Whine like a baby, now with 500% more drama!

M

makare

I was on hold with the cable company today. After being a csr, I try to be patient and understanding when I am talking to reps for the company. But since I was a csr, I also know that some of them really are malevolent assholes. Hanging up on customers, muting the call until the caller hangs up and just general dickishness is all stuff I've seen. It is hard not figure that I am the victim of an ass.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
So apparently the battery cover for my droid came off and I didn't notice it until I rolled over it with the caster of my office chair. It doesn't fit anymore. Bleh. Buying a replacement for 5 bucks off Amazon.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Isn't everything particularly irritating to you, though?
No, by definition, I find everything to be generally irritating. The very nature of particularity requires a discrete, finite subject.

Also, while I'm whining, the parking lot here has smelled of wet shit for 2 weeks.
 

fade

Staff member
No, by definition, I find everything to be generally irritating. The very nature of particularity requires a finite subject.

Also, while I'm whining, the parking lot here has smelled of wet shit for 2 weeks.
Only if you assume I'm not indicating each thing separately (definition #3 on m-w.com, for authority). Without context, you'll have to rely on my word.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Only if you assume I'm not indicating each thing separately (definition #3 on m-w.com, for authority). Without context, you'll have to rely on my word.
But an infinite set of finite articles still invalidates any definition of "particular," be it the discrete definition or the extremity definition, because if everything is extreme, then nothing is. Yes?
Added at: 16:33
Pfft, you can do better than that.

Ahem: IT'S TEXAS, Gas. Not confined to the parking lot. :troll:
I have to give you that the parts with a lot of cattle have that problem. But this isn't that. This is most definitely the smell of the spoor of something carnivorous or omnivorous... perhaps canine or maybe even human. So either somebody over the fence isn't cleaning up after their dog, or there's a bum who's decided he's found a regular toilet here somewhere.

Oh dear god... I think the shed by the parking lot might be unlocked. I'm almost afraid to go look now.
 
But an infinite set of finite articles still invalidates any definition of "particular," be it the discrete definition or the extremity definition, because if everything is extreme, then nothing is. Yes?
Added at: 16:33

I have to give you that the parts with a lot of cattle have that problem. But this isn't that. This is most definitely the smell of the spoor of something carnivorous or omnivorous... perhaps canine or maybe even human. So either somebody over the fence isn't cleaning up after their dog, or there's a bum who's decided he's found a regular toilet here somewhere.

Oh dear god... I think the shed by the parking lot might be unlocked. I'm almost afraid to go look now.
Your prisoner might have an overflowing bucket?
 
So apparently the battery cover for my droid came off and I didn't notice it until I rolled over it with the caster of my office chair. It doesn't fit anymore. Bleh. Buying a replacement for 5 bucks off Amazon.
Am I the only one who thought he meant, like, a lights-n-sound Star Wars action figure or something?

--Patrick
 
Lord Helmet!
WHAT?
You're needed on the bridge sir!
Knock on my door! Knock next time!
Yes, sir!
Did you see anything?
No, sir! I didn't see you playing with your dolls again.
GOOD!
 

fade

Staff member
Dear Apple,

Are you trying to prove to everyone that you cannot exist without Jobs? What the hell is this new thing you're calling a Macbook Pro with Retina display? Never have I seen your own fanbase so irritated with you. A MBP is not disposable. Not at those price points. Don't treat it as such, and don't treat it like a foldable iDevice. What the hell? Glued in parts? Non-replacable battery? Soldered, non-upgradable RAM? Proprietary SSD? All of these are new "features" that SUCK. And what the crap is with the term "retina display"? That may be fine for your phone, but the laptop--especially the PRO laptop--is marketed at a different crowd. We would rather see numbers. We'd rather have flexibility and maintainability as pro users. You're alienating your core computer market. I almost wonder if that was the point. With insignificant updates to the Mac Pro, it's almost like you WANT to drive away your pro users. With no more MacBook, that means only the Air and iDevices would be left. I'm starting to wonder if that's the whole idea.
 
I've been going through a really bad bout of depression the last few days. It's getting so bad that I'm now behind in my work for my Teaching Elementary Math online course. I don't know what it is, either. I now have places to bike, if I want. I have friends in the city that I've seen a couple of times since moving.

I think it's very likely because I don't feel very free, financially. As much as I loathe to admit it, my folks are paying for my rent these days. I'm also on a tight budget, which means I can't buy anything fun for myself. Worse, because my dad is not only a control freak, but has access to my bank account, he saw that I bought some comics a few weeks ago and admonished me for it. I fucking hate being so dependant on them because I feel like I can't do it myself. It's a necessary evil due to my lack of funds, since student loans barely covered my costs living in the states for the past year and not being able to get a part-time job down there didn't help, either.

Worse, while I would like to look for a part-time job, I don't know if I even can right now. Not that I can, but whether I should. I'm still waiting to hear about my goddamn student teaching, but there's still been no word. A lot of the districts in New Brunswick are consolidating to save on costs, and it sounds like Fredericton's district is one of them that's going through such changes. So even now, I don't even know if I'm even doing my student teaching in the fall or not.
 
