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IBM confirms that Macs are less expensive than PCs

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But isn’t it expensive, and doesn’t it overload IT? No. IBM found that not only do PCs drive twice the amount of support calls, they’re also three times more expensive. That’s right, depending on the model, IBM is saving anywhere from $273 - $543 per Mac compared to a PC, over a four-year lifespan. “And this reflects the best pricing we’ve ever gotten from Microsoft,” Previn said. Multiply that number by the 100,000+ Macs IBM expects to have deployed by the end of the year, and we’re talking some serious savings.

There’s a few guys at a place I used to work who really need to read this article.

Previn ended the session with a fact worth noting. “Every Mac we buy is in fact continuing to make and save IBM money.”

(Via DF, of course.)

More Phish

This is fantastic, pure Phish. I’m so glad that they’ve just been getting better over the years.

Vibrating with love and light, pulsating with love and light, in a world gone mad, a world gone mad, there must be something more than this!

Perfect.

David Ogilvy 10 Tips on Writing

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The better you write, the higher you go in Ogilvy & Mather. People who think well, write well. Woolly minded people write woolly memos, woolly letters and woolly speeches. Good writing is not a natural gift. You have to learn to write well. Here are 10 hints:

Reminds me of a saying I heard first from 37 Signals:

If you are trying to decide between a few people to fill your position, always hire the better writer. I don’t care if that person is a designer, programmer, marketer, salesperson, whatever. Assuming your candidates are fairly equally skilled and qualified overall, always hire the better writer.

Navy Enlisted Rating Modernization Plan

Link

  1. Effective immediately, Sailors in paygrades E1-E3 will be addressed as “Seaman,” E4-E6 will be called “Petty Officer Third/Second/First Class” as appropriate, and Senior enlisted in paygrades E7-E9 will be “Chief,” “Senior Chief,” or “Master Chief” depending on their paygrade. • For example, a Sailor will no longer be called YN2. Instead, they will be called a “Second Class Petty Officer” or “Petty Officer.” • There will no longer be a distinction between “Airman, Fireman and Seaman.” They will all be “Seaman.” • This cultural change will not happen overnight. It will take a measured approach to make it the norm.

Wouldn’t you know it, as soon as I post something about my time in the Navy, they up and change how it works. Ridiculous idea to get rid of the rates. Learning another sailor’s rate and rating let you know immediately what their specialty was, and how much you might have in common with them.

I worked hard to be IT1, glad I’m not active duty to see this.

Steve Jobs on Apple’s Courage

9to5 Mac in reference to “courage” from the September Apple event:

It’s likely a reference to a comment by Steve Jobs when he was asked to explain another controversial omission of an established standard: the lack of support for Flash in the iPhone and iPad …

The video of Jobs makes a good point, and comes across better than Schiller did.

The Unbelievable, Amazing, Astonishing American Dominance at the Olympics - The New Yorker

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And yet, the Americans were . . . wow. They were amazing. What else could you say? Part of the pleasure was appreciating the team’s depth. Yes, Simone Biles is the greatest gymnast in history—she was even before she won her first Olympic gold last night—but she has astonishingly talented teammates. Laurie Hernandez doesn’t just look like she was drawn by a cartoonist; every leap seemed accompanied by a thought bubble filled with exclamation points. Aly Raisman tumbled with a regal quality that was absent even four years ago, when she won gold in the floor exercise. She seemed to stick her landings by fiat.

Dominating.

The Swimmer Who Fled Syria - The New Yorker

She’s focussing on the two-hundred-metre freestyle to qualify for the Olympics, but she admitted a soft spot for the butterfly. “It’s really hard,” she said. “This is why I love it.”

An amazing and inspirational story. It is far too easy to forget the human stories of the refugee crisis stemming from the Syrian civil war. These are real people with lives and dreams that were thrown into disarray when their country was torn apart.

My message to the world.
#YusraMardini 

	<span class="twMeta"><br />
        <span class="twDecoration">&mdash; </span>
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        <a href="https://twitter.com/YusraMardini1/status/762349931638190080">
            <span class="twTimeStamp">Aug 7 2016 1:09 PM</span>
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OmniFocus Video Field Guide Update Coming Sunday — MacSparky

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I’ve been working the last few months on an update to the OmniFocus Video Field Guide. I’ve updated it for several new features and gone deep on the iOS Automation and URL linking. I’m making final edits and additions over the next few days and intend to publish it sometime Sunday (probably late).

OmniFocus is where my stress goes to die. It’s where I regain control of my life. My system for making sure that things that need done aren’t forgotten. Bills are paid, calls are made, and projects move forward. It’s also where ideas go for evaluation. If I have an idea for a new project I’ll drop it in OmniFocus and let it sit there for a while. I might file it away in it’s own project folder, put a “Defer Until” date on it for the weekend, and let the idea sit and stew for a bit.

If the idea has merit, if I keep coming back to it and deferring it more than once or twice, then I focus more on it and start to eck out next actions to start making it a reality. I know there are a lot of task management apps out there, and even a few analog systems like the Bullet Journal, but I’m so invested, and so used to how OmniFocus works that I have zero motivation to move to anything else. By this point, OmniFocus works the way my brain works, it is my trusted system.

That’s all thanks to David Spark’s OmniFocus guides. I adopted his system years ago, modified it slightly and made it my own. I’m looking forward to seeing where he’s taking the guides next.