I meant the "old downtown" section of a now "urban" metro area. The city is rather large compared to the downtown section. I would call the city urban. So I was narrowing my scope of concentration.
Perhaps I'm wrong. I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
OK, I know this is modded funny, but another true story from my past working at a local bank in the facilities dept.
We would get orders on occasion to clean out storage rooms, repo'd houses, old offices, etc. The problem was, usually there was a bunch of stuff and only one dumpster behind our headquarters. We tried the "fill the truck and cruise around and fill up some other branch's dumpster" trick, but that usually ended in shouting matches.
If we filled our dumpster, the cleaning people during the week would just toss the trash bags on the ground and make a huge mess.
What we started doing was, the big, bulky items like chairs, computers, desks, whatever....we would place one at a time on the sidewalk (we were located in an urban downtown area). The longest anything ever stayed on the sidewalk was 15 minutes. People would take anything.
It was actually a win-win for everyone, the people were happy, we were happy, the bank was happy. No one could sue (we figured we'd say the item was "stolen" off the sidewalk if they tried). This was not a sanctioned event by the bank, but they really didn't care because the task was completed (items disposed of).
So, especially if you are in an urban setting, try leaving it outside on the curb with a "take me" sign on it.
I think we're on the same page of music...I was implying the same you are...what if this trend continues? Then we're all screwed. I think you're also right that it's a bubble right now and sooner or later things will normalize. I read a story last week about Dell bring some of their help desk seats back to the US because of the India operations not living up to expectations. I think it was for the enterprise customers. My mother owns a Dell and had logged about 40 hrs in phone calls last year at this time going through their damn script of how to fix a modem they thought had a driver issue and turned out to be a hardware problem (defective). Most of the hours logged were with India.
I hate taxes, but your ideas are worth considering because something needs to level the playing field. I'll be damned if I let my tax dollars subsidize outsourcing and not raise my voice about it.
The middle poster (inode_buddah) was correct in pointing out that while some products are now made overseas, when can you remember a company lowering the price on any of their goods and NOT call it a sale or special purchase or whatever.
"Since you all are such good customers, and we are saving a shitload by making our product in [insert country here], we're going to knock 10% off the suggested retail price."
That's all well and good, but if your job was the one making the product at $1, and they decided to outsource it to [insert country here] for production and you're now unemployed and have no income, does it matter that the item which used to cost $1 is now $0.50? You can't afford it because you're worrying about your [insert payment schedule here] bills.
I am not a protectionist/communist/anti-freetrade person. I actually think capitolism is the way to go, but unless we get our act together and start inventing new technologies and exploiting them here, we are in for some rough times ahead.
Before my illustrative career in IT, I worked in the Facilities dept. of a bank (S&L to be exact). We were responsible for all sorts of things, one of which was transporting cancled checks to storage after microfilming, and after 1 yr retention, we would remove them and hand them over to a recycling company. Potential problems with the path the check took:
After microfilming, they were bundled into archive boxes and handed over to us. We hated that duty. At the time when I was there, we transported the boxes either in the back of a pickup truck or in a van. More than once, a cover blew off and scattered canceled checks down the highway. Yes, we stopped and tried to pick up the ones that got loose...but you know they were'nt all retrieved. Also, more than once after reaching the storage facility, the boxes would sometimes get stacked to high on the carts and I saw at least twice bundles of checks scattered in the snow-ladden street. Those were all retrieved, but God help the poor sucker that needed the original check for court or something. Hope that microfilm was of good quality.
During storage, access was restriced to Records dept. or Facilities...but if anyone in either dept wanted to go into the storage room, there was no checkin/checkout. Anyone that had a key had total unrestriced access to every box in there and the millions of canceled checks, account numbers, addresses, names, phone numbers, signature samples...you get the picture.
Probably the most troublesome to me was after the year was up, we would turn the checks over to some very scary individuals that worked for the recycling company. More than once I saw checks fall out of the barrels and be left in the street for anyone to pickup.
Now, before you all give me shit for not complaining...I did. I also tried my best to not let any of those things described above happen, but there's only so much I can do.
Eventually, I got out of there, the S&L was bought out and security was tightned up.
