Posts by Russell Brown
-
Hard News: Auckland City Nights, in reply to Sacha,
what a cock
I think James liked it.
-
Hard News: Auckland City Nights, in reply to Sacha,
And it’s not going down well with the government. (via Hilary on unrelated thread)
You really have to wonder what's going through the heads of those ministers.
-
Hard News: Auckland City Nights, in reply to Gareth Ward,
Every person I know that has partaken in the hospitality offerings of North Wharf has had a terrible experience. Every one.
Yikes.
-
Hard News: Auckland City Nights, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
And if you’ve had one of those days when you’d rather stick your head in the oven than cook, a waiter who can at least pretend to be happy to see you is a soul-saver…
I'd also prefer a waiter who didn't patronisingly touch me on the shoulder when I enquired after my drink order ...
-
Hard News: Steve, 1999, in reply to Jim Cathcart,
At this stage benefits are accruing to technophiles and shareholders but it appears that Apple has some way to go to improve its triple-bottom line business practice. Did Jobs share some responsibility in that? You would certainly have hoped so.
You would. And it does seem that Apple has been much more engaged with the issue than most of the companies that use the same assembly plants.
I'd be interested to know how the Foxconn plants in the Czech Republic, India and Brazil compare to the big one in Shenzen.
-
Hard News: Auckland City Nights, in reply to barnaclebarnes,
It is not free and it is not discounted…It is free in certain hotspots for up to 30 minutes per device per day.
It’s a bit better than that: Users will be able to get free access for up to three 30 minute sessions a day per Wi-Fi device. So they’re trying to limit it to reasonable use, and I supposed you could argue that it’s easier for people to keep track of their time than their data usage.
Hotspots will be at:
- Britomart station and adjourning area
- Newmarket railway station
- Kingsland railway station
- Morningside railway station
- Devonport wharf
- Matiatia wharf Waiheke
- Ferry terminalAs well as Queens Wharf, Eden Park, Aotea Square and North Wharf.
But your point about the relative benefits of free and comprehensive wi-fi versus more money for marketing is well made.
-
Hard News: Auckland City Nights, in reply to James Butler,
I didn't think that much of it - the highlights at Galatos for me were the Mean Girls, who didn't hold anything back from the 20 or so of us who were there that early (who knew a bass could make noises like that?),
Heh. Didn't like them at all. Where was the happy?
and Beastwars metalling it up at the end.
I would have liked to have seen Beastwars -- their album certainly rocks -- but it was rammed and my friends wanted to see Street Chant. That's okay. I was fading a little bit by then ...
-
Hard News: Steve, 1999, in reply to Jim Cathcart,
Steve Jobs record on workers rights.
Apple is the highest-profile Foxconn customer, and thus takes most of the heat, much as it was targeted by Greenpeace on the sustainability of its products (which improved markedly as a result of the scrutiny).
But the screen on your Kindle? That Asus netbook? Your Nokia or Sony Ericsson phone? Your Playstation? Your Dell, HP or Cisco device? Made, in whole or in part, at Foxconn.
Some of those companies have supplier responsibility codes -- Cisco for example -- but none of them seem to do the degree of supplier auditing that Apple does. Apple has been producing reports since 2007, and does cancel contracts.
My point isn't that manufacturing practices in China can leave much to be desired -- although that's obvious -- but that it makes little sense to single out "Steve jobs' record on workers rights", when Apple is demonstrably more responsive than most of its peers.
Apple's treatment of its US workforce is generally regarded as very good -- I know someone who used the staff health plan to get sexual reassignment surgery -- with the exception being the retail workers, who have had cause for complaint.
On the suicides issue Auckland University's StatsChat recently pointed that while all suicides are are tragic, the rate of suicide amongst Foxconn employees is markedly lower than that of the general Chinese population.
-
Noting, of course, that the ARM processor core on which the A4 is based is licensed from Advanced Risc Machines -- the company formed after the makers of the BBC Acorn landed a deal with Apple to produce a version of the Risc chip they'd made based on fresh ideas from Berkley.
That was for the Newton, another product Jobs killed. It's interesting that the Newton OS paradigm was dumped, but Apple went back to ARM when it wanted to go mobile again.
That was easy because since it was formed, ARM has been in the business of licensing the intellectual property of its designs to other companies. The company has "shipped" 15 billion ARM processor cores without actually making any of them.
-
Hard News: Steve, 1999, in reply to Gareth Ward,
Oh and Apple’s design isn’t the story behind their commercial success anymore – it’s their supply chain and ruthless efficiency. Even with Ives’ gorgeousness Apple were never going to be the largest company in the world. The fact that they can now get great industrial design delivered rapidly to your hands in unthinkable volume at a close-to-competitive price is behind that. And that’s why Cook deserves CEO.
This.
I hadn't realised till this week that it was Cook who reinvented Apple's supply chain, after Jobs killed all existing Mac desktop models in favor of the iMac and the pro line. Apple achieved the best inventory performance in the industry quite quickly -- they made what they sold and sold what they made. That's the part of the story that usually gets left out.
I'd love to know how the decision to get into chip design with the A4 was made. And interestingly, while Apple and Samsung are locked in patent war mode, it's Samsung that produces Apple's chip design.