...the subliminal advertising that some theatre owners tried back in, what, the 50's or 60's. By flashing a single frame of a heaping bucket of buttery popcorn every once in a while during the movie they were able to convince the viewers that they should buy some popcorn during the intermission (remember those?). This practice was ruled illegal. I'm hoping that this ``neurological marketing'' is seen as the same thing as subliminal advertising. In fact, I'd bet that the marketing folks are really just trying to bring that idea back but are wrapping it up in a new name to fool people into believing that it's not so as to avoid the backlash they encountered in the past.
So the Finns think they can just make ridiculous legal decisions like this and get away with it? Only the U.S. court system is allowed to make rulings as cockeyed as this. What is going to happen when just any old roomful of judges can sit down and issue rulings as hilarious as this one? Why it's just not right I tell you! Here's hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't let this one slip by and gets in touch with the folks at The Hague, ASAP. I mean, after all, this is a matter of national pride.
``...hopefully someone in a position to act will not have to be told about potential dangers by the BBC''
Yah but one wonders how many deaf ears in D.C. the results of the study by the professors at OSU fell upon. Funny that it didn't seem to escape the notice of the folks at the BBC. If the feds were even concerned about this problem, they were probably assured by the telecom lobbyists that it was nothing to worry about.
``Also, physical separation and logical separation are different. A large logical separation may, alas, boil down to two pieces of fiber in the same conduit,...''
I recall pointing out something like that to a boss many years ago who was proud of the fact that they'd put in place redundant leased (analog and expensive) lines running to a remote (and I mean remote) facility. He looked a little pale when I mentioned that I only saw one set of phone poles leading up to the site. Until then it'd never dawned on him...
So now we'll have the Department of Homeland Security examining the records of your neighborhood rental center looking for instances of people of foreign descent renting Ditch Witches. Great.
I'm puzzled why this was rated as ``off-topic''. Guess there wasn't enough anti-Microsoft content.
I think the analogy with the airlines' penchant for these hub airports is right on target. (Though I think O'Hare gets an unfair level of criticism; problems in Denver -- especially in the winter -- and Dallas cause similar levels of disruption.) The airlines do it because it cuts costs. No need for as many mechanics and all the other ground personnel if you concentrate your operations in fewer sites. Same thing with data centers. C-level execs just love it when they can consolidate data centers because they can cut their leased office space costs, operations staff, etc. (Though, somehow, they never seem to catch on about the problem this causes with disaster recovery and then bawk at how much it costs to keep a second site available.) So why would we be surprised that the bean-counter mentality is found to exist within the companies that are providing the basic internet connectivity? After all they (the bean counters) are doing their job and if others in the company can't do their job of making sure the networks are available... well that's the other guy's problem. Too bad maximizing shareholder return was allowed to override the job of maintaining an available network.
``Doesn't this just smack of the Pay-BBS's of yesteryear? Where Compuserve reigned king and you had to pay a fee just to
access all their content.''
Don't forget that nice little twist that Compuserve came up with: you pay more if you've already paid extra for your high speed modem. Wouldn't put it past AOL to charge people an additional fee for having a high speed Internet connection.
``SME plans to charge about A5200 (US$1.64) per song for the second time onwards, Ide said. Users cannot opt to just decode one song from a CD, but have to purchase the key for the entire CD, he said.''
This whole scheme sounds a bit like DiVX but for audio. And wasn't that a popular idea.
I'm glad someone finally mentioned the best of his movies. (Donning asbestos longjohns) Even though I bought both of the recent prequels, I think they basically stunk as stories (nice special effects, though).
When I hear about some media exec trotting out George Lucas to plead for DRM, why do I get a mental image of Jerry Lewis rolling out some poor kid during his telethon to tug at our heartstrings? Was a violin section playing in the background during Lucas's plea? Did cameras cut to emotional shots of Jack Valenti weeping off-stage?
``Also, XBox 'box' probably contains lots of labels warning users that opening the case breaks any warranty.''
I'm if we all look hard enough we'd find that everything that has a Microsoft logo on it also has a sticker that states: No User Serviceable Parts Inside.
