Slashdot Mirror
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/.
I'm sorry but if I'm not waiting in line for this movie, I'd just be playing solitairre at work. So really the economy is being spurred by me going out and spending money, no?
Enough to fund a small nation would be my guess.
yes i run a goth/punk/emo porn site.
the Republic, not just screw up the Economy?
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
Imagine how much lost nerd & geek productivity does Slashdot produce. It's scary to even try to imagine the number in $$....
;)
Challenger, Gray and Christmas based its projection on the assumption that a random cross section of the American population will see the movie
Great assumption!
The Searchers... staring Jar Jar Binks. The last scene, with his ears flopping in the wind standing in the doorway!
"She be comanch-a--wwooobbeeedo---!"
Someone you trust is one of us.
Congress just voted on a $31 billion farm subsidy bill which benefits mainly large agricultural corporations. Here $300 million is "wasted" over a few million people.
The argument in the article is fundamentally flawed. In the US, as in most countries I think, employees typically have a fixed number of sick days, vacation days and/or personal days. Claiming that Attack of the Clones will somehow increase the total number of such days taken in 2002 by a non-negligable number is just plain silly. If an employee doesn't take vacation or call in sick on Clone Day, then surely he/she will make up for it some other time.
26d6173bbc9af7cfdb7ce60600e6aded518bfe51acca9a84a
it should be Episode II : The Emperors New Clones
My experience is that the high tech industry is pretty laid back about time off. I'm confident that if I wanted to take the afternoon off for something I considered important that I could simply do so and promise to make the time up. Even more likely, I probably already put in extra hours the night before. I certainly wouldn't feel any need to lie about it. How easy would it be for you?
Miko O'Sullivan
I guess I should just get tickets for the whole office so that we can all conform to the norm.... I will even get tickets for the sales people... and that dude that seems to be tagging along who works for a ?telephone company?
At least not around here, as most of the geeks are unemployed, and those with jobs are too scared to play hooky.
A well-crafted lie appears unquestionable - Dama Mahaleo
"Anything is better than IE, and you can quote me on that." -- Wil Wheaton.
Why is it that there are always studies like this of the "geeks", but there's nothing representative of the other masses? Shouldn't someone do a study of stuff like this when a Hugh Grant or Julia Roberts film hits the theaters and millions of housewives, secretaries and others flock to see it?
What about take-your-daughter/son-to-work day? I wonder how much that costs us?
How about what it costs us ever time Clinton stopped to get a h$mmer.... If that's not a massive waste of cash, what is?
Isn't this just more geek bashing?
Osama Bin Laden could only wish. There are lies, damn lies, and marketing generated statistics. If there was such a thing as an "employment expert", I think they would have, by now, figured out the whole unemployment problem and solved it. Three hundred million bucks in lost productivity? The 9/11 atrocity is estimated at 1.2 billion dollars in economic damage to US worker productivity, not counting lost jobs, from what I have read. To say that Star Wars is going to do 1/4 of the economic damage as September 11th might send Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge's color coded domestic terrorism scale to RED causing him to ban all showings before 6pm local time.
Write this one off to cheap and easy journalism recycling a press release. If this is true, however, I expect to see George Lucas at Gitmo in the next month.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
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?
Let me (hopefully) be the first to announce that SlashDot discussed this when Episode 1 came out. Slash linked to an article that's still there. It talked about the same Chicago company, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, that publicised EP2 estimates. They were almost the same numbers for EP1.
_______
2B1ASK1
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.
make them attend Attack of the Clones???
You're more likely to end up experiencing the Attack of the Geeks! The high morale will only come after they rise up forming a rebellion and destroy the projectors and blow up the theater!
I stole this Sig
Does it count for lost productivity if your boss closes the company for the afternoon? I guess so. But I'm still looking forward to it...
>Yea, it is a cool picture but is the Count's
>light saber crooked?
There are several pictures. Just reload.
And as far as Dooku's light saber, it looks more like it has a slightly curved handle.
-l
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.
Yes I do
Maybe I will in fact continue my boycott of RIAA/MPAA.
I don't know. When Ep1 came out, one office mate took the day off to wait for tickets. Then all three of us took the day off to go see it.
As much as I think that Ep2 will be much better, I think that if Ep1 was a lot better the figure would be $600m.
