by having the drinking age higher, not the driving age.
To get a drivers license, one has to pass one or more tests which (supposedly) will demonstrate your grasp of how to operate a vehicle safely.
Personally, if someone wants to get drunk, get alcohol poisoning, run in traffic while drunk, dangle your girlfriend out a window, or do other stupid things, that's your business. I just don't want to hear what a good person Johnny or Susie was when they get splattered across the road or get run over or some other Darwinian death story.
The same thing with drugs. If you want to get high, overdose, run in traffic while high, etc, that's your business. The problem comes in when your actions affect others. Drunk driving, at any age, endangers not only yourself but everyone around you. Same with drugs. To keep their drug habit, there are those who resort to robbery which can have consequences both for the person being robbed but for the person doing the robbing. Death being the ultimate consequence.
That's what this all comes down to. At 21 you are (supposedly) able to make decisions as an adult which affect not only yourself but those around you (in reality you're an adult at 18 which is another fly in the ointment but that's another story). While there are those who can make adult-like decisions at 16 and others never become adults, the vast majority cannot make those decisions and so some restrictions need to be made.
It's the same reason insurance rates for teen drivers are twice the rate for those of adult drivers. On average, young, inexperienced drivers have higher accident rates than do people who are older and have more years of experience driving under their belts (some of them at least).
The US has a very unhealthy attitude towards drinking - how can someone be trusted to vote, but not allowed to drink?
Because when an 18 year old votes, there is zero chance they'll kill someone due to their inexperience with voting. The same cannot be said of a 16 (or 18) year old who gets their drivers license and to celebrate, gets drunk and goes driving.
Yeah, yeah, parental responsibility and all that. As a recent article on here related, teen brains lack impulse control. They don't have the same reasoning capability as someone twenty years older. Here's the CNN article which talks about this subject.
For the record, roughly three times a week in my area there is a story of someone underage dying because they were driving drunk or someone who was a passenger in a car with someone who was underage and drunk while driving being killed. In fact, last year, there was a case where two passengers died in a car accident where the driver was underage, drunk and crossed into the oncoming lane where it ran headon into a minivan. A few of the people in the van died as well.
MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) was the driving force behind forcing states to raise their legal drinking age to 21 through government coercion (withholding of highway dollars). In theory, states don't have to have a drinking age of 21 but because states fund their operations through debt servicing rather than pay-as-you-go, they need all the money they can get and so go along with having a high drinking age compared to other countries.
You joke, but my parents know someone who heads a polka band (no jokes please), who, when he goes to Europe, takes nothing with him but the clothes on his back and his ticket. He buys everything he needs in Europe and leaves it all behind when he comes back.
We can't examine every container that comes into our ports or every package that gets flown into this country, but we're trying to examine every laptop that crosses our border? Great use of resources folks.
Besides, if they want to inspect my laptop (I don't actually have one but you get the idea), then I get to inspect their laptop. After all, if they have nothing hide. . .
I said it before in a posting and I'll say it again: I can remember a time when people would brag about being able to drive from state to state without having to show identification or worry about the government listening in on your phone conversations when comparing our country to the former Soviet Union. But now, it appears we've taken mulitple pages from their playbook and are following their example. Looks like at least parts of a totalitarian state have won out over freedom.
Put it in an empty tube of toothpaste, a small bottle used for lotion, a remanufactured film container (not the plastic container but the metal one the film comes in) and a whole bunch of other places.
being forced to replace something to save/conserve/curb energy usage with something that if it breaks, releases a toxic substance.
I'm all for saving energy when possible but with all the panic over lead in toys and other items, don't you think it would be nice not to have to worry about your light bulb breaking and having mercury come out?
I'd like to see them take the mobile phones off 90000 fans.
No problem. Just put out a signal strong enough to block the cell phone signal. The people can still keep their phones, just not get a signal to use them.
You'd think common sense would prevent this, but hey I guess that's out of the question.
