Product placement you can't skip... Hmmmm -- did anyone watch "The Restaurant" about New York City celebrety chef Rocco DiSpirito's struggle to open a new restaurant last year? It had exactly the type of no-skip advertising/product placement you're talking about. The show's majority sponsors were Mitsubishi, American Express and an beer company. (Coors or Miller, maybe?) Anyway, they worked the ads directly into the show: ++Rocco sits down to talk about finances with his investors -- "hey, let me pull up my American Express Small Business planning software and I'll show you our costs and payroll this week" ++Rocco gets up to go to work -- shots of Rocco driving by various scenic NYC landmarks in his Mitsubushi SUV. ++Rocco's restaurant gets a huge order of beer from the distributor -- lots of closeups of case upon case of the beer.
Etc, etc, -- expect to see more of the same as TV networks struggle to replace TV Ad dollars.
Well, no doubt HP, AT&T and Lucent have had their problems, but I'm not sure that it can all be pinned on her. From what I've read, her responsibility vis-a-vis Lucent was the spinoff, not the continuing managemnet of the company. You can hardly blame her for Lucent failures after she left for HP. And with HP -- the company was going down the crapper before she took over. Yes, she didn't revive it into a resounding success, but she also took over during a time when all computer companies, and the economy in general, basically went to hell. The fact the HP still exists may well be a pretty good endorsement. That said, I happen to agree with HP board. It's time for Carly to move on. HP's continued efforts in the consumer arena aren't paying off. They need to dump the PC business (sell it to Dell?) and get rid of such stupidities like the HP branded iPods. HP should be selling printers -- their one continuous bright spot and also concentrating on enterprise hardware and services.
You can't? Funny how I was able to record the Pats/Steelers game. And the fact the Tivo included tips for recording the Superbowl in their most recent newsletter...
And Caps Lock. It's located in a very bad place and should also be moved up to the function key row or the insert/delete area. How many times have we all hit caps lock without realizing it, and typed away happily for a paragraph or two before seeing our error?
"In retrospect, lighting the match was my big mistake. But I was only trying to retrieve the gerbil." Eric Tomasewski told bemused doctors in the Severe Burns Unit of Salt Lake City Hospital. Tomaszewski, and his homosexual partner, Andrew "Kiki" Farnum, had been admitted for emergency treatment after a felching session had gone seriously wrong. "I pushed a cardboard tube up his rectum and slipped Raggot, our gerbil, in," he explained. "As usual, Kiki shouted out "Armageddon", my cue that he'd had enough. I tried to retrieve Raggot but he wouldn't come out again, so I peered into the tube and struck a match, thinking the light might attract him."
At a hushed press conference, a hospital spokesman described what happened next. "The match ignited a pocket of intestinal gas and a flame shot out the tube, igniting Mr. Tomaszewski's hair and severely burning his face. It also set fire to the gerbil's fur and whiskers which in turn ignited a larger pocket of gas further up the intestine, propelling the rodent out like a cannonball."
Tomaszewski suffered second degree burns and a broken nose from the impact of the gerbil, while Farnum suffered first and second degree burns to his anus and lower intestinal tract.
(Yes, I know it's an Urban Legend -- still funny as all get out though...)
Eeek! Gevalia???? Their coffee is horribly overpriced. Green Mountain, Black Bear and even some supermarket brands taste better for similar or less money. They only good use I've found for Gevalia is getting a new coffee maker every couple of years. (3 so far -- why they keep sending me offers, I don't know.) And I honestly try the coffee I get with my coffee maker each time, but I'm always disappointed.
Oh thank god, someone else that remembers the fantastic Coffee Connection shops. East Coast roasted coffee beans rock -- not those burned, nasty-tasting cinders they use at Charbucks.
Here in southern New Hampshire, TimeGrocer allows you to specify "no substitutions" in your order. So if you select that, and they're out of the item, you just don't get it. Which, to me, is better than getting some "other" brand product. TimeGrocer is great by the way -- I have never gotten unsatisfactory produce or meats and their service is first rate.
and that,/., is the definition of sappy love. Yes, but note: "I then sent daily emails to my girlfriend (now wife)"
Might be sappy, but it seems to have worked. He's one of the (seemingly few) Slashdotters who actually has a constant human female companion who is not made of pixels.
What's happened to John Katz, anyway? I haven't seen an article of his referenced here in a long time. John Katz references are getting to be as rare as Hot Grits, or All your (subject) belong to us".
