Posted on 03/17/2014 9:08:13 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Apple's design chief helped transform computing, phones and music. The company's secrecy and Ive's modesty mean he has never given an in-depth interview—until now.
'Hello. Thanks for Coming'
We use Jonathan Ive’s products to help us to eat, drink and sleep, to work, travel, relax, read, listen and watch, to shop, chat, date and have sex. Many of us spend more time with his screens than with our families. Some of us like his screens more than our families. For years, Ive’s natural shyness, coupled with the secrecy bordering on paranoia of his employer, Apple, has meant we have known little about the man who shapes the future, with such innovations as the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. But last month, he invited me to Cupertino in Silicon Valley where Apple is based, for his first in-depth interview since he became head of design almost 20 years ago.
The gods — or was it the ghost of Steve Jobs? — seemed against it. Jobs didn’t like Apple execs doing interviews. It had not rained properly in California for months but that morning the clouds rolled off the Pacific, turning the Golden Gate Bridge black. Interstate 280 South to Silicon Valley was a river of water, instead of the usual lava streaks of stop-start SUVs. But just after 10AM, an Apple tech-head appeared in an all-white meeting room on the first floor of building 4 of the firm’s antiseptic headquarters with strict instructions to find an Earl Grey tea bag.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
HA. Gotta disagree with you there, kid. I build my computers as long-term computing devices. Last desktop I had was 9 years old when I finally retired it. Built my most recent one from just a shade below the top of the performance curve in a micro-atx case because I wanted it to sit inside my rolltop desk. I could have gone with a Mac, but I'm really more of a Linux guy so I didn't.
Wife and MIL both have Macs, and I'm not denying they are great products, but not all products suit all needs. I'm glad both exist in the market though, even if I'm not wanting a Mac for myself.
Thank you for one of the more thoughtful and intelligent responses on this thread. You've pointed out pros and cons on both sides of the issue of Apple devices, many of which I can agree with. Too often there are posters who jump into one of these threads with the mindset of being disruptive, for instance saying an iPad can only hold one song at a time, etc.
I bought 64GB iPads for me and my wife. Having worked with computers for more than forty years, I try to buy the most storage space I can get because later on it will be needed. Remember that quote attributed to Bill Gates? "640K is all the memory anyone will ever need!" (whether he did say it or not, I remember it as news at the time back then). People are shortsighted, buying the least memory they can, then they complain later when they fill it up and can't stuff more stuff in the device. Is that Apple's fault? Perhaps to some degree, but people need to take ownership of their own decisions. Back in the early 1980s, I bought a 20MB hard drive for my PC for $400. My boss was whining at me that he paid $400 for his 5MB hard drive half a year before that. Well, people shouldn't complain about it, because better and faster and cheaper stuff keeps getting churned out. Every year or two we were replacing our PCs and hard drives with better versions. So if people buying a minimal memory iPad need more space, then suck it up and buy a better machine later. Just my two cents on the issue.
I own both PCs and Macs. I own desktop computers, laptop computers, and mobile devices. If you only want a single all-in-one device, there will always be tradeoffs and shortcomings to keep in mind. That's why I have multiple devices, so I can live with the shortcomings by using the best features of each device I have. Sort of why I have a truck as well as a sports car and sedan. Regarding computers, you said there is space in the market for both types of products. Absolutely!
Great read to put on a Kindle.
Thanks for the complement. :-) There are people who are actively and purposely disruptive on Apple (and Linux) threads. It has always been that way. We have had dedicated disrupters for as long as I can remember. I have my own personal theories about why that is the case.
As for the memory issue you bring up, I completely agree. I generally buy what I can afford, and make sure that the devices I purchase are easily upgradable. The one exception I have to that general rule is my iPhone. It's a hand-me-down from my MIL. When my wife upgraded to an iPhone 5, the MIL got her 4s, and I got the 4. It's a testament to the hardware that you can do that, and still have a usable product IMO.
