As a long time fan of your works, I've noticed a trend at some points, particularly your alternation between 'light' fiction (Xanth) and your darker, more adult works (Firefly, and the other short story whose title I can never remember, about the alien culture where social position is established by withstanding torture).
My question is: What keeps you writing the 'light' fiction more often than the darker, more thoughtful literature that you've produced?
I swear by mine... years of pain and weakness/tingling, as well as wrist tendons audibly squeaking (!), went good-bye after I got my first Microsoft ergonomic keyboard.
Is it perfect? No, but it's as comfortable as anything I've ever used, especially over long periods.
A lot of people get turned off of using them because of the change in button configuration, but I found getting used to it only took 2-3 days, and it's since nearly doubled my typing speed and accuracy.
Playing the hypothesis that we discover mars, despite the presence of water, is completely lifeless, and also that human colonization is impractical, maybe dumping 'biobombs' on planets and moons isn't that bad an idea. Seeding it with bacteria and virii, and let time and circumstance give it the opportunity it needs. A few hundred million years, maybe a billion, and hopefully you'll have life.
If we can't transform planets to suit ourselves, or the radiation in space proves too deadly, can we not at least feel it incumbent upon ourselves to seed other places, and let life find it's ways into niches elsewhere?
A common misconception folks here will make is that legititimate Market Researchers fall under the 'telemarketer' category. Legally, and duty-wise, Market Research is a world apart from telemarketing.
Primary difference of being, of course: A market researcher is -never- selling/promoting/'giving' anything.
Some market research companies use auto-dialers, some don't. I personally dial manually.
Some important differences and modus operandi you need to know in dealing with market researchers: (based off of working in Canada, laws differ by area)
1. Asking who the client is, will, under 90% of the circumstances, be useless. Most surveys are done double-blind for us, meaning the only folks in our call center who know who the client is would be the manager. If the survey is not double-blind, then the client WILL be named in the introduction.
1b) Asking about the subject of the survey. In my experience, this is revealed in the intro about 35% of the time. If it isn't given, don't get all paranoid. What a lot of folks don't understand is research companies are frequently interested in what people DON'T like, as well as what they do. It prevents bias, which keeps the responses recorded more accurate. IE: We may be doing a survey about pop, and you don't drink pop. You hang up. But our clients also want to know the percentage of the population that doesn't drink pop, and what they're drinking instead, etc.
2. The company 'calling on behalf of' is seldom the name of the company we're hired under. Reason: Companies spend big money on these surveys, and make their living making them. It's their property. Then they hire a call center company to do the actual calling. We're the pony the cowboy rides on. Without fail, we're instructed to introduce ourselves as the company that wrote the survey, and not with our call center company. (Only exception: When our call center IS the company which wrote the survey.)
3. The dreaded 'Remove me from your list.' command. Worthless. Here's why: Unless you were asked for by name, 99% of the time your number was generated randomly. Yup, it's inefficient, but it allows us to throw away lists and start over each time. In fact, it usually means we don't HAVE a 'list'. So we just nod, say 'of course', code as a refusal, and the number is tossed away. Nothing preventing it from being re-generated in the future however.
4. The 'Do Not Call' command. This is trickier. In Canada, there are a few provinces that have legislation about this, but there is no federal law requiring us to obey it. That aside, any market research company worth their salt will obey this nonetheless. If they're part of the Canadian Survey Research Council, they're bound to by the membership requirements.
5. Being funny might get you somewhere, but being rude will not. Rude, hostile respondents have a 'mysterious' habit of ending up with 'accidental' call-back commands by vengeful interviewers. (Or an entire row of them, if your number gets passed around for being a particularly intense lil' firebrand.) Most crack after the eight call in five minutes. Folks: If you're not interested, say so politely and firmly. Don't yell, don't swear, don't be rude.
