Meanwhile a Xerox software engineer watching this doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. Oh the irony.

My fruity fondleslab-owner friends don't get the irony of Apple copying Xerox...

>> ^shagen454:

I totally want to do this now. I wonder if that was an actual photograph or a xerox?


I think it was an actual photo. Thanks for the ^upvote^

I totally want to do this now. I wonder if that was an actual photograph or a xerox?

When I was teaching in Sweden we had problems with mostly foreign students cheating. It's possible that everyone was cheating equally much but the Swedish students didn't get caught as often. I got it explained to me that foreign students had a lot of pressure to do well and they always took as many courses as they could simultaneously which inevitably led to them "having" to cheat.

I also had it explained to me that the foreign students were the ones keeping the school afloat since every course they got through and every education they finished brought in money for the school. Some courses were a joke, they made them easy just to keep the throughput high.

The blame can be spread far and wide. Students were lazy etc (I was lazy too sometimes). Planning new courses could be a nightmare. The formula went like this: Out of 100 students applying to a course, only 50 would finish the course (or even show up) and only 25 would get a passing grade. Still you needed lecture rooms and equipment and everything else for the 50+ people. If you made the course too hard and not enough people passed, the school took a hit.

I taught a course in programming that was initially intended for around 30 people, but almost 200 people signed up and over 100 showed up. Panic. I was officially only a teaching assistant but the main teacher didn't really know programming (she was a doctorate and dumped the whole course in my lap) and now suddenly I was lecturing a class of 100+ students, mostly foreign, with little or no computer experience (they dont have the same amount of equipment abroad apparently), most of them studying 150% and studying for re-exams at the same time. I think in the end around 20 students passed (I wrote the exam and the course responsible cleared it without reading it and realizing I'd made it "too hard"). I know it sounds like I'm just making this stuff up. But it really happened. In Sweden (!).

I guess I don't have a moral of the story, I'm just venting Seeing things from the other side I realized what a mess education could be.

>> ^Porksandwich:

I was a computer science major in my 4th year...so I was in a lot of classes with graduate students. They had a few extra things on exams and projects they had to do for their graduate portion of the class. What was hilarious is that most of them were Indian and most of them came in to class with what looked like a xerox copy of each others work with their name signed to it, and this went on all quarter. On the last exam one of them sat next to me and was obviously trying to cheat off my exam, so I spent awhile writing down false answers and making them very easy to read because this whole Indian group of students seemed to ride on each others work and no one called them on it. While I saw undergraduate US citizens being busted for the same thing (I can only assume this was motivated by money and enrollment/scores).
So after I knew I wouldn't have enough time to keep up the false answers, I hurried up and changed all my work hunched over my test so he couldn't read it anymore and finished. Turned it in and told the professor that he was copying off me and the two Indians in front of us were sharing answers with him. I mean you'd have to be blind to not see the guys turn around during the test multiple times.

And on my exit interview for the school I ranked it down and told them that I was pissed that those Indian students were never punished, since them cheating off undergrads makes it appear that undergrads are the ones cheating if you just look at the data and assume graduate students should know the answers. Plus I marked off some things for other stuff. And the dean of my school changed my numbers scores to higher scores because he would question me on something and I'd say "Maybe, but I feel my personal experience warrants that score." He would say something like "But isn't that too harsh, so maybe we should......" and I'd disagree, but he'd still change the score.
It's kind of a shame when you like the subject you study but the people teaching it to you make a mockery of the university by having double standards for the various grads/undergrads and ethnic groups. They still call me up and want alumni donations, and I tell the people calling my story and why I won't ever donate to that university...and why they should transfer out ASAP. Assuming they don't have a heavy Indian accent....

I was a computer science major in my 4th year...so I was in a lot of classes with graduate students. They had a few extra things on exams and projects they had to do for their graduate portion of the class. What was hilarious is that most of them were Indian and most of them came in to class with what looked like a xerox copy of each others work with their name signed to it, and this went on all quarter. On the last exam one of them sat next to me and was obviously trying to cheat off my exam, so I spent awhile writing down false answers and making them very easy to read because this whole Indian group of students seemed to ride on each others work and no one called them on it. While I saw undergraduate US citizens being busted for the same thing (I can only assume this was motivated by money and enrollment/scores).

So after I knew I wouldn't have enough time to keep up the false answers, I hurried up and changed all my work hunched over my test so he couldn't read it anymore and finished. Turned it in and told the professor that he was copying off me and the two Indians in front of us were sharing answers with him. I mean you'd have to be blind to not see the guys turn around during the test multiple times.


And on my exit interview for the school I ranked it down and told them that I was pissed that those Indian students were never punished, since them cheating off undergrads makes it appear that undergrads are the ones cheating if you just look at the data and assume graduate students should know the answers. Plus I marked off some things for other stuff. And the dean of my school changed my numbers scores to higher scores because he would question me on something and I'd say "Maybe, but I feel my personal experience warrants that score." He would say something like "But isn't that too harsh, so maybe we should......" and I'd disagree, but he'd still change the score.

It's kind of a shame when you like the subject you study but the people teaching it to you make a mockery of the university by having double standards for the various grads/undergrads and ethnic groups. They still call me up and want alumni donations, and I tell the people calling my story and why I won't ever donate to that university...and why they should transfer out ASAP. Assuming they don't have a heavy Indian accent....

