They may be districts, but they're the size of entire countries. I think people should know US States... AND Canadian provinces. It's important parts of geography considering how big they are. And Americans should have an understanding of international geography, which I know isn't the case. We have a huge population of Gahanians (from Ghana) and Somalians in our city but I bet most people don't know where either of those countries are.
It's interesting to note that the international news of other countries generally covers American news with perhaps bits and pieces of "important" other foreign news like who won a big soccer game. At least that's how it was in France when I was there watching their daily news.
You kind of have to go visit there to really understand the distances, no matter where it's at. I understand how big Alaska is, but if I pointed at Juneau (sp?) and Nome on a map, I wouldn't know how long it'd take to go from one city to another.
But I've been to France and know that Paris to Lyon is a 6 hour drive, 2 hrs on the TGV. It's 7 hours from Columbus to Toronto, so it's easy enough to compare that way.
I can point out Scotland, Wales, N Ireland, and England. And I know where a few of the larger cities are. Of the other European countries I can at least point to where the capitals are approximately. (I know France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and Austria decently enough to point out others).
I'm from Ohio, and when I've gone traveling to Europe, I've had to say "yeah, that's right... near Chicago" but a lot of people only knew where Florida or NYC or California were anyway. And others didn't even know where those were. (Whereas I can diagram on a map the Canadian provinces, many Canadian cities, European countries and cities, and various countries around the world. I'm special like that I guess.)
So while that's not as extreme as not knowing where the Pacific Ocean is... Americans aren't the only geographically-challenged people out there.
We're far from poor (make $90k as a household) and MY computer is "only" an Athlon 600. I don't have the time what with kids and work and all to sit around playing games, so I just use my computer for email, photos, Livejournal, and surfing and have no need to upgrade. And we've got better things to spend our money on than a new computer for me (minivan...)
If they're going to make games to educate the poor, you'd think they'd make them to run on at least a 5 year old computer.
Well, or they go rent DVDs and VHS videos from the library. You should see the stacks of those that some people take out, with very few books to go with them.
That's true. In fields like being an electrician or construction, women get laughed right out of the house. In IT at least the discrimination is a bit more subtle.
My cousin's son used to pretend to nurse his dolly like Mommy nursed his little sister, and he'd pretend to take care of his baby just like Mommy took care of his baby sister.
I think it's all what people teach them, and if people teach boys to be rough with toys, then that's what they'll emulate.
My daughter's 19 months old, and although she has dolls, she doesn't play with any of them. She likes to pull a little school bus full of people that spin around, around the house. Her current favorite toy is a handful of infant feeding spoons, and taking them in and out of a cup and pretending to eat with them. She also has a car that she likes to pretend to drive in, and another car that she likes to push and make it go. The little boys she plays with don't appear to play with the cars any differently than she does.
Maybe she'll be a lesbian, because obviously girls and boys are prewired to play with dolls (girls) and cars (boys). *eyebrow*
You're definitely in the minority, and if you don't act subconsiously as the other people do then I applaud you.
My most recent run-in with computer guys (our company shares a building with 2 other companies and we shared a network until recently... this isn't my sales job, I work somewhere else now) went like this:
Me: Do you know if blah blah blah is affecting the network (it's been awhile, I forget the details)
Computer guy: uhh, why don't you talk to Joe?
Me: Why would I talk to Joe?
Computer guy: You know, Joe, your computer guy.
Me: Joe doesn't work for us, I'm the computer person.
Computer guy: Joe. You know, JOE. The tall guy with glasses.
Me: Yes I know Joe, he doesn't work for us, he works for the XYZ company. I'm the computer person for ABC company.
I've seen a ton of incompetent males in IT, and somehow that's not perpetuating any stereotype. There's probably more incompetent IT males than there are IT females, even.
I've had the same experience... a LOT. And men don't tend to believe it, probably how white people don't really believe that black people are still disadvantaged in today's society.
At my old job, I used to go out on sales calls with non-tech sales guys, and customers all the time would either ask the questions directly to him, or look at him to confirm things I say. And the sales guys generally are the type to ask where the "any" key is, so it's not like they would have ANY authority on the subject whatsoever.
It's hard to constantly be looked at like you haven't a clue what you're talking about.
