Putting aside the obvious emotional reasons for gas bargain hunting, there is at least one practical consideration that the article doesn't fully explore. When shopping for gas, you're only dealing with one item, whereas in grocery shopping you're looking for a range of items on any given trip. It's much easier to determine the consistent best-price location for one item than it is for a dozen or more items in even a modest grocery basket.
And the fact is, most stores have a mixture of "loss-leader" bargains, normal prices, and sucker prices on different items, even in the same general product category. So if you base your shopping habits on, say, the best price for milk, you're likely to get shafted on the price of bread or meat or whatever. Overall it tends to balance out so that you spend roughly the same amount on a diverse grocery basket no matter which store you go to (at least within the same "tier" of stores).
The only way to get the best price on everything is to stop at several different stores, maybe even returning to an earlier store to get what turns out to be the best price that week on a particular item. And that's far too tedious and time(+gas!)-consuming for most people.
The OP has the it backwards; there are no highbrow games because the medium lacks cultural credibility. The whole concept of "highbrow" work is based on a cultural collective judgement. The common culture doesn't yet accept games in general as an art form, so there's no basis to judge what's "high art" and what isn't.
Is it "Myst", with its stunning visuals, atmospheric quality, etc.? Or is it an RPG or adventure game with a deep and thoughtful story, like "Planescape: Torment"? Or is it simply gameplay classics like Tetris or Half-Life? Right now we lack the cultural framework to judge what's most important in defining a "great work" in this medium.
It's important to consider CoL when comparing salaries in different areas. However, there is at least one benefit of living/working in a high CoL area, specifically when it's due to real estate pricing: If you buy a house while working in a high-priced area, you're in much better shape when you eventually move somewhere else.
If you're moving someplace "cheaper", you can buy an equivalent house and have a big chunk of money left over (or you can upgrade to a mansion). If it's another expensive area, at least you've already got equity for a straight swap to a new home. Meanwhile, people moving from low-cost areas don't have nearly enough to buy the same house in the more expensive area right away; the full (paid-off) value of their old home may barely cover the down payment on an equivalent new one.
So if you can get a similar CoL-adjusted salary in two locations, the more expensive location is actually a better deal --if you plan to buy a house, and if you think you might eventually move again (and who doesn't these days?).
The Learning Channel used to show educational programming like The Discovery Channel, but then it slowly began to falter and began showing arts and crafts channels.
Ironically, when TLC was launched, it was because the Discovery Channel itself was moving away from educational programming. Basically it was becoming the "war channel", with nothing but military tech shows and eventually even military history. Rather than spinning off the popular military stuff into its own channel, they apparently decided it made more sense to keep corrupting the existing channel (which already had a spot in most cable lineups) and push all that "boring old education stuff" into a new channel.
Eventually of course they did spin off the War/Wings/Military/[insert name of week here] Channel, and in a rare turnaround Discovery actually went back to something like its intended format. Of course by then TLC was already drifting...
I Can't help noticing that the timing they suggest for having *all* shared ancestors roughly coincides with the "age of the world" claimed by religious fundamentalists. Wouldn't be interesting if this bit of genetic pseudo-science becomes an argument used by creationists?
Several years ago, the small company worked for used a local mom & pop outfit to buy & repair the office computers. This particular shop made a point of offering "great deals" on refurbished and used equipment. Of course we bought only the best, all-new PCs from them...
Well, one cow-orker's HDD failed, and the aforementioned computer shop swapped it out for a new one. A little while later, we got a new employee in and ordered a new PC for him. When the "new" PC's C: drive was examined, it turned out to still have the first cow-orker's data on it!
I don't know which was worse, the fact that sensitive company data had been potentially exposed, or the fact that they sold us a used, known-bad hard drive as new?!
The study in this article didn't account for normal friends-and-family prayers, it only varied the presence of arranged prayers from strangers (who probably had ulterior motives). At most this study might show that "prayer bulletins" and praying for complete strangers isn't particularly useful. The study says nothing about prayers from loved-ones, which many people would say are the most sincere and thus the most useful.
Practically speaking, it's impossible to do a scientific test that would clear up this issue for everyone. You're never going to convince loved-ones to *not* pray for the patient, so double-blind studies are out. And post-analysis of outcomes for religious vs. non-religious patients/families would be contaminated by the differences in the patients' own beliefs and attitudes.