Any chance of reviving that? Or that Rhino will re-release your album?
Re:You want comfort, to "fit the code" and annoy b
on
Suit Up Or Ship Out?
·
· Score: 2
``A bow-tie is as comfortable as wearing nothing at all, looks cool, AND will annoy your boss, because it is unconventional. But technically it IS still a tie.''
You could also go for the string tie. They also tend to annoy people. Just let your boss think that you're originally from Texas and this was what you wore there. Just watch out for rotating machinery and shredders. (If those are in your workplace, the bowtie might be the better choice.)
Re:one way or another... their gonna get get ya
on
Suit Up Or Ship Out?
·
· Score: 2
``...stock 2-3 articles of clothing in varying sizes and surpassing ugliness, and request that Mr. or Ms Forgetful put it on.''
``''
These are apples and oranges. One situation (forgetting one's hardhat) could get you killed. Forgetting a tie is nothing like that. Why I'll even bet that forgetting your tie won't even cause you to write bad code.
And making the forgetful employee wear the ugly tie would work about as well as it did for some bars that used to insist on ``no T-shirts'' and then provide some butt-ugly disco shirt for the ``forgetful'' patron. It eventually became something of a badge of honor to be wearing the ugly shirt. A while back I asked the owner of a hardware store ``who the heck's buying these hideous hats with the pink flowers on 'em?'' His answer was that local trades workers had a sort of competition to see who could wear the ugliest hat to the job. So much for the pink hard hat being an embarassment, eh? And would you want to see what happens first hand (or would that be ``first fist''?) when Mr. Burly Ironworker gets ribbed about the pink hardhat?
``You wouldn't expect someone who works on a flight line to wear a suit and tie, just because the HR people in the same company do, would you?''
At one time, infantrymen wore neckties into battle (or so I'm told; I'm not that old). I imagine that the folks that insist on everyone wearing ties to work either learned their management skills during WWII or were mentored by someone who did. Times change. Too bad the managers who insist on this dress code haven't.
You obviously haven't noticed the trend towards eliminating public phone booths altogether or making them little more then a phone on a pole with a little cover over it that's there merely to keep most of the rain off the phone (the phone company could care less if the user gets wet).
Nowadays, Clark Kent would get arrested for public indecency when it came time to change into his tights. (He'd still have the Supply Room at the Daily Planet, though.)
Re:Suit and Tie do not make the programmer.
on
Suit Up Or Ship Out?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
``That's just as stupid as the manager demanding everyone clean up their desks and looks sharp because the CEO is visiting the department.''
Agreed, but I know of plenty of places where it seems the goal of management isn't so much turning out a good product but making sure everyone conforms. Casual dress, leaving papers on your desk when you leave at night, and (OH MY GOD!) personal effects tacked to the wall of the cubicle. In some dinosaur-brained managers' minds, these are all things that indicate a breakdown in management's authority and must be squashed. Not that there's indication that they're a detriment to employee's productivity.
A department of a former employer actually purchased a laser printer for every employee's desk. The justification? If employees were required to get up and walk down the aisle to pick up a printout, they'd just stop and talk to coworkers. And you know you just can't have that happening. Thank goodness I didn't work for that department. The money that manager blew just to keep the employees under management's thumb was just disgusting.
``The universities have been looking at Microsoft sourcecode for a long time now...''
Oh, yah. Wouldn't it be nice to be forced to study Microsoft code as part of a college class and then finding that a side effect of your expensive college education was that you are at legal risk if you decide to pursue a career that involves writing code for a competing operating system. Heck, what about the academic who sees their code and later decides to leave the hallowed halls and enter the Real World (tm)?
Viewing Microsoft code as a career-limiting move. I sort of like that.
I thought that only trademarks had to be registered. Isn't all that's necessary to have something copyrighted just the simple act of declaring it to be copyrighted? At one time (years ago) I thought there was some gotcha in that you were supposed to have the official copyright symbol (i.e., the ``circled-C'') but that all you need nowadays was ``(C)'' along with a date, name, etc..
