[jeff303]

Folks, we are missing something critical here. Who has had a discussion with their kids about the negative externalities of eating Halloween candy, and who is going to pay for those?

[jeff303]

Yep, some of the articles that came out today make it clear that there was a massive failure in system architecture and/or testing.

[jeff303]

Perhaps a relevant TED radio hour that might be of interest to those participating in this discussion: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/16/235781665/haves-and-have-nots

[jeff303]

[quote=bearishgurl]
America needs and will continue to need all kinds of workers, not just “creative types.” It’s not for elitest-types (or wanna-be elitest-types) living in SoCal (where fresh produce is in abundance and relatively cheap) to decide whether a midwestern diet of home-canned fruits and vegetables from a home garden, meat butchered and packaged locally or fish caught locally, milk pasteurized locally and real mashed potatoes with homemade gravy isn’t “nutritional.” Nor are they qualified to decide whether most Americans possess the “raw life enrichment experiences” or “family dynamic” necessary to develop the “raw mental horsepower” or whether they might already possess the “raw mental horsepower” to begin with.

Get up at 4:00 am 6-7 days per week to start chores on your “working farm or ranch” and tell me how much “raw mental horsepower” is needed to sustain that type of discipline, year in and year out.

Sorry, but it’s not the same thing as stopping off at Starbucks on your commute to a desk job in SoCal where you will report to a cubicle between 8 and 9 am, immediately put your flip-flopped feet on the desk and pipe up your laptop for the day in your supposedly “creative job.”[/quote]

I don’t think anyone is disparaging people who obviously work very hard in more physically-oriented jobs, or discounting their discipline or worth to society. The point is that like it or not, these jobs will gradually go away. Hell, so will most “creative” jobs (already happening to travel agents, accountants and lawyers are next). The free market demands that profits continue to grow every quarter, and the easiest way to achieve that growth is to reduce labor costs via automation. It has been happening throughout history and will continue to do so. Whereas many farmers used to be required to tend to one farm, now a single farmer can manage a much larger land area through the use of technology. And one day, almost no farmers will even be out physically on the fields; a small number of them will just be overseeing the operations of robots harvesting the fields.

I agree with others that say there will be some sort of major upheaval, probably in my lifetime. The only hope I can see to alleviating this outcome is something like essentially free universal power (fusion or similar), or mass rollout/usage/hacking of 3D printing. For the time being, wealth will continue to flow upward at an ever increasing pace, since the already wealthy are the ones who will own the profits from increased automation.

[jeff303]

There’s no way to tell whether this is “genuine” or scripted. And even if not scripted, it’s one person, so… yeah.

[jeff303]

[quote=flu]
Lol. That’s exactly the same one I have that broke with the bad 1/2 side memory bank… LOL….

I’d try it with Amex anyway. I seriously doubt they would be figuring out whether it’s refurbished or not..
Worst comes to worse, if you’re just having a logic board problem and you go to the apple store, you’re out just $209 which isn’t that bad…[/quote]

Great… I suppose I’m in for trouble then since I swapped out all the RAM for 16GB of aftermarket, and moved the original HDD to the secondary bay to install an SSD.

[jeff303]

[quote=SK in CV]Yes it does Jeff, but if I remember correctly, the apple warranty on their refurbished stuff is either 30 or 60 days. Double that, and you’re still looking at a very short warranty. I went looking for the same info when shopping for a refurbished ipad, and at least my conclusion was that it only covers manufacturers warranties (including refurbished stuff). It took a few phone calls, but eventually AMEX gave me that info. So it doesn’t apply to refurbished stuff by 3rd parties that include warranties.[/quote]

Thanks very much for the info. As it happens, I think the one I purchased (essentially this) does have a 1-year warranty, which would presumably be doubled.

[jeff303]

Anyone know if this also covers factory refurb items, in particular a refurbished Mac Mini purchased from apple.com? I found lots of conflicting info when I attempted to research it.

[jeff303]

I work in the software industry (used to be in the financial domain, now education). Just because the computer prints out an accurate number doesn’t mean it’s transcribed accurately through all the layers of people in between it and the news story. Ever played the game of telephone? From my limited experience, Hanlon’s Razor tends to hold true.

[jeff303]

Why are we to assume “intentional misinformation” is more likely than the stated reason (communication error)?

[jeff303]

[quote=ucodegen]What I find annoying is that these same teachers, etc want the pensions instead of having the money go to their own 401Ks.. that they control. (use low fee index funds)[/quote]

Not all employer plans offer access to such funds. Often times, one’s portfolio options aren’t very good.

[jeff303]

[quote=spdrun]

I think Janet Yellen is more of an academic like Bernanke. She’d make a good choice and a politically astute choice.

The last thing we need running the shadow gov’t of the US is a Berzerkely libcrazy. At least not when economic policy is involved.[/quote]

Thanks for the thoughtful and nuanced critique, there.

[jeff303]

I guess I’m missing something, but did you try asking them if they were interested in renewing for another year? If they’re not, then give them the written notice since it’s 30+ days before the end of the current term.

[jeff303]

The bottom line is that technological automation is rapidly displacing labor, and therefore those who own the means of production own a greater share of the profits. Stated another way, those who are already wealthy are seeing their wealth increase at an even faster rate due to automation.

There’s a great/controversial recent episode of This American Life (in partnership with Planet Money) which is, on the surface, about disability payments. However, I found the subtext to actually be about this increasing effect of automation on the economy, with “disability” payments actually serving as a crude transfer mechanism to alleviate some of the symptoms.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but I think there will have to be some major societal shift to deal with the problem.

[jeff303]

Their CEO is a bit unscrupulous (to say the least), and most of their market share has come from acquisitions rather than original development. Their current condition is, therefore, not much of a surprise.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-57322150-17/zynga-to-employees-give-back-our-stock-or-youll-be-fired/

[Author]

Posts