Tech Companies Need To Take Responsibility For the 'Chaos' They Create, Tim Cook Says (thehill.com) 225
Apple CEO Tim Cook said Sunday in a commencement address at Stanford University that technology companies need to take responsibility for the "chaos" they create. From a report: He did not name specific companies in his speech, but referenced several reasons that tech firms, particularly social media platforms, have come under scrutiny in recent months. He also made an apparent reference to embattled health startup Theranos. "Lately it seems this industry is becoming better known for a less noble innovation -- the belief you can claim credit without accepting responsibility," Cook said, according to videos posted online of his speech. "We see it every day now with every data breach, every privacy violation, every blind eye turned to hate speech, fake news poisoning out national conversation, the false miracles in exchange for a single drop of your blood," he added. "Too many seem to think that good intentions excuse away harmful outcomes, but whether you like it or not, what you build and what you create define who you are. It feels a bit crazy that anyone should have to say this, but if you built a chaos factory, you can't dodge responsibility for the chaos."
Chaos Factory, excellent term... (Score:5, Interesting)
I can think of no better way to describe Twitter than "Chaos Factory". That is what a vast majority of it is used for these days, even if you can use it for other things...
It's not a great term for Facebook though, there's some deeper problem there that I wouldn't describe as chaos... but some form of poison may be close.
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No, because nobody is forced to buy it.
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I can think of no better way to describe Twitter than "Chaos Factory."
I'd say: I can think of no better way to describe Humanity in it's current state, than "Chaos Factory."
Don't shoot the messenger. Humanity itself is at a very low point.
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Depends upon how you define it. Clearly, we're much better off in a number of ways...tech, unemployment, civil rights, etc. But, we've (in the US) never in my lifetime (60 yrs) been so divided. We've never been so monitored. It's never been so crowded (my commute went from 20 min to over an hour in the last ten years). I'd argue that in most urban areas, people rarely know their neighbors...I grew up in Detroit, and knew the names of nearly everyone on our city block in the 60s. So, I'd say there a mu
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When was there a better time? I'll wait...
There was a time when not everyone would have such a knee-jerk reaction to "humanity is at a low point", as you just did. Those are the days I'm talking about.
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Who modded up this deflection? Makes no sense at all, nothing to mod up here. Smells like astroturfer accounts, consistent with Apple's reptilian corporate ethics.
Right, smells to high heaven like thug Apple astromodding.
Tim Cook is ... (Score:2, Insightful)
... a salesman. "Our competitors are evil, so we're an alternative, OK?"
He's given this same speech elsewhere. It's a broken record.
Apple is losing to the competition, so it's a marketing strategy.
Re:Tim Cook is ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Chaos is from Social Media companies, Apple is a hardware company. Despite a few flame wars of Apple products vs their competitors products, they really don't create the Chaos that is Social Media today. Because Apples Business model is far more traditional.
Make a Product, Sell a Product at the price it takes to make it + a Profit Margin which is consistent to the amount of demand and the number that can supplied.
They also sell like a retail store other peoples software, music, books... On their store which they intern take a percentage of the profit.
Social Media, is an advertising company, so they make money off of selling its viewers to advertisers. So the more viewers they get the more money they make. People have a hard time not gawking at a train wreck, so Drama, Extreme Views, Good Guys vs Bad Guys. All equal profit.
Now the likes of Google are a problem with Apple, Because of Googles business model of advertising first, and Product second, means it can sell their products for less, because it pushes you to use their platforms and make money from that. Vs Apple who has to charge more for their devices, because they make money from the device and not so much from the adverting.
(YES Apple has its adverting services, which is often used by 3rds party apps, so they can make money from free Apps, but Apple doesn't really care on how successful the App is. So if it creates conflict or not isn't Apples concern).
So Apple is in a good position to vilify their competitors for creating problems that apple doesn't and is on a good position to rebuke them. Because if there is fallout it just will not affect them as much.
