This isn't viral marketing, it's scavenger hunt marketing!
Re:WARNING, PARENT POST IS PORN!!!!!!
on
Video Tombstones
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· Score: 1
All I wanted to do was warn the people who were at work or otherwise on a computer where viewing porn would be a BAAAAAD thing.
The rest of you pervs are on your own.;)
WARNING, PARENT POST IS PORN!!!!!!
on
Video Tombstones
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· Score: 1, Informative
Just so you know and everything
Saw this in the Firefly movie Preview
on
Video Tombstones
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· Score: 1
I guess this becomes par for the course at some point in some visions of the future.
Still kinda weird seeing [SPOILER DELETED]'s moving mug looking out from a stone slab after seeing the character's [SPOILER DELETED] death at the hands of [SPOILER DELETED].
Based on my experiences in distance learning systems, I'd say that it's in some industries, it's prevalent and intentional. Based on my experiences with Digital Archive Systems, I'd say that in others, it most certainly is not.
Most the sales people I worked with at the Distance Learning job intentionally promised whatever they thought would get the contract, with no regard for the reality of their promises. Some quotes are:
"I don't care if it's impossible. I'm selling it.
"You'll make it LOOK like we can do it if you're too stupid to make it work."
"No one expects to get what they signed up for."
"They paid, didn't they?"
"It's running Microsoft. They run sites with millions of visitors, so don't tell me IntraLearn can only handle 200 a day. Don't bullshit me. You're doing it wrong."
"I can't really feel sorry for them [The customers]. They're the idiots who listened to my sales pitch."
"I don't care if it's in writing. [Because I sold it] We're not doing it."
Then there was the signed contract that included the line "A web interface that replicates the look, feel and functionality of Microsoft Outlook" as a freebie, deliverable in two weeks. I got in hot water because I thought the contract was a gag, and reacted to the sales rep as such. When confronted with the enormity of the task he replied with "Can't you just use Outlook to do it? You have Outlook, make it use Outlook."
This was from the same rep who had ripped me a new one because Outlook's web interface didn't have spell check, and the concept of copying and pasting from Word into the web interface was literally beyond his grasp. He told me it was "Too technical" for him.
Of course, my personal favorite was the rep who lost us a contract because he claimed the reporting system could be used to make it look like your securities reps were compliant when they weren't. You don't say something like that to one of the big five securities firms, during the Archer Anderson Accounting scandal, and expect to get a second chance to pitch your wares.
On the flip side, there's my current employer, where the sales reps do their best to make sure they sell only what's realistic and, when faced with a request they aren't sure about, call the developers to see what would be involved, instead of blithely saying "Oh, we can do that, and it'll be a freebie."
It all depends on the industry and the company. Where I work now, a sales rep would be in deep trouble for promising something we would not be able to deliver. When I was still working for a distance learning company, sales reps who openly lied to clients were the norm.
It all depends on the industry and the company. Writing off Microsoft's behavior as "Par for the course" is an insult to the honest firms, and they are out there.
It wasn't so much an XBOX 360 specific comment as a general observation about Microsoft in general.
The parent poster was talking about unspecified changes to the XBOX, and I was just pointing out that such behavior is endemic to Microsoft. I don't have any XBOX 360 examples, as I really don't care about the XBOX 360. Most of my computer gaming these days consists of occasional LAN parties involving Half-Life counterstrike. I might get a PS3 at some point, assuming it can still play all my old PS2 and PSone games as promised, and there are some PS3 games I want to play.
under the assumption that WHAT THEY HYPED was what would be in the unit
LOL!
Oh, stop, you're killing me!
Hoooo! That's a good one.
Please see the list of "Features" that Widows Longhorn, now Windows Vista was going to have at launch.
Every time they pushed back the release date, they dropped a few features.
The first claims for what Longhorn would have constituted an operating system that would trample Linux and MAC OS X into dust. Those features have dropped off one by one over the years. It's now clear that Windows Vista will be little more than XP with a few cosmetic changes and tighter security.
This is standard Microsoft behavior though. Look at all their product releases. Look at the pre-release press. Announcing Vaporware and pumped up lists of features is a common practice for them, as a way to stifle or destroy the competition.
