I worked in-store support at Best Buy in the days before the Geek Squad. While my store was in a city, in the not so distant rural areas, there were people who didn't have phone service or power and never had. This was also during the infancy of the "sign up for three years of dial-up and get a $400 rebate" which they could use on a $400 PC we happened to sell. With "free" PC's and and a mass of people with zero exposure to technology beyond a tractor, you can see where this is going. "I couldn't get on the internet last night. Was it down?"
Cust: I can't get on American Online. (which is what "they" called any ISP)
Me: [goes through all of the normal checks]Are you talking to me on the same line you try to connect with?
Cust: No.
Me: So you have two phone lines?
Cust: I don't have a phone. I'm on my neighbor's cordless phone. Me: You'll need a phone line to connect to the internet, sir.
Cust: [sputtercussgripe]
Another gentleman came in to get a spiffy new 56K modem. We offered to install it for him for the standard $45. He looked at us and then at the modem. We could see the wheels turning. Shortly after, we got the standard "You're a bunch of overpaid monkeys and I can do this myself" followed by the "I have no idea how to do this for myself so I'm going to pump you for free information." One of our techs took pity on the gentleman and gave him a crash course in IRQ's, ISA/PCI slots and the like. We received a very confused phone call a few hours later, and the same tech explained jumpers to the customer. The next morning he was waiting on our doorstep with his computer and the modem. Upon examination, we discovered that he had, indeed, removed all of the jumpers. He had also removed everything else with wire cutters.
There was another instance similar to the previous. You can simply use your imagination substituting a SCSI HD, IDE cable, a rubber mallet and throw in some raunchy gay porn for a wildcard.
Another free computer user brought in a machine that had dried Coke all over the outside of the case. Even in cases of obvious abuse, we would still take a look at the computer since it usually made the user feel a bit better. I had a pretty good idea what I would find when I opened the case...but I was wrong. The Coke itself might not have actually destroyed the computer. However, the dozens of roaches that ran out when I pried to side panel off surely did.
While most instances worthy of note were caused by ignorance on the part of the user, many were also the result of a complete lack of common sense. That is what makes them laughable.
Non-Hispanic Caucasians, like Christians, are a favorite target these days for the simple fact that they don't generally fight back. It's just not worth the time to try to fight an unwinnable battle. Do what you do, ignore the idiots and move on with life.
Incidentally, those who seem to think that everyone in the South is some sort of backwards, ignorant, racist, hick have either never been to the South, or they're trying to perpetuate a cycle of ignorance similar to the one they claim infests the South.
Hundreds of posts to rationalize a religion based on faith. It fails from both ends. Those who don't believe in God (in the Christian sense) try to come up with rational arguments to prove He isn't real. On the other side of the coin, you can't prove God exists to someone who has no faith. You either believe it or you don't.
Incidentally, though it has been said a eleventynine times above, looks like the contributor was so quick to try to give the Bible a black eye that he really stepped in it.
A friend of mine is in the same boat. He has thousands of slides from a career in the military. He discovered two methods for scanning them in bulk. One is a negative feeder for his scanner. It digitizes directly from the negative so you can scan in all the images on the negative at once. The other method he used was a specially designed framework for the slides themselves that allowed him to scan several slides at once. Both methods are still time intensive, but they're quicker than the one-at-a-time-method.
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I worked in-store support at Best Buy in the days before the Geek Squad. While my store was in a city, in the not so distant rural areas, there were people who didn't have phone service or power and never had. This was also during the infancy of the "sign up for three years of dial-up and get a $400 rebate" which they could use on a $400 PC we happened to sell. With "free" PC's and and a mass of people with zero exposure to technology beyond a tractor, you can see where this is going. "I couldn't get on the internet last night. Was it down?" Cust: I can't get on American Online. (which is what "they" called any ISP) Me: [goes through all of the normal checks]Are you talking to me on the same line you try to connect with? Cust: No. Me: So you have two phone lines? Cust: I don't have a phone. I'm on my neighbor's cordless phone. Me: You'll need a phone line to connect to the internet, sir. Cust: [sputtercussgripe] Another gentleman came in to get a spiffy new 56K modem. We offered to install it for him for the standard $45. He looked at us and then at the modem. We could see the wheels turning. Shortly after, we got the standard "You're a bunch of overpaid monkeys and I can do this myself" followed by the "I have no idea how to do this for myself so I'm going to pump you for free information." One of our techs took pity on the gentleman and gave him a crash course in IRQ's, ISA/PCI slots and the like. We received a very confused phone call a few hours later, and the same tech explained jumpers to the customer. The next morning he was waiting on our doorstep with his computer and the modem. Upon examination, we discovered that he had, indeed, removed all of the jumpers. He had also removed everything else with wire cutters. There was another instance similar to the previous. You can simply use your imagination substituting a SCSI HD, IDE cable, a rubber mallet and throw in some raunchy gay porn for a wildcard. Another free computer user brought in a machine that had dried Coke all over the outside of the case. Even in cases of obvious abuse, we would still take a look at the computer since it usually made the user feel a bit better. I had a pretty good idea what I would find when I opened the case...but I was wrong. The Coke itself might not have actually destroyed the computer. However, the dozens of roaches that ran out when I pried to side panel off surely did. While most instances worthy of note were caused by ignorance on the part of the user, many were also the result of a complete lack of common sense. That is what makes them laughable.
Non-Hispanic Caucasians, like Christians, are a favorite target these days for the simple fact that they don't generally fight back. It's just not worth the time to try to fight an unwinnable battle. Do what you do, ignore the idiots and move on with life. Incidentally, those who seem to think that everyone in the South is some sort of backwards, ignorant, racist, hick have either never been to the South, or they're trying to perpetuate a cycle of ignorance similar to the one they claim infests the South.
Hundreds of posts to rationalize a religion based on faith. It fails from both ends. Those who don't believe in God (in the Christian sense) try to come up with rational arguments to prove He isn't real. On the other side of the coin, you can't prove God exists to someone who has no faith. You either believe it or you don't. Incidentally, though it has been said a eleventynine times above, looks like the contributor was so quick to try to give the Bible a black eye that he really stepped in it.
A friend of mine is in the same boat. He has thousands of slides from a career in the military. He discovered two methods for scanning them in bulk. One is a negative feeder for his scanner. It digitizes directly from the negative so you can scan in all the images on the negative at once. The other method he used was a specially designed framework for the slides themselves that allowed him to scan several slides at once. Both methods are still time intensive, but they're quicker than the one-at-a-time-method.