Friday, April 29, 2011
New supermarket world to come
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Aldi, a new discount supermarket, opened its first NYC store in Rego Park Queens, earlier in the year, with another to follow in the Bronx. It is small, unobtrusive, less than one-fifth the size of a Wal-Mart, and not local, so why the Hi Sabina. interest?
Well it is different, using cost cutting technologies that should scare the pants off our familiar Food Emporium, Sloan’s, D’Agostino’s, and other large venues. Also, Aldi’s is the parent of Trader Joe’s, our already popular innovative market.
Supermarkets have traditionally been the pride of American capitalism, and their rich goods and opulent displays have turned refugees from all over the world into American wannabes. It may even be that USSR’s Premier and Communist Party’s all-powerful First Secretary Nikita Khruschev’s visit to Iowa’s cornfields and bulging supermarkets in the 1960s may have set the roots of the breakup of his inefficient Communist empire in 1989, but that’s another story.
We may be justly proud of our supermarkets, often the cornerstones of shopping center, with their ample spaces, carrying anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 items, backed up by huge food and agribus enterprises, employers of millions, their prices held competitively low by hiring migrant agricultural workers, The makers maintain huge marketing organizations, to establish brand names, produce shows and programs to push the brands, and maintain advertising agencies to utilize advertising resources, and law firms to defend the brands. The supermarkets are backed up by giant transportation organizations with reefer tucks, and strategic staging facilities, giant warehouses throughout the country, where producers deliver their goods, technology is used to efficiently stockpile and assemble truck loads for stores, permitting just in time deliveries, thus minimizing store warehousing. Altogether, a hugely expensive system with many redundancies in goods, stocking, loading and warehousing.
Around 1940 in Germany some innovators, the Albrecht brothers, took over their mother’s grocery and started to modernize the operation, so successfully that now they own the world’s eighth –largest supermarket chain, 8.000 units, including 1,000 stores in the US, started in 1976 and growing, with US stores responsible for 10 percent, or $6.5B of Aldi’s gross. How do they do it?
To begin, the stores stock only 1,500 items or products, not neglecting any of the food and cleaning items; but instead of carrying , say, five major coffee brands and their regular, decaf, Columbian, Arabica, and half-caffeine varieties, constituting about 20 brands with storage, shelf space and pricing requirements, Aldis carry only two, regular and decaf. What brand? Well, their own store brand, the generic product. The same applies to all other products, the goods, whether soap or peanut butter, made by one of the large producers, anywhere. That free ride eliminates the sacred American branding, advertising and marketing overheads. The house brands take near-names and appearances of regular brands, and some few brands, such as Colgate and Splenda, continue. Unfair? Well, maybe merciless; capitalism can be really cutthroat...You have been introduced, gently, to house brands at Trader Joe’s on 14th Street, and have gained confidence in the overall store trustworthiness, softly prodded by the exotics, the new and interesting Indian, Italian and Hispanic products.
We have shopped at Aldi’s in Columbia County, 100 miles north, for five years, easily. It is in a modest income farming community served by two major chains, Shop-Rite and Price Chopper’s , and a giant Wal-Mart supermarket. The Aldi’s is an open shelf store, goods stacked in their boxes in their shelf or floor spaces, top cut open, also that of the box below, consumer ready, you take what you need. Frozen and refrigerated foods operations are more complex. Baked goods are from outside, and fruit are plastic-packed . The supermarket is run by about four youngish, well-paid athletic women, in a small shopping center. They receive the truck deliveries on sidewalk and take the cases directly to shelf, or to staging backrooms, pushing motorized stacking platforms.
Upon arrival by car, the shopper “rents” a shopping cart from a row at the entrance, for 25 cents, like renting a luggage cart in an airport. After picking the goods, you take your cart to a fast moving checkout , where your package goods are scanned in a second and dumped back in the cart. You and buy shopping bags or brown bags, or use your own, then move to the window shelf to repack your goods and take them to your car, then redeem your quarter (a little tricky, in a subway world). The store has no phone number, and keeps short one shift hours on weekends
Whether the NYC stores will have the space advantages available upstate is questionable. .Also, the labor intensive environment, saving on jobs by using generous space, may not be workable for the big cities. Our local 3rd Avenue Met store is small, and can utilize the sidewalk staging. Nevertheless, the US is bound to be one of the world’s chief food suppliers in the long run, thanks to our open spaces and good water, and the cost savings are good, to compete, also in technology and renewable energy. US cannot compete in manufacturing (we have high labor cost, low manual skills), in medical staff exports (e.g. Philippines, Cuba), in service call bureaus (e.g. India, Philippines; Ireland and the Caribbean have skill level problems), skilled metal technology (Germany), nuclear energy (France), manufacturing (China, Japan, S. Korea, Vietnam have cheap labor, good skills), carbon/oil (Saudi, UAR, Libya, Nigeria, Venezuela, Canada, Russia, Kazakhstan), Other agriproducers are Canada, Argentina, Brazil (also biofuels). The rest of the 180 world's countries have to find specialties (e.g. Finland, with cell phones, Niger with uranium), or develop more resources (e. g. Australia), exploit their tourism potentials, or lower their living standards and take low cost subcontracts. Facts don’t lie, dear grandchildren. Washington to copy/
Wally Dobelis thanks NYTimes and current news sources.
