: Oh, I forgot to add...
: Or, you could have been a friggin' "man" and kept trying the second call
: that patches you through until you get through to someone.
too bad you left it off. It would keep the Birkenstock crowd like me
quiet, and also stick a thumb in the eye of the fellow who spit his
pacifier out when he couldn't get some instant gratification because a
fair-minded company hired a hearing-impaired employee.
: Instead you take the time to get online and write an inflammatory post about
: people with hearing impairment. If you had spent that time trying to get
: through, most probably, you'd have gotten through before the post was done.
Agreed. I imagine the call was just being patched through to someone who
could transcribe it to a view-phone, and then the original poster might
have been surprised at how competently he would have been served. We're
all deaf in USENET.
: Note to Steve,
Before I begin my response, I will agree that the "evil" of driving to the
local EB was perhaps exaggerated, compared to the much more disturbing
intolerance that started the thread.
: Or, you can sit on a computer that during the course of manufacture polluted
: the environment with many solvents, and during operation burns electricity
: that most likely was produced at least partially through burning of fossil
: fuels. Also, the operation of the computers can produce the "bad" kind of
: ozone that...blah, blah, blah....the sky is falling....
Actually, the latest wave-solder machines are pretty damn clean. I have
the advantage of living in a town where the electricity is generated from
a naturally occuring reservoir (no dam) which feeds a small
turbine. There are no indigenous fish to this aquifier, due to our
altitude (1560m), so I can have a fairly clean conscience about my
computer use. :) (note smiley)
: Also, seeing that you are on the RAS newsgroup, I will assume you are a
: motorsports fan of some sort. If this is true, then unless you watch only
: solar powered car racing (or hydrogen), then you too contribute to dumping
: that ***into the air. I also doubt you wring your hands every lap saying,
: "oh no, there's another gallon in the air."
I do like cars. I feel like someone in a therapy group when I try to
balance my love of old sports cars (as yet unrequited) with my enviro
sensitivity. I think I will continue to feed my passion for autos, born
of childhood fantasies, by virtual lapping. R.A.S., and the sims that
inspire us, are good things. As for cars that really e*** me now; well,
the new Honda hybrid and Lupo 3L amaze me. I'd love to see (and everyone
will say I am a heretic) F1 pushed towards certain efficiency targets. I
bet we would see some amazing hybrid technology come off the CAD screens
really quickly if Ford was suddenly forced to combine brutal acceleration
with (relatively) improved fuel efficiency.
I also got a kick out of my old University's high placing in the
international solar race, but we won't go into the manufacturing process
for solar cells. And I did used to wring my hands when the F1 cars were
burning rocket fuel instead of pump gas. As I age, I am finding modern F1
more and more irrelevant, to the point that I am more interested in
reading about the engineering of the cars than actually tuning in a race.
: One lap in a race car puts as much "crap", if not more, into the air as one
: of my trips to EB. So I fail to see your point in taking the environmental
: high-road in this.
As does mowing the lawn, of course. My only point is that every one of
these actions involves a choice. I am not naiive enough to believe that
we could ever have a Utopia where nobody pollutes. Even if I convince you
not to drive to the EB, your neighbour will still get into their SUV to
drive to the corner store. However, if you make the choice, as an
individual, to not drive to the EB, you make a (very very) small
contribution to the solution. I grew up with a North American mentality
towards driving, partly because of the distances involved. Since moving
to Europe, I recognize that the (small, efficient, used) car that I bought
here is a luxury, which I use only when other forms of travel are not
practical. I cycle to work, and I drop 2000.- a year on a train pass to
get me around the country. In fact, I find my auto use dropping every
year, to the point that I will probably sell it. I also find I do a lot
more online and telephone commerce now, because in Europe one does pause
to actually consider how much it is going to cost (in dollars and
environmental impact - Milano just had a car-free day because they are so
polluted) to drive to the store. My point was (and I could have stated it
in a less combative way) that a telephone call, in this case, would be
much more ecologically sound, and that making these small individual
choices does make a difference.
: Point I was trying to make was that he was being small minded AND whining
: instead of being proactive in his attempt to get the information he needed.
True. Sorry that I deflected attention from this point.
: Unfortunately, I clicked my message out before I was finished with my post.
: My apologies.
None required, really. You didn't insult me in any way.
: Ian
Stephen
:>: Last time I checked, working at EB entailed much more than answering a
:>: phone. If you want to know if they have it, get your a$$ in the car and
:>: drive down to EB and ask the person face to face.
:>
:>Yeah, that's a good idea. Instead of making a 10 cent phone call, hop in
:>your car, burn a gallon of fuel, throw some more ***into the air.
:>
:>Stephen
:>
