iBook Sale Turns Violent

[mr.Curmudgeon]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/16/computer.frenzy.ap/index.html

"A rush to purchase $50 used laptops turned into a violent stampede Tuesday, with people getting thrown to the pavement, beaten with a folding chair and nearly driven over. One woman went so far to wet herself rather than surrender her place in line."

Slideshow of stampede: http://media.gatewayva.com/photos/rtd/special/ibooktime/index.htm

[AlanS17]

Idiots...

I wonder what they would go for on ebay.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

$350, at most...it seems.

[paigeoliver]

The school district was the idiot here. Why were they selling $400 used notebooks for $50? There were 1000 of them, that is $350,000 in wasted money.

For that matter WHY does the school district have 1000 laptops to begin with?

And I have always been of the opinion that the schools do the students a severe disservice with all those Apple computers, they teach the kids how to use a type of computer that they will never see again after they leave school (ok, not NEVER, but I encounter about 500 or 600 PCs for every Mac).

[AlanS17]

They probably figured they were doing a public service by selling them so cheaply.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

(Image by: brownpau)

[grueinthebox]

Idiots.

[mccoy178]

That's sweet.  It cracks me up just thinking about it.  Then the pictures.  I bet the guy who opened that gate was like,"uh oh.." about thirty seconds in.  When I got out of the crack business and sold all my inventory, I had the same issues.  What has society come to?

[jhanson]

The school district was the idiot here. Why were they selling $400 used notebooks for $50? There were 1000 of them, that is $350,000 in wasted money.

For that matter WHY does the school district have 1000 laptops to begin with?

And I have always been of the opinion that the schools do the students a severe disservice with all those Apple computers, they teach the kids how to use a type of computer that they will never see again after they leave school (ok, not NEVER, but I encounter about 500 or 600 PCs for every Mac).

As a Henrico County taxpayer, I wish they had sold them for closer to fair market value.  My tax money paid for the laptops that those animals fought and wet themselves over.  I would rather they had sold them for $200 each on eBay or something.

The district had all of those laptops because they used to give them to the students to use.  Now that the contract is up, they're switching to Dells.

[paigeoliver]

Ok, looking at the pictures it appears 95 percent of the people there were lower income types, I'll bet most of them don't own computers at all.

[GGKoul]

Idiots.

It should actually be..

iDiots

[Luxury]

WHEN will people who are in charge of setting up lines realize that you cant stagger lines like this?  It happens every single time i go to a movie now.  Wait outside the theater and then as soon as they open the doors its a mad rush inside the theater to the screen that its playing on.  If they had set up the booths or tables right there AT the gate, or started the line AT the tables, it wouldn't have been a problem.  Instead, people saw that "dead space" between the gate and the tables as an opportunity to rush and cut in line.  Mob mentality prevailed here, but only because they had this opportunity presented to them with the poorly planned event. 

And it is the south, so it should be "Id-juts"

[HaRuMaN]

Henrico county isn't exactly the south...

[Luxury]

Virginia is the South in my book.  While it could be argued about it "location wise", it is "mentality wise".

[GameOver]

Henrico county isn't exactly the south...

Sure it is!  Check out the Mason Dixon line, symbolic separator of North/South during the Civil War.  Also, Henrico boundries the city of Richmond, VA which was the capital of the confederacy during the Civil War. 

Is it the south now? 

I work in an IT shop in Henrico county.  This i-book give-away has been watercooler talk for a few weeks.  We saw this train wreck coming!

[TOK]

Ok, looking at the pictures it appears 95 percent of the people there were lower income types, I'll bet most of them don't own computers at all.

Wait till they get it home and realize they went through that for an Apple. That's when the real riots will start. 

[GameOver]

Ok, looking at the pictures it appears 95 percent of the people there were lower income types, I'll bet most of them don't own computers at all.

Wait till they get it home and realize they went through that for an Apple. That's when the real riots will start.

Nahhh...if they really are going for $350 on ebay, how much ya wanna bet there were about 500 i-books just listed on ebay today?  Maybe low income, but not stoopid!

I'm gonna watch the 11 o'clock local news tonight, should be good.  'Why don't Windowz work on dis computer?'

[toolaa]

The school district was the idiot here. Why were they selling $400 used notebooks for $50? There were 1000 of them, that is $350,000 in wasted money.

For that matter WHY does the school district have 1000 laptops to begin with?

My wife is a teacher in MD and started her career 10 years ago at the worst performing school in the county.  The school performed so poorly that some school board officials felt the root cause of the problem was lack of technology and promptly purchased about 1000 Apple computers for the school this was for two computer labs and 5 computers for every class except PE.  What the county did not plan for was that nothing in any teachers contracts required them to actually write lesson plans to use computers for anything!  Most long term teachers did not know the first thing about computers and when faced with the prospect of writing new plans or simply doing the absolute minimum possible chose the latter and when my wife left the school a few years later most of those computers remained unused. 

I'm sure the Apple sales rep got a nice bonus that year.  The school could have spent the money better by purchasing 1000 Playstations.  At least attendance would have been the best in the country!

[Dartful Dodger]

I'm sure the Apple sales rep got a nice bonus that year.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

The comedy never ends...