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The Chaos is from Social Media companies, Apple is a hardware company.
Nonsense. Can you spell I-O-S?
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Typical Apple ass sucker weighs in.
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Re:Tim Cook is ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple is a marketing and software company. They make very little hardware. The Macbooks are made by Quanta; they're an ODM [wikipedia.org]. (Original design manufacturer - they're like an OEM except they also design the product.The vast majority of laptops are made by ODMs, not their brand names.). Back when the unibody Macbooks first appeared, there was a pretty interesting article about how Quanta had bought a bunch of new CNC machines and were playing around with them. And thought they could use it to hog a laptop chassis out of a solid chunk of aluminum, so they pitched the idea to the customer they thought would be most receptive - Apple. It wasn't an Apple innovation as is widely believed. (The plastic Macbooks and the older Powerbooks were made by Asus). The iPhones are made by Foxconn - more people know that because Foxconn shows up in the news more often. Apple seems to dump blame for any iPhone problems onto Foxconn, while claiming credit for the good things. The only hardware I know that Apple actually makes are the Ax processors. Oh, and their fingerprint sensors - they bought the company which makes those back in 2012. (Then created chaos in the industry by dropping support for millions of fingerprint sensors installed in other brand laptops. I couldn't even download previous updates for the drivers after an OS reinstall because Apple took down the original website. This was a major problem because the software had to be updated to work with the certificates on newer browser releases.)
The thing which most distinguishes Apple's products is their software. The original iPod's hardware was substandard ("No wireless, less space than a Nomad, lame."). What made it a success was the software integration with iTunes which solved the problem of synchronizing music on your PC with music on your MP3 player. Same for the Macbooks - the hardware is rather middling, suffering from overheating and mediocre or even consumer-hostile specs (e.g. soldered RAM and storage). But the software includes such gems like the best trackpad, best backup interface I've seen, and arguably the best UI overall. And the iPhone introduced the App Store as an alternative to buying software in a box at a retail store and installing it by connecting your phone to a PC.
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Now the likes of Google are a problem with Apple ...
Isn't that kinda what I said?"
Keyboards (Score:2)
Will apple release a notebook with a working keyboard again ?
the four last model years just fall appart.
Speak about chaos.
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Yes and No (Score:4)
When you write code to hack into private data servers, yes anyone who knows what the software is being developed for is responsible. When you write a machine learning algorithm meant for finding cancer indicators in a legitimate set of medical data released by the patients, and the tech company gets sold by some investor or something that sells the algorithm to an insurance company to raise premiums on someone who might get cancer, no only the person who sold the company might be responsible if they and any indication as to how the software would be used.
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Re: Yes and No (Score:5, Funny)
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Sure, and the inventor of the pencil was supposed to factor in that eventually John Wick would kill 3 people in a bar with it.
Not to mention the sheer lethality of the tea cup.
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He is just trying to divert attention (Score:2)
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Apple has been a really good player over all for it's history.
And I hate Apples walled garden.
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All the tech companies except Apple? (Score:3, Insightful)
Soooo..... he's calling out all of the big tech companies except his own?
How about being responsible for all of the junk generated with their planned obsolescence and yearly upgrades for new features that are either worthless or should have been there before anyway? Their users' privacy that is exposed by a services company claiming to be able to break the security on any iPhone?
Re: All the tech companies except Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
What planned obsolescence and what new features does my 6s not have that would require me to buy an iPhone Excess? I get regular updates from the manufacturer, unlike many Android phones despite my phone being nearly 4 years old. So does my dad's 5s, despite being nearly 6 years old.
Re: All the tech companies except Apple? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, 4 years, great longevity for a $1,000 product
Wow, you paid way too much for your 5s, since they retailed far below $1000.
During that period, Apple has deliberately degraded the performance of your phone with software updates
Yes....and due to complaints they turned that into a switch, so you can choose battery life or performance as the battery degrades.
