TV-remote skills, MySpace proficiency, and sugar and carbohydrate processing scores are all soaring!
Take that, developing countries: even when we're fat and stupid, we still... Hm? What falling dollar, outsourcing, and trade deficit are you talking about? Could you ask me this pop quiz stuff after American Idol?
Not so fast. Years of Windoze problems haven't been blamed on the X-Box, now, have they? Many of us wouldn't depend on Microsoft for our daily operating system, but are quite happy to play on the X-Box.
It's too bad that this sort of thing nearly always happens to market leaders who become overconfident and arrogant.
I agree with your post, but it doesn't appear Sony's PS3 SNAFUs have as much to do with confidence as fear.
Finances reeling and hemorrhaging massive job cuts, Sony appears to be stuck with an extremely expensive bit of R&D that it can't afford to let go cheaply enough for consumers. The high MSRP is evidence enough of that, but now with the no-resale idea (if true) there appears to be a new attempt to make the consumer and retailers pay for Sony's fiscal misfortunes by locking in game sales.
Even if the US economy doesn't soon enter a recession, the collapse of the housing bubble is predicted (by the WSJ, no less) to take roughly $100 billion out of the US retail sector this year. No more cheap-n-easy equity credit means lots of unsold $600 consoles and $60 games. Sony would do well to price and position itself for a contracting retail sector; instead, it seems oblivious. This all has the makings of a fiasco.
Further agreement here. I like AVG, it works unobtrusively, and seems to be diligently updated. So far, in a year, it has allowed me to avoid paying the Windoze av security protection racket; may it put the McAffees and Nortons in the poor house.
There are more people who want to blog than can write anything interesting, let alone original. That's strike one.
Social values influence what happens in a social activity like blogging. Look around: society is full of followers, particularly in a conformist, consumerist, and anxiety-ridden age. A huge area of blogging is about grooming the pack and enforcing the borders of social membership, so there's a lot of repeating what others in the group say. That's strike two.
Publishing weeds out a lot of mediocrities. Today the web welcomes them to the world's largest vanity press. What to fill the blank html with? Well, helpfully enough, somebody else has already written all this nice text... Steeee-rike three!
Political blogs may be the laziest, but interestingly also the most frenzied in their borrowing. Lots of these sites strike me as groupthink orgies, where the bloggers are kind of desperate to get jiggy with as many of their fellow ideologues as they can. Miliblogger says... Patriotnuts says... Etc.
You have to marvel at those rallying around corporate flags. Gaming is gaming is gaming--to most people. But to the chattering classes who fetishize a given box or brand, it's the new conformity.
Indeed with the nationalist angle being worked for Microsoft's "American" product (manufactured, of course, anywhere but in America), you see an ugly strain seeding itself in little consumer minds. It's like a flashback to the 50's with the knuckle-draggers fearing reds everywhere.
Clearly Sony's product in this round is superior, as Microsoft's was (barely) last gen. It's all timing, vision, and investment, folks. No amount of
predicating your identity on a corporate product can change that; nor does any billion dollar corporation's success reflect upon your life. You are not the corporation. You just buy its stuff, or you don't. Try to keep that in mind, eh?
The US constitution is excellent, and when elected officials that are supposed to "uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States." Well, its up to us to make sure this happens.
If the US constitution were excellent, its famous tripartite protections would have made this debate unnecessary.
Clearly, however, the constitution is overrated. Faith in it was too abstracted, hence misplaced. The engine for balancing powers only works if continuously fed by men and women who put the public ahead of the private interest.
Human nature, as many a disillusioned soul has been taught under Bushism, doesn't work that way. Indeed, the ethos of the age--I got mine!--wars against the very possibility of a public weal.
So we're in the post-constitutional era now. The ship sails on, rudderless and bepirated, from disaster to disaster. Let a nation of uncritical TV-watchers now ask itself how it allowed this, and what it plans to do to make amends. Perhaps the coming economic storm will give them time away from their maxed-out credit cards to think.
You're being a little hard on our truthsmythes, aren't you? Haven't you heard the good news about the PSRA's "prestigious" Silver Anvil award? (So named because it is where the truth is hammered until the clients of corporate PR can see their million-dollar reflections.) As they like to modestly note:
The Silver Anvil Awards program has grown in scope and stature since its inception in 1946, and awards are now given in 56 categories and subcategories. To date, more than 1,000 organizations have received Silver Anvils for excellence in strategic public relations planning and implementation.
As Elvis Costello once sang,
They're here to help you satisfy your desire
There's a bright future for all you professional liars
Check the visual markers. Apart from some mumbled chatter about computers, what's really being pushed is faith in youth and slimness. And an equally passionate horror of age and weight.