The parent brings up a good point. Remember when the same game released for different platforms had different features? The differences could be as slight as mildly different puzzles to wholly new levels or styles of play. This was good.
Now, the exact same game is "ported" to different platforms so that there are no differences. Regrettably, this doesn't allow for the inherent differences in controllers or displays, and (usually) make the ports much worse than they need to be. This is a bad thing.
As a manager, I would give you the opportunity to help in the selection process if you were one of the top people in the group the candidate would be working. Also if you are well-respected by the group in general and/or have shown yourself to be a good judge of people. (say by letting me know that the new contractor doesn't know dick before we bring him on.)
Re:The flagship...
on
D&D Is 30
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Ace of Base!? Whippersnapper. Real music to D&D by considering this the 30 year anniversary, not 10: Rush, Yes, Jethro Tull, Black Sabbath....
But I do agree that doing stupid/bizarre things to blow away the DM's story line was always to most fun!
Absolutely -- When I got to driving age in the early 80's, a car was considered to be "old" past 50,000 miles and pretty much fit for the junk yard by 100K. Now you've got cars that are barely broken in by 50,000 and probably won't even need their first tune-up 'till 100,000 miles. Car makers like Saab and Volvo used to give medallions to owners whose cars passed 100K and 250K miles -- these days a car with 150-200K miles is not that much of an oddity anymore.
**GSM is, realistically, not the right standard for the US. GSM cells are too small for rural areas **
That may be so in terms of what the "book" says, but here in southern New Hampshire -- hardly the nexus of cellular capability -- my new AT&T GSM phone (a Siemens SL56) is way better than my Sprint PCS phone was. Imagine... I can actually make and receive phone calls with it!
Re:Transformers and Schoolyard Trauma
on
Retro Vision
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· Score: 1
They're hideous chunks of cheap-assed made-in-$INSERT_THIRD_WORLD_MANUFACTURING_HELLHOLE _DU_JOUR plastic crap that all the kids with mucous running down their noses in endless streams clamored to have
Except, one person I know who had collected a bunch of them in the 80's managed to sell his entire collection for $3500 a year or so ago. That doesn't mean they weren't hideous and cheap -- but it wasn't a bad investment, considering they probably didn't cost more than about $1000 in the first place.
My experience with Gateway in 1999 caused me, as a Network Admin, to never buy Gateway again. My company bought 10 new "identical" Gateway PCs. When we received them in, I got ready to build one and clone the rest in order to make "standard" PCs. Well, lo-and-behold, the PCs weren't identical! Even though we had ordered all the same model # and specs, gateway had used different sound cards, video cards, network cards, etc. They all had the same "specs", but weren't really identical. Pulling crap like that really increases the support costs for a corporate network. Because of that, now that I'm in charge of determining what brands we buy, Gateway is not on my vendor list.
Starbucks deserves accliam for their marketing methods and their ability to take over the marketplace. (much like our favorite whipping boy, Bill Gates.) However, the reason most people think Starbucks is great coffee is because A) it's consistant (like McDonalds), B) it's expensive, and C) it is a reasonable quality. (though not top quality.) Also they have "converted" most of the country into "west coast roast" (heavily roasted) afficionados, and very few people appreciate the "east coast" (lighter roast) style that actually allows more of the nuances of flavor through. One of the best old-time "east coast" coffee purveyors was Boston's Coffee Connection, which Starbucks bought in the early 90's, and promptly did away with. (That was great coffee -- I was so bummed...)
I don't know how much wine is in YOUR area, but I can go down to the store and get a bottle of Coppola Rosso or Claret for $10 - $15. And Coppola is a pretty good wine value. It's no Opus One, but it beats the snot out of Greg Norman's wine. IMO, if you regularly spend less than $10 on a bottle of wine you probably aren't drinking decent wine.
Sure it makes 240hp, but it only has 140 lbs of torque. Compare that to a V8 with similar horsepower and nearly identical fuel mileage -- the 4.6L Mustang GT. It makes a little more horsepower -- 260, but with 305 lbs of torque it also has more than double the torque of the RX8. And torque is what you feel when you put your foot down.
Don't get me wrong, the RX8 is a great car, but displacement DOES give you something you can't get from smaller motors.
Slashdot Mirror
Product placement you can't skip...
