Though I haven't been able really "power" anything with it yet, unless you count my finger tips which it transforms into magnetic media "encrypters".
As for the idea of putting in hair, my cat has prior art on that. But she's too lazy to even be a patent troll, so I wouldn't worry about it.
However this shakes out, lets just hope they avoid using the new fabrics in rain coats, swim wear, or lingerie. Hmm, or anything you'd eventually want to put in a washing machine.
Of course people who click on ads are atypical. We know that already, and it's been statistically neutralized out of the equation.
There are only 2 goals for an ad, brand awareness, or profit.
I don't need to tell you about brand awareness, you've all seen ads that we're on the internet before, and can figure out why they're there.
For profit ones just break it down into ROI. You don't *want* everyone clicking on your ad. That's why you hear a lot more about "click-fraud" than "impression fraud" when you're in internet advertising.
The original article seems like it was written by people using very out dated methods of media buying. I don't know anyone who evaluates ads based solely on "clicks" for the same reason I don't know know anyone who evaluates websites based on "hits" anymore.
Sure, we still look at Cost per Click; because that ties back into brand awareness values to some extent, but the real vector is Cost per *Conversion*; what did we pay per *customer*. Ya figure out how much a customer is worth, you know how effective your ads are.
But internet advertising is still relatively new. It has a long way to go catch up to even Direct Mail in many cases. And as long as it's still profitable to do it clumsily, you'll see it done clumsily.
Which is also the reason that women see ads for Viagra, and men see ads for Oprah's book club.
Everytime I've upgraded my PC, it's *always* been because the latest, greatest video game wouldn't play well on my old one. Sure, I've come up with a million alternative rationalization - because it's really hard to admit to yourself that you just payed 2 to 3 thousand dollars to play Crysis (or Doom3, or GTA 2, and on and on all the way back to Ultimata). But the rationalization is skill you pick up when you have to justify the purchase to your parents, or IT department - before you're earning enough to pay for things yourself.
If *I* really had a vested interest in getting people to switch to Linux (or any other OS for that matter), I would pay to have a heavily hyped title release on it 3 to 6 months before any other.
Gamers are the least patient people in the world. And PC gamers combine that with a complete lack of fiscal discipline. For as long as there have been 3D accelerated graphics cards, the best ones have cost roughly what the best consoles cost.
There's a little bit of irrational gamer upgrader in all of us, which any company can easily exploit.
Check out the threads on MacRumors.com by people waiting for Mac Pro's with GeForce 8800 GT's, compared to people waiting for anything practical, if you doubt this existence of this phenomenon.
"Being unable to use either computers or electricity hath made our task quite trying", said Brother John.
With the help of the entire community, the were able to build a server entirely of wood and mud, but attempts to connect it to the secular internet have so far been unsuccessful.
"Getting our horses to carry packets was quite easy, but teaching them to shake hands with each other has proven nearly impossible", the Elder continued.
"At this point, we're considering scrapping the whole horse protocol and using dogs instead, as shaking hands is something they do quite well. The problem is were not 100% if it's the Muslim's who hate dogs, or us, or both. We'd look it up on Wikipedia, but..."
In light of set-backs, another Amish community farther north has taken different approach. So far, they've managed to forge no less than 87 cast-iron "token rings", and are getting quite good at passing them around.
"Once we figure why exactly we we're doing this, we should be well ahead of our brothers to the South with their fancy-schmancy wooden server", lead researcher Brother John (no relation, yet) commented.
"But", he continued, "if Muslims can figure out who's publishing pictures of their prophet, when by definition they'd not have an original picture to compare it to - I'm sure we can figure out what we're doing too".
Thanks for the reply. With regards to Adobe, I was referring to it becoming available on PC's, not *only* available on PC's.
I sighted Doom being PC only not because Macs didn't have games back then (Myst was huuuuge); but because it was one of the first really good 3D engines game made, that also supported network play, and was released in a shareware model that let people get the entire first 1/3 of the game for free. Those 3 factors played an enormous role it's popularity. Popularity that pushed PC's.
People DON'T LIKE computers. This is very hard for people like us to relate to. So here's what happened.
The business folks in offices used IBM stuff, which was better than paper, but still unpleasant. IBM started pitching them "PC's". Not as pleasant as Mac's, but more compatible and "no ever got fired for buying IBM products".
Then the support guys (me) come in. We work with Macs and PC's, and know that PC's are worse. But... the business folks already kinda know PC's, and they don't want to learn anything new (and you can't make them). The want word processing, spreadsheets, slide shows, database, and eventually email.
You try to give them the best packages available to meet these needs (Word Perfect, Lotus 123/Symphony, ect); but Microsoft continually throws stuff in their security updates that make all these other programs break. People are pissed, and you're frustrated. You don't want to, but you buy Microsoft Office during the next upgrade to avoid dealing with the sabotages. Office still isn't stable, or the best batch of products - but no one blames you for it; and it's still more stable than trying to run other programs Microsoft's updates corrupt.
Soon you being automating things. You try out Delphi because even the Visual Basic Programmers journal recommends it.
Then when you update to the next version of Windows to support long files names (which is a must because your office is creating too many documents to manage them with 8.3 filenames), the new OS trashes all the Delphi programs. So you have to switch to VB.
While Office makes it very easy to switch from other programs to it's own programs - it throws up warning if you try to save these documents in any other format. Office workers are scared of these warnings, and eventually just save everything as native Office formatted documents.
Now you've all the people in the company with any power firmly stuck on MS products, and all your company's work is stored in Office only formats. Switching away from that is just not viable.
Along comes the internet, and decent PC only games like Doom.
Now these office workers, not wanting to learn anything new, choose PC's for their home computers. They use Outlook, download porn, and play Doom and Myst at home.
Then Microsoft finally gets IE working just well enough, and Netscape sabatoged enough, to make IE a viable browser.
The get sued for it, and so they purposely put the code for the GUI of Windows in the IE code - so you can't remove IE anymore without trashing the operating system. They "run out the clock" on making it the default browser, so when web development really becomes crucial - the IE marketshare is so great that designers eventually stop "branch coding" and only QA their sites on IE.
The postive feed back loop gets stronger, pushing traditional Mac developers to switch to PC only releases. Adobe follows suit, removing one of the last few justifications even the Art departments had for adding Mac's to the mix. The die hard hold outs, such as Netscape, Borland, and Bungie, find their best employees poached away with the huge profits MS has been making.
The IT departments see the opportunity to cut costs by only have to deal with one OS, and take it.
And thus you have apparent "popularity" of all things Microsoft.
But then computers and the internet go from becoming useful tools, to vital pieces of company's business models. Crashes, viruses, and security breaches are no longer acceptable risks.
And along comes Linux. The server guys start using it, because it meets their needs for security and stability - and they don't need cute little graphics to do their jobs. Plus, they remember all the times Microsoft made their lives hell - and want to avoid repeating the experience.
Linux starts to get it's own positive feed back loop. PHP and MySQL become viable options. Thunderbird and Firefox become viable options. Everyone who counts on computers working properly to do their jobs take the on
When the recent round of Yahoo layoffs came, the only "safe" place to be was in their advertising division; because it's the most reliably profitable.
