I think a lot of this hoopla has to do with small sample sizes and poor implementation. People are jumping to conclusions here about 80% bot traffic and all that, but nobody has actually examined the numbers and methodology. They are taking all of this at face value and extrapolating to... ???
Anyway, with people who DO know what they are doing, and are using Facebook ads for direct response (e.g. driving traffic directly to their website), Zappos has been doing an incredible job using some of the methods you describe above:
FYI I'm not a Facebook shill, and I think a lot of the advertising doesn't work because people don't know how to do it correctly. In my experience, it's a lot easier for a non-sophisticated advertiser to be successful with something like Google AdWords because the intent of the person being advertised to is clearly known. It's much harder to tease out the "intent" of someone who clicks your FB ad or likes your page, since you are engaging with them via demographics and not an explicit statement of intent, such as searching for a keyword.
Yes, it was called the Merlin 2000, at least in 1990-91ish. I remember going to the Invention Convention in Los Angeles with my dad and seeing it there. He had a shiny blue demo vehicle on the ground and lots videos of it hovering in the air.
I remember there being lots of research on how sleep not only helps with the maintenance of chemicals and neurotransmitters within the brain, but also with the formation of long term memory. Although debatable, our REM sleep stage is where our brain goes through and categorizes information, along with forming stronger connections between things that we learned or experienced during the day. If our REM sleep is circumvented, what would happen to our long term memory capabilities?
I haven't read TFA, but I suppose this new drug may help us in researching what the effect of sleep on long term memory really is. Since extended sleep deprivation ultimately leads to death, psychologists may be able to use this to form better hypotheses.
According to the Web Standards Project site (a huge W3C standards advocate) they are meeting and working with the IE engineers to improve standards compatibility.
Kind of a surprising announcement, but I really hope MS is actively pursuing this. It will make the world a much better place for us developers.
> The primary communication interface consists of a button-triggered popup menu of canned messages, and keyboard-based chat looks like an afterthought.
[snip]...
> BF2 *is* a great game though, and is the first game of its type that actually convinced me to buy it.
So what you're saying is that the popup message system is made for console controller interaction? Have you even tried to use other canned communication systems in other FPS/team based games? It's hitting one button to activate, then a hierarchical series of menus that you access by pressing number buttons or click on them with your mouse!
In BF2, all I have to do is hold down one of two buttons and move my mouse in a direction to highlight the message, then let go. What makes it even better is that the menus are environment sensitive, meaning that I can put my reticle over a point, hold down my squad comm button, then click "ATTACK" to create an attack marker. Same thing with spotting enemy troops and vehicles.
No other FPS game has been able to create a system as elegant and efficient as this. Your concluding statement makes me wonder how many other FPS games you have actually played.
I don't think many of you have actually been to one of the "Internet cafes" that the article refers to. That term is actually a misnomer, since they have nothing "cafe-ish" about them; most kids that know what they actually are and may have been there call them "PC rooms." And I'm almost positive that this phenomenon is only occuring in Southern California (maybe the Bay Area, too).
It has a lot to do with where they are located and the type of demographic that it attracts. If you go to any one of these PC rooms in Southern California (be it a Los Angeles suburb or somewhere in San Diego County) you will immediately notice that 90% of the people in there are Asian-Americans. Why? Because the PC room business model was popularized by Korean entrepreneurs who brought the idea over from Korea. And don't take this as a racist comment, but Koreans that may nor may not have been born here tend to stick together and create cliques in whatever social setting they are in (I myself am a 21 year old Chinese-American and went to a high school in the suburbs of Los Angeles and had > 50% Asian student population). I was born and raised in Southern California and see it all the time. So, what ends up happening is that these kids (who usually go to play either Counter-Strike or Diablo 2) get drawn to these places because their friend's cousin's brother opened up a new PC room and can offer them a discount or something. For whatever reason, there ends up being large groups of Asian-Americans at these PC rooms. Now, anyone from the Los Angeles area that has lived here for a few years knows that Asian gangs are just about as bad as the "Crips," "Bloods," and "13th Street" gangs that everyone sees on TV. Since many of them don't have anything to do any given night (they used to hang out at pool halls frequently, and still do) they go to a PC room for cheap entertainment.
What ends up happening then, when a large group of teenagers and 20-somethings come together? People talk trash over Counter-Strike all the time -- now just imagine that in real life. They do it. I've seen it. I went to a PC room once with 3 of my friends to play in a tournament, only to be discriminated against because we weren't Korean! We beat the living hell out of the last clan, only to have the Server Admin/Store Owner come over and pull some lame rule changes on us so his little cousin and his friends would win. It may be an isolated case, but an example regardless. The 2 or 3 other times that I've gone to a game room I've seen pretty much the same thing happen -- guys' tempers flare after someone accuses another of camping or playing cheap, and a near fight breaks out outside. It was so stupid and immature that I haven't been back to one in over a year (plus, I can play for free on a better machine at home =D).