Aldi, a new discount supermarket, opened its first NYC store in Rego Park Queens, earlier in the year, with another to follow in the Bronx. It is small, unobtrusive, less than one-fifth the size of a Wal-Mart, and not local, so why the Hi Sabina. interest?
Well it is different, using cost cutting technologies that should scare the pants off our familiar Food Emporium, Sloan’s, D’Agostino’s, and other large venues. Also, Aldi’s is the parent of Trader Joe’s, our already popular innovative market.
Supermarkets have traditionally been the pride of American capitalism, and their rich goods and opulent displays have turned refugees from all over the world into American wannabes. It may even be that USSR’s Premier and Communist Party’s all-powerful First Secretary Nikita Khruschev’s visit to Iowa’s cornfields and bulging supermarkets in the 1960s may have set the roots of the breakup of his inefficient Communist empire in 1989, but that’s another story.
We may be justly proud of our supermarkets, often the cornerstones of shopping center, with their ample spaces, carrying anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 items, backed up by huge food and agribus enterprises, employers of millions, their prices held competitively low by hiring migrant agricultural workers, The makers maintain huge marketing organizations, to establish brand names, produce shows and programs to push the brands, and maintain advertising agencies to utilize advertising resources, and law firms to defend the brands. The supermarkets are backed up by giant transportation organizations with reefer tucks, and strategic staging facilities, giant warehouses throughout the country, where producers deliver their goods, technology is used to efficiently stockpile and assemble truck loads for stores, permitting just in time deliveries, thus minimizing store warehousing. Altogether, a hugely expensive system with many redundancies in goods, stocking, loading and warehousing.
Around 1940 in Germany some innovators, the Albrecht brothers, took over their mother’s grocery and started to modernize the operation, so successfully that now they own the world’s eighth –largest supermarket chain, 8.000 units, including 1,000 stores in the US, started in 1976 and growing, with US stores responsible for 10 percent, or $6.5B of Aldi’s gross. How do they do it?
To begin, the stores stock only 1,500 items or products, not neglecting any of the food and cleaning items; but instead of carrying , say, five major coffee brands and their regular, decaf, Columbian, Arabica, and half-caffeine varieties, constituting about 20 brands with storage, shelf space and pricing requirements, Aldis carry only two, regular and decaf. What brand? Well, their own store brand, the generic product. The same applies to all other products, the goods, whether soap or peanut butter, made by one of the large producers, anywhere. That free ride eliminates the sacred American branding, advertising and marketing overheads. The house brands take near-names and appearances of regular brands, and some few brands, such as Colgate and Splenda, continue. Unfair? Well, maybe merciless; capitalism can be really cutthroat...You have been introduced, gently, to house brands at Trader Joe’s on 14th Street, and have gained confidence in the overall store trustworthiness, softly prodded by the exotics, the new and interesting Indian, Italian and Hispanic products.
We have shopped at Aldi’s in Columbia County, 100 miles north, for five years, easily. It is in a modest income farming community served by two major chains, Shop-Rite and Price Chopper’s , and a giant Wal-Mart supermarket. The Aldi’s is an open shelf store, goods stacked in their boxes in their shelf or floor spaces, top cut open, also that of the box below, consumer ready, you take what you need. Frozen and refrigerated foods operations are more complex. Baked goods are from outside, and fruit are plastic-packed . The supermarket is run by about four youngish, well-paid athletic women, in a small shopping center. They receive the truck deliveries on sidewalk and take the cases directly to shelf, or to staging backrooms, pushing motorized stacking platforms.
