Lets look at your example for a minute. Mid-range orange juice is your optimal choice, but the marketing of the organic OJ has you thinking that if you made a little more money you'd choose them. Why? Because it's labeled organic it must be better?
Actually, no. It's because it tastes better. I buy it when I either have a bit of extra cash or think that I'll have guests over for breakfast. So I do actually know what it tastes like. And before you start going on about how it tastes better because I've been convinced it does by evil marketing, no it's really a very different product. It tastes exactly the same as fresh squeezed (and therefore varies by season), it has proper pulp, and it goes off really fast since there's no preservatives.
Anyhow, the rest of your rant is thusly invalidated.
In the absence of marketing a wise, informed consumer will pick the best option for their needs.
In the absence of marketing a wise consumer won't be informed, since they won't know what's out there. Who do you think sends out press releases, review copies, etc.
You make it sound like there's an optimal product out there that all consumers would be best off buying.
To use a real-life example, I can't afford to spend lots of money on orange juice. If I did, I would buy the organic brand with no added anything. However I don't buy the store brand, because it tastes terrible (too sweet). So instead I buy a mid-range brand.
All of those brands have good reasons to exist and reasons to advertise. (To remind people to buy orange juice, to explain what they're all about, etc.) None of the brands are trying to manipulate people into buying something they don't want, simply to provide the right product to the right people.
No, marketing is supposed to make you spend money you wouldn't have otherwise spent. If not that, then it's supposed to make you spend money on an option you wouldn't have otherwise chosen. It does this through emotional manipulation, rather than presenting facts and arguing them well, so the better marketed option is usually not the best one.
This argument is flawed on several levels.
First off, most marketing is supposed to make you choose one particular brand over another, as opposed to buying something you wouldn't otherwise buy (since that's hard to do). For example, you're going to buy (say) soap anyhow, the advertising just tries to convince you to buy one brand rather than another.
Secondly, what you term 'emotional manipulation' is generally referred to as branding. In many cases a rational argument cannot be made for why you should buy one brand or another. For example there is rational argument to be made for fashion. So instead fashion labels project an image or emotion and hope that this attracts people to their brand. Also, lots of brands are marketed using rational argument. Some sort of facts form the basis of most ads, but obviously a 30-second TV spot isn't exactly long enough to go into depth about (say) soap composition. Besides which, it's a sad fact that most of the general population don't understand lipid composition all that well, and even if they did, they don't care about it. If your emotions are really manipulated by what happens in the commercial breaks, then I'd suggest that advertising is the least of your problems.
Lastly, even if we were to accept your arguments, it doesn't follow that the 'better marketed option is usually not the best one'. At best you're arguing that they're uncorrelated, but I would make a counter-argument that a company that has a competent marketing department is more likely to have other competent departments, and therefor will be making a better product.
I'm not suggesting that all marketing or advertising is good, or even that most of it is. And there are real issues, like the continual intrusion of advertising into public spaces. But you were making blanket statements, so I thought I'd throw a little debate into the mix.
This was actually the most interesting part of the (clearly tongue-in-cheek) article. The notion of coding to a spreadsheet isn't exactly new, but in some ways it makes a lot more sense for many forms of programming than a linear list of commands.
Seems like most of the people who are saying this was completely useless didn't actually read the article. As such, they missed some of the best bits, such as the claim that Excel supports a "255x65535 screen resolution which results the uniquely high 16.7 megapixel resolution not found in other 3D engines."
As the sibling poster has mentioned, the name sounds like a derivative of the Scrabble brand. Also, if you've actually seen the app in question, it looks exactly like a scrabble board (same design, same colors, fonts, etc.).
So yes, my first impression was that it was official. I then looked at it properly and realized that it wasn't. Still, if that makes me 'stupid' in your eyes, then I guess I'll just have to find a way to deal with that.
Actually, Mattel does have a point. Someone is using a name "Scrabulous" which is easily confused with "Scabble" such that normal people could easily assume both were made by Mattel.
And that's exactly what I did when I first had my friends add this on Facebook and invite me to play. I was surprised when I realized that it was not actually made by Mattel (actually I couldn't think of the parent company), and was waiting for it to either quietly disappear or loudly have its ass sued.
All of that said, Mattel should simply buy Scrabulous from the designers for a fair price...
This sums up my experience with 'the switch' exactly. I went from being someone who wanted to have control of exactly what my computer was doing and building my system to spec to someone who is happy to let OS X run the show 95% of the time.
