Your point is well-taken if not exactly true. But I know what you're trying to say. While it's true that the field is turning to more advanced degrees, the *vast* majority of retail pharmacists have a B.S., and while most schools have gone to the Pharm. D, retailers will happily hire the licensed pharmacists graduating with the BS.
The link you provided stated "Most programs now days [sic] consist of a 6-year Pharm. D curriculum, but a few are still provide [sic] a 5-year Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree. All pharmacy schools will move to the 6-year program in the near future.
But maybe the report didn't include the B.S. pharmacists because even the bachelor's degree programs are really more than a 4-year proposition. My wife has the B.S. and it was a five-year program with an additional internship.
Most psychology majors I know have very low paying jobs with social services.
Most psych majors with a BA probably could earn more flipping burgers than in their field. There are precious few jobs in any of the behavioral sciences fields that pay much at all.
My co-worker's girlfriend is making $22,000/yr. as a social worker. She works 40 hours per week and has to do her paperwork on her own time. Incredibly, is going back to school to get her MA so that she can earn $28,000/yr.
You have to really love a job to put in six years for the priviledge of earning less than the average marketing puke.
Computer Engineering degree holders once again command the highest starting salaries at an average of $53,117
Here in the Midwestern US, the starting salary for a retail pharmacist is more than $80,000. Surely it's even more in other parts of the country where the cost of living is so much higher.
A small group of people who believe it's very much okay to write things that simply don't work in other browser.
Unbelievably, the website of Ingram Micro--who is the largest distributor of computer components--only functions correctly in IE. It's such a hassle constantly having to use two browsers because of them.
This reminds me of when I used to work in a supermarket in a conservative
Midwestern city. One of my duties was to send Western Union money
transfers, and since I was the only person who could speak Spanish in the entire
city (I'm kidding, but only a little), soon we had a huge Mexican clientele who
were sending money back home.
The particular store in which I worked was very busy and it was interesting
how differently Americans and Mexicans saw the wait and transaction. If I
was busy, the Mexicans customers generally waited very patiently, while
Americans would interrupt while I was talking on the phone or talking to other
customers.
Mexicans are very relationship-oriented compared to Americans and very
formal. This is how a typical transaction would go:
Me: Hi, good afternoon?
Customer: Hello, how are you today?
Me: Pretty good, thanks, how can I help you?
Customer: And how's your wife?
Me: She's okay, will you be sending money today?
Customer: And how are your children?
Me: They're great, would you like to fill out the Western Union
form?
Customer: Are your parents well?
Me: They're doing well, here's a pen.
Customer: Have you been really busy today?
Me: So-so. How much will you be sending?
Customer: The weather's been nice; not too hot; not too cold.
Just right.
And so on. The big problem was the twenty or so American customers who
had gathered, and were waiting very impatiently for service. Since they
couldn't speak Spanish, the Americans just figured that I'm was jacking around
with my Mexican pals and couldn't tell that I was desperately trying to move the
situation along. The Mexicans thought that I was being rude and abrupt.
Thanks for the kind words. It is refreshing when people think about
how to spare others' feelings before posting.
I'm sure that you're right about my particular off-the-cuff idea, but I guess
the point is that if someone as simple as me can come up with ideas, then
someone who can write code should be able to make a living at it, as long as
they can find a way to put food on the table until such time as their idea pays
off (or not).
Having said that, I would even settle for something that gave me PC interface
into my thermostat--whether it used Outlook or not--to allow me to schedule
further down the timeline. I read recently that if you can reduce the
temperature (obviously during the winter months) by 10 degrees for two 8-hour
periods per week, you will reduce your energy usage by 33%. Here in the
frigid Midwestern US, that's a lot of green.
As for me being the kind of guy to start a company, I already have one doing
network stuff, but the idea of spending my time writing code makes my head hurt
just thinking about it. I have tried to write a little in the past, but
the fact is that I'm either not wired that way or I'm just not that smart.
