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McDonald's and Sony Offer Music Downloads
J ROC writes "CNet reports that McDonalds and Sony are teaming up to offer free music downloads to customers who buy a Big Mac Extra Value Meal. The offer, which begins on June 8, offers customers an access code to download one free song at Sony's Connect online music store. Hmmm, let's see, about 600 calories in a Big Mac, an average of 12 songs on a CD, so that's about 7200 calories you will need to consume in order to get an album's worth of music (and I'm not including the calories from the fries and softdrink). Does this offer also include a free gym membership?"
The free gym membership comes with the triple bypass.
Everything in moderation, even moderation.
No, especially moderation.
Can I supersize that?
I thought McDonald's was supposed to start promoting it's more healthier meals now? What's the point of tying that to a Big Mac extra value meal? They should put it with their healthier stuff to spark up sales of that since that's where their business looks to be heading...
Hmmm.
... Is the two-all beef patties song. Imagine playin that while rockin' down the highway.
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
Hmm, I think I'll take an extra portion of 50 Cent, some D12, and maybe some Boybands in there too. Oh yeah, and an extra large drink.
HAH! I just wasted a second of your life making you read this, but I wasted a minute of mine thinking it up. DAMN.
I'd rather pay the 99 cents and get it off iTunes, besides... I don't touch anything with "special sauce".
Is that with fries?
http://efil.blogspot.com/
Why not do that instead?
Clown. Hamburger. That combination alone is bizzare. Now we're supposed to think Clown+Hamburger+MP3 is sane?
With a pace counter, salad, water bottle and everything! That would be funnier if I was kidding.
I'm probably at the karma cap. Mod up a funny troll instead, it lightens the mood
That would be the most fattening CD ever.
I really don't think people would be buying their greaseburgers just to download a song.
Presently here, but not there.
Sony's Connect store is the one only offering the ATRAC3 format files, which is only compatible with Sony players.
I admit that iTunes is only offering DRM Protected AAC, which is almost as bad, but at least AAC has a pretty high quality. By comparison, ATRAC3 sounds like you're hearing the music through a tube. Not to mention that ATRAC3 has some of the worst DRM and restrictive software I've ever seen.. You have to check music into and out of your portable player device, I believe. It's just wacky as hell.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Customer: I'll have a chocolate shake, Don Henley's Greatest Hits, and, ummmm, The Eagles Greatest Hits to go, please.
McD: You want Frey's with that?
Sigh, not _yet another_ incentive for kids to eat unhealthy garbage and get fat. McD's could get better kudos by only offering it with "healthy" things like salad.
But wait, they don't *do* healthy things.
$ mv *.sig >/dev/null
Before buying any more fast food, check out Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. I'm reading it right now, it has lots of interesting information about the fast food industry that might effect your desire for their food.
Of course there is also Super Size Me the movie about the guy who ate nothing but McDonald's for a month & the effects on his body. I haven't seen it yet (I'm waiting to finish "Fast Food Nation" first) but I hear it's good.
Some time ago, there was a similar deal with the iTunes music service. See here.
would you like frys with that?
...remember good 'ol times when IP used to mean Internet Protocol....
Don't care for Brittany's music much but I sure would like to be the meat in her sandwich ;)
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
McDonalds and Sony are teaming up to offer free music downloads to customers who buy a Big Mac Extra Value Meal
This is sad, before I started reading the article the first thing that came to mind was making a joke that they would be offering free music downloads to customers who buy a Big Mac Extra Value Meal.
do feature a pedometer. So after you stumble to the emergency room during the major cardiac infarction, the coroner will eventually be able to tell how many steps you walked before your untimely demise.
..how long will it be, before McDonald's is accused of fattening people by luring them with music then?
http://efil.blogspot.com/
"Hmmm, let's see, about 600 calories in a Big Mac, an average of 12 songs on a CD, so that's about 7200 calories you will need to consume in order to get an album's worth of music (and I'm not including the calories from the fries and softdrink). Does this offer also include a free gym membership?"
You do not have to consume the food in order to get the free song. Therefore, your math is completely wrong.
"Derp de derp."
People were claiming that the computer itself would become the commodity and Net access would be the most important thing. Some companies even went so far as to give away free PCs when you signed up with their internet service.
It turns out that the stuff they were giving away for free was the stuff that had real value. The crap they were trying to make you pay for was the real commodity.
I don't see the difference between that back then and this latest P2P sharing scheme from Sony and McD's. I guess the biggest thing is that people really don't value music enough to pay for it, but that doesn't diminish the intrinsic value of the musical art.
In what dimension do Slashdotters care about counting calories? I'd have thought that the discussion would be about how to circumvent the Sony DRM. or building a beowulf cluster of McDonalds pedometers -- something more befitting of this community.
Be proud of the ketchup stains on your t-shirt, goddammit!
this will hit Mc Donald's hard: link
"I usually like mine with an angioplasty."
you know, they might actually be trying to reduce their Big Mac parts inventory (sauce and bun mostly). Shockingly, they've actually been trying to make some moves into the healthy market. Recent additions of the adult happy meal, complete with adult toy (snicker here), and the veggie burger (i've had two, they are really quite tasty, sorta like a McRib, but without the worries of what kind of meat) and the plans to remove the super sized from all their value meals should at least be given notice, regardless of motivation. you can even get apple dippers instead of fries with your extra value meal now (I asked, they say they offer it with happy meals, but they have no problems doing it with regular ones too)
this is probably a secondary thing though, since, IIRC, the Big Mac is McD's biggest seller (save maybe the cheeseburger). Still, it's at least a possibility
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
maybe they'll be adding a tie-in with Dance Dance Revolution for the Playstation 2, for the Adult Happy Meals? That would counteract the calories a little better.