Upon arrival by car, the shopper “rents” a shopping cart from a row at the entrance, for 25 cents, like renting a luggage cart in an airport. After picking the goods, you take your cart to a fast moving checkout , where your package goods are scanned in a second and dumped back in the cart. You and buy shopping bags or brown bags, or use your own, then move to the window shelf to repack your goods and take them to your car, then redeem your quarter (a little tricky, in a subway world). The store has no phone number, and keeps short one shift hours on weekends
Whether the NYC stores will have the space advantages available upstate is questionable. .Also, the labor intensive environment, saving on jobs by using generous space, may not be workable for the big cities. Our local 3rd Avenue Met store is small, and can utilize the sidewalk staging. Nevertheless, the US is bound to be one of the world’s chief food suppliers in the long run, thanks to our open spaces and good water, and the cost savings are good, to compete, also in technology and renewable energy. US cannot compete in manufacturing (we have high labor cost, low manual skills), in medical staff exports (e.g. Philippines, Cuba), in service call bureaus (e.g. India, Philippines; Ireland and the Caribbean have skill level problems), skilled metal technology (Germany), nuclear energy (France), manufacturing (China, Japan, S. Korea, Vietnam have cheap labor, good skills), carbon/oil (Saudi, UAR, Libya, Nigeria, Venezuela, Canada, Russia, Kazakhstan), Other agriproducers are Canada, Argentina, Brazil (also biofuels). The rest of the 180 world's countries have to find specialties (e.g. Finland, with cell phones, Niger with uranium), or develop more resources (e. g. Australia), exploit their tourism potentials, or lower their living standards and take low cost subcontracts. Facts don’t lie, dear grandchildren. Washington to copy/
Wally Dobelis thanks NYTimes and current news sources.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
New supermarket world to come - ALDI
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Aldi, a new discount supermarket, opened its first NYC store in Rego Park Queens, earlier in the year, with another to follow in the Bronx. It is small, unobtrusive, less than one-fifth the size of a Wal-Mart, and not local, so why the interest?
Well it is different, using cost cutting technologies that should scare the pants off our familiar Food Emporium, Sloan’s, D’Agostino’s, and other large venues. Also, Aldi’s is the parent of Trader Joe’s, our already popular innovative market.
Supermarkets have traditionally been the pride of American capitalism, and their rich goods and opulent displays have turned refugees from all over the world into American wannabes. It may even be that USSR’s Premier and Communist Party’s all-powerful First Secretary Nikita Khruschev’s visit to Iowa’s cornfields and bulging supermarkets in the 1960s may have set the roots of the breakup of his inefficient Communist empire in 1989, but that’s another story.
We may be justly proud of our supermarkets, often the cornerstones of shopping center, with their ample spaces, carrying anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 items, backed up by huge food and agribus enterprises, employers of millions, their prices held competitively low hiring migrant agricultural workers, The makers maintain huge marketing organizations, to establish brand names, produce shows and programs to push the brands, and maintain advertising agencies to utilize advertising resources, and law firms to defend the brands. The markets are the backbones of giant transportation organizations with reefer tucks, and strategic staging facilities, giant warehouses throughout the country, where producers deliver their goods, technology is used to efficiently stockpile and assemble truck loads for stores, permitting just in time deliveries, thus minimizing store warehousing.
Around 1940 in Germany some innovators, the Albrecht brothers, took over their mother’s grocery and started to modernize the operation, so successfully that now they own the world’s eighth –largest supermarket chain, 8.000 units, including 1,000 stores in the US, started in 1976 and growing, with US stores responsible for 10 percent, or $6.5B of Aldi’s gross. How do they do it?
To begin, the stores stock only 1,500 items or products, not neglecting any of the food and cleaning items; but instead of carrying , say, five major coffee brands and their regular, decaf, Columbian, Arabica, and half-caffeine varieties, constituting about 20 brands with storage, shelf space and pricing requirements, Aldis carry only two, regular and decaf. What brand? Well, their own store brand, the generic product. The same applies to all other products, the goods, whether soap or peanut butter, made by one of the large producers, anywhere. That free ride eliminates the sacred American branding, advertising and marketing overheads. The house brands take near-names and appearances of regular brands, and some few brands, such as Colgate and Splenda, continue. Unfair? Well, maybe merciless; capitalism can be really cutthroat...You have been introduced, gently, to house brands at Trader Joe’s on 14th Street, and have gained confidence in the overall store trustworthiness, softly prodded by the exotics, the new and interesting Indian, Italian and Hispanic products.
We have shopped at Aldi’s in Columbia County, 100 miles north, for five years, easily. It is in a modest income farming community served by two major chains, Shop-Rite and Price Chopper’s , and a giant Wal-Mart supermarket. The Aldi’s is an open shelf store, goods stacked in their boxes in their shelf or floor spaces, top cut open, also that of the box below, consumer ready, you take what you need. Frozen and refrigerated foods operations are more complex. Baked goods are from outside, and fruit are plastic-packed . The supermarket is run by about four youngish, well-paid athletic women, in a small shopping center. They receive the truck deliveries on sidewalk and take the cases directly to shelf, or to staging backrooms, pushing motorized stacking platforms.