And to the grandparent poster: I've still upgraded the RAM and HDD in my MacBook, but it's nice to have a system where everything works so brilliantly. And for that 5% of the time when I'm not letting OS X do things for me, there's a great CLI and certified Unix nerd-points. Not that I really know what I'm doing with it all that much, but it's fun to learn. (And I haven't broken things too badly yet.)
In 2004 I listened to an interview with Ralph Nader and why he was running. It was very apparent by the end that he does not give a damn what happens if he runs, he is only concerned with feeding his ego. In fact he seems to think that the disaster of the last eight years is a validation of why he must run. He does not have a clue, nor does he want one.
Pure character assassination with nothing backing it up. Care to add some actual quotes or examples?
If not, -1 Troll.
Even more useless than the display on the G15 gaming keyboard. Who fricking watches the keys while typing or gaming?!
That was actually great for two reasons. First off, it let me see what was playing in iTunes without leaving WoW. Second, it had all my WoW stats when I wanted to see them. Really handy when changing armor. (Which I did often, since I played a druid.)
The G15 LCD is great for stuff that you don't want to see most of the time, but would like to be able to get to quickly occasionally.
Isn't there some principle in AI research that the more lifelike a thing is after a certain point, it no longer seems helpful and instead becomes disconcerting to the user?
The term you're looking for here is the Uncanny Valley. I don't really know if would it would apply to this device though, since it's not designed to look even remotely humanoid.
Dead fish ALWAYS float down stream. Only the living ones struggle against the currents and eventually triumph over all obstacles in the river. Life and science is that way also.
Yes, but sometime you're just swimming the wrong way. You make it sound like if people are mocking your theories and the stream is against you, then you must be on the right track. Sorry, but that's simply not the case.
Maybe there could be some kind of academic cage match between the two camps,
wherein they have to explain their research publicly, and get to critique the
methodology of the opposing camp.
They have these. They're called research journals.
Presently, mainstream cosmological theories largely ignore the electric force as a major, often dominant factor in the operation of the large scale universe.
Oh, you're an electric universe nutjob. Why didn't you just say so?
So, now that we're reprogramming mouse cells, how long till someone gets Linux working on one? And would that be the greatest hardware hack of all time?
I take you haven't been to the US lately. At least, not as a non-citizen.
The number of people protesting this is kinda sad, given that it's clear that those people must be Americans who don't realize that the US DoI has been doing exactly this for a number of years now.
"Namco Bandai is shuttering between 50 and 60 arcades in Japan..."
Are they now?
I've gotta agree with Namco though, the fact that arcades had been on a downwards trend for at least ten years before the Wii was released just goes to show how incredibly successful Nintendo's console has been.
He's not convinced of evolution. So what?... He's not convinced of global warming? So what?
That strongly suggests to me that he's incapable of basic reasoning. That's what. (I'm going to leave the whole pro-life thing off that list to avoid the inevitable flamewar.)
I would like to see a well reasoned argument as to why he is a kook.
He's not convinced of evolution. Done. I'm aware that many other Republicans aren't convinced of evolution. That makes them kooks in my book.
A lot of the other stuff makes sense if you're a libertarian. But at the end of the day I can't trust someone who views homosexuals as an abomination and who can't accept evidence of global warming with the White House. (Note: It doesn't actually matter since I don't get to vote, just pay taxes.) Some of his policies are pretty good, but he doesn't actually get to make all that many as president and his moral compass seems to be stuck in the 1950's. That's very bad in my opinion.
Thanks, but it was more an attempt to demonstrate that giving everyone guns will not protect against bombings, which seemed to be your argument. Providing a counter-example to such an argument hardly counts as a straw man.
...why give up our freedoms and liberties (not to mention our constitution)for the illusions of security?
I'm just calling attention to the fact that the security is an illusion, regardless of whether you get to carry a gun or not. I really can't see the point of a debate on control, since everyone's been over that ground. But I won't let you say that having a gun is going to prevent terrorism without some sort of mention of the fact that guns aren't going to help in most terrorist situations.
And it's not our constitution. I just live and work here, but for some reason get none of its protections.
How about for starters we quit inspecting the 80 year old grandmas, 5 year old kids, pilots in uniform with ID, and go back to the common sense inspections? Middle Eastern males between the ages of 18-40?
I noticed a trend in the kind of person that attacked on 9/11.
Wow. Congratulations, you're a racist. A minute fraction of a race have displayed a behavior therefore all members of that race are likely to display that behavior.