Another thing you're right about: a careful planning is in order before
launching into a business venture. And really, even that isn't enough to
guarantee success.
So you need three things; time (unemployed, you have
plenty), a marketable idea (a little more difficult, but there are so many
BAD programs out there than need replaced, not even counting processes where
software doesn't even exist), and someone to sell it. The last being the
hardest part.
Man, I come up with problems that need solutions every daggone day.
Today for instance, I thought of something. I've become quite an
Electricity Nazi and am trying to find more and better ways to reduce my
electric bill. I just suffer the cold while I'm home alone, but I do like
for the temperature to be tolerable for my wife when she's home. We have a
programmable thermostat, but unfortunately, her work schedule changes every
week. As I was re-programming the thermostat for this week's schedule, I
thought how nice it would be if there were just a way the the thermostat could
pull her work schedule out of Outlook and adjust accordingly.
I know a programmer/engineer who works in the aerospace industry specializing
in machine interfaces, and he says that it's really not that big of a deal.
Of course, he's working so he doesn't have the time.
There are solutions if you want to spend $1000, but I'm thinking that there
has to be a better/cheaper way.
I think of stuff I need all the time but I really don't know jack about
programming, nor do I wish to learn, so maybe there is a market for this kind of
stuff.
I haven't made up my mind if I think that goatse.cx should be censored; I
wish it weren't there for all to see and I think it's pretty gross, but I don't
know if I'm ready to be the one to say that generally innocuous (if
objectionable to me personally) material such as this should be taken offline.
But my question to you is whether there is *any* information that we as a
global community should forbid on the internet? I'm not sure that you were
directly answering my post, but if you were, I think that you might have
side-stepped that question.
If you're saying that we should use the absolute utmost caution before even
considering censorship, I'm right there with you. If you say there has
historically been a greater danger from governmental and corporate tyranny than
there has been from the free-flow of information, I say 'preach on.' And,
quite frankly, if that's the case, then the only issue we would have to hammer
out would be about where the line should be drawn.
But if you say that there should never be any censorship under any
circumstances, (the examples I used in the previous post were
'step-by-step instructions on building WMD, video images
of your sister being gang-raped, etc...') all I can say is that I
respectfully disagree.
Philosophically, I guess the whole issue boils down to this: is there
anything that *cannot* be posted or restricted on the internet?
If you say that there are *some* standards, then we can have a dialog about
what those standards are and how (and by whom) they are decided.
If you're answer is that nothing can be censored, quite frankly, there's
nothing left to discuss. I just can't see a world or ethical system that
embraces a *total* freedom of information as its highest virtue at the cost of
unnecessary pain and chaos. Obvious examples would be step-by-step
instructions on building WMD, video images of your sister being gang-raped,
etc...
This week, I was one of the uninitiated dolts who finally looked to see what
this goatse.cx was all about. I know that I'm stupid for looking, but I
have to tell you that I wish that I had never seen it. And out of
curiosity, if you're one of the people spending time and effort trying to trick
people into looking at it, why do you do that?
Yikes man! Maybe you should have endured the boredom a little. Have you seen what pharmacists are earning? Here in the Midwest it's 85K on a 40 hr week, with 4 weeks vacation to start. And all for doing what I almost got thrown in the State Penitentiary for when I was a young man (selling drugs).
Seriously though, no amount of money is enough to do something really boring, so if it wasn't your cup of tea, all power to you.
I went to college as an adult (35 yrs old), and like you, I found out that there just aren't that many scholarships for white males. I had to pull a straight 4 dot zero for a couple of years before I got a nickel from the state university I attended.
You are so right. There are a couple of little 'mom-and'pop' computer
stores in our area that sound exactly like what you're talking about.
That's why we don't operate a retail storefront--it's too much overhead to
keep products in stock that are almost perishable in nature. And sometimes
it's cheaper for me buy certain hardware (sometimes memory, printers, monitors)
from Sam's Club or Best Buy than from my distributors, so I can't compete on
components for DIY types like yourself.