Upon arrival by car, the shopper “rents” a shopping cart from a row at the entrance, for 25 cents, like renting a luggage cart in an airport. After picking the goods, you take your cart to a fast moving checkout , where your package goods are scanned in a second and dumped back in the cart. You and buy shopping bags or brown bags, or use your own, then move to the window shelf to repack your goods and take them to your car, then redeem your quarter (a little tricky, in a subway world). The store has no phone number, and keeps short one shift hours on weekends
Whether the NYC stores will have the space advantages available upstate is questionable. .Also, the labor intensive environment, saving on jobs by using generous space, may not be workable for the big cities. Our local 3rd Avenue Met store is small, and can utilize the sidewalk staging. Nevertheless, the US is bound to be one of the world’s chief food suppliers in the long run, thanks to our open spaces and good water, and the cost savings are good, to compete, also in technology and renewable energy. US cannot compete in manufacturing (we have high labor cost, low manual skills), in medical staff exports (e.g. Philippines, Cuba), in service call bureaus (e.g. India, Philippines; Ireland and the Caribbean have skill level problems), skilled metal technology (Germany), nuclear energy (France), manufacturing (China, Japan, S. Korea, Vietnam have cheap labor, good skills), carbon/oil (Saudi, UAR, Libya, Nigeria, Venezuela, Canada, Russia, Kazakhstan), Other agriproducers are Canada, Argentina, Brazil (also biofuels). The rest of the 180 world's countries have to find specialties (e.g. Finland, with cell phones, Niger with uranium), or develop more resources (e. g. Australia), exploit their tourism potentials, or lower their living standards and take low cost subcontracts. Facts don’t lie, dear grandchildren. Washington to copy, budget-cutters to memorize.
Wally Dobelis thanks NYTimes and current news sources.
Aldi, a new discount supermarket, opened its first NYC store in Rego Park Queens, earlier in the year, with another to follow in the Bronx. It is small, unobtrusive, less than one-fifth the size of a Wal-Mart, and not local, so why the interest?
Well it is different, using cost cutting technologies that should scare the pants off our familiar Food Emporium, Sloan’s, D’Agostino’s, and other large venues. Also, Aldi’s is the parent of Trader Joe’s, our already popular innovative market.
Supermarkets have traditionally been the pride of American capitalism, and their rich goods and opulent displays have turned refugees from all over the world into American wannabes. It may even be that USSR’s Premier and Communist Party’s all-powerful First Secretary Nikita Khruschev’s visit to Iowa’s cornfields and bulging supermarkets in the 1960s may have set the roots of the breakup of his inefficient Communist empire in 1989, but that’s another story.
We may be justly proud of our supermarkets, often the cornerstones of shopping center, with their ample spaces, carrying anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 items, backed up by huge food and agribus enterprises, employers of millions, their prices held competitively low hiring migrant agricultural workers, The makers maintain huge marketing organizations, to establish brand names, produce shows and programs to push the brands, and maintain advertising agencies to utilize advertising resources, and law firms to defend the brands. The markets are the backbones of giant transportation organizations with reefer tucks, and strategic staging facilities, giant warehouses throughout the country, where producers deliver their goods, technology is used to efficiently stockpile and assemble truck loads for stores, permitting just in time deliveries, thus minimizing store warehousing.
Around 1940 in Germany some innovators, the Albrecht brothers, took over their mother’s grocery and started to modernize the operation, so successfully that now they own the world’s eighth –largest supermarket chain, 8.000 units, including 1,000 stores in the US, started in 1976 and growing, with US stores responsible for 10 percent, or $6.5B of Aldi’s gross. How do they do it?
To begin, the stores stock only 1,500 items or products, not neglecting any of the food and cleaning items; but instead of carrying , say, five major coffee brands and their regular, decaf, Columbian, Arabica, and half-caffeine varieties, constituting about 20 brands with storage, shelf space and pricing requirements, Aldis carry only two, regular and decaf. What brand? Well, their own store brand, the generic product. The same applies to all other products, the goods, whether soap or peanut butter, made by one of the large producers, anywhere. That free ride eliminates the sacred American branding, advertising and marketing overheads. The house brands take near-names and appearances of regular brands, and some few brands, such as Colgate and Splenda, continue. Unfair? Well, maybe merciless; capitalism can be really cutthroat...You have been introduced, gently, to house brands at Trader Joe’s on 14th Street, and have gained confidence in the overall store trustworthiness, softly prodded by the exotics, the new and interesting Indian, Italian and Hispanic products.
We have shopped at Aldi’s in Columbia County, 100 miles north, for five years, easily. It is in a modest income farming community served by two major chains, Shop-Rite and Price Chopper’s , and a giant Wal-Mart supermarket. The Aldi’s is an open shelf store, goods stacked in their boxes in their shelf or floor spaces, top cut open, also that of the box below, consumer ready, you take what you need. Frozen and refrigerated foods operations are more complex. Baked goods are from outside, and fruit are plastic-packed . The supermarket is run by about four youngish, well-paid athletic women, in a small shopping center. They receive the truck deliveries on sidewalk and take the cases directly to shelf, or to staging backrooms, pushing motorized stacking platforms.