When you say common sense, you mean the same common sense that people have when they weave in and out of traffic while talking on their cell phone, or drive with one hand at the bottom of the steering wheel while the other is tucked behind the drivers seat, or drive around signs that say "Road Closed" while water rushes over the street, or cause manufacturers to have to put a warning label on hair dryers which tell you not to use while in the shower, or standing up while on a roller coaster in front of the sign which tells you to remain seated, or telling someone as you point a gun at them and pull the trigger, "Don't worry, it's not loaded"?
Yeah, I know. Common sense should take precedence in all the above situations but people being what they are, common sense doesn't usually come into play.
How is it selfish if I don't feel I should have to pay for my next door neighbors health problems due to his smoking two packs of cigarettes a day? Why is his health my concern? It's his life, not mine.
And yes, I do know how much people have to pay for employer health insurance. I did a calculation in one of my journals where I discussed my recent (and only) use of my health insurance and how much it has cost both me and the taxpayer for my one time use (I work for state government).
Further, yes I do know that the taxpayers have to pay for people who wander into a hospital without insurance but require medical attention. My sister-in-law works at a hospital and we've had this discussion. I'm very familiar with what is going on in the health care industry. My suggestion is that those who have no insurance be put on some form of payment plan so the hospital can recoup at least a portion of what it cost them.
Even if the person can't pay for everything, they should be made aware of the costs associated with not making an effort to take care of themselves to try and prevent getting sick or injured in the first place. Certainly there are those exceptions where injury is unavoidable (geting hit by a car which runs a red light) but when the person comes into the hospital with an illness they've had for days and days, instead of having the hospital choke down the cost, they should have gone to a doctor for treatment, even if they have pay out of their own pocket. It is much cheaper to see a doctor and get treatment than it is to go to a hospital.
I'm glad you put free in quotes because quite obviously your x-ray and cast were not free. You, and the millions of your countryfolk, paid for those things from the higher tax rates you pay.
In other words, you're living a true socialist dream by having someone else subsidize or pay for your medical bills. Redistribution of wealth and all that.
But let's turn it around. Let us say for the sake of argument that from the age of five until the age of 70, you never needed medical care. You never broke anything, never had any serious illness, etc. Now, based on those 65 years of healthy bliss, do you think it is fair that you paid what probably amounted to well over $250K in taxes to subsidize someone else? In other words, you paid for something but got no benefit from your spent money.
I know people like to think that socialized medicine is a panacea but I don't like the idea of being forced to pay for something and not getting something in return. By the same token, I don't think paying huge premiums for medical insurance and then having the insurance company tell me they won't cover me for X procedure unless I cough up more money is the way to go either. Either you're going to cover me or you're not. That's why I'm paying you the premiums.
To see how really screwed up medical insurance coverage can be, read this story from MarketWatch.
Most buildings in the Antarctic are built on foundations which can be raised over time to compensate for both the sinking of the buildings into the ice (due to heat) and the covering of the buildings by snow and ice.
Roving gangs of starving polar bears finally cracked their nut?
Polar bears only exist in the Arctic. Penguins exist mainly in the Antarctic with a few that have evolved to live off the southern coast of South Africa.
Please hand in your geek card when leaving the building.
Since all the signals our body produce take time to register in the brain, wouldn't all events by some strange definition always be "in retrospect"?
Yes. It takes about a 1/4 second for light to reach our eyes, travel through the optic nerve to the brain, be processed by the brain and then registered externally. In essence, everyone is living behind 'real time'.
As a side note, my local PBS station has been running their fundraising programs and as an inducement to contribute, they offered a pair of Blue Man Group tickets and 3 DVDs of Blue Man for a $250 donation. In between them talking, they were showing part of one DVD.
On the DVD, they showed a part of BMG's one show where on the screen behind the stage, they were projecting a discussion about our perception (with a voice over repeating what was being shown). They talked about how the cells in our eyes had to reset after use and so there were blank spots in our vision momentarily. However, our brain would fill in these blank spots to provide us with an uninterrupted view of the world. It is known as residual presence.
Thus, while we are living momentarily behind real time, our brain does it's thing to keep us functioning in our time.