But what we sell isn't hardware--we sell hope. Most non-technical small
businesses who can't afford an IT department are very frustrated by computers
and networks. As often as not, their stuff isn't working well and they
know that it's costing them money. They're not looking for the lowest
price--they're looking for someone to partner with them and help them to make
good decisions about technology. They're usually more interested in
response time and good service than in trying to shave a few nickels off of the
price.
Don't know which Dell you are looking at, but All of
them I have seen (Optiplexes) are very clean inside, with the ribbon cables
running entirely along flat surfaces, perfect length, and held in place by those
black cardboard-like things.
You got me there (mea culpa)--I really haven't seen the innards of any of
their most recent offerings. To be fair, I really ought to have a look
inside of a new one before I shoot of my mouth, but I must say that the ones I
have seen are nowhere near as pretty as the ones we produce.
I don't know you, but you sound like an automatic
anti-Dell zealot.
Not at all--my notebook is a Dell Latitude X300.
And really, if I had to pick from the mass-produced units out there, I would
probably choose a Dell.
But maybe I didn't word my diatribe carefully enough--I'm not against Dell or
any other brand; I'm just saying that we build a better box for the same amount
of $.
So, instead of selling them a good computer, you
send them BACK to Dell? Not very good business sense...
As for my business sense, you seem to be a nice enough and intelligent enough
of a person, so I will just assume that you aren't presumptuous enough to think
that you know my own particular business, that I have been doing for many, many
years better than I do.
I will try to explain why I don't try to change minds. The very reason
we don't try sell our machines to Dell zealots is that I have learned from
experience that if someone has a fixation on a particular brand of product,
whether it's a Dell, a BMW, or jewelry from Tiffany's, they're just not going to
be satisfied with anything else but that brand, and will tend find fault with
other brands.
Case in point: a friend of mine who is a John Deere zealot bought a John
Deere string trimmer for $189, even though a mutual friend of ours showed him
that it was actually a Homelite with a green and yellow cowling instead of a red
one. Exactly the same. Although the Homelite retails for $99, he
bought the John Deere, because 'nothing runs like a Deere.'
That's a horribly stupid idea, and to think you say
that is part of their downfall means you haven't thought long enough about it.
I never said that Dell should do data transfers, and I certainly never said
that it would be 'part of their downfall.'
Dell appears to be a pretty good company, and obviously their market strategy
has been working pretty well or they wouldn't be where they are. My one
and only point is that I think that we produce a better computer for the money.
Well, we can sell twice the machine a similarly
priced Dell sells for - so Tom is right. And we can save people's data if the HD
starts going bad - something the Dell's won't even try.
I agree. I operate a small business that provides networking and data
solutions to small-to-medium-sized businesses. A fairly small part of our
business is providing new computers. Our computers are all assembled using
high-quality components and cases, we benchmark and burn in all systems, we
neatly cable tie and/or use plenum to make the inside of the unit look nice and
to maximize airflow, we use round IDE and floppy cables, etc...
When I look inside any mass-produced system, including Dell, I think it looks
like somebody dropped a pound of spaghetti into the case.
We can match or beat Dell's price and provide a much better value, but they
seem to have some folks brainwashed.
The thing is, if someone is a mindless Dell zealot, I won't even sell them a
system. I'm not falling into that trap. Because, if something goes
wrong with a Dell, it's because something just went wrong with it. If
something goes wrong with the system I built, it's because it's not a Dell.
Which is okay, because like you said, let them try to get Dell to transfer
over their critical data or pick over their bug-infested registry. Quite
frankly, that's a more profitable business and far less troublesome.
Yeah...and it could be worse. If Real Player were running a 'distributed computing' project, they would probably charge you for them to use your computer.
If companies realized just how much money they dump
into fixing all of the problems Windows 98 is privy to, they'd all be on Windows
XP.
I couldn't agree with you more. I do the same thing for a living.