Hmmmm -- did anyone watch "The Restaurant" about New York City celebrety chef Rocco DiSpirito's struggle to open a new restaurant last year? It had exactly the type of no-skip advertising/product placement you're talking about. The show's majority sponsors were Mitsubishi, American Express and an beer company. (Coors or Miller, maybe?) Anyway, they worked the ads directly into the show:
++Rocco sits down to talk about finances with his investors -- "hey, let me pull up my American Express Small Business planning software and I'll show you our costs and payroll this week"
++Rocco gets up to go to work -- shots of Rocco driving by various scenic NYC landmarks in his Mitsubushi SUV.
++Rocco's restaurant gets a huge order of beer from the distributor -- lots of closeups of case upon case of the beer.
Etc, etc, -- expect to see more of the same as TV networks struggle to replace TV Ad dollars.
Well, no doubt HP, AT&T and Lucent have had their problems, but I'm not sure that it can all be pinned on her. From what I've read, her responsibility vis-a-vis Lucent was the spinoff, not the continuing managemnet of the company. You can hardly blame her for Lucent failures after she left for HP. And with HP -- the company was going down the crapper before she took over. Yes, she didn't revive it into a resounding success, but she also took over during a time when all computer companies, and the economy in general, basically went to hell. The fact the HP still exists may well be a pretty good endorsement.
That said, I happen to agree with HP board. It's time for Carly to move on. HP's continued efforts in the consumer arena aren't paying off. They need to dump the PC business (sell it to Dell?) and get rid of such stupidities like the HP branded iPods. HP should be selling printers -- their one continuous bright spot and also concentrating on enterprise hardware and services.
ummm... according to this she has a BA in Medieval studies, but also a Masters from MIT's Sloan school and a Masters in Business from U of Maryland.
I think the more advanced degrees are the ones pertinent to her career at HP, AT&T and Lucent.
You can't? Funny how I was able to record the Pats/Steelers game. And the fact the Tivo included tips for recording the Superbowl in their most recent newsletter...
And Caps Lock. It's located in a very bad place and should also be moved up to the function key row or the insert/delete area.
How many times have we all hit caps lock without realizing it, and typed away happily for a paragraph or two before seeing our error?
Wonder what it would do with "Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there."?
(Yes, Closer To The Edge)
>>Gary Cole was also Midnight Caller and Sherrif Buck in American Gothic.
For jebus sake, Midnight Caller?!?!! Give us a real reference.
Gary Cole played Lumbergh in Office Space for crying out loud!
That's like saying Natalie Portman was in Where the Heart Is, but not mentioning Star Wars. (or hot grits).
"In retrospect, lighting the match was my big mistake. But I was only trying to retrieve the gerbil." Eric Tomasewski told bemused doctors in the Severe Burns Unit of Salt Lake City Hospital. Tomaszewski, and his homosexual partner, Andrew "Kiki" Farnum, had been admitted for emergency treatment after a felching session had gone seriously wrong. "I pushed a cardboard tube up his rectum and slipped Raggot, our gerbil, in," he explained. "As usual, Kiki shouted out "Armageddon", my cue that he'd had enough. I tried to retrieve Raggot but he wouldn't come out again, so I peered into the tube and struck a match, thinking the light might attract him."
At a hushed press conference, a hospital spokesman described what happened next. "The match ignited a pocket of intestinal gas and a flame shot out the tube, igniting Mr. Tomaszewski's hair and severely burning his face. It also set fire to the gerbil's fur and whiskers which in turn ignited a larger pocket of gas further up the intestine, propelling the rodent out like a cannonball."
Tomaszewski suffered second degree burns and a broken nose from the impact of the gerbil, while Farnum suffered first and second degree burns to his anus and lower intestinal tract.
(Yes, I know it's an Urban Legend -- still funny as all get out though...)
they're much like flight sims in the sense...
Wow. For a second I thought you wrote Fight sims and I didn't know whether to laugh or sympathise.
Eeek! Gevalia????
Their coffee is horribly overpriced. Green Mountain, Black Bear and even some supermarket brands taste better for similar or less money. They only good use I've found for Gevalia is getting a new coffee maker every couple of years. (3 so far -- why they keep sending me offers, I don't know.)
And I honestly try the coffee I get with my coffee maker each time, but I'm always disappointed.
Oh thank god, someone else that remembers the fantastic Coffee Connection shops.
East Coast roasted coffee beans rock -- not those burned, nasty-tasting cinders they use at Charbucks.
Here in southern New Hampshire, TimeGrocer allows you to specify "no substitutions" in your order. So if you select that, and they're out of the item, you just don't get it. Which, to me, is better than getting some "other" brand product.
TimeGrocer is great by the way -- I have never gotten unsatisfactory produce or meats and their service is first rate.
and that, /., is the definition of sappy love.