Does the supersized meal include a second song?
You sly dog: you got me monologuing! - Syndrome
In that case you might as well just buy the songs and forego the food part all together. Capece?
Hmmm.
I wish everyone would quit their bitching about how unhealthy McDonalds is. I don't mean to be a defender of bad food, in fact, I'm a vegetarian and eat at McDonalds once or twice a year, but it's not like McDonalds ever pretended that their food was healthy. If the American public is too retarded to tell that eating a jucy burger, deep FAT fried french fries, and a calorie-sugar-caffene laden soda isn't good for them, the maybe they deserve to have their arteries clogged.
Sure, it's a bit sad that they market their product so strongly to children - but adults have no reason to complain. If you don't want horribly unhealthy food, don't eat there - or at least get one of their moderately healthy parfaits or salads or the new veggie burger.
The only thing that really pisses me off about McDonalds is that when they finally started making a Veggie Burger, they made it taste like shit. There's lots of veggie burgers out there that taste great, but McDonalds had to make one that could never compete in taste with their real meat patties.
This is Andrew Q Ranter, signing off.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
This looks like a bandwagon. The promotion must have gone well with iTunes Store so they are jumping on the next company.
Only problem is i doubt the Sony setup will be to the same quality as the iTMS setup.
Evolution or ID?
what size server farm will be able to live up to their "Over a Billion Served" claim.
come on fhqwhgads
so you want a song to go with that heart attack?
I am not so sure this free music thing is going to work. I was excited when Apple announced the Pepsi deal, but it proved unsuccessful by most people's measure. Though they laid the blame on distribution channel issues, I think there are a few things to be learned:
(1) Do people want to go to 'all that trouble' for a free song? When you have to download software, setup an account, (and perhaps provide a credit card), then find the song you want and download it, just to be unable to play it on your choice of music device (ITMS only plays on iPod / no one else plays on iPod).
(2) Is a song really that valuable? If I buy a coke or a Big Mac, do I really care that much about trying some new music thing to save the bottle cap or box top or whatever and use it? The Sunday paper is full of coupons for saving much more than 99 cents, but many people just recycle them.
(3) Is there too much choice? Perhaps people need FEWER options for their music. If I am told I can have ANY song I want for free, I start thinking of music...but the music I am thinking of I already own and listen to now. Maybe the givaway needs to be 'one of these five songs' or something similar, to let people envision what they are getting, then they can better evaluate if it is worth their time.
Just a few free musing on free music.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
...want a gym memership when I can just sue McDonalds for making me fat and then get lipo? I figure I can do this every 6 months or so.
Why are people so worked up about McDonald's food these days? It's never been a big secret that fast food isn't healthy. After all, it's called Junk Food for a reason. Heck, McDonald's has had nutritional information posted in their restaurants for twenty years. (And it's on their website too.) Anybody who cares the slightest about what they eat has all the information they need to make an informed decision. McDonald's doesn't hold a gun to your head and make you buy/eat their food. It's not addictive. If they want to gorge and eat an UltraMegaSized Triple Big Mac with extra mayo, why should you care?
If you don't like the food at McDonald's, buy your food somewhere else. Is it too much to ask people to accept some personal responsibility for their lifestyle choices?
It's thousand island dressing. With a little tiny amount of extra pickle in it.
;-)
"'Cause Knowledge is power!"
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
You forgot to factor in what scientists and dieticians like to refer to as the BAAM factor (not to be confused with Emeril's BAM!). Which many believe is McDonalds way to actually decrease the weight of their customers, a diet of sorts.
BAAM is expanded as Barf At Abhorrent Music, which would not only eliminate the 600 Big Mac calories, but whatever else that had not yet been digested. Depending on which Pop band's CD you buy, you can actually end up at negative calories for the day.
Sigh, not another reason for to complain about how McDonald's is making people fat.
When are people going to take some personal responsibility and realize McDonald's doesn't have a gun to your head, forcing you to cram Big Mac's down your gullet.
Here's a thought: stop eating fast food for every meal, and exercise every once in a while, you fat fucks.
And, BTW, a big mac extra value meal is probably closer to 1000-1500 calories depending on the drink. For those that don't know, that supplies at least 75% of the calories that many of us need for the entire day, as well as most of the fat. However, it supplies much less than 50% many other nutrients.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
This is only continuation of their great symbiosis. Even recently, if you do not feel very well after going to McDonalds, you can not be sure it was caused by BigMac or Britney you were feed with during the visit.
Why waste time at Mc Donald's when there are tons of free websites giving the music away for free anyways. For instance http://www.myglobalsound.com has new free music for download every month. I mean Pepsi did it with Apple and they did it right way the first time. In my opinion this Mc Donald's and Sony deal is just not going to work out as expected. I'm not going to buy a big just cause I want free song. Having to collected piece to go to a website and use is no good. The best way is like Apple and Pepsi did it you either win or lose instantly.
