It is not uncommon for Asian (?) conglomerates to have a very wide range of products, as Hitachi, Sony, Yamaha (from trumpets and pianos, motorbikes, engines to electronics) and Toshiba demonstrate. TIL that Samsung even builds drillships.
Samsungs shipping division (Samsung Heavy Industries) is one of the largest ship-builders in the world, in fact (it was, possibly still is, the worlds second largest a few years ago).
They do. I got a Samsung C480 colour laser printer, scanner, copier a few weeks back to replace a broken Dell. The cartridges are far more accessible than the Dell. All three functions are reliable so far; so it's been a good buy for 208GBP. I'm becoming something of a Samsung loyalist. My Ultra laptop is still going strong after nearly four years, as is my 3 yr old Galaxy S4 phone and 10 yr old flat screen TV.
My Samsung SL-M2020W/XAA was killed by a simple paper jam. There was literally no way to get it open to reach the shreds of jammed paper inside - one-way plastic tabs etc. Only time I've ever gone Office Space on a piece of equipment.
My family owns a CLP-315W Samsung Color Laser. It's been in service for years, has fantastic network support for Windows, OSX, and Linux, and a lot of the parts are interchangeable (even the Drum / Imaging unit can be replaced by the end user).
I dread the day I'll have to replace it, but until it keeps printing like a champ.
I own a ML-1640 (and bought one for my dad as well) with a low enough firmware number that lets me use any toner. It's a great black&white laser printer that works nicely on Linux.
There may be other competitors to HP that re-brand Samsung devices as their own under a technology sharing agreement. Multi-function printers are essentially commoditized now so not sure how "innovation" will happen when one company buys up market share.
I have a cheap laser multifunction printer and it's actually pretty good and robust. They even provide drivers for Linux and it works perfectly. The only major annoyance is the Toner DRM but pretty much every vendor does that :-(
I did! I have been getting by on my £50 Samsung ML2165W for a couple of years, even with the starter toner I think. The replacement toners are more expensive than the printer, mind you.
It starts quickly, prints well and is really really small. It isn't AirPrint enabled, but they do offer their own app for iPad / Android, and it works alright for me from my Mac OS machine, so I am happy.
Companies are weird in the things they own. Fun fact, Energizer (yes, the battery company. That Energizer) does a lot of business in feminine products, shaving products, and sun care stuff.
US mass incarceration is terrible problem, it's well known that the US has more prisoners than any other country and one of the highest per capita rates of imprisonment in the world.
The war on drugs, mandatory minimum sentencing, brutal probation regimes that throw ex-prisoners back into prison for minor offenses all play a part.
This is systematic problem, media-driven attacks on criminals are a reliable "dog-whistle" issue for politicians and so-forth.
It is encouraging to me when folks involved in this system put forward a critique and try to stop the overall downward trend here.
It is "nice" when someone engages in this sort of act of pure human kindness but this seem like exactly the sort of things that doesn't scale, that doesn't recognize larger problems and basically puts things down as a simple problem for veterans rather than a problem our whole society faces.
Anyone who's spent a bit of time watching courts knows that a given judges sees dozens of people per day who get essentially assembly line justice with 90% of them being sad people who made sad choices with the courts meting out one more level penalties likely to continue these people's downward spiral. It's nice when a judge does one semi-good thing - but I can only see nice, not encouraging, here.
The judge can't help all of those other millions, but he can help the one right in front of him. Are you saying that if he can't help everyone then it's better that he help nobody?
Or to give it the common phrase, "Think globally, act locally."
Intuit has squandered the Quicken brand for years with lousy updates and even worse customer support. In some respects it's good to see them sell it to someone who might do something with it.
Unfortunately, the Quicken name is now so tarnished that the private equity firm likely has one swing at a decent update. Anything less than a homerun and they might as well shut it down.
I work at a PE-owned company (over 20 years in PE ownership now) and the strategy is to seek growth, not to cut costs by shedding headcount.
Caveats:
1. This is anecdotal evidence, and many PE firms actually do buy companies with the intention of firing people.
2. I don't know whether this is the most common activity or just generates the most press/attention. I would be pretty interested in a statistic that looks at PE company acquisitions and compares company headcount at entry and exit.
The top easily weighs 200 pounds, and that's not including the 2 Thunderbolt displays that sit on my desk.
It's been a great platform. At my standing height of 45", it needs to be up against the wall or it would likely vibrate a bit. As it stands, it's great.
The pushbutton memory allows for fast adjustment between sitting and standing. I probably transition a couple of times a day. If I'm going to be on the phone a while, I might sit if I'm not pacing.