The message for young people: "PCs make you wrinkly, round and impotent, and you'll listen to bad music." For middle-aged people: "Macs are the Fountain of Youth; get one and you might not need as much Viagra."
Nothing new there. These are essentially the same codes used to sell everything from L'Oreal to Quattro razors.
However, there's also a mildly interesting angle, too, found in the metaphors in the Network ad: culturally adept, the young guy is able to speak Japanese, while the middle aged guy fumbles around like the Dork-on-a-Foreign-Vacation speaking the one line of Italian he knows. In an era when xenophobia is pushed for ideological reasons, that's a striking decision.
In short, this pitch stakes its claim as much on the technical as the associational virtues of Mac ownership. It will alienate some, and Apple is essentially saying that's OK: if you're turned off, they don't want you. I'm keen to see if it works.
The fact is that people who scream about "special interests" seem not to consider that in a representative democracy like ours, EVERYONE is a "special interest."
Oh, well argued! You were listening in Social Studies, weren't you?
Sadly for your little theory, not all special interests are created equal. If you examine the size and type of contributions given to our glorious "representatives," you, too, may discover that some interests are more special than others.
I suggest we vote out every single incumbent in the next election. Show them we don't want their crap anymore.
Seconded, on principle. But admittedly next to impossible and definitely pointless.
Practically impossible because nearly all incumbents are here to stay, their districts carefully gerrymandered to prevent losing. In the same spirit as Saddam Hussein's old "elections," American politicians have been careful to prevent surprises.
Pointless because, as you will have noticed, this is a bipartisan bill. Both parties are for sale, and the price is very affordable to fat cats in industry (surprisingly cheap, in fact--a five-figure contribution will do). So even if it were practical to vote out most incumbents, their party-approved replacements would be for sale, too.
US "democracy" has been reduced to this: damned if you vote Democratic, damned if you vote Republican. What to do? I no longer criticize anyone for not voting; today it is a respectable decision, perhaps more respectable than taking part in a charade. But if nothing else, vote third-party. A symbolic gesture at best, there is one collateral benefit. You will help starve the duopoly of its lifeblood: dupes.
The I'm-as-strapped-as-50-Cent-though-somewhat-whiter post:
If I type one-handed in public, it's only because the other is on a.45 in my pocket. At all times. I'd love to ruin a perfectly good pair of Dockers, too.
The I-hope-my-cool-invention-doesn't-wake-my-parents post:
You know what would be cool? You could wire a transthermal responder to your foreskin, MacGyver it all up via Bluetooth, and that way if someone steals your laptop, it'll be almost like getting laid!
The the-widening-gap-between-rich-and-poor-is-to-blame post:
Please don't take my Powerbook. Please don't take my Powerbook.
The promising-anecdote-falls-flat post:
So, I'm in the Valley the other day, and I see this guy bolt out of a cafe with a laptop when another guy staggers to the door with blood trailing down his temple. It was at a Starbuck's, you know the one that's between the Karma Center and the Nails Plus on Palm near the pool? And I think the laptop was a Dell. I'm pretty sure it was a Dell. It could have been an Acer, though.
As the post insightfully argues, Apple's future is not entirely in Apple's hands. Not Apple but the music industry, through price-fixing, will play the decisive role in determining whose technology succeeds.
Well, on one level, I'd agree: whenever I've bought any of the many Apple hardware pieces I've owned over the years, the service has been good. And by that I mean knowledgeable, non-pressuring, relatively pleasant.
But have a problem with Apple hardware and good luck to you, bub. May you have a better experience than I!
First there was the iMac whose hard drive squealed like a stuck pig from day one. Took it in to the crowded Apple store where, not surprisingly, the ambient noise made it too hard for the "genius" to hear the drive. Long, long debate with the manager: "Maybe you have mice in your house." This from a store whom we'd sent no fewer than six sales in the previous year. Finally, after wasting an hour arguing, an exchange was made; what a prick.
Later there was a defective iBook battery. Wouldn't hold a charge, under normal conditions, after about seven months. Would I like to leave my iBook for 24 hours with the Apple store in order to have it tested? Love to!
In both cases, corporate policy saw more value in creating headaches for a loyal customer than in taking care of me. Sure, the corporation is just looking out for itself; one shouldn't expect Apple to be any different. But even from a perspective of pure self-interest, is it really good for your store to stand in the middle of prospective customers being seen as too miserly to replace a loud drive? Do you really want to spend the resources to test a defective battery for 24 hours?
My iPod's functioned brilliantly; the iBook, though being of the series notorious for mainboard and hinge cable problems, has persevered, and there are no problems with the Mac minis at relatives' houses and at the office. The once-noisy iMac in every other respect has been splendid. I'll continue to buy and recommend Apple hardware.
But love the customer service? Heh. Not bloody likely.