Excessive consumption of fast food IS the enemy. It is easy to blame people health problems on fast food companies but when it comes down to it, the problem is really with the mental state of people today. We want everything right now, and we want LOTS of it. If everyone ate fast food in moderation and got some exercise there wouldnt be any problem. The same goes with drinking, drugs, partying, eating OTHER food, sex, porn.. etc etc etc... Its all too east to OVERindulge in something that has the perceived benefit of being fast, or makes you feel good. There is a healthy balance, and once people figure this out there wont be a problem anymore. But we dont have to worry about that happening anytime soon. I personally think we should worry about cutting down on people smoking. More people die annually because of smoking then they do of obiesity. If we can get people to give up smoking, which people have been doing for ages, it should be easy enough to get people to realize the dangers of eating fast foor every day.
Both are bad. Big Mac.. 600 calories. Can of pepsi.. 13 teaspons of sugar! Both are contributing to the Super Size populance that are the majority in America.
I guess they are just once again looking for the sheep. People stupid enough to drink pop and eat mc donalds must also be stupid enough to buy music online when with an extra click or 2 they could get it for FREE!
Remember it's an Extra Value MEAL.
Big Mac = 600
Medium Fries = 350
Medium Coke = 210
-----------------------
Total = 1,160 Calories
One 12 track CD = 13,920 CALORIES!!!!
You can feed a third world county's village with that calorie count.
>> Practice Safe Hex
Q.
Insert Signature Here
From the Download page:
We're sorry.
We know you are interested in using the Connect music store. Unfortunately SonicStage only works on Windows 98SE and above.
We have no immediate plans to support other operating systems at this time. However, we believe this is an important user base and we hope to support it in the future.
Thank you for your interest.
How can I get it to work with my iPod?
If it can't, then I don't care. I paid $500 for that ipod and I'm not going to pay even more for a silly Sony device. And the last Sony Device I bought was my Clie, wow you got to love their support for products.
Ted Tschopp
p.s. It's called sarcasim.
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
When going to the download section of the site, I just get a message saying something like "You need to run Windows 98SE or higher, we have no intention on making this work on other OS's so screw you". But I'm running Linux, which is definitely higher than Windows 98SE!
Meh.
The artist who wrote, performed, recorded, published, and promoted the music will get a coupon for a free super size upgrade.
I haven't seen it yet (I'm waiting to finish "Fast Food Nation" first) but I hear it's good.
It's very funny and well made, but his point utterly fails. First off, he does something inordinately stupid.. he comes up with "rules" that virtually guarantee he'll eat the biggest, most fattening thing that they offer. And then when he becomes sick, he expects you to have not expected this in the first place.
This is one of those "well, duh" moments. It's like when researchers announce that they've done some 3 years of studies and found that kids don't like to go to school. Well, duh.
If you eat nasty fattening shit all day, every day, you won't be healthy. If you override your body's desires for foods that it needs with some arbitrary set of rules, you won't be healthy.
Health isn't a matter of what kind of foods you eat. Not really. Health is a matter of balance. Sometimes you need fat in your meal. Other times you need salad. If you eat the same damn thing all the time, it doesn't matter *what* it is, you're not eating healthy by definition.
He's trying to make a point that this food is unhealthy. In this, he fails miserably. The food is not unhealthy. His behavior in eating nothing but that food is unhealthy. If he wanted to prove that any particular chain was unhealthy, he should have tried to eat a balanced diet using only foods from that chain. They have a big menu for a friggin' reason. They do offer salads. They do offer healthy choices (admittedly, not many). Just because they offer a lot of fatty foods doesn't mean you have to eat nothing but those fatty foods.
So the movie, while funny, utterly fails to make any commentary that has any real meaning. It's a mockumentary at best. He didn't actually prove anything that anybody wouldn't have known from hearing the premise. "Well, duh."
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Since they both make Macs.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Didn't we change the name to FREEDOM fries?
Hey dude, is that Fridom rock?
Well turn it up!!!
Pepsi was giving away the free iTunes downloads. If you compare a bottle of pepsi to a bottle of water, I think we're in the same ballpark. On it's own a bottle of pepsi isn't so bad, what are we comparing the BigMac lunch to? If you're the type that drinks pepsi like it's water you probably eat McDonald's often enough to know what time of year the McDonald's Monopoly game comes out. Or at least can rattle off the top of your head how much any fast food meal is with tax to within 5 cents. Seems like a similar target audience. Personally, I stay away from fast food and paying for music when I can. :-)
I boycott signatures
my god...
wesley willis saw it coming...
rock and roll mcdonalds
1 cup of lard is 1850 calories, so you'd only have to eat 3.89 cups (.9208 litres) of yummy yummy lard, less depending on how many cokes you wash it down with.
Getting hungry just thinking about it. Wonder if I can get McDonalds to offer a McLard combo, with a side of extra lard. That would definitely get me the "McLardass of the Year" trophy.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
In Soviet Russia, the McDonalds super sizes you!! In Soviet Russia, the Music pirates you!! In Soviet Russia, the fast food eats you!! In Soviet Russia, the cliches write you!! Just curious though, what started this cliche?
I thought McDonald's was supposed to start promoting it's more healthier meals now?
I saw the funniest thing at a McDonald's last weekend... they were selling an "Adult Happy Meal". It was a bunch of iceberg lettuce, a bottle of water, and a pedometer!
I wish I was making this up... but it's true.
Get down to Phat Tracks while McDonalds puts you on the Fat Track!
