So here's the thing: I play WoW casually but it's really not holding my interest, not because the game mechanics aren't interesting, they are (although there's a certain repetitiveness to the whole thing that's getting to me, but I guess every computer game can be reduced to pressing a limited series of buttons over and over) it's because I'm not that big a fan of the game world. I like fantasy, but I love hard sci-fi, with bigass guns and technology and, you know, Outer Space. IF Blizzard came out with a Starcraft MMORPG, I'd be first in line. Take THAT, Zerg scum.
The latest iPod comes in 30GB and 80GB. Where are you guys getting this notion that Apple no longer makes 30GB iPods? A quick visit to apple.com will prove that untrue.
You're absolutely right - I had it in my head that the iPods were coming in 60 and 80 gb flavors at the moment.
the Zune had a 10.2 percent market share in the U.S. in the 30 gigabyte category, according to the latest data...
That's fishy to me because it sounds like they mean of concurrent sales (meaning it wouldn't include people who bought 30gb iPods when Apple still made them in that size).
What that means is, of all media players sold this year that store 30GB of data that aren't iPods, the Zune has a 10% market share which, factoring in Apple's huge part of that market, is much, much smaller a percentage than it sounds like.
I need Windows for my job, and I refuse to reboot my macbook twice a day into XP and back. I had tried Parallels but was entirely unsatisfied with its performance until I upgraded to 1.25 gigs of RAM. Sweet Jeebus is it cool. Booting XP in a window takes about fifteen seconds from launch to login, automatically recognizes my hardware setup and network connection and does exactly what I need it to while staying the hell out of my way.
BootCamp looks neat, I guess, but really - who the hell restarts their computers anymore?
Bad analogy - It's not illegal for a minor to have cigarettes; it's not even illegal for a minor to buy cigarettes. It's illegal for cigarettes to be sold to a minor - the crime lies with the store, not the kid. I'm fairly sure the same applies to pornography, but I could be wrong.
Look, I'm as excited about the iPhone as the next guy, but can Taco et al PLEASE stop posting every damn article in the bin that has "iPhone" in the headline? This is getting seriously ridiculous.
Look, I dislike astroturf as much as the next guy, but PR companies spend a good portion of their budgets on honest-to-god research - without knowing how a brand is perceived it's impossible to strategize to overcome or bolster that perception. To do otherwise would be to build a campaign on faulty or incomplete data, and that's a waste of everybody's money.
Just because the data came from a marketing company doesn't mean that the data in and of itself is faulty - I'd be more interested in knowing WHO they asked their questions to; THAT'S when you learn somethin'.
Group 4 would be split -- there will be those who increase their criticism out of either bitterness or a sense of moral outrage, just as there might be those who tone down their criticisms out of a vague hope of getting some future handout. Indeed, there will probably be more people writing about it, period.
You're taking for granted that the bloggers who didn't get a laptop know that other bloggers did - it throws off your logic a bit. You end up with split groups for numbers 2 and 4, those who knew and those who didn't - it adds a bit more instability to the thing.
The thing is, the Wii has been out for a few weeks; the XBox 360 has been out for close to a year. More XBoxes means more potential game purchases. Now, if we were comparing sales of the new Zelda game to the sales of some XBox game from a similar place in the XBox's lifecycle, that'd be something. This really is apples and oranges.
I'm sure you think that you'd be fine. It's the lives of the millions of employees who depend on people purchasing things to survive that'll be a problem - stop advertising cars and people stop buying cars. What do you think Ford's gonna do when the cash from car sales trickles down to nothing? Even if they reinvent themselves as some other kind of company (though what kind exactly is hard to guess at seeing as how they wouldn't be able to tell people about it, at least not efficiently) I somehow think it'd be hard to teach a couple hundred thousand close-to-retirement Old Dogs who know nothing but how to work a spot welder on an assembly line anything CLOSE to a New Trick.
There is such a thing as morally responsible advertising, you know, and stricter limits on false and deceptive advertising MIGHT be a good thing to consider, but eliminating it entirely is a really bad idea.
