Not that I like it either, but playing the devil's advocate, this would most likely be related to system updates and driver updates. If they really intended to turn drivers into a "just works" background windows update process that you don't have to worry about anymore, you would most certainly need to know what components are actually in the computer. Hence, diagnostic data. Also, it would be important to know what updates are currently installed.

What the hell, no home/end/pgup/pgdn? That sounds like quite the horror story. I use them all day every day. What do you do on webpages, sit there and hold the mouse? Slow scroll with the arrow keys? ewwwwww

Working in spreadsheets, pgup/pgdn and home/end are insanely useful. ctrl+pg cycles through tabs. End takes you to the end of the current area, home to the top.

Both my current manager and previous manager do this. You can pry the capslock key from their cold dead hands.

On another note, I do use it quite extensively. I fill out tax forms whatnot all the time, capslock block print is easier to parse when reviewing for spelling errors. It also prevents over/under capitalization, which shouldn't be the main focus when reviewing those kinds of documents.

Ugh, it might help if you use the correct public figure for a joke.

I think this is actually called the R. Kelley rule

I think this is actually called the Kobe rule

The problem is the lack of social responsibility/potty profit seeking in tourist cities and European cities. I was appalled by the lack of public restrooms in Europe when I visited, and its similar in some US tourism cities. Where I live, which is a decent 1m+pop city, every single store has a restroom, and you are allowed to use it, for free. Even secure locations like office towers always have accessible restrooms on the first floor to the public, where they typically have a shop/restaurant floor. A lot of people, when they go into a store to pee, buy something. Staff clean the restrooms as part of their jobs, and you learn which ones are well kept and which ones aren't and go to those stores more often. For example, when I'm driving to the beach, Chick-fil-a is the go-to food stop because their restrooms are always clean.

When I went to Helsinki and Estonia, only ONE store downtown (Stockmans) had a public restroom and it had a 15 minute wait all day every day. No surprise, this store had a buttload of business too. Everywhere else there's these god-awful porta potties that want to charge you 3$ a use. Its miserable. You either walk around dehydrated all the time or plan your day around bathroom breaks.

The big one is data transformation. Most companies don't have some kind of seamless integration from department to department and system to system. Each department has some sort of input, and most output multiple subsets of that data to different places/departments/people in different formats like as reports, as data loads into other systems, or a smaller data set for further work. Excel allows non-IT folk the ability to handle this work without having to ask a techie every time they want to make a change, which can be frequent. The issue gets even worse when in-house IT departments manage costs via inter-company transactions (cost quotes) for their efforts. No one's going to pay six figures for a rigid implementation that requires IT involvement and revision costs when they can do it in 5 minutes a week in excel. That's not an exaggeration either, its my bread and butter and a real world example to a real scenario.

I regularly get green bar typewriter-style reports for details I need on a quarterly basis. I also must send details on printed reports that they check off manually, printed a file I could email them of course.

Five years ago, I had supply documentation for an audit where the union auditors didn't have computers. We had to print out 16,000 legal-sized pages of documentation and mail it to them.

Most commercial and large-scale shipping endeavors (hell, even UPS) require the sender to insure their package if they want coverage in case of loss. This is the same with commercial container ships, and I suspect the same with airline freight.

Really, not much more can be said. A 'ridesharing' service could still exist without their software, but their software couldn't exist without a ridesharing service.

Excellent question.

I saw Dr. Grandin on one of the NatGeo shows. What a great role model for people struggling with autism, as well as women interested in STEM. Well, anyone interested in STEM really. This is a much better interview choice than that crap earlier this week.

Holy mother of god that's expensive. My condo is 3 times that size and my ENTIRE housing costs (including HOA dues, power, cable, mortgage, water) are $950/month.

The problem is you're not comparing based on equivalent lifestyles but by 5x salary. The cost per square foot of housing in SF/SV area is between 5-10x most places in the country. So, in order to be equivalent to the house Bob bought for $250k, you're spending $1.25m->$2.5m on a home, not possible on Alex's income. $250k in the midwest or most smaller cities (~1m pop) buys a LOT of house.

I chose a condo because I didn't want to have to deal with the upkeep of a yard, actually. Now, I kinda wish I'd chosen a house because I don't feel right getting a dog unless I have a backyard, and I'd like a garage for a workshop. The house general price per sqare foot in Charlotte ranges from $100-$200/sqft, SF is $800-1000/sqft. I was just trying to give an example for perspective, to retort the parent post. Being generous, cost of living in those kinds of locations is 4 times as high, so the higher wages (and taxes) rarely make up for it.

I'll say though, one big benefit of living in one of these expensive locations is future mobility. If you manage to suck it up and pay off significant chunks of your mortgage rather than refinancing repeatedly over a 15 year period, it allows you to move wherever you want to in the future. If I really tried I could pay off my condo in 7-8 years, but it wouldn't really add much to my mobility, because the equity would be barely a down payment in one of the expensive cities and I'd have to start all over again. I do get more room for early investing early though due to no major debt.

No, the difference is probably way more than $40k cost of living. I live in a low cost medium-sized city (Charlotte). I have a 1200sqft condo less than 20 minutes from downtown, less than 20 minutes from work, and the best school district in the city. My condo was $120k at the peak of the housing boom brand spanking new. Most houses of 2000-3000sqft range from $250k to $500k depending on quality. You're lucky to find equivalent housing in an equivalent area in SV/SF 3 times that price, unless you're all the way in Sacramento.

Take a look at this chart to get some perspective:
http://www.businessinsider.com...