It depends on the state. It's discrimination of the first order, but sexual orientation isn't consistently protected across the board. The company's habit of tossing resumes based on "foreign sounding names" was highly illegal, but doing so because the applicant was gay, bisexual or androgynous may not have been.
You know, I hadn't thought of that. That guy was so over the top homophobic, that it wouldn't surprise me if he was repressing a burning need for some man love.
BTW: This was at a previous job. The company that routinely discarded resumes because of "foreign sounding names" or implied sexual orientation has since been bought out by a larger firm. The owner who tossed the applicant's resume got a few million in the buyout, and most of the rest of the staff got pink slips.
I changed jobs before getting a pink slip, so I came out fairly well.
You say that like it's unusual in IT. Do you mean to say you never interviewed a job candidate named Phred, whose gender could not be determined, and was a source of debate office for weeks afterwards?
(Note, despite the fact that I wanted to hire him/her, the company owner tossed the resume when he saw that he/she had listed web sites for Gay and Lesbian groups among those she/he had designed, and was giving as resume examples.)
Yes, yes, your has been modded funny, but I'd like to make a few points.
The police department in question needs to exchange data with other departments. These departments are largely using Microsoft Office.
"They only need a text editor with spell check" claims are, to be kind, absurd and ignorant. At the very least they most likely have a host of templates for document creation. I've had some experience with what happens when documents get mangled by changes to the underlying template. Given what I've seen of moving text boxes and munged tables, template problems could easily do things like switch the name of the victim and the suspect, depending on the template.
They cited costs as a major concern. I'm sure Microsoft gave them some deep discounts in this situation. Hell, they might even be losing money on this, but being able to use this as a case study for their advertising is worth losing some coin. It could very well be far cheaper to go back to Microsoft than to stick with StarOffice.
Remember, this is about StarOffice, NOT OpenOffice. The cost of the software itself was not Zero plus download time.
If you take into account having to maintain a library of duplicate templates, document exchange headaches, cleaning up cases where one application totally screwed over a file created in the other office suite and he cost of having to maintain a separate support staff, switching to MS Office suddenly makes a lot of sense. I'm sure a lot of support staff are going to be let go after they switch back.
Exactly. If he's using the FedEx agent to get his boxes, which is what I've been lead to believe he's doing, then in many ways he's clearly in the wrong.
There's also the question of if the site encourages people to use the FedEx Agent to get free boxes for furniture construction.
Your Ford comparison makes no reference to the fact that every person who attempts to produce their own FedEx furniture will be costing FedEx a few hundred dollars.
The boxes themselves aren't free. FedEx pays for them.
Shipping the boxes to the furniture maker isn't free. FedEx delivers them. Yes, it's not terribly expensive for FedEx, as they are already paying for tie delivery person, and the boxes are probably purchased at nice bulk discounts, but the fact remains that FedEx stands to lose a lot of cash in all of this.
Their methods of handling this are reprehensible. I won't argue that.
Of course, I have to wonder what such a tracking system would cost for FedEx to design and implement. This may be the very thing FedEx executives considered, and decided the lawyers would be less expensive.
Naturally, such a system should have been implemented from the beginning, and the PHB who decided otherwise may very well be calling out the lawyers to cover his incompetent arse.
Then again, they might have calculated the customer side inconvenience of such a system, and decided it would be better to let a few boxes slip through the cracks than to make it any more difficult for FedEx customers to get boxes.
Slashdot Mirror
A guy was poking around in a aircraft graveyard in the American Southwest, and found the flying ambulance from the Firefly episode "Ariel"
He then put the photos up on his journal here.
This isn't viral marketing, it's scavenger hunt marketing!
All I wanted to do was warn the people who were at work or otherwise on a computer where viewing porn would be a BAAAAAD thing.
;)
The rest of you pervs are on your own.
Just so you know and everything
I guess this becomes par for the course at some point in some visions of the future.
Still kinda weird seeing [SPOILER DELETED]'s moving mug looking out from a stone slab after seeing the character's [SPOILER DELETED] death at the hands of [SPOILER DELETED].
The twits behind Matrix 2 and Matrix 3 are writing the screenplay?