Yes, but note: "I then sent daily emails to my girlfriend (now wife)"
Might be sappy, but it seems to have worked. He's one of the (seemingly few) Slashdotters who actually has a constant human female companion who is not made of pixels.
What's happened to John Katz, anyway? I haven't seen an article of his referenced here in a long time.
John Katz references are getting to be as rare as Hot Grits, or All your (subject) belong to us".
The parent brings up a good point.
Remember when the same game released for different platforms had different features? The differences could be as slight as mildly different puzzles to wholly new levels or styles of play. This was good.
Now, the exact same game is "ported" to different platforms so that there are no differences. Regrettably, this doesn't allow for the inherent differences in controllers or displays, and (usually) make the ports much worse than they need to be. This is a bad thing.
As a manager, I would give you the opportunity to help in the selection process if you were one of the top people in the group the candidate would be working. Also if you are well-respected by the group in general and/or have shown yourself to be a good judge of people. (say by letting me know that the new contractor doesn't know dick before we bring him on.)
Ace of Base!? Whippersnapper. Real music to D&D by considering this the 30 year anniversary, not 10: Rush, Yes, Jethro Tull, Black Sabbath....
But I do agree that doing stupid/bizarre things to blow away the DM's story line was always to most fun!
Absolutely -- When I got to driving age in the early 80's, a car was considered to be "old" past 50,000 miles and pretty much fit for the junk yard by 100K. Now you've got cars that are barely broken in by 50,000 and probably won't even need their first tune-up 'till 100,000 miles. Car makers like Saab and Volvo used to give medallions to owners whose cars passed 100K and 250K miles -- these days a car with 150-200K miles is not that much of an oddity anymore.
**GSM is, realistically, not the right standard for the US. GSM cells are too small for rural areas **
That may be so in terms of what the "book" says, but here in southern New Hampshire -- hardly the nexus of cellular capability -- my new AT&T GSM phone (a Siemens SL56) is way better than my Sprint PCS phone was. Imagine... I can actually make and receive phone calls with it!
What are YOU talking about, youngster?
They're hideous chunks of cheap-assed made-in-$INSERT_THIRD_WORLD_MANUFACTURING_HELLHOLE _DU_JOUR plastic crap that all the kids with mucous running down their noses in endless streams clamored to have
Except, one person I know who had collected a bunch of them in the 80's managed to sell his entire collection for $3500 a year or so ago.
That doesn't mean they weren't hideous and cheap -- but it wasn't a bad investment, considering they probably didn't cost more than about $1000 in the first place.
My experience with Gateway in 1999 caused me, as a Network Admin, to never buy Gateway again. My company bought 10 new "identical" Gateway PCs. When we received them in, I got ready to build one and clone the rest in order to make "standard" PCs. Well, lo-and-behold, the PCs weren't identical! Even though we had ordered all the same model # and specs, gateway had used different sound cards, video cards, network cards, etc. They all had the same "specs", but weren't really identical.
Pulling crap like that really increases the support costs for a corporate network.
Because of that, now that I'm in charge of determining what brands we buy, Gateway is not on my vendor list.
Starbucks deserves accliam for their marketing methods and their ability to take over the marketplace. (much like our favorite whipping boy, Bill Gates.)
However, the reason most people think Starbucks is great coffee is because A) it's consistant (like McDonalds), B) it's expensive, and C) it is a reasonable quality. (though not top quality.)
Also they have "converted" most of the country into "west coast roast" (heavily roasted) afficionados, and very few people appreciate the "east coast" (lighter roast) style that actually allows more of the nuances of flavor through.
One of the best old-time "east coast" coffee purveyors was Boston's Coffee Connection, which Starbucks bought in the early 90's, and promptly did away with. (That was great coffee -- I was so bummed...)
I don't know how much wine is in YOUR area, but I can go down to the store and get a bottle of Coppola Rosso or Claret for $10 - $15. And Coppola is a pretty good wine value. It's no Opus One, but it beats the snot out of Greg Norman's wine.
IMO, if you regularly spend less than $10 on a bottle of wine you probably aren't drinking decent wine.
Sure it makes 240hp, but it only has 140 lbs of torque. Compare that to a V8 with similar horsepower and nearly identical fuel mileage -- the 4.6L Mustang GT. It makes a little more horsepower -- 260, but with 305 lbs of torque it also has more than double the torque of the RX8. And torque is what you feel when you put your foot down.
Don't get me wrong, the RX8 is a great car, but displacement DOES give you something you can't get from smaller motors.