Manipulation is intimately tied to the rest of our society. It's generally how business and politics get done. It's greatly preferred over rational choice because it is hard to rule and dominate when all of your actions have a demonstrable reasonable basis. It's so important to us that we are very careful never to teach any real argumentation, critical thinking, or about propaganda techniques in our public schools. If we did that correctly it would result in a tough-minded population not so easily led around, and that's absolutely not desirable to our rulers.
A truer word was never spoken. I used to consider myself educated about politics and the issues. I think so many people are not interested is because of the kind of influence you describe above.
What the GP seems to be refering to is Comcast moving to only digital signals over their lines, requiring people with SD televisions who previously only watched analog channels to get a settop box. (up until now, if you only watched analog channels you could just plug the RF cable straight into the back of your TV
In my area (Philadelphia metro) we started to get new digital adapters which give most of the channels you got with the coax screwed into the tv. You usually could get up to two free and pay like a buck ninety five for any more.It's not the perfect solution but then they started giving a little faster internet and more channels. Subsequently they are probably in a better place then a lot of other networks are now. That's just my opinion biased as it may be (I've had their service for years)but they must have created a lot of bandwidth on their network by making that kind of move when they did.
why would you ever think that a paid advertisement is a good source of honest unbiased information about the product/service in question, and if you recognize that it is not then why would you want to base purchasing decisions on dishonest, biased information?
I make no buying decisions about anything I see advertised in any media. I may see a product that catches my interest but if I'm sheling out some hard earned money you better belive I'm doing some research before I buy anything.
I agree with most everything you said but I come from a long line of skeptics and I suppose that has infuenced my buying decisions more than any advertisement. And yes I know, you're going to say "you saw a product that caught your interest so you are influenced by advertising" and you'd be wrong because the research influences my decision to buy.
I guess I should have clarified my position on advertisments relevant to my interests. Most of those relevant ads are coming from Google. Since I use a lot of their free software I consider it a reasonable trade off to see targeted ads. In fact I'd rather not have to look at a bunch of crap that is either not interesting or downright annoying. Were that the case I would not have much incentive to use their products. I'm willing to trade a bit of privacy for some nice software.
The reality is it cost more to align adds with web content than in does to spread the marketing deceit of targeting people with adds for things they were interested in buying yesterday and already purchased.
That's so true because half the time I see this stuff after I've already spent my money. So who comes out on top in this situation?
The best (read sucky) part are all the perfectly functional, yet completely useless, "old" analog TVs that have been dumped (often illegally) in landfills.
I would argue that they're not always completely useless. I work for a cable network (name withheld) and some of my customers are still using the analog boxes with a set top box to do the signal reception and transcoding. Obviously they're not getting hd but that doesn't always matter to everyone.
Whew. Im glad to know that privacy is still dead. Seriously though, I'd rather have advertisments targeted to my interests than some random bs that I have interest in.
And when you save the file it creates a duplicate so you have a copy of the original and a copy of the edited version. I suppose if you were some uber photographer this would be cumbersome but for the rest of us that's just fine.
http://picasaweb.google.com/4brutus
Or worse, you ditch Picasa and find out that years of long hard work is gone because Picasa was privately storing all that information (even things like rotations, cropping, etc.). (Yes, I know it has some option somewhere to turn this off. I resent the fact they make it the default).
File>save usually works for me. And yes they can do that because it's free.
When I was last in the corporate world, we strictly acquired perks like nicer chairs and our own white boards via commando-style raids.
LOL reminds me of the time I worked for Citibank. I was on the overnight shift and there were few people in the building so we regularly staged "midnight acquisition raids" on different areas of the building. He's right though, sometimes the only way to get your perks is to take matters in your own hands.
The firm I work for advertises new vacancies at the lowest rate they think they can get away with and, if nobody shows up at that rate who fits the bill, they then advertise at a higher rate.
That kind of bottom line thinking is not very profitable or smart. Oh sure in the short term you can hire a bunch or workers real cheap. But in the long term you spend too much payroll having the more experienced workers fix the newbies mistakes. In general this could lead to a higher turn over rate as well.
Personally I rather like the second option. It seems that privacy aint the only thing that's dead/satanic laugh. More internets for me (the tubes just got a bit wider;-)
Many methods of cooling the planet, collectively known as geoengineering, have been proposed. They include rockets to deploy millions of mirrors in the stratosphere and artificial trees to suck carbon dioxide from the air.
You're joking...right? Rockets deploying millions oof mirrors into the stratosphere? Artificial trees??? What about the real one's which do the job just fine? Seriously though, who let the mad scientist out of his lab?
'information becomes a distraction' when it comes to iPads, the Xbox, etc
I'm confused. Did he just say you can get too much information from an Xbox? Mr President I think you're showing your age. The only kind of information you get from an Xbox is how to frag your friends and such. Perhaps he should spend more time explaining why a disproportionate amount of former RIAA lawyers are serving in his Justice department. That's some information I'd like to understand. Is he planning on suing grannies who like to steal (steal not pirate) rap music?
Nope. They are slowly migrating all the old analog channels to a hi-def signal (FCC mandate). That's why most people who plug the cable into the back of the tv can't get a signal anymore. Call 1-800-comcast as you may be able to get an adapter box to compensate for this.
Oh noes...lifetime movie channel is offline. Dman you AMC-11.
Seriously though, any cable company worth their salt already has several contingency plans in effect so no news here.
I for one welcome our Canadian Beaver overlords (provided they bring whiskey of course).
Seriously though the pic looks like a giant pile of beaver poo.
Slashdot Mirror
If you don't like their best effort to be impartial you don't have to use the site. It's probably written in (lawyer) the TOS.