The list is pretty good and I can say without a doubt I've dealt with all five users. Right now, the main culprits at my job are the Know-Nothings (the majority) and the Know-It-All (fortunately, very few). Of the two, the worst have to be the Know-Nothings who tell you they know nothing and are proud of it.
"I don't know nothin about stupid compters and dont' want to. Just fix it."
"Not a problem. It's fixed now. In the future, don't press the shiny red button."
"Ok"
One week later. . .
"My computer's acting up."
Interestingly, our CEO admits he is not computer literate but at the same time gets out your way when you need to fix something. He's glad you're there and does exactly what you tell him to do. He listens to what the problem is and how you're going to fix it. He describes exactly what error he is getting and what he did. He's almost a dream user.
The second issue deals with me personally. As others have said, and as the article alluded to, we in IT, despite what we may think, don't know all the answers. I once said in an interview, "I don't let my ego get in the way of learning something new."
As a corollary, at work my motto is, "When I know, I'll tell you. When I don't, I'll find out."
Similar to what was said in the article, people call me directly or ask for me by name because they know I'll fix their issue and won't make them feel like an idiot. Unless they deserve it.:)
Maybe it's just me, but once people know that when I come to fix their problem it gets fixed, their attitude changes from grumpy to happy. They even tell me that (other co-worker name) was there and they're still having problems and are glad to see me.
Now if only the numnuts doing the interviews wouldn't lie to my face about a position being open I'd be able to impose, er, facilitate this same Mr Fix-It attitude on those I would be managing.
Although I can't remember if it was busted or not.
Yes, it was. Fantastically busted. Water is water and no matter what you do, including throwing a hammer into the water before you hit, will change its properties enough to influence the wonderful feeling of smashing into what will then be a hard surface when you fall from a great height.
It is the mentality of PC vendors itself who do not even configure their GNU/Linuxes correctly on their hardware.
And this is EXACTLY why the vast majority of people will never move to any version of linux. If someone can't turn their machine on and have it work out of the box without having to tweak their system to get video/sound/whatever drivers to work, they will not use it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, people have to tweak Windows systems to get it to work the way they want. That tweaking is mainly eye candy. It is not about getting video/sound/whatever to work.
I'm not saying there aren't people who won't want to or can't tweak a linux system with a bit of help. I'm saying that for the average person, having to add/delete/modify lines in some obscure file is not their idea of 'working'.
As far as I could ever tell, the purchasing was exactly the same for the entire chain
To go a bit OT but still somewhat related, Macy's has this exact same policy. Why am I bringing up Macy's in a tech discussion? Because unlike the usual image of a geek (or geek in training), I don't have a deer gut and so trying to find pants/slacks/thingstowearovermylegs is nearly impossible. I'm at the bottom end of mens and too large for the top end of boys.
In one of my yearly pilgrimages to White Marsh, MD, I stopped at the mall in Towson for another store they have and wandered into the Macy's, hoping upon hope that maybe this store would have something for me to wear. After looking through over 100 pairs of jeans and slacks, not one was in my size.
The sales lady happened to see me put back several pairs and made the usual comment about not finding anything. It was then that I gave her my usual (polite) diatribe about Macy's, or any store, not carrying things in my size. It was then she said something which cleared things up.
The store used to be a Hecht's and before they were bought by Macy's, each region or even stores could place their own orders for merchandise. If something was selling well, they could get more of the product in quickly. If customers wanted something specific, again, they could order it.
Since Macy's took over, all the ordering comes from the top. They have no control over what comes in. The folks at the top look at what is selling and based on that they make their next orders.
I looked at her and rhetorically asked, "If they don't purchase items in my size, they never show up on the sales sheet, do they? And if they don't show on the sales sheet, they don't order them because to them, the product isn't selling, right?"
She just smiled and agreed with me how backwards the system is. We talked for a bit before I left to go to White Marsh. So it's not just CompUSA that has (had) this insane policy. Major retailers also pursue this flawed thought process.
Just as others on here say they don't frequent certain stores for various reasons, I don't bother going to Macy's or any of the major stores since their buyers are too stupid to listen to their customers. And yes, I have written to them telling them I'm no longer shopping at their store and the reason why.