I've done a lot of work related to that division, and believe me - they've got some pretty big challenges to overcome as it is.
Now, we've all seen in the past that Microsoft is reluctant to run it's "hot" properties on other people's software. Not only would that show that they recognize their software isn't the best choice; but in the case of open source software, they have to develop vary carefully so as not to be in a position where their R&D can't be controlled because it's based on GPL'd tech.
So, if MS tries to convert Yahoo's Ad Servers to a.Net platform - I can pretty much guarantee you that they'll trash it, ruining the most stable part of the company they want to buy. If they don't, they run the risk of trampling their overall "Get everyone to use our closed source software" strategy.
Microsoft may be bad with software, but they're quite good with business strategy. And this offer would be good strategy, if they were really good with software.
My prediction is that if they'll either make the acquisition by trying to rush it through and then regret it when they realize what they really bought, or proceed with due caution and lose the deal.
Either way, the result won't be a MSN/Google Battle of the Titans. It'll remain as it is now, or be an eventual TKO with Google as the winner against a badly crippled MSN/Yahoo mutant (cue flashback of Bart Simpson's attempt to turn a frog into a prince).
I've worked for or with all the companies involved, and as the CTO of an Investment Bank. And even if I only cared about Microsoft's profits and market share - I'd strongly advise them against this deal. The timing is perfect from the "poison pill" and political perspectives, as many here have noted - but the timing is very wrong from a technology perspective.
MS buying Yahoo to increase market share would be like Jimmy Dean buying Amy's Meals Inc. for the same purpose.
People have raised a lot of good points about the obstacles you face. In situations where I've been in a challenging situation for documentation (people who don't have time to explain what they do, don't want to when they do have time, and even when forced do a lousy job of it because they're neither skilled as teachers nor fully aware of all the parts of the process that have long since become second nature to them) - he's what I've done that works pretty well.
First, to make it as painless as possible for the staffer - run a screen capture program on their machine while they walk through the process - describing what they do as they go. If the task takes place off the computer screen, bring a video camera as well. Go ahead and ask your "newbie" questions and let them answer. Be sensitive to when they've reached their limit for explaining things.
Then you (or whoever is genuinely good at explaining things to people) can go over the recording much more thoroughly - writing down the questions and/or misconceptions that came up and what you eventually figured out the answer to be.
One really important part of the process is coming up with "business dictionary". If someone mentions a "request order" or "line item" - you must know exactly what means before creating an explanation which uses the term.
All of the work up to this point illustrates why it's vital to have someone utterly unfamiliar with the process to creating the initial documentation. A seasoned employee of the company will fail to recognize where you and the staffer have used existing knowledge without explaining it - from terminology to small processes. A person unfamiliar with the specifics of the business cannot make this error.
Lastly - the procedural documentation must be created. In performing this task - you must recognize that different people learn things in different ways. Reading a Wiki will work for some, seeing an on screen demo will work for others. Keep track of when you documentation has not fulfilled it's purpose (conveyed all the knowledge of how to perform a task without being supplemented by the "oral tradition" approach); and enhance it as warranted.
Don't worry too much about updates. Someone with a firm understanding of how things used to be done is well positioned to be brought up to speed on any changes without needing a totally reworked set of documentation.
In general though, a live, narrated screen capture (or film) is both the easiest way for people to demonstrate how to perform a task (the only difference for them compared to a regular day is explaining what they're doing and why their doing it), and the easiest way for someone else to learn it (they can watch it as many times as they need to grasp any details they missed the first time).
The level of involvement outside people have should be dictated by the situation. A highly complex task which needs to be taught to someone totally unfamiliar with your whole industry must include a lot of basic information no one on your staff will think to mention. Smaller tasks which must be documented for people already working in the company can usually be handled by video demonstration created by people already on staff.
But just asking people on staff to document the processes they perform every day is a terrible approach. Making documentation is not what they do, it's boring, and they're pretty much guaranteed to leave out crucial steps which are obvious to them; or simply make small but critical mistakes and not realize it. If they're captured actually *doing* the task - this can't happen. They must go through each step, and either not make any mistakes, or correct them when they do. You just want someone else there to make sure that each action taken is explained (particularly important for computer based tasks where the actions on the keyboard (short cut keys, password-masked fields) cannot be seen.
Yes, do keep in mind that storing things in a more reliable place is NOT the same having a "backup" - that requires have 2 copies.
That said, here's some NAS type issues I've learned while doing the same research you're asking for.
1. Those external LaCie/Maxtor Drives? They're less reliable than your regular hard drive. They use 2 drives as one, making it so that if either drive fails, all the data on the unit is lost. As it uses 2 drives, it double the chances of failure. 2. As far as NAS's go, I've tried 2 - the ReadyNAS, and the Thecus NV 5200. 3. My company's tech guy did all the research available and settled on the ReadyNAS. The first unit literally caught fire. The second unit killed a disk within a week. 4. I used the same research sites, and went with the Thecus. I did this because it had 5 drive bays (almost no other one offers more than 4); and since you lose 1 drive for RAID 5 whether you use 3 drives or 5, I figured I'd go with something I could expand to maximize the benefit of that one drive I lost. 5. I didn't "trust" it do what I wanted, so I bought 4 four drives, and built it with only 3 of them. I pulled one out to simulate a failure, and it informed me - but still let me read the data (look up RAID on Wikipedia if that seems odd to you). Then I put in a blank drive to simulate a replacement, and it rebuilt the RAID no problem. Then I put in the drive I had removed to simulate an expansion, and it expanded it easily. I was happy enough with the unit that I went ahead a bought a fifth drive. 6. Just because I was very pleased with the Thecus over the ReadyNAS, there were still something I'd warn you about. First, RAID rebuilds take ages. If the power goes off during this, you're screwed. Make sure you've got a reliable UPS before using any RAID device. Second, the manuals are pretty stingy with information. There's lots of services that you'll have to play with before knowing what they do (such as the built in iTunes server) because they're not even mentioned in the manual.
If I had only $500, I'd first think about what kind of data I needed to backup. If it was really kind small, I'd load it onto my one of my public webservers and let the hosting company worry about backups. If it was largish - I'd probably just buy an external drive kit and the biggest drive I could, and then back up to that manually (unless you have back up software you really trust).
But, if you foresee the need to hold vast quantities of data eventually and just want to smooth out the financial hit - I'd wait until I could afford a NAS (and so far would still recommend the Thecus unit). If you can only afford 2 drives, mirror them; that's your back up right there. If you can afford 3, go RAID 5 - you can expand your storage later as save up. Then, either use that drive to hold your backups, or use it to hold both your crucial backs AND any large data sets (Handbraked DVD's) that you could lose without a serious blow.
Data back up is all about points of failure, you have to be realistic about what could go wrong in your circumstances. For example, when I worked at an Investment Bank after 9/11, they were worried that someone might blow up the building we were in and wanted to create a whole offsite network; which was a very pricey thing to do. I pointed out that if someone blew up the building we were in, having a fully functional off site network wasn't going to do us a heck of a lot of good; compared to what saving the money would.