I had a 40MB drive back in the day. I remember thinking that there was no way I'd be able to use all that space. I've learned different in the intervening years, obviously. I fully expect to someday have an Exabyte (or is it exobyte?) drive on my desk before the decade is out.
This is especially true in the Linux world, where everything is a file, a fact that be used creatively to your advantage.
Funny how that was humongously big back then! I bought one of the first Apple II's when they came out, with 4KB memory. A large portion was used by the system, so I had tweak my assembly language programs to fit while leaving space for the running program. Blocks of memory were going for $500 per 16KB. Back then, choices were limited because of high costs. But everyone accepted having to tweak stuff to make things happen, unlike now with off-the-shelf total devices for the masses. Different world then.
Sorry to hear there are disrupters on Linux threads. I stopped working on Linux twenty years ago, because I got lazy trying to tweak it. (Actually, my mind got lazy trying to remember commands.) It was fun, though. Speaking of using old stuff, I still use an old dumb Samsung tracfone. Everyone else in my family has an iPhone, so what, I just use my Samsung for calls.
You might want to give Linux a try again. If you go with one of the more user-friendly distros, very little tweaking is involved anymore. I’ve been looking at Mint as a distro for newbies. It’s pretty darn straightforward. If you have a decent amount of ram, the best way to try it out is in a VM. I use vmware a lot for testing things. It’s pretty slick, and the ‘player’ version is cool.
“I am also a classically educated economist. I know what I’m talking about and it’s clear you don’t.”
Ludwig von Swordmaker http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3134377/posts?page=114#114
“Do not question my authority!” he explained. How precious.
Hey, do you remember the time that you claimed to have studied 10 years of political donations by Apple, Steve Jobs, Apple PAC, vis-a-vis something or other, and concluded that Apple and Steve Jobs and Apple PAC aren’t particularly political and actually stand neutral? Here it is:
“#27 First post me to you: No comment about you personally, recapping review of a study I did reviewing 10 years of political donations (2001-2010) by Apple corporation, Steve Jobs, Apple Employees’ PAC vis-a-vis Microsoft, Intel, Dell, HP. PLUS Recap of a published article on readers of NYTimes and computer use v. Political slant. My take on a conservative slant to actual policies implemented by Steve Jobs and Apple on careers, porn, etc.” from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3134377/posts?page=191#191
When what you actually said was, “Apple as a company spends very little on political contributions. . . far less in fact than Microsoft, Amazon, Google, or Samsung. . . . especially on lobbying. There is an Apple Employee’ PAC. . . that supports Democrats over Republicans by about 80/20. But what employees’s PAC doesn’t. That’s where the money against the California initiatives came from. The Board of Directors is split about sixty-forty liberal to conservative. . . so they really don’t take too many extreme political stands. They mostly just don’t do anything politically as a company. . . and stand neutral.” from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3134377/posts?page=27#27
I challenged you to name the conservatives on Apple’s board to which you replied? Crickets! And that was over a month ago. Rather odd for an economist who has extensively studied Apple politics and contributions, wouldn’t you say?
Oh, and for some reason you ignored the various non-financial ways that contributions get into politicians pockets. Maybe it’s because professional economists, like yourself, are actually nothing more than theoreticians with no real-world experience. How else would you explain the absence of any accounting for off-the-books contributions?
Publicly maxing out direct financial donations to individual politicians is a self-aggrandizing vanity. Anonymity, however, is the Holy Grail of political donations, and for good reason. Recently, a real tech genius, was hounded out of his position at Mozilla. It wasn’t carried on the Apple Channel so you may have missed it.
Mozilla CEO out over opposition to gay marriage
http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/03/mozilla-ceo-out-over-opposition-to-gay-marriage/
He was in a public database of donors. Maybe he should have given to a 501c4 non-profit instead. Oh wait.