That's after hitting you with several hundred percent markup on the initial purchase
Are you under the Illusion that something like a Samsung Galaxy doesn't have a large mark-up over the cost of materials?
or took it to the dealership for battery replacement
Tip: Native English speakers don't call an Apple store a "dealership". Mostly because there's no dealer involved. It's a store, operated by the company. A dealership is an independent company that is selling a manufacturer's products.
Re: All the tech companies except Apple? (Score:2)
Yeah an Apple apologist would call it an iPhone Excess wouldn't they you empty-headed child. Both options are shit, Apple's happens to be less shit for what I want. 4 years support for a device that cost much the same as the Nexus 6 I had before that has long since been abandoned.
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Wow, 4 years, great longevity for a $1,000 product.
iPhones didn't reach $1000 until the iPhone X generation.
The iPhone 5s I am still using today came out 6 years ago and retailed for $650 at the time of purchase. If I stopped using it right now, the amortized cost would be a mere $9.42/mo., which I think is a more than reasonable cost to pay to have a cutting-edge device that's continually updated and supported for six years. Moreover, I'll still be using it for at least awhile longer before retiring it, so the final amortized cost will almost certainly be
Re: All the tech companies except Apple? (Score:3)
How many current Android phones have removable batteries now? Expandable slots are a lot rarer too. I'd still rather have a phone that gets security updates than expandable storage. My 64GB is still half empty but security holes abound in unpatched Android phones.
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So... Apple can't be called out for terrible things it does, but everyone else can? (You know, like I said in my original post.)
Re: All the tech companies except Apple? (Score:2)
Absolutely they can but I asked what planned obsolescence you were talking about.
Re: All the tech companies except Apple? (Score:2)
You say this but I haven't seen any slowdown. If I had I would be saying so. As for the iOS 13 update, it seems to be applying to all Apple phones, not just the old ones. It might be a shit idea but I've got a far better chance if Apple deciding that and patching it than I have of avoiding Android security flaws that remain unpatched forever.
I won't be buying another Apple device though. I paid £630 for this phone and I'm very happy with it but there's no way I'm paying £1000 for
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Keyboards (Score:2)
Yep, I concur.
Apple is not even willing to fix long lasting design issues like laptop keyboards that fall appart.
That's plain, calculated, and short sighted obsolescence.
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Um, no. As the article says "He did not name specific companies in his speech". He did not exclude Apple in any way.
So by extension . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
That's going to be on heck of a class action lawsuit. Now apply it to guns, kitchen knives, toasters, frisbees, toilets, ships, bungee cords, disco . . . this is ridiculous.
Whoever invented fire is in some serious trouble if they are expected to be responsible for all the people and property that have been burned by it.
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When a car is harmful, they do become responsible to make changes.
"guns"
Any excuse for idiots to bring guns into a conversation is a good one, amirite?
Fixing your metaphor (Score:2)
Whoever invented cars is responsible for every time someone ran a red light and caused an injury?
Today, no.
But what if the car maker includes instructions on how to kill pedestrians?
Furthermore, what if car companies repo cars of people not willing to run run lights frequently enough?
What if cars came with counters than rang pleasantly and gave you access to better cars every time hit a pedestrian?
That's kind of like what is happening on Twitter. Mobbing is encouraged because then counts are driven up acro
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It's not the invention (Score:2)
My car is regulated for my safety and the safety of other's on the road. Why should Twitter, Facebook et all get a pass? At the very least they should have to identify their advertisers and the country they come from.
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I think the implication is that places like Facebook may (or may not) have started out with only the intention of connecting everyone, but have turned into an active "chaos factory", and Facebook is actually profiting off of it today. Google as well. So, not necessarily who invented the tool, but who owns the market today should be doing something to mitigate the "chaos".