It really doesn't matter if the left hand is offending the right one: they're both in the handcuffs of long-term declining popularity and profits.
When Hollywood has to compete with home theaters, gaming, cable, web surfing and MySpacing, we're a long way as a society from the one that could support movie theaters. The interim period with its rat hole multiplex boxes hasn't pleased many, and now we're at a tipping point brought on by economics and disintegrating mass taste.
No need to mope about it, either. Technology has rewritten the rules, and in the future filmmaking and film distribution will answer to niche tastes, just as publishing does. For those who love independent, foreign and cutting edge cinema, the decline of the dinosaurs can only amuse us. You say you don't have a googleplex at which to go see your new Tom Cruise exploso-nationalismo-Scientologo flick or your Mel Gibson Christo-whippo-suffero flick? Oh no! Strap on your DVD hologlasses, then, and stfu!
I like my iPod for all the usual reasons: sleek, functional, blah blah blah. But if Apple sells fewer of them tomorrow and Samsung more of its gizmo, fine by me. In fact, I rather hope everybody sells more than Apple, thus putting pressure on it to compete for market share. I'm funny like that: I'd rather pay less for my stuff than worship at a corporate altar.
Technology is fascinating but vicarious corporate bean-counting is a queer sport for free men. Titling this story with an assassination metaphor isn't witty or even cute; it's a sign of the banal elevation of corporate identity in a certain flat imagination. Remember: the tech is supposed to set you free, not call you to your prayer rug.
I watch 40-50 films per year, judging from my Netflix records. The fact that I have Netflix records tells you I don't bother going out to movies much any more, and the fact that my rentals are generally foreign tells you I don't care much for the banalities of Hollywood.
However, last year brought three movies to my neighborhood that were superb: Capote, The Constant Gardener, and Broken Flowers. Films made for grown ups, intelligent and artful, assuming a sophisticated audience and as such not so simplified that the explosions have more syllables than the dialogue.
That's exactly three times more than I went out to see in each of the previous two years. And here's the not-so-secret secret: work of this caliber is being made all the time. It's just not shown at the octoplex. You need to do a bit of work to inform yourself, you need to have courage to try out different film styles, and you need to read subtitles. If that's not for you, fine; there's always another Spiderman movie coming down the chute.
Although I love movies, I'm not worried about either the fate of Hollywood or the corporate theater chains. They pretty much don't exist for me, anyway. If the chains care to book interesting films in our area, yeah, I'll be in line. Otherwise I'm perfectly content getting brilliant cinema in the mail and popping my own popcorn.
Exactly right. What's being addressed ridiculously in this call for a Security Czar isn't security or public perceptions thereof: it's fanboy cult identity, which has taken some knocks lately.
As the most recent Apple hole showed, the OS is only as secure as its latest patches. Apple's done a rather good job of keeping up, and it should and must continue keeping up. You don't do that by hiring a professional liar from the realms of PR--you do it with engineering, dedication and care.
During the hours of testing, many ups and downs from the couch were performed (we got 2 kids!) and although both Lapinators are exceptionally lightweight and strong, the Lapinator Plus really had my attention for its perfect size for my particular laptop.
Kids, please leave dad alone. He's trying to sit on the couch and think of something to say about an industrial-sized hunk of Thinsulate with rubber bumpers.
Slashdot Mirror
Take that, developing countries: even when we're fat and stupid, we still... Hm? What falling dollar, outsourcing, and trade deficit are you talking about? Could you ask me this pop quiz stuff after American Idol?
Not so fast. Years of Windoze problems haven't been blamed on the X-Box, now, have they? Many of us wouldn't depend on Microsoft for our daily operating system, but are quite happy to play on the X-Box.
I agree with your post, but it doesn't appear Sony's PS3 SNAFUs have as much to do with confidence as fear.
Finances reeling and hemorrhaging massive job cuts, Sony appears to be stuck with an extremely expensive bit of R&D that it can't afford to let go cheaply enough for consumers. The high MSRP is evidence enough of that, but now with the no-resale idea (if true) there appears to be a new attempt to make the consumer and retailers pay for Sony's fiscal misfortunes by locking in game sales.
Even if the US economy doesn't soon enter a recession, the collapse of the housing bubble is predicted (by the WSJ, no less) to take roughly $100 billion out of the US retail sector this year. No more cheap-n-easy equity credit means lots of unsold $600 consoles and $60 games. Sony would do well to price and position itself for a contracting retail sector; instead, it seems oblivious. This all has the makings of a fiasco.
Further agreement here. I like AVG, it works unobtrusively, and seems to be diligently updated. So far, in a year, it has allowed me to avoid paying the Windoze av security protection racket; may it put the McAffees and Nortons in the poor house.
