Plasma or Diamond?
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It's been said in advertising for a long time that diamonds are a girl's best friend. As a young man, I was worried about purchasing that engagement ring as well as various birthday, Christmas, etc. presents. The estimate I've always heard is two month's salary, which is a pretty good number. If you are making $50k a year, as I was when I first married, that's an $8k ring. A rather daunting number for a young professional.
I saw this article recently showing that modern women prefer tech gifts. That's both cool and not so cool. Cool because there's lots of plasma TVs or other cool tech gifts that are less than $8k. Not so cool because the price of gifts outside the engagement ring might be rising.
It's an interesting sign of our times that we are seeing practical, more information oriented things becoming important rather than material things. MP3 players, TVs, etc. being more valuable to the younger generations than gold.
It's a shift that we also see in the corporate world as well. Information and data are becoming way more critical than the physical assets they're stored on. Even more valuable than many financial instruments that companies use to hold their cash. It reminds me of something I read many years ago.
Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of MIT's famous Media Lab, wrote a book called Being Digital that I read almost ten years ago. There were a number of interesting things, but one of the stories he related was traveling to Canada for some event and taking his laptop. When asked by customs what the value of the laptop was, he replied "two million dollars". They were taking about and a little argument ensued, but his premise was that the machine itself wasn't worth more than a few thousand dollars, but the "bits", the actual information stored in the machine was worth millions.
At the time it made me chuckle, but as I've done more and more work for myself, especially writing, and carried a laptop around, I've appreciated his comments. While I'm not sure my writings are worth millions, they're certainly worth more to me than the value of the laptop. I could care less about the machine and easily replace it, but the information is valuable and I try to be sure that I have copies elsewhere of everything I work on.
It's an interesting time in our lives as we see the value and importance of information. Maybe some day we'll go back to dowry's instead of expensive engagement rings and you'll get to present your bride with a gift you'll both enjoy.
Steve Jones
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Some advice to young professionals regarding engagement rings. Stick with the ring, and avoid the trend toward technology, which seems to me to be barter of some kind. And that two month guide is one of the best marketing gags of all time, but nothing more. If you can't seal the love connection with a nice ring, regardless of its price, the deal isn't worth sealing. Spending 8K on a ring, any ring, is a bad investment for you, for her and for your long term prospects. Better to spend 2K and put the other 6K toward a down payment on a house, which will serve you much better in the long term, and if she's wrth the time, she'll appreciate your forward thinking.
I know that doesn't sound very romantic, but the point I'm getting to is that we've pretty much lost our sense of value these days. In the grey old days men used to pay to unload their daughters, and people married for the dowry. That probably didn't produce much worse side-effects than the overly expensive ring, etc., but none of these things is worth recovering as a standard practice in a society. It devalues the only real elements that impart value, which are the contributions of people, whether they be employees of otherwise.
And having lost 17 years worth of personal writing a few years back due to my own stupidity, I can attest it feels like losing millions...but, value is not really subjective when talked of as a measure: Point being, it was worthless to everyone else but me, and therefore objective value implies it was worthless.
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I like both Plasma and diamond. But my husband will never buy those things for me. He did not even want to spend $2.99 to buy a bunch of flowers. That's why I am working ever since I got married so I can buy my own plasma TV and diamond and anything I want.
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A diamond ring is easier to take to Mount Doom than a plasma display... should things go 'off' ...
And Loner, you might want to reconsider your choices of mates or at least the rules by which each of you play ... i'm not a marriage councillor... but obviously you both need to find out from each other what each other wants and and clearly without vindictiveness express where improvements can be made.... If flowers are a problem I cant wait to see what happens when 'real' problems arrise..
And Steve, I agree the code might be worth millions ... even billions but without the support system to keep it alive and in use .... it might just be 'LOGO'...
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I always thought that 2 months rule was an outrageously self serving marketing ploy. Seriously the price of a ring might better be put to down payment on a house or furniture.
Nonetheless, tech toys are hardly appropriate as an engagement symbol. They are hot for a few weeks, ho-hum in 6 months and trash within two years. At least a ring (even a modest one) can last a lifetime.
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-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
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Give me a diamond anyday, I'll buy my own Plasma TV or techie gift. It shouldn't be the price or usefullness of the gift, it should be the thought that's behind it that should matter.
