jdw

winstoner71 said:

They should change United States to “The Stolen Lands of the Natives”. For accuracy. 

As you know, it's not about "accuracy."  It's about whoever is in power at the point in time when the name changes.

eriamjh said:

I'm old.  I don't like it when the names of things change for no real reason.   

I'll be 54 next month. But I don't feel that old just yet.  I'm still at the stage where we expect changes to occur in our lifetime.  And sometimes those name/word changes are oddball changes that pertain to political correctness.  Funny, but even when I was back in college, and good friend of mine gifted me this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Politically-Correct-Bedtime-Stories-Garner/dp/1561003913

Far too many people seek to "better society" by altering words and names.  But the funny part is, you tend to side with the name changes when the person or people enacting the changes by and large fit your political ideology.

Xed said:

I, for one, acknowledge that I use salty language on this forum and will try to keep it to curtail it going forward.

I've sometimes taken issue with your writing, but it's never resorted to name-calling. Nor am I offended by your "salty language." Diversity of thought and words make the world go 'round. People today are overly sensitive. But let's face it. The more interesting forum discussions are the saltier ones. The forum experience is also a big part of why people get there news here versus MacRumors or countless other Apple related news sites. Salt has many good uses.  Don't lose your saltiness.

Wesley Hilliard said:

...we're going to attempt to set some kind of limit on political speech here. 

AI has already added the Dislike button, an action which I personally think will only exacerbate negativity.  But of course, deleting posts is one way to achieve the aforementioned "limit."

SuntanIronMan said:

(Edit: That was sarcasm in case there was any confusion.)

Here's a prime example, Wesley.  That "Edit" indicates to me some are fearful about misinterpretation so we now need to tack disclaimers onto our posts to make sure they won't face the chopping block.

Alex1N said:

I think that we need a ‘laugh’ button instead of the new ‘dislike’ button. I’m serious.

I am serious too about the matter when I say that adding a Dislike button will definitely lead to negativity and retribution among forum members.  I've already spotted a number of posts getting a large number of Dislikes, typically from people who take the opposite political ideology of the post they Dislike!  So rather than engage in thoughtful debate, people smash the Dislike button instead, and nobody can find out who smashed the Dislike button.  It's hit & run!

Here is the original lawsuit story from June 2024:
https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-accused-lawsuit-underpaying-female-workers-california-2024-06-13/

I believe AppleZulu and Mikethemartian have been mislead based on their remarks that Apple is still establishing pay based on disclosure of salary histories, and I say that based on 9-to-5 Mac's article, paragraphs 4 & 5, which state:

Up until the summer of 2017, Apple asked candidates the salary they were paid in their current role, and based its offer on some improvement on this number. The problem with this is that if a female employee was underpaid in her previous role, then Apple would be perpetuating the differential in her new salary.

Apple recognized this problem, and ceased asking the question. Recruiters instead asked about candidate’s salary expectations, and based their offer on this. However, the Californian lawsuit alleges that this too perpetuates salary differentials, because studies show that candidates tend to base this number on some increase from their current salary.

So based on that article, after 2017, Apple is no longer asking about past pay from other employers.  But one big issue in this June 2024 lawsuit actually seems to center on the words I put in bold above — salary expectations.  And yet, most companies in the US, as far as I know, negotiate salaries and ask prospective employees to cite their desired salary range.

In other words, a big part of this class action lawsuit seems to focus the fact that women are asking for lower starting salaries than men are asking for.  

If you ask for a lower number and are hired, and then somebody else (regardless of being male/female) asks for a higher number and too is hired, then you will have a disparity.  Nobody seems interested in calling out the disparity between two men who ask for different salaries, but when women are involved, then the lawyers come knocking.  But the question asked by employers would not seem to be inherently sexist or discriminatory, but instead just a question.  So if the end result of that rather innocent question results in a disparity, should the entire system be changed?  That seems to be the issue here more than anything else, although the lawsuit puts women at the forefront.

Not being a woman, I look at this from a man's point of view.  Do I want to be asked about my salary expectations?  Well, I guess I wouldn't because sometimes you just don't know what a realistic number is.  Ask for a sky high salary, and that could be viewed negatively, making another candidate asking for a lower number more attractive.  My daughter is going through this now as she approaches university graduation this April.

So we must answer this question:  If the lawsuit ultimately stops employers asking prospective hires about their salary expectations, will it end up lowering salaries across the board?  Would it really result in good for all employees if they aren’t asked about salary expectations?

Honestly, I don't know.  I only know it would be a tad less stressful because you then wouldn’t need to scramble to figure out a number and hope it's a good one and one that gets you hired.

mattinoz said:

Total votes 152,319,830
population  346,388,480 people 

So more than half didn’t vote for anyone.
they each got more than a 1/5 but less than a 1/4.

Sure a 1/3 are generally underage or otherwise in capable.
still at 80mill non voters are still the next biggest group after the young. 

I think it's best to flesh out the numbers a bit more when engaging in these numerical discussions..

As of January 1, 2025, the population of the United States was 341,145,670, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. So it's clear the number depends on your source.  But both your number and mine aren't too terrible different.

Total number of votes cast as of today seems to be 155,211,283 as per this source. But counting is still ongoing.

Voting Age population has been estimated by one source to be 78%, which is roughly: 266,092,623 people.
So based on that number, if accurate, the turnout rate for the Nov. '24 election would be 58.3%.

Other estimates of the number of 18 and older people in the US peg it at 260,046,087 people.

Galfan said:

My god…..I was thinking when I purchased my M1 Max 16 inch I would be fine for 4-5 years but this might consider me upgrading this year….also because I noticed the GPU is hitting the limit sometimes but also that with my new function I need more headroom for bigger projects with the CPU.

I too have an M1 Max 16" MBP and I edit 10-bit 4K videos in FCPX, but I've not run up against performance issues that necessitate an upgrade.  Sure, the extra speed of the M4 Max would be fun, but it's not an absolute necessity.  Perhaps when they release the M5, they'll finally have WIFI 7 support, and then it may be time to pull the trigger on a purchase.  Maybe by then they will finally add FaceID and make the notch much more useful.

As I've mentioned under other articles in the past, my experience with ChatGPT4o isn't that great.  I want like to use it to check multiple online sources quickly, in the hope it can Google faster than I can on my own.  And it is fast.  But the problem is, it lies a lot.  So I always ask it for sources.  Then it gives me stupid links that when clicked on, open nothing.  So I have to then as it for plain text URLs.  It complies, but none of them ever work.  EVER!  They lead to the expected domain, but they always result a 404 file not found.  ALWAYS!  I then complain to ChatGPT saying it needs to read the articles it links for me to ensure the article truly exists and exists at the plain text URL it will give to me.  It apologizes and seemingly complies, but it continues to give me more bogus URLs.  I have repeated that cycle multiple times in a row, until my free sessions with GPT4o expires.  It never learns from its mistakes.  It never gets it right.  I've been using it for months, and it hasn't improved at all in that regard.  So I mostly find it useless.  And this experience remains valid even if some GPT lover comes along a raves about how well it summarizes text.  Fine and well, but it still lies and gives bogus URLs to its source info.  

This is why I won't shed many tears when and if OpenAI finally goes under.  There was so much promise with their creation.  But they've not done anything I can see to show it's worthy of sticking around when the funds run dry.  Let a better company come along and do an actual good job on AI for once.  Whether that can be Apple or not is yet to be seen.  Apple did come out with Apple Maps despite the global love for Google Maps, so you never know.  They may release their own ChatGPT style AI chatbot one day, with true intelligence that doesn't lie and gives working URLs.