Is this registration some special process that makes one copyright somehow stronger than another? Sure hope not lest the Web become a plagiarist's dream. (I can picture some Federal agency salivating over the possibility of collecting copyright registration fees for every Web page posted.)
Heck, why not a talking horse? Wouldn't it just be so perfect to have to stop thinking of the old Mr. Ed show as a comedy and to start thinking of it as prophetic science fiction?
Slashdot Mirror
...the subliminal advertising that some theatre owners tried back in, what, the 50's or 60's. By flashing a single frame of a heaping bucket of buttery popcorn every once in a while during the movie they were able to convince the viewers that they should buy some popcorn during the intermission (remember those?). This practice was ruled illegal. I'm hoping that this ``neurological marketing'' is seen as the same thing as subliminal advertising. In fact, I'd bet that the marketing folks are really just trying to bring that idea back but are wrapping it up in a new name to fool people into believing that it's not so as to avoid the backlash they encountered in the past.
So the Finns think they can just make ridiculous legal decisions like this and get away with it? Only the U.S. court system is allowed to make rulings as cockeyed as this. What is going to happen when just any old roomful of judges can sit down and issue rulings as hilarious as this one? Why it's just not right I tell you! Here's hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't let this one slip by and gets in touch with the folks at The Hague, ASAP. I mean, after all, this is a matter of national pride.
Yah but one wonders how many deaf ears in D.C. the results of the study by the professors at OSU fell upon. Funny that it didn't seem to escape the notice of the folks at the BBC. If the feds were even concerned about this problem, they were probably assured by the telecom lobbyists that it was nothing to worry about.
I recall pointing out something like that to a boss many years ago who was proud of the fact that they'd put in place redundant leased (analog and expensive) lines running to a remote (and I mean remote) facility. He looked a little pale when I mentioned that I only saw one set of phone poles leading up to the site. Until then it'd never dawned on him...
So now we'll have the Department of Homeland Security examining the records of your neighborhood rental center looking for instances of people of foreign descent renting Ditch Witches. Great.
Shouldn't that be: mediocracies
:-)
I'm puzzled why this was rated as ``off-topic''. Guess there wasn't enough anti-Microsoft content.
I think the analogy with the airlines' penchant for these hub airports is right on target. (Though I think O'Hare gets an unfair level of criticism; problems in Denver -- especially in the winter -- and Dallas cause similar levels of disruption.) The airlines do it because it cuts costs. No need for as many mechanics and all the other ground personnel if you concentrate your operations in fewer sites. Same thing with data centers. C-level execs just love it when they can consolidate data centers because they can cut their leased office space costs, operations staff, etc. (Though, somehow, they never seem to catch on about the problem this causes with disaster recovery and then bawk at how much it costs to keep a second site available.) So why would we be surprised that the bean-counter mentality is found to exist within the companies that are providing the basic internet connectivity? After all they (the bean counters) are doing their job and if others in the company can't do their job of making sure the networks are available... well that's the other guy's problem. Too bad maximizing shareholder return was allowed to override the job of maintaining an available network.
Don't forget that nice little twist that Compuserve came up with: you pay more if you've already paid extra for your high speed modem. Wouldn't put it past AOL to charge people an additional fee for having a high speed Internet connection.
This whole scheme sounds a bit like DiVX but for audio. And wasn't that a popular idea.
I'm glad someone finally mentioned the best of his movies. (Donning asbestos longjohns) Even though I bought both of the recent prequels, I think they basically stunk as stories (nice special effects, though).
When I hear about some media exec trotting out George Lucas to plead for DRM, why do I get a mental image of Jerry Lewis rolling out some poor kid during his telethon to tug at our heartstrings? Was a violin section playing in the background during Lucas's plea? Did cameras cut to emotional shots of Jack Valenti weeping off-stage?
I'm if we all look hard enough we'd find that everything that has a Microsoft logo on it also has a sticker that states: No User Serviceable Parts Inside.