“The IRS is accused of leaking the National Organization for Marriage’s (NOM) tax records from 2008 to the Human Rights Campaign. The IRS has claimed the release of the records was “inadvertent.” The records included names of donors to NOM, but while NOM was responsible for organizing and pushing forward Proposition 8, it’s not the same list. Eich donated to Prop. 8, not to NOM. Eich’s name and donation to Proposition 8 was always a public record and searchable even before the election. People were facing public criticism for their donations at their workplaces even at the time of the vote. Eich is not the first guy to deal with this sort of backlash, and it prompted debate over whether names of donors should be public.” from http://reason.com/blog/2014/04/04/no-the-irs-didnt-leak-mozilla-ex-ceos-do
The current IRS scandal...oops, sorry...the Apple News Network didn’t cover it. Here’s a short version. Conservatives, who applied for 501c4 tax-exempt status, did so, in part, to allow donors to contribute anonymously. The IRS was tasked with holding up the applications of “tea party” and/or “patriot” organizations until after the 2012 elections...allegedly.
We could talk about Citizens United and the contributions that are made by ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN/PBS/MSNBC without attribution as the reason 501c4’s have become so important to conservative groups, but that would get us away from your assertion that Saint Steven of Cupertino was apolitical.
We’ve covered the fake neutrality of Saint Steven already, but in 2004, when asked about his participation in the Presidential campaign of conservative John Kerry, Saint Steven said this:
“Some people have said that I shouldn’t get involved politically because probably half our customers are Republicans - maybe a little less, maybe more Dell than ours. But I do point out that there are more Democrats than Mac users so I’m going to just stay away from all that political stuff because that was just a personal thing.”
Steve Jobs addresses Kerry campaign economic advisor rumors
http://appleinsider.com/article/?id=614
Financial assistance is self-aggrandizing but impersonal support. Investing time and expertise in a campaign is highly personal, and that’s what Saint Steven did. He was intimately involved in left-wing progressive politics, and maybe it’s my contemporary economics training that makes me think that he was hoping for the Federal Government to give Apple “most favored nation” status for his effort.
But he and Apple did, and continue to do, much more than that by hiring Democratic insiders, which is as overt a form of lobbying and political payback as a company can engage.
“I’m just going to stay away from all that political stuff...” he said with a straight face.
Saint Steven was anything but neutral. He was knee deep into left-wing progressive politics. And he had no aversion to plunging Apple into left-wing progressive politics if he thought he could make it look like pragmatism or, in the case of Al Gore, sympathy.
Other than Rush Limbaugh, can you name one conservative that Apple was cuddling up to? I didn’t think so.
Apple Lexicon
Political Neutrality: Anything to the left, far-left, ultra-left, or extreme left of the late Ted Kennedy.
from The Apple Lexicon (™) Interpreting Apple Theology Since 1994
“I am also a classically educated economist. I know what I’m talking about and it’s clear you don’t.” Ludwig von Swordmaker
Von Swordmaker said it, I believe it, that settles it!
Dr von Swordmaker insisted that Apple didn’t build factories in China (they did) and that they didn’t build those factories to avoid over-regulation in the United States (they did). Saint Steven of Cupertino told President Barack Obama “...how easy it was to build a factory in China, and said that it was almost impossible to do so these days in America, largely because of regulations and unnecessary costs.” Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, Chapter Forty-One, Round Three, The Twilight Struggle, President Obama
Steve Jobs, and everyone else in America, knew why Apple built factories in China. Everyone, that is, except world-renowned economist Ludwig von Swordmaker.
“In most cases, the plants exceeded EPA standards. If Apple moved to avoid standards, why require more, when it is NOT required at the new location?” Ludwig von Swordmaker from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3134377/posts?page=191#191
So Apple didn’t build factories in China, but the factories that they didn’t build were built to specs exceeding the specs in America that Saint Steven claimed were too restrictive and costly.
You can’t make this stuff up! It’s almost as if Ludwig von Swordmaker is a Colbertesque caricature who works for Markos to make conservative Apple users look like morons who would mindlessly and uncritically propagate Apple mythology.