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
they aren't even worth the $0.25 that they must have cost - the pedometer couldn't count steps accurately, or even close (about one step read for every three taken). So, unless you believe that Republican budget math is accurate (in which case these will work just fine at counting your steps in the same way), the McPedometers don't work well and aren't worth the plastic they're made of. The coroner won't be able to get anything out of the Adult Happy Meal pedometer after your untimely demise other than that you should have eaten somewhere other than McD's instead.
Sure McDonalds food sucks, but why all the bashing?
Pepsi gave out free itunes song with cola purchase.
Nobody complained about that.
I mean what is the sugar content of a cola? It sure can not be good for you.
I want to be able to get 99 cents off of the price if I don't want the song. That's the disturbing thing here... McDonald's is NOT paying 99 cents per song, so why should we have to???
stuff |
they offered X games of DDR per X unit of shitty food. Dance dance revolution is a great way to burn some fat but its expensive. I think it would be a good idea for McDonalds to try something like that. I think its interesting that they're promoting this in such a time. I thought part of their new 'health' campaign was discouraging purchase of their higher calorie meals. I know at least locally too, they downsized the fry containers.
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
I won't support them until they offer Ogg! And I don't mean an Ogg McMuffin!
You know what?
Good point, as far as I know the us is one of the countries with the lamest excuses to sue someone, if someone eats junk food and gets fat, they sue mcdonalds and they win! wow, lame 1-Eat junk food all day long 2-??????? 3-Profit!
Check out Website development, maintenance and accesibility cons
Set aside the sucky iTunes song quality, and the fact they screw over musicians. , and setting aside that Fatty Fast foods are addicting, and bad for you. The cost of a Big Mac is in upwards of 3 dollars, and one song on iTunes is $1.00. Why not buy two songs from iTunes, and go buy a hot dog from a hot dog stand.
What's another word for Thesaurus?
-Steve Wright
I really don't think anyone is eating healthier or dieting... Take a look around, America is still a pretty fat place. The recent jazz about the Atkins diet is just that; jazz. Diets like that have no lasting effects because people do not learn the CONCEPTS before they implement. They hear "Atkins sez: Don't eat bread, eat meat!" so they go eat 2 lbs of ground beef wrapped in cheese and covered with bacon. "It's cool", they say. "...No BREAD!".
I was a vegetarian for about 4 years of my life, and it made me much more selective and concious of what I was eating, and thus I lost a considerable amount of weight and became more aware of my body's needs calorically, etc. Then, about 2 years ago, I went back to eating meat, and ballooned up at least 20 pounds. Why? Because it just became food food food all over again. Burgers, steaks, whatever. Much like you stated with the common American food consumption mentality, you get in a mindset where it becomes so hard to moderate yourself, you really lose a grip on your food intake and just go hog wild. Even an INCREDIBLY active person can not sucessfully maintain a healthy body if they were to participate in the diet of "fat" Americans.
I went back to being a vegetarian about 3 months ago and have also gotten my ass on a treadmill, and I'm starting to shed off those pounds I gained from when I started eating meat again. I'm not advocating that vegetarianism is the means to lose weight here. Rather, I'm just stating that personally, for me, being a vegetarian puts me in a mindset where I'm just so much more concious of what I'm eating that I see HOW BAD most food sold in America really is. And the sad thing is, it seems people aren't necessarily always living to eat rather than eating to live, but they just can't get a decent healthy meal anywhere else.
--
Is it me, or did it just get fatter in here?
if i have to buy something in order to get it
blatently false advertising if thats how they are pitching it
the triple bypass is also cursed. ...sorry it had to come to that.
char *mySig;
Didn't apple deny a rumor about McDonalds using their site around the time they signed the pepsi deal? Interesting. I guess McDonalds really was shopping for a music service promo. Too bad, it would have been cool to get iTunes on your BigMac (Sorry that was bad but had to be said)
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
Def Con One
cLive ;-)
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
IIRC, 3500 calories is about a pound of weight gain! Of course, that's 3500 unused calories..
THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
Unfortunately, your free song is Justin Timerlake's 'I'm lovin' it'.
You are right-- in the USA's culture of convenience, "Fast Food Nation" is essential reading. For those who think it is just about the ingredients (yes, there is shit in the beef), you are missing 90% of the issue. Go spend a few bucks on the book-- it will open your eyes to the incredible influence of the fast food industry. All of which is entirely funded by the one in four Americans who eats fast food everyday without giving it a second thought.
I think I spent maybe $6.50 on this book at Costco. I have gained priceless insight on a very mundane part of everyday life, and have made much better decisions about since then.
As I read the book (I have a second or later edition, with updates), I noted the omission of comments about In-N-Out Burger. At the end of the book, Schlosser mentions how In-N-Out Burger is completely unlike all of the other fast food chains, especially with regards to the food itself.
This was particularly pleasing to me, as I have always thought that In-N-Out Burger is *so much* better than any other fast food hamburger, and their fries are fantastic, too. Every time I have visited there has always been a long line, but the wait is short, and the food is absolutely worth it-- regular, or "animal style".
I so wish they would expand their business eastward. They would destroy Whataburger (sawdust buger, methinks. even the chicken) and even Sonic here in San Antonio.
BTW-- even back in 1999 I recall seeing signs that they were hiring new employees in Gilroy near the outlet shopping center at over $11/hour.
Except that they call their pedometer a 'stepometer'.
God I hate it how they dumb things down for Americans.
.noitacidem deen uoy siht daer nac uoy fI
Because you deserve a (heart attack/stroke/bmi above 40) today.