The company I work for now also explored the off site option - as if the whole office burned down, it'd take our original data and our backups with it. But it's very expensive to off site backups. And if the whole building burned down, even having backups of our latest work wouldn't allow us to continue working - the money would be better spent *preventing* an office fire or boosting up on insurance.
In your case, what could go wrong? 1. You're computer's HD could die You can protect against this by having a backup. 2 Your back up
Yeah, it seems real cool until the first time this guy goes to a bar. Though they'll probably install a "mute" switch shortly after his next sponge bath.
Like that comic said, "If women knew what men were thinking, they'd never stop slapping us".
Impressive tech though. Decypher neurological impulses into speech with an 80% accuracy? Forget Stephan Hawkings - give this thing to George W. Bush. His record so far is something like 46.2%; and that was ordering appetizers - with the aid of a teleprompter.
Nah, I'm just bitter because I know all my efforts to master the iPhone typing interface will soon be useless.
I'm mean, if you're not allowed to criticize China's government but want to, couldn't you just post things like:
"Oh yeah, the Chinese government is sooooo well run, and renowned throughout the universe for it's tolerance and compassion... Gosh, what's not to like? They *never* thrown innocent people in jail, oppress citizens in *any* way, and it's a well known fact that the workers earn *huge* salaries and work under the most comfortable and safest environment every conceived of in the history of mankind. Isn't awesome knowing that, when the literally runs you over with tank - that not only did they do it to protect the safety of everyone - but that they also didn't run you over with tank? Because if there's one thing the Chinese government would *never* do, it's run you over with tank. We should all make sure we never get together next Tuesday at the corner cafe and talk about this."
I know it's great fun to slag something which can be interpreted as "Computers can read your mind" when they're so bad at doing what they were designed to do already - but here's why this development actually *could* be quite useful.
First, if you've ever studied verbal interrogation techniques (or even just read "The Sleeping Doll" by Jeffery Deaver), you know that detecting stress as extremely useful meta information to what is being said by the subject. Good interrogators must rely on visual cues to detect stress levels (lack of eye contact, "protective" body postures, etc). This let's them know when a subject is being deceptive, and to what extent. A peripheral device such as the one described can gather that same data.
Why is would this be useful for a computer - outside of being used as general purpose lie detector?
Well, because a badly designed user interface will cause users to lie, or leave out information. My very first computer program was a personal project management program that basically tried to help you get through all the items on your todo list. Long story short - I eventually had to scrap it because I found myself lying to it when it pushed me a little too hard - leaving it with inaccurate data about the problem set it was trying to solve. If it had a device like this attached to it, it could have at least flagged the data from those answers as suspect - if not also flagged the approach it took as overly aggressive and scaled back a bit.
We all know there's only so much good we can do with programs that get "Garbage In", but one source we have very little to protect against in users giving us valid yet either incomplete or inaccurate information because, for whatever reason, they just don't want to answer honestly and fully.
Imagine how crippled you'd be as person if you had no way of detecting the stress of the people you spoke to - that's the boat all our machines are stuck in right now until we either develop something like the device described here, or have personal electronics that can process visual cues as well as a highly sensitive human.
Even on the most basic level - if you're a programmer, wouldn't you find it useful to see a graph how average user stress was experienced during each task your programs performed? If you had some very popular website - wouldn't it be useful to compare stress to different layouts or ad content percentages?
That being said - I'd wait a hell of a long time before trusting that having something on my screen shooting near infrared waves at my cerebral cortex was safe - no matter what the benefits were to me or anyone else. "Shoots rays into your brain" is pretty damn far down on the list of features I look for when buying a new peripheral.
Can't they detect stress some other way? Variations on keying patterns or mouse movements, voice stress analysis for Voice-activated apps, or at least *counting* the number or reports that come back when he click the "Report This" instead of "Don't Report" button after an app has stopped responding?
So, to come back to my original subject line - yes, this technology is useful. But only if it's safe, and only if the information gathered by it is actually used to the benefit of the user. Unfortunately, most companies have done very little to demonstrate they won't sell unsafe products, or that they're willing *or* able to use the information they get from their customers to benefit their customers.
As a punk musician, I used to have to copyright my works all the time. And as a punk musician, I didn't really much money to do it with, nor the extended periods of sobriety required for anything complex.
I simply wrote to the copyright office asking for copyright forms - they're pretty general. You fill out the form, throw it and the cassette or cd in the mail, and you're done.
On occasion, there was something else I wanted to copyright, text or ideas or whatever. Not wanting to spend extra money on a whole separate stamp, I'd just read the ideas into the tape recorder, appending it to whatever songs I submitting that month. You can afford a computer, electricity, and internet access - so it'd probably be easier to get a copyright in the work's intended medium. It's still the same copyright form.
Patents are a much bigger process, involving fees. This won't make your IP patented, but it's at least proof of prior art, so you can prevent someone else from getting an enforceable patent. And if that situation arises, there'd be a good chance that it would be worth going to the time and expense of filing for a patent yourself, after having invalidated the other guy's one.
But I like the idea of copyrighting everything as music. The RIAA clearly loves to go around suing people. They've got too much money, and not enough decent cases. Sing your water-to-gasoline conversion process as song, copyright it, and then have the RIAA go after the newly formed conglomerate, Sunoco Springs, for infringing on your *lyrics*.
Seriously though, a bionic arm for soldiers? Couldn't those engineers have just invented robotic women? Plus, my understanding is that for every 72 of those we send, that's one less suicide bomber we have to deal with. And how tough could that even be? I mean, their virgins are covered head to foot in *burkas*. We could probably get away with throwing a few helium balloons under a burka-length black cloth. "Getcha 72 virgins, right here, right now. All ya gots ta do is leave us the !$@#$ alone."
If one floats away, we just claim she's "floating up to heaven". Then they'll grab the remaining 71 real tight and, depending on how hefty those suicide bombers are, possible float away themselves. And if not, well, if you see a guy walking around holding 72 burka covered balloons, just wait until he's well away from crowds, and pop one. I'll bet those suicide bombers react badly sudden loud noises. Either way, problem solved.
And if my experience with nudists is any indication, even then, that claim is not always true.
So the next time some claims that they've "got nothing to hide", ask them why they're wearing clothes. You'll quickly find them making a very compelling arguement for privacy. Or naked, in which case you should probably back slowly away, and stop taking advice from people on slashdot.
Wasn't Inspector "Clouseau" the bumbling, totally incompentent detective from The Pink Panther movies? That's the name they pick for software which is supposed to enforce copyright law?
Well, let's hope it proves more effective then their Image Identification System, "Magoo".
I always found it somewhat disheartening that, in the futuristic era of Star Trek, we'll apparently be able to travel faster than light (warp engines), consider gravity itself to be little more than a house-hold utility (which miraculously stays on even when ship has been destroyed for decades), synthesize food in seconds in our bedrooms, create artificial reality so real it needs safety settings (and doesn't even need some poor bastard to mop up after VR's involving super-models), create lasers that not only blow up ships, but can actually be heard (Vzzzom!) in the vaccum of space, cure anything with a hypospray, etc, etc, etc...
but Warf and Pickard are both still as bald as plucked chickens.