Upon arrival by car, the shopper “rents” a shopping cart from a row at the entrance, for 25 cents, like renting a luggage cart in an airport. After picking the goods, you take your cart to a fast moving checkout , where your package goods are scanned in a second and dumped back in the cart. You and buy shopping bags or brown bags, or use your own, then move to the window shelf to repack your goods and take them to your car, then redeem your quarter (a little tricky, in a subway world). The store has no phone number, and keeps short one shift hours on weekends
Whether the NYC stores will have the space advantages available upstate is questionable. .Also, the labor intensive environment, saving on jobs by using generous space, may not be workable for the big cities. Our local 3rd Avenue Met store is small, and can utilize the sidewalk staging. Nevertheless, the US is bound to be one of the world’s chief food suppliers in the long run, thanks to our open spaces and good water, and the cost savings are good, to compete, also in technology and renewable energy. US cannot compete in manufacturing (we have high labor cost, low manual skills), in medical staff exports (e.g. Philippines, Cuba), in service call bureaus (e.g. India, Philippines; Ireland and the Caribbean have skill level problems), skilled metal technology (Germany), nuclear energy (France), manufacturing (China, Japan, S. Korea, Vietnam have cheap labor, good skills), carbon/oil (Saudi, UAR, Libya, Nigeria, Venezuela, Canada, Russia, Kazakhstan), Other agriproducers are Canada, Argentina, Brazil (also biofuels). The rest of the 180 world's countries have to find specialties (e.g. Finland, with cell phones, Niger with uranium), or develop more resources (e. g. Australia), exploit their tourism potentials, or lower their living standards and take low cost subcontracts. Facts don’t lie, dear grandchildren. Washington to copy, budget-cutters to memorize.
Wally Dobelis thanks NYTimes and current news sources.
Labels: ldi, Trader Joe
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Home computer is no longer a simple box- APPLE
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
In the midst of US budget trouble, Libyan revolution and other FarEast upheavals, this family was having severe computer pains.
While it is hard to imagine life without technology (I mean IT), I’d really rather be free of it. The last few weeks we have been overwhelmed by multitasking computer decisions.
To explain, we have a HP Windovs Vista laptop, powered by Verizon DSL broadband, and the wireless accommodated by a Linksys (Cisco) router. Add to it an old Apple iBook, which depends on the Windovs machine for its WiFi wireless connection. We lost that connection, after return from a trip, and the problem had to be tracked.
The Internet Service Provide (ISP), good old Earthlink, legitimately refused to deal with the WiFi, pointing at Linksys and Verizon. After two hour-long bouts with Linksys in Manila and heavy software downloads, it was determined that a new M10 router was needed (I bought it next day).
Next day Verizon, also in Manila spent two hours on repairing its Ethernet DSL feed, also offering a new DSL/router combination to reduce the complexity. By the way , both the Linksys and Verizon technicians spoke perfect accent-free English (not a first in my experience with Philippine techs), and upon my hesitant questioning, the experts, all college graduates, told stories of having learned English in kindergarten, and speaking better English than their native Tagalog at their graduations. This is not unusual, the Philippines has supplied hospital nurses and physicians not only for the US but also for other parts of the world for decades, and since internet have expanded their exports with offshore phone help policy. This is how a country low on mineral resources and high op population density can build its export trade and build a decent GDP. Cuba has done it, since in the Communist influence years (remember Angola in the 1960s), with MDs combined with ideology. Ireland did it with for a while, with its telecommunications service centers, and India is a huge offshore IT service center vendor. US has to produce exports with technology, since we have an insurmountably high per capita labor cost. The party-politics motivated wishful conservatives who want to build jobs by firing government workers and teachers have lost their reasoning facilities; and even T. Boone Pickens, the capitalist who wants to cut energy imports with generating natural gas and windmill-generated renewables has opponents (hydraulic fracturing of gas is dirty). But I digress.
Having had trouble with Verizon wideband upstate, I thanked for their joint DSL/router offer , and installed the M10 Linksys. As expected, the Apple attempted telephone fixes did not produce WiFi; we bought a new MacBook, and it works.
At this time let’s talk of Apple assistance. Obviously, at the beginning of our lost WiFi reception troubles my first contact was with Apple phone support, in Texas, and they labored mightily to repair. Eventually the phone support gave up , and booked time for me at the Genius Bar, in Soho Apple Store, on Prince Street. Arriving there I was astonished to find a glass-walled light filled former post office with long tables. It had young receptionists in blue Apple shirts with iphones, who verified the appointment and sent me to wait at a bench before a bar with 20 technicians behind it, also blue-dressed. This office is quite a contrast to the old, time-honored Tekserve, the authorized dealer on 23rd Street and 6th Ave, with its long-haired hippies, for years the best trusted Apple resource. When called to the bar I met an affable six-year Apple veteran who looked about 20, and when I told the tech that the Apple AirPort – a network listing – did not recognize my connection, he tinkered. and it did. Alas, upon return home my network could not be tagged. It was at this point that the Apple telephone support first suggested that my AirPort card might be damaged, that it was no longer supplied by Apple, and a replacement MacBook might be called for. I had enough, and next day we took the 14th St bus to Ninth Ave, the other Apple palace in NYC, brought a MacBook home and it worked. Not without seething on my part – how did Steve Jobs the ruler of Apple choose to withdraw the replacement part support for the popular 2004 iBookG4 in just six years? Obviously, a marketing decision, to sell more iron.