I was going to add a final sentence to my original post to the effect that the times I've actually needed a cell phone I can count on one hand, and your example is one of those situations.
While I'm not married (no women with a sense of humor around here among other things), there have been a few times, usually at the grocery store, when I see something that I know my parents like and then would like to have had a cell phone to call them and find out if they need some. As it stands now, I have to wait until I get home, call them and let them know about it if they are out and about without making a special trip or ask if I should stop by the next night after work and get it for them (the store is on my way home).
Cell Phones have become a necessity, like it or not.
No, they haven't. Folks like Verizon/Cingular/whomever have spent millions convincing people that cell phones are a necessity when in reality they are not. As the poster above you intimated, there are those who get along quite well without a cell phone and for whom one is not remotely necessary.
The vast majority of people who think they need a cell phone are the same ones I hear in a grocery store or mall having the following conversation:
"Uh huh. Yeah. We saw that. I told her not to do it but she don't lis'n. Uh huh. Yeaahhh. I like dat. Oops! Sorry, didn't see you there. Just ran into something because I'm talking to you. Heh heh."
There are very, very, VERY few people who specifically need a cell phone. Those that think they need one would be very surprised to find out how few "necessity" calls they make in a week if they would keep track of their calls.
more problems getting PDFs to print than any other format.
Explain how this is possible when the purpose of a pdf is to keep the original formatting of the document and be able to be printed and still retain that formatting. The ONLY problem I have ever encountered with pdf files is on a Lexmark printer where I had to set it to print pdfs as an image file. Other than that, no problems whatsoever.
For the record, my last job involved maintaining over 800 printers across the entire state with Lexmark and HP being the most common but also Xerox copiers/printers and Imagistic (ewwwww) multi-function machines thrown in.
My current job has 1/3 the number of printers yet we still encounter zero problems with pdf files.
If you have problems getting pdfs to print, there is something seriously wrong.
Recently announced? I've had the announcement about Cornings new fiber in my journal since August. See for yourself. It was never selected so I finally put it up so you folks could be informed.
I guess I shouldn't be too harsh on the folks running this site despite the dupes as they seem to have gotten around to fixing their mod point distribution system.
Slashdot Mirror
Just pull out the physical paper ballots and count. . . Oh wait, no paper ballots to count.
Never mind.
To get a drivers license, one has to pass one or more tests which (supposedly) will demonstrate your grasp of how to operate a vehicle safely.
Personally, if someone wants to get drunk, get alcohol poisoning, run in traffic while drunk, dangle your girlfriend out a window, or do other stupid things, that's your business. I just don't want to hear what a good person Johnny or Susie was when they get splattered across the road or get run over or some other Darwinian death story.
The same thing with drugs. If you want to get high, overdose, run in traffic while high, etc, that's your business. The problem comes in when your actions affect others. Drunk driving, at any age, endangers not only yourself but everyone around you. Same with drugs. To keep their drug habit, there are those who resort to robbery which can have consequences both for the person being robbed but for the person doing the robbing. Death being the ultimate consequence.
That's what this all comes down to. At 21 you are (supposedly) able to make decisions as an adult which affect not only yourself but those around you (in reality you're an adult at 18 which is another fly in the ointment but that's another story). While there are those who can make adult-like decisions at 16 and others never become adults, the vast majority cannot make those decisions and so some restrictions need to be made.
It's the same reason insurance rates for teen drivers are twice the rate for those of adult drivers. On average, young, inexperienced drivers have higher accident rates than do people who are older and have more years of experience driving under their belts (some of them at least).
Because when an 18 year old votes, there is zero chance they'll kill someone due to their inexperience with voting. The same cannot be said of a 16 (or 18) year old who gets their drivers license and to celebrate, gets drunk and goes driving.
Yeah, yeah, parental responsibility and all that. As a recent article on here related, teen brains lack impulse control. They don't have the same reasoning capability as someone twenty years older. Here's the CNN article which talks about this subject.