Don't EVEN ask about the executive area shredding we did (that we weren't supposed to do but the secretary was too lazy so she had us do it). I had access to the board of directors meetings as well as the hand written notes of the members. And I didn't even have to get dirty in a dumpster.
No, I never used that info for stock trading, never disclosed that to anyone other than my wife, and I destroyed everything I was asked to....mostly.:-)
I have Dish Network also, and was a big fan of the CCN network up in that same range of channels. They had a kick-ass series on PhotoShop that I wish I had taped (who knew they would drop the channel).
Now that I have a DVR, I've been recording all the lectures and other things that are of interest on the Research Channel, UCTV and UWTV.
I did use it, and actually it's probably my favorite dist from a performance viewpoint. The only problem I had was I had a very low end system (K6-2/400) and recompiles for XFree and KDE were painfully long. We're talking for the both easily a day and a half IF nothing went wrong (had a problem with Xlib once IIRC).
I know the parent is modded as funny, but I do watch it....at least when it isn't blazing by to fast to read. From my first compiles back in the 486/kernel 1.2 days, up to my current system.
First thing I do is recompile, to optimize and customize.
Then, after I reinstall because I didn't read the README or whatever and can't get my custom config booted, I actually slow down and check each option I pick. And no, I didn't save the original kernel or I would have used that. [think bull in china shop...rush in, cause havoc without knowing consequences]
Can't wait for my first attempt at the 2.6 kernel...that ought to be fun.
Ya know, if I didn't live through the late 90's, I would have argued that no one would go into business and set prices to lose money. Large established companies could afford to incur losses while gaining market share. Of course, that went out the window in the late 90's where new companies with deep pockets pissed money away left and right. So, I think I agree in principle with your statement for an established company, I do think it's rather stupid for a startup company...unless they have the cure for cancer or clean power, male pattern baldness, bad breath, etc.
However, having said all that, I still stand by my original statement that if you were in a seat on a plane going down and it was pilot action which saved your ass, you'd be more than happy to have paid more for your ticket than the theoretically cheaper ticket on a pilotless plane.
Well sure we pay the pilots....indirectly. The pilot wage is an expense that the company takes into account when they set the price.
The idea of piloted vs unpiloted planes is interesting, but there is no way I'd get on a plane that was flown completely by remote control/computer/whatever. I realize that a great majority of the flight time is under auto-pilot. I doubt they will ever find a way to replace the pilot on takeoffs and landings. Not too soon anyway...
You might want to read the parent posts...I was responding to the thread, not as a stand alone comment.
Paraphrasing the original poster, he stated that you weren't paying for a pilot when things go right, but when they go wrong. The next guy (who I quoted) said that we were overpaying.
Just try loading a few apps on there and see how much 256 gets you. Running Mozilla, MS Money and a few other things like anti-virus and whatnot, I am bumping against the 256 ceiling and into swap-land. Time for another stick of RAM
Yeah, but there are some accounts at some banks (Wells Fargo or First Interstate IIRC) that charge you to see a teller. They want you to do all your banking via ATM/online/phone. The thought is that to have face time with a teller costs the bank much more than having you talk to a machine. I used to work for a bank way back from'88-'95 and I remember this being a big topic of converstation.
I used to have the figures in my head, but I'm out of my mind right at the moment, sorry.
Slashdot Mirror
I meant the "old downtown" section of a now "urban" metro area. The city is rather large compared to the downtown section. I would call the city urban. So I was narrowing my scope of concentration.
Perhaps I'm wrong. I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
OK, I know this is modded funny, but another true story from my past working at a local bank in the facilities dept.
We would get orders on occasion to clean out storage rooms, repo'd houses, old offices, etc. The problem was, usually there was a bunch of stuff and only one dumpster behind our headquarters. We tried the "fill the truck and cruise around and fill up some other branch's dumpster" trick, but that usually ended in shouting matches.
If we filled our dumpster, the cleaning people during the week would just toss the trash bags on the ground and make a huge mess.
What we started doing was, the big, bulky items like chairs, computers, desks, whatever....we would place one at a time on the sidewalk (we were located in an urban downtown area). The longest anything ever stayed on the sidewalk was 15 minutes. People would take anything.