First of all, isn't this story a dupe? I've known about this for weeks now.
But anyway, my point today is that not only are non-HDCP TVs SOL, but it's likely that current HDMI/HDCP "1.0" TVs will eventually be left out as well. From what I understand, the equipment manufacturers are already on to about v1.2 by now, but it's hard say since they can't all agree on the details. People are already seeing compatibility issues between specific models of player and display devices, and it's only likely to get worse.
The problem with the study in the article is that it's comparing optimism among natural optimists vs. pessimism among pessimists. Basically they're assuming that the two strategies will work the same way for everyone. But what if the natural pessimists picked that strategy because optimism just didn't work for them?
The book linked below has an interesting take on all this. The idea is that optimist strategies don't work for some people, and that defensive pessimism is particularly useful for this group. So even if Optimists being optimistic are happier than Pessimists being pessimistic, according to this theory the Pessimists would be even less happy trying to be optimistic!
A big part of this, IMHO, is the difference between physical/objective reality vs. social reality. The fact is that in many cases, simply believing that things will work out has a major influence in social situations, in ways that are both subtle and profound. Other people respond to a positive attitude, and can be influenced to change their beliefs based solely on our confidence in our own beliefs. So cheerful optimism, even when it conflicts with the reality of the situation, is a successful tactic. OTOH, in the physical world, or for that matter the realm of computing, such factors do not apply. Computers don't care if we expect them to work, they just follow the program; likewise, inaminate objects in general follow natural physical laws.
As engineers, we tend to take a realistic approach based on the facts of the situation. This is a successful trait for the problems on which we work. However, for a marketing person, sales person, or really anyone who deals with people, an optimistic approach is actually better than a realistic one.
BTW, one of reasons that non-technical people often believe in mystical "mind of matter" scenarios is that they see optimism at work in their everyday lives, and expect the same thing to carry over into other situations. But they don't realize that their everyday lives are mostly social constructs: you buy from a store clerk, work for a boss, etc. In the modern world, everything we need is supplied by systems run by other people. So Crystal Power, or whatever placebo feeds your optimism, may "work" in these situations; but don't expect it to do much when you're stuck alone in the desert...
The flip-side of this is that highly intelligent people tend to "overthink" things. With all that extra brain-power, it's possible to see second and third order effects of many everyday actions/interactions of which 'normal' people are blissfully ignorant. And the thing is, most of the time the average joe gets away just fine without considering those indirect effects (perhaps in part because societal rules are geared towards correcting for such unintended side-effects?). Meanwhile the more intelligent person is left with a minefield of possibilities, which often leads them to indecision, excessive caution, or to making "weird" choices...
It's worse than just a typo; they use the name 'Reynolds' again in a later paragraph. The author probably misread the name in his research, and no one else who handled the story ever noticed (or knew any better)...
Outright bandwidth caps would be too blatant, and would be easy to get around (even if default sources have a limited bandwidth, you keep adding/changing mirror sources to achieve the overall bandwidth you need).
No, they're looking to pursue the IP QoS extortion model, which is a bit more subtle. It's a "frog in a pot" scenario: at first, just a few companies pay extra for a higher level of service. After a while, so many high-profile, high-bandwidth sites are paying that the service for non-paying sources degrades. Eventually things will get so bad that you won't be able to serve up any kind of content reliably without paying The Man. And the average user won't notice or care, because Ebay and MSN will still work fine...
At that point, there will still be personal and hobbyist's sites, but they'll be painful to use; meanwhile non-profits and open-source ventures will be squeezed out, unable to play on a level field with the Big Boys.
Agreed. This was really a test of how well people drive in their own cars vs. an unfamiliar one. Just adding a modern 'control' car would have helped their credibility somewhat. Even then, it wouldn't prove that modern drivers are less skilled, only that their skills are fine-tuned for dealing with the modern systems.
As it is, it's a rather pointless excercise (other than to point out the dangers of loaning your car to someone;)
It sounds like you don't have the TiVo set up very well. In most cases there are multiple versions of the same cable-control profile for a given cable box, which differ by command speed. Sounds like you picked the slowest option without trying the faster ones? The idea is to get the one that's fast enough to tolerate (and get all the digits in), but slow enough that the box doesn't miss any digits.
