I have a feeling the “spare tire” chips are chips they’ve been ripping off from Qualcomm et al, and now they have an excuse to make them. That would explain why he is framing it that they were just for a contingency, they never planned on using them.
They’ve done that many times in the past, but they’re too big to get away with it so easily now.
The use case was server side data analysis. If it’s important work the researcher should get the much much more powerful server and run Linux like most sane people do. Who cares if your server can pair with your Apple Watch or use WhatsApp.
For all we know, the researcher could've also mistaken their real RAM requirements and 64GB would give them equal performance. I'd rather walk them through the options and then let them make the decision that they're most comfortable with, rather than mandating something that they don't want and which might make them less efficient as a result.
The research project in question will use as much RAM as is available, and we already have 128gb machines available, and access to larger. Why, for just running some MATLAB scripts through SSH would you need to stay with the Apple ecosystem for that?
I have no idea. Could be some OS X package oddity, or maybe they just like to AirDrop stuff to themselves?
In any case, I suspect if you do a little discovery with that person - what specific problem are you trying to solve by staying with a Mac? - you'll find the answer. You might even be able to convince them to change their order if you find it's something that can be easily worked around in a way they hadn't thought of.
As someone who has been on the researcher's side of this conversation, I can tell you that I'm always happy to discuss my reasoning with someone in your position who's genuinely trying to help me. On the flip side, I get very annoyed when they're just being obstinate because they disagree with my choice on spec (and this is an endemic problem in corporate purchasing orgs.)
Yeah I get your point of view. I have a MBP. I also maintain a HPC cluster. I didn’t blindside this person with a refusal, rather I asked what use he had for a maxed out iMac pro. When he said it would be used essentially as a shared server for remotely running data analyses, I explained the other options (dell server mentioned above).
As the IT guy I also have to deal with when these macs break or they are misconfigured, which happens a lot more easily than the Windows machines because the latter are in a domain and managed. The Mac guys are way too “I know what I’m doing” until they can’t get the printer working.
If Mac didn’t involve huge increases in price and integration pains for the organization I would be less negative but that’s how it is.
Also since you mentioned research, in my domain people buy those MacBooks because they can, because they are a status symbol, just to run Word and read PDFs, because all the big people in our field have macs. I see this as a cult to be honest.
Have you considered that, alternatively, those people choose Macs because they find them nice to use or that they prefer OS X to Windows? The Apple cult definitely exists, but the anti-Apple cult is equally real and to be honest they both blow my mind.
There was a point made where an opposing lawmaker said that foreign companies like Facebook would not bother to comply. Ha! They will all love to have your real name and address confirmed, they will be more than happy to oblige. It would make many things easier, and allow them to monetize you much better.
So strange, this seems to be the exact opposite of the trend in the USA where the public desire is moving towards requesting these companies to allow us to be anonymous. Just like...Europe? What’s going on in Austria?
Europe is big on protecting your privacy against private entities. But the government is another matter - it's almost as if the presumption is that it's valid for it to hold such data on the flimsiest of reasons, and it only becomes abusive if used for some sinister purpose. The possibility of such abuse in the future is not considered a valid justification to prevent data collection.
Conversely, in US, we place a lot of emphasis on preventing the government from collecting data that it could abuse, but then largely ignore the same issue with private entities.
(Note, I'm not saying that it's universally true in either place, only that it seems to be the majority consensus. There's certainly plenty people vocally dissenting from it.)
There’s lots of things to reasonably debate about this. This is already an accepted practice for coding boot camps like AppAcademy, which I attended. At the time I couldn’t get a good job and was running out of savings. I was an adult cleaning golf clubs with high school students. Couldn’t get anyone to even look at my resume. AppAcademy’s application was purely merit based, they just wanted to know you could solve problems and think. After the program you pay 15% if your income for the first year, if you could get a job that paid over 50K a year.
I got in. I remember I was telling some millionaire member of the club what I would be doing and he told me that he thought that was illegal and they were ripping me off. I genuinely liked most of the members, but I really wanted to tell that guy some very rude things.
It changed my life. By the next spring I had a great job I loved that was paying me way way more than the golfing club. I had to pay 30% of my first 6 months instead of 15% over the full year, which is tough after taxes. Take home pay was like 45% of my paycheck. But even during that first 6 months I was making way more than I would have otherwise. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Bottom line, I got a chance I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. There’s plenty of ways to take advantage of desperate people. The term could have been longer, the rate higher. It could turn into a type of slavery. But if these things are limited in some way they can be a good thing. Especially if they time out, and are subject to you actually being paid. Then they are better than most other loans, and the people who you owe have interests that are slightly more aligned with yours.
That program has changed a bit since I went through. Also, I think the biggest drawback was I was expecting them to really help me get a job, but it was more throw us all out there and see who sticks. So, probably much less ideal in fields without the same insatiable demand for workers.
Any instrument can be made favorable. You can calculate out expected values. Sounds like yours was a reasonable deal.
But... assuming they don’t set prices using things other than degree, and that they’re priced to be on average equally profitable with an equivalent loan, you’ll be better off getting this arrangement if you expect to earn less than your average peers, and worse off if you expect to earn more. It’s basically a case of moral hazard. Long term you would expect people with less fiscally ambitious goals to pursue this (e.g. those who want to do more charitable, less fiscally rewarding careers) which means the average rate of return would need to be more punishing than traditional loans.
Mostly this just seems ripe for abuse against the loan providers to me, and that the terms will be made very unfair to compensate.
They didn’t help much at all, but the program was still new. Their support might be better now, not sure. I do think taking the program highly highly increased my chance of employment. I would not have made the right choices about what to take, my pace would have been much slower, and my self confidence for actually applying for jobs would have been way less. I am confident about this because I was taking Coursera courses and online tutorials before the AppAcademy program. Coursera is awesome and I learned some great stuff. I also realized that I was good at programming, which gave me the confidence to apply to AppAcademy. But AppAcademy was truly a boot camp, very intense, and pushed me through everything I needed to get a job. And I was also contractually obligated to at least try to get a job.
They’ve done that many times in the past, but they’re too big to get away with it so easily now.