Um, wouldn't you count service packs as additional polish? (I would)
And just what additional `polish' is needed with Linux? An awful lot of people seem to find it quite polished right out of the box.
Heh. Are you referring to Hurd? :-)
Any chance of reviving that? Or that Rhino will re-release your album?
You could also go for the string tie. They also tend to annoy people. Just let your boss think that you're originally from Texas and this was what you wore there. Just watch out for rotating machinery and shredders. (If those are in your workplace, the bowtie might be the better choice.)
These are apples and oranges. One situation (forgetting one's hardhat) could get you killed. Forgetting a tie is nothing like that. Why I'll even bet that forgetting your tie won't even cause you to write bad code.
And making the forgetful employee wear the ugly tie would work about as well as it did for some bars that used to insist on ``no T-shirts'' and then provide some butt-ugly disco shirt for the ``forgetful'' patron. It eventually became something of a badge of honor to be wearing the ugly shirt. A while back I asked the owner of a hardware store ``who the heck's buying these hideous hats with the pink flowers on 'em?'' His answer was that local trades workers had a sort of competition to see who could wear the ugliest hat to the job. So much for the pink hard hat being an embarassment, eh? And would you want to see what happens first hand (or would that be ``first fist''?) when Mr. Burly Ironworker gets ribbed about the pink hardhat?
At one time, infantrymen wore neckties into battle (or so I'm told; I'm not that old). I imagine that the folks that insist on everyone wearing ties to work either learned their management skills during WWII or were mentored by someone who did. Times change. Too bad the managers who insist on this dress code haven't.
Heh, heh, heh.
You obviously haven't noticed the trend towards eliminating public phone booths altogether or making them little more then a phone on a pole with a little cover over it that's there merely to keep most of the rain off the phone (the phone company could care less if the user gets wet).
Nowadays, Clark Kent would get arrested for public indecency when it came time to change into his tights. (He'd still have the Supply Room at the Daily Planet, though.)
Agreed, but I know of plenty of places where it seems the goal of management isn't so much turning out a good product but making sure everyone conforms. Casual dress, leaving papers on your desk when you leave at night, and (OH MY GOD!) personal effects tacked to the wall of the cubicle. In some dinosaur-brained managers' minds, these are all things that indicate a breakdown in management's authority and must be squashed. Not that there's indication that they're a detriment to employee's productivity.
A department of a former employer actually purchased a laser printer for every employee's desk. The justification? If employees were required to get up and walk down the aisle to pick up a printout, they'd just stop and talk to coworkers. And you know you just can't have that happening. Thank goodness I didn't work for that department. The money that manager blew just to keep the employees under management's thumb was just disgusting.
Except that these would be more like the Anti-Amish. Rather than shunning the modern world and its technology... well, you get the idea.
Heh. As soon as they do I'll be a Slackware user again.
Perhaps they thought ``Ready-to-Ruin'' would make Marketing's job too difficult.
Oh, yah. Wouldn't it be nice to be forced to study Microsoft code as part of a college class and then finding that a side effect of your expensive college education was that you are at legal risk if you decide to pursue a career that involves writing code for a competing operating system. Heck, what about the academic who sees their code and later decides to leave the hallowed halls and enter the Real World (tm)?
Viewing Microsoft code as a career-limiting move. I sort of like that.
I thought that only trademarks had to be registered. Isn't all that's necessary to have something copyrighted just the simple act of declaring it to be copyrighted? At one time (years ago) I thought there was some gotcha in that you were supposed to have the official copyright symbol (i.e., the ``circled-C'') but that all you need nowadays was ``(C)'' along with a date, name, etc..
Is this registration some special process that makes one copyright somehow stronger than another? Sure hope not lest the Web become a plagiarist's dream. (I can picture some Federal agency salivating over the possibility of collecting copyright registration fees for every Web page posted.)
Here's hoping that a lighting technician shone a big spotlight on the dufus as well.
Heck, why not a talking horse? Wouldn't it just be so perfect to have to stop thinking of the old Mr. Ed show as a comedy and to start thinking of it as prophetic science fiction?