6: Always a good idea to ensure who you're talking to is legit, if you're interested in the survey. A good way is to ask the company, if Canadian: "Are you a member of the Canadian Survey Research Council?" Follow this up immediately if they say yes by asking: "Can you give me the number for them?" (Should be: 1-800-554-9996). Then ask for the survey file number. Most of the time they will have to consult a supervisor prior to releasing this information. If they thereafter refuse, use the Do Not Call command and hang up. If they co-operate, hey: Ask for a callback and check out the data given in the meanwhile. If they're legit, do the survey!
7: Ask the length of the survey. Whatever estimate is given, add 3-5 minutes. It may not necessarily take that long, but in my experience, the script-writers are a little... optimistic in the timing estimates. Depends on the survey though. I've had some that say they'll take 25 minutes, that take only 15. On top of that, there's plenty of times where, quite honestly, the surveyer cannot give an accurate time estimate. Many surveys have questions and sections that change/appear/dissapear depending on the answers given. In my experience, 12 minutes is an 'average' survey.
8: Answering for other people / refusing for other people. Except under rare circumstances, we cannot accept answers from unqualified respondents. Translation: If you want your wife to answer the questions, first ask the researcher if that's possible. If not, either schedule a callback or terminate the call. By the same token, don't refuse calls for other people. If we're asking for someone by name, unless we speak with that person, we're under no obligation to accept refusals from others. (We usually do anyway though.) Besides, what kind of house were you raised in that you think that's acceptable?
9: Beware and be aware that there's times where market research and advertising tread a fine line. They're rare, and as a rule the folks working loathe 'adveresearch' questions that, if they weren't followed up by a question, would be shameless advertisement. It's hard to understand, but there's a lot of pride in the market research industry that "We're not the bad guys." We're the nastiest ones in the biz on telemarketers, because _they make our job harder_.
10: Best way to avoid getting called back by a market research company? Do the survey. I'm not kidding. Think of it as 15 minutes invested in avoiding further calls about the subject. Additionally, some surveys offer rewards for participation, hook-free. (When this happens, you bastards get paid more than us for doing the bloody survey. Be grateful!)
11: Be polite, but be firm. If you're not interested, say so. Don't hem and haw and schedule callbacks you don't want. A simple: "Thank you, but I'm not interested." will suffice.
12: Before you refuse, consider this: In an age where companies basically don't give a fuck what you say, we're their ears. It's a rare opportunity to actually say something to Brother Economy and be _heard_.
13: Finally, if you REALLY want to piss off a market researcher: Start the survey, and near the very end (ask periodically until you're near the ending) terminate the call. In every survey I've ever done, a midway refusal means the survey answers are tossed out and all that effort was for nothing. Big time anger for the researcher. (This cuts both ways though: If you have something about the subject you want heard, unless you complete the survey, you're just wasting your own time.)
Hope this was insightful/informative/funny and whatever else gets me some bloody karma already!
Everyone should read Bob The Angry Flower
on
IgNobel Awards
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· Score: 1
It's nice for us living in Edmonton; See Magazine (a weekly entertainment/alternate newspaper) carries it. (Again.)
Back in my high school about two or three years back, we had a number of students annoyed at the sudden installation of security cameras throughout the hallways. What started as an amusing hobby ended up as an all-out protest.
Eight cameras installed, six inside the school. Get you and 5 of your buddies, and then go stand in front of each of these cameras during your lunch break. And stare. Don't move, don't leave, don't talk. Just stare. Let the traffic in the hallway flow around you.
By the second week of this, we found ourselves in the principal's office, facing an irate school staff, claiming we were 'terrorizing' the secretaries and staff (the monitors were visible in the main offic), and demanding we stop it immediately. We told our principal flat out: We feel like you're always watching us for no good reason, we fail to see why you should be spared that.
In the end, the cameras didn't leave, but we felt we had done our part. From what I've heard, the game has caught on with the students, with at least one person a day manning a camera, staring right back.
He's talking about a field effect that's moving masses stored in a vacuum, right? Okay, so his force is supposedly capable of moving all types of masses, not requiring them to be magnetic.