Of course some cable boxes are better supported than others, or simply interoperate more/less reliably; so YMMV.
ReplayTV got sued to death over their commercial-skip; if UTV had lasted, I expect their skip would have gone the way of the Dodo rather than risk similar litigation (especially now that M$ is playing nice-nice with the studios).
TiVo protected itself by playing ball, which is why it's still around. Too bad about the broadcast flags, though...
This argument would work better if the other networks weren't so much better at it. Granted, Fox isn't one of the original "big three" networks, but they've been around long enough, and have enough money/ratings, that they should have their act together by now. I can only attribute their continued incompetence to some sort of internal politics and/or corporate culture issue that's unique to them...
SciFi got a deal to run the reruns, just like Cartoon Network got Family Guy reruns. But the rights to make new episodes are still tightly guarded by Fox.
I think you mean TV network, not movie studio (although they have one of those as well, of course). Otherwise you're dead on. What I can't figure is why Fox green-lights all these shows just to turn around and bury them? In many cases you hear rumors that Fox secretly hated a particular show (eg. Futurama, and possibly Firefly as well); if that's the case, why did they buy it in the first place?? And then of course they hold onto the TV production rights like pitbulls, so no one else can ressurrect the show...
But the fans already know there won't be a sequel without strong DVD sales. What this interview seems to be saying is that even with strong sales, Whedon may not be interested in continuing. That makes the buying argument weaker than before, and probably depresses many fans just when you'd want them out hyping your product.
Oh come on, he happens to make this statement on the very day the DVD is set to be released? Sounds like a marketing gimmick to me... If the DVD sales are amazing - and they might be, considering the cult status of the show - he can then announce a miraculous comeback.
Actually I think this could have a negative effect on sales. The fanboys were already planning to buy multiple copies of the DVD (as gifts to family, friends, strangers on the street-corner...), all in hopes of pushing sales high enough to get a remake. But with the creator implying that he's done with the franchise anyway, what's the point? So some people might decide to "only" buy copies for themselves instead...
I've had an "HD-ready" TV for years; currently I have two of 'em. But I still don't have an HD tuner of any sort. Here's why:
1) Compatibility Uncertainty: For a long time I wouldn't even think of buying an HD tuner, because I knew it would probably obsolete by the time the big changeover came. I'm still not sure that I trust the industry not to change things around again, most likely for some new DRM-of-the-week.
2) Lack of Content: until recently, there really wasn't enough content out there to justify the expense (and hassles) of an HD setup. This was especially true for OTA broadcasts (also for the rinky-dink cable co. I had until recently). This is starting to change, of course, though not as fast here as in some major markets.
3) Cable HD Costs: I really don't want to shell out for the cable co.'s HD service. It costs too much especially when you consider that a lot of the content is still in premium channels which I normally don't subscribe to.
4) I Hate Cable Boxes: The other half of the expense+hassle equatuion. I had (SD) digital cable a while back, and it just drove me nuts. Not being able to change channels quickly, interfacing the thing with recording devices for scheduled recordings, etc. Plus I just hate the fact that I can watch some channels on one TV that I can't on another (w/o a box). Note that a lot of this applies to OTA boxes as well. A TV with a builtin HD tuner would help here, but then you run into item 1) in a big way...
And he's got a point, although things are a lot better than they used to be. The fact is that Linux, like most Open Source projects, suffers from the lack of a Marketing Department. Without it, us geeks are free to work on the technical details that interest us (which is why OSS is so great for back-office server utilities, etc.); but there's also no guidance or focus in supplying the features users want.
It's not just a matter of *understanding* what non-techies want. You also have to have the motivation and committment to actually implement the features in a timely manner, rather than drifting onto technical tangents and minutiae. OSS suffers from the lack of a business end; or more simply, the lack of someone breathing down your neck, applying pressure to do the things that are most needed, not what's most interesting.
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Putting aside the obvious emotional reasons for gas bargain hunting, there is at least one practical consideration that the article doesn't fully explore. When shopping for gas, you're only dealing with one item, whereas in grocery shopping you're looking for a range of items on any given trip. It's much easier to determine the consistent best-price location for one item than it is for a dozen or more items in even a modest grocery basket.