It was actually a win-win for everyone, the people were happy, we were happy, the bank was happy. No one could sue (we figured we'd say the item was "stolen" off the sidewalk if they tried). This was not a sanctioned event by the bank, but they really didn't care because the task was completed (items disposed of).
So, especially if you are in an urban setting, try leaving it outside on the curb with a "take me" sign on it.
I think we're on the same page of music...I was implying the same you are...what if this trend continues? Then we're all screwed. I think you're also right that it's a bubble right now and sooner or later things will normalize. I read a story last week about Dell bring some of their help desk seats back to the US because of the India operations not living up to expectations. I think it was for the enterprise customers. My mother owns a Dell and had logged about 40 hrs in phone calls last year at this time going through their damn script of how to fix a modem they thought had a driver issue and turned out to be a hardware problem (defective). Most of the hours logged were with India.
I hate taxes, but your ideas are worth considering because something needs to level the playing field. I'll be damned if I let my tax dollars subsidize outsourcing and not raise my voice about it.
The middle poster (inode_buddah) was correct in pointing out that while some products are now made overseas, when can you remember a company lowering the price on any of their goods and NOT call it a sale or special purchase or whatever.
"Since you all are such good customers, and we are saving a shitload by making our product in [insert country here], we're going to knock 10% off the suggested retail price."
That's all well and good, but if your job was the one making the product at $1, and they decided to outsource it to [insert country here] for production and you're now unemployed and have no income, does it matter that the item which used to cost $1 is now $0.50? You can't afford it because you're worrying about your [insert payment schedule here] bills.
I am not a protectionist/communist/anti-freetrade person. I actually think capitolism is the way to go, but unless we get our act together and start inventing new technologies and exploiting them here, we are in for some rough times ahead.
Before my illustrative career in IT, I worked in the Facilities dept. of a bank (S&L to be exact). We were responsible for all sorts of things, one of which was transporting cancled checks to storage after microfilming, and after 1 yr retention, we would remove them and hand them over to a recycling company. Potential problems with the path the check took:
After microfilming, they were bundled into archive boxes and handed over to us. We hated that duty. At the time when I was there, we transported the boxes either in the back of a pickup truck or in a van. More than once, a cover blew off and scattered canceled checks down the highway. Yes, we stopped and tried to pick up the ones that got loose...but you know they were'nt all retrieved. Also, more than once after reaching the storage facility, the boxes would sometimes get stacked to high on the carts and I saw at least twice bundles of checks scattered in the snow-ladden street. Those were all retrieved, but God help the poor sucker that needed the original check for court or something. Hope that microfilm was of good quality.
During storage, access was restriced to Records dept. or Facilities...but if anyone in either dept wanted to go into the storage room, there was no checkin/checkout. Anyone that had a key had total unrestriced access to every box in there and the millions of canceled checks, account numbers, addresses, names, phone numbers, signature samples...you get the picture.
Probably the most troublesome to me was after the year was up, we would turn the checks over to some very scary individuals that worked for the recycling company. More than once I saw checks fall out of the barrels and be left in the street for anyone to pickup.
:-)
Now, before you all give me shit for not complaining...I did. I also tried my best to not let any of those things described above happen, but there's only so much I can do.
Eventually, I got out of there, the S&L was bought out and security was tightned up.
Don't EVEN ask about the executive area shredding we did (that we weren't supposed to do but the secretary was too lazy so she had us do it). I had access to the board of directors meetings as well as the hand written notes of the members. And I didn't even have to get dirty in a dumpster.
No, I never used that info for stock trading, never disclosed that to anyone other than my wife, and I destroyed everything I was asked to....mostly.
I have Dish Network also, and was a big fan of the CCN network up in that same range of channels. They had a kick-ass series on PhotoShop that I wish I had taped (who knew they would drop the channel).
Now that I have a DVR, I've been recording all the lectures and other things that are of interest on the Research Channel, UCTV and UWTV.
Damn I need to get a life...
I did use it, and actually it's probably my favorite dist from a performance viewpoint. The only problem I had was I had a very low end system (K6-2/400) and recompiles for XFree and KDE were painfully long. We're talking for the both easily a day and a half IF nothing went wrong (had a problem with Xlib once IIRC).