You are actually forgetting that target market doesn't want all of the tracks on the CD; they only want one or two singles. So, the health risk isn't as bad as you noted. : )
-Slashdot Junky
.
Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
Guess I'm coming a bit late to this discussion, but as someone who spent months working on a commercial P2P distribution network, I can't help but getting depressed reading news clips like this. So, after years of back and forth, law suits, and killing off of small innovators, it's all come down to behemoths like Sony and McDonalds? This is really sick - just another proof that the new territory has been fully occupied by the usual suspects - the large corporate conglomerates who can bribe and push themselves into a market niche. F...ing depressing - why would I ever come up with anything innovative anymore and try to realize it? I know there are some exceptions out there (Yahoo or Google for instance - who were started by guys like us) - but the rest of the Web.... just take a look around - we have to lock our systems up not to be inundated with pop-ups and banners, viruses, and tons of spam. I know there is still a lot of good stuff out there, but most of the time it feels like just another commercial outlet. I sometimes miss the feeling I had back when in 1997 (although I do appreciate the better browsers, bandwidth and systems of today ;-)
You don't have to consume any calories at all to get an album's worth of music. You just need to buy the meal - nobody says you have to eat it, too.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Have you seen Sony's online music store? It's an incentive to order just a salad and stay the hell away from the combo.
Speaking of that, I think all the adult happy meals all feature salads - and they are not too bad either. A little more volume than Wendys salad and fairly fresh.
The Pedometer is wildly inaccurate I think but still an interesting freebe.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Does anyone here remember when a guy at Wired (I think) registered the mcdondonals.com domain for himself. He called up McDonalds and offered it to them. They said they had never heard of the internet and had no idea why they would ever want to be on it. This was back in 1994, I think.
Do you want to "go large" with that operation and add a bowel reconstruction, and liposuction for only 99cents?
The kids thus form an early bond with McDonalds, and often associate it with good memories, and with a trusting character. Couple this with the fact that in many cities, the only place to find a decent playground is in the local McDonalds, and you have a marketing juggernaut pumping billions into getting kids hooked on their unhealthy food early on. Sure parents give in and take the kids there, but it's the kid insisting they want to go there in the first place.
So, they're going to lure us into buying more bad food, with bad music? Sounds like a plan...
Just make sure that the meal you buy....is the ONLY meal of the day. Cause the caloric count is just about all you'd need!
Ironically.....I'm eating a double cheeseburger from Micky D's as I type this.
Why. So I can hear "Ba da bah bah baaaaah" 1 million times? Rather blow my brains out, thank you all.
I suggest you read Slashdot
Does this offer also include a free gym membership?
No.
Just thought I'd be helpful. You're welcome.
Reading through this discussion, "McDonald's and Sony Offer Music Downloads," I find it interesting how about 90% of the comments are focusing on McDonalds with little or no discussion on Sony or their music service.
Little Bricklets
pop music has been placed in the same class as a side of fries.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Not only does it suck hard, but at least Apple has one thing going for them - they have the largest market share in portable music players.
If they distribute stuff that only plays on iPod, they are still leaving themselves a large portion of the market. (for better or worse)
What's Sony's portable music player market share? I don't know anyone with one, but I know four people with iPods, two people with Rios, and one person with a big brick of a Nomad.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
This isn't iTunes. That would be Apple's store.
This is Sony. They have an online music store called "Connect".
Two entirely different people.
Not that your point isn't valid, but you might want to RTFA next time.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Over a Billion Servers!!!
Now we see the incredible overlap between: a)people who eat Big Macs; and b) people who download music from pay services.
Seems to me like Mickey-D's is trying to reinvent itself for another market, one that's much more upscale than its middle-to-lower-middle-class roots. And yeah, I guess 'computer types' eat fast food... But are these the *same* computer people? Seems to me the people plugging their laptops in at Starbucks for the WiFi access, and downloading songs in a way that's defining that pay market, are who? Mac users. Driving Volkwagens. Um, not your McDonald's market, however much they want it to be.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Soybean oil, pickles, distilled vinegar, water, egg yolks, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, onion powder, corn syrup, spice and spice extractives, salt, xanthan gum, mustard flour, propylene glycol alginate, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate as preservatives, mustard bran, garlic powder, hydrolyzed (corn gluten, wheat, and soy) proteins, caramel color, extractives of paprika, turmeric, calcium disodium EDTA to protect flavor.
Yikes. Just saw "Supersize Me", about the guy who ate nothing but McDonalds for a month - now we know why he got so sick! Isn't Sodium Bezoate the ingredient in "Frogert" on the Simpsons that the gypsy explains to Homer "Thats Bad"?
I know the theme's been beaten to death, but I must make verse.
Enticed by music
Inhaled the greasy Big Mac
Angioplasty
Two of my great joys in life are putting a CD on for the first time and discover that it's a fantastic piece of music and having a good meal in a restaurant I've tried for the first time. The fun in both of these activities is increased by a degree of exploration - either trawling through Internet music sites and music shop displays or driving around in an unknown area to find a good-looking place to eat.
I'm not into fast food particularly or music downloads (music for me is about full albums, not single tracks) but I have no issue with McDonalds selling fast food or Sony/iTunes/etc. selling downloadable music, if that's what people want.