And the fact is, most stores have a mixture of "loss-leader" bargains, normal prices, and sucker prices on different items, even in the same general product category. So if you base your shopping habits on, say, the best price for milk, you're likely to get shafted on the price of bread or meat or whatever. Overall it tends to balance out so that you spend roughly the same amount on a diverse grocery basket no matter which store you go to (at least within the same "tier" of stores).
The only way to get the best price on everything is to stop at several different stores, maybe even returning to an earlier store to get what turns out to be the best price that week on a particular item. And that's far too tedious and time(+gas!)-consuming for most people.
The OP has the it backwards; there are no highbrow games because the medium lacks cultural credibility. The whole concept of "highbrow" work is based on a cultural collective judgement. The common culture doesn't yet accept games in general as an art form, so there's no basis to judge what's "high art" and what isn't.
Is it "Myst", with its stunning visuals, atmospheric quality, etc.? Or is it an RPG or adventure game with a deep and thoughtful story, like "Planescape: Torment"? Or is it simply gameplay classics like Tetris or Half-Life? Right now we lack the cultural framework to judge what's most important in defining a "great work" in this medium.
It's important to consider CoL when comparing salaries in different areas. However, there is at least one benefit of living/working in a high CoL area, specifically when it's due to real estate pricing: If you buy a house while working in a high-priced area, you're in much better shape when you eventually move somewhere else.
If you're moving someplace "cheaper", you can buy an equivalent house and have a big chunk of money left over (or you can upgrade to a mansion). If it's another expensive area, at least you've already got equity for a straight swap to a new home. Meanwhile, people moving from low-cost areas don't have nearly enough to buy the same house in the more expensive area right away; the full (paid-off) value of their old home may barely cover the down payment on an equivalent new one.
So if you can get a similar CoL-adjusted salary in two locations, the more expensive location is actually a better deal --if you plan to buy a house, and if you think you might eventually move again (and who doesn't these days?).
The Learning Channel used to show educational programming like The Discovery Channel, but then it slowly began to falter and began showing arts and crafts channels.
Ironically, when TLC was launched, it was because the Discovery Channel itself was moving away from educational programming. Basically it was becoming the "war channel", with nothing but military tech shows and eventually even military history. Rather than spinning off the popular military stuff into its own channel, they apparently decided it made more sense to keep corrupting the existing channel (which already had a spot in most cable lineups) and push all that "boring old education stuff" into a new channel.
Eventually of course they did spin off the War/Wings/Military/[insert name of week here] Channel, and in a rare turnaround Discovery actually went back to something like its intended format. Of course by then TLC was already drifting...
I Can't help noticing that the timing they suggest for having *all* shared ancestors roughly coincides with the "age of the world" claimed by religious fundamentalists. Wouldn't be interesting if this bit of genetic pseudo-science becomes an argument used by creationists?
Several years ago, the small company worked for used a local mom & pop outfit to buy & repair the office computers. This particular shop made a point of offering "great deals" on refurbished and used equipment. Of course we bought only the best, all-new PCs from them...
Well, one cow-orker's HDD failed, and the aforementioned computer shop swapped it out for a new one. A little while later, we got a new employee in and ordered a new PC for him. When the "new" PC's C: drive was examined, it turned out to still have the first cow-orker's data on it!
I don't know which was worse, the fact that sensitive company data had been potentially exposed, or the fact that they sold us a used, known-bad hard drive as new?!
The study in this article didn't account for normal friends-and-family prayers, it only varied the presence of arranged prayers from strangers (who probably had ulterior motives). At most this study might show that "prayer bulletins" and praying for complete strangers isn't particularly useful. The study says nothing about prayers from loved-ones, which many people would say are the most sincere and thus the most useful.
Practically speaking, it's impossible to do a scientific test that would clear up this issue for everyone. You're never going to convince loved-ones to *not* pray for the patient, so double-blind studies are out. And post-analysis of outcomes for religious vs. non-religious patients/families would be contaminated by the differences in the patients' own beliefs and attitudes.
First of all, isn't this story a dupe? I've known about this for weeks now.