Are you also perfectly willing to pay for all those marketing people who did nothing that was of any value to you when you actually buy a product?
Well, you could make the argument that without the marketers you wouldn't know about whatever it is you just bought in the first place. The idea of a services directory is interesting, but flawed because it isn't anywhere near passive enough to be accepted by people. With a television spot, all you need to do is watch and, essentially, decide whether you believe what they're telling you or not. With a list you need to go looking for things, and that's more effort than most people are willing to put in.
The difference is, when Apple advertises to you, it's through a television in a situation where being advertised to is accepted, obvious and transparent. Sony hiring some douchebag to PRETEND to be a fifteen-year-old boy to generate buzz for the PSP is deceptive, crude, egomaniacal, dishonest and vulgar. I work in marketing and I say this: if my company ever tried to pull off some shit like this, the backlash from the staff would be extreme.
There really is such a thing as GOOD marketing, even morally aware marketing. This ISN'T it.
if you work 8pm - 4am and work miracles, nobody will know that you were the one doing everything
...Unless you tell them. Seriously. There's nothing wrong with a quick email to your boss saying, 'just so you know, I fixed that server glitch last night. Let me know if you have any more problems.'
Sounds to me that you need to learn how to promote yourself.
How often do you see NBC airing an ad for a CBS show?
As often as CBS wants to pay for it. If CBS sees a show on NBC that attracts a demographic they think their programming can tap, CBS will pay the standard rates for advertising that airs within that show. It works for both networks, really - CBS gets eyeballs and NBC gets ad revenue from a competitor. In a way, it's an acknowledgment that NBC has something that CBS wants and is willing to pay for, ie that NBC is doing something right.
The catch is, CBS rarely WANTS to give that kind of money to a competitor - It's much more effective (and cheaper) to advertise on other networks that they control - that's why you'll see ads for Sci-Fi on USA because channels are NBC/Universal properties.
It really is primarily about shoplifting - as digital devices become smaller they run the risk of being pocketed. The large, weirdly shaped plastic packaging is specifically designed NOT to fit in a person's pocket (or to be obvious to a security guard if it somehow DID) and it's sealed shut to have the product retain that specific, kludgy shape. I mean, by your logic and if machine sorting were the priority, don't you think electronics would be packaged in, I dunno, CUBES, or some other easily stackable shape?
Okay, so where's the Apple icon that would seem to go with this story by implication? And what does the Hardware icon have to do with this? Or have the topic icons started making sense all of a sudden...except not?
Yeah, next thing you know they'll be making grasses with grains so heavy, they won't blow around in the wind anymore and people will need to manually harvest and re-seed the fields every year. Lazy meddling Mesopotamians.
I get the quote, but really, from someone who works in marketing, we're really not the evil ones - all we do is look at what the advertising industry is producing and define it with statistics; we're the ones who tell the advertising agencies that what they're doing is pissing people off and to stop it. You won't believe me, but we're on your side.
The people you (and Bill Hicks) were thinking of are the people in Public Relations. THEY'RE bloodsuckers.
"Who cares if they are right, they are right for the wrong reason so we will ignore them!"
That's a bit hyperbolized. More accurately (though less catchy) it'd be, "Believing something to be unsafe out of ignorance and being right doesn't justify the ignorance."
It seems quite naive for the people in this forum to be dismissing the concerns of those parents as uneducated and unscientific. There are serious unanswered scientific questions about the interactions and effects this will have, and you can't just wish or scoff them away.
Just because there may be rational, scientific reasons for WiFi to be considered dangerous doesn't mean that the people reacting to the potential health issues of WiFi understand those reasons. In other words, just because they may be right about the effects of WiFi doesn't mean that they came to that conclusion scientifically and logically.
It's a semantic argument, I guess, but don't assume these people are informed just because they might happen to be right.
Slashdot Mirror
So here's the thing: I play WoW casually but it's really not holding my interest, not because the game mechanics aren't interesting, they are (although there's a certain repetitiveness to the whole thing that's getting to me, but I guess every computer game can be reduced to pressing a limited series of buttons over and over) it's because I'm not that big a fan of the game world. I like fantasy, but I love hard sci-fi, with bigass guns and technology and, you know, Outer Space. IF Blizzard came out with a Starcraft MMORPG, I'd be first in line. Take THAT, Zerg scum.