Enter the common-sense equation: Wouldn't this noticeably affect a hell of a lot of other masses around the device too? Air? The walls of the structure? Windows, walls, etc.
Having them in a vacuum shouldn't noticeably affect the observational measurements, if he's moving these massed six inches. That takes a fair bit of energy.
Any notation in there of a sudden burst of overpressure in the room containing the device, or of severe air disturbances?
The rediculous amount of damages claimed is for a good reason (at least from the universities point of view). They know that they're not going to ever collect nor see that kind of penalty in place.
But faced with that sort of claim, most lawyers advise their clients to bargain it way down... It's easier to win a court case claiming 2000$ damages against you than it is 500,000$.
Dollars to donuts, you'll see this bumped WAY down to no jail time and (max) 20,000$ dollars fine, and most likely less than that.
Bahumat
No-one, NO-ONE online it seems, has movie files of the old animated Hercules. Remember, with the gayest little centaur in the world, and Deadalus, etc.?
That last quote sounds very, very Scientologific. (That is the wierdest word I have ever used in my life...)
XENU XENU XENU!:D
Bahumat
From someone involved in market research...
on
Clever Girl Bess
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· Score: 1
I work in market research, so unlike many here who are all looking over their shoulder, I know precisely how much info a database like that will contain.
1. It is useless for the purposes of back-tracking anyone. The information is aggregate, which simply means it's a list, usually divided by date, saying: In this month X number of viewings of this website, next month Y number, etc. etc.
2. The reason companies would pay that much for the information is simple; they have a marketing budget, and information like that is very useful for deciding where the best places to advertise are. The cost of the data is offset by the fact that they know they'll be reaching much more target demographic.
Frankly, I find it hilarious that so many people think they're worth noticing individually. Companies don't give a shit, they have better things to do with their time and money... To them, you're all just numbers.
Japan, in its bid for software and hardware global dominance has allocated large funds for quantum computer research. A Hewlett-Packard V.P., reported that the Japanese is performing
70 percent of all quantum computer research (ACM Conference 1997). The country has included quantum computers as an integrated step of their *global acquisition strategy*.
Today's Lesson: QUANTUM COMPUTING = THE JAPS BUYING US ALL
This public message brought to you by Stomping Foot Industries.
Bahumat
For those of you interested, there is a fun sci-fi book written recently entitled 'Flashforward' that centers around the CERN experiments and finding the Higgs bosom. The plot is complete fluff, but a lot of fun and well-researched. Want to get to know the works of CERN better? Give this book a gander.
Television? Haven't watched it in years...
on
The New Mediascape
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· Score: 1
This, I envision, will become a growing trend in our youth culture. Ever since the day I got high speed internet access at home, my television has sat in the corner of my room, unplugged, gathering dust.
My average consumption of television programming is under a half-hour a month. Want to guess how much a statistic like that scares television media companies?
The internet's capabilities far exceed any amount of 'specialized' programming that cable television can present. I forsee that 20 years from now, companies will be making shows FOR the internet, streaming them on demand, covering costs through advertisement. (Because sure as hell, no-one in my generation is willing to PAY for the service. Ha!)
Television as a medium is dying. This is a foregone conclusion. It makes one wonder though if the companies will adapt, or attempt to simply fight tooth & nail against the forces of change. (Recording industry springs to mind...)
And while perhaps the remote control is the most political tool now, I eagerly await the day my mouse is the indicator of where and how I want companies to pander to me.
The next 20 years are going to be interesting.
Bahumat,
Turning first-person shooter games into performance art since 1998.
Slashdot Mirror
As a long time fan of your works, I've noticed a trend at some points, particularly your alternation between 'light' fiction (Xanth) and your darker, more adult works (Firefly, and the other short story whose title I can never remember, about the alien culture where social position is established by withstanding torture).
My question is: What keeps you writing the 'light' fiction more often than the darker, more thoughtful literature that you've produced?