In comparison, the great Microsoft Windows 95 desktops/laptops, fully supported 1995-2002, still continue to function throughout the country, because school budgets do not allow replacing. Both Windows and Macs came up in 1980s, the latter being more user –friendly because of the mouse and GUI (graphic use interface), but while Steven Jobs ran a vertically integrated OS, with only Apple software permitted for all operations, Bill Gates deliberately installed horizontal integration, with all manufacturers having access to Windows logic, so that support software and hardware packages from all sides could enhance the Windows operating systems. Hence Windows 95 still lives, while iBookG4 is doomed.
Wally Dobelis and the T&V staff wish Happy Holidays, Passover and Easter, to all of our readers
In the midst of US budget trouble, Libyan revolution and other FarEast upheavals, this family was having severe computer pains.
While it is hard to imagine life without technology (I mean IT), I’d really rather be free of it. The last few weeks we have been overwhelmed by multitasking computer decisions.
To explain, we have a HP Windovs Vista laptop, powered by Verizon DSL broadband, and the wireless accommodated by a Linksys (Cisco) router. Add to it an old Apple iBook, which depends on the Windovs machine for its WiFi wireless connection. We lost that connection, after return from a trip, and the problem had to be tracked.
The Internet Service Provide (ISP), good old Earthlink, legitimately refused to deal with the WiFi, pointing at Linksys and Verizon. After two hour-long bouts with Linksys in Manila and heavy software downloads, it was determined that a new M10 router was needed (I bought it next day).
Next day Verizon, also in Manila spent two hours on repairing its Ethernet DSL feed, also offering a new DSL/router combination to reduce the complexity. By the way , both the Linksys and Verizon technicians spoke perfect accent-free English (not a first in my experience with Philippine techs), and upon my hesitant questioning, the experts, all college graduates, told stories of having learned English in kindergarten, and speaking better English than their native Tagalog at their graduations. This is not unusual, the Philippines has supplied hospital nurses and physicians not only for the US but also for other parts of the world for decades, and since internet have expanded their exports with offshore phone help policy. This is how a country low on mineral resources and high op population density can build its export trade and build a decent GDP. Cuba has done it, since in the Communist influence years (remember Angola in the 1960s), with MDs combined with ideology. Ireland did it with for a while, with its telecommunications service centers, and India is a huge offshore IT service center vendor. US has to produce exports with technology, since we have an insurmountably high per capita labor cost. The party-politics motivated wishful conservatives who want to build jobs by firing government workers and teachers have lost their reasoning facilities; and even T. Boone Pickens, the capitalist who wants to cut energy imports with generating natural gas and windmill-generated renewables has opponents (hydraulic fracturing of gas is dirty). But I digress.
Having had trouble with Verizon wideband upstate, I thanked for their joint DSL/router offer , and installed the M10 Linksys. As expected, the Apple attempted telephone fixes did not produce WiFi; we bought a new MacBook, and it works.
At this time let’s talk of Apple assistance. Obviously, at the beginning of our lost WiFi reception troubles my first contact was with Apple phone support, in Texas, and they labored mightily to repair. Eventually the phone support gave up , and booked time for me at the Genius Bar, in Soho Apple Store, on Prince Street. Arriving there I was astonished to find a glass-walled light filled former post office with long tables. It had young receptionists in blue Apple shirts with iphones, who verified the appointment and sent me to wait at a bench before a bar with 20 technicians behind it, also blue-dressed. This office is quite a contrast to the old, time-honored Tekserve, the authorized dealer on 23rd Street and 6th Ave, with its long-haired hippies, for years the best trusted Apple resource. When called to the bar I met an affable six-year Apple veteran who looked about 20, and when I told the tech that the Apple AirPort – a network listing – did not recognize my connection, he tinkered. and it did. Alas, upon return home my network could not be tagged. It was at this point that the Apple telephone support first suggested that my AirPort card might be damaged, that it was no longer supplied by Apple, and a replacement MacBook might be called for. I had enough, and next day we took the 14th St bus to Ninth Ave, the other Apple palace in NYC, brought a MacBook home and it worked. Not without seething on my part – how did Steve Jobs the ruler of Apple choose to withdraw the replacement part support for the popular 2004 iBookG4 in just six years? Obviously, a marketing decision, to sell more iron.
In comparison, the great Microsoft Windows 95 desktops/laptops, fully supported 1995-2002, still continue to function throughout the country, because school budgets do not allow replacing. Both Windows and Macs came up in 1980s, the latter being more user –friendly because of the mouse and GUI (graphic use interface), but while Steven Jobs ran a vertically integrated OS, with only Apple software permitted for all operations, Bill Gates deliberately installed horizontal integration, with all manufacturers having access to Windows logic, so that support software and hardware packages from all sides could enhance the Windows operating systems. Hence Windows 95 still lives, while iBookG4 is doomed.