I do have a problem with the modern general populace, however. Many people today, especially the youth generation, seem to want to live in this constant "safe zone" of life - at least here in the UK, they want the same theme pubs, fast food joints and bland popular music. In all three cases, they are assured of knowing "exactly what they are getting" beforehand without any risk of paying for something they may not think is worth the money. They rely on "product branding" to keep them from taking any risks in life and, to me, seem to live in fear of the unknown because standing out from the crowd would not be "cool".
I don't claim to understand their motivations and when I was their age, I had many of the same traits. I therefore hope they learn, like I did, to develop the confidence in their own decision making and to not give a damn about what "everyone else" is doing and make their own decisions.
In the meantime, just how many musicians and chefs are there out there who, because they are not a mainstream "branded product", have not had the opportunity to play us their music or cook us a meal?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
the SuperSize Me guy must be ticked... he coulda at least got some song downloads for all his trouble/liver damage =)
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
Forgetting for a minute that XP Home Edition is incapable of joining a domain, they apparently they don't like domains. This rules out every windows box I own, and since it only works on windows even if I were dumb enough to install their software it wouldn't work anyway.
Or do you want to come over to my house for a home-cooked chilli, a few beers and some classic rock music cranked up to full volume on my hi-fi?
Enough said...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The average north american likes mcdonalds. No one knows why. Despite the low quality of food and the fact that just sitting in a mcdonalds, you are getting second hand fat, people still eat there. Maybe it's just the way we where brough up.
But people also like pretebding they are healthy. How many people order diet pop with their quarter pounder. Now salad is just another excuse for people to eat at McDonalds and convince themselves they are healthy. Or even better, atkins burgers (that's right, if you order the same burger, but no bread, you are healthy... umm... NO!)
Salad at McDonalds is just part of the 'i want to get healthy but don't want to do anythign to do it' mentality that's so prevelant in north america and gives birth to dumb ideas like the atkins diet (i mean, who follows the diet of a guy who died of obesity...)
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
Does your wife drive a car? Every little bump you hit will count as a step taken, even though you aren't walking at all.
... about 40-60 paces.
I have one of these things and they really aren't accurate at all. I tested it by wearing it in different spots on my body (insert funnyness here), and walking 50 paces. On my waist it measured between 20 and 80, depending on the angle which it was clipped on. Clipped it on my sock and it registered over 100. Hung it round my neck as a necklace and it was closest
End result: pedometer isn't particularily useful except if we wear it exactly the same spot and angle every time, and then only use it to compare the amount of excercise relative to the previous days.
30% of cancers in the U.S. are attributable to cigarette smoking while 25% of cancers in the U.S. are attributable to diet. I'd rather be a smoker than obese...even with the added risk.
whatever the threshhold for the McD's pedometer is either very high or inconsistent - I don't study my girlfriend's steps but I don't think they are that nonconstant. It only reads about one in three, and while it doesn't read steps, it will read jumps, which is consistent with your point. Whatever method it uses doesn't work on a practical level - it doesn't count the normal steps someone makes and so is not useful for counting exercise.
Buy 4 20 oz drinks and get four musicmatch downloads free. Just costs $3.99.
Not bad.
You would eat them? egads, man!
"Other bands play, but Manowar KILLS"
I wasn't so much counting tax "cuts" (although that's a valid point) but the fallacy that decreasing taxes and increasing spending are mutually compatible. Three administrations of Republicans have favored this, and three administration of Republicans have run massive deficits. Only Bush Sr. had the courage to raise taxes to cover what he wanted to spend. Ultimately, (-1) + (-1) != 2, which is what has been claimed by Republicans.
While the Democrats have done their share of "optimistic" math (optimistic economic assumptions and undercounting program costs and tax increases), the Republicans have based their ideals on smaller (federal) government and fiscal responsibility, two things at which the last three administrations of Republicans have failed miserably. Either their math is wrong (hence the comment) or they are being untrue to their (proclaimed) ideals.
You can probably tell my bias from this...
They're not dumbing it down - it's not a full fledged pedometer. A real pedometer allows you to calibrate it, and will estimate the distance that you've walked, calories that you've burned, and other useful information. The 'stepometer' they're giving out only counts steps, and doesn't give you any other information.
Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized. -AC
...when the vomiting from the diet of bad pop and Big Macs ruptures your esophagus, causing either death or a long-term parenteral diet. In either case, the BAAM effect should yield weight loss in McDonald's target audience, both individually and as a whole.
Here's an idea: Go to McCorporate, purchase a couple dozen (or hundered, depending on your choice/desire of music) of the meals, but not for yourself. Have the meals donated to some hunger program, keep the free songs for yourself. You get the music, and you can write off the purchase of the McMeals as a tax exemption or whatever.
/eats a Double Cheese a day, has stayed at a constant weight (don't know if I can say the same about cholesterol)
While many people may not enjoy the thought of eating at McDonald's, I'm sure that quite a few homeless/poor people would be overjoyed at the thought of a full meal for free, regardless of the grease (homeless people don't care about carbs.) You get the music, they get the food, everyone's happy. Oh, and you get a tax exemption.
Just something that came to my mind, I wouldn't actually do this. [no money]
Notes:
Do not use SonicStage while logged on to a domain user account under Windows 2000
Professional, Windows XP Professional or Windows XP Home Edition.
SonicStage should be installed while logged on to an account with administrator privileges.
It's not easy to show that much technical incompetence in such few words.
OS Reviews: Free and Open Source Software
I just checked a bottle of coke in the office fridge. It's 300 calories for 24oz. That's 12.5 calories per oz.
Now, a large Coke from McDonalds is 32oz, making it 400 calories even.
