I know what you're talking about. I could probably dig some out because I have a few of those paperback collections they used to (and probably still) put out.
You'd be amazed at how companies can legally get around most of these FDA rules with "weasel" words and tricky wording. OK, maybe you can't flat out lie, but you sure can be deceptive.
A couple of quick examples before I get back to work:
"No preservatives added" doesn't count the fact that they pump the packaging full of preservatives.
The FDA rules allow for 30% error in things like fat content. Now I would bet big money that food companies will pay labs to create tests that are, say, accurate within 5% and fudge the other 25% deliberately.
I think the FDA is well-intentioned and generally does a good job, but also I think their food labelling rules leave a lot to be desired.
p.s. I think it would be incredibly cool to meet and talk to a food chemist!
This film is the biggest pile of trash I've ever witnessed. The plot was predictable, the acting was wooden and even the editing was weak. Five minutes into the movie, I was wishing the trailer was still running. In fact, I enjoyed the jingle about not smoking and throwing out your trash better!Everyone around me seemed to agree as there were wise-cracks and booing from most of the patrons in the theater. In fact, you can tell this film is bound to fail by the amount of talking and complaining before, during and after the show. The only positive thing they could talk about was the fact that Junior Mints were only $3.75 in the lobby. It's a real shame that the director has no concept of what a romantic comedy should be. Pairing up the oafish Sam Cheeselog with the shrill and grating Gretel Necessary would thrill no one, but then have them take a six day train ride across the Siberian tundra takes the cake for sheer ineptitude. In fact, you'll consider it a triumph if you make it through this 183 minute piece of trite crap without losing your lunch, spending half of the convulsively gagging, or losing faith that there is any goodness left in the human spirit. Whatever you do, don't go see this movie.
JonKatz gets a lot of criticism for his articles, but I think this is a very good one.
However, I see one difference in the metaphor between the restaurant industry and the Internet. In the restaurant world, it takes a lot of money and an incredible amount of hard work to start and maintain a restaurant, and even then, most restaurants fail. With the advent of megacorporations, individual stores could even operate at a loss in order to more effectively shut out competition. I don't know if this actually happens, but I wouldn't be surprised.
In any event, on the Internet, I still think there is more of any opportunity for the little guy to succeed. Maybe you won't see a couple of college kids becoming overnight billionaires anymore, but unlike the restaurant world, where real estate and customers are finite, on the Internet, real estate is essentially infinite and "customers" can come from literally all over the world. Now I won't minimize the homogenization of online content, much like what's happened to commercial radio in the last 20 years, but it's still easy to create an online community dedicated to anything you could possibly want, and freed from geographic restrictions, any interest, no matter how obscure, can attract a community of like-minded individuals to share their common interest. I don't think the Walmart-ization of the Internet will ever squeeze those communities out, even if they are never exposed to vast masses who are force-fed a diet of ads for britneyspears.com or whatever.
So, while there are many parallels between the brick-and-mortar world and the online-world, we need to remember that the parallels are never perfect and I still think the 'net will adapt and grow in ways we haven't even thought of yet.
Yes, I am overstating it a bit, but I was on a roll. It's fun to bust on Fox.
I will agree that Ally McBeal is a good show and Malcolm is currently the funniest show on TV, but I found Boston Public, the few times I watched it, to be painfully trite, overbearingly preachy and gratuitously smutty, as opposed to Ally McBeal, which can be pretty smutty, too, but also can be very clever and has good music.
I actually thought the X-Files season ender was the two best episodes this season (and better than most of last season too). Certainly better than that painfully tedious 3 part cliffhanger from last year. But, in general these days, the show's about on par with daytime soaps.
Have you read any Pratchett? No one who calls him a hack could have. As far as I'm concerned he's become a better writer than Adams. (This is no slam to Adams whose last novels were nothing short of brilliant). But Terry Pratchett manages to spoof everything under the sun and still tells a great story. Furthermore, as silly and improbable as the Discworld is, it is the most well-fleshed out and consistent world since Middle-Earth. There may be about 26 Discworld books (who can keep count), but they could really be thought of a 4 separate series, and they are as good now as ever:
1. The Watch Books: Vimes, Carrot, Nobby, et al, usually more urban-centric with murder mysteries and politics.
2. Rincewind and the Wizards. OK, Rincewind might be just a leetle derivative of Artur Dent, but his adventures with TwoFlower are a lot of fun. Also, the other wizards are hilarious... Pratchett has nailed every elite group of pompous men (*cough*Slashdot*cough) in their portrayal.
3. Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat, Agnes, et al. The Lancre Witches are some of the most interesting and well-developed characters in any series I've read, especially Granny.
4. All the other books. There's Death, Mort, Susan Sto Helit, Pteppic, Gaspode, C.M.O.T. Dibbler and plenty of other characters that aren't directly related to the other three groups.
Of course, members of more than one of these groups always show up in any book, but's great to see the characters evolve, interact in different permutations, and watch Discworld blossom as a razor-sharp parody of our own crazy world.
If that's the work of a hack then I should win a Nobel Prize.
Fox's entire raison d'etre is that they had the Simpsons, which was just about the hottest show on TV in its day (and still is) and they figured they could just pad out the rest of the week with pure crap (well, mostly crap) and no one would notice. And guess, what? No one did.
Now Fox, does have a few decent shows, but generally they seem to air the dregs of the television shows out there that everyone else other than WB isn't too desperate to air. WB gets the leftovers.
So who's the bad guy? The advertiser or the estates? Well, that's easy, the advertisers are always the bad guy. They're evil by nature.
Anyhow, I understand your offense, and I suppose the mere fact that those speeches are used in advertisements is inherently offensive even if they don't have Dr. King dancing with a vacuum cleaner or pouring beer.
Well, I certainly see your point, however, there are two different types of uses here. First we have Fred Astaire dancing with the product being sold and we have the Duke pouring Coors Light beer (or whatever it was), and then we have a commercial which uses images of the two famous speeches, but doesn't manipulate the image to place their product in with the person in question. I would have to agree that it might be seen as trivializing Dr. King's speech, which is wrong, but at least he wasn't up there with a bottle of liquor saying "I have Jim Beam" or "I brush with Gleem" or "I play with Bleem" or something equally stupid.
Anyhow, as far as tasteless goes, nothing beats the typical network TV sitcom. Tasteless and unfunny. (Tasteless and funny would be OK... but that's a different discussion). The only thing worse is the sleazy tabloid trash passing as network news "magazines" like Doltline.
It's been going on for a long time over here in America, too. Off the top of my head, there's been ads using digitally altered footage of Fred Astaire, John Wayne, Martin Luther King and Lou Gehrig (although the last two were tasteful, I thought), not to mention the movie Ben Hur (or whatever that famous chariot race scene was from).
Let's see... here's a scene at the secret Apple marketing headquarters:
Marketroid 1: Hmmm... let's see, Apple has successfully carved out a niche market for the last 15 years based on grotesquely overpriced hardware.
Marketroid 2: Well, we do have superior technology and are very popular among a certain subset of die-hard totally loyal users. Plus there was the Superbowl commercial with the big boobs.
Marketroid 1: Yes, there is a 93% market overlap between Apple Computers, Birkenstock incorporated and owners of Volkswagen Microbusses.
Marketroid 2: Don't forget the coupon for a free pint of Cherry Garcia in every copy of OS X.
Marketroid 1: Yes, but, compare that to the ridiculous hype leading up to the release of Windows 95. I mean, people were lining up at midnight to buy software that told them when it was safe to turn their computers off.
Marketroid 2: Well, our market dominance will be secured when the lucite octohedron mouse works its way through the usability labs. When everyone sees how cool it looks, Apple will sweep the PC market by storm.
Marketroid 1: Not to mention the $500 lead crystal version with a 18 karat gold button. I gotta get me one of those. However, Shiny Product Development says that's at least a year away and we need something now.
Marketroid 2: I know. The most visible part of the computer is the display! Let's get rid of those clunky CRT's once and for all and limit the users strictly to LCD's! They're so 1990's.
Marketroid 1: You know, I think you're on to something, because we all know Apple's success has always stemmed from the fact that people recognize the value of expensive hardware. We can even add gold trim for a few extra Benjamins. By effectively doubling the price of a basic machine, people will come pounding down our doors to buy more machines "for the elite among us".