Cost the economy??? I don't think so.
...when half of us are out of work anyway?
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
doing this all the time
shameless
tcd004
The thing is, if I go and see Episode II, and it's anywhere near as horrible as Episode I, I won't be faking it when I call in sick.
You can mulitiply that number by at least 10 people that won't be able to work without your help.
:)
Now Science Fiction Tax makes sense.
I don't know a whole lot about how this works yet, but it seems to me that in awarding sick days, companies would have already planned for this. Don't they expect people might take days off? This just happens to be everybody leaving on the same day.
I understand that other factors might be involved, such as not having enough employees available to run a piece of equipment, but that's not what they're talking about. Raw wage calculations should have been taken care of already.
Yes?
If sitting through Jar-Jar's scenes directly results in periods of prolonged wretching accompanied by violent mood-swings in a large percentage of Star Wars fans, does that constitute adequate grounds for calling in sick? I think it does.
It will likely be a slow day at work anyhow, what with all the IT types out of the building.
Or maybe the lone clueless guy left holding the fort in tech support will have to handle all the calls usually reserved for the whole department.
On the other hand, it is not like you couldn't arrange some vacation time or a personal day or something. I would think it would be worth it.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Starwars is that kind of movies that geeks and non-geeks can enjoy. So it makes a good excuse for a mini-social event.
:)
In my case, all the company is going at the same time (well those who are interrested) ( 20, people, easy to organize), it makes a social event, it reservces me the seat to the back of mine so that way if it's someone that I already know that is going to kick in my chair, I'll have full authority to choke him in his popcorn without fearing that the next 10 other people next to him are his street friends and are going to wait for me outside after the movie
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
and kill the page-widening troll while at it.
I'm thinking that the projected total of geeks playing hooky to go se AotC multiplied by the cost of admission to the theater would amount to greater than $300 million. I'm wondering if someone could provide an estimate on the total of geeks playing hooky and also obtain the average price of the movie ticket and then multiply the two. It will be interesting to compare the two numbers.
In Japan, they require by law that events this popular (Dragon Quest games) get moved to Sunday. Should we do the same?
30,000
/. about how George Lucas owes them a better movie
100,000 to wait in line
100,000 to buy action figures
70,000 to buy the special set of dvds with "never before seen footage"
10,000 to complain at
10,000 to cheer when the N'sync jedis get killed
10,000 to complain that my addition is bad when it's really just a typo
testing out my trending skills
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.
Unfortunatly, the brainiacs at the Edwards Irvine Spectrum 21 Megaplex in Irvine, California decided that this month and next would be a good time to transform the theater with the digital projector into a "stadium" theater. That means no SW:AOTC in digital there.
Works for me, even when I am in the office.
testing out my trending skills
in a related story, a $300 million economic boost was seen in the tech sector when /.'s servers went down for a day.
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 think that just three years ago, my employer would give everyone the day off for big events -- 2-3 times a year.
That company is long gone now--sold off--and all the people I know from there (as well as myself) have had big benefit cuts.
Gone are the days of the hope of Java and the joy of seeing a Kim Polese presentation.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Ron Epstein, owner of the Home Theater Forum has a good review online.
A choice quote:
I won't waste any time in saying that Attack Of The Clones is the most remarkable Star Wars film to date. It not only breathes new life into the series, but it brings us back to the original magic that made Star Wars a cultural phenomenon. It is ultimately the Empire Strikes Back of this new saga, that takes us to the darkest corners of the Star Wars universe, as we come face-to-face with the master plan of Darth Sidious.
After getting burned by Episode I, I won't necessarily be rushing out to see Episode II right away. Although I'm sure I'll see it not terribly long after it comes out.
But I will go see an afternoon matinee of Spider-Man on opening day (later today, Friday May 3). I've been waiting years for that movie. I grew up on Spider-Man (got my first Spidey comic when I was about 6). I just wanna say, the movie better not suck.
As for skipping out of work, I teach at Cornell. Fortunately, today is Slope Day at Cornell, the last day of classes. On Slope Day, all the students go get drunk on the big hill by the main library. It's quite a spectacle. Anyway, no one will notice/care if I take off early, and most of the students will be drunk on the slope, so I'm hoping the theater won't be too crowded (and especially hoping it doesn't fill up with drunken students).