Big Mac meal, supersized is:
Big Mac: 600
Large Coke: 310 (from McDonald's site, because of ice?)
Large Fry: 520
Total: 1410 calories.
Someone mentioned a cup of lard is 1850 calories. Only 140 calories more then a supersized #1. Add a 12oz orange juice and it's even.
Stats (not for the faint of heart)
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
Don't feel pity for them, honey. Anyone not living under a rock knows by now that fast food is really bad for you. And anyone who would collect fat points on a punch card just to download fscking Britney deserves clogged arteries.
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Peace
I'm sick of this crap. Companies offer these sort of incentives all the time to sell their products...
If you don't like the deal, don't buy into it. No one bashes Burger King when the newest Disney movie hits the theater an they have specialized toys for kids. No one slams Wendy's when they team up with the NBA or NCAA and offer collectably cups with their meals.
Instead of whining about how this is going to make people fat and have a heart attack, why don't you think about this for a second. Do you really think people are going to run out and buy 12 big mac means to get a CD? No!
At the end of the day all this does is encorage someone who is already going to eat lunch out that day to go to McDonalds instead of a different fast food joint.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
I didn't mean to declare that the Atkins doesn't work. In fact, after reading a couple Atkins-based books and going abroad to eastern Europe last summer, my girlfriend lost almost 30 pounds in a span of two and a half months. I mention her going abroad because she was able to get her hands on some "real" and untainted (preservative-free, no added fat, etc) food. Hehehe...
I guess I was a little unclear when I used the term "jazz". The jazz I was referring to wasn't the actual diet, but more so the commodification of it seen so recently here in America. There is a lot more to low carb diets like the Atkins than just buying a wrap from a fucking Subway sandwich shop. My point was that it seems that most Americans don't really care or pay attention to the details or logistics of these types of diets; they expect to just be able to *BUY* Atkins products and watch the pounds melt away. These are the same clowns who will by a triple Big Mac and a extra large fry at a McDonald's and then justify it by washing it all down with a diet Coke.
--
Is it me, or did it just get fatter in here?
Sorry, I didn't mean for this to be an attack on the parent, but the whole message board here.
This really should have been an independent post...I just got fed up with reading the comments and this happened to be the post I was on.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
Notorious B.I.G.
Mama Cass Elliot
Chubby Checker
Tiny Tim
they just forgot the upper case C.
1 Calorie = 1000 calories = 1 kcalorie
Work for McDonalds? At no place did I say people weren't responsible for their own health. I made a joke about requiring an agioplasty if you download a lot of music as a result of this promotion. Get a grip on yourself.
You, sir, are the victim of a cruel deception. And in case the people who've got to you are the ones I suspect, let me advise you: there aren't "bubbly chunks" in soda, either. Normally.
On those days when only fast food is available, I always order the kid's meal. Smaller portions=less fat. And sometimes I get a toy I even LIKE! What's sad is, while the kid's meal is a perfect size for an adult, there's no lesser size to serve a child. The kid's meal at taco bell is two regular tacos and a side of nachos and cheese. I watched a friend's 4 year old granddaughter try to eat it all and she gave up. I'm glad her Nana wasn't a member of the Clean Plate Club.
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
> The 'stepometer' they're giving out only counts steps,
> and doesn't give you any other information.
That's the exact definition of a pedometer. Something that counts steps.
Any other information (distance, "burnt calories") that can be calculated once you've got the data that a pedometer measures (number of steps) is irrelevant to the state of being a pedometer.
A car is a car, regardless of whether it's also got a DVD player in the back seat.
I didn't take it as bashing - I just wanted to explain what I was complaining about.
Disclaimer, I didn't download the free stoftware to find out the billing end, but I couldn't find this answer on the website (yes I did read the article and checked the connect site)
Not to mention that ATRAC3 has some of the worst DRM and restrictive software I've ever seen.. You have to check music into and out of your portable player device, I believe. It's just wacky as hell.
Nobody mentioned if an account including a CC number has to be set up to play the free music. I could not find anything about this online. I have a 10 year old and a 12 year old. They don't have CC's They are minors so private information is not to be supplied. They can go to a music store and buy CD's with cash. Is the Mc'Dees offer set up so kids can't get free tunes simply because they don't have a credit card and are not permitted to provide personal information? Is there a provision so the kids can set up a minor's account, not provide protected information (privacy of minors), not provide a credit card number and still receive free tunes (and play them)?
The grade school ages are the biggest purchaser of retail music. Why would a free promotion exclude them simply by requiring financial and personal information that should be not given online?
My hope is if they addressed this issue, they would not offer M rated material to minors for free. It just doesn't seem right for kids to get free emminen tracks from McDees.
The truth shall set you free!
the "stepometer" gives the same figure - about 2.6 ft/step. My girlfriend walked about 1/2-3/4 mile (about 1000-1500 steps) and it only read 800. Walking through the parking lot, which should have been more like 90 ft, only read 10 steps.
So, the step count the stepometer gives is inaccurate (I wasn't expecting a distance) it was giving 1/3 the number of steps she walked rather than 1/3 the feet (which would make sense).
to take a jab at McDonalds, don't you think? It's not like you have to eat the 7200 calories in one sitting.
If you have a cuople of kids and spouse, that could be 4 right there.
Everybody seems to bag on McDonalds, but whats wrong with 8 oz of meat, three pieces of bread and some lettuce? you to ne more precise:
Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesami seed bun.