Damn, I never saw a movie go from "Intersting" to "Avoid at all costs" so damn fast. I'd almost rather watch another Star Wars from Lucas.
Almost.
XBOX Home and XBOX Professional?
I guess the Home edition won't be able to run most games reliably, or will run them with limited to no network support.
Based on my experiences in distance learning systems, I'd say that it's in some industries, it's prevalent and intentional. Based on my experiences with Digital Archive Systems, I'd say that in others, it most certainly is not.
Most the sales people I worked with at the Distance Learning job intentionally promised whatever they thought would get the contract, with no regard for the reality of their promises. Some quotes are:
"I don't care if it's impossible. I'm selling it.
"You'll make it LOOK like we can do it if you're too stupid to make it work."
"No one expects to get what they signed up for."
"They paid, didn't they?"
"It's running Microsoft. They run sites with millions of visitors, so don't tell me IntraLearn can only handle 200 a day. Don't bullshit me. You're doing it wrong."
"I can't really feel sorry for them [The customers]. They're the idiots who listened to my sales pitch."
"I don't care if it's in writing. [Because I sold it] We're not doing it."
Then there was the signed contract that included the line "A web interface that replicates the look, feel and functionality of Microsoft Outlook" as a freebie, deliverable in two weeks. I got in hot water because I thought the contract was a gag, and reacted to the sales rep as such. When confronted with the enormity of the task he replied with "Can't you just use Outlook to do it? You have Outlook, make it use Outlook."
This was from the same rep who had ripped me a new one because Outlook's web interface didn't have spell check, and the concept of copying and pasting from Word into the web interface was literally beyond his grasp. He told me it was "Too technical" for him.
Of course, my personal favorite was the rep who lost us a contract because he claimed the reporting system could be used to make it look like your securities reps were compliant when they weren't. You don't say something like that to one of the big five securities firms, during the Archer Anderson Accounting scandal, and expect to get a second chance to pitch your wares.
On the flip side, there's my current employer, where the sales reps do their best to make sure they sell only what's realistic and, when faced with a request they aren't sure about, call the developers to see what would be involved, instead of blithely saying "Oh, we can do that, and it'll be a freebie."
It all depends on the industry and the company. Where I work now, a sales rep would be in deep trouble for promising something we would not be able to deliver. When I was still working for a distance learning company, sales reps who openly lied to clients were the norm.
It all depends on the industry and the company. Writing off Microsoft's behavior as "Par for the course" is an insult to the honest firms, and they are out there.
It wasn't so much an XBOX 360 specific comment as a general observation about Microsoft in general.
The parent poster was talking about unspecified changes to the XBOX, and I was just pointing out that such behavior is endemic to Microsoft. I don't have any XBOX 360 examples, as I really don't care about the XBOX 360. Most of my computer gaming these days consists of occasional LAN parties involving Half-Life counterstrike. I might get a PS3 at some point, assuming it can still play all my old PS2 and PSone games as promised, and there are some PS3 games I want to play.
under the assumption that WHAT THEY HYPED was what would be in the unit
LOL!
Oh, stop, you're killing me!
Hoooo! That's a good one.
Please see the list of "Features" that Widows Longhorn, now Windows Vista was going to have at launch.
Every time they pushed back the release date, they dropped a few features.
The first claims for what Longhorn would have constituted an operating system that would trample Linux and MAC OS X into dust. Those features have dropped off one by one over the years. It's now clear that Windows Vista will be little more than XP with a few cosmetic changes and tighter security.
This is standard Microsoft behavior though. Look at all their product releases. Look at the pre-release press. Announcing Vaporware and pumped up lists of features is a common practice for them, as a way to stifle or destroy the competition.
Close, but not quite.
You missed a letter or two
This IS the US Patent system we're talking about. They don't even have pens there, just rubber stamps.
And all the stamps have the same word on them.
Can you gess the word?
It depends on the state. It's discrimination of the first order, but sexual orientation isn't consistently protected across the board. The company's habit of tossing resumes based on "foreign sounding names" was highly illegal, but doing so because the applicant was gay, bisexual or androgynous may not have been.
You know, I hadn't thought of that. That guy was so over the top homophobic, that it wouldn't surprise me if he was repressing a burning need for some man love.