When I got my new job (where I've been for 2.5 years) it's a lot different of an atmosphere. Since everyone is non-tech besides me, they all look at me as the expert. The only troubles I've had was when I went to the company we share a building with, and asked them a question (we shared the network too), and they responded with "Is Joe around?" (I replied that Joe doesn't work for us, he's with the 3rd company that shares the building.) THey said "you know, Joe. Your computer guy." I said "No, I'm the computer person, Joe doesn't work for us." They still didn't believe me,and i had to leave the room in disgust.
That's not entirely true. While men look at the other men and think "he's a moron", men and women do it subconsciously to women they don't even know. That is, what I think is the big problem.
For instance, I used to work in server sales. I'd go into sales meetings with the male sales man, while I was the technical liason.
What I found happened time and time again is that people don't have confidence that women know what they're talking about, they ASSUME the man does, and direct questions to the man even if he isn't the technical person. It's a lot like being a person in a wheelchair, and having people ask the person that assists their movement "Does she want fries with that?"
And then when you do talk about your field of expertise to people, they question everything you say like you really don't know what you're talking about.
It's the flip side of a man wanting to do childcare. People automatically look at a man in childcare with suspicion. "is he a child molester? does he know a thing about taking care of kids?" Whereas people pretty much assume a woman in childcare is doing it for the right reasons and probably knows what she's doing if she's in the field. (Not that a parent wouldn't ask questions of a woman either, but they would be different questions, and ones lacking the suspicion that she might be a child molester or into kiddie porn or something).
If you're constantly looked at like you have no competence, it's hard not to feel belittled in your chosen occupation. I think this is the reason many women don't want to go into male-dominated fields. (There's also the "good ol' boys' club" and I do have a few stories of people talking to me like I'm a 5 year old imbecile for even thinking of doing something men do as their occupation).
I like Outlook 2003 too. The only complaint that my users have about it is that we're still using Office 2002 (just upgraded not too long ago) and with the server upgrade to Exchange 2003 it came with Outlook 2003...
And now they can't use Word to create emails, which means they can't "browse" for hyperlinks to insert in emails. It's irked most people and there's nothing to be done about it but upgrade the whole office suite. I think MS broke that on purpose, Word 2003 can't be THAT different than word 2002.
I thought credit cards charged something like 3.5% plus 30c per transaction. They are probably averaging it over all the transactions that ITunes has. So someone buys only 1 song, the credit card company gets something like 33.5c but if they buy 10 songs, it's not the 33% that it is on the cost of 1 song.
Odd but we're a 100% microsoft shop and our firewall blocked out the worm from coming in. Only had a problem on one laptop that had left the office the previous evening.
I say yell at the network admin who should've had those ports closed!
I did that on our mail server running ORF. Banned a bunch of country extensions and that combined with the filters like Spamcop means people rarely get spam...
I think that what you are going to find is the addition of more and more HD channels as time goes on, and assuming they get more and more HD subscribers, your cost shouldn't go up. Just a few months ago, I noticed there were 2 HD channels (we don't have a HD tv, it's just in the listings) and the other day I noticed there were 6. Over time there will be more and more HD channels, the reason you're paying a premium now for them is because you're one of the early adopters.
I'm sure the "cable access fee" is because you can get analog basic cable in your house even when you're not paying for it. I know because I used to pay something like $45 for cable modem, and nothing for cable just because I could.
We now like to be a bit more legal (not the college student anymore) and pay $70 for basic cable, cable internet, and digital cable. Not that shabby considering WOW's competitor Insight is $100 for just basic cable + cable modem.
You can always unplug your decoder box (have it hooked into a power strip), and flip that switch to turn it off when you're not using it.
Or what about the once a month I turn on the Weather Channel? (It's faster than booting up the computer, since I'm normally trying to see waht I should wear that day if I'm flipping to TWC). Would I pay for TWC for just on the odd chance I might want to see what the weather is? hmmm probably not.
If a lot of people are the same way, then that channel would go away. Combine that with all the other channels that I watch once in a blue moon because I happen to flip to them and get engrossed in some movie they happen to be playing. I certainly wouldn't subscribe to those channels individually!
We have one single Spanish channel. I have to wonder why my next door neighbors pay for cable just to get one measly channel (they surely can't understand the English on any of the other channels, and they don't have a fancy box or tv to get SAP).