But anyway, my point today is that not only are non-HDCP TVs SOL, but it's likely that current HDMI/HDCP "1.0" TVs will eventually be left out as well. From what I understand, the equipment manufacturers are already on to about v1.2 by now, but it's hard say since they can't all agree on the details. People are already seeing compatibility issues between specific models of player and display devices, and it's only likely to get worse.
The problem with the study in the article is that it's comparing optimism among natural optimists vs. pessimism among pessimists. Basically they're assuming that the two strategies will work the same way for everyone. But what if the natural pessimists picked that strategy because optimism just didn't work for them?
1 39153825/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-2922924-4895954?s=b ooks&v=glance&n=283155
The book linked below has an interesting take on all this. The idea is that optimist strategies don't work for some people, and that defensive pessimism is particularly useful for this group. So even if Optimists being optimistic are happier than Pessimists being pessimistic, according to this theory the Pessimists would be even less happy trying to be optimistic!
"The Positive Power of Negative Thinking: Using Defensive Pessimism to Harness Anxiety and Perform at Your Peak"
by Julie K. Norem
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465051391/qid=1
A big part of this, IMHO, is the difference between physical/objective reality vs. social reality. The fact is that in many cases, simply believing that things will work out has a major influence in social situations, in ways that are both subtle and profound. Other people respond to a positive attitude, and can be influenced to change their beliefs based solely on our confidence in our own beliefs. So cheerful optimism, even when it conflicts with the reality of the situation, is a successful tactic. OTOH, in the physical world, or for that matter the realm of computing, such factors do not apply. Computers don't care if we expect them to work, they just follow the program; likewise, inaminate objects in general follow natural physical laws.
As engineers, we tend to take a realistic approach based on the facts of the situation. This is a successful trait for the problems on which we work. However, for a marketing person, sales person, or really anyone who deals with people, an optimistic approach is actually better than a realistic one.
BTW, one of reasons that non-technical people often believe in mystical "mind of matter" scenarios is that they see optimism at work in their everyday lives, and expect the same thing to carry over into other situations. But they don't realize that their everyday lives are mostly social constructs: you buy from a store clerk, work for a boss, etc. In the modern world, everything we need is supplied by systems run by other people. So Crystal Power, or whatever placebo feeds your optimism, may "work" in these situations; but don't expect it to do much when you're stuck alone in the desert...
The flip-side of this is that highly intelligent people tend to "overthink" things. With all that extra brain-power, it's possible to see second and third order effects of many everyday actions/interactions of which 'normal' people are blissfully ignorant. And the thing is, most of the time the average joe gets away just fine without considering those indirect effects (perhaps in part because societal rules are geared towards correcting for such unintended side-effects?). Meanwhile the more intelligent person is left with a minefield of possibilities, which often leads them to indecision, excessive caution, or to making "weird" choices...
It's worse than just a typo; they use the name 'Reynolds' again in a later paragraph. The author probably misread the name in his research, and no one else who handled the story ever noticed (or knew any better)...
Outright bandwidth caps would be too blatant, and would be easy to get around (even if default sources have a limited bandwidth, you keep adding/changing mirror sources to achieve the overall bandwidth you need).
No, they're looking to pursue the IP QoS extortion model, which is a bit more subtle. It's a "frog in a pot" scenario: at first, just a few companies pay extra for a higher level of service. After a while, so many high-profile, high-bandwidth sites are paying that the service for non-paying sources degrades. Eventually things will get so bad that you won't be able to serve up any kind of content reliably without paying The Man. And the average user won't notice or care, because Ebay and MSN will still work fine...
At that point, there will still be personal and hobbyist's sites, but they'll be painful to use; meanwhile non-profits and open-source ventures will be squeezed out, unable to play on a level field with the Big Boys.
Agreed. This was really a test of how well people drive in their own cars vs. an unfamiliar one. Just adding a modern 'control' car would have helped their credibility somewhat. Even then, it wouldn't prove that modern drivers are less skilled, only that their skills are fine-tuned for dealing with the modern systems.
;)
As it is, it's a rather pointless excercise (other than to point out the dangers of loaning your car to someone
It sounds like you don't have the TiVo set up very well. In most cases there are multiple versions of the same cable-control profile for a given cable box, which differ by command speed. Sounds like you picked the slowest option without trying the faster ones? The idea is to get the one that's fast enough to tolerate (and get all the digits in), but slow enough that the box doesn't miss any digits.