A more realistic techno-topia would probably involve everyone walking around looking like movie-stars (with comically large sex organs for the guys), and 15 year waiting list for the holodeck. Plus, I'm pretty sure that there'd be *at least* one Mexican somewhere.
Is it just me, or do you ever get the feeling that Britian feels some sort of obligation to render the novel 1984 as accurate as possible? Like, their empire's dead, nobody eats their food, even the accent has lost most it's appeal since British music ceased being dominant. Is Orwell the only relevent thing they figure they've got going for them here in the age of Bush and Fox news?
I think they just need one famous person who isn't a pansy or comedian; so they can find something else to focus on other than bringing dystopic novels to life.
So pick someone at random from England, and we'll all pretend they're just really, really cool. Seriously, it's either that or we have to start watching soccer, or eating their food. Say no more (nudge, nudge).
Yes this is unfair (assuming the CEO wasn't included in the "highest paid get axed" scheme). But unless the highest paid sales staffers weren't being paid based on having the best performance; getting rid of them will *by definition* NOT increase profits.
My experience with Circuit City sales staffers has been that they are knowledgable and helpful without being pushy. As opposed to Best Buy's guys who say "Hi!" every two seconds, and then if you ask them something like, "Do have any bluetooth headsets?" will give you a blank look and reply, "Um, these one's over here are black and silver!".
People who know their wares make me more comfortable buying those wares than people who's knowledge is limited to which floor things are kept on. It seems to me that replacing effective salespeople with newbies will cut costs, but also sales, thus cutting profits.
Barring that though, it's easy enough to just make a big stink out of this and avoid Circuit City. If you lose more money by *publically* announcing you're getting rid of anyone experienced and competent (and generally treating workers like crap in the bargain), than you would by keeping them - you'll either avoid that odious behaviour... or lose in the marketplace to those wise enough to.
Seriously, if this machine could perfectly predict *intentions* - using it on me would only reveal that I *intented* to take over the world - right after I quit smoking, cleaned my apartment, mastered everything about computers, became a rock star - and just quickly glanced over the internet while I drank my coffee.
Does that mean I'm really a threat to global stability?
Not unless I'm the first person to see the "Click HERE to Take Over The World!" ad. And even then... I never click on those ads, man.
I worked in the circulation department of a very large magazine for about 4 years, and learned a lot about the industry by being working closely with our data carrier that managed the majority of America's publishing data.
"Renewals are your profit engine" was industry-wide strategy. In fact, the vast majority of magazines expect to be money losing propositions for publishers for the first 3 years someone is subscribed. The job of the Circulation department was to figure out the best way to gradually raise the price, and lower the value, of the renewals until they became profitable. This isn't easy, as each magazine comes with far better subscription offers already inside of it. So the whole key to making money with a subscription model, is to distract the customer from the fact that you are blatetently offer then less for more. You can do that a lot by making the value of the offer more difficult to quantify (you get a calendar, and a free issue, and then 2 more issues for half price!); but the most effective tool is to play up their desire for continuity ("don't miss a single issue!").
It always struck me as ridiculous that my whole company's business model hinged on our best customers not noticing something fairly obvious. But as the job of my department was to make things less obvious - it's not really a matter of being an intelligent customer; it's a matter of being too busy to spend the time figuring out when you're getting a worse deal.
Yea, I know this is a thread about software subscriptions; but the principles are the same.
If you're buying something via subscription (security updates, software "assurance", or magazines) - know that there is a whole *industry* who's sole purpose is to make it a pain in the butt to figure out that each renewal deal is worse than the last. It's not a nacient industry, it's ridiculously sophisticated. So before you subscribe to anything, either figure out exactly how to drop your subscription and restart it instead of renewing it (let's just go ahead and assume the renewal deals are always worse, because they are), and decide if it still makes the initial bargain worth it. Or, if the convenience of not paying attention to the whole issue is worth eventually paying usually 3 times what you start out with.
Another interesting note on the topic - companies which do this are frequently kind of secretely embarrassed about it. As with ours, you may find that if you point out "Hey... I've been a customer for years and you're trying to renew me at Y, but someone who signs up now only has to pay X"; they'll frequently give you the introductory offer.
Kirk: Looks like a class M planet, what've we got Mr. Spock? Spock: I'm picking up oxygen, nitrogen, basic plant life... and your prostate is the size of a grapefruit! Kirk: Put that thing away! Spock: My apologies captain. I'll try to keep my observations more focused. Kirk: Thank you. Now, any life forms? Spock: Mr. Sulu has crabs.
Toys still have better physics modeling
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The Return of Toys
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· Score: 2, Funny
Yeah, I've usually got (or can get) the latest, greatest video game platform(s). And yeah, there's fun to be had there. But there are aspects of the games we enjoyed as kids, that STILL can't be simulated on video games.
I'm not just talking about "free form play" here, although there will always be that. I'm talking about the basic physics of well, destroying things. No pre-set destruct area can compete with the slow destruction of a Lego or Girder and Panel metropolis by means of endless dart gun barrages. No race-car damage modeling will ever be quite as interesting as what happens to a Tonka Truck set rolling down a very long concrete drive-way. No "rag-doll" engine can compete with the viceral thrill of taking a Lysol Blow torch to a GI Joe Doll. Even games which cater to the frustrated Juvenille deliquent in us, such as the Soldier of Fortune series, still can't hold a candle the mind-boggling gore of opening up with a cheap airsoft machine gun on a crowd of raw eggs with faces drawn on. Even when video games go "too far", they still fall short of what kid's real-life imagination can do (PS2 + Hot coffee mod VS hand lotion + privacy).
So the question is not whether toys can ever compete with video games, but whether video games will ever be able to compete with toys.
My guess is that yes, but only if the politicians keep their damn noses out of it. A lot of the really fun toys I played with when I was kid are banned now, because some unsupervised, stupid kid hurt themselves with them. Usually be trying to eat them. It was huge mistake to ban those toys because a)there are only stupid-children toys left now and b)it makes it harder to identify stupid adults by looking for things like "fire-cracker face", "lego-lung" or other evidence of childhood brushes with natural selection. And now we have dolts like Joe Liberman who seek to suck the life out of video games too (read their actual words before assuming they're only trying to "think of the children"). At some point in the not-too-distant future, consumer grade video game machines will be technically capable of showing what it would really looking like if you crashed your Grand Turismo car, your WOW guild caught fire, or shot a Doom 3 alien in the face with a shot gun. But without some common sense voting, those games will either not exist or only be available to adults aged 90 and up.
Which is fine by me, because that's roughly the age I'll be when Duke Nukem forever gets released. But this a post about toys, so it's not about adults like me. It's about the children.
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Though I haven't been able really "power" anything with it yet, unless you count my finger tips which it transforms into magnetic media "encrypters".