BTW: This was at a previous job. The company that routinely discarded resumes because of "foreign sounding names" or implied sexual orientation has since been bought out by a larger firm. The owner who tossed the applicant's resume got a few million in the buyout, and most of the rest of the staff got pink slips.
I changed jobs before getting a pink slip, so I came out fairly well.
You say that like it's unusual in IT. Do you mean to say you never interviewed a job candidate named Phred, whose gender could not be determined, and was a source of debate office for weeks afterwards?
(Note, despite the fact that I wanted to hire him/her, the company owner tossed the resume when he saw that he/she had listed web sites for Gay and Lesbian groups among those she/he had designed, and was giving as resume examples.)
I don't know. From what I've been told, one editor named after a mexican dish looks smashing in a cocktail dress and red garters.
Well, there goes my plan of using a fleet of Xbox2s as a render farm to compete with Wetta.
I guess I'll have to go back to scrounging parts from the MIT Flea.
"editing" on slashdot????
Are we reading the same site?
What is this "editing" of which you speak. I see it elsewhere, but I thought it was banned here or something.
Oh, don't be such a prat.
Yes, yes, your has been modded funny, but I'd like to make a few points.
The police department in question needs to exchange data with other departments. These departments are largely using Microsoft Office.
"They only need a text editor with spell check" claims are, to be kind, absurd and ignorant. At the very least they most likely have a host of templates for document creation. I've had some experience with what happens when documents get mangled by changes to the underlying template. Given what I've seen of moving text boxes and munged tables, template problems could easily do things like switch the name of the victim and the suspect, depending on the template.
They cited costs as a major concern. I'm sure Microsoft gave them some deep discounts in this situation. Hell, they might even be losing money on this, but being able to use this as a case study for their advertising is worth losing some coin. It could very well be far cheaper to go back to Microsoft than to stick with StarOffice.
Remember, this is about StarOffice, NOT OpenOffice. The cost of the software itself was not Zero plus download time.
If you take into account having to maintain a library of duplicate templates, document exchange headaches, cleaning up cases where one application totally screwed over a file created in the other office suite and he cost of having to maintain a separate support staff, switching to MS Office suddenly makes a lot of sense. I'm sure a lot of support staff are going to be let go after they switch back.
Exactly. If he's using the FedEx agent to get his boxes, which is what I've been lead to believe he's doing, then in many ways he's clearly in the wrong.
There's also the question of if the site encourages people to use the FedEx Agent to get free boxes for furniture construction.
Good luck sorting out those costly wastes form all of the legitimate requests for boxes.
Easy to say, hell of a problem to actually do.
Ahh, the poor AC. Too dumb to make any attempt to try and understand what might motivate someone to do something.
"The suit doesn't explicitly state that it's because of the cost of free boxes, so they can't be related."
Please, apply your clearly considerable logic skills to the SCO case. That should be entertaining.
Your Ford comparison makes no reference to the fact that every person who attempts to produce their own FedEx furniture will be costing FedEx a few hundred dollars.
The boxes themselves aren't free. FedEx pays for them.
Shipping the boxes to the furniture maker isn't free. FedEx delivers them. Yes, it's not terribly expensive for FedEx, as they are already paying for tie delivery person, and the boxes are probably purchased at nice bulk discounts, but the fact remains that FedEx stands to lose a lot of cash in all of this.
Their methods of handling this are reprehensible. I won't argue that.
Do you think people are really going to go to the effort of order thousands of boxes just to build some ghetto furniture?
I don't know, but clearly FexEx is afraid of just such a thing happening.
No legal legs at all.
This is a SLAPP lawsuit.
Use lawyers to shut the guy up, plain and simple.
Sadly for them, it has backfired.
Good point.
Of course, I have to wonder what such a tracking system would cost for FedEx to design and implement. This may be the very thing FedEx executives considered, and decided the lawyers would be less expensive.
Naturally, such a system should have been implemented from the beginning, and the PHB who decided otherwise may very well be calling out the lawyers to cover his incompetent arse.
Then again, they might have calculated the customer side inconvenience of such a system, and decided it would be better to let a few boxes slip through the cracks than to make it any more difficult for FedEx customers to get boxes.