Maybe it's good that they're subsidizing the channels I do watch that they don't.:-)
1. True, but c'est la vie. 2. I don't notice much if any quality difference. Sometimes there's some big pixellization (sp?) but for the most part the quality appears the same to me on my 27" tv. 3. Yeah but you get the tv guide that you can see waht's on any channel at any time, with the box. You can hit the "info" button and find out what the premise of a movie that's currently on commercial. Or find out if Friends is a rerun instead of waiting 5 minutes to watch some of it to find out. 4. Well no, they don't want you to! 5. (I don't have a Tivo... I would watch too much tv if I had one). 6. Lots more selection. We get like 10 starz channels along with the digital cable. "Free" as part of the package. And since we have a toddler and never get to see movies in the theater (and only pick the ones we REALLY want to see, on PPV), we can see bunches of movies that look "ok" but end up being pretty good, for no additional charge.
Then there's Tech TV which we watch sometimes. I like the Scrapbooking show on DIY, and sometimes we idly watch things on DIY because they look interesting. Some of the extra Discovery channels sometimes have good stuff on.
Not to mention you get a few dozen PPV channels with digital as opposed to just a small handful. This is handy when you JUST missed the start of a movie... you may only need to wait 1/2 hr for another showing of it to start again.
It doesn't really work like that at restaurants. I know cause I'm a majorly picky eater. If I want to get a sandwich, I have to pay $6 for the sandwich and only get the meat, cheese, lettuce, and mayo on it. When I'm paying $6 and technically entitled to onions, green peppers, olives, ketchup, mustard, pickles, tomatoes, and whatever else the non-picky people like.
So why should I pay $6 for a sandwich that is really only worth $3.50? I end up just not going to places that have sandwiches because I'm clearly not getting my money's worth.
cable TV would end up the same way... you'd pay the same amount but not get nearly the number of channels you got before. What a bargain!
I guarantee that if you were to subscribe to get the package with the 50 channels you say you'd never watch... you probably would end up watching some of them.
My husband used to say that he abhors tv, that there's nothing on. And now he's hooked on Wonderfalls, Smallville, Monk, and flips through shows on the History channel, and Sci-fi. And even some channels that we never watch SOMETIMES have something good on.
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They may be districts, but they're the size of entire countries. I think people should know US States... AND Canadian provinces. It's important parts of geography considering how big they are. And Americans should have an understanding of international geography, which I know isn't the case. We have a huge population of Gahanians (from Ghana) and Somalians in our city but I bet most people don't know where either of those countries are.
It's interesting to note that the international news of other countries generally covers American news with perhaps bits and pieces of "important" other foreign news like who won a big soccer game. At least that's how it was in France when I was there watching their daily news.
You kind of have to go visit there to really understand the distances, no matter where it's at. I understand how big Alaska is, but if I pointed at Juneau (sp?) and Nome on a map, I wouldn't know how long it'd take to go from one city to another.
But I've been to France and know that Paris to Lyon is a 6 hour drive, 2 hrs on the TGV. It's 7 hours from Columbus to Toronto, so it's easy enough to compare that way.
I can point out Scotland, Wales, N Ireland, and England. And I know where a few of the larger cities are. Of the other European countries I can at least point to where the capitals are approximately. (I know France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and Austria decently enough to point out others).
I'm from Ohio, and when I've gone traveling to Europe, I've had to say "yeah, that's right... near Chicago" but a lot of people only knew where Florida or NYC or California were anyway. And others didn't even know where those were. (Whereas I can diagram on a map the Canadian provinces, many Canadian cities, European countries and cities, and various countries around the world. I'm special like that I guess.)
So while that's not as extreme as not knowing where the Pacific Ocean is... Americans aren't the only geographically-challenged people out there.
We're far from poor (make $90k as a household) and MY computer is "only" an Athlon 600. I don't have the time what with kids and work and all to sit around playing games, so I just use my computer for email, photos, Livejournal, and surfing and have no need to upgrade. And we've got better things to spend our money on than a new computer for me (minivan...)
If they're going to make games to educate the poor, you'd think they'd make them to run on at least a 5 year old computer.
Well, or they go rent DVDs and VHS videos from the library. You should see the stacks of those that some people take out, with very few books to go with them.
That's true. In fields like being an electrician or construction, women get laughed right out of the house. In IT at least the discrimination is a bit more subtle.
My cousin's son used to pretend to nurse his dolly like Mommy nursed his little sister, and he'd pretend to take care of his baby just like Mommy took care of his baby sister.