Marketroid 2:...uh, don't you mean machines "for the rest of us"?
No offense, but it's pretty amusing when you try to correct a post, which is obviously deliberately wrong, with something wrong.
Beer was brewed by many ancient civilizations long before Christ, most prominently was the Egyptians.
The Chinese invented gunpowder and fireworks and probably the gun as well.
IIRC, Daimler, who was German, I believe, built the first automobile. I dunno who first made a pickup truck, since many early models could have counted.
I would strongly suspect corn whiskey predates the U.S., so the only item that is truly American (U.S.A.ian, for all you Canadians and Mexicans) is TNN. Hey, who else could invent the show "18 Wheels of Justice"? Yee hah!
The Unahted States of Amurikuh is rat heeuh. They's no uthah place wuth bein' at! Muh president is Charlton Heston and if enny of y'all Commie pinko faggits have a problem with that, y'all kin take it up with muh buddies: Smith and Wesson. If the U.S. wuzzn't the greatest country in the world, how comes we invented the pickup truck, beer, TNN, guns an d Jack Daniels? Yee hah! U.S.A! U.S.A.!
Slashdot Mirror
I know what you're talking about. I could probably dig some out because I have a few of those paperback collections they used to (and probably still) put out.
Yeah... it was late and I didn't proofread very well. I had a hot soldering iron in the basement waiting...
Rick
You'd be amazed at how companies can legally get around most of these FDA rules with "weasel" words and tricky wording. OK, maybe you can't flat out lie, but you sure can be deceptive.
A couple of quick examples before I get back to work:
"No preservatives added" doesn't count the fact that they pump the packaging full of preservatives.
The FDA rules allow for 30% error in things like fat content. Now I would bet big money that food companies will pay labs to create tests that are, say, accurate within 5% and fudge the other 25% deliberately.
I think the FDA is well-intentioned and generally does a good job, but also I think their food labelling rules leave a lot to be desired.
p.s. I think it would be incredibly cool to meet and talk to a food chemist!
This film is the biggest pile of trash I've ever witnessed. The plot was predictable, the acting was wooden and even the editing was weak. Five minutes into the movie, I was wishing the trailer was still running. In fact, I enjoyed the jingle about not smoking and throwing out your trash better!Everyone around me seemed to agree as there were wise-cracks and booing from most of the patrons in the theater. In fact, you can tell this film is bound to fail by the amount of talking and complaining before, during and after the show. The only positive thing they could talk about was the fact that Junior Mints were only $3.75 in the lobby. It's a real shame that the director has no concept of what a romantic comedy should be. Pairing up the oafish Sam Cheeselog with the shrill and grating Gretel Necessary would thrill no one, but then have them take a six day train ride across the Siberian tundra takes the cake for sheer ineptitude. In fact, you'll consider it a triumph if you make it through this 183 minute piece of trite crap without losing your lunch, spending half of the convulsively gagging, or losing faith that there is any goodness left in the human spirit. Whatever you do, don't go see this movie.
Wishful thinking... what advertising isn't deceptive?
"100% Natural"?
"No Artificial Colors or Flavors"?
"Lite"?
"New and Improved"?
Any of the hundreds of movies that are 88.5 minutes of filler wrapped around a good-looking trailer?
This is Madison Avenue/Hollywood S.O.P. Nobody (who can change things) cares and nobody (who has any influence) is going to do anything about it.
I bet two tickets to the next Adam Sandler movie that this is the last time you hear about it in the media.
JonKatz gets a lot of criticism for his articles, but I think this is a very good one.
However, I see one difference in the metaphor between the restaurant industry and the Internet. In the restaurant world, it takes a lot of money and an incredible amount of hard work to start and maintain a restaurant, and even then, most restaurants fail. With the advent of megacorporations, individual stores could even operate at a loss in order to more effectively shut out competition. I don't know if this actually happens, but I wouldn't be surprised.
In any event, on the Internet, I still think there is more of any opportunity for the little guy to succeed. Maybe you won't see a couple of college kids becoming overnight billionaires anymore, but unlike the restaurant world, where real estate and customers are finite, on the Internet, real estate is essentially infinite and "customers" can come from literally all over the world. Now I won't minimize the homogenization of online content, much like what's happened to commercial radio in the last 20 years, but it's still easy to create an online community dedicated to anything you could possibly want, and freed from geographic restrictions, any interest, no matter how obscure, can attract a community of like-minded individuals to share their common interest. I don't think the Walmart-ization of the Internet will ever squeeze those communities out, even if they are never exposed to vast masses who are force-fed a diet of ads for britneyspears.com or whatever.