As far as the regulations go, I'm all for them. Why? Because you have a situation where people are playing some very competitive games and have wildly fluctuating levels of testosterone (in addition to some other socio/psychological issues that I won't even start on) and fights are more prone to break out than, say, at a pool hall (where the game is much more mellow). They even bet on games to increase the stakes. It's stupid. Force them to go find something a little more calm to do.
I myself am a member of the Marine Corps, and have a couple of things to say from a military standpoint in order to supplement some of the posts that I have read on here so far. The first point is on the "declaration of war." Even though the United States did not officially declare war on Serbia, we can still send in troops as a "policing" action. Although I must say that the conflict that we had with Serbia may have extended a bit beyond that, the President can send in troops and have them there for (I believe, please correct me if I am wrong) up to 6 months before any official declaration of war is needed. Such was the case with President Bush and the beginning of Operation Desert Sheild/Storm. Marines are constantly being sent in to foreign countries to police the area, although ground troops didn't arrive in Serbia until after most of the conflict had been resolved. In regards to the Geneva Convention, many of the articles are taught to us in basic training as the "9 Rules of War," which basically amounts to not hurting civilians, taking care of those wounded weither friend or foe, not to harm enemy medical personnel, how to treat prisoners of war, etc. Now if our country were to engage in cyber-warfare by disrupting power, transportation, and other systems, and as long as it doesn't directly or indirectly violate any of the Rules of War or articles in the Geneva Convention, it should be used. Anything that will help our troops accomplish the mission with the least amount of casualties should be used. In addition, I don't think any of the "cyber-warfare units" that are out there would openly "attack" a system that would affect the civilian population; likely targets would probably be military related, such as radar systems, military communication systems, and the like. In response to the "Geeks before Leathernecks" post, and myself being both a Geek and a Leatherneck, I see no problem whatsoever with attacking a foreign country's electronic/military infrastructure in order to make our job easier =). I can't speak for all Marines, but personally I would welcome the thought that the enemy would be hindered when we enter the country and possibly engage in combat - whatever advantage we can get, we should exploit, especially if it means the men in my unit will come out alive.
Slashdot Mirror
I think a lot of this hoopla has to do with small sample sizes and poor implementation. People are jumping to conclusions here about 80% bot traffic and all that, but nobody has actually examined the numbers and methodology. They are taking all of this at face value and extrapolating to... ???
Anyway, with people who DO know what they are doing, and are using Facebook ads for direct response (e.g. driving traffic directly to their website), Zappos has been doing an incredible job using some of the methods you describe above:
http://www.businessinsider.com/zappos-social-media-guru-just-revealed-facebooks-hidden-ad-secret-2012-6
FYI I'm not a Facebook shill, and I think a lot of the advertising doesn't work because people don't know how to do it correctly. In my experience, it's a lot easier for a non-sophisticated advertiser to be successful with something like Google AdWords because the intent of the person being advertised to is clearly known. It's much harder to tease out the "intent" of someone who clicks your FB ad or likes your page, since you are engaging with them via demographics and not an explicit statement of intent, such as searching for a keyword.
Yes, it was called the Merlin 2000, at least in 1990-91ish. I remember going to the Invention Convention in Los Angeles with my dad and seeing it there. He had a shiny blue demo vehicle on the ground and lots videos of it hovering in the air.
Screen cap.
Definitely one of the funniest things I've seen in a while. At least Bill seems to have a sense of humor.
I think it's more important to know your cyborg name for when we welcome our new overlords.
A.N.D.R.E.W.: Artificial Networked Destruction and Rational Exploration Worker
Awesome.
Or, perhaps, it is the other way around.
that one of the captchas still being worked on is a distorted goatse image (Cwazymail)? Is that for real or is that a cleverly disguised joke? haha...
I remember there being lots of research on how sleep not only helps with the maintenance of chemicals and neurotransmitters within the brain, but also with the formation of long term memory. Although debatable, our REM sleep stage is where our brain goes through and categorizes information, along with forming stronger connections between things that we learned or experienced during the day. If our REM sleep is circumvented, what would happen to our long term memory capabilities?
I haven't read TFA, but I suppose this new drug may help us in researching what the effect of sleep on long term memory really is. Since extended sleep deprivation ultimately leads to death, psychologists may be able to use this to form better hypotheses.
OTOH CostCo pays an averageof $17/h and has the lowest employee theft and turnover rates in the industry (big surprise).
Yeah, and have you seen the stuff they sell there? EVERYTHING IS HUGE!!! How could you possibly steal any of that stuff?
It'd be slightly unwieldy to put a 36 pack of Bounty paper towels under your shirt and walk out.
According to the Web Standards Project site (a huge W3C standards advocate) they are meeting and working with the IE engineers to improve standards compatibility.
Kind of a surprising announcement, but I really hope MS is actively pursuing this. It will make the world a much better place for us developers.
> The primary communication interface consists of a button-triggered popup menu of canned messages, and keyboard-based chat looks like an afterthought.
[snip]...
> BF2 *is* a great game though, and is the first game of its type that actually convinced me to buy it.