It's bassically a salad, with 8 oz of meat.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
soif you listen to those junk music sony offers, you must be some one who consumes a lot junk food from mcdonalds
Regarding the SonicStage player, my mother always told me to say nothing if I had nothing nice to say. So, "nothing." ;)
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
Almost unpalatable organic matter disguised as food, along with banal sounds disguised as music... what a great American combo.
I can't wait!
Thank you O' corporate masters...
Umm, so you're saying McDonald's food IS healthy?
No, I'm not. Obviously you can only grasp binary concepts, however the real world is not black and white.
Food is just food. There's nothing inherently healthy or unhealthy about any particular food. It's silly to state that this or that food is unhealthy because that's oversimplifing the situation.
The reality of the matter is that what's healthy or unhealthy, at any given moment, depends on the individual and their current dietary needs. Charactizing any particular food as healthy or unhealthy is meaningless without considering the current, changing from moment to moment, needs of the individual consuming the food in question.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
You meant to say this!?! You seriously believe that eating even one big mac, yes even just one big mac, is HEALTHY!?! Where are you getting this health innformation? Please tell us, becuase I like to try and eat helthy and I would love to get a big mac if it's good for me. Or did you mean that it is not UNhealthy? Which is different somehow..?
What's healthy and unhealthy is not that easy to quantify. It depends on what your body needs right then and there, at the time of consumption. If you happen to need some extra carbs and fat in your body at the moment, your body will use them. If not, then your body will either reject them or incorporate them into your system for future needs (aka, store them as fat somewhere).
Nobody ever said life was simple. Treating it simplistically by thinking this/that is healthy/unhealthy is foolish.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
The thing is that many things in life are "bad for you". Alcohol is bad for you. Smoking is bad for you. The question that we should be asking is NOT whether or not something is bad for you BUT RATHER how bad is it?
Many doctors say that a glass of wine or two every day is, in fact, good for you.
No rule in health is fixed, because health is an individual thing. It varies depending on the person, the time, the moment to moment needs of the body.
Food, alcohol, smoking, these are simply things we ingest (inhale). They are neither good nor bad. They simply are. What makes them good or bad is you and your body's current needs.
Now, I grant you that there's likely never a time your body needs to inhale tobacco smoke, but nevertheless the smoke is not bad in and of itself. It's your body's reaction to that smoke and what happens inside *you* that makes eating/inhaling a thing good or bad.
Good or bad can only be defined in terms of people, and people are vastly different in their moment to moment needs. Too vastly different to be able to say that any particular food is good/bad. That's all I'm saying here.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Go look at McDonald's Nutritional facts:u trition. categories.nutrition.index.html
http://www.mcdonalds.com/app_controller.n
Most of their salads have the same level of saturated fats as their sandwiches. There is no such thing as a healthy meal at McDonalds.
Umm.. what? The Fiesta Salad has 11g of saturated fats (13g with the Sour Cream), I grant you, but the rest of them are all 6g or under. By comparison, the Big Mac has 11g and the fries has anywhere from 2g-4.5g. So you're comparing less than 6 grams as roughly the same as 13-15.5g? Not to rain on your parade, but that's less than half the amount.
And a fiesta salad is basically a big ass taco salad: "Premium mixed greens topped with seasoned beef, cheddar-jack cheese, and thin, crispy tortilla strips and sour cream." If anyone thought that has less fat than a burger, they're an idiot anyway.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I can have a McHeart Attack while listening to my McMusic!
THE BIG POINT is when his girlfriend is talking about how bad their sex life is as a result.
My friend was TOTALLY sold after that interview.
The whole movie is not really about him eating for 1 month like that.
Its an extreme 1 month example--some people really do eat badly. But its like a plot device for the rest of the movie.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
maybe you could just only eat half the burger. then that would be less calories. you are aware you dont have to eat every item you own?
That's why I said it was funny. All that filler material around the main point of the thing is quite entertaining. Doesn't prove anything or say anything of substance, but it's funny nonetheless.
It's filler material. What you call the "plot device" is the only actual claim of substance in the movie, and it's a stupid claim at that.
If anything else in the movie opened your eyes to the truth or something like that, then you're an idiot. I mean, seriously, it was just humor. Filler. That's all. It didn't have any real value of any kind. Certainly nothing that should convince anybody of anything. At nobody rational.
IMO, the biggest reason not to eat McD's is the taste. But that's me. I base my eating choices on things other than what some filmmaker moron's girlfriend thinks.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I'm sorry, but by every definition I can easily find a pedometer is something measures how many steps you have taken. I don't see anything about calculating calories.
Go see it.
heh, give him some slack, he's an American.
The new ad will be Ronald McDonald playing a pipe while being followed by a couple of dozen fat kids singing the latest Brittany Spears song. Hey it worked in the fable.
When 'chew and spew' (that's Australian slang for you) decides to put a bullet in record exec for every mac sold, that's when I'll be buying up big.
I think they did this for marketing reasons: By calling it a Stepometer, they are able to trademark the name and start building up a brand around it.
Interestingly, the Stepometer trademark is owned by Coca-Cola (if you read the fine print on the little booklet that comes with it). It makes you wonder if Coke is manufacturing these for McDonald's and, if so, what deal they made for the whole situation.
One guess: The adult happy meal has a Coca-cola bottled water product in it. Maybe McDonald's agreed to push the Dasani water in exchange for Coke providing the Stepometers...