So, while there are many parallels between the brick-and-mortar world and the online-world, we need to remember that the parallels are never perfect and I still think the 'net will adapt and grow in ways we haven't even thought of yet.
I think "We are the Bord" better describes the audience.
Don't forget the distant, distant future concept of "sidewarp", mentioned briefly in the novel "Federation". :)
Good call. Your categories are more complete than mine.
Rick
Yeah, and in 2003, we can watch him fall into the fires of Mount Doom with the Ring and Frodo's finger screaming "I meant to do that!"
Yes, I am overstating it a bit, but I was on a roll. It's fun to bust on Fox.
I will agree that Ally McBeal is a good show and Malcolm is currently the funniest show on TV, but I found Boston Public, the few times I watched it, to be painfully trite, overbearingly preachy and gratuitously smutty, as opposed to Ally McBeal, which can be pretty smutty, too, but also can be very clever and has good music.
I actually thought the X-Files season ender was the two best episodes this season (and better than most of last season too). Certainly better than that painfully tedious 3 part cliffhanger from last year. But, in general these days, the show's about on par with daytime soaps.
Have you read any Pratchett? No one who calls him a hack could have. As far as I'm concerned he's become a better writer than Adams. (This is no slam to Adams whose last novels were nothing short of brilliant). But Terry Pratchett manages to spoof everything under the sun and still tells a great story. Furthermore, as silly and improbable as the Discworld is, it is the most well-fleshed out and consistent world since Middle-Earth. There may be about 26 Discworld books (who can keep count), but they could really be thought of a 4 separate series, and they are as good now as ever:
1. The Watch Books: Vimes, Carrot, Nobby, et al, usually more urban-centric with murder mysteries and politics.
2. Rincewind and the Wizards. OK, Rincewind might be just a leetle derivative of Artur Dent, but his adventures with TwoFlower are a lot of fun. Also, the other wizards are hilarious... Pratchett has nailed every elite group of pompous men (*cough*Slashdot*cough) in their portrayal.
3. Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat, Agnes, et al. The Lancre Witches are some of the most interesting and well-developed characters in any series I've read, especially Granny.
4. All the other books. There's Death, Mort, Susan Sto Helit, Pteppic, Gaspode, C.M.O.T. Dibbler and plenty of other characters that aren't directly related to the other three groups.
Of course, members of more than one of these groups always show up in any book, but's great to see the characters evolve, interact in different permutations, and watch Discworld blossom as a razor-sharp parody of our own crazy world.
If that's the work of a hack then I should win a Nobel Prize.
Fox's entire raison d'etre is that they had the Simpsons, which was just about the hottest show on TV in its day (and still is) and they figured they could just pad out the rest of the week with pure crap (well, mostly crap) and no one would notice. And guess, what? No one did.
Now Fox, does have a few decent shows, but generally they seem to air the dregs of the television shows out there that everyone else other than WB isn't too desperate to air. WB gets the leftovers.
Worse, He could be at the wedding at Cana and they run out of wine so He turns water into Coors Light.
I'm sure the day will come when something like this happens.
So who's the bad guy? The advertiser or the estates? Well, that's easy, the advertisers are always the bad guy. They're evil by nature.
Anyhow, I understand your offense, and I suppose the mere fact that those speeches are used in advertisements is inherently offensive even if they don't have Dr. King dancing with a vacuum cleaner or pouring beer.
Well, I certainly see your point, however, there are two different types of uses here. First we have Fred Astaire dancing with the product being sold and we have the Duke pouring Coors Light beer (or whatever it was), and then we have a commercial which uses images of the two famous speeches, but doesn't manipulate the image to place their product in with the person in question. I would have to agree that it might be seen as trivializing Dr. King's speech, which is wrong, but at least he wasn't up there with a bottle of liquor saying "I have Jim Beam" or "I brush with Gleem" or "I play with Bleem" or something equally stupid.