I swear by mine... years of pain and weakness/tingling, as well as wrist tendons audibly squeaking (!), went good-bye after I got my first Microsoft ergonomic keyboard.
Is it perfect? No, but it's as comfortable as anything I've ever used, especially over long periods.
A lot of people get turned off of using them because of the change in button configuration, but I found getting used to it only took 2-3 days, and it's since nearly doubled my typing speed and accuracy.
No, I mean, like, ~really~ long term.
Playing the hypothesis that we discover mars, despite the presence of water, is completely lifeless, and also that human colonization is impractical, maybe dumping 'biobombs' on planets and moons isn't that bad an idea. Seeding it with bacteria and virii, and let time and circumstance give it the opportunity it needs. A few hundred million years, maybe a billion, and hopefully you'll have life.
If we can't transform planets to suit ourselves, or the radiation in space proves too deadly, can we not at least feel it incumbent upon ourselves to seed other places, and let life find it's ways into niches elsewhere?
Sawadi!
I was born in Canada, and moved to Thailand as a child to live for a few years. Came back to Canada.
I love canada, don't get me wrong... but Thailand is *home*.
I miss Phuket...
Now if only cnn.com would would do the same...
The most suitable rebuttal to that statement is the fact that someone modded it under 'Funny'.
How much of a fangirl would you have to be to name your firstborn son after Strider of Aragorne? ;)
My mother earns my eternal love for my middle name.
How will you compensate me for my time?"
We'll get your input on products and services you use, and ideally, this will result in lower prices or better services/products for the consumer.
Innovation needs a direction. Market research supplies it.
A common misconception folks here will make is that legititimate Market Researchers fall under the 'telemarketer' category. Legally, and duty-wise, Market Research is a world apart from telemarketing.
Primary difference of being, of course: A market researcher is -never- selling/promoting/'giving' anything.
Some market research companies use auto-dialers, some don't. I personally dial manually.
Some important differences and modus operandi you need to know in dealing with market researchers: (based off of working in Canada, laws differ by area)
1. Asking who the client is, will, under 90% of the circumstances, be useless. Most surveys are done double-blind for us, meaning the only folks in our call center who know who the client is would be the manager. If the survey is not double-blind, then the client WILL be named in the introduction.
1b) Asking about the subject of the survey. In my experience, this is revealed in the intro about 35% of the time. If it isn't given, don't get all paranoid. What a lot of folks don't understand is research companies are frequently interested in what people DON'T like, as well as what they do. It prevents bias, which keeps the responses recorded more accurate. IE: We may be doing a survey about pop, and you don't drink pop. You hang up. But our clients also want to know the percentage of the population that doesn't drink pop, and what they're drinking instead, etc.
2. The company 'calling on behalf of' is seldom the name of the company we're hired under. Reason: Companies spend big money on these surveys, and make their living making them. It's their property. Then they hire a call center company to do the actual calling. We're the pony the cowboy rides on. Without fail, we're instructed to introduce ourselves as the company that wrote the survey, and not with our call center company. (Only exception: When our call center IS the company which wrote the survey.)
3. The dreaded 'Remove me from your list.' command. Worthless. Here's why: Unless you were asked for by name, 99% of the time your number was generated randomly. Yup, it's inefficient, but it allows us to throw away lists and start over each time. In fact, it usually means we don't HAVE a 'list'. So we just nod, say 'of course', code as a refusal, and the number is tossed away. Nothing preventing it from being re-generated in the future however.
4. The 'Do Not Call' command. This is trickier. In Canada, there are a few provinces that have legislation about this, but there is no federal law requiring us to obey it. That aside, any market research company worth their salt will obey this nonetheless. If they're part of the Canadian Survey Research Council, they're bound to by the membership requirements.