As for the idea of putting in hair, my cat has prior art on that. But she's too lazy to even be a patent troll, so I wouldn't worry about it.
However this shakes out, lets just hope they avoid using the new fabrics in rain coats, swim wear, or lingerie. Hmm, or anything you'd eventually want to put in a washing machine.
Of course people who click on ads are atypical. We know that already, and it's been statistically neutralized out of the equation.
There are only 2 goals for an ad, brand awareness, or profit.
I don't need to tell you about brand awareness, you've all seen ads that we're on the internet before, and can figure out why they're there.
For profit ones just break it down into ROI. You don't *want* everyone clicking on your ad. That's why you hear a lot more about "click-fraud" than "impression fraud" when you're in internet advertising.
The original article seems like it was written by people using very out dated methods of media buying. I don't know anyone who evaluates ads based solely on "clicks" for the same reason I don't know know anyone who evaluates websites based on "hits" anymore.
Sure, we still look at Cost per Click; because that ties back into brand awareness values to some extent, but the real vector is Cost per *Conversion*; what did we pay per *customer*. Ya figure out how much a customer is worth, you know how effective your ads are.
But internet advertising is still relatively new. It has a long way to go catch up to even Direct Mail in many cases. And as long as it's still profitable to do it clumsily, you'll see it done clumsily.
Which is also the reason that women see ads for Viagra, and men see ads for Oprah's book club.
Killer app: Awsome Video Game.
Everytime I've upgraded my PC, it's *always* been because the latest, greatest video game wouldn't play well on my old one. Sure, I've come up with a million alternative rationalization - because it's really hard to admit to yourself that you just payed 2 to 3 thousand dollars to play Crysis (or Doom3, or GTA 2, and on and on all the way back to Ultimata). But the rationalization is skill you pick up when you have to justify the purchase to your parents, or IT department - before you're earning enough to pay for things yourself.
If *I* really had a vested interest in getting people to switch to Linux (or any other OS for that matter), I would pay to have a heavily hyped title release on it 3 to 6 months before any other.
Gamers are the least patient people in the world. And PC gamers combine that with a complete lack of fiscal discipline. For as long as there have been 3D accelerated graphics cards, the best ones have cost roughly what the best consoles cost.
There's a little bit of irrational gamer upgrader in all of us, which any company can easily exploit.
Check out the threads on MacRumors.com by people waiting for Mac Pro's with GeForce 8800 GT's, compared to people waiting for anything practical, if you doubt this existence of this phenomenon.
"Being unable to use either computers or electricity hath made our task quite trying", said Brother John.
With the help of the entire community, the were able to build a server entirely of wood and mud, but attempts to connect it to the secular internet have so far been unsuccessful.
"Getting our horses to carry packets was quite easy, but teaching them to shake hands with each other has proven nearly impossible", the Elder continued.
"At this point, we're considering scrapping the whole horse protocol and using dogs instead, as shaking hands is something they do quite well. The problem is were not 100% if it's the Muslim's who hate dogs, or us, or both. We'd look it up on Wikipedia, but..."
In light of set-backs, another Amish community farther north has taken different approach. So far, they've managed to forge no less than 87 cast-iron "token rings", and are getting quite good at passing them around.
"Once we figure why exactly we we're doing this, we should be well ahead of our brothers to the South with their fancy-schmancy wooden server", lead researcher Brother John (no relation, yet) commented.
"But", he continued, "if Muslims can figure out who's publishing pictures of their prophet, when by definition they'd not have an original picture to compare it to - I'm sure we can figure out what we're doing too".
Thanks for the reply.
With regards to Adobe, I was referring to it becoming available on PC's, not *only* available on PC's.
I sighted Doom being PC only not because Macs didn't have games back then (Myst was huuuuge); but because it was one of the first really good 3D engines game made, that also supported network play, and was released in a shareware model that let people get the entire first 1/3 of the game for free. Those 3 factors played an enormous role it's popularity. Popularity that pushed PC's.
People DON'T LIKE computers. This is very hard for people like us to relate to. So here's what happened.
The business folks in offices used IBM stuff, which was better than paper, but still unpleasant.
IBM started pitching them "PC's". Not as pleasant as Mac's, but more compatible and "no ever got fired for buying IBM products".
Then the support guys (me) come in. We work with Macs and PC's, and know that PC's are worse. But... the business folks already kinda know PC's, and they don't want to learn anything new (and you can't make them). The want word processing, spreadsheets, slide shows, database, and eventually email.
You try to give them the best packages available to meet these needs (Word Perfect, Lotus 123/Symphony, ect); but Microsoft continually throws stuff in their security updates that make all these other programs break. People are pissed, and you're frustrated. You don't want to, but you buy Microsoft Office during the next upgrade to avoid dealing with the sabotages. Office still isn't stable, or the best batch of products - but no one blames you for it; and it's still more stable than trying to run other programs Microsoft's updates corrupt.
Soon you being automating things. You try out Delphi because even the Visual Basic Programmers journal recommends it.
Then when you update to the next version of Windows to support long files names (which is a must because your office is creating too many documents to manage them with 8.3 filenames), the new OS trashes all the Delphi programs. So you have to switch to VB.
While Office makes it very easy to switch from other programs to it's own programs - it throws up warning if you try to save these documents in any other format. Office workers are scared of these warnings, and eventually just save everything as native Office formatted documents.
Now you've all the people in the company with any power firmly stuck on MS products, and all your company's work is stored in Office only formats. Switching away from that is just not viable.
Along comes the internet, and decent PC only games like Doom.
Now these office workers, not wanting to learn anything new, choose PC's for their home computers. They use Outlook, download porn, and play Doom and Myst at home.
Then Microsoft finally gets IE working just well enough, and Netscape sabatoged enough, to make IE a viable browser.
The get sued for it, and so they purposely put the code for the GUI of Windows in the IE code - so you can't remove IE anymore without trashing the operating system. They "run out the clock" on making it the default browser, so when web development really becomes crucial - the IE marketshare is so great that designers eventually stop "branch coding" and only QA their sites on IE.
The postive feed back loop gets stronger, pushing traditional Mac developers to switch to PC only releases. Adobe follows suit, removing one of the last few justifications even the Art departments had for adding Mac's to the mix. The die hard hold outs, such as Netscape, Borland, and Bungie, find their best employees poached away with the huge profits MS has been making.
The IT departments see the opportunity to cut costs by only have to deal with one OS, and take it.
And thus you have apparent "popularity" of all things Microsoft.
But then computers and the internet go from becoming useful tools, to vital pieces of company's business models. Crashes, viruses, and security breaches are no longer acceptable risks.
And along comes Linux. The server guys start using it, because it meets their needs for security and stability - and they don't need cute little graphics to do their jobs. Plus, they remember all the times Microsoft made their lives hell - and want to avoid repeating the experience.
Linux starts to get it's own positive feed back loop. PHP and MySQL become viable options. Thunderbird and Firefox become viable options. Everyone who counts on computers working properly to do their jobs take the on
When the recent round of Yahoo layoffs came, the only "safe" place to be was in their advertising division; because it's the most reliably profitable.