Anyhow, as far as tasteless goes, nothing beats the typical network TV sitcom. Tasteless and unfunny. (Tasteless and funny would be OK... but that's a different discussion). The only thing worse is the sleazy tabloid trash passing as network news "magazines" like Doltline.
Are you referring to Vivien Leigh?
It's been going on for a long time over here in America, too. Off the top of my head, there's been ads using digitally altered footage of Fred Astaire, John Wayne, Martin Luther King and Lou Gehrig (although the last two were tasteful, I thought), not to mention the movie Ben Hur (or whatever that famous chariot race scene was from).
What bugs me even more is that even if you followed the pattern used by the word radius, etc, the word would be "viri".
Let's see... here's a scene at the secret Apple marketing headquarters:
...uh, don't you mean machines "for the rest of us"?
Marketroid 1: Hmmm... let's see, Apple has successfully carved out a niche market for the last 15 years based on grotesquely overpriced hardware.
Marketroid 2: Well, we do have superior technology and are very popular among a certain subset of die-hard totally loyal users. Plus there was the Superbowl commercial with the big boobs.
Marketroid 1: Yes, there is a 93% market overlap between Apple Computers, Birkenstock incorporated and owners of Volkswagen Microbusses.
Marketroid 2: Don't forget the coupon for a free pint of Cherry Garcia in every copy of OS X.
Marketroid 1: Yes, but, compare that to the ridiculous hype leading up to the release of Windows 95. I mean, people were lining up at midnight to buy software that told them when it was safe to turn their computers off.
Marketroid 2: Well, our market dominance will be secured when the lucite octohedron mouse works its way through the usability labs. When everyone sees how cool it looks, Apple will sweep the PC market by storm.
Marketroid 1: Not to mention the $500 lead crystal version with a 18 karat gold button. I gotta get me one of those. However, Shiny Product Development says that's at least a year away and we need something now.
Marketroid 2: I know. The most visible part of the computer is the display! Let's get rid of those clunky CRT's once and for all and limit the users strictly to LCD's! They're so 1990's.
Marketroid 1: You know, I think you're on to something, because we all know Apple's success has always stemmed from the fact that people recognize the value of expensive hardware. We can even add gold trim for a few extra Benjamins. By effectively doubling the price of a basic machine, people will come pounding down our doors to buy more machines "for the elite among us".
Marketroid 2:
Marketroid 1: What did I say?
No offense, but it's pretty amusing when you try to correct a post, which is obviously deliberately wrong, with something wrong.
Beer was brewed by many ancient civilizations long before Christ, most prominently was the Egyptians.
The Chinese invented gunpowder and fireworks and probably the gun as well.
IIRC, Daimler, who was German, I believe, built the first automobile. I dunno who first made a pickup truck, since many early models could have counted.
I would strongly suspect corn whiskey predates the U.S., so the only item that is truly American (U.S.A.ian, for all you Canadians and Mexicans) is TNN. Hey, who else could invent the show "18 Wheels of Justice"? Yee hah!
The Unahted States of Amurikuh is rat heeuh. They's no uthah place wuth bein' at! Muh president is Charlton Heston and if enny of y'all Commie pinko faggits have a problem with that, y'all kin take it up with muh buddies: Smith and Wesson. If the U.S. wuzzn't the greatest country in the world, how comes we invented the pickup truck, beer, TNN, guns an d Jack Daniels? Yee hah! U.S.A! U.S.A.!
...and if it really is a child trapped under a vehicle, you'll be able to count on Lassie to let you know.
Therefore, if it's not from Lassie, it's not a crisis.
No way, I want to warm my bones in a bath of neutrinos riven from the atoms of Spamford's body.
Either that, or give them all toothbrushes and chisels and have them remove Chernobyl.
The president's guitar effects pedal?
Programmers program and schedule estimates and then miss them by a factor of 3.
Managers make business decisions based on incomplete or incorrect knowledge and then make excuses.
Customers choose the features they want and complain when they are delivered that they weren't what they wanted.
Seriously, if the summary given is the gist of "extreme programming" (do I need to wear knee pads to do it?), then I guess it sums up to.
Extreme Programming: Practice Common Sense
Granted, a lot of people don't practice this, but it's hardly a revolutionary concept.