Cook and a lot of anti gun folks would argue the same might go for guns...I wouldn't. The carpenter doesn't blame the hammer when he fu
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In the gun world, our great lobbying groups work hard to make sure there are no licenses needed, that there are no enforceable standards, and that there will never be any accountability for manufacturers or licen
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>> Democracy means unlimited access to guns
Nope.
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Your comparison of Trump (who I happen to dislike) to Kim Jong-il is about as close to a Godwin as you can get. The remainder of your message goes unread.
Personal responsibility (Score:5, Interesting)
embattled? it was fraud. (Score:4, Interesting)
" embattled health startup Theranos."
You basically had a woman build a Cargo Cult of Steve Jobs.
She imitated all the personality of Steve Jobs that is in the culture under the premise something would happen.
Disregarding the fact that SJ and SW actually based there product on reality.
Theranos is fraud, and doesn't belong in this conversation. Cook should just go back to logistic; he was brilliant at that. As an innovator he is.. lacking.
Not just tech companies - ALL data collectors (Score:5, Insightful)
Collected data should be a liability in addition to being an asset - there should be significant penalties for leaking collected data.
For example, why is Equifax still in business? They were responsible for arguably the biggest and worst release of personal data ever, but they got away with the standard one-year-of-credit-monitoring penalty.
They should have been held liable for every loss due to identity theft for the year after the breach, whether traceable to their breach or not. They deserved financial ruin, and short of a really impressive class action lawsuit result they aren't going to suffer any significant penalty.
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Hint, it's money.
Here's their lobbying spending by year (the chart can take a moment to load):
https://www.opensecrets.org/lo... [opensecrets.org]
And it's no surprise to see their lobbying efforts this year we for a Bill titled:
Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act
(I like how regulatory relief and consumer protection can coexist in the same bill)
Ok... (Score:5, Insightful)
I presume Apple will now be taking responsibility for the chaos they created when they started the trends like soldering down batteries, omitting headphone jacks, and the war on independent repairs?
That's funny as I though it was... (Score:2)
...Fake, propaganda MSM news that was causing the chaos. Not that the Tech industry is not guilty of ethics violations as they most certainly are http://3seas.org/EAD-RFI-respo... [3seas.org] but social media still just the vehicle the chaos is transported on like the carrier wave of a radio station (AM/FM) doesn't care what the signal it is carrying.
Really? (Score:2)
How about taking responsibility for those fucking butterfly keyboards? Stop trying to fix a goddamn flawed design and go back to regular keys that still work even with 1mm of dust packed under them.
Chaos Factory (Score:2)
Chaos like Apple? (Score:2)
Tim Cook's B.S. (Score:3)
"Too many seem to think that good intentions excuse away harmful outcomes, but whether you like it or not, what you build and what you create define who you are."
Tim Cook is a hypocrite.
Apple Is Telling Lawmakers People Will Hurt Themselves if They Try To Fix iPhones [slashdot.org].
Wrong focus, Mr. Cook (Score:3)
All of his propaganda about Apple taking responsibility that other tech companies haven't is just that ... a bunch of marketing, feel-good crap.
I'm a long time Mac user myself (back to 1999 or 2000 or so, at least), so I'm not saying this as one of those "anti Mac" guys out there. But first off? Comparisons to Theranos? That was just a company intentionally defrauding people once they realized they promised a product they couldn't actually deliver on. There will ALWAYS be those situations out there, in all types of businesses. Apple may as well bring up Solyndra or Enron, or maybe Elio Motors if that's the discussion topic. But who cares? We know Apple is a well established company that doesn't just hawk vaporware ... so it's a lousy comparison.
While Apple tries to pitch the idea that they take security more seriously than everyone else (oops... looks like Cellebrite announced they can crack ALL versions of iOS on iPads or iPhones now to extract your data) ... they still insist on selling people hardware that's practically impossible to do self-service on or upgrade. They keep fighting "Right to Repair" legislation that's pro-consumer and pro small service businesses.