At $50-$90/hr for service calls to address the infamous illegal operation, the
cost of a hardware and software upgrade would save many of my customers money
over the long run. I can't even begin to calculate all of the lost
productivity.
Case in point: for the sake of this discussion, I looked up the records of
one of our customers. A year ago, they had 4 systems running Windoze 2000 pro, 6
running 95, 1 running ME, and 9 running 98SE. Before any OS and hardware
upgrades, they were using an average of 9 hours per week in support. All
of the windoze 95, ME have been upgraded to 2000 pro or XP pro. They have
only 4 98SE machines left. Currently they are using only about 1.5 hours
per week.
This is a savings of around $450 per week--that buys a lot of hardware and
Windoze XP pro licenses.
I understand where each figure falls historically. I wasn't saying that
Jesus was subscribing to the views of Marx; if anything Marx may have borrowed
from Jesus--I was saying that their views regarding the distribution of wealth
were similar.
If you still have an interest in Christianity, I
would suggest that you try a different denomination. Perhaps the Methodists.
Whoops! It is late; I guess I didn't word it clearly. I
used to be agnostic, I am now a committed follower of
Jesus. I don't have a problem with my denomination (Vineyard Association
of Churches) or really even with other Christians. I just think that many
just accept extra-biblical stuff without thinking it through for themselves.
One of the great blessings about having a later-in-life (35 years old)
change-of-heart is that I first read the Scriptures when I was old enough and
educated enough to be able to evaluate their claims without too much steering
from groups that might have a particular ax to grind.
That said, I will say that I too am slightly right of center on most issues.
What gets me is that my conversion actually brought me a little left on many
social issues--not right. And I have a hard time seeing how, as
Christians, we would march in lockstep with the Republican Party.
However, he was not a communist. Communism is
basically totalitarian socialism.
When I use the term 'communism' in reference to Jesus' point-of-view, I mean
the ideal of communism rather than the way it actually worked itself out.
More like this definition: 'A theoretical economic system characterized by
the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the
common advantage of all members.'
I presume that you are using a more functional definition like this: 'A
system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a
single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward
a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.'
I would agree with you that Jesus wouldn't embrace the second, and in fact, I
would say that He was really more apolitical than anything (render unto
Caesar...). Both definitions are from dictionary.com. I guess
I should have been more clear.
While the idealistic part of me would embrace a strongly socialist model of
government, I believe that the fundamental problem is not the type of political
system we use for the distribution of wealth, but rather it the damaged
condition of the human heart.
Thanks for your kind words and thoughtful response.
Sorry, but, all hardcore evangelical Christians are
not religious right.
Not all but surely most.
Speaking as a formerly agnostic follower of Jesus who grew up with no
religious background at all, I'm confused by the way practicing Christians seem
invariably to be conservative in their politics. I can't really find a way
to reconcile the pull yourself up by the bootstraps brand of Rush Limbaugh
conservatism with the teachings of Jesus or the canonical books of the New
Testament.
In truth, the Gospels show that Jesus came most sharply into conflict not
with the big partyers (sinners), but with the Orthodox Religious Right of the
day, the Pharisees, over their imposing morality onto others, and their attempts
to side-step their responsibility to care for others' well-being.
Also, the First-Century Church, was strongly socialistic. Compare
Marx's dictum, From each according to his ability, to each according to his
need, with Acts 2:44-46 (NIV), All the believers were together and had
everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they
gave to anyone as he had need.
I've found that intimating that Jesus was socialistic in His politics will
probably get you into a nasty row with most church folks; saying that He was a
Communist will virtually guarantee it.
Why, oh why did you have to remind me of cc:Mail? I had to use that piece of kr4pp for years when I worked for a large technologically-challenged retail corporation.
The really frightening thing is that they're still using it.
Of course, they think that it's quite an improvement--before that they were using tin cans and a string!
Slashdot Mirror
You need more than a bachelors to be a pharmacist
Your point is well-taken if not exactly true. But I know what you're trying to say. While it's true that the field is turning to more advanced degrees, the *vast* majority of retail pharmacists have a B.S., and while most schools have gone to the Pharm. D, retailers will happily hire the licensed pharmacists graduating with the BS.