I think it's all what people teach them, and if people teach boys to be rough with toys, then that's what they'll emulate.
My daughter's 19 months old, and although she has dolls, she doesn't play with any of them. She likes to pull a little school bus full of people that spin around, around the house. Her current favorite toy is a handful of infant feeding spoons, and taking them in and out of a cup and pretending to eat with them. She also has a car that she likes to pretend to drive in, and another car that she likes to push and make it go. The little boys she plays with don't appear to play with the cars any differently than she does.
Maybe she'll be a lesbian, because obviously girls and boys are prewired to play with dolls (girls) and cars (boys). *eyebrow*
You're definitely in the minority, and if you don't act subconsiously as the other people do then I applaud you.
My most recent run-in with computer guys (our company shares a building with 2 other companies and we shared a network until recently... this isn't my sales job, I work somewhere else now) went like this:
Me: Do you know if blah blah blah is affecting the network (it's been awhile, I forget the details)
Computer guy: uhh, why don't you talk to Joe?
Me: Why would I talk to Joe?
Computer guy: You know, Joe, your computer guy.
Me: Joe doesn't work for us, I'm the computer person.
Computer guy: Joe. You know, JOE. The tall guy with glasses.
Me: Yes I know Joe, he doesn't work for us, he works for the XYZ company. I'm the computer person for ABC company.
Computer guy: oh. What did you want, again?
Me: Nevermind.
I've seen a ton of incompetent males in IT, and somehow that's not perpetuating any stereotype. There's probably more incompetent IT males than there are IT females, even.
I've had the same experience ... a LOT. And men don't tend to believe it, probably how white people don't really believe that black people are still disadvantaged in today's society.
,and i had to leave the room in disgust.
At my old job, I used to go out on sales calls with non-tech sales guys, and customers all the time would either ask the questions directly to him, or look at him to confirm things I say. And the sales guys generally are the type to ask where the "any" key is, so it's not like they would have ANY authority on the subject whatsoever.
It's hard to constantly be looked at like you haven't a clue what you're talking about.
When I got my new job (where I've been for 2.5 years) it's a lot different of an atmosphere. Since everyone is non-tech besides me, they all look at me as the expert. The only troubles I've had was when I went to the company we share a building with, and asked them a question (we shared the network too), and they responded with "Is Joe around?" (I replied that Joe doesn't work for us, he's with the 3rd company that shares the building.) THey said "you know, Joe. Your computer guy." I said "No, I'm the computer person, Joe doesn't work for us." They still didn't believe me
That's not entirely true. While men look at the other men and think "he's a moron", men and women do it subconsciously to women they don't even know. That is, what I think is the big problem.
For instance, I used to work in server sales. I'd go into sales meetings with the male sales man, while I was the technical liason.
What I found happened time and time again is that people don't have confidence that women know what they're talking about, they ASSUME the man does, and direct questions to the man even if he isn't the technical person. It's a lot like being a person in a wheelchair, and having people ask the person that assists their movement "Does she want fries with that?"
And then when you do talk about your field of expertise to people, they question everything you say like you really don't know what you're talking about.
It's the flip side of a man wanting to do childcare. People automatically look at a man in childcare with suspicion. "is he a child molester? does he know a thing about taking care of kids?" Whereas people pretty much assume a woman in childcare is doing it for the right reasons and probably knows what she's doing if she's in the field. (Not that a parent wouldn't ask questions of a woman either, but they would be different questions, and ones lacking the suspicion that she might be a child molester or into kiddie porn or something).
If you're constantly looked at like you have no competence, it's hard not to feel belittled in your chosen occupation. I think this is the reason many women don't want to go into male-dominated fields. (There's also the "good ol' boys' club" and I do have a few stories of people talking to me like I'm a 5 year old imbecile for even thinking of doing something men do as their occupation).
I like Outlook 2003 too. The only complaint that my users have about it is that we're still using Office 2002 (just upgraded not too long ago) and with the server upgrade to Exchange 2003 it came with Outlook 2003...
And now they can't use Word to create emails, which means they can't "browse" for hyperlinks to insert in emails. It's irked most people and there's nothing to be done about it but upgrade the whole office suite. I think MS broke that on purpose, Word 2003 can't be THAT different than word 2002.