.Net platform - I can pretty much guarantee you that they'll trash it, ruining the most stable part of the company they want to buy. If they don't, they run the risk of trampling their overall "Get everyone to use our closed source software" strategy.
I've done a lot of work related to that division, and believe me - they've got some pretty big challenges to overcome as it is.
Now, we've all seen in the past that Microsoft is reluctant to run it's "hot" properties on other people's software. Not only would that show that they recognize their software isn't the best choice; but in the case of open source software, they have to develop vary carefully so as not to be in a position where their R&D can't be controlled because it's based on GPL'd tech.
So, if MS tries to convert Yahoo's Ad Servers to a
Microsoft may be bad with software, but they're quite good with business strategy. And this offer would be good strategy, if they were really good with software.
My prediction is that if they'll either make the acquisition by trying to rush it through and then regret it when they realize what they really bought, or proceed with due caution and lose the deal.
Either way, the result won't be a MSN/Google Battle of the Titans. It'll remain as it is now, or be an eventual TKO with Google as the winner against a badly crippled MSN/Yahoo mutant (cue flashback of Bart Simpson's attempt to turn a frog into a prince).
I've worked for or with all the companies involved, and as the CTO of an Investment Bank. And even if I only cared about Microsoft's profits and market share - I'd strongly advise them against this deal. The timing is perfect from the "poison pill" and political perspectives, as many here have noted - but the timing is very wrong from a technology perspective.
MS buying Yahoo to increase market share would be like Jimmy Dean buying Amy's Meals Inc. for the same purpose.
This will end badly. Unless you work for Google.
People have raised a lot of good points about the obstacles you face. In situations where I've been in a challenging situation for documentation (people who don't have time to explain what they do, don't want to when they do have time, and even when forced do a lousy job of it because they're neither skilled as teachers nor fully aware of all the parts of the process that have long since become second nature to them) - he's what I've done that works pretty well.
First, to make it as painless as possible for the staffer - run a screen capture program on their machine while they walk through the process - describing what they do as they go. If the task takes place off the computer screen, bring a video camera as well. Go ahead and ask your "newbie" questions and let them answer. Be sensitive to when they've reached their limit for explaining things.
Then you (or whoever is genuinely good at explaining things to people) can go over the recording much more thoroughly - writing down the questions and/or misconceptions that came up and what you eventually figured out the answer to be.
One really important part of the process is coming up with "business dictionary". If someone mentions a "request order" or "line item" - you must know exactly what means before creating an explanation which uses the term.
All of the work up to this point illustrates why it's vital to have someone utterly unfamiliar with the process to creating the initial documentation. A seasoned employee of the company will fail to recognize where you and the staffer have used existing knowledge without explaining it - from terminology to small processes. A person unfamiliar with the specifics of the business cannot make this error.
Lastly - the procedural documentation must be created. In performing this task - you must recognize that different people learn things in different ways. Reading a Wiki will work for some, seeing an on screen demo will work for others. Keep track of when you documentation has not fulfilled it's purpose (conveyed all the knowledge of how to perform a task without being supplemented by the "oral tradition" approach); and enhance it as warranted.
Don't worry too much about updates. Someone with a firm understanding of how things used to be done is well positioned to be brought up to speed on any changes without needing a totally reworked set of documentation.
In general though, a live, narrated screen capture (or film) is both the easiest way for people to demonstrate how to perform a task (the only difference for them compared to a regular day is explaining what they're doing and why their doing it), and the easiest way for someone else to learn it (they can watch it as many times as they need to grasp any details they missed the first time).
The level of involvement outside people have should be dictated by the situation. A highly complex task which needs to be taught to someone totally unfamiliar with your whole industry must include a lot of basic information no one on your staff will think to mention. Smaller tasks which must be documented for people already working in the company can usually be handled by video demonstration created by people already on staff.
But just asking people on staff to document the processes they perform every day is a terrible approach. Making documentation is not what they do, it's boring, and they're pretty much guaranteed to leave out crucial steps which are obvious to them; or simply make small but critical mistakes and not realize it. If they're captured actually *doing* the task - this can't happen. They must go through each step, and either not make any mistakes, or correct them when they do. You just want someone else there to make sure that each action taken is explained (particularly important for computer based tasks where the actions on the keyboard (short cut keys, password-masked fields) cannot be seen.
Good luck.
Yes, do keep in mind that storing things in a more reliable place is NOT the same having a "backup" - that requires have 2 copies.
That said, here's some NAS type issues I've learned while doing the same research you're asking for.
1. Those external LaCie/Maxtor Drives? They're less reliable than your regular hard drive. They use 2 drives as one, making it so that if either drive fails, all the data on the unit is lost. As it uses 2 drives, it double the chances of failure.
2. As far as NAS's go, I've tried 2 - the ReadyNAS, and the Thecus NV 5200.
3. My company's tech guy did all the research available and settled on the ReadyNAS. The first unit literally caught fire. The second unit killed a disk within a week.
4. I used the same research sites, and went with the Thecus. I did this because it had 5 drive bays (almost no other one offers more than 4); and since you lose 1 drive for RAID 5 whether you use 3 drives or 5, I figured I'd go with something I could expand to maximize the benefit of that one drive I lost.
5. I didn't "trust" it do what I wanted, so I bought 4 four drives, and built it with only 3 of them. I pulled one out to simulate a failure, and it informed me - but still let me read the data (look up RAID on Wikipedia if that seems odd to you). Then I put in a blank drive to simulate a replacement, and it rebuilt the RAID no problem. Then I put in the drive I had removed to simulate an expansion, and it expanded it easily. I was happy enough with the unit that I went ahead a bought a fifth drive.
6. Just because I was very pleased with the Thecus over the ReadyNAS, there were still something I'd warn you about. First, RAID rebuilds take ages. If the power goes off during this, you're screwed. Make sure you've got a reliable UPS before using any RAID device. Second, the manuals are pretty stingy with information. There's lots of services that you'll have to play with before knowing what they do (such as the built in iTunes server) because they're not even mentioned in the manual.
If I had only $500, I'd first think about what kind of data I needed to backup. If it was really kind small, I'd load it onto my one of my public webservers and let the hosting company worry about backups. If it was largish - I'd probably just buy an external drive kit and the biggest drive I could, and then back up to that manually (unless you have back up software you really trust).
But, if you foresee the need to hold vast quantities of data eventually and just want to smooth out the financial hit - I'd wait until I could afford a NAS (and so far would still recommend the Thecus unit). If you can only afford 2 drives, mirror them; that's your back up right there. If you can afford 3, go RAID 5 - you can expand your storage later as save up. Then, either use that drive to hold your backups, or use it to hold both your crucial backs AND any large data sets (Handbraked DVD's) that you could lose without a serious blow.
Data back up is all about points of failure, you have to be realistic about what could go wrong in your circumstances. For example, when I worked at an Investment Bank after 9/11, they were worried that someone might blow up the building we were in and wanted to create a whole offsite network; which was a very pricey thing to do. I pointed out that if someone blew up the building we were in, having a fully functional off site network wasn't going to do us a heck of a lot of good; compared to what saving the money would.