--Triv
The latest iPod comes in 30GB and 80GB. Where are you guys getting this notion that Apple no longer makes 30GB iPods? A quick visit to apple.com will prove that untrue.
You're absolutely right - I had it in my head that the iPods were coming in 60 and 80 gb flavors at the moment.
ah well.
triv
the Zune had a 10.2 percent market share in the U.S. in the 30 gigabyte category, according to the latest data...
That's fishy to me because it sounds like they mean of concurrent sales (meaning it wouldn't include people who bought 30gb iPods when Apple still made them in that size).
What that means is, of all media players sold this year that store 30GB of data that aren't iPods, the Zune has a 10% market share which, factoring in Apple's huge part of that market, is much, much smaller a percentage than it sounds like.
Triv
It's been said, but.
I need Windows for my job, and I refuse to reboot my macbook twice a day into XP and back. I had tried Parallels but was entirely unsatisfied with its performance until I upgraded to 1.25 gigs of RAM. Sweet Jeebus is it cool. Booting XP in a window takes about fifteen seconds from launch to login, automatically recognizes my hardware setup and network connection and does exactly what I need it to while staying the hell out of my way.
BootCamp looks neat, I guess, but really - who the hell restarts their computers anymore?
Bad analogy - It's not illegal for a minor to have cigarettes; it's not even illegal for a minor to buy cigarettes. It's illegal for cigarettes to be sold to a minor - the crime lies with the store, not the kid. I'm fairly sure the same applies to pornography, but I could be wrong.
Look, I'm as excited about the iPhone as the next guy, but can Taco et al PLEASE stop posting every damn article in the bin that has "iPhone" in the headline? This is getting seriously ridiculous.
Look, I dislike astroturf as much as the next guy, but PR companies spend a good portion of their budgets on honest-to-god research - without knowing how a brand is perceived it's impossible to strategize to overcome or bolster that perception. To do otherwise would be to build a campaign on faulty or incomplete data, and that's a waste of everybody's money.
Just because the data came from a marketing company doesn't mean that the data in and of itself is faulty - I'd be more interested in knowing WHO they asked their questions to; THAT'S when you learn somethin'.
1) You do realize that ( at least to my knowledge ) just about all Starbucks are franchises.
No, they're not. It's the other way around - some Starbucks are franchises, like those in bookstores or in malls, but the rest of the stores aren't.
Triv
Group 4 would be split -- there will be those who increase their criticism out of either bitterness or a sense of moral outrage, just as there might be those who tone down their criticisms out of a vague hope of getting some future handout. Indeed, there will probably be more people writing about it, period.
You're taking for granted that the bloggers who didn't get a laptop know that other bloggers did - it throws off your logic a bit. You end up with split groups for numbers 2 and 4, those who knew and those who didn't - it adds a bit more instability to the thing.
Triv
The thing is, the Wii has been out for a few weeks; the XBox 360 has been out for close to a year. More XBoxes means more potential game purchases. Now, if we were comparing sales of the new Zelda game to the sales of some XBox game from a similar place in the XBox's lifecycle, that'd be something. This really is apples and oranges.
Triv
I'm sure you think that you'd be fine. It's the lives of the millions of employees who depend on people purchasing things to survive that'll be a problem - stop advertising cars and people stop buying cars. What do you think Ford's gonna do when the cash from car sales trickles down to nothing? Even if they reinvent themselves as some other kind of company (though what kind exactly is hard to guess at seeing as how they wouldn't be able to tell people about it, at least not efficiently) I somehow think it'd be hard to teach a couple hundred thousand close-to-retirement Old Dogs who know nothing but how to work a spot welder on an assembly line anything CLOSE to a New Trick.
There is such a thing as morally responsible advertising, you know, and stricter limits on false and deceptive advertising MIGHT be a good thing to consider, but eliminating it entirely is a really bad idea.