The link you provided stated "Most programs now days [sic] consist of a 6-year Pharm. D curriculum, but a few are still provide [sic] a 5-year Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree. All pharmacy schools will move to the 6-year program in the near future.
But maybe the report didn't include the B.S. pharmacists because even the bachelor's degree programs are really more than a 4-year proposition. My wife has the B.S. and it was a five-year program with an additional internship.
Most psychology majors I know have very low paying jobs with social services.
Most psych majors with a BA probably could earn more flipping burgers than in their field. There are precious few jobs in any of the behavioral sciences fields that pay much at all.
My co-worker's girlfriend is making $22,000/yr. as a social worker. She works 40 hours per week and has to do her paperwork on her own time. Incredibly, is going back to school to get her MA so that she can earn $28,000/yr.
You have to really love a job to put in six years for the priviledge of earning less than the average marketing puke.
Computer Engineering degree holders once again command the highest starting salaries at an average of $53,117
Here in the Midwestern US, the starting salary for a retail pharmacist is more than $80,000. Surely it's even more in other parts of the country where the cost of living is so much higher.
I wonder why they aren't included in the survey.
A small group of people who believe it's very much okay to write things that simply don't work in other browser.
Unbelievably, the website of Ingram Micro--who is the largest distributor of computer components--only functions correctly in IE. It's such a hassle constantly having to use two browsers because of them.
ARGH! I not only support the death penalty for these asshats, I think they need to deport this guy's goddamn family to central Cambodia.
I love the word "asshat;" it's funny.
This reminds me of when I used to work in a supermarket in a conservative Midwestern city. One of my duties was to send Western Union money transfers, and since I was the only person who could speak Spanish in the entire city (I'm kidding, but only a little), soon we had a huge Mexican clientele who were sending money back home.
The particular store in which I worked was very busy and it was interesting how differently Americans and Mexicans saw the wait and transaction. If I was busy, the Mexicans customers generally waited very patiently, while Americans would interrupt while I was talking on the phone or talking to other customers.
Mexicans are very relationship-oriented compared to Americans and very formal. This is how a typical transaction would go:
Me: Hi, good afternoon?
Customer: Hello, how are you today?
Me: Pretty good, thanks, how can I help you?
Customer: And how's your wife?
Me: She's okay, will you be sending money today?
Customer: And how are your children?
Me: They're great, would you like to fill out the Western Union form?
Customer: Are your parents well?
Me: They're doing well, here's a pen.
Customer: Have you been really busy today?
Me: So-so. How much will you be sending?
Customer: The weather's been nice; not too hot; not too cold. Just right.
And so on. The big problem was the twenty or so American customers who had gathered, and were waiting very impatiently for service. Since they couldn't speak Spanish, the Americans just figured that I'm was jacking around with my Mexican pals and couldn't tell that I was desperately trying to move the situation along. The Mexicans thought that I was being rude and abrupt.
Thanks for the kind words. It is refreshing when people think about how to spare others' feelings before posting.
I'm sure that you're right about my particular off-the-cuff idea, but I guess the point is that if someone as simple as me can come up with ideas, then someone who can write code should be able to make a living at it, as long as they can find a way to put food on the table until such time as their idea pays off (or not).
Having said that, I would even settle for something that gave me PC interface into my thermostat--whether it used Outlook or not--to allow me to schedule further down the timeline. I read recently that if you can reduce the temperature (obviously during the winter months) by 10 degrees for two 8-hour periods per week, you will reduce your energy usage by 33%. Here in the frigid Midwestern US, that's a lot of green.
As for me being the kind of guy to start a company, I already have one doing network stuff, but the idea of spending my time writing code makes my head hurt just thinking about it. I have tried to write a little in the past, but the fact is that I'm either not wired that way or I'm just not that smart.
Another thing you're right about: a careful planning is in order before launching into a business venture. And really, even that isn't enough to guarantee success.