On eBay, right now:

)

[ChadTower]

So, uh, when does rushing for a better place in line morph into an opportunity to beat someone with a folding chair?

[JackTucky]

So, uh, when does rushing for a better place in line morph into an opportunity to beat someone with a folding chair?  What, was The Rock in line for a laptop?

Exactly.  It's not the fault of some school board.  It's the fault of greedy obnoxious rude people.

BTW, they are everywhere.  You have to look hard for people who are polite and courteous.

Art

[ultramagnus]

I'm sure the Apple sales rep got a nice bonus that year.  The school could have spent the money better by purchasing 1000 Playstations.  At least attendance would have been the best in the country!

Macintosh was a real operating system ten years ago, so they were giving their computers to schools, in hopes of the parents buying the same type of computer at home. 

wow, can you imagine gates doing that?

[NIVO]

heh, not necessary dude, all the kids in the family already run a pirated copy of Win XP. 

[ChadTower]

My kids are still on 98se.   

[Stingray]

I'm sure the Apple sales rep got a nice bonus that year.  The school could have spent the money better by purchasing 1000 Playstations.  At least attendance would have been the best in the country!

Macintosh was a real operating system ten years ago, so they were giving their computers to schools, in hopes of the parents buying the same type of computer at home. 

If the computers weren't being used, the parents had no extra incentive to buy one like it.  Many Apple sales reps got pink slips that year because Apple became a novelty computer, like the Commodore 64.

That's pretty unfair. The Mac OS is still being actively developed and updated. Tons of high end graphics software is available for it. It's still the OS of choice for graphics professionals. I hardly see it as a novelty, you certainly can't run the latest version of Photoshop on a C64.

-S

[mr.Curmudgeon]

It's still the OS of choice for graphics professionals.

Only because of mac as a status symbol, I say this as a graphics professional with over 10 years experience, who works in the print/web industry and has avoided Macs the entire time (cost reasons). There is absolutely no reason one should *have* to use a mac in the graphics world, it's really, as you say, primarily a choice. A choice based on loyalty and cult of personality.

/rant

They do make nice laptops though, and that iPod thingy isn't bad looking either.


mrC
/wishes he could afford G4 Powerbook. 

[Stingray]

I use both daily and still prefer to use a Mac given a choice. I do admit however that Windows has improved radically over the years.

-S

[ChadTower]

He's the miggity miggity miggity miggity Mac Daddy.

[Shape D.]

They also tend to handle processing audio and video on a professional level a lot better than pc's, although they are catching up.

[Stingray]

He's the miggity miggity miggity miggity Mac Daddy.

Hey, you guessed my password.

-S

[ChadTower]

In 11th grade, me and a friend of mine were hammered at like 3am.  For some reason we put on all of our clothes backwards, winter coats and all, and went out on our bikes.  We were like 8 miles from home and these guys started chasing us in a pickup.  They chased us through some yards, across a beach, and finally we lost them by hiding in someone's basement bulkhead.

I have no idea why I shared that story.  Now jump, jump.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

They also tend to handle processing audio and video on a professional level a lot better than pc's, although they are catching up.

Out of the box..I'd have to agree with this statement. But you can trick out a PC, with a little elbow grease and know-how...and you'll trounce the Mac's every time, at half the cost.

I don't want to come off as an Apple-basher either. I like them, just think they're over-hyped and over-priced. For anyone not wanting to deal with third-party hardware, and the building process, they're certainly the best solution. I've got plenty of musician friends that work exclusively on Mac.

mrC

[Shape D.]

I just think they're over-hyped and over-priced.

Agreed. Although another benifit is I have a lot less problems with viruses than many of my friends.

[Crazy Cooter]

iDiots at best.  Half of them will be selling them in the local paper trying to get their $50 back when they realize none of the software they have/buy works on it.  I doubt there's more than 25 people in that county that could actually put the things to use.

[AlanS17]

For low-income families, those computers will get online and do basic productivity software like word processing. If they're expecting more, they're SOL. For anyone that can actually afford better, they wasted a morning.

And forget about upgrading. It's a laptop - strike 1. It's an Apple - strike 2. It's so old that new software would totally over power it - strike 3. You're outtathere...

I wouldn't have waited through that line for a $50 laptop, but if I had it would have been on ebay the next day.

[paigeoliver]

All poor/stupid people want is the internet, those would be fine for that. Actually, those might even be BETTER than a PC, because the OS is less likely to get horked.

The average non-pc user can't really separate the idea of the computer and the internet, the web browser is the WHOLE computer to them.

In a related note, my parents still use AOL 5.0.

[mccoy178]

All poor/stupid people want is the internet

Intelligent comment. Coming from someone who bought a mobile home, fixed it up, then decided putting three layers of carpet on the floor in his old roommates room was a better idea.

[paigeoliver]

All poor/stupid people want is the internet

Intelligent comment. Coming from someone who bought a mobile home, fixed it up, then decided putting three layers of carpet on the floor in his old roommates room was a better idea.

Thus proving that one doesn't have to be poor or stupid to make bad decisions, I personally happen to be both, thus the bad decisions!!! 

Smarter poor people would realize that they can get a useable computer system for around $25, without waiting in any lines at all.

[mccoy178]

  You have moved a notch upward in my book friend.