The company I work for now also explored the off site option - as if the whole office burned down, it'd take our original data and our backups with it. But it's very expensive to off site backups. And if the whole building burned down, even having backups of our latest work wouldn't allow us to continue working - the money would be better spent *preventing* an office fire or boosting up on insurance.
In your case, what could go wrong?
1. You're computer's HD could die
You can protect against this by having a backup.
2 Your back up
Yeah, it seems real cool until the first time this guy goes to a bar. Though they'll probably install a "mute" switch shortly after his next sponge bath.
Like that comic said, "If women knew what men were thinking, they'd never stop slapping us".
Impressive tech though. Decypher neurological impulses into speech with an 80% accuracy? Forget Stephan Hawkings - give this thing to George W. Bush. His record so far is something like 46.2%; and that was ordering appetizers - with the aid of a teleprompter.
Nah, I'm just bitter because I know all my efforts to master the iPhone typing interface will soon be useless.
I'm mean, if you're not allowed to criticize China's government but want to, couldn't you just post things like:
"Oh yeah, the Chinese government is sooooo well run, and renowned throughout the universe for it's tolerance and compassion... Gosh, what's not to like? They *never* thrown innocent people in jail, oppress citizens in *any* way, and it's a well known fact that the workers earn *huge* salaries and work under the most comfortable and safest environment every conceived of in the history of mankind. Isn't awesome knowing that, when the literally runs you over with tank - that not only did they do it to protect the safety of everyone - but that they also didn't run you over with tank? Because if there's one thing the Chinese government would *never* do, it's run you over with tank. We should all make sure we never get together next Tuesday at the corner cafe and talk about this."
I know it's great fun to slag something which can be interpreted as "Computers can read your mind" when they're so bad at doing what they were designed to do already - but here's why this development actually *could* be quite useful.
First, if you've ever studied verbal interrogation techniques (or even just read "The Sleeping Doll" by Jeffery Deaver), you know that detecting stress as extremely useful meta information to what is being said by the subject. Good interrogators must rely on visual cues to detect stress levels (lack of eye contact, "protective" body postures, etc). This let's them know when a subject is being deceptive, and to what extent. A peripheral device such as the one described can gather that same data.
Why is would this be useful for a computer - outside of being used as general purpose lie detector?
Well, because a badly designed user interface will cause users to lie, or leave out information. My very first computer program was a personal project management program that basically tried to help you get through all the items on your todo list. Long story short - I eventually had to scrap it because I found myself lying to it when it pushed me a little too hard - leaving it with inaccurate data about the problem set it was trying to solve. If it had a device like this attached to it, it could have at least flagged the data from those answers as suspect - if not also flagged the approach it took as overly aggressive and scaled back a bit.
We all know there's only so much good we can do with programs that get "Garbage In", but one source we have very little to protect against in users giving us valid yet either incomplete or inaccurate information because, for whatever reason, they just don't want to answer honestly and fully.
Imagine how crippled you'd be as person if you had no way of detecting the stress of the people you spoke to - that's the boat all our machines are stuck in right now until we either develop something like the device described here, or have personal electronics that can process visual cues as well as a highly sensitive human.
Even on the most basic level - if you're a programmer, wouldn't you find it useful to see a graph how average user stress was experienced during each task your programs performed? If you had some very popular website - wouldn't it be useful to compare stress to different layouts or ad content percentages?
That being said - I'd wait a hell of a long time before trusting that having something on my screen shooting near infrared waves at my cerebral cortex was safe - no matter what the benefits were to me or anyone else. "Shoots rays into your brain" is pretty damn far down on the list of features I look for when buying a new peripheral.
Can't they detect stress some other way? Variations on keying patterns or mouse movements, voice stress analysis for Voice-activated apps, or at least *counting* the number or reports that come back when he click the "Report This" instead of "Don't Report" button after an app has stopped responding?
So, to come back to my original subject line - yes, this technology is useful. But only if it's safe, and only if the information gathered by it is actually used to the benefit of the user. Unfortunately, most companies have done very little to demonstrate they won't sell unsafe products, or that they're willing *or* able to use the information they get from their customers to benefit their customers.
As a punk musician, I used to have to copyright my works all the time. And as a punk musician, I didn't really much money to do it with, nor the extended periods of sobriety required for anything complex.
I simply wrote to the copyright office asking for copyright forms - they're pretty general. You fill out the form, throw it and the cassette or cd in the mail, and you're done.
On occasion, there was something else I wanted to copyright, text or ideas or whatever. Not wanting to spend extra money on a whole separate stamp, I'd just read the ideas into the tape recorder, appending it to whatever songs I submitting that month. You can afford a computer, electricity, and internet access - so it'd probably be easier to get a copyright in the work's intended medium. It's still the same copyright form.
Patents are a much bigger process, involving fees. This won't make your IP patented, but it's at least proof of prior art, so you can prevent someone else from getting an enforceable patent. And if that situation arises, there'd be a good chance that it would be worth going to the time and expense of filing for a patent yourself, after having invalidated the other guy's one.
But I like the idea of copyrighting everything as music. The RIAA clearly loves to go around suing people. They've got too much money, and not enough decent cases. Sing your water-to-gasoline conversion process as song, copyright it, and then have the RIAA go after the newly formed conglomerate, Sunoco Springs, for infringing on your *lyrics*.
Up next: high-viscosity Teflon-based hand lotion.
Seriously though, a bionic arm for soldiers? Couldn't those engineers have just invented robotic women? Plus, my understanding is that for every 72 of those we send, that's one less suicide bomber we have to deal with. And how tough could that even be? I mean, their virgins are covered head to foot in *burkas*. We could probably get away with throwing a few helium balloons under a burka-length black cloth. "Getcha 72 virgins, right here, right now. All ya gots ta do is leave us the !$@#$ alone."
If one floats away, we just claim she's "floating up to heaven". Then they'll grab the remaining 71 real tight and, depending on how hefty those suicide bombers are, possible float away themselves. And if not, well, if you see a guy walking around holding 72 burka covered balloons, just wait until he's well away from crowds, and pop one. I'll bet those suicide bombers react badly sudden loud noises. Either way, problem solved.
And if my experience with nudists is any indication, even then, that claim is not always true.
So the next time some claims that they've "got nothing to hide", ask them why they're wearing clothes. You'll quickly find them making a very compelling arguement for privacy. Or naked, in which case you should probably back slowly away, and stop taking advice from people on slashdot.
Devastingly effective, but can only be played on an animated recorder, by construction paper children.
Wasn't Inspector "Clouseau" the bumbling, totally incompentent detective from The Pink Panther movies? That's the name they pick for software which is supposed to enforce copyright law?
Well, let's hope it proves more effective then their Image Identification System, "Magoo".