So you need three things; time (unemployed, you have plenty), a marketable idea (a little more difficult, but there are so many BAD programs out there than need replaced, not even counting processes where software doesn't even exist), and someone to sell it. The last being the hardest part.
Man, I come up with problems that need solutions every daggone day.
Today for instance, I thought of something. I've become quite an Electricity Nazi and am trying to find more and better ways to reduce my electric bill. I just suffer the cold while I'm home alone, but I do like for the temperature to be tolerable for my wife when she's home. We have a programmable thermostat, but unfortunately, her work schedule changes every week. As I was re-programming the thermostat for this week's schedule, I thought how nice it would be if there were just a way the the thermostat could pull her work schedule out of Outlook and adjust accordingly.
I know a programmer/engineer who works in the aerospace industry specializing in machine interfaces, and he says that it's really not that big of a deal. Of course, he's working so he doesn't have the time.
There are solutions if you want to spend $1000, but I'm thinking that there has to be a better/cheaper way.
I think of stuff I need all the time but I really don't know jack about programming, nor do I wish to learn, so maybe there is a market for this kind of stuff.
I think Dell just offers a few poorly packaged PC's without MS software in the same manner that a teen would rebell against his/her parents.
I absolutely love that simile; do you mind if I use it?
I haven't made up my mind if I think that goatse.cx should be censored; I wish it weren't there for all to see and I think it's pretty gross, but I don't know if I'm ready to be the one to say that generally innocuous (if objectionable to me personally) material such as this should be taken offline.
But my question to you is whether there is *any* information that we as a global community should forbid on the internet? I'm not sure that you were directly answering my post, but if you were, I think that you might have side-stepped that question.
If you're saying that we should use the absolute utmost caution before even considering censorship, I'm right there with you. If you say there has historically been a greater danger from governmental and corporate tyranny than there has been from the free-flow of information, I say 'preach on.' And, quite frankly, if that's the case, then the only issue we would have to hammer out would be about where the line should be drawn.
But if you say that there should never be any censorship under any circumstances, (the examples I used in the previous post were 'step-by-step instructions on building WMD, video images of your sister being gang-raped, etc...') all I can say is that I respectfully disagree.
Philosophically, I guess the whole issue boils down to this: is there anything that *cannot* be posted or restricted on the internet?
If you say that there are *some* standards, then we can have a dialog about what those standards are and how (and by whom) they are decided.
If you're answer is that nothing can be censored, quite frankly, there's nothing left to discuss. I just can't see a world or ethical system that embraces a *total* freedom of information as its highest virtue at the cost of unnecessary pain and chaos. Obvious examples would be step-by-step instructions on building WMD, video images of your sister being gang-raped, etc...
This week, I was one of the uninitiated dolts who finally looked to see what this goatse.cx was all about. I know that I'm stupid for looking, but I have to tell you that I wish that I had never seen it. And out of curiosity, if you're one of the people spending time and effort trying to trick people into looking at it, why do you do that?
I know it's off-topic, but why is it that Macs are always so much slicker looking?
I've never owned one but I've always admired their head-turning good looks and well-thought-out case design.
Harrrumphhhh...real men build with Lincoln Logs or Erector Sets.
Yikes man! Maybe you should have endured the boredom a little. Have you seen what pharmacists are earning? Here in the Midwest it's 85K on a 40 hr week, with 4 weeks vacation to start. And all for doing what I almost got thrown in the State Penitentiary for when I was a young man (selling drugs).
Seriously though, no amount of money is enough to do something really boring, so if it wasn't your cup of tea, all power to you.
I went to college as an adult (35 yrs old), and like you, I found out that there just aren't that many scholarships for white males. I had to pull a straight 4 dot zero for a couple of years before I got a nickel from the state university I attended.
You are so right. There are a couple of little 'mom-and'pop' computer stores in our area that sound exactly like what you're talking about.