I know the parent is modded as funny, but I do watch it....at least when it isn't blazing by to fast to read. From my first compiles back in the 486/kernel 1.2 days, up to my current system.
First thing I do is recompile, to optimize and customize.
Then, after I reinstall because I didn't read the README or whatever and can't get my custom config booted, I actually slow down and check each option I pick. And no, I didn't save the original kernel or I would have used that. [think bull in china shop...rush in, cause havoc without knowing consequences]
Can't wait for my first attempt at the 2.6 kernel...that ought to be fun.
I mean, if we're gonna pull out racist stereotypes, let's pull them all out, huh?
OK...if you say so...with tiny rice dicks.
Ya know, if I didn't live through the late 90's, I would have argued that no one would go into business and set prices to lose money. Large established companies could afford to incur losses while gaining market share. Of course, that went out the window in the late 90's where new companies with deep pockets pissed money away left and right. So, I think I agree in principle with your statement for an established company, I do think it's rather stupid for a startup company...unless they have the cure for cancer or clean power, male pattern baldness, bad breath, etc.
However, having said all that, I still stand by my original statement that if you were in a seat on a plane going down and it was pilot action which saved your ass, you'd be more than happy to have paid more for your ticket than the theoretically cheaper ticket on a pilotless plane.
Well sure we pay the pilots....indirectly. The pilot wage is an expense that the company takes into account when they set the price.
The idea of piloted vs unpiloted planes is interesting, but there is no way I'd get on a plane that was flown completely by remote control/computer/whatever. I realize that a great majority of the flight time is under auto-pilot. I doubt they will ever find a way to replace the pilot on takeoffs and landings. Not too soon anyway...
You might want to read the parent posts...I was responding to the thread, not as a stand alone comment.
Paraphrasing the original poster, he stated that you weren't paying for a pilot when things go right, but when they go wrong. The next guy (who I quoted) said that we were overpaying.
Given that, understand now?
Who said they were innocent?
"LOOK OUT NED, HE'S COMING RIGHT FOR US!"
And of course, I have to add this text here to get past the damn lameness filter....blah blah blah
But the question is, is it really worth it? Considering that pilots are just "along for the ride" almost all of the time, what's the cost?
I have a feeling, if you were sitting in 12A when the shit hit the fan, you'd be willing to empty your bank account.
A giant LASER on the moon...two of them.....We'll call them:
Moon Unit Alpha
and
Moon Unit Zappa
MUHAAHAAHAA....MUHAHAA HAAHAA
has to listen to you
is fearless
strong as an ox
doesn't talk back
Absolutely will not stop
Smart
very hard to terminate
Imagine the possiblilities....someone who can fix your car, clean your house, kick your neighbors ass if he f*cks with your garbage cans....
That's what I want invented.
how?
It's a God damn opinion piece...
Heh,
Just try loading a few apps on there and see how much 256 gets you. Running Mozilla, MS Money and a few other things like anti-virus and whatnot, I am bumping against the 256 ceiling and into swap-land. Time for another stick of RAM
I *think* the idea the OP had was the clueless would be price-consious and would instinctivly opt for the cheaper cost solution.
If the ISP's said "Hey clueless, we're charging $5 for port blocking, you want it?" what do you think the answers would be?
Now all those fucking Soccer Moms talking on the cell phones may actually become better drivers (increased mental sharpness, faster reaction times).
I don't want to be a dick,
but you mean weight would be a problem lifing off, not once in space...right?
Isn't Europe already contaminated with life?
Damn Europeans...
(Take it easy, just a little US-centric humor)
Yeah, but there are some accounts at some banks (Wells Fargo or First Interstate IIRC) that charge you to see a teller. They want you to do all your banking via ATM/online/phone. The thought is that to have face time with a teller costs the bank much more than having you talk to a machine. I used to work for a bank way back from'88-'95 and I remember this being a big topic of converstation.
I used to have the figures in my head, but I'm out of my mind right at the moment, sorry.
The Sun is scheduled to rise in the east tomorrow morning...
HA!
I have you beat...I used to do the same as you, no firewalls and such, but would chat on IRC w/BitchX as root..Beat That!