Now, if you wanted to switch off Fox News and think for a second, you might notice that 9/11 was not the only terrorist attack on American soil. Care to guess who was responsible for the second most deadly attack on American soil? Because it wasn't a Middle Eastern male.
I would also encourage you to put yourself in the shoes of someone who has brown skin for once. But that might be asking too much.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyhow, the rest of your rant is thusly invalidated.
You make it sound like there's an optimal product out there that all consumers would be best off buying.
To use a real-life example, I can't afford to spend lots of money on orange juice. If I did, I would buy the organic brand with no added anything. However I don't buy the store brand, because it tastes terrible (too sweet). So instead I buy a mid-range brand.
All of those brands have good reasons to exist and reasons to advertise. (To remind people to buy orange juice, to explain what they're all about, etc.) None of the brands are trying to manipulate people into buying something they don't want, simply to provide the right product to the right people.
First off, most marketing is supposed to make you choose one particular brand over another, as opposed to buying something you wouldn't otherwise buy (since that's hard to do). For example, you're going to buy (say) soap anyhow, the advertising just tries to convince you to buy one brand rather than another.
Secondly, what you term 'emotional manipulation' is generally referred to as branding. In many cases a rational argument cannot be made for why you should buy one brand or another. For example there is rational argument to be made for fashion. So instead fashion labels project an image or emotion and hope that this attracts people to their brand. Also, lots of brands are marketed using rational argument. Some sort of facts form the basis of most ads, but obviously a 30-second TV spot isn't exactly long enough to go into depth about (say) soap composition. Besides which, it's a sad fact that most of the general population don't understand lipid composition all that well, and even if they did, they don't care about it. If your emotions are really manipulated by what happens in the commercial breaks, then I'd suggest that advertising is the least of your problems.
Lastly, even if we were to accept your arguments, it doesn't follow that the 'better marketed option is usually not the best one'. At best you're arguing that they're uncorrelated, but I would make a counter-argument that a company that has a competent marketing department is more likely to have other competent departments, and therefor will be making a better product.
I'm not suggesting that all marketing or advertising is good, or even that most of it is. And there are real issues, like the continual intrusion of advertising into public spaces. But you were making blanket statements, so I thought I'd throw a little debate into the mix.
Full disclosure: I work in advertising.
Seems like most of the people who are saying this was completely useless didn't actually read the article. As such, they missed some of the best bits, such as the claim that Excel supports a "255x65535 screen resolution which results the uniquely high 16.7 megapixel resolution not found in other 3D engines."
So yes, my first impression was that it was official. I then looked at it properly and realized that it wasn't. Still, if that makes me 'stupid' in your eyes, then I guess I'll just have to find a way to deal with that.
And to the grandparent poster: I've still upgraded the RAM and HDD in my MacBook, but it's nice to have a system where everything works so brilliantly. And for that 5% of the time when I'm not letting OS X do things for me, there's a great CLI and certified Unix nerd-points. Not that I really know what I'm doing with it all that much, but it's fun to learn. (And I haven't broken things too badly yet.)
You missed the 'untap' and 'upkeep' phases.
The G15 LCD is great for stuff that you don't want to see most of the time, but would like to be able to get to quickly occasionally.
[Allow] [OK] [Yes]
I can't wait till I'm my own websever.
The number of people protesting this is kinda sad, given that it's clear that those people must be Americans who don't realize that the US DoI has been doing exactly this for a number of years now.
Are they now?
I've gotta agree with Namco though, the fact that arcades had been on a downwards trend for at least ten years before the Wii was released just goes to show how incredibly successful Nintendo's console has been.
A lot of the other stuff makes sense if you're a libertarian. But at the end of the day I can't trust someone who views homosexuals as an abomination and who can't accept evidence of global warming with the White House. (Note: It doesn't actually matter since I don't get to vote, just pay taxes.) Some of his policies are pretty good, but he doesn't actually get to make all that many as president and his moral compass seems to be stuck in the 1950's. That's very bad in my opinion.
And it's not our constitution. I just live and work here, but for some reason get none of its protections.
Now, if you wanted to switch off Fox News and think for a second, you might notice that 9/11 was not the only terrorist attack on American soil. Care to guess who was responsible for the second most deadly attack on American soil? Because it wasn't a Middle Eastern male.
I would also encourage you to put yourself in the shoes of someone who has brown skin for once. But that might be asking too much.