I always found it somewhat disheartening that, in the futuristic era of Star Trek, we'll apparently be able to travel faster than light (warp engines), consider gravity itself to be little more than a house-hold utility (which miraculously stays on even when ship has been destroyed for decades), synthesize food in seconds in our bedrooms, create artificial reality so real it needs safety settings (and doesn't even need some poor bastard to mop up after VR's involving super-models), create lasers that not only blow up ships, but can actually be heard (Vzzzom!) in the vaccum of space, cure anything with a hypospray, etc, etc, etc...
but Warf and Pickard are both still as bald as plucked chickens.
A more realistic techno-topia would probably involve everyone walking around looking like movie-stars (with comically large sex organs for the guys), and 15 year waiting list for the holodeck. Plus, I'm pretty sure that there'd be *at least* one Mexican somewhere.
Is it just me, or do you ever get the feeling that Britian feels some sort of obligation to render the novel 1984 as accurate as possible? Like, their empire's dead, nobody eats their food, even the accent has lost most it's appeal since British music ceased being dominant. Is Orwell the only relevent thing they figure they've got going for them here in the age of Bush and Fox news?
I think they just need one famous person who isn't a pansy or comedian; so they can find something else to focus on other than bringing dystopic novels to life.
So pick someone at random from England, and we'll all pretend they're just really, really cool. Seriously, it's either that or we have to start watching soccer, or eating their food. Say no more (nudge, nudge).
Yes this is unfair (assuming the CEO wasn't included in the "highest paid get axed" scheme). But unless the highest paid sales staffers weren't being paid based on having the best performance; getting rid of them will *by definition* NOT increase profits.
My experience with Circuit City sales staffers has been that they are knowledgable and helpful without being pushy. As opposed to Best Buy's guys who say "Hi!" every two seconds, and then if you ask them something like, "Do have any bluetooth headsets?" will give you a blank look and reply, "Um, these one's over here are black and silver!".
People who know their wares make me more comfortable buying those wares than people who's knowledge is limited to which floor things are kept on. It seems to me that replacing effective salespeople with newbies will cut costs, but also sales, thus cutting profits.
Barring that though, it's easy enough to just make a big stink out of this and avoid Circuit City. If you lose more money by *publically* announcing you're getting rid of anyone experienced and competent (and generally treating workers like crap in the bargain), than you would by keeping them - you'll either avoid that odious behaviour... or lose in the marketplace to those wise enough to.
Seriously, if this machine could perfectly predict *intentions* - using it on me would only reveal that I *intented* to take over the world - right after I quit smoking, cleaned my apartment, mastered everything about computers, became a rock star - and just quickly glanced over the internet while I drank my coffee.
Does that mean I'm really a threat to global stability?
Not unless I'm the first person to see the "Click HERE to Take Over The World!" ad. And even then... I never click on those ads, man.
I worked in the circulation department of a very large magazine for about 4 years, and learned a lot about the industry by being working closely with our data carrier that managed the majority of America's publishing data.
"Renewals are your profit engine" was industry-wide strategy. In fact, the vast majority of magazines expect to be money losing propositions for publishers for the first 3 years someone is subscribed. The job of the Circulation department was to figure out the best way to gradually raise the price, and lower the value, of the renewals until they became profitable. This isn't easy, as each magazine comes with far better subscription offers already inside of it. So the whole key to making money with a subscription model, is to distract the customer from the fact that you are blatetently offer then less for more. You can do that a lot by making the value of the offer more difficult to quantify (you get a calendar, and a free issue, and then 2 more issues for half price!); but the most effective tool is to play up their desire for continuity ("don't miss a single issue!").
It always struck me as ridiculous that my whole company's business model hinged on our best customers not noticing something fairly obvious. But as the job of my department was to make things less obvious - it's not really a matter of being an intelligent customer; it's a matter of being too busy to spend the time figuring out when you're getting a worse deal.
Yea, I know this is a thread about software subscriptions; but the principles are the same.
If you're buying something via subscription (security updates, software "assurance", or magazines) - know that there is a whole *industry* who's sole purpose is to make it a pain in the butt to figure out that each renewal deal is worse than the last. It's not a nacient industry, it's ridiculously sophisticated. So before you subscribe to anything, either figure out exactly how to drop your subscription and restart it instead of renewing it (let's just go ahead and assume the renewal deals are always worse, because they are), and decide if it still makes the initial bargain worth it. Or, if the convenience of not paying attention to the whole issue is worth eventually paying usually 3 times what you start out with.
Another interesting note on the topic - companies which do this are frequently kind of secretely embarrassed about it. As with ours, you may find that if you point out "Hey... I've been a customer for years and you're trying to renew me at Y, but someone who signs up now only has to pay X"; they'll frequently give you the introductory offer.
Kirk: Looks like a class M planet, what've we got Mr. Spock?
Spock: I'm picking up oxygen, nitrogen, basic plant life... and your prostate is the size of a grapefruit!
Kirk: Put that thing away!
Spock: My apologies captain. I'll try to keep my observations more focused.
Kirk: Thank you. Now, any life forms?
Spock: Mr. Sulu has crabs.
Yeah, I've usually got (or can get) the latest, greatest video game platform(s). And yeah, there's fun to be had there. But there are aspects of the games we enjoyed as kids, that STILL can't be simulated on video games.
I'm not just talking about "free form play" here, although there will always be that. I'm talking about the basic physics of well, destroying things. No pre-set destruct area can compete with the slow destruction of a Lego or Girder and Panel metropolis by means of endless dart gun barrages. No race-car damage modeling will ever be quite as interesting as what happens to a Tonka Truck set rolling down a very long concrete drive-way. No "rag-doll" engine can compete with the viceral thrill of taking a Lysol Blow torch to a GI Joe Doll. Even games which cater to the frustrated Juvenille deliquent in us, such as the Soldier of Fortune series, still can't hold a candle the mind-boggling gore of opening up with a cheap airsoft machine gun on a crowd of raw eggs with faces drawn on. Even when video games go "too far", they still fall short of what kid's real-life imagination can do (PS2 + Hot coffee mod VS hand lotion + privacy).
So the question is not whether toys can ever compete with video games, but whether video games will ever be able to compete with toys.
My guess is that yes, but only if the politicians keep their damn noses out of it. A lot of the really fun toys I played with when I was kid are banned now, because some unsupervised, stupid kid hurt themselves with them. Usually be trying to eat them. It was huge mistake to ban those toys because a)there are only stupid-children toys left now and b)it makes it harder to identify stupid adults by looking for things like "fire-cracker face", "lego-lung" or other evidence of childhood brushes with natural selection. And now we have dolts like Joe Liberman who seek to suck the life out of video games too (read their actual words before assuming they're only trying to "think of the children"). At some point in the not-too-distant future, consumer grade video game machines will be technically capable of showing what it would really looking like if you crashed your Grand Turismo car, your WOW guild caught fire, or shot a Doom 3 alien in the face with a shot gun. But without some common sense voting, those games will either not exist or only be available to adults aged 90 and up.
Which is fine by me, because that's roughly the age I'll be when Duke Nukem forever gets released. But this a post about toys, so it's not about adults like me. It's about the children.
Won't someone *please* think of the children?
I would have guessed that most sabatoge was done loyal, happy workers. Thanks US Military and Cert!