Wally Dobelis and the T&V staff wish Happy Holidays, Passover and Easter, to all of our readers
Labels: APPLE, GUI, Jobs, Microsoft
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Is the social contract still alive - Hobbes, Locke
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Yes, the social contract still exists, barely, one would admit, after the events of last week, where it took until the 11th hour of the crucial day, Friday the 8th of April 2011, to avert the complete shutdown of the government of the United States of America.
Social contract or social compact is the most basic principle of morality that we hold ourselves responsible for, whether or not we recognize it as such. It is that unwritten voluntary agreement that we mankind subscribe to, to surrender some individual liberties to our chosen rulers, and to behave in a mutually agreeable manner that the existence of society requires. It is truly mutual, and involves accepting authority but holding those who govern us to certain moral principles. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and J.-J. Rousseau are the modern authors (o.k., 18th century) who proclaim these principles, as necessary, to take us out of the anarchistic state of nature, where “life is poor, rude, nasty and short” and to create a society. The American Declaration of Independence has been the weightiest implementation of the social contract impacting lives on this continent (try to recite “when in the course of human events…” to prove it to yourselves).
We are confronted with breaches of the social compact constantly: in a simplest form it may be a hurried co-tenant who closes the elevator door on you when you are only ten paces away, or most complex, when unarmed Libyans (Tunisians, Egyptians, Tibetans) protest against government oppression by marching into the gunfires of dictatorial rulers. The anarchistic tax protesters of the tea party willing to destroy government functions (“shut it down!” shouted Rep. Mike Pence, R., IN) fit someplace in between. If the anger observed in protesters on television is genuine, some of it borders on pathological. There is a lot of lying and blame-shifting, and and cover-your –butt doubletalk prevails, as in the case of Michele Bachman (R., MN 6th CD), who . in an interview, claims a desire for compromise , and screams denunciations of the opponents in gatherings of the faithful. Whether the 87 new Republican congressmen elected on tea party principles were swayed towards the last minute compromise by re-election concerns, or by the persuasiveness of the media remains uncertain, but the gains reported back to them by the House Speaker John A. Boehner – cutting the US budget by $38 billion rather than $30 billion may have been impressive, and the surrendered financing for Planned Parenthood’s birth control therapy became minimized even in the eyes of some anti-abortionists. Certainly the media did a lot in outlining such losses as furloughing 800,000 government employees, shot-cutting veteran benefits and funeral expenses, closing 395 national parks and sending home the vacationers, involving closing of tour contracts, motel reservations and tourist enterprises, a vulnerable industry producing jobs and foreign exchange income. The objective of creation of jobs in the face of the closings became ridiculous, even to some fanatics. Even after the compromise, House Speaker John A. Boehmer’s statement that “We sought to keep government spending down because it really will create a better environment for the job creators in our country” is hard to swallow, given that most savings will come from firings of government employees and teachers. One shudders to think what the price will be when in mid-May the raising of the national debt limit comes up - a necessity, so that we can pay out interest on our $14.2 trillion debt, and to avoid a catastrophic collapse of the world's economy. The GOP budget planer, Rep/ Paul Ryan (R., IN) wants to repay $5.5 trillion in 10 years, but will use $4 trillion to reduce business taxes and thus grow employment. He will repeal Obama Healthcare act, shrink or privatize Medicare, Medicaid and other mandatory, but boost military spending. Unless Mr. Obama counters, our social compact will collapse. In all these years of reduced taxes for the rich, few (e.g. T. Boone Pickens) offered evidence of domestic employment gains . The billionares invest in FaR East industry, helping the trade imbalamnce grow.
The earliest expression of adherence to the social contract was probably that of Socrates (400-300 BCE) who questioned all men in their conclusions, letting his disciple Plato record the dialogues. Accused of destroying young men’s morality, Socrates was sentenced to death by an Athenian jury of 500, and chose to drink hemlock rather than be jailed or escape abroad, because he had chosen to live in Athens, and had to adhere to Athens law, as expressed by a randomly but popularly chosen jury. Humanity in general has mostly expressed its adherence to the social compact by revolution. Another philosopher, Hugo Grotius in 1625 explained that was war is justified, to defend individual rights, if an enemy interfered with them. Interfering may be punished, even if this meant to deny a monarch’s God-given rights. Even earlier, Fr. Francisco Suarez (1546-1617 of the Salamanca school) theorized against the natural law of divine rights of absolute monarchy. Much of the early social compact reasoning is related to the Golden Rule of Christianity, or Sermon of the Mount (“do unto others as you would others do unto you….), which has precedents in nearly all early moral or religious forms: starting with the Code of Hammurabi, the Sumerian dicta, Judaism (Hillel, most famously), Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and other Eastern forms.
