Slashdot Mirror

That slashdot and other OSDN sites bear the main responsibility for generating revenue. Slashdot in particular as it's frequented by so many people daily. One way to do it may be to insert some extra data (such as tags) into comments and help boost revenue and creating some subtle albeit effective advertising. Something akin to SmartTags should go a long way towards compensating for the cut revenue from hardware sales. How big a job would it be to implement that in slashcode?

This link might be useful very soon for you and the rest of the /. staff! Consider it a token of my appreciation.

Gospelfest

McBaby

McBacon

McBurger

McBus

McCafe

MCDirect Shares

McDouble

McDrive

McFamily

McFranchise

McHero

McKroket

McMaco

McNifica

McOz

Teriyaki McBurger

Vegi Mac

at one time i know they had McLobster listed, but i couldn't find it anymore.

Renowned American company, with business open anywhere in the world, you might even choose to work in Moscow or Peking if you like !

I assume you already knew about Hamburger University, but hey, just in case you didn't..

Hamburger University

I've cruised the campus before, it's very nice--even has a full golf course. They actually do have courses on Working the Fry Basket, although they don't offer them as distance-learning :)

-gleam

http://www.mcdonalds.com/legal/legal.html
Scroll down to the tradmark info, listed in alphabetical order. Smile isn't one of them, but "We love to see you smile" is.

I haven't seen the cup, but I hope you're not referring to their saying "We love to see you smile". Isn't that the correct trademark?
http://www.mcdonalds.com/countries/usa/whatsnew/sm ile/index.html

I agree that not all programmers live in silicon valley, but they do all have more money than they *need*. And in the situation I was referring to, the programmer was able to afford a computer, an internet connection, and the time to write a program without any guarantee of payment. I'll make the not-so-bold-in-my-opinion statement that anyone who does that is not starving to death. In case I'm wrong, I'd direct that person to http://www.mcdonalds.com/corporate/careers/contact s/index.html

I understand if the programmer is saying "you don't have to pay if you can't afford it." In a situation like that, I'd probably pay (unless someone else was making an equivalent product for a lower price), that's fair. But if the programmer is saying payment is optional, I'm only going to donate my money if it's to a non-profit organization with a track record of using the money in a way which I support. Optional means optional, and if you tell me I don't have to pay, you have no right to get angry if I don't. There's a term for that, it's called passive-aggressive.

The more we stay silent, the more the companies begin to realize they can shaft us even more, increase their margins, lower quality on the product while raising it on the ad, until they sell us an empty box and we're convinced we're leading a better life because we bought the 'product'.

You're under the assumption that consumers believe the ads are representative of the true product. Personally, if there are people out there who believe that a MickeyD's burger in a TV ad is the same as the one you're going to get for $0.99 at your local drive-thru, then I say they're idiots!

First off, the TV burger is probably dripping with WD-40 to keep it from drying out, and the bun is painted light brown to keep any white flour spots out of the view. The onions are styrofoam, and the tomatoes are plastic. The ketchup is equal parts red food coloring and petroleum jelly (real ketchup would become extemely watery under the hot lights), and the mustard is the same! Now, does anyone really want that at their local McDonald's? (Note: I have no idea how McDonald's photographs their burgers, the preceding was a fictional hypothetical example. I do know, however, that they use Elmer's white glue instead of milk in cereal commercials (real milk would have a slight blue tint)).

So, I say, nobody (except the marketing guys) are actually being fooled here. And, if you buy the empty box and are "convinced [you're] leading a better life because [you] bought the 'product'", then haven't you got what you paid for? A better life?

In related news, McDonald's Corporation Executive Vice President Steve Barfly spoke to legislators on Tuesday regarding the escalating numbers of free soup kitchens in inner-city America.

"Soup kitchens are the destroyer of commercial food enterprises," Barfly said. "I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the food industry."