That's why we don't operate a retail storefront--it's too much overhead to keep products in stock that are almost perishable in nature. And sometimes it's cheaper for me buy certain hardware (sometimes memory, printers, monitors) from Sam's Club or Best Buy than from my distributors, so I can't compete on components for DIY types like yourself.
But what we sell isn't hardware--we sell hope. Most non-technical small businesses who can't afford an IT department are very frustrated by computers and networks. As often as not, their stuff isn't working well and they know that it's costing them money. They're not looking for the lowest price--they're looking for someone to partner with them and help them to make good decisions about technology. They're usually more interested in response time and good service than in trying to shave a few nickels off of the price.
Don't know which Dell you are looking at, but All of them I have seen (Optiplexes) are very clean inside, with the ribbon cables running entirely along flat surfaces, perfect length, and held in place by those black cardboard-like things.
You got me there (mea culpa)--I really haven't seen the innards of any of their most recent offerings. To be fair, I really ought to have a look inside of a new one before I shoot of my mouth, but I must say that the ones I have seen are nowhere near as pretty as the ones we produce.
I don't know you, but you sound like an automatic anti-Dell zealot.
Not at all--my notebook is a Dell Latitude X300. And really, if I had to pick from the mass-produced units out there, I would probably choose a Dell.
But maybe I didn't word my diatribe carefully enough--I'm not against Dell or any other brand; I'm just saying that we build a better box for the same amount of $.
So, instead of selling them a good computer, you send them BACK to Dell? Not very good business sense...
As for my business sense, you seem to be a nice enough and intelligent enough of a person, so I will just assume that you aren't presumptuous enough to think that you know my own particular business, that I have been doing for many, many years better than I do.
I will try to explain why I don't try to change minds. The very reason we don't try sell our machines to Dell zealots is that I have learned from experience that if someone has a fixation on a particular brand of product, whether it's a Dell, a BMW, or jewelry from Tiffany's, they're just not going to be satisfied with anything else but that brand, and will tend find fault with other brands.
Case in point: a friend of mine who is a John Deere zealot bought a John Deere string trimmer for $189, even though a mutual friend of ours showed him that it was actually a Homelite with a green and yellow cowling instead of a red one. Exactly the same. Although the Homelite retails for $99, he bought the John Deere, because 'nothing runs like a Deere.'
That's a horribly stupid idea, and to think you say that is part of their downfall means you haven't thought long enough about it.
I never said that Dell should do data transfers, and I certainly never said that it would be 'part of their downfall.'
Dell appears to be a pretty good company, and obviously their market strategy has been working pretty well or they wouldn't be where they are. My one and only point is that I think that we produce a better computer for the money.
Well, we can sell twice the machine a similarly priced Dell sells for - so Tom is right. And we can save people's data if the HD starts going bad - something the Dell's won't even try.
I agree. I operate a small business that provides networking and data solutions to small-to-medium-sized businesses. A fairly small part of our business is providing new computers. Our computers are all assembled using high-quality components and cases, we benchmark and burn in all systems, we neatly cable tie and/or use plenum to make the inside of the unit look nice and to maximize airflow, we use round IDE and floppy cables, etc...
When I look inside any mass-produced system, including Dell, I think it looks like somebody dropped a pound of spaghetti into the case.
We can match or beat Dell's price and provide a much better value, but they seem to have some folks brainwashed.
The thing is, if someone is a mindless Dell zealot, I won't even sell them a system. I'm not falling into that trap. Because, if something goes wrong with a Dell, it's because something just went wrong with it. If something goes wrong with the system I built, it's because it's not a Dell.
Which is okay, because like you said, let them try to get Dell to transfer over their critical data or pick over their bug-infested registry. Quite frankly, that's a more profitable business and far less troublesome.
Yet another case of our Republican administration yanking the leash back to reward their favorite corporate donors.
Ummm...the music industry gives primarily to Democrats. Check it out.
Yeah...and it could be worse. If Real Player were running a 'distributed computing' project, they would probably charge you for them to use your computer.