(As a former Cornell grad student, I've participated in plenty of Slope Days myself. For this one, I'll check it out, but won't be drinking.)
My experience is that the high tech industry is pretty laid off.
c-hack.com |
Won't Star Wars make that money back? A lot of it will go right back into the economy (minus a hefty sum George Lucas will pocket). As shitty as Phantom Menace was it still made $925,600,000 worldwide. I think that more than compensates. Now there could be argument made that the world will become dummer from ditching classes to go to Star Wars (that's what I am doing).
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Here. There are also all the Star Wars trailers in the download area.
Click here or here.
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...
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
This is just another PR stunt by a firm to get lots of coverage by tying its name to the Star Wars brand. It worked the first time around and the numbers were shown to be wildly exaggerated.
0 .h tml
Episode I had 20 years of anticpation built up so the idea of people skipping out of work to see it was plausible.
After audiences discovered that Phantom Menace was less than spectacular it's doubtful masses of people will skip out of work to see Attack of the Clones a mere 3 years later, especially because it will be playing at every multiplex all summer.
Still, the PR stunt seems to be working the second time around because it is being picked up by various media outlets, including Slashdot.
Funny, since John Fluevog's Open Source shoes story over at Red Herring says...
'Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, cofounder of the open-source site Slashdot.org, calls it a "PR stunt. I ignore stuff like that."'
http://www.redherring.com/insider/2002/0424/278
This is the sort of people that run pstwo.net. Great folk, apparently. Very in-tune with netiquette...
Empoyment experts also estimate that sex costs the US economy over 1.4 trillion dollars in lost production.
Dallas-based recruitment firm Gray, Limp, and Lifeless Corp. projects that over 40 million man-hours per day are lost because
of fatigue and injury due to the previous night's sexual activities, and because of lost work caused
by thinking about sex in the forthcoming night. According to CEO Dick Lifeless, "Tens of thousands of sick days result from painful contusions and spained backs alone, caused by these slacker's propensity for wild, excessive sex".
Mr. Lifeless told Reuters that only technology firms were likely to be immune to the economic losses, because of the high proportion of geeks among staff, who were likely to be spending the night alone, eating pizza, reading slashdot, and web-surfing for pornography.
The US loses $750 billion in productivity and revenue every day due to employees going to the bathroom and refilling coffee mugs every day.
To counter this, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has recommended that all coffee machines include meters as well as toilets and urinals, along with seats to enforcing work ethics via electrode embedded toilet seats.
The rubber pants, cork, spackling and caulk industries have applauded this suggestion, foreseeing an explosion in demand for their products.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
I (when I had a job) always thought that sick days should be treated like holidays. I mean you get a maximim allowance per year of them, so why not use them?
You should be able to book them in advance too:
"Erm, Jack's taking that week off with 'flu, could you take the week after that ? Actually, if you wait until two weeks on Friday, I can let you have ten days off with prostate trouble. OK? I'll pencil you in..."
graspee
Slashdot causes at least this much in lost productivity, every week.
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
random recruitment agency exec #1 - argh! our revenues are through the floor! How will we afford advertising?
RRAE #2 - I know, let's make up some bullshit press release and ride on the coattails of the "geek culture" fantasy.
RRAE #1 - I love you, Phil
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
Unfortunately, I have to drive from Mid Michigan all the way to Ohio. Better start planning now :)
Yeah, who would have thought that the Valley View, OH Cinemark would have this capability? Not I, and I've lived in CLeveburg most of my life.
The downside is, if you go the the link, they DO offer advanced ticket sales, but only for confirmed films and showtimes. SWep2 hasn't appeared on their radar yet, apparently, because the website has nothing and they will give me no info on the phone. Come on; it's less than two weeks away!!
-Roger
SlashSigTheorem: Humorous, Political, Critical, Constructive- If you have a
And to back up my beliefs, I have two different non-SE widescreen versions of all three movies (notice I didn't say four) on glorious laserdisc.
So all those of you who still haven't seen Episode 1, come out of the closet and admit to the world: I am Jar-Jar free!
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
How many be were stimulated, in part, to become geeks because of movies from Luca, Speilberg and the like? The resulting technology boom more than paid paid back a few $300 million holidays, by a factor of 10,000 (3 trillion) or more growth in the economy. Bravo for new scifi movies to encourage further geekdom.
