless you're the one who assigns the work allocations, you can harp on about the need for documentation until you're blue in the face but there's zero you can do if the company doesn't want to take you off what they see as "profit generating" work (even though much of the time they could save a small fortune in efficiency gains by documenting things so they can be shared amongst the less experienced members of the team).
It's not always true of course, but your situation is the tiny exception to the massive norm - and even then, do you think they were being wholly altrusitic, or just realised that if they wanted to turn things around they needed their experienced employees on board?
Agreed. If you take a counter offer and stay, the chances are those relationships that were previously good may well turn sour. The company may also see you as disloyal or a risk and they'll likely seek to recruit/promote someone over you as soon as possible to minimise the risk of you leaving. Once they've done that, it's actually in their interests if you leave, since they don't want to be paying two lead developers if one is all they need - at that point, welcome to being lumbered with all the crap tasks. This isn't always the case, but I've seen it happen enough that I wouldn't take the risk.
Conversely leaving isn't disloyal, it's just natural - if they'd hold grudges agains you for wanting to move forwards then that gives you a good indication of how they really view you - fairweather friends at best. Be open and honest and do whatever you can to ease the transition (when I've been in this position before I've made it clear I was on the end of the phone for transitional issues after I've gone so long as they didn't abuse the offer) but be firm, and it probably helps if you make it clear this is not just about money but about expanding your experience/skills/better work/life balance etc (even if it is about money, you don't want to be seen as a mercenary dick - it's a small world after all). Of course, I'm biased as I hate any kind of commute - I'd probably take a 7k pay cut if I could work in walking distance from home rather than 1.5 hours:)
There are lots of ways to store the energy. The issue has always been that, compared to cheap electricity, they're costly, cumbersome and not particularly efficient. It's only the prospect of a bump in prices that's suddenly making these alternatives appealing, so it's something we might see in the near future.
In the shopping malls I've seen, the injured and disabled are normally not a regular part of the crowd.
You're in the US so I'm not sure what the situation is over there, but here in the UK we have laws to enable access to facilities for the disabled and it's quite common to see disabled shoppers. Of course, I don't know if they would cover having to expend extra physical effort in order to shop there. I mean, a ramp causes a wheelchair user to expend extra energy but it still satisfies the letter of the law (as opposed to making the store owner put in elevators or lower the whole building a few cm), so this might actually drive a few of the disabled away while still not being illegal.
Indeed, some amount of flex is actually more comfortable, so long as it's not too deep. This could well be an improvement for some people over a harder alternative (particularly those who have difficulty with high impact surfaces, like the elderly).
Valid points all, and it's all indicative of what a hodge-podge mess of a "standard" HTML5 is. I guess my point was more that they could have done at least the bare minimum in terms of adding some of the Shiny New Markup to the page. Instead this is all laid out in the trusty old div element and looks probably identical to how they'd have coded it even if they were coding specifically for XHTML (and even then it has a lot of validation errors). In short, definite marketing exercise, I can only hope their developers weren't complicit and at least have the good grace to cringe when the marketing team talk about their HTML5 site:)
Indeed, they're not even using the HTML 5 Doctype, it's XHTML: - and I don't see any HTML5 markup in the page (for instance, they use instead of the semantically correct HTML5 <header>). What they mean is they dropped Flash video, they're clearly highly confused about what HTML5 actually is.
But then if that's a major concern, buying an electric car without the ability to swap out the battery (or some other mechanism to charge as quickly as filling a tank with diesel) is a stupid move anyway. What happens if you get home with a flat battery and, before you can plug it in to charge, an emergency arises? These are the kind of issues we'll have to find answers to in any event if there's any realistic chance of people switching to electric vehicles, that doesn't mean they invalidate GP's suggestion.
Ditto Deus Ex Human Revolution. Aside from the crappy boss fights you can happily do the whole game without firing or even using non-lethal take downs and the stealth run through I did last week was a lot of fun. I guess this game is going to be similar, trying to get into places where you can score the scoop story without being seen. It's fun, but it's nothing amazingly new or unique (the journalist story is interesting, but I remember using stealth to get into position to record secret conversations years ago in the Splinter Cell games - admittedly a tiny part of those games but the same principle nevertheless).
No, what you've done is hold up an exception to the general rule, that doesn't mean the general rule isn't still correct for the vast majority. If you're betting the farm on being another exception to the rule you're taking an astronomical gamble.
The path through the levels is linear, similar to a rail shooter. Up to 60 pictures can be taken per visit to a course. After completing a course, the player selects their best picture of each Pokémon to be rated by Professor Oak and added to the Pokémon Report. Scoring takes into account various aspects of the pictures, such as the Pokémon's size, its pose, and keeping the Pokémon in frame. Extra points are awarded for capturing a "special" pose or Pokémon
Substitute Pokémon Island for a warzone and Pokémon poses for battlefield atrocities and you're there or thereabouts.
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It just needs to say "Either I, or my wristband's battery, just died".
