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Benzene Production from Decarboxylation of Benzoic Acid in the Presence of Ascorbic Acid and a Transition-Metal Catalyst (pdf warning) from Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, May 1993, Volume 41, Number 5

.... Seriously folks, there have been big corporations and governments trying to influence the way schools go with everything from computers to food. Advertising brought into schools to get kids to buy things. Special interest groups spending money on things schools need to get a new generation of consumers interested in them.

Try:


* Discounts from Apple, Microsoft, etc on computers (I'd link, but I'm going to go with this as a given...)
* Coca-Cola
* Book It (Pizza Hut)
* A growing trend of commercialization of sporting events and buildings
* Large amounts of money being spent by religious lobbies to support Creationist teachings in schools....
* Large amounts of money being spent to promote evolution as a science teaching in schools
* Politicians getting involved in the above 2 items
* Politics derailing attempts to get anything done about improvments in materials and course work.

Where there is money and future political mindsets involved, people will spare no amount of money and/or stupidity on all sides of a debate. It's really too bad that politics and ideology wars have to get in the way of doing what schools should be doing, give the kids the ability to think for themselves instead of telling them what to think.

In most U.S. municipalities, the only way to change public schools is to move. Children are required to attend schools and many of these schools have Television (e.g. channel one) as part of the curriculum. See The following for details.
All communication devices will be used by criminals and scheisters. Telling people to unplug their telephone to avoid telemarketers, unplug the web to avoid herbal part enlargement popups, or turn off their television to avoid violence is sidestepping the fact that these devices should be useful for purposes other than crime and marketeering. The FCC has abandoned its role in helping to maintain this balance.

So, in closing. Downloading software is illegal. Fucking consumers is immoral.


Correction: Downloading illegally available software is illegal.

Case in point: I have a free, free-to-download test program available at my site (see sig) that checks if the PC you run it on is capable of running my retail program that is available for purchase there.

zerocool complains about high-priced (overpriced) software as is his/her right in the USA under the First Amendment to the Constitution Of America.

The reality: Software development costs MONEY and should be compensated for if desired by the creators of said software.

The facts....

The computer(s) the software is developed on costs money (unless said computer(s) were donated for free).

The electricity powering the computer costs money (unless it is being generated from a free and/or donated source).

The programmer(s) who programmed the software cost money (unless they are donating their time and skills for free).

The advertising for the software costs money (unless it is being done for free somehow).

The distribution expenses to distribute the software to the recipients cost money (unless it is being done for free somehow).

Companies and individuals have invested lots of time and money in the software they create and sell. They found needs/markets for certain kinds of software and wrote the software to fill those needs/markets. Big companies have to sell software for big bucks to recoup the expenses in creating, maintaining, and distributing said software. They also are entitled to profit from their software which should be reinvested back into the company--not wasted.

For example, look at the 'gross profit margin' on a retail CD copy of Windows: $179.00 or so for a round thin sandwich of plastics and metal that has an intrinsic value of maybe $1.00. That $179.00 Windows CD allowed everybody, from the end user/customer up to Microsoft itself, to profit and benefit from the manpower and technology invested in it to create it and to benefit from its power as a computer operating system.

Ok, let's cut to the chase....

Windows is a kludge, based on code dating back to the dawn of the PC era.

Microsoft is a monopoly.

Even in this environment, the customer STILL has alternatives such as Apple and Linux -- SCO problems with commercial Linux use aside (which can be resolved.

If you want to avoid paying for high-priced software, use cheaper/free software or buy/legally get for free the necessary software tools to write your own custom programmed software solutions.

To address the second part of zerocool's comment, I offer the the following as some of the societal results of 'people as consumers -- not customers'. This has created a desparate, adversarial environment in which commerce and 'consumers' meet in an inevitable clusterfsck....

Wal-Mart, their business practices and its consequenses.

Ad creep. Even on the Internet. a technique coined and first implemented in 1996.

Email spam.

Cokie Roberts tried something similar (putting on a coat and reporting in front of a blue sceen of Capitol Hill) years ago and got reprimanded for it. I think she may have made a remark about the weather there too. If she got reprimanded I think the radio reporter should too.

And funny you should mention Dan Rather, he got in a controversy too for reporting in front of a digitaly altered Times Sqaure, link.

Wow. All of those had terrible effects, and Foodfight is little more than a huge ol' advertisement with bad graphics (from what I last saw.) Seriously, it's evil.

That's funny. A big question that has been on my mind recently is "Why do the cinemas think they have the right to show *any* advertising before the movie, basically lying to me, the customer, about the movie's actual start time?" I paid a huge admission price, for 's sake! Not to mention the lofty prices for the refreshments! If that revenue can't keep them going, then maybe they shouldn't be in business to begin with.

Am I the only one who actually feels economically insulted/assaulted by having to sit through these ads?

Check out Commercial Alert for their ongoing campaign against commericials before and during movies and other rampant commercialism.

I'm still haunted by the rampant, conspicuous product placement in Mission to Mars, a crap film otherwise but even crappier with all the ads.

• Success Sells.

  For over 200 years, the United States Postal Service is the brand that has been built on trust and service.

  Now we're selling our unique space. Think of us as your Multi-channel Communications Service. Marketers can get the visibility and reach through the Postal Ad Network.

  Place your big message on our trucks, collection boxes and even in our postal facilities. Or small space ads on our stamp packages and banner ads on our website.

There's opposition to the USPS selling out like this.

Well I thought your post was perfectly clear :-)

As to the complaint to the FTC - I think this is the relevant part:

Not all search engine companies have adopted deceptive advertising practices. For example, Google clearly notes that its paid placements are "Sponsored Links," and it will not put paid ads within its search results. "We have no plans for a paid inclusion program," Google spokesperson Cindy McCaffrey told SearchEngineWatch.com. "[O]ur search results represent our editorial integrity, and we have no plans to alter our automated process, which works very well in gathering information and delivering highly relevant results,"(4) she said.

from here

Don't think they could be intentionally misleading people? I've met people who didn't know the "click here to optimize your internet connection!" button was an ad the first time they saw it. I've also met people who have a hard time distinguishing between icons in their web browser and icons on the web page. This is much more subtle than either of those examples.

Don't think this is something the FTC would bother intervening in? The complaint has a little section entitled "The FTC Has Repeatedly Sought to Stop Companies From Concealing That Their Ads Are Ads", in which they argue that point as well.

It's a very simple three point argument, summarized with bold headings above each of the points. So there's my simple pitch for reading the complaint. I think you'll find it interesting and informative, and it will take less time to read than it's taken you to get this far.

To get back to the initial post, suffice it to say that the Commercial Alert complaint is obviously not asserting that paying search engines for targeted advertisements is wrong.

....seems to be more of an advertisment for Commercial Alert's website and what they do.

"This is just the latest example of how advertising is creeping into every nook and cranny of our lives and culture," Ruskin said. "Americans are tired of it, and the backlash is growing."