Basically, The thing run like this, The scene opened in an empty office will all these phones started ringing of employees leaving messages on answering machines giving crazy excuses for not going to work. ie I can't come to work today because my taxi cab was kidnapped by aliens etc etc.
Now, this is all fair enough untill the tag line, "WOMEN can not be expected to work will such and such sale is on". Until I saw that ad I thought feminists, were just a bunch of militant lesbians as much as the next guy. But somthing about that was JUST PLAIN WROUNG. No one should market anything by drawing a generalisation about a group of people. To say somthing like "such and such" is a bad worker becasue they are "such and such" is as bad as saying all black people are gang members or jews are all mean with money.
In our society it is the person that counts not who they are. It is the invidual who decides if they should take the day off, and not some marketing crap thay says your a nerd and thus your life is about Star Wars. Thus you will skip work to see this movie because it is your life.
This article is really just a piece of marketing, but insidiously it's saying people who know a thing or two about computers (who doesn't these days) are all over weight nerds who live with in their mothers basement, have no life apart from everquest, and are basically lesser to us jocks and should be mocked between classes at high school.
That this was mirrored on slashdot, demonstrates how deep this "sterotype" has become.
Pianist : Some jerk whos taught themselves how to type in rhythm
We started going up a hill and there was another busload worth of people at the next stop. The driver didn't even slow down. Then I saw something that I had never seen before (outside of athletic events and cops'n'robbers type stuff): Brazillians running! People were sprinting up the hill to get to their homes in time for kick-off.
The same scenario was repeated for nearly every game. When they won the tournament the party lasted for days. It was estimated that Brazil's GNP suffered a $2 billion loss because of the World Cup that year.
Luckily, or unluckily depending on how you look at it, the team isn't as good this year, people down there don't seem too excited, and the country will likely not lose as much money as it did last time.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Last I heard, That vacation time was something I was ENTITLED to. Isn't that already built into the cost of employment? What Wharton-school, scientific-management-worshiping monkeyf@#$r would consider a day off negative to the economy? I'd just take it another day, what's the real difference?
Next, someone will start whining about the incredible impact of weekends...
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
All those geeks refreshing every 5 seconds to get first post...
The people like me who are taking a legitimate VACATION day to watch the movie....That will not cost anyone anymore than if I were actually going on vacation....Well it will cost my kids a day of school, but hey it's Star Wars.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
You have a fixed number of sick days?!
Geez, you guys must really plan your illness well. :-/
Over here (UK) you take time off sick if you need to. Short term, it's not a big deal. More than a week and most places want to see weekly doctor's notes confirming the necessity of continued absence, but it's still paid if justified. More than a few months and pay usually starts dropping off, though some places provide insurance against salary loss due to long term sick leave as part of their package.
I had an unusually high number of days off sick in my first year of full-time work, about 3x the average person's, but all were legit and most were caused by a recurring problem that would knock me out for a week at a time. My boss understood that and, while expressing mild concern at a review, otherwise overlooked it. Since then, I think I've had consistently below average sick time every other year, so I guess it balances out in the end.
If anyone over here was caught taking a sick day for something as lame as this, or working out some sort of "quota" to abuse the statutory sick pay, I imagine it would (quite rightly) be grounds for immediate dismissal. After all, why the hell should the healthy people work harder to make up the shortfall from some lazy guy who's not even sick?
Then again, I s'pose we all get at least 20 days' annual leave, whereas lots of you guys in the US put up with some abusive number so small you can barely even have a holiday. I seem to remember being attacked by US-based employees over this before, claiming that I was lucky to get so much (in spite of the fact that most of the western world gets much more leave than the US -- it's not like I'm unusual in that respect). Apparently some of you guys go for a "don't get mad, get even" policy, but in your situation, it's hard to blame you.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I would have gone with midicloripenia, an unusual reduction of the midicloria (due to all the geeks at the theatre instead of work,) or midiclororhea, an excessive flow (from work) of midicloria.
And of course, if the movie sucks, all those poor geeks will return with midiclorodynia (should be evident from context.)
Who the hell are you people to say what I can and cannot use my days off for? This costs the economy no more than it would if I took the day off to shave my cat or have my brain pierced!
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
:(
hawk