Of course some cable boxes are better supported than others, or simply interoperate more/less reliably; so YMMV.
ReplayTV got sued to death over their commercial-skip; if UTV had lasted, I expect their skip would have gone the way of the Dodo rather than risk similar litigation (especially now that M$ is playing nice-nice with the studios).
TiVo protected itself by playing ball, which is why it's still around. Too bad about the broadcast flags, though...
This argument would work better if the other networks weren't so much better at it. Granted, Fox isn't one of the original "big three" networks, but they've been around long enough, and have enough money/ratings, that they should have their act together by now. I can only attribute their continued incompetence to some sort of internal politics and/or corporate culture issue that's unique to them...
Broadcast rights != Production rights
SciFi got a deal to run the reruns, just like Cartoon Network got Family Guy reruns. But the rights to make new episodes are still tightly guarded by Fox.
I think you mean TV network, not movie studio (although they have one of those as well, of course). Otherwise you're dead on. What I can't figure is why Fox green-lights all these shows just to turn around and bury them? In many cases you hear rumors that Fox secretly hated a particular show (eg. Futurama, and possibly Firefly as well); if that's the case, why did they buy it in the first place?? And then of course they hold onto the TV production rights like pitbulls, so no one else can ressurrect the show...
But the fans already know there won't be a sequel without strong DVD sales. What this interview seems to be saying is that even with strong sales, Whedon may not be interested in continuing. That makes the buying argument weaker than before, and probably depresses many fans just when you'd want them out hyping your product.
Oh come on, he happens to make this statement on the very day the DVD is set to be released? Sounds like a marketing gimmick to me... If the DVD sales are amazing - and they might be, considering the cult status of the show - he can then announce a miraculous comeback.
Actually I think this could have a negative effect on sales. The fanboys were already planning to buy multiple copies of the DVD (as gifts to family, friends, strangers on the street-corner...), all in hopes of pushing sales high enough to get a remake. But with the creator implying that he's done with the franchise anyway, what's the point? So some people might decide to "only" buy copies for themselves instead...
Yes, we have all viewed the Historical Documents... (by Grapnar's Hammer! ;)
...Law of Averages? Or sign of the Apocalypse??
I've had an "HD-ready" TV for years; currently I have two of 'em. But I still don't have an HD tuner of any sort. Here's why:
1) Compatibility Uncertainty: For a long time I wouldn't even think of buying an HD tuner, because I knew it would probably obsolete by the time the big changeover came. I'm still not sure that I trust the industry not to change things around again, most likely for some new DRM-of-the-week.
2) Lack of Content: until recently, there really wasn't enough content out there to justify the expense (and hassles) of an HD setup. This was especially true for OTA broadcasts (also for the rinky-dink cable co. I had until recently). This is starting to change, of course, though not as fast here as in some major markets.
3) Cable HD Costs: I really don't want to shell out for the cable co.'s HD service. It costs too much especially when you consider that a lot of the content is still in premium channels which I normally don't subscribe to.
4) I Hate Cable Boxes: The other half of the expense+hassle equatuion. I had (SD) digital cable a while back, and it just drove me nuts. Not being able to change channels quickly, interfacing the thing with recording devices for scheduled recordings, etc. Plus I just hate the fact that I can watch some channels on one TV that I can't on another (w/o a box). Note that a lot of this applies to OTA boxes as well. A TV with a builtin HD tuner would help here, but then you run into item 1) in a big way...
And he's got a point, although things are a lot better than they used to be. The fact is that Linux, like most Open Source projects, suffers from the lack of a Marketing Department. Without it, us geeks are free to work on the technical details that interest us (which is why OSS is so great for back-office server utilities, etc.); but there's also no guidance or focus in supplying the features users want.
It's not just a matter of *understanding* what non-techies want. You also have to have the motivation and committment to actually implement the features in a timely manner, rather than drifting onto technical tangents and minutiae. OSS suffers from the lack of a business end; or more simply, the lack of someone breathing down your neck, applying pressure to do the things that are most needed, not what's most interesting.