5. Being funny might get you somewhere, but being rude will not. Rude, hostile respondents have a 'mysterious' habit of ending up with 'accidental' call-back commands by vengeful interviewers. (Or an entire row of them, if your number gets passed around for being a particularly intense lil' firebrand.) Most crack after the eight call in five minutes. Folks: If you're not interested, say so politely and firmly. Don't yell, don't swear, don't be rude.
6: Always a good idea to ensure who you're talking to is legit, if you're interested in the survey. A good way is to ask the company, if Canadian: "Are you a member of the Canadian Survey Research Council?" Follow this up immediately if they say yes by asking: "Can you give me the number for them?" (Should be: 1-800-554-9996). Then ask for the survey file number. Most of the time they will have to consult a supervisor prior to releasing this information. If they thereafter refuse, use the Do Not Call command and hang up. If they co-operate, hey: Ask for a callback and check out the data given in the meanwhile. If they're legit, do the survey!
7: Ask the length of the survey. Whatever estimate is given, add 3-5 minutes. It may not necessarily take that long, but in my experience, the script-writers are a little... optimistic in the timing estimates. Depends on the survey though. I've had some that say they'll take 25 minutes, that take only 15. On top of that, there's plenty of times where, quite honestly, the surveyer cannot give an accurate time estimate. Many surveys have questions and sections that change/appear/dissapear depending on the answers given. In my experience, 12 minutes is an 'average' survey.
8: Answering for other people / refusing for other people. Except under rare circumstances, we cannot accept answers from unqualified respondents. Translation: If you want your wife to answer the questions, first ask the researcher if that's possible. If not, either schedule a callback or terminate the call. By the same token, don't refuse calls for other people. If we're asking for someone by name, unless we speak with that person, we're under no obligation to accept refusals from others. (We usually do anyway though.) Besides, what kind of house were you raised in that you think that's acceptable?
9: Beware and be aware that there's times where market research and advertising tread a fine line. They're rare, and as a rule the folks working loathe 'adveresearch' questions that, if they weren't followed up by a question, would be shameless advertisement. It's hard to understand, but there's a lot of pride in the market research industry that "We're not the bad guys." We're the nastiest ones in the biz on telemarketers, because _they make our job harder_.
10: Best way to avoid getting called back by a market research company? Do the survey. I'm not kidding. Think of it as 15 minutes invested in avoiding further calls about the subject. Additionally, some surveys offer rewards for participation, hook-free. (When this happens, you bastards get paid more than us for doing the bloody survey. Be grateful!)
11: Be polite, but be firm. If you're not interested, say so. Don't hem and haw and schedule callbacks you don't want. A simple: "Thank you, but I'm not interested." will suffice.
12: Before you refuse, consider this: In an age where companies basically don't give a fuck what you say, we're their ears. It's a rare opportunity to actually say something to Brother Economy and be _heard_.
13: Finally, if you REALLY want to piss off a market researcher: Start the survey, and near the very end (ask periodically until you're near the ending) terminate the call. In every survey I've ever done, a midway refusal means the survey answers are tossed out and all that effort was for nothing. Big time anger for the researcher. (This cuts both ways though: If you have something about the subject you want heard, unless you complete the survey, you're just wasting your own time.)
Hope this was insightful/informative/funny and whatever else gets me some bloody karma already!
It's nice for us living in Edmonton; See Magazine (a weekly entertainment/alternate newspaper) carries it. (Again.)
Eight cameras installed, six inside the school. Get you and 5 of your buddies, and then go stand in front of each of these cameras during your lunch break. And stare. Don't move, don't leave, don't talk. Just stare. Let the traffic in the hallway flow around you.
By the second week of this, we found ourselves in the principal's office, facing an irate school staff, claiming we were 'terrorizing' the secretaries and staff (the monitors were visible in the main offic), and demanding we stop it immediately. We told our principal flat out: We feel like you're always watching us for no good reason, we fail to see why you should be spared that.
In the end, the cameras didn't leave, but we felt we had done our part. From what I've heard, the game has caught on with the students, with at least one person a day manning a camera, staring right back.