Barfly made his announcements shortly after confirming rumors that the Justice Department would be investigating their planned acquisition of Burger King, another fast food empire. Burger king announced last month that they would be stopping all of their donations to soup kitchens, but claimed that McDonald's was not consulted regarding the decision. Maggie Smith, founder of Charitable Look, said most cities with soup kitchens do retain some number of for-profit restaraunts.

"I think McDonald's is trying to paint the soup-kitchen community as being fascist; that all food has to be free, or none of it can be," said Smith, whose organization assists churches and community groups in setting up their own soup kitchens.

Barfly said he's concerned that the give-food away model could stifle initiative in the food service industry.

"I'm an American, I believe in the American Way," he said. "I worry if the government encourages giving away food, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat."

"We can deliver a tastier product than the soup kitchens," he said. "There is always something enamoring about thinking you can get something for free."

-----
"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."

Legal fans should check this one out too: http://www.mcdonalds.com/legal/index.html

The only person I can see caring about looking through her eyes is Martha Stewart, that way she can have one more way to be anal about wearing the proper colors for the proper season *blah*. Granted, seeing life through the eyes of someone else is interesting- but not for the simple fact that you could tell once and for all if the color accompanying yellow in McDonald's arches is Orange or Red.

"...perhaps the most remarkable human mutant ever identified."

Is it just me or have I been spoiled by X-Men? Whatever, I thought the kid at my elementary school with a sixth finger was cooler than this.

"...genetics dictates that tetrachromats would all be female."

Three words. Horney Heterosexual Scientists.

"Because of a well-known biological phenomenon called X inactivation..."

I was just about to ask if this involved X inactivation, although after they mentioned the green photopigments I wasn't sure.

Just as someone with normal three-color vision surfs rings around a dichromat on the Internet, a tetrachromat, looking at a special computer screen based on four primary colors rather than the standard three, could theoretically dump data into her head faster than the rest of us.

Yeah, well she still can't stand 4 feet from the toilet and pee in it.

(p.s. This was posted in black & white out of consideration for the dichromat audience.)

I Asked Jeeves, and found a nifty Mass Conversion Calculator. It claims that 244 grams is approximately 8.6 oz, or a little over half a pound. Hmm, weighs about as much as two quarter pounders from McDonald's (without the cheese, of course, since I'm allergic). It still seems kinda heavy to tote around in one's front pocket, but with that many features, sure! So what if only half of those many features work in my area!

Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net

Adam said that Mc Donald's serves Coke, and Burger King serves Pepsi. Actually, Burger King used to serve Pepsi, but switched back to Coke in 1990. (Burger King also served Coke prior to 1983 when it first switched to Pepsi.)

Just thought it was important.

P.S. I know this for several reasons, one of which is that the Frozen Coke is the only reason I ever go to Burger King.

McDonald's doesn't seem to agree with you. It seems they're still franchising like crazy. The McDonald's business model is founded on the franchise, and I doubt that they'd want to invest the time and money to put a system of managers, district managers, regional managers, etc. that would be required to run a "chain" of McDonald's burgertoriums. Why do the work when you can just soak em a percentage for the name?

Oh yeah, American values. A country founded by rich white lawyers and land owners so they wouldn't have to pay their government their taxes. This is what we (Americans) were from the beginning.

How does McDonalds sell billion s (USD) worth of hamburgers in non-US markets? If everyone hates America so much, why does everyone keep buying Big Macs? (or any other "Corporate Republic" product?)

I would gladly pay to send Jon Katz to one of those small precious countries without internet access that are so endangered by the "Corporate Republic", provided he promise to never come back. Go seek your "freedom" elsewhere, wannabe.

(Paid for by the Coalition to Point Out to Jon Katz that he is a Soft American.)

display in extenso the company's organigram but hide information on products

Since we're on the topic of Fast Food, I thought I'd put in a link to www.tacobell.com. They have menus, and even Nutritional Information about their food. I think they should be commended on that.