Wally Dobelis thanks the NYTimes, internet sources and the sages at Baruch and NYU 50-plus years ago, who taught us to trust the social contract.
Yes, the social contract still exists, barely, one would admit, after the events of last week, where it took until the 11th hour of the crucial day, Friday the 8th of April 2011, to avert the complete shutdown of the government of the United States of America.
Social contract or social compact is the most basic principle of morality that we hold ourselves responsible for, whether or not we recognize it as such. It is that unwritten voluntary agreement that we mankind subscribe to, to surrender some individual liberties to our chosen rulers, and to behave in a mutually agreeable manner that the existence of society requires. It is truly mutual, and involves accepting authority but holding those who govern us to certain moral principles. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and J.-J. Rousseau are the modern authors (o.k., 18th century) who proclaim these principles, as necessary, to take us out of the anarchistic state of nature, where “life is poor, rude, nasty and short” and to create a society. The American Declaration of Independence has been the weightiest implementation of the social contract impacting lives on this continent (try to recite “when in the course of human events…” to prove it to yourselves).
We are confronted with breaches of the social compact constantly: in a simplest form it may be a hurried co-tenant who closes the elevator door on you when you are only ten paces away, or most complex, when unarmed Libyans (Tunisians, Egyptians, Tibetans) protest against government oppression by marching into the gunfires of dictatorial rulers. The anarchistic tax protesters of the tea party willing to destroy government functions (“shut it down!” shouted Rep. Mike Pence, R., IN) fit someplace in between. If the anger observed in protesters on television is genuine, some of it borders on pathological. There is a lot of lying and blame-shifting, and and cover-your –butt doubletalk prevails, as in the case of Michele Bachman (R., MN 6th CD), who . in an interview, claims a desire for compromise , and screams denunciations of the opponents in gatherings of the faithful. Whether the 87 new Republican congressmen elected on tea party principles were swayed towards the last minute compromise by re-election concerns, or by the persuasiveness of the media remains uncertain, but the gains reported back to them by the House Speaker John A. Boehner – cutting the US budget by $38 billion rather than $30 billion may have been impressive, and the surrendered financing for Planned Parenthood’s birth control therapy became minimized even in the eyes of some anti-abortionists. Certainly the media did a lot in outlining such losses as furloughing 800,000 government employees, shot-cutting veteran benefits and funeral expenses, closing 395 national parks and sending home the vacationers, involving closing of tour contracts, motel reservations and tourist enterprises, a vulnerable industry producing jobs and foreign exchange income. The objective of creation of jobs in the face of the closings became ridiculous, even to some fanatics. Even after the compromise, House Speaker John A. Boehmer’s statement that “We sought to keep government spending down because it really will create a better environment for the job creators in our country” is hard to swallow, given that most savings will come from firings of government employees and teachers. One shudders to think what the price will be when in mid-May the raising of the national debt limit comes up - a necessity, so that we can pay out interest on our $14.2 trillion debt, and to avoid a catastrophic collapse of the world's economy. The GOP budget planer, Rep/ Paul Ryan (R., IN) wants to repay $5.5 trillion in 10 years, but will use $4 trillion to reduce business taxes and thus grow employment. He will repeal Obama Healthcare act, shrink or privatize Medicare, Medicaid and other mandatory, but boost military spending. Unless Mr. Obama counters, our social compact will collapse. In all these years of reduced taxes for the rich, few (e.g. T. Boone Pickens) offered evidence of domestic employment gains . The billionares invest in FaR East industry, helping the trade imbalamnce grow.
The earliest expression of adherence to the social contract was probably that of Socrates (400-300 BCE) who questioned all men in their conclusions, letting his disciple Plato record the dialogues. Accused of destroying young men’s morality, Socrates was sentenced to death by an Athenian jury of 500, and chose to drink hemlock rather than be jailed or escape abroad, because he had chosen to live in Athens, and had to adhere to Athens law, as expressed by a randomly but popularly chosen jury. Humanity in general has mostly expressed its adherence to the social compact by revolution. Another philosopher, Hugo Grotius in 1625 explained that was war is justified, to defend individual rights, if an enemy interfered with them. Interfering may be punished, even if this meant to deny a monarch’s God-given rights. Even earlier, Fr. Francisco Suarez (1546-1617 of the Salamanca school) theorized against the natural law of divine rights of absolute monarchy. Much of the early social compact reasoning is related to the Golden Rule of Christianity, or Sermon of the Mount (“do unto others as you would others do unto you….), which has precedents in nearly all early moral or religious forms: starting with the Code of Hammurabi, the Sumerian dicta, Judaism (Hillel, most famously), Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and other Eastern forms.
Wally Dobelis thanks the NYTimes, internet sources and the sages at Baruch and NYU 50-plus years ago, who taught us to trust the social contract.
Labels: Grotius, Hillel, Hobbes, Locke, Mike Pence, Montesquieu, Paul Ryan, Rousseau, social compact, social contract, Socrates