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IMHO, any woman who would expect a man of modest income to spend twice his monthly income on an engagement ring is one to avoid.
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Fun article. My wife and I just celebrated our 5th anniversary. I just bought a brand-spankin' new 2006 Mustang V6. Given the choice of the car or the ring... well, I'm keepin' the ring.
Girls are just like boys in that, sometimes, you only really learn things by experience. She *likes* her ring, but she has already said things like "In hindsight, I'd rather have a smaller ring and a bigger house." But, if she didn't *have* the ring already, would she have appreciated the bigger house?
Why did I plunk down $18K on a shiny rock? Because if you're only gonna do something once... you might as well do it right. As a very positive side-effect, I'm never gonna have to upgrade.
Oh... and find the right girl instead of planning for failure.
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My wife recently had her personal laptop stolen. Someone broke into our house and took her laptop and her Bose SoundDock for her iPod. To Nicholas' and Steve's point, the laptop was worth about $900 (replacement value) but the digital pictures on it are priceless. The thief didn't care about the pics - they're worthless to him/her. Luckily I had recently taken a full back up, which was on CD sitting in a fireproof safe. The back up was a couple of weeks old so all we really lost were a few e-mails and a few pics (10 or so) that were uploaded after the last back up.
I'm now shopping for a new laptop. I'm also going to add some network attached storage (behind a locked closet) so I can automate the backup process. This should result in more frequent backups and reduce the chances of lost data. Though I'll have to figure out how to protect against fire. I'm also considering putting the My Documents folder on the NAS so there is little to no personal data on the actual laptop. My wife primarily uses the laptop at home so not having local data isn't a major problem. This way if the laptop is every stolen there won't be much personal data on it at all.
I haven't looked into any of the online backup solutions. If anyone has any thoughts feel free to email me.
Cheers,
Dan
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A plasma tv will be obsolete in 2 to 3 years and broken in 4 to 6. Diamonds are forever. The $17K spent on wedding rings is cheaper than it would be to keep her in plasma tv's for the rest of her life. Not to mention the fact that I'm the only one that wants a plasma tv.
My blog: SQL Soldier[/url]
SQL Server Best Practices: SQL Server Best Practices
Twitter: @SQLSoldier
My book: Pro SQL Server 2008 Mirroring[/url]
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Database Engineer at BlueMountain Capital Management[/url] -
I have to agree with the general trend in this thread. A ring will outlast almost any cool technology currently available. Also the ring doesn't have to be large and expensive. It took my wife several days (prior to our wedding) to convince me that she wanted a small fairly inexpensive ring rather than an oversized diamond ring. It costed less than a months pay for me and I was sure she wouldn't be happy with something so cheap. Fortunately for me, I let her make the final decision.
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Ring is special and also it on her all the time.when we got engaged i did not realize this as i never gave her a ring other a 400$ cheap one i got her on our first year anv.
anyway , next weeked we were out in a party and she did wear it and never asked me for more but heck i was embrassed at people wanting to see the damn ring.i went and brought a 3000$ ring the next day
.Nothing to do with her but my mom just gave me the eye as she looked at my new motorcycle and the ring.
we have been married for 1 year now so i am thinking of getting her a plasma tv a she wants one and she has enough jewellary .never skim on a ring please.
do not buy into the whole 2 month crap i was making 55k and got her a 3k[including tax and maintance crap added] ring which was good i think .
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Also to note, a diamond ring is a symbol of love, eternal and perfect. A tv is a symbol of laziness.
So what are you trying to tell your prospective mate? That you'll love her forever or that you're lazy and she should be prepared to do all of the housework while you watch football all day Sunday.
My blog: SQL Soldier[/url]
SQL Server Best Practices: SQL Server Best Practices
Twitter: @SQLSoldier
My book: Pro SQL Server 2008 Mirroring[/url]
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, Data Platform MVP
Database Engineer at BlueMountain Capital Management[/url] -
just get a diamond encrusted Tv and be done with it...
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Brilliant!!!!
My blog: SQL Soldier[/url]
SQL Server Best Practices: SQL Server Best Practices
Twitter: @SQLSoldier
My book: Pro SQL Server 2008 Mirroring[/url]
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, Data Platform MVP
Database Engineer at BlueMountain Capital Management[/url]
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