For the record, roughly three times a week in my area there is a story of someone underage dying because they were driving drunk or someone who was a passenger in a car with someone who was underage and drunk while driving being killed. In fact, last year, there was a case where two passengers died in a car accident where the driver was underage, drunk and crossed into the oncoming lane where it ran headon into a minivan. A few of the people in the van died as well.
MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) was the driving force behind forcing states to raise their legal drinking age to 21 through government coercion (withholding of highway dollars). In theory, states don't have to have a drinking age of 21 but because states fund their operations through debt servicing rather than pay-as-you-go, they need all the money they can get and so go along with having a high drinking age compared to other countries.
You joke, but my parents know someone who heads a polka band (no jokes please), who, when he goes to Europe, takes nothing with him but the clothes on his back and his ticket. He buys everything he needs in Europe and leaves it all behind when he comes back.
We can't examine every container that comes into our ports or every package that gets flown into this country, but we're trying to examine every laptop that crosses our border? Great use of resources folks.
Besides, if they want to inspect my laptop (I don't actually have one but you get the idea), then I get to inspect their laptop. After all, if they have nothing hide. . .
I said it before in a posting and I'll say it again: I can remember a time when people would brag about being able to drive from state to state without having to show identification or worry about the government listening in on your phone conversations when comparing our country to the former Soviet Union. But now, it appears we've taken mulitple pages from their playbook and are following their example. Looks like at least parts of a totalitarian state have won out over freedom.
Go back to using IE?
Put it in an empty tube of toothpaste, a small bottle used for lotion, a remanufactured film container (not the plastic container but the metal one the film comes in) and a whole bunch of other places.
And you can't do the same thing with sodium and water or a hundred other items that can be brought on board?
I said it in a previous posting, but soon, the only way to get onto a plane will be like this.
I guess from now on one will have to register a name blind and see what happens.
being forced to replace something to save/conserve/curb energy usage with something that if it breaks, releases a toxic substance.
I'm all for saving energy when possible but with all the panic over lead in toys and other items, don't you think it would be nice not to have to worry about your light bulb breaking and having mercury come out?
No problem. Just put out a signal strong enough to block the cell phone signal. The people can still keep their phones, just not get a signal to use them.
When you say common sense, you mean the same common sense that people have when they weave in and out of traffic while talking on their cell phone, or drive with one hand at the bottom of the steering wheel while the other is tucked behind the drivers seat, or drive around signs that say "Road Closed" while water rushes over the street, or cause manufacturers to have to put a warning label on hair dryers which tell you not to use while in the shower, or standing up while on a roller coaster in front of the sign which tells you to remain seated, or telling someone as you point a gun at them and pull the trigger, "Don't worry, it's not loaded"?
Yeah, I know. Common sense should take precedence in all the above situations but people being what they are, common sense doesn't usually come into play.
How is it selfish if I don't feel I should have to pay for my next door neighbors health problems due to his smoking two packs of cigarettes a day? Why is his health my concern? It's his life, not mine.
And yes, I do know how much people have to pay for employer health insurance. I did a calculation in one of my journals where I discussed my recent (and only) use of my health insurance and how much it has cost both me and the taxpayer for my one time use (I work for state government).
Further, yes I do know that the taxpayers have to pay for people who wander into a hospital without insurance but require medical attention. My sister-in-law works at a hospital and we've had this discussion. I'm very familiar with what is going on in the health care industry. My suggestion is that those who have no insurance be put on some form of payment plan so the hospital can recoup at least a portion of what it cost them.
Even if the person can't pay for everything, they should be made aware of the costs associated with not making an effort to take care of themselves to try and prevent getting sick or injured in the first place. Certainly there are those exceptions where injury is unavoidable (geting hit by a car which runs a red light) but when the person comes into the hospital with an illness they've had for days and days, instead of having the hospital choke down the cost, they should have gone to a doctor for treatment, even if they have pay out of their own pocket. It is much cheaper to see a doctor and get treatment than it is to go to a hospital.
I'm glad you put free in quotes because quite obviously your x-ray and cast were not free. You, and the millions of your countryfolk, paid for those things from the higher tax rates you pay.
In other words, you're living a true socialist dream by having someone else subsidize or pay for your medical bills. Redistribution of wealth and all that.