Dear Apple,

Are you trying to prove to everyone that you cannot exist without Jobs? What the hell is this new thing you're calling a Macbook Pro with Retina display? Never have I seen your own fanbase so irritated with you. A MBP is not disposable. Not at those price points. Don't treat it as such, and don't treat it like a foldable iDevice. What the hell? Glued in parts? Non-replacable battery? Soldered, non-upgradable RAM? Proprietary SSD? All of these are new "features" that SUCK. And what the crap is with the term "retina display"? That may be fine for your phone, but the laptop--especially the PRO laptop--is marketed at a different crowd. We would rather see numbers. We'd rather have flexibility and maintainability as pro users. You're alienating your core computer market. I almost wonder if that was the point. With insignificant updates to the Mac Pro, it's almost like you WANT to drive away your pro users. With no more MacBook, that means only the Air and iDevices would be left. I'm starting to wonder if that's the whole idea.
And don't you love the fact that if you want a DVD-RW drive, you have to buy one separately? It's the iMac all over again. The thing that really gets me is that we were just talking about this in our vendor bay. One of the guys was talking about how during the presentation video you could hear people in the background clamoring for Apple to take their money now, that they can't wait 2 weeks for the 17in version to be released, etc. I went to their store, priced out a minimal upgrade version of the 15in computer (I went with the 768GB hard drive and added the "superdrive" option.) and after paying for all of the cables you would need to connect the new drive, etc., it came to $3500. Then I went to Dell's website and customized an Alienware gaming rig, with a better video card (nVidia GTX 660M 2GB vs. nVidia GTX 650M 1GB), same amount of RAM (8GB), same Intel core i7 processor (up to 3.6GHz with Boost), more hard drive space (1.5TB vs. 768GB), a DVD-RW drive that comes standard, and it's 17in instead of 15. The Alienware was almost $2,000.00 cheaper (I think it was almost exactly $1,800.00). For that much money, I could drop another 8GB of RAM and a second 2GB GTX 660M with SLI support into the Alienware rig. That's how effective the Apple brand name is right now. People are willing to give up twice the RAM, twice the HDD space, twice the video card performance, and a DVD-RW drive, just for the privilege of getting to buy an Apple computer.

Edit: Oh yeah, and the same-price Alienware laptop has an 18.4in screen, instead of 15in.
 

fade

Staff member
Oh, I'm an Apple nut, but believe me, I'm not the only one irritated by this. I'm surprised Gared saw the enthusiasm he did, because a lot of the Apple blogs are poo-pooing the new MBP. I appreciate the computing appliance paradigm for what it is, but the Pro line was specifically still computers. Now it's not. I never cared that I could build something with the same specs for cheaper at Dell, because the usability of the OS and the combination of durability, size, and battery life relative to performance specs of the hardware was better than what you could find elsewhere.

I AM a scientific power user. The thing is that there are TONS of us out there, which you could see at any conference. We use macs because of it's POSIX underpinnings combined with the Mac OSX usability. But this latest move is pushing us out of the door with nary a "thanks for all the fish".

(Also, I didn't say there was anything wrong with the Retina display or that it wasn't a good upgrade, I just said MBP and MP users want to know the specs.)
 
First off, I think that the original MacHeads are beign completely replaced with iNuts. The people loving the iPhone/iPad/iWhatever aren('t quite the same target demographic as the ones who loved it back when it was Macintosh. Power users? Who needs power users and graphics users when you have hipster yuppie people willing to pay 2x or 3x what your hardware's worth for the logo alone? Exact same reason why Volkswagen went from "car for the people" to "fancy and expensive but good quality" products: they pay better.

Personally, I don't get it. None of the iObjects have been as revolutionary as they've been tauted to be (though they were all good products in their own rights and quite a few of them did have some very good aspects, such as battery power or lots of memory relative to their competition or whatever), they're hideously overpriced....

Also: what's so special abotu the "Retina" display? I've been hearing it more and more, but I still haven't seen anything about it that explains what it's supposed to be about.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Also: what's so special abotu the "Retina" display? I've been hearing it more and more, but I still haven't seen anything about it that explains what it's supposed to be about.
The DPI of pixels on a "retina" display are supposed to be a higher density than the human eye can process at the expected viewing distance, thus making it appear smooth and sharp. There is some controversy about that claim. In any case, it's basically super duper ultra high resolution, but naturally it's limited to the smaller screens.

Edit: Stienman for the ninja
 
Apple has (for the most part) traditionally not designed their products with any particular sort of user in mind. Instead, they design their products based on engineering and aesthetic and wait to see how they are adopted. The iPad, for instance, was not designed to be a reader, nor a medical device. It was designed to be an iPad. The Mini was not designed to be an automotive entertainment server nor a museum kiosk, it was designed to be minimalist and tiny. Likewise, the new MBP has a jaw-dropping display and thinner chassis than its sibling, even though they are otherwise very similar in spec. Sure, some sacrifices had to be made (mainly to repairability), but I'm sure there are plenty out there for whom the MacBook Air was a perfect fit...except for the anemic processor/display and the lack of expandability. These people are going to cream their pants over the new MBP. For them, it will be the answer to their prayers, and they will absolutely not care what the rest of the world thinks. In fact, don't think of it as a MacBook Pro. Instead, what it really is is a 27in iMac that you can fold up and carry around easily in your backpack/briefcase. For everyone else, there is still the "traditional" MBP, which can perform extremely competitively (except for the display) with a simple SSD upgrade.

--Patrick
(the above is solely my own opinion, and does not necessarily represent the stance of any particular company, government, secret society/cult, media outlet, nor gender)
 
Sweet fucknuggety Christ, does Adobe update every goddamn day?! With my laptop, my work PC and my desktop, I feel like I'm updating that thing more than anything else.
 
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