So what you're saying is that the popup message system is made for console controller interaction? Have you even tried to use other canned communication systems in other FPS/team based games? It's hitting one button to activate, then a hierarchical series of menus that you access by pressing number buttons or click on them with your mouse!
In BF2, all I have to do is hold down one of two buttons and move my mouse in a direction to highlight the message, then let go. What makes it even better is that the menus are environment sensitive, meaning that I can put my reticle over a point, hold down my squad comm button, then click "ATTACK" to create an attack marker. Same thing with spotting enemy troops and vehicles.
No other FPS game has been able to create a system as elegant and efficient as this. Your concluding statement makes me wonder how many other FPS games you have actually played.
I don't think many of you have actually been to one of the "Internet cafes" that the article refers to. That term is actually a misnomer, since they have nothing "cafe-ish" about them; most kids that know what they actually are and may have been there call them "PC rooms." And I'm almost positive that this phenomenon is only occuring in Southern California (maybe the Bay Area, too).
It has a lot to do with where they are located and the type of demographic that it attracts. If you go to any one of these PC rooms in Southern California (be it a Los Angeles suburb or somewhere in San Diego County) you will immediately notice that 90% of the people in there are Asian-Americans. Why? Because the PC room business model was popularized by Korean entrepreneurs who brought the idea over from Korea. And don't take this as a racist comment, but Koreans that may nor may not have been born here tend to stick together and create cliques in whatever social setting they are in (I myself am a 21 year old Chinese-American and went to a high school in the suburbs of Los Angeles and had > 50% Asian student population). I was born and raised in Southern California and see it all the time. So, what ends up happening is that these kids (who usually go to play either Counter-Strike or Diablo 2) get drawn to these places because their friend's cousin's brother opened up a new PC room and can offer them a discount or something. For whatever reason, there ends up being large groups of Asian-Americans at these PC rooms. Now, anyone from the Los Angeles area that has lived here for a few years knows that Asian gangs are just about as bad as the "Crips," "Bloods," and "13th Street" gangs that everyone sees on TV. Since many of them don't have anything to do any given night (they used to hang out at pool halls frequently, and still do) they go to a PC room for cheap entertainment.
What ends up happening then, when a large group of teenagers and 20-somethings come together? People talk trash over Counter-Strike all the time -- now just imagine that in real life. They do it. I've seen it. I went to a PC room once with 3 of my friends to play in a tournament, only to be discriminated against because we weren't Korean! We beat the living hell out of the last clan, only to have the Server Admin/Store Owner come over and pull some lame rule changes on us so his little cousin and his friends would win. It may be an isolated case, but an example regardless. The 2 or 3 other times that I've gone to a game room I've seen pretty much the same thing happen -- guys' tempers flare after someone accuses another of camping or playing cheap, and a near fight breaks out outside. It was so stupid and immature that I haven't been back to one in over a year (plus, I can play for free on a better machine at home =D).
As far as the regulations go, I'm all for them. Why? Because you have a situation where people are playing some very competitive games and have wildly fluctuating levels of testosterone (in addition to some other socio/psychological issues that I won't even start on) and fights are more prone to break out than, say, at a pool hall (where the game is much more mellow). They even bet on games to increase the stakes. It's stupid. Force them to go find something a little more calm to do.
I myself am a member of the Marine Corps, and have a couple of things to say from a military standpoint in order to supplement some of the posts that I have read on here so far. The first point is on the "declaration of war." Even though the United States did not officially declare war on Serbia, we can still send in troops as a "policing" action. Although I must say that the conflict that we had with Serbia may have extended a bit beyond that, the President can send in troops and have them there for (I believe, please correct me if I am wrong) up to 6 months before any official declaration of war is needed. Such was the case with President Bush and the beginning of Operation Desert Sheild/Storm. Marines are constantly being sent in to foreign countries to police the area, although ground troops didn't arrive in Serbia until after most of the conflict had been resolved. In regards to the Geneva Convention, many of the articles are taught to us in basic training as the "9 Rules of War," which basically amounts to not hurting civilians, taking care of those wounded weither friend or foe, not to harm enemy medical personnel, how to treat prisoners of war, etc. Now if our country were to engage in cyber-warfare by disrupting power, transportation, and other systems, and as long as it doesn't directly or indirectly violate any of the Rules of War or articles in the Geneva Convention, it should be used. Anything that will help our troops accomplish the mission with the least amount of casualties should be used. In addition, I don't think any of the "cyber-warfare units" that are out there would openly "attack" a system that would affect the civilian population; likely targets would probably be military related, such as radar systems, military communication systems, and the like. In response to the "Geeks before Leathernecks" post, and myself being both a Geek and a Leatherneck, I see no problem whatsoever with attacking a foreign country's electronic/military infrastructure in order to make our job easier =). I can't speak for all Marines, but personally I would welcome the thought that the enemy would be hindered when we enter the country and possibly engage in combat - whatever advantage we can get, we should exploit, especially if it means the men in my unit will come out alive.