Apple Lexicon
Chinese Factories: Naturally occurring structures spontaneously formed in Chinese cities and discovered by Apple in the 1990’s which they repurposed to accommodate the manufacture of electronic devices.
from The Apple Lexicon (™) Interpreting Apple Theology Since 1994
I bet you were one of us who used Peeks, Pokes and Calls -- for for our own hex assembler code subroutiness -- in contests to see who could write the fanciest program in a single 80-character line of BASIC code.. '-)
And, I definitely remember Woz's fragmented memory! My annual test of my growing self-taught skills was an ever-imoroving hires snow scene graphic with falling snow. For a flake to reach the ground, it had to traverse three separate areas of graphic memory (which was a good tutorial on the use of offsets in hex...). I developed an asymmetrical 3-pixel "shape" for my snowflakes, and applied random rotation to create a realistic "flutter" as they fell...
Actually, those were great days. I truly miss having machines over which the user had absolute -- down to the bit level -- control...
Yes, those were the fun days. I was a member of the San Francisco Apple Core computer club. We used to meet in a side room of a savings and loan building on Geary Boulevard. Members would talk and display their efforts on their little Apple II's. I wrote a Keno game that fit in 2K of space. A Computerland store owner liked it so much he put it on display in his store. This was back in early 1978. Later, the club moved to bigger quarters at Fort Mason near Chrissy Field. One of my fond memories was when I mentioned I wanted to build a printer interface via the game port. Andy Hertzfeld (co-inventor of the Mac) showed me how to build an interface for under $2, sketched a schematic on the inside of a matchbook cover.
You're right about having absolute control over these machines. I applied what I learned controlling the Apple disk drives when they came out, to larger IBM mainframes. I could manipulate any bit sector, on any track and side. I applied this to controlling IBM 3180 DASD hard drives, writing machine code for custom programs for one of my employers. The Apple II was a great practice machine for learning concepts.
I still own and use my 1977 Apple II (Revision 0 early machine). No cassette drive necessary, as I have a CompactFlash card in it. I downloaded thousands of Apple programs and games (all available free online) into CompactFlash cards. Early on, I had programmed my own autostart ROMs so I don't need to load DOS, it's instant on. In the mid-1980s I had moved the guts into a larger custom case I built and used at my job (still very useful side by side with and interfaced to an IBM PC). Later, because of the collectibility factor, I restored it all to the original case. Most of my other PCs were trashed long ago. I'll never part with the Apple II!
Apple built factories in China? Seriously? Hmmm... and al along, I just thought it was Foxconn and the other long-standing Chinese-owned factories that have expanded many times as they have taken on the contracts for pretty much EVERY major computer maker in the world...
Seriously - which factories did Apple build?
The Facts are not hard to chase down - and if you would take a couple of seconds to simply search for it, you would find it. Apple, just like so many other "manufacturers" contract with companies in China to produce most of their goods. The difference with Apple (again - VERY easy to track this down) is that they are one of, if not THE ONLY company that sets their standards way above eery other maker in regards to worker conditions, worker pay, and quality expectations. It is all in the Apple contracts.
you can't make this stuff up..."
You just did... pulled it out of your self righteous, pompous A$$ right along with the rest of your trolling garbage.
OH - and were you aware that the latest Mac Pro Towers are made in the USA?
I did clarify at the end.
“Chinese Factories: Naturally occurring structures spontaneously formed in Chinese cities and discovered by Apple in the 1990’s which they repurposed to accommodate the manufacture of electronic devices.”
Is that better?
“The difference with Apple (again - VERY easy to track this down) is that they are one of, if not THE ONLY company that sets their standards way above eery other maker in regards to worker conditions, worker pay, and quality expectations. It is all in the Apple contracts.”