Sorry, I missed something: buying an iPhone is done by geeks?
I never considered an iPhone to give geek cred.
I never considered that a true geek would put "cred" above playing with new and interesting gadgets, whatever their origin.
That's only what they'd like you to believe.
Ditto, I don't own any Apple products, I don't particularly agree with their closed approach, but I don't care if other people enjoy their products and Woz is a great engineering ambassador, I can't really see a reason why GP feels the need to attack the guy. Especially since it seems Woz also enjoys his Android gadgets (ironic that GP was telling others to get their facts straight). Didn't Woz even say that Android would be the dominant OS over time?
That doesn't make much sense. If you're saying he's doing this to enjoy the privilege of anonymity then it's massively counter productive because it just got his face in the media and splashed across a bunch of websites. Maybe those customers didn't know who he was yesterday but they will tomorrow. If he enjoyed the sensation of shopping without being recognised he would just wait a few weeks and buy the phone late night from an anonymous mall somewhere, joining a massive queue at a prominent store on day one is not going to help him enjoy any privacy. Besides, if you take a look at the guy's life, staying in the shadows doesn't really seem to be a priority of his.
Well I'm sure he wouldn't do it if he didn't enjoy it, but that doesn't mean it's also not a calculated attempt to generate publicity - the two are not mutually exclusive. And as for the iPhone not needing the attention to sell out, maybe that's true for this version, but a big part of the reason Apple devices are aspirational is that they're seen as a fun, on trend company and not a Microsoft-esque faceless corporation. That can change very quickly and it's easy for massive corporations to lose touch with their customers - this is probably not about promoting the current phone but about keeping the brand relevant. Considering Apple just lost their main figurehead, it's not going to hurt them at all to show that they have personality and are still a brand that it's fun to be associated with - this is about protecting their identity five, ten, twenty years down the line, not shifting some more phones this week.
He didn't say Apple is closed, XBOX is open. He specifically said closed systems like Apple AND XBOX Live. How you could read that and interpret it as him saying Apple are somehow the worst, I don't know. All he's saying is that yet another closed system in the living room is a bad thing, it doesn'tnecessarily matter who makes it, he just chose Apple as they're the most likely candidate at this point (it takes a lot of money, developer backing and know-how to enter the console market - the only other big player who could probably do this would be Google, but their theoratical device probably wouldn't support his anti-closed box rant).
And that challenges games consoles how, exactly? I hate to break it to you, but the average Gears of War player isn't just biding their time until they can get Angry Birds on the big screen. I don't know if Apple devices are capable of competing with the current gen of consoles - bearing in mind they're half a decade old, maybe so, but the bigger step is convincing developers to start producing AAA titles for the devices. Ignoring the lack of a proper gaming controller, the bigger issue here is that either App store customers need to get used to paying £40 for a game instead of 99p or Apple need to convince the likes of EA to start selling their AAA titles for under a quid. That to me seems like a huge hurdle in replacing existing consoles with Apple devices.
The business model with consoles seems to be that you have to accept short term pain (in terms of near zero or even negative profit margins) in order to put out a console that's good enough that people will still be buying it years down the line, when tech advances are such that you can finally leverage the cost savings. Nintendo tried the other route - put out a much simpler console and make profit from day one, but now they're suffering as their console can't handle the games people want today, they've milked the casual gamer market dry and they've been too slow to follow up.
Apple don't seem like the kind of company to bet the farm on releasing a beefed up console and taking two years of losses, even though they have more than enough cash to make that model work. They could go down the causal game system in the living room route, but they're already owning that market on mobiles, is it really a big enough market that they could sell a dedicated console (after all, part of Nintendo's problem is that people who want casual games want them on devices they already own, like phones, and don't want to buy extra hardware).
If Apple are going to get into this market it would have to be on the back of something like Apple TV. Some kind of device that people buy for some other primary purpose, not specifically for the games (on that note, I notice I can buy games and apps on my Samsung Smart TV now, so it looks like everyone is jumping on that bandwagon).
It's also not like he can even claim he had no way of tracking down the owner. He must have known exactly what he had if he sold it for $5k - how hard is it to pick up the phone to Apple and call it in. Of course, it might have been in Apple's interests to offer a finder's fee that exceeded the magazine's fee since they were at least partially responsible in letting an employee go visit bars without cuffing the phone to his wrist (I understand these things need to be tested in the wild, but at least give it to someone with a hint of responsibility).
You're asking the wrong question. If you'd said "If it was just another highly secret prototype model phone from a company who only produces a couple variant handsets at any one time and therefore has more vested in anyone one particular model than most manufacturers" then admittedly it wouldn't be as catchy but it would be more accurate. I also think the punishment was harsh considering he hardly mugged someone, just sold something he found in a bar, but this isn't the same as finding 1 Nokia model X of 357,489 sold so far - competitors seeing the model ahead of launch derive benefit at the manufacturer's cost and I'm sure that factored in the sentencing.