I thought credit cards charged something like 3.5% plus 30c per transaction. They are probably averaging it over all the transactions that ITunes has. So someone buys only 1 song, the credit card company gets something like 33.5c but if they buy 10 songs, it's not the 33% that it is on the cost of 1 song.
Odd but we're a 100% microsoft shop and our firewall blocked out the worm from coming in. Only had a problem on one laptop that had left the office the previous evening.
I say yell at the network admin who should've had those ports closed!
What if you're using a PDA though? YUCK.
I did that on our mail server running ORF. Banned a bunch of country extensions and that combined with the filters like Spamcop means people rarely get spam...
I think that what you are going to find is the addition of more and more HD channels as time goes on, and assuming they get more and more HD subscribers, your cost shouldn't go up. Just a few months ago, I noticed there were 2 HD channels (we don't have a HD tv, it's just in the listings) and the other day I noticed there were 6. Over time there will be more and more HD channels, the reason you're paying a premium now for them is because you're one of the early adopters.
I'm sure the "cable access fee" is because you can get analog basic cable in your house even when you're not paying for it. I know because I used to pay something like $45 for cable modem, and nothing for cable just because I could.
We now like to be a bit more legal (not the college student anymore) and pay $70 for basic cable, cable internet, and digital cable. Not that shabby considering WOW's competitor Insight is $100 for just basic cable + cable modem.
You can always unplug your decoder box (have it hooked into a power strip), and flip that switch to turn it off when you're not using it.
Or what about the once a month I turn on the Weather Channel? (It's faster than booting up the computer, since I'm normally trying to see waht I should wear that day if I'm flipping to TWC). Would I pay for TWC for just on the odd chance I might want to see what the weather is? hmmm probably not.
If a lot of people are the same way, then that channel would go away. Combine that with all the other channels that I watch once in a blue moon because I happen to flip to them and get engrossed in some movie they happen to be playing. I certainly wouldn't subscribe to those channels individually!
We have one single Spanish channel. I have to wonder why my next door neighbors pay for cable just to get one measly channel (they surely can't understand the English on any of the other channels, and they don't have a fancy box or tv to get SAP).
:-)
Maybe it's good that they're subsidizing the channels I do watch that they don't.
1. True, but c'est la vie.
2. I don't notice much if any quality difference. Sometimes there's some big pixellization (sp?) but for the most part the quality appears the same to me on my 27" tv.
3. Yeah but you get the tv guide that you can see waht's on any channel at any time, with the box. You can hit the "info" button and find out what the premise of a movie that's currently on commercial. Or find out if Friends is a rerun instead of waiting 5 minutes to watch some of it to find out.
4. Well no, they don't want you to!
5. (I don't have a Tivo... I would watch too much tv if I had one).
6. Lots more selection. We get like 10 starz channels along with the digital cable. "Free" as part of the package. And since we have a toddler and never get to see movies in the theater (and only pick the ones we REALLY want to see, on PPV), we can see bunches of movies that look "ok" but end up being pretty good, for no additional charge.
Then there's Tech TV which we watch sometimes. I like the Scrapbooking show on DIY, and sometimes we idly watch things on DIY because they look interesting. Some of the extra Discovery channels sometimes have good stuff on.
Not to mention you get a few dozen PPV channels with digital as opposed to just a small handful. This is handy when you JUST missed the start of a movie... you may only need to wait 1/2 hr for another showing of it to start again.
It doesn't really work like that at restaurants. I know cause I'm a majorly picky eater. If I want to get a sandwich, I have to pay $6 for the sandwich and only get the meat, cheese, lettuce, and mayo on it. When I'm paying $6 and technically entitled to onions, green peppers, olives, ketchup, mustard, pickles, tomatoes, and whatever else the non-picky people like.
So why should I pay $6 for a sandwich that is really only worth $3.50? I end up just not going to places that have sandwiches because I'm clearly not getting my money's worth.
cable TV would end up the same way... you'd pay the same amount but not get nearly the number of channels you got before. What a bargain!
I guarantee that if you were to subscribe to get the package with the 50 channels you say you'd never watch... you probably would end up watching some of them.
My husband used to say that he abhors tv, that there's nothing on. And now he's hooked on Wonderfalls, Smallville, Monk, and flips through shows on the History channel, and Sci-fi. And even some channels that we never watch SOMETIMES have something good on.