That’s verbatim what Ludwig said. Do you have some of those “primary sources” that back this up, cause I’ve been researching for a month and you guys are the only ones making that claim.
“Apple built factories in China? Seriously? Hmmm... and al along, I just thought it was Foxconn and the other long-standing Chinese-owned factories that have expanded many times as they have taken on the contracts for pretty much EVERY major computer maker in the world...”
Steve Jobs, “described how easy it was to build a factory in China, and said that it was almost impossible to do so these days in America, largely because of regulations and unnecessary costs.” Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, Chapter Forty-One, Round Three, The Twilight Struggle, President Obama
“OH - and were you aware that the latest Mac Pro Towers are made in the USA?”
Yes, I heard that. And I heard it was Foxconn who managed the building also. It’s very different from a company who builds stuff and then calls Apple and asks them if they want space?
“McDonalds doesn’t build fast food restaurants. Did you know that? Sure you did. Parkway Construction, Yorkon, Wolgast and others build restaurants for McDonalds. But to assume that McDonalds isn’t involved in every aspect of the building process is beyond rational thought. It would be accurate to say, as any classically trained economist might, that McDonalds builds restaurants in 118 countries. They don’t just spring up and McDonalds spots them on Google Maps. Do they?
Foxconn wasn’t just building a bunch of factories and cold calling American companies when they got Steve Jobs. “Hey Stevie, we have this empty factory just sitting here and were wondering if you could use 700,000 workers to build something. An “i” what? iPhone? Sure, we can do that, send the specs and we’ll get right on it!”
You don’t allow a company like Foxconn to build a factory to their own specs and then call you when it’s done, but that’s what you would have to envision if Apple wasn’t involved in every aspect of the buildings design and construction. Did Foxconn act as contractor? Sure. Foxconn or any number of others. Steve Jobs knew the details and was able to describe the process to Barack Obama.
Apple builds factories, through its contractors, in China. Deal with it.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3134377/posts?page=208#208
“...were you aware that the latest Mac Pro Towers are made in the USA”
It’s a pretty amazing feat. Just three years ago, in 2011, Steve Jobs told President Barack Obama that it was “almost impossible” to build a factory in America. Steve dies and viola! An impossibility prior to Barack Obama’s second term is now a reality.
Saint Steven said it was teachers, and regulations, and unnecessary costs, and schools, and bad karma, and squirrels that kept Apple from building factories in America. Well now there’s even a video of the factory that couldn’t be built in America. Austin Texas no less!
Apple - Making the all-new Mac Pro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbWOQWw1wkM
It’s a short video that displays the power of spontaneous generation of manufacturing facilities. A phenomena which had previously been restricted to Asian countries. Apple was building an operations facility in Austin when someone noticed the factory developing on their drive in to work.
Apple quickly notified Flextronics and asked if they could claim and manage the facility for Apple. So Flextronics rather than Foxconn, as was originally speculated, is now making Mac Pro Towers without any input from Apple. My, how the world has changed. What was impossible to do just months ago is already being done.
So it seems it was just Steve Jobs that was full of bullfish...oh, and all the Apple apologists, like, well, you guys.
And we’re back at the point that started this branch of the thread when I agreed with Secret Agent Man and made Swordmaker all frothy.
“Good product/bad product, great debate material, but Apple financially supports the left and all that entails. So do lots of other companies, especially tech companies, but then why not just say Apple is run by a bunch of dicks but they make products I like?” from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3134377/posts?page=22#22
“I am also a classically educated economist. I know what I’m talking about and it’s clear you don’t.” Ludwig von Swordmaker
Ich bin ein Volkswirt!
Steve Jobs told President Barack Obama that, “Apple had 700,000 factory workers employed in China, he said, and that was because it needed 30,000 engineers on-site to support those workers. ‘You can’t find that many in America to hire,’ he said. These factory engineers did not have to be PhDs or geniuses; they simply needed to have basic engineering skills for manufacturing. Tech schools, community colleges, or trade schools could train them.” Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, Chapter Forty-One, Round Three, The Twilight Struggle, President Obama
So, according to Saint Steven, he had to move manufacturing to China because of American “regulations and unnecessary costs” but also because he needed 30,000 low-skilled engineers...who could be trained at community colleges or trade schools. Two-year colleges.