Have you ever thought that the internet is just one giant 'distributed computing' effort to find pr0n?
If companies realized just how much money they dump into fixing all of the problems Windows 98 is privy to, they'd all be on Windows XP.
I couldn't agree with you more. I do the same thing for a living. At $50-$90/hr for service calls to address the infamous illegal operation, the cost of a hardware and software upgrade would save many of my customers money over the long run. I can't even begin to calculate all of the lost productivity.
Case in point: for the sake of this discussion, I looked up the records of one of our customers. A year ago, they had 4 systems running Windoze 2000 pro, 6 running 95, 1 running ME, and 9 running 98SE. Before any OS and hardware upgrades, they were using an average of 9 hours per week in support. All of the windoze 95, ME have been upgraded to 2000 pro or XP pro. They have only 4 98SE machines left. Currently they are using only about 1.5 hours per week.
This is a savings of around $450 per week--that buys a lot of hardware and Windoze XP pro licenses.
You've actually got the timeline backwards.
I understand where each figure falls historically. I wasn't saying that Jesus was subscribing to the views of Marx; if anything Marx may have borrowed from Jesus--I was saying that their views regarding the distribution of wealth were similar.
But I'm sure I could have made that more clear.
If you still have an interest in Christianity, I would suggest that you try a different denomination. Perhaps the Methodists.
Whoops! It is late; I guess I didn't word it clearly. I used to be agnostic, I am now a committed follower of Jesus. I don't have a problem with my denomination (Vineyard Association of Churches) or really even with other Christians. I just think that many just accept extra-biblical stuff without thinking it through for themselves. One of the great blessings about having a later-in-life (35 years old) change-of-heart is that I first read the Scriptures when I was old enough and educated enough to be able to evaluate their claims without too much steering from groups that might have a particular ax to grind.
That said, I will say that I too am slightly right of center on most issues. What gets me is that my conversion actually brought me a little left on many social issues--not right. And I have a hard time seeing how, as Christians, we would march in lockstep with the Republican Party.
However, he was not a communist. Communism is basically totalitarian socialism.
When I use the term 'communism' in reference to Jesus' point-of-view, I mean the ideal of communism rather than the way it actually worked itself out. More like this definition: 'A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.'
I presume that you are using a more functional definition like this: 'A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.'
I would agree with you that Jesus wouldn't embrace the second, and in fact, I would say that He was really more apolitical than anything (render unto Caesar...). Both definitions are from dictionary.com. I guess I should have been more clear.
While the idealistic part of me would embrace a strongly socialist model of government, I believe that the fundamental problem is not the type of political system we use for the distribution of wealth, but rather it the damaged condition of the human heart.
Thanks for your kind words and thoughtful response.
Sorry, but, all hardcore evangelical Christians are not religious right.
Not all but surely most.
Speaking as a formerly agnostic follower of Jesus who grew up with no religious background at all, I'm confused by the way practicing Christians seem invariably to be conservative in their politics. I can't really find a way to reconcile the pull yourself up by the bootstraps brand of Rush Limbaugh conservatism with the teachings of Jesus or the canonical books of the New Testament.
In truth, the Gospels show that Jesus came most sharply into conflict not with the big partyers (sinners), but with the Orthodox Religious Right of the day, the Pharisees, over their imposing morality onto others, and their attempts to side-step their responsibility to care for others' well-being.
Also, the First-Century Church, was strongly socialistic. Compare Marx's dictum, From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, with Acts 2:44-46 (NIV), All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.
I've found that intimating that Jesus was socialistic in His politics will probably get you into a nasty row with most church folks; saying that He was a Communist will virtually guarantee it.
But I really don't know why.
cc:Mail, its evil older brother is way worse.
Why, oh why did you have to remind me of cc:Mail? I had to use that piece of kr4pp for years when I worked for a large technologically-challenged retail corporation.
The really frightening thing is that they're still using it.
Of course, they think that it's quite an improvement--before that they were using tin cans and a string!