Even if you simply used it as a regular desk, one of the things that have become most apparent to me is the difference tenths of an inch make in getting your workspace dialed in. Maybe you're wearing different shoes - or no shoes - you can dial in your desk appropriately.
I can also vouch for the Jarvis, I'm tall and often use it at or near max height without issues. I'm not sure how common this is but one of the best features is that it is smart enough to smoothly come to a stop rather than just jerk to a stop when you release the up/down buttons or use the memory settings. Sound like a tiny feature but my desk at work doesn't have this and it jerks enough to move the monitor arms around enough to be annoying.
I built the top myself from strips of oak, maple and cherry, pretty easy to do if you can access the tooling and massively cheaper than commercial tops. It's a bit thinner than the linked top but weighs over 100lbs I would guess.
The Envelop is truly fantastic when paired along with an Embody (or less optimally with an Aeron). IMHO sitting slightly reclined with relaxed arms is a great ergonomics setup.
But the price is really high for a low-quality blocktop (the legs are fine though).
Anyone knows similar desks that are better quality and/or cheaper? This kind of desk deserves to be more popular.
I noticed after a couple weeks of using my adjustable desk that I needed to raise the height by ~1" which I think may have been because I started using better posture in standing position. I then had to adjust my sitting table-height as well to compensate.
A mat of some sort is pretty important for me as well since the floor at the office is thin carpet over cement.
It's kind of weird once you start using it, that you'll notice the difference in the shoes you're wearing. If I come back from the gym in a pair of running shoes, there's just enough difference where I'll notice it and change the height by a couple of tenths.
No real advantage per se. I've used them in the shop, and was impressed with the quality. And, it seems like when I got it, it may have been on sale.
I kind of figured that for the amount of time I spend at the desk, ~$600 wasn't too much to spend. I had gotten by for years on an old Office Depot-esque desk propped up on cinder blocks and 2x4s.
So often furniture these days can only really be moved about twice due to the structural integrity of the fake wood they're constructed out of. I was able to mount solid anchors into the bottom of the desk, have mounted a drawer and a cable management tray. It's pretty solid.
Great idea! I actually did a similar thing for my kitchen remodel: I bought a premade Boos Block countertop from http://www.johnboos.com/ for my island and saved a ton of money in the process. Wish I had thought of doing the same for my desk, though - next time!
It's exciting to see some thought and movement at this level.
The existing system is broken when it comes to actual student knowledge. A lot of systems are to fault, but as the modern university has bowed to their corporate overlords in filling the pipeline of modern corporate key punchers, college has essentially become tech school for Power Point and Excel in a lot of cases.
So many of our current college students would be so much better served by tech school.
Heck, so much of this community often ends up eschewing college at large to go build something - often because the value proposition of the university model right now simply doesn't make sense.
We're always going to need people who can think - maybe a bifurcated path where a lot of our university experience returns more to a true liberal arts education.
This experience-based model wouldn't have been out of place historically. That it appears so revolutionary to us today shows how broken the current model is.
Something has to change. I'm excited to see some movement around the borders.
This is a problem at the top and the bottom of the department, and it won't get fixed until both sides are held appropriately accountable.
The beat officers don't care because their management stack doesn't care. This should be pursued criminally, and would be were it anyone else messing with municipal equipment.
This is a departmental corruption issue first and foremost - and it's the senior management that should be held to account. Unfortunately, the problem won't be fixed until some of them go to jail and/or are made to make compensation for the damages and time spent repairing the system. Only then will the policies change to where the guys on the street quit damaging equipment.
It extends out of the department as well -- look no further than the DA and the stable of state prosecutors for another cesspool of laziness and neglect.
When it comes to Ferguson-type departmental corruption, it shows just how institutionalized the racism is - and how far it extends outside of the departments.
We should likely spend more time on this, as in this light, it doesn't matter what changes are made at a departmental level - there's no path to success on their own.
Change is going to have to be at the elected official level - but those systems are so gerrymandered, and so corrupt that it presents a really difficult problem.
I've been a member since '83 or '84. I've undoubtedly gotten the my original money's worth out of my membership dozens of times over.
The article raises an interesting point. While I am quite loyal to REI - often choosing to buy there even though I pay sales tax and might be able to find it cheaper online, I don't pay that much attention to elections and other co-op stuff.
The primary benefit I see as a co-op member is their unparalleled customer service. I've lost count of the number of times one of their associates has gone out of their way to ensure that whatever issue I was having was taken care of appropriately.