Triv
Are you also perfectly willing to pay for all those marketing people who did nothing that was of any value to you when you actually buy a product?
Well, you could make the argument that without the marketers you wouldn't know about whatever it is you just bought in the first place. The idea of a services directory is interesting, but flawed because it isn't anywhere near passive enough to be accepted by people. With a television spot, all you need to do is watch and, essentially, decide whether you believe what they're telling you or not. With a list you need to go looking for things, and that's more effort than most people are willing to put in.
Triv
The difference is, when Apple advertises to you, it's through a television in a situation where being advertised to is accepted, obvious and transparent. Sony hiring some douchebag to PRETEND to be a fifteen-year-old boy to generate buzz for the PSP is deceptive, crude, egomaniacal, dishonest and vulgar. I work in marketing and I say this: if my company ever tried to pull off some shit like this, the backlash from the staff would be extreme.
There really is such a thing as GOOD marketing, even morally aware marketing. This ISN'T it.
if you work 8pm - 4am and work miracles, nobody will know that you were the one doing everything
Sounds to me that you need to learn how to promote yourself.
--Triv
How often do you see NBC airing an ad for a CBS show?
As often as CBS wants to pay for it. If CBS sees a show on NBC that attracts a demographic they think their programming can tap, CBS will pay the standard rates for advertising that airs within that show. It works for both networks, really - CBS gets eyeballs and NBC gets ad revenue from a competitor. In a way, it's an acknowledgment that NBC has something that CBS wants and is willing to pay for, ie that NBC is doing something right.
The catch is, CBS rarely WANTS to give that kind of money to a competitor - It's much more effective (and cheaper) to advertise on other networks that they control - that's why you'll see ads for Sci-Fi on USA because channels are NBC/Universal properties.
Counterintuitive, ain't it?
Triv
Just to clear up your org chart: ABC doesn't own ESPN. Disney owns both ABC and ESPN. S'scarier that way.
--Triv
It really is primarily about shoplifting - as digital devices become smaller they run the risk of being pocketed. The large, weirdly shaped plastic packaging is specifically designed NOT to fit in a person's pocket (or to be obvious to a security guard if it somehow DID) and it's sealed shut to have the product retain that specific, kludgy shape. I mean, by your logic and if machine sorting were the priority, don't you think electronics would be packaged in, I dunno, CUBES, or some other easily stackable shape?
Triv
Okay, so where's the Apple icon that would seem to go with this story by implication? And what does the Hardware icon have to do with this? Or have the topic icons started making sense all of a sudden...except not?
Triv
Yeah, next thing you know they'll be making grasses with grains so heavy, they won't blow around in the wind anymore and people will need to manually harvest and re-seed the fields every year. Lazy meddling Mesopotamians.
Your comment reminded me of the work of this guy.
Triv
I get the quote, but really, from someone who works in marketing, we're really not the evil ones - all we do is look at what the advertising industry is producing and define it with statistics; we're the ones who tell the advertising agencies that what they're doing is pissing people off and to stop it. You won't believe me, but we're on your side.
The people you (and Bill Hicks) were thinking of are the people in Public Relations. THEY'RE bloodsuckers.
Triv
Two words, dude: Guardian. Legend. It's the best NES game that very few people have ever heard of.
"Who cares if they are right, they are right for the wrong reason so we will ignore them!"
That's a bit hyperbolized. More accurately (though less catchy) it'd be, "Believing something to be unsafe out of ignorance and being right doesn't justify the ignorance."
It seems quite naive for the people in this forum to be dismissing the concerns of those parents as uneducated and unscientific. There are serious unanswered scientific questions about the interactions and effects this will have, and you can't just wish or scoff them away.
Just because there may be rational, scientific reasons for WiFi to be considered dangerous doesn't mean that the people reacting to the potential health issues of WiFi understand those reasons. In other words, just because they may be right about the effects of WiFi doesn't mean that they came to that conclusion scientifically and logically.
It's a semantic argument, I guess, but don't assume these people are informed just because they might happen to be right.
Triv
interesting. Any ideas as to where I should start looking? The IRS website is unnecessarily difficult to search for information.