Do you know what they do at two-year colleges? They point students in the direction of the greatest potential for employment. Did Apple put out a call in the 1990’s for 30,000 two-year college engineers? No. But when they are building an Apple Store, the local community college is one of the places that Apple uses for early recruitment. Yet, I can’t remember any push from Apple to set up two-year low-level engineering programs at two year colleges in the United States. Can you?
Steve Jobs sent manufacturing to China, drying up demand for factory engineering jobs in America, then complained about his inability to fill 30,000 factory engineering jobs that only existed in China, just before giving a platitude filled commencement speech at Stanford that gave Chris Matthews his second set of tingles.
Hey, he must have been a classically educated economist too!
Apple Lexicon
Volkswirt: German word for Apple groupie
from The Apple Lexicon (™) Interpreting Apple Theology Since 1994
Postscript: I was planning to approach the spontaneous generation of manufacturing facilities in Austin Texas at a later date but TheBattman jumped the gun. Good on Apple. They’re still run by a bunch of disks, but they make products I like, some right here in the USA! http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3134377/posts?page=257#257
“I am also a classically educated economist. I know what I’m talking about and it’s clear you don’t.” Ludwig von Swordmaker
Oh so precious.
Look, since you brought up Foxconn, I thought we should address the elephant in the room. Suicides.
Suicides at Apple manufacturing facilities in China in 2010 prompted a rash of investigations and consequent breast beating by Apple execs followed by the inevitable obfuscation.
The most bizarre was this attempt at misdirection by our own Ludwig von Swordmaker who dragged a red herring all over the thread. Some Michael Moore wannabe faked interviews at an Apple plant but it wasn’t even an Apple plant, intoned von Swordmaker, as he pointed in the opposite direction.
“The complaints of abuse he attributed to Apple assembly lines occurred at companies not even associated with Apple contracts. . . And videos he presented to back up the unsanitary and unsafe conditions were from a plant making Microsoft Xboxes, as were the suicides he claimed were at Apple plants!” Ludwig von Swordmaker from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3134377/posts?page=139#139
Yet while von Swordmaker was doing a bad impression of David Copperfield, across the street at the D8 Conference, Steve Jobs was being interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.
When asked about Foxconn by Kara Swisher (19:06), Saint Steven, after explaining what nice factories they have in China, said that “...they’ve had, if you count the attempted suicides, 13 so far this year. And while that is still...they have four hundred thousand people in this place, so 13 out of four hundred thousand is 26 per year, so far, for four hundred thousand people or you know lets say 7 per hundred thousand people. That’s still under the US suicide rate of 11 per hundred thousand people but it’s really troubling.”
Full-length interview of Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the D8 conference with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, June 7, 2010
http://live.wsj.com/video/allthingd/70F7CC1D-FFBF-4BE0-BFF1-08C300E31E11.html#!70F7CC1D-FFBF-4BE0-BFF1-08C300E31E11
This incredibly dishonest false equivalence was picked up by every sycophantic fanboy in the press and echoed right here at the Apple Worship Center. The deaths in a factory full of teenaged workers has been compared to the general population of China, the general population of the United States, the general population of any city, town, or borough with a similar numbers of residents, and Saint Steven even tried to compare it to high school kids from his hometown of Palo Alto, California where there had supposedly been a suicide followed by some copy cat suicides.
Outside of the reality distortion field, however, it’s very easy to compare actual apples to actual apples. Simply locate one of the Toyota Motor Manufacturing facilities in Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Texas, or West Virginia. You won’t have to go in. You won’t even have to talk to anyone. You should bring your camera, however, because the photos will be helpful if you ever feel compelled to start believing Apple propaganda.