Manipulation is intimately tied to the rest of our society. It's generally how business and politics get done. It's greatly preferred over rational choice because it is hard to rule and dominate when all of your actions have a demonstrable reasonable basis. It's so important to us that we are very careful never to teach any real argumentation, critical thinking, or about propaganda techniques in our public schools. If we did that correctly it would result in a tough-minded population not so easily led around, and that's absolutely not desirable to our rulers.
A truer word was never spoken. I used to consider myself educated about politics and the issues. I think so many people are not interested is because of the kind of influence you describe above.
What the GP seems to be refering to is Comcast moving to only digital signals over their lines, requiring people with SD televisions who previously only watched analog channels to get a settop box. (up until now, if you only watched analog channels you could just plug the RF cable straight into the back of your TV
In my area (Philadelphia metro) we started to get new digital adapters which give most of the channels you got with the coax screwed into the tv. You usually could get up to two free and pay like a buck ninety five for any more.It's not the perfect solution but then they started giving a little faster internet and more channels. Subsequently they are probably in a better place then a lot of other networks are now. That's just my opinion biased as it may be (I've had their service for years)but they must have created a lot of bandwidth on their network by making that kind of move when they did.
OMG. You raise midnight acquisitions to a new level of sneakiness. I salute you.
why would you ever think that a paid advertisement is a good source of honest unbiased information about the product/service in question, and if you recognize that it is not then why would you want to base purchasing decisions on dishonest, biased information?
I make no buying decisions about anything I see advertised in any media. I may see a product that catches my interest but if I'm sheling out some hard earned money you better belive I'm doing some research before I buy anything. I agree with most everything you said but I come from a long line of skeptics and I suppose that has infuenced my buying decisions more than any advertisement. And yes I know, you're going to say "you saw a product that caught your interest so you are influenced by advertising" and you'd be wrong because the research influences my decision to buy.
The reality is it cost more to align adds with web content than in does to spread the marketing deceit of targeting people with adds for things they were interested in buying yesterday and already purchased.
That's so true because half the time I see this stuff after I've already spent my money. So who comes out on top in this situation?
The best (read sucky) part are all the perfectly functional, yet completely useless, "old" analog TVs that have been dumped (often illegally) in landfills.
I would argue that they're not always completely useless. I work for a cable network (name withheld) and some of my customers are still using the analog boxes with a set top box to do the signal reception and transcoding. Obviously they're not getting hd but that doesn't always matter to everyone.
Whew. Im glad to know that privacy is still dead. Seriously though, I'd rather have advertisments targeted to my interests than some random bs that I have interest in.
And when you save the file it creates a duplicate so you have a copy of the original and a copy of the edited version. I suppose if you were some uber photographer this would be cumbersome but for the rest of us that's just fine. http://picasaweb.google.com/4brutus
Or worse, you ditch Picasa and find out that years of long hard work is gone because Picasa was privately storing all that information (even things like rotations, cropping, etc.). (Yes, I know it has some option somewhere to turn this off. I resent the fact they make it the default).
File>save usually works for me. And yes they can do that because it's free.
When I was last in the corporate world, we strictly acquired perks like nicer chairs and our own white boards via commando-style raids.
LOL reminds me of the time I worked for Citibank. I was on the overnight shift and there were few people in the building so we regularly staged "midnight acquisition raids" on different areas of the building. He's right though, sometimes the only way to get your perks is to take matters in your own hands.
The firm I work for advertises new vacancies at the lowest rate they think they can get away with and, if nobody shows up at that rate who fits the bill, they then advertise at a higher rate.
That kind of bottom line thinking is not very profitable or smart. Oh sure in the short term you can hire a bunch or workers real cheap. But in the long term you spend too much payroll having the more experienced workers fix the newbies mistakes. In general this could lead to a higher turn over rate as well.
You forgot step 4= Profit. You'd make a lousy Ferengi.
Personally I rather like the second option. It seems that privacy aint the only thing that's dead /satanic laugh. More internets for me (the tubes just got a bit wider;-)
umm so wtf why did I get modded down here. I was merely trying to be helpful.
That poem fucking stinks. No..really it smells like shit. FuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuckvvFuckvFuckFuckFuck
Many methods of cooling the planet, collectively known as geoengineering, have been proposed. They include rockets to deploy millions of mirrors in the stratosphere and artificial trees to suck carbon dioxide from the air.
You're joking...right? Rockets deploying millions oof mirrors into the stratosphere? Artificial trees??? What about the real one's which do the job just fine? Seriously though, who let the mad scientist out of his lab?
If he raises then I'm all in. I see your SXDF-XCLJ0218-0510 cluster and raise you a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_cluster. Galactic poker at it's finest.
'information becomes a distraction' when it comes to iPads, the Xbox, etc
I'm confused. Did he just say you can get too much information from an Xbox? Mr President I think you're showing your age. The only kind of information you get from an Xbox is how to frag your friends and such. Perhaps he should spend more time explaining why a disproportionate amount of former RIAA lawyers are serving in his Justice department. That's some information I'd like to understand. Is he planning on suing grannies who like to steal (steal not pirate) rap music?
Nope. They are slowly migrating all the old analog channels to a hi-def signal (FCC mandate). That's why most people who plug the cable into the back of the tv can't get a signal anymore. Call 1-800-comcast as you may be able to get an adapter box to compensate for this.
cellular-based pagers
PAGERS???? What the hell is a pager?
Oh noes...lifetime movie channel is offline. Dman you AMC-11. Seriously though, any cable company worth their salt already has several contingency plans in effect so no news here.
a three-inch-long bio-detector
Hey, I've got a three inch.....aw shit. Never mind.
Mod that man up. OMG LMAO
I for one welcome our Canadian Beaver overlords (provided they bring whiskey of course). Seriously though the pic looks like a giant pile of beaver poo.