But let's turn it around. Let us say for the sake of argument that from the age of five until the age of 70, you never needed medical care. You never broke anything, never had any serious illness, etc. Now, based on those 65 years of healthy bliss, do you think it is fair that you paid what probably amounted to well over $250K in taxes to subsidize someone else? In other words, you paid for something but got no benefit from your spent money.
I know people like to think that socialized medicine is a panacea but I don't like the idea of being forced to pay for something and not getting something in return. By the same token, I don't think paying huge premiums for medical insurance and then having the insurance company tell me they won't cover me for X procedure unless I cough up more money is the way to go either. Either you're going to cover me or you're not. That's why I'm paying you the premiums.
To see how really screwed up medical insurance coverage can be, read this story from MarketWatch.
Most buildings in the Antarctic are built on foundations which can be raised over time to compensate for both the sinking of the buildings into the ice (due to heat) and the covering of the buildings by snow and ice.
Roving gangs of starving polar bears finally cracked their nut?
Polar bears only exist in the Arctic. Penguins exist mainly in the Antarctic with a few that have evolved to live off the southern coast of South Africa.
Please hand in your geek card when leaving the building.
Yes. It takes about a 1/4 second for light to reach our eyes, travel through the optic nerve to the brain, be processed by the brain and then registered externally. In essence, everyone is living behind 'real time'.
As a side note, my local PBS station has been running their fundraising programs and as an inducement to contribute, they offered a pair of Blue Man Group tickets and 3 DVDs of Blue Man for a $250 donation. In between them talking, they were showing part of one DVD.
On the DVD, they showed a part of BMG's one show where on the screen behind the stage, they were projecting a discussion about our perception (with a voice over repeating what was being shown). They talked about how the cells in our eyes had to reset after use and so there were blank spots in our vision momentarily. However, our brain would fill in these blank spots to provide us with an uninterrupted view of the world. It is known as residual presence.
Thus, while we are living momentarily behind real time, our brain does it's thing to keep us functioning in our time.
The list is pretty good and I can say without a doubt I've dealt with all five users. Right now, the main culprits at my job are the Know-Nothings (the majority) and the Know-It-All (fortunately, very few). Of the two, the worst have to be the Know-Nothings who tell you they know nothing and are proud of it.
:)
"I don't know nothin about stupid compters and dont' want to. Just fix it."
"Not a problem. It's fixed now. In the future, don't press the shiny red button."
"Ok"
One week later. . .
"My computer's acting up."
Interestingly, our CEO admits he is not computer literate but at the same time gets out your way when you need to fix something. He's glad you're there and does exactly what you tell him to do. He listens to what the problem is and how you're going to fix it. He describes exactly what error he is getting and what he did. He's almost a dream user.
The second issue deals with me personally. As others have said, and as the article alluded to, we in IT, despite what we may think, don't know all the answers. I once said in an interview, "I don't let my ego get in the way of learning something new."
As a corollary, at work my motto is, "When I know, I'll tell you. When I don't, I'll find out."
Similar to what was said in the article, people call me directly or ask for me by name because they know I'll fix their issue and won't make them feel like an idiot. Unless they deserve it.
Maybe it's just me, but once people know that when I come to fix their problem it gets fixed, their attitude changes from grumpy to happy. They even tell me that (other co-worker name) was there and they're still having problems and are glad to see me.
Now if only the numnuts doing the interviews wouldn't lie to my face about a position being open I'd be able to impose, er, facilitate this same Mr Fix-It attitude on those I would be managing.
Correct
Although I can't remember if it was busted or not.
Yes, it was. Fantastically busted. Water is water and no matter what you do, including throwing a hammer into the water before you hit, will change its properties enough to influence the wonderful feeling of smashing into what will then be a hard surface when you fall from a great height.
And this is EXACTLY why the vast majority of people will never move to any version of linux. If someone can't turn their machine on and have it work out of the box without having to tweak their system to get video/sound/whatever drivers to work, they will not use it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, people have to tweak Windows systems to get it to work the way they want. That tweaking is mainly eye candy. It is not about getting video/sound/whatever to work.