Take a walk around the outside of the facility and focus your attention up toward the top of the plant. Do you see any teenagers standing up there? Take some pictures along the windows of the various buildings. Do you see any suicide nets?
Foxconn Installs Anti-Suicide Nets at Its Facilities
http://www.dailytech.com/Foxconn+Installs+AntiSuicide+Nets+at+Its+Facilities/article18877.htm
Factories that employ American kids do not have suicide nets. You can do this experiment in your hometown too. Check out the factories in your area. If they have suicide nets outside of the windows, you’re probably at the new Mac Pro factory in Austin. Otherwise, you’ve probably never even heard of a suicide net. Well, unless you work for Apple.
Take a stroll down Main Street and check out all the teenagers working at Jack-In-The-Box, or McDonalds, or White Castle, or Burger King, or Denny’s, or Chick-fil-A, or Arby’s, or Chipolte, or Fat Burger, or Outback, or Domino’s, or Wendy’s, or Carl’s Jr., or In-N-Out, or Red Lobster, or Chili’s, or Olive Garden, or Del Taco, or Little Caesars, or KFC, or IHOP, or Papa John’s.
There are 4 million people who work in those places* and lots of them are teenagers. Do you see any suicide nets?
Maybe those famous lock-downs we’ve heard about at Apple severed a dual purpose. I always thought Phil Schiller looked like he’d just spent 3 months with the SLA.
Apple Lexicon
Suicide Net: Apple’s Employee Retention Program
David Copperfield: Apple’s Public Relations Officer
from The Apple Lexicon (™) Interpreting Apple Theology Since 1994
*Number of employees in the U.S. fast food restaurant industry
http://www.statista.com/statistics/196630/number-of-employees-in-us-fast-food-restaurants-since-2002/
Leonard's stock in trade is misrepresentation, lies, and distortion. In the previous post Leonard distorts history, facts, and posts I've made. He lies about all of them. He misrepresents what I've said and what Steve Jobs said. He continually tries to distort Jobs' comments, in this instance about Hon Hai's Foxconn manufacturing subsidiary, a subcontractor which builds many of Apple's products, as somehow a wholly owned, controlled, built, and it's employees paid and managed by Apple. Leonard has been trying to maintain that Apple builds, maintains, operates, and owns factories in China. He claims I lie when I tell him they don't.
He has called me out on this subject, interpreted Steve Jobs use of "they" in comments as "we" and generally obfuscated history to lie to you readers, converting another company's problems into sins somehow attributable only to Apple.
He calls me, and every Apple user, names. He contradicts facts with his unsupported opinion. He refuses to recognize facts from linked sources and repeats already refuted myths. . . Even after he's been shown the truth. He repeatedly denigrates my education in economics and business, belittles my expertise and my knowledge about the history of Apple from using their products, and reading everything about the company, and my experience gained over a lifetime of running businesses—in favor of his ignorant cut and paste opinion. . . and he has been obsessively posting these stalking, false-to-fact, screeds—to no point as I have, until now, been ignoring him.
Any others who have replied, have been routinely attacked as, somehow, in his mind, being my robotic puppets, echoing my instructions to disagree with him! On other threads, he claims he is being stalked by Apple users!
Frankly, I'm TIRED of finding his snarky screeds polluting my screen when I log into FreeRepublic. His intent obviously is to harass me. It is this kind of harassment that caused me to take a six month hiatus from FreeRepublic two years ago. Enough is enough. I've decided to ping the Apple ping list to let you folks see, again, what damage a true TROLL does to polite discussion.
To facts about this last screed.
For those who don't know, there was just ONE suicide associated with Apple at a Foxconn/HonHai plant. That occurred in July 2009 when Sun Danyong, 25, jumped to his death after being interrogated over a missing iPhone prototype.