Frankly, I don't make ANY purchasing decisions about my technology choices based on virtue signaling by a company's CEO. Yeah, yeah, Tim... that's great you supported gay marriage. Know what? As a libertarian, I'd support government getting OUT of the business of licensing marriage, period! ANY couple who wants to get married should be able to just do so, and government's only task is to record it for their records. It's stupid that we keep fighting for permission for various types of marriages, one at a time (such as interracial marriages).
Breaking ground (Score:2)
on The Apple Campus Landfill anytime soon?
an old problem (Score:2)
in loco parentis (Score:2)
Of all the tech titans, Apple's business model skews the furthest toward in loco parentis.
There's a lot of money to be made gently nudging young adults who don't know how to cook for themselves to the clean and safe fast-food wicket funnel.
What tends to remain undiscussed is whether Apple operates in this space as the kindly schoolmaster or the wicked stepmother. About 40–60 by my estimate.
Kindly schoolmaster:
* only 10% as much of a malware Petri dish as Microsoft Windows (which is nice, but hardly ro
So, Timmy, does that mean Apple . . . (Score:2)
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
That part is not wrong, just not how he meant (Score:5, Insightful)
"Hate speech" is a code word
Probably but he is still not wrong on this point. It's just that hate comes from all directions, and indeed a blind eye is turned to any and all hate that comes from form the liberal quadrant - that is indeed a problem.
Re:That part is not wrong, just not how he meant (Score:5, Interesting)
" hate comes from all directions"
No, the problem is people like you fall into false balance trap.
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If you seriously believe SOME white people aren't in danger, then you're a moron. There are plenty of trailer park trash, hillbilly, and redneck kids that are raised in squalor.
I'm not saying that the percentages are nearly the same, just that those kids are going to have a much more difficult time than my black, Asian, Latino, etc., neighbors (I have quite a few here in northern VA), where the public schools are decent, and job market is strong.
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A lot of Hate is "Hate" (with quotes). IE : Not really hate at all, just painted as "Hate" by those who want to silence inconvenient voices.
Want to discuss Affirmative Action programs for College admission ? Hate speech, how dare you be racist.
Want to discuss grooming gangs in the UK ? Hate speech, how dare you be Islamophobic.
Want to discuss how Pride has been hijacked by corporate interests ? Hate speech, how dare you be homophobic.
Want to discuss how Trans-women in sports have an unfair advantage due
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This is objectively false (Score:2)
Re: They can never say ONLY sensible things... (Score:2, Insightful)
Hate speech is anything "progressives" disagree with
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You have these firms undercutting Apple on price, because they offset the cost in their products on getting you to the exciting chaotic world of Social Media.
There is a lot of money in getting you pissed off, because your Ex married someone else who can afford nicer things. Or the Jerk you knew in High School, is traveling the world, and got a new car.
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I never really found Apple to be Over Priced, but Apple to be More Expensive for My Particular needs, and offers too few of a selection that I can get something priced where my needs are.
I don't need a 1k over engineered base to hold my monitor. But I expect for any other company to make a base like that will need to sell them for about the same price. For the money, I can get a much cheaper base, with less quality. But that should suit me perfectly fine.
Here the thing. If you are an Apple Cheerl
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I never really found Apple to be Over Priced
Then you are the only one. How is life on your planet?
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I never really found Apple to be Over Priced
Then you are the only one. How is life on your planet?
Oh, come on now. Yes, they've always been high priced...but over? Many would argue that you got what you paid for. For the most part, their shit just worked all the way back to my first 128k Mac. And the UI was intuitive enough that you rarely needed to look at the manual for anything.
We could argue the same thing for any new BMW (I personally think they're all overpriced, and I've owned a couple of used ones), but I'm certain others would disagree.
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Yes, overpriced. Not good value. Simple concept unless you are an alien.
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Again, no. Over priced to you. Not so much to millions of "aliens".