He's talking about a field effect that's moving masses stored in a vacuum, right? Okay, so his force is supposedly capable of moving all types of masses, not requiring them to be magnetic.
Enter the common-sense equation: Wouldn't this noticeably affect a hell of a lot of other masses around the device too? Air? The walls of the structure? Windows, walls, etc.
Having them in a vacuum shouldn't noticeably affect the observational measurements, if he's moving these massed six inches. That takes a fair bit of energy.
Any notation in there of a sudden burst of overpressure in the room containing the device, or of severe air disturbances?
Bahumat, from the mouth of n00bs...
Mod that one up folks...
The rediculous amount of damages claimed is for a good reason (at least from the universities point of view). They know that they're not going to ever collect nor see that kind of penalty in place. But faced with that sort of claim, most lawyers advise their clients to bargain it way down... It's easier to win a court case claiming 2000$ damages against you than it is 500,000$. Dollars to donuts, you'll see this bumped WAY down to no jail time and (max) 20,000$ dollars fine, and most likely less than that. Bahumat
I loved that show...
Bahumat
*no text, foo!*
Bahumat
> Via a Space Act Agreement, NASA Langley Research Center will receive a HAL (Hyper Algorithmic Logic)-15 Hypercomputer from Star Bridge Systems, Inc.
That last quote sounds very, very Scientologific. (That is the wierdest word I have ever used in my life...) XENU XENU XENU! :D
Bahumat
I work in market research, so unlike many here who are all looking over their shoulder, I know precisely how much info a database like that will contain.
1. It is useless for the purposes of back-tracking anyone. The information is aggregate, which simply means it's a list, usually divided by date, saying: In this month X number of viewings of this website, next month Y number, etc. etc.
2. The reason companies would pay that much for the information is simple; they have a marketing budget, and information like that is very useful for deciding where the best places to advertise are. The cost of the data is offset by the fact that they know they'll be reaching much more target demographic.
Frankly, I find it hilarious that so many people think they're worth noticing individually. Companies don't give a shit, they have better things to do with their time and money... To them, you're all just numbers.
Sad but true. Deal.
Bahumat,
market researcher
Japan, in its bid for software and hardware global dominance has allocated large funds for quantum computer research. A Hewlett-Packard V.P., reported that the Japanese is performing 70 percent of all quantum computer research (ACM Conference 1997). The country has included quantum computers as an integrated step of their *global acquisition strategy*. Today's Lesson: QUANTUM COMPUTING = THE JAPS BUYING US ALL This public message brought to you by Stomping Foot Industries. Bahumat
http://www.angryflower.com/alight.gif
For those of you interested, there is a fun sci-fi book written recently entitled 'Flashforward' that centers around the CERN experiments and finding the Higgs bosom. The plot is complete fluff, but a lot of fun and well-researched. Want to get to know the works of CERN better? Give this book a gander.
This, I envision, will become a growing trend in our youth culture. Ever since the day I got high speed internet access at home, my television has sat in the corner of my room, unplugged, gathering dust. My average consumption of television programming is under a half-hour a month. Want to guess how much a statistic like that scares television media companies? The internet's capabilities far exceed any amount of 'specialized' programming that cable television can present. I forsee that 20 years from now, companies will be making shows FOR the internet, streaming them on demand, covering costs through advertisement. (Because sure as hell, no-one in my generation is willing to PAY for the service. Ha!) Television as a medium is dying. This is a foregone conclusion. It makes one wonder though if the companies will adapt, or attempt to simply fight tooth & nail against the forces of change. (Recording industry springs to mind...) And while perhaps the remote control is the most political tool now, I eagerly await the day my mouse is the indicator of where and how I want companies to pander to me. The next 20 years are going to be interesting. Bahumat, Turning first-person shooter games into performance art since 1998.
Damn right. :D
Yeah. The arcade version rocked the house. I miss the giant beer in Level 41. (Nintendo took it out. *sob*) Bahumat, hardcore Bubble Bobble lover