Another thing, is McDonalds' website has a locater. Handy for when you're doing those special installs for clients out in the middle of nowhere, and you need to know where the nearest Mickey Rara's is.

By the way, the People Eating Tasty Animals site is up (I dunno if anyone linked to this on a previous story), at http://mtd.com/tasty/.

If Peta wins though, would that overturn peta.org's loss or help it on appeal?

The one McDonald's URL I found that would be applicable is here I was looking for an e-mail, because my complaint will be CC'ed to PETA.

I hereby propose payCmdrTaco.com to help Rob offset the burdens of having more money now that I will make in my entire life of flipping burgers for the Man/Clown. You, too, can help Rob for just 80 cents a day, or about $24 a month.
--

Lately I have developed my own personal theory as to why american compagnies (and their government) do things like this: They are not used to dealing directly with foreigners.

This may sound strange, but I actually believe this to be the case. Even though the US society is probably the most diversified one you can think of, the US population appears to be sadly lacking when it comes to understanding and accepting different cultural ways of doing things.

• Recently I saw a program on Discovery, where NASA had arranged 'cultural exchange' meetings, so that their engineers, who will work on the International Space Station, could learn the fine points in socializing with foreigners. Apparently the Japanese/American combination is an especially difficult one, but Eastern Europe/American is problematic as well. Expect a russian to ask how much you earn in a year during casual conversation...
• 5 years ago McDonalds sued a man here in Denmark for calling himself and his tiny sausage shop for McAllan (he had been a wiskey collector for decades). Ultimately the danish supreme court made a ruling (in Danish) in favoir of McAllan, which can be interpreted as 'you must be kidding?'. It should be noted that the danish media were unanimously on the side of McAllan.
• Whenever an american megacorp buys a danish compagny, they almost always make headlines when they try and dictate new employee policies without first discussing the new rules with the people on the floor. 'From today smoking will only take place outside the buildings.' is definitely not the danish way of approaching a sensitive problem. Nor is asking for what is considered sensitive personal data, like health or economich status, during job interviews.

The most amusing part about the Mattel case is, that the information they are trying to get hold of from the Swedish ISP probably doesn't even exist, and even if it did, it wouldn't help much. I have downloaded the CPHack code together with everyone else and their mother, and I cannot be traced. When asked my ISP has responded in their FAQ that they don't even keep logs of what contents which person download, neither through their dialup connection, nor from webpages they host. This kind of data is considered covered by the danish laws of the right to personal privacy. If a (danish) court ruled that *I* personally probably was doing something illegal, then *I* could be the subject of surveillance when online. Danish ISPs as a rule only log just enough information to be able to bill the right persons, that is all. I believe this to be the case in Sweden too, because they are even more restrictive when it comes to public access to 'sensitive' personal information. So, Mattel, you will at best loose track of me at a specific dial-in pool at one of the largest ISPs in Denmark. Good luck!

So now I am waiting for something like the DeCSS case to surface here in Denmark. I am in contact with a journalist of a small but very influential newspaper, and I have talked about these issues with him. He nearly keeled over when I explained the background for the DeCSS brouhaha in Norway. He didn't think they would have been able to get away with that here in Denmark or even in Norway for that matter, but apparently MPAA was able to put a lot of pressure on some insecure public officials up there. He has assured me that a 'Danish police abides US Court ruling' type headline would definitely be interesing, though a particular case should be examined carefully before going to press, of course. Will be interesting to see the outcome of the DeCSS case.

And now to something completely different: Fuck!

Would some kind sould please explain to us poor ignorant non-native english speakers why this word is so bad? For some reason americans tend to go ballistic when this word is used. Yes, it is a 'naughty' one, but this is the real world, remember? If I used something similar in danish when communicating, people would at most consider me immature and probably just ignore me.

--

McDonalds has announced its new educational "sue the dinosaur" program. Children from around the world will be able to participate in this activity. What is this world coming to?

Coke owns Pepsi.

coke also owns McDonalds, so i've heard.