In 2010, across ALL of HonHai manufacturing's wide-spread plants employing over 1.2 million people, just ten young people, from 18 to 29 years old, committed suicide. Eight of those were at a single Foxconn plant in Shenzhen—which employs and houses over 300,000 workers. This factory/city manufactures HP computers, Microsoft X-Boxes, Nokia phones, and Sony PlayStations—and NO APPLE PRODUCTS. Over an eighteen month period 2009 into 2010, the number totaled 15 for the entire Hon Hai company of 1.2 million people.
When analyzed, the suicide rate in the age cohort of the workers at the Shenzhen FoxConn plant of 8 in 300,000, or 2.66 per 100,000, was just 25% of the yearly suicide rate of the same age cohort in the Chinese population in general of 10.8 per 100,000. . . and one-seventh that of the over-all Chinese population of 19.1 per 100,000! Leonard would have you believe those data are irrelevant. They're not. They establish the context under which to evaluate the data.
In other words, OUTSIDE of FoxConn's Shenzhen plant, Chinese young people are killing themselves four times more often. . . and Leonard210 finds these are somehow terrible conditions and is scandalized about the fact they have a LOWER suicide rate than the rest of China?
It turns out that Steve Jobs' estimates—so triumphantly cited by Leonard210—were off a bit when the numbers of suicides (but then Jobs was including attempted suicides as well as successful suicides) were actually crunched a couple of years after his interview.
The US keeps the statistics of suicide rate for the "teen" cohort that roughly coincides with the FoxConn worker's ages of 18-29. The US suicide statistics for the 15-24 age cohort show the suicide rate is 9.9 per 100,000. The FoxConn 2.66 per 100,000 rate was just 27% of the similar cohort US rate, but Leonard calls that a false equivalency. Say what? I say it's not false at all.
Leonard loves to erect FALSE STRAW MEN to shoot down. The one he has erected here is suicides among US fast food workers. He simply doesn't know the answer. . . but he associates a HonHai preventive measure to eliminate the jumping suicide method to avoid the few suicides they had, and the lack of nets at American work places, with the assumed lack of ANY suicides among their work forces. His example is ignorance on parade. The likelihood is that if a fastfood restaurant employs youth from the "teen" cohort, their suicide rate will be close to the national level of almost four times FoxConn's. . . however, I would think it unlikely they would do the deed at work. Where's Leonard's Angst for them? oh my. THERE'S A WHALE IN THE POOL!
In fact, the workers in China did not do the deeds "at work" either, but rather, jumped from the roofs of the residence buildings.
So, fast food restaurant industry isn't a good comparison. Let's look at a another analogue where members of that cohort may be away from home.
How about this:
"In the United States, Cornell University in New York state has reported six suicides this academic year (2009-2010) at the Ivy League school with a student body of 20,000 — less than 7 percent the size of Foxconn's (Shenzhen) work force. Cornell says its suicide rate over time is normal for colleges." —manufacturers.net—"Another Foxconn Worker Commits Suicide In China"
By the way, that source is by no means an Apple centric source. . . it's one for manufacturers and their concerns.
I attended a college for one under-division year in where we had 300 students and 100 faculty. The year before I was there, the college had one suicide. That rate translates to 333 per 100,000 for that population! Ridiculous! It's called homesick. Or mental illness. It was nothing the college did or didn't do. But I'm sure Leonard would blame everyone but the weakness of the individual. Must have been terrible living and working conditions. . . or is that a false equivalence?
Ok. There it is. He thinks he's been insulted. I've had it with the attitude, the SNARK, the lies, the mis-quoting, the out of context statements of putting lies, thoughts, and words into my writing, the insults, the abuse, and the stalking. He thinks he's funny! He's been doing this for weeks. I've ignored him for weeks. Enough already.
Since he accuses me of sending in ringers to do my will, I will instead merely invite the members of the PING list to uncover what he's been up to. . . To shine a light on it. Everyone, let me introduce you to the bully stalking troll.
I will now return to ignoring Leonard.
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