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Attack of the Clones to Cost Economy $300m
Audent writes: "Attack of the Clones may make you sick but according to this story, it will cost the US economy $300 million in lost productivity what with all the nerds calling in with a bad case of midiclorianitis. ...
Nerds and geeks and propellorheads are singled out as being most at risk. Take your medication now! dammit." A nameless reader also points to a review (looks like two, but only one is up at the time of this writing) up at http://www.pstwo.net/.
Congress just voted on a $31 billion farm subsidy bill which benefits mainly large agricultural corporations. Here $300 million is "wasted" over a few million people.
The argument in the article is fundamentally flawed. In the US, as in most countries I think, employees typically have a fixed number of sick days, vacation days and/or personal days. Claiming that Attack of the Clones will somehow increase the total number of such days taken in 2002 by a non-negligable number is just plain silly. If an employee doesn't take vacation or call in sick on Clone Day, then surely he/she will make up for it some other time.
26d6173bbc9af7cfdb7ce60600e6aded518bfe51acca9a84a
My experience is that the high tech industry is pretty laid back about time off. I'm confident that if I wanted to take the afternoon off for something I considered important that I could simply do so and promise to make the time up. Even more likely, I probably already put in extra hours the night before. I certainly wouldn't feel any need to lie about it. How easy would it be for you?
Miko O'Sullivan
At least not around here, as most of the geeks are unemployed, and those with jobs are too scared to play hooky.
A well-crafted lie appears unquestionable - Dama Mahaleo
I don't know if it is really all the much. If I am working hard on something and run into a brick wall (whether ir be work or homework, etc.) I find browsing the web, reading /. etc can sometimes help me get past that. It allows my mind to change gears for a little bit and some times help me to think of something I may not have otherwise. Same goes for any form of recreation. Just because I might spend 30 minutes reading /. at work, doesn't mean 'the economy' just lost 30 minutes of wages and productivity. It means I just took a break and solved a problem quicker than I may have if I had banged my head on my desk for those 30 minutes instead.
What?
What about all positive impact of the movie? I'm speaking of all the merchanise that will be sold, extra buckets of popcorn and large drinks, promotional tie-ins and so on.
Granted, most of the money will end up in George's pockets, but the middle man will still make a few extra bucks.
Even scarier, think how much Windows Soltaire has cost the economy... it's gotta be in the billions of dollars.
I have a shitty sig!
People need to relax, have fun, and enjoy life. That both makes them more productive when they do work, and it gives them a reason to earn money.
Companies prepare for this when they give you sick/vacation time. By giving you that time they've already accounted for the lost productivity and agreed to pay you anyway.
Everyone knows that vacation days are for vaction, and sick days are for when you just don't want to go in.
Shouldn't someone do a study of stuff like this when a Hugh Grant or Julia Roberts film hits the theaters and millions of housewives, secretaries and others flock to see it?
1. You can't compare those movies to STAR WARS. Nobody skips work to go see a Hugh Grant or Julia Roberts movie.
2. Housewives going out to see a movie helps the economy, it doesn't hurt it.
BTW, this "let's skip work to see Star Wars" is not just a geek thing. The Star Wars movies just brings out the geek in everyone, include your typical non-geeks.
"And like that
This article is ridiculous. Geeks taking a day or half day to watch star wars aren't any more harmful to the economy than construction workers taking the day off to watch a day baseball playoff game, or more likely having a hang-over from drinking and watching Monday Night Football.
Thank you Dave Raggett
I'm sure there's some academic terms for these, but some people(idiots) like to simplify the calculation without making proper assumption.
:/
They assumed that they must be doing something productive if they are not watching movies. Hell, they might spend more unproductive hours elsewhere.
Same ill-logic can be found everywhere. I saw in yeasterday's news the local custom confisticated piracy software which said to be causing 15 billions net lost of software industry. 15 billions! It's many times more than the total revuene made by all industries here!
It sounds like all people would buy a $5000 software if they couldn't find a $5 in piracy market. I know they should make it a big deal to attract public attention, but sadly some people(idiots) would believe these figures.
we'd all be walking on streets paved with gold.
While hallucinating from lack of sleep.
So what am I supposed to be doing to help the economy today, producing, or spending my income on leisure consumer goods? You can't have it both ways boys and girls.
Hey, I've got a neat idea. I'll just * do what I want.* I think there's a term for that:
Democratic Free Market
Man, we don't want anything like *that* getting lose in the American economy!
KFG
I have friends in the IT business who haven't been to work for about a year.
Not because they're waiting in line for tickets, but because they're unemployed.
I wonder how much that's costing the economy.
To me, the attraction of Star Wars was that a nowhere, nobody could make a difference. In the late 70s, that was something that spoke to a lot of us. One of the strongest scenes for me in New Hope was Luke watching the twin sunset, wishing he could be elsewhere, doing something that made a real difference, not just being another gear in the machine. (Yes, I know what Yoda thought of that)
Phantom Menace was, to a large degree, just entertainment, without that deep call.
I have seen all the trailers for EPII, and from what I've seen, there's very little of that call in there...but at least there is some of that "last ditch defense" feeling that I used to have when I thought of what the "Clone Wars" that ObiWan spoke of in NH was there.
Plus we get to see Yoda using a lightsaber. Is this a "short" lightsaber?
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
No, seriously. As far as I can tell, Jar-jar's only REAL crime was being the only character in the first movie with a personality of any sort (the fact that the personality in question was that of an annoying muppet only made this fact more painful, as it meant HE was the only character a semi-sane human being could relate to...which of course, nobody wanted to do...).
His speech and voice aren't really much sillier than Yoda's (and Yoda didn't even have the gee-whiz CGI effects to to keep him from being such an obvious puppet). His slapstick antics weren't really any more annoying than R2D2/C3P0's (heck, the "how rude!" schtick just REEKS of C3P0) were in the original movies...but in the original movies, the main characters HAD personalities that outshone the 'droids, so they weren't so "glaring". In TPM, it just made Jar-jar stand out way more than he would have if the other characters weren't acting like emotionless drones most of the time...
From the brief blurb in the review, it sounds like Lucas is still keeping Jar-jar in the "annoying comic relief" category (though for only a very brief appearance this time)...but I'd much rather they actually let Jar-jar develop beyond that. Seriously - if they let him hang around the other characters long enough, they can have him lose the more outrageous aspects of his speech, get a grip on his tendency to comically panic everytime something happens, and accomplish something once in a while. Or, perhaps he'll just get fed up with the abuse he gets from the alleged "good guys" and give in to the Dark Side - perhaps Lucas' "Big Plans" involve Jar-jar coming back as a vengeful Sith to kick everyone's butts for tormenting him in the first two movies while letting R2D2 and C3P0 do their thing without comment (evidently, they're back in this movie as well).
(If Jar-jar using Magic Force Powers(tm) seems improbable to you, take a look at this article. It may just be that Lucas overdid Jar-jar's "fool" act as much as he overdid the Jedi's "calm and cool" act in the first movie...)
Now if only someone will found the Association for Prevention of Cruelty to Comedy Sidekicks, we'll be in business...
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Slashdot causes at least this much in lost productivity, every week.
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