23 Jun
1998
23 Jun
'98
4:50 a.m.
On Tue, 23 Jun 1998, John Higginbotham wrote:
One way to look at it:
(If you don't mind analogies)
You have a cherry 1964 Corvette Stingray. Now you have two parties
interested in the car: A collector, who can't really afford to pay much for
it, but who would take care of the car and try to keep it in perfect
condition as long as he had it, and the other guy: Some snot-nosed teenager
(no offense to the teens out there!) who has a rich daddy, money to burn,
and is addicted to speed. This guy will go through 5 sets of tires in the
first month, leave the car out in the rain, get dents and dings all over
it, and generally drive it like a maniac. But this second guy is offering
10 times what the poor collector is offering. What do you do? What DO you
do? Sell the car, go out and find 4 or 5 stingrays in shoddy condition, and
start fixing them up, maybe give the poor collector a deal on one, keep one
for yourself, and keep an eye out for more rich kids to sell the other two
cars to. Everyone's happy. :)
Perhaps... It would appear though that the subject of this writing thinks
of this car as nothing more than a machine. No history, no meaning...
Just so much metal, fibreglass, and parts...
...and there are 'always' more out there... Whats one car more or less
in the remaining mix?
Did you make enough money on the deal to cover your time/effort in finding
these "4 or 5" others, fixing them up, and doing a favour for this other
collector? Just how long DID it take to find them? (and how much did
they cost?)
And what if perhaps there are NOT 4 or five more out there? (remember, we
are expanding the analogy beyond cars)
No flamage... just that the analogy does not work for everyone...
(new <somewhat non-computer related> example coming to my web pages
soon...)
-jim
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jimw(a)agora.rdrop.com
The Computer Garage - http://www.rdrop.com/~jimw
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