On the whole, I think I agree with Scott's advice in this post. However, there are some real challenges that come with the choice to be 'good at a few things' instead of the 'best at one thing. Namely, if you're not starting your own business, I think it massively reduces your employment mobility.
I am fortunate in that I am valued within my organisation for my 'generalist' spread of skills (including communication, development, analysis & sales). It's clear to me how useful it is to be able to approach a problem from several angles and engage with specialists from different areas effectively.
However, if I ever want to move out of my current organisation, I feel as though I would end up taking a significant step backwards in my career because almost all advertised jobs are specialised roles.
This creates a constant pressure in my mind to specialise and focus more on a single area.
I think he would argue that you're better off hacking your way into a job.
That is, don't apply for open positions. Instead, get to know the decision makers and demonstrate your value one on one. (His book has a whole section on networking.)
That's hard to do for someone just out of college, but once you get a little experience it's a sound strategy.
Yes, but I believe in a society where almost all of the major news outlets are owned by supporters of the current government, the politicians also have a strong ability to control what their voters are demanding.
Not really. The Murdochs are quite enamoured with Cameron, but they're not in the least bit interested in doing what he asks of them (and just as obsessed with opposing proposed press censorship as they are with reporting on Islamic terrorism). The staunchly anti-present-government Guardian and the Mirror sell plenty of newspapers. And even that bastion of knee-jerk conservatism Daily Mail is happy to run smear stories on the Prime Minister as a major exclusive. Government control over media output in the UK is minimal at best.
The illusion of choice. These papers do run many stories that are anti-government true.
But for certain issues they line up behind the government. The Snowden files story was initially fully covered only by the Guardian -- who have since had a change of Editor after their offices were raided by the security services and equipment smashed. There has been (until now) almost no coverage that the government wants to pass the snoopers charter soon. There is no coverage that the 'emergency' DRIP bill from last year is due for renewal before Christmas. Due to the way that DRIP was rammed through Parliament last year in defiance of normal procedure my MP promised me a robust debate before the renewal. It looks like it will go through without so much as whisper.
EDITED as the telegraph currently has a front page article on the snoopers charter on its website. I hope that there is time for people to lobby their MPs (which is what killed it off last time).
The mostly foreign-owned UK press exists to sell newspapers, not to conspire against the public on purported issues of national security. There's almost no coverage of the Draft Communications Bill or DRIP because the average UK citizen doesn't find some legislation that might be debated which might compel ISPs to hold the same sort of data they already hold for a bit longer to be particularly intelligible, never mind interesting when compared with tax credit cuts, migrants, people being blown up in Syria and the latest celebrity gossip. Or as Charlie Brooker, hardly the most technophobic or pro-government of commentators put it, it's the "the most tedious outrage ever". There was rather more noise made (on both sides of the debate) about the more emotive issue of Cameron's attempt to censor internet porn. It's not as if the media is seeking to hide the fact that private messages people have sent, websites they've visited or triangulated locations from mobile phones are regularly used in prosecutions and have been long before this legislation hit the drafting table. Or indeed as if proposed legislative measures are not being discussed at all: here's the far-from-supportive angle of the newspaper closest to being the informal mouthpiece of the Conservative government: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11964655/Police...
As for Snowden, even on this website where people actually understand the potential of surveillance techniques it's the stories about his personal situation and options, as widely run in all UK newspapers from all angles, that seem to have captured the imagination more than the details of what was revealed. And I'm not sure he and his allies, who sought to carefully control how PRISM was reported, even offered the files to other UK newspapers...
"Journalists' jobs are to sell sensationalist garbage, not to do journalism" -- I think that in fact you are correct (who can disagree with the market in a cultural regime of extremist capitalism?) but it's a troubling state of affairs.
AppleCare extends the product warranty for an additional year, but outside of an Apple Store (where they register the machine for you in-store) you are simply buying a warranty in a box. It's a failing of the staff that sold the warranty for not making this clear to the purchaser.
Over the course of my professional life with laptops, I've used Apple, Alienware, Dell and Lenovo machines. I can safely say that the three-day turnaround in an actual bricks & mortar store offered by Apple is far and away the best service I've ever received (the worst being a two-week wait that didn't resolve the issue!).
Regarding the business-level support, I think it's fair enough for the store to deliver a baseline level of support to consumers for free and a paid-for service for people who need priority and/or loaner machines to cover the repair period. I personally don't think that yelling at managers should result in priority over other people in the queue.
I think the main issue here is that because Apple integrate their batteries like they do, it's not possible to perform what was once a simple repair yourself. I'm personally okay with that, because the outstanding battery life on my MacBook Pro is a boon almost every single day.
Onsite service is generally a paid add on at the time of purchase. I'ts not uncommon for businesses to pay the extra cost. I've had fantastic <24h onsite repairs or replacements from various PC manufacturers.
I have no idea if Apple offers this sort of service, but if they do, I'm sure it isn't cheap. 3 day, in store, in (limited) warranty repairs isn't the same class of service.
I agree with your assessment of brick and motar store. Having it done in store saves so much time.
5-10 years ago I had a laptop with some screen issues. I took it back to the retailer where I purchased it and they sent it for repair. I was without my laptop for 8 weeks for a simple swab of a screen.
I think its very location dependent as well. In some countries you get support quick vs others. I wonder it may be the laws of the country force companies to do that.
I've found that if you have authoritative addressing data for your target market(s), a search/autocomplete field is a great alternative to the multi-field form being talked about in this discussion. Having access to that sort of data is, of course, a pretty big caveat as much of it is currently proprietary but efforts are being made globally to address (couldn't resist!) this (e.g. http://openaddresses.io, http://alpha.openaddressesuk.org).
I've been doing this for a while and, while it infuriates some people, I've found it to be very freeing. Mailbox is a great way of dealing with email, and Do Not Disturb lets me allow certain important calls through if I need to. I enjoy the feeling of being in control of my phone, rather than at its mercy!
This, absolutely this. I just can't comprehend why anyone with such a great buzz around their fledgling product would get into bed with FB, dooming their work to ad-riddled nonsense.