The other thing to consider is, if they're already paying him 7k less than what he's obviously worth, what does that say about their opinion of him as a valued employee? Most employers will be your friend if they think it'll help keep their costs down. You can only find out how they really feel when you ask for what you're worth.
Agreed, most places I've worked have singularly failed to realise the importance of documentation until it's too late. Unless you're the one who assigns the work allocations, you can harp on about the need for documentation until you're blue in the face but there's zero you can do if the company doesn't want to take you off what they see as "profit generating" work (even though much of the time they could save a small fortune in efficiency gains by documenting things so they can be shared amongst the less experienced members of the team).
It's not always true of course, but your situation is the tiny exception to the massive norm - and even then, do you think they were being wholly altrusitic, or just realised that if they wanted to turn things around they needed their experienced employees on board?
Agreed. If you take a counter offer and stay, the chances are those relationships that were previously good may well turn sour. The company may also see you as disloyal or a risk and they'll likely seek to recruit/promote someone over you as soon as possible to minimise the risk of you leaving. Once they've done that, it's actually in their interests if you leave, since they don't want to be paying two lead developers if one is all they need - at that point, welcome to being lumbered with all the crap tasks. This isn't always the case, but I've seen it happen enough that I wouldn't take the risk.
Conversely leaving isn't disloyal, it's just natural - if they'd hold grudges agains you for wanting to move forwards then that gives you a good indication of how they really view you - fairweather friends at best. Be open and honest and do whatever you can to ease the transition (when I've been in this position before I've made it clear I was on the end of the phone for transitional issues after I've gone so long as they didn't abuse the offer) but be firm, and it probably helps if you make it clear this is not just about money but about expanding your experience/skills/better work/life balance etc (even if it is about money, you don't want to be seen as a mercenary dick - it's a small world after all). Of course, I'm biased as I hate any kind of commute - I'd probably take a 7k pay cut if I could work in walking distance from home rather than 1.5 hours :)
The point of this is so the shopping centre can market how green they are. Facts are irrelevant :)
There are lots of ways to store the energy. The issue has always been that, compared to cheap electricity, they're costly, cumbersome and not particularly efficient. It's only the prospect of a bump in prices that's suddenly making these alternatives appealing, so it's something we might see in the near future.
In the shopping malls I've seen, the injured and disabled are normally not a regular part of the crowd.
You're in the US so I'm not sure what the situation is over there, but here in the UK we have laws to enable access to facilities for the disabled and it's quite common to see disabled shoppers. Of course, I don't know if they would cover having to expend extra physical effort in order to shop there. I mean, a ramp causes a wheelchair user to expend extra energy but it still satisfies the letter of the law (as opposed to making the store owner put in elevators or lower the whole building a few cm), so this might actually drive a few of the disabled away while still not being illegal.
Indeed, some amount of flex is actually more comfortable, so long as it's not too deep. This could well be an improvement for some people over a harder alternative (particularly those who have difficulty with high impact surfaces, like the elderly).
Valid points all, and it's all indicative of what a hodge-podge mess of a "standard" HTML5 is. I guess my point was more that they could have done at least the bare minimum in terms of adding some of the Shiny New Markup to the page. Instead this is all laid out in the trusty old div element and looks probably identical to how they'd have coded it even if they were coding specifically for XHTML (and even then it has a lot of validation errors). In short, definite marketing exercise, I can only hope their developers weren't complicit and at least have the good grace to cringe when the marketing team talk about their HTML5 site :)
Indeed, they're not even using the HTML 5 Doctype, it's XHTML: - and I don't see any HTML5 markup in the page (for instance, they use instead of the semantically correct HTML5 <header>). What they mean is they dropped Flash video, they're clearly highly confused about what HTML5 actually is.
But then if that's a major concern, buying an electric car without the ability to swap out the battery (or some other mechanism to charge as quickly as filling a tank with diesel) is a stupid move anyway. What happens if you get home with a flat battery and, before you can plug it in to charge, an emergency arises? These are the kind of issues we'll have to find answers to in any event if there's any realistic chance of people switching to electric vehicles, that doesn't mean they invalidate GP's suggestion.
Ditto Deus Ex Human Revolution. Aside from the crappy boss fights you can happily do the whole game without firing or even using non-lethal take downs and the stealth run through I did last week was a lot of fun. I guess this game is going to be similar, trying to get into places where you can score the scoop story without being seen. It's fun, but it's nothing amazingly new or unique (the journalist story is interesting, but I remember using stealth to get into position to record secret conversations years ago in the Splinter Cell games - admittedly a tiny part of those games but the same principle nevertheless).
No, what you've done is hold up an exception to the general rule, that doesn't mean the general rule isn't still correct for the vast majority. If you're betting the farm on being another exception to the rule you're taking an astronomical gamble.
The concept is rather unique though and I can't really tell whether or not it will work. It is a gamble.
Well, it's not that unique :) - seriously though:
Substitute Pokémon Island for a warzone and Pokémon poses for battlefield atrocities and you're there or thereabouts.