I'm not saying there aren't people who won't want to or can't tweak a linux system with a bit of help. I'm saying that for the average person, having to add/delete/modify lines in some obscure file is not their idea of 'working'.
So what you're saying is we will now have zombie viruses?
To go a bit OT but still somewhat related, Macy's has this exact same policy. Why am I bringing up Macy's in a tech discussion? Because unlike the usual image of a geek (or geek in training), I don't have a deer gut and so trying to find pants/slacks/thingstowearovermylegs is nearly impossible. I'm at the bottom end of mens and too large for the top end of boys.
In one of my yearly pilgrimages to White Marsh, MD, I stopped at the mall in Towson for another store they have and wandered into the Macy's, hoping upon hope that maybe this store would have something for me to wear. After looking through over 100 pairs of jeans and slacks, not one was in my size.
The sales lady happened to see me put back several pairs and made the usual comment about not finding anything. It was then that I gave her my usual (polite) diatribe about Macy's, or any store, not carrying things in my size. It was then she said something which cleared things up.
The store used to be a Hecht's and before they were bought by Macy's, each region or even stores could place their own orders for merchandise. If something was selling well, they could get more of the product in quickly. If customers wanted something specific, again, they could order it.
Since Macy's took over, all the ordering comes from the top. They have no control over what comes in. The folks at the top look at what is selling and based on that they make their next orders.
I looked at her and rhetorically asked, "If they don't purchase items in my size, they never show up on the sales sheet, do they? And if they don't show on the sales sheet, they don't order them because to them, the product isn't selling, right?"
She just smiled and agreed with me how backwards the system is. We talked for a bit before I left to go to White Marsh. So it's not just CompUSA that has (had) this insane policy. Major retailers also pursue this flawed thought process.
Just as others on here say they don't frequent certain stores for various reasons, I don't bother going to Macy's or any of the major stores since their buyers are too stupid to listen to their customers. And yes, I have written to them telling them I'm no longer shopping at their store and the reason why.
I was going to add a final sentence to my original post to the effect that the times I've actually needed a cell phone I can count on one hand, and your example is one of those situations.
While I'm not married (no women with a sense of humor around here among other things), there have been a few times, usually at the grocery store, when I see something that I know my parents like and then would like to have had a cell phone to call them and find out if they need some. As it stands now, I have to wait until I get home, call them and let them know about it if they are out and about without making a special trip or ask if I should stop by the next night after work and get it for them (the store is on my way home).
No, they haven't. Folks like Verizon/Cingular/whomever have spent millions convincing people that cell phones are a necessity when in reality they are not. As the poster above you intimated, there are those who get along quite well without a cell phone and for whom one is not remotely necessary.
The vast majority of people who think they need a cell phone are the same ones I hear in a grocery store or mall having the following conversation:
"Uh huh. Yeah. We saw that. I told her not to do it but she don't lis'n. Uh huh. Yeaahhh. I like dat. Oops! Sorry, didn't see you there. Just ran into something because I'm talking to you. Heh heh."
There are very, very, VERY few people who specifically need a cell phone. Those that think they need one would be very surprised to find out how few "necessity" calls they make in a week if they would keep track of their calls.
Explain how this is possible when the purpose of a pdf is to keep the original formatting of the document and be able to be printed and still retain that formatting. The ONLY problem I have ever encountered with pdf files is on a Lexmark printer where I had to set it to print pdfs as an image file. Other than that, no problems whatsoever.
For the record, my last job involved maintaining over 800 printers across the entire state with Lexmark and HP being the most common but also Xerox copiers/printers and Imagistic (ewwwww) multi-function machines thrown in.
My current job has 1/3 the number of printers yet we still encounter zero problems with pdf files.
If you have problems getting pdfs to print, there is something seriously wrong.
Recently announced? I've had the announcement about Cornings new fiber in my journal since August. See for yourself. It was never selected so I finally put it up so you folks could be informed.
I guess I shouldn't be too harsh on the folks running this site despite the dupes as they seem to have gotten around to fixing their mod point distribution system.