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I don't give a fuck if stupid people pay too much for crappy Apple products, like phones that explode and chargers that can't charge, that's on them. Easy to tell, you're one of those.
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"...like phones that explode..."
Oh, so the Note 9? More seriously, my overall point is that it's all relative...your opinion is no more valid than that of the millions that disagree with you.
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Nice whataboutism there. How about Apple products that explode and electrocute teenagers?
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You're changing the topic from overpriced/not to something entirely different. As you can see, I said "More seriously" to get us back on subject. But, I think we've beat this to death, and simply disagree, so I'll leave it at that.
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It's true: Apple slitherins get their crusty knickers severely knotted up every time they hear the word "overpriced". Whining about it doesn't make it not so.
Re: Does that include... (Score:3)
As compared to what? An Android phone that gets abandoned after 18 months if you're lucky
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As compared to what? An Android phone that gets abandoned after 18 months if you're lucky
You clearly haven't met my wife, who just traded up from a Samsung Note 3 a couple months ago. That's 5 years.
Re: Does that include... (Score:2)
Abandoned by the manufacturer leaving the user vulnerable. Had she got a 5s instead it would've got full updates for that time. I bet that Note 3's firmware is chock full of juicy security holes.
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Ah, and no doubt about the holes. Though she wouldn't have had much worth worrying about since she rarely even used it other than to exchange texts with our kid.
Re: Does that include... (Score:2)
Which version of Android does it run?
Re: Does that include... (Score:2)
According to Wikipedia it's upgradeable to Marshmallow. Like I said, abandoned.
Re: Does that include... (Score:2)
It's been abandoned by the MANUFACTURER. As in any security holes will NEVER be fixed. Would you use a Microsoft OS that hadn't been patched for years on the Internet?
I'm not criticising Android here. There's nothing wrong with Android, it's the contempt that the suppliers of devices have for their customers' security that sent me to Apple. Apple suck too but at least they don't leave their customers high and dry after a few months.
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I might be in the market for a stand soon, went and looked at the Ergotron site, impressive.
What stands have you gotten in the past? What was the weight limit on yours?
I'm thinking possibly either getting one for the new Apple monitor they announced, or possible just saving some $$ and getting an iMac Pro, and would need a sturdy mount for it for my stand up desk....so, hoping you can give some more details on your experience with this company.
Thank you!
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It's for professionals who can drop $10K on a new system and take a tax write off.
You understand that you're still out most of that $10K after a tax write off, right? You understand that wasting your money is even worse in a business setting, right? The target audience, as always with Apple, is people with more dollars than sense. Fine for Apple to part a fool from his money, but don't expect Slashdot to stop mocking the fools.
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"Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools."
Then I suggest you remove "E Pluribus Unum" from your currency, and replace it with "Fuck you, I got mine"
Socialism is when the government says "fuck you, I got mine".
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"Then I suggest you remove "E Pluribus Unum" from your currency, and replace it with "Fuck you, I got mine""
How about after 42 years of working, and being frugal, Fuck you, I earned mine.
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"why should I give the slightest toss about his opinions on anything?"
Clearly, you cared enough to give an opinion on his opinion. Clearly, the folks at Stanford think he's done enough, so yes people care what the CEO of an $892B company thinks. You obviously don't have zero interest in spite of your claim since you've now read at least a couple articles about him.
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I didn't say Steve Jobs was not a supreme flaming asshole, just that he had big shoes that Tim Cook can't fill, not even close.
Oh wow, thug Apple's trollmods are a bit sensitive, I see.
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Ah, your theory is, Dead Steve Jobs was buried with his shoes on, precisely so Tim Cook would never be able to fill them?
Hmm you might have a point there. Maybe Tim could try to fill Dead Steve's jockstrap as a fallback, Tim is so great with fallbacks.
Thug Apple troll mods apparently lack a sense of humor.