A Great Find & A Defense of E-Bay

From: Charles P. Hobbs <transit_at_lerctr.org>
Date: Fri Jun 16 23:36:35 2000

On Sat, 17 Jun 2000, Tony Duell wrote:

> [...]
>
> > If it does what you want it to do, keep it. An original PC/XT wouldn't
>
> Yep, that seems to be a standard viewpoint on this list. It certainly
> isn't the view of the j-random-public who insist on replacing computers
> just because there's a new model out, even though they still work fine,
> they still do the jobs they are needed for.

I'd like to get them to stop doing that with cars, except there wouldn't
be any good used ones for me to buy...


>
> > meet many of my needs right now, so I wouldn't use one except in an
> > emergency.
>
> It doesn't do that many of the jobs I need either. Which is why I have
> more than one computer. I'd rather have many machines, each one reliably
> doing a particular job, than a modern PC that does nothing that I want
> particularly well...

I have several too...
>
> [...]
>
> > > I see nothing wrong with printing newsletters on a dot matrix printer.
> >
> > I don't either, really, except the people have come to expect laser
> > formatting, photographs, etc. I guess you *could* do it with an Apple II,
>
> As I've said many times before (and will say many times again), I regard
> the content of a document as being much more important than the
> formatting, the printing method, etc. I've got books/manuals that appear
> to have been written on a manual typewriter that contain useful
> information. I've got plenty of documents created on DTP, etc, systems
> that are not worth the paper they are printed on. Guess which I consider
> to be more valuable...

I strive to create documents that both look nice and have useful
info, but that's just me.

>
> Of course J-random-public these days would rather look at the pretty
> pictures than read pages of text

Assuming they can read at all. We have signs in our library , for example,
telling them how to use various databases, buy a copy card for the
printer, etc. I still end up walking people through the process
every day. And I'm talking about Doctors, M.D's!

>, but fortunately, I'm not
> J-random-public ;-)

None of us on this list are, that's what's so nice about it. :-)
Received on Fri Jun 16 2000 - 23:36:35 BST