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

@Farhad2000 - looking back it's easy to declare that the GUI would have happened anyway, but I would posit that there are certain crucial points where innovation has moved everybody forward in a big leap. I know that Windows has been around for most of your life - and must seem like it always has been - but I remember when "windowing" didn't exist - and the joy of discovering how a mouse works, trash cans, WYSIWYG, etc, etc. I also remember what platform that was on. All credit to Xerox PARC - but Apple brought you the window metaphor, mice and pretty much all the symbology on your Windows® desktop. (wallpaper, screen savers, draggable icons, control panels, paint programs). If Apple didn't change the paradigm of how we use computers at that point, then I would argue with your definition of paradigm changing.

I would also posit that the same thing has happened, albeit in a smaller way, with the iPhone and iPad. finger optimised UI, Flick to scroll, bounce back scrolling, pinch to zoom and more are innovations out of Apple's skunkworks. These innovations exist on Android and Pre phones - but to assume that this would have happened without Apple is naive.

its not like apple hasn't played the game of taking other ideas and running with them Xerox park anyone?

>> ^shuac:
>> ^jdbates:
I hate microsoft because of snake oil salesmen like him, They are the roman empire of the business world, the romans didnt innovate, they incorporated other culures ideas. For him to dis the iphone like that shows his lack of vision, which I feel accurately represents their company.

Agreed. Let's go down the list.

Apple's GUI (courtesy of Xerox) and OS/2 begat Windows

Playstation begat X-Box

Wordstar/Word Perfect begat Word

Lotus 1-2-3 begat Excel

iPod begat Zune

Google search begat Live Search and now Bing

Mac OSX begat Vista

Sun Javascript begat MS Javashit

Netscape Navigator begat Internet Explorer

Prodigy and AOL begat MSN

iTunes begat MSN Music

Apple Stores begat Microsoft Stores

Now, I'm not going to try to claim that no other company has derivative products in their lineup because that would be silly. After all, Apple didn't invent the mp3 player, that would be Diamond Multimedia. However, what I will say is that Microsoft has a vast preponderance of derivative products.
What did Microsoft ever actually innovate? Clippy, Microsoft Bob, and that fuckin' Search Assistant Dog.

How dare you use factual data to try and make Microsoft look like a bunch of thieves. You're not giving them the credit they deserve! They took each and every one of those product you listed, and made it worst. Now that's f*cking difficult.

>> ^jdbates:
I hate microsoft because of snake oil salesmen like him, They are the roman empire of the business world, the romans didnt innovate, they incorporated other culures ideas. For him to dis the iphone like that shows his lack of vision, which I feel accurately represents their company.


Agreed. Let's go down the list.

Apple's GUI (courtesy of Xerox) and OS/2 begat Windows

Playstation begat X-Box

Wordstar/Word Perfect begat Word

Lotus 1-2-3 begat Excel

iPod begat Zune

Google search begat Live Search and now Bing

Mac OSX begat Vista

Sun Javascript begat MS Javashit

Netscape Navigator begat Internet Explorer

Prodigy and AOL begat MSN

iTunes begat MSN Music

Apple Stores begat Microsoft Stores

Now, I'm not going to try to claim that no other company has derivative products in their lineup because that would be silly. After all, Apple didn't invent the mp3 player, that would be Diamond Multimedia. However, what I will say is that Microsoft has a vast preponderance of derivative products.

What did Microsoft ever actually innovate? Clippy, Microsoft Bob, and that fuckin' Search Assistant Dog.

Ok Ok OK...(Lost power and having to start over for your job-losin' ass....

This should make you feel less like a time wasting dumb ass....

I worked at a Xmas store back in 87 for a friend of my mother's from the hippie days...seasonal-retail...On break one day OI bought a copy of the collected "Life In Hell" Series from Matt Groening...while reading it at work, I realized that Bongo and his co-workers, represented perfectly in my own experience, just how much my life was like their hell.

I quickly and enthusiastically xeroxed a copy of my favorite workplace escapade, labeled each character with co-worker's names, esp the boss, and proudly pinned it up for all to see the next day.(You see I closed, and the boss opened, and I thought her recovering alcoholics Excedrine-addicted crazy bitch-ass would have a sense of humor!!...

She greeted me the next day with a smile, a coffee and caffeine jag from the asprinz addiction, and a piece of paper in her hand she smiled and described as my last check, my ass at the door...(she could have called, I was fucking late anyhow)

I wrote Matt.

I sent him a copy of his doctored cartoon strip and an explanation attempting to evoke some sympathy as well as tickle him because I had had enough of that place anyway ...he replied with a postcard with a "You know what they say, work is hell." and a signature on the back, and a cool autographed in marker production print glossy of him next to a marina holding a duck with a cartoon bubble for the duck quacking, "Halp, Halp! HALP!"

This was the year the Simpsons first appeared on the Tracey Ullman Show-Still got that gear, baby.....On f'sale on Ebay..... Item# 90824655..?

also, this strikes me as the nerdy medical equivalent of sitting on the copy machine to xerox your tush.