My mistake on the salary.

    According to this article, the average salary was raised to $293/mo. (293*12)/2080 = $1.69/hr @ 40 hr/wk.

    But that's not an accurate reflection of the pay rate. The employees work 12 to 16 hours a day, 6 to 7 days a week. So their week will be 72 to 112 hours. That makes their effective hourly wage (293*12)/(72*52) = 3516/3744 = $0.93/hr (293*12)/(112*52) = 3516/5824 = $0.60/hr

    That's not a pay rate. That's payment to fit into a loophole so slavery is legal. If you think it's fair, I'll happily employ you with the above average pay of $1.00/hr.

    The US minimum wage isn't $25/hr. The US federal minimum wage is $7.25/hr. ($15,080/yr) That is based on what a fair living wage is, but still puts a family of 2 under the poverty line. With 25% of workers in the US (adjusted U-6 number) unemployed, it can easily be assumed an "average" family of 4 (2 working age adults, 2 children), would living under the poverty line ($23,050 w/ 4 family members).

    Unions in the US came about because employees were working too many hours (70+ hrs/wk), and paid too little to thrive (under the poverty line). I'm not a fan of some of the methodologies that unions used, but they did help resolve problems in the past. They shouldn't even be needed any more, but they lobby to keep pay rates fair, so people can survive and thrive.

    There are current proposals on the table to remove US minimum wage laws. Yup, then we could compete with the foreign manufacturing plants. We'd also be increasing our working poor population.

    Now, if you don't mind, try to use facts, rather than regurgitating Fox News "reporting". It only makes you look like an idiot.

    I've spent plenty of time complaining about Dell too, don't worry. :) This was an apple-centric thread, which is why I called them by name.

    Many corps use Dell, so they have an emotional tie to the Dell equipment. It's something I really have never understood. They charge more than their competitors, and generally use commodity hardware. They get cases and motherboards built just far enough off of standard that they aren't interchangeable. They do a better job of marketing. They show amazing "starting at" prices, but once you configure one to be comparable, the price is far higher than competitive. Still, people tell me how great a "deal" they got from Dell, by paying double what the machine was worth. Hrm.

    Apple takes the other approach. Screw advertising the cheapest prices. They go straight for the boutique audience. Why buy brand X at $50, when you can buy brand A for $400.

    You know, I really wonder about that too. I picked up a cell phone there, not too long ago. It was the same price as anywhere else. I only got it there because it was closest. It took 3 employees about 2 hours to figure out how to activate it. In that 2 hours, no one else came in. There was plenty of traffic coming into other stores around it though.

    How does a $100 purchase pay for 3 employees, and the overhead of the building?

    I'd say it's rare, but in other locations around the country that I've been to, it's always been the same situation. Since most of the stores stopped carrying small electronic components, I really haven't been going there much. When they did have the small components, there were always people coming in. They may only want a pack of resistors, but they frequently buy something else, just because. That impulse buy is a powerful tool. They have nothing that makes a consumer *want* to go in. So it's a store full of impulse buys, and no reason for customers to ever see them.

    The last trip there, I bought some shrink tube, solder, and on the impulse buy I got a new multimeter. When I got it home, it turned out that it took a weird little battery that I could only find via Radio Shack, and even then the battery was $30, and was exclusive to their online store. The multimeter was only $10, so I returned it. They tried to talk me into keeping it, and they would order the battery for me. {sigh}. Then they tried to upsell me to another one that took regular batteries. They could quite comprehend "no, I don't want it, because it doesn't work, and I won't spend $30 for the battery for a $10 multimeter."

    I believe Apple is being targeted, because they just reported record profits. Profits, mind you, are largely because of the business practices at Foxconn. If they couldn't sell a $5 iPad for $500, their profits wouldn't have been so large.

    I'd rather see the manufacturing jobs moved to where the consumers are. If the 40% of the users are in the us, 40% of the devices should be manufactured here. It makes sound economic sense. Instead, these companies prefer to manufacture in the absolutely cheapest places possible, disregarding what would be human rights violations here in the US. In the end, the blame is with the consumers. They are happily spending too much money on a name brand, when they know what business practices are in place.

    I only mention Apple, because you did. Unfortunately for the consumer, right now it's near impossible to find quite a bit of merchandise that was manufactured in their own country.

    The only argument that can be made for keeping these jobs offshore is, they can do it cheaper. There's no way you can find American workers who can afford to work for $20/mo. You'd be hard pressed to eat on $20/mo, much less have a place to live.

    Companies should be looking at being economically responsible, rather than admiring their record earnings. There's no prize for doing so though. If you turn higher profits, your share holders make more money, and your stock prices climb. If you just break even, your company won't have an excellent growth forecast, and that doesn't play well on Wall Street.

Funny, she didn't charge me a thing.

    Gotta love the spammers. They never stop trying.

    Its best to go for the plausible deniability route. Don't open up the files in the first place. Don't even bother look at the contents. If you receive a drive, format it. If you receive such a drive, and you are concerned about the contents, DoD wipe it.

    If there's an investigation on why a drive was released from a secure environment with privileged data on it, and they do trace it down to you, the truth will protect you.

    "Did you buy a hard drive from X vendor?"

    "Yes. It had partitions on it, so I wiped it, and started using it."

    "Did you see any of the contents?"

    "No. I wiped it first."

    "Thank you."

    The screw up in that chain isn't you for buying a used hard drive from a reputable vendor, with data on it. The screw up was allowing a hard drive with confidential data on it out of their control.

    I'd be a bit miffed with the vendor. If you were sold a "refurbished" unit, that means that it was tested and returned to factory condition. It shouldn't have had *any* indication that it was previously used, except for possibly some marks on the case. They shouldn't be reselling returned items as refurbished, without refurbishing them.

    Lets not forget the more entertaining versions. Thermite or a 12 gauge slug. It all depends on how friendly you are with your local fire department and law enforcement.

    Ahh, I remember those good old days. Compile, wait, compile, wait, compile again. On the machines I did it on, it was a 2 day project. I'm so happy that distributions are so much better at getting updates out in a timely fashion. That, and I keep a fast machine handy to compile things when necessary. :)

    We have ours at the bar. Of course, we're a group who believe in the phrase "only losers quit, and only quitters lose."

    Bartenders, pour us another round!

    They're putting in wifi, so we can check Slashdot and Facebook while we drink and smoke. Put a couple cots in the back, and we'll never leave.

    Gotta run, it's time for the 2pm shot contest.