Social values influence what happens in a social activity like blogging. Look around: society is full of followers, particularly in a conformist, consumerist, and anxiety-ridden age. A huge area of blogging is about grooming the pack and enforcing the borders of social membership, so there's a lot of repeating what others in the group say. That's strike two.
Publishing weeds out a lot of mediocrities. Today the web welcomes them to the world's largest vanity press. What to fill the blank html with? Well, helpfully enough, somebody else has already written all this nice text... Steeee-rike three!
Political blogs may be the laziest, but interestingly also the most frenzied in their borrowing. Lots of these sites strike me as groupthink orgies, where the bloggers are kind of desperate to get jiggy with as many of their fellow ideologues as they can. Miliblogger says... Patriotnuts says... Etc.
12. ???
13. Profit!!!
It's actually just the right amount. Let's break it down in the typical installation on a typical day:
1 gb
--------
30% OS overhead
28% Spyware
18% Trojans
14% Viruses
7% Gnutella
2% US govt. backdoor
1% Minesweeper
Indeed with the nationalist angle being worked for Microsoft's "American" product (manufactured, of course, anywhere but in America), you see an ugly strain seeding itself in little consumer minds. It's like a flashback to the 50's with the knuckle-draggers fearing reds everywhere.
Clearly Sony's product in this round is superior, as Microsoft's was (barely) last gen. It's all timing, vision, and investment, folks. No amount of predicating your identity on a corporate product can change that; nor does any billion dollar corporation's success reflect upon your life. You are not the corporation. You just buy its stuff, or you don't. Try to keep that in mind, eh?
If the US constitution were excellent, its famous tripartite protections would have made this debate unnecessary.
Clearly, however, the constitution is overrated. Faith in it was too abstracted, hence misplaced. The engine for balancing powers only works if continuously fed by men and women who put the public ahead of the private interest.
Human nature, as many a disillusioned soul has been taught under Bushism, doesn't work that way. Indeed, the ethos of the age--I got mine!--wars against the very possibility of a public weal.
So we're in the post-constitutional era now. The ship sails on, rudderless and bepirated, from disaster to disaster. Let a nation of uncritical TV-watchers now ask itself how it allowed this, and what it plans to do to make amends. Perhaps the coming economic storm will give them time away from their maxed-out credit cards to think.
The Silver Anvil Awards program has grown in scope and stature since its inception in 1946, and awards are now given in 56 categories and subcategories. To date, more than 1,000 organizations have received Silver Anvils for excellence in strategic public relations planning and implementation.
As Elvis Costello once sang,
They're here to help you satisfy your desire
There's a bright future for all you professional liars
The difference? Good news is great news that hasn't been modded up yet.
But perhaps not the religion you seem to think.
Check the visual markers. Apart from some mumbled chatter about computers, what's really being pushed is faith in youth and slimness. And an equally passionate horror of age and weight.
The message for young people: "PCs make you wrinkly, round and impotent, and you'll listen to bad music." For middle-aged people: "Macs are the Fountain of Youth; get one and you might not need as much Viagra."
Nothing new there. These are essentially the same codes used to sell everything from L'Oreal to Quattro razors.
However, there's also a mildly interesting angle, too, found in the metaphors in the Network ad: culturally adept, the young guy is able to speak Japanese, while the middle aged guy fumbles around like the Dork-on-a-Foreign-Vacation speaking the one line of Italian he knows. In an era when xenophobia is pushed for ideological reasons, that's a striking decision.
In short, this pitch stakes its claim as much on the technical as the associational virtues of Mac ownership. It will alienate some, and Apple is essentially saying that's OK: if you're turned off, they don't want you. I'm keen to see if it works.
Oh, well argued! You were listening in Social Studies, weren't you?
Sadly for your little theory, not all special interests are created equal. If you examine the size and type of contributions given to our glorious "representatives," you, too, may discover that some interests are more special than others.
Seconded, on principle. But admittedly next to impossible and definitely pointless.
Practically impossible because nearly all incumbents are here to stay, their districts carefully gerrymandered to prevent losing. In the same spirit as Saddam Hussein's old "elections," American politicians have been careful to prevent surprises.
Pointless because, as you will have noticed, this is a bipartisan bill. Both parties are for sale, and the price is very affordable to fat cats in industry (surprisingly cheap, in fact--a five-figure contribution will do). So even if it were practical to vote out most incumbents, their party-approved replacements would be for sale, too.
US "democracy" has been reduced to this: damned if you vote Democratic, damned if you vote Republican. What to do? I no longer criticize anyone for not voting; today it is a respectable decision, perhaps more respectable than taking part in a charade. But if nothing else, vote third-party. A symbolic gesture at best, there is one collateral benefit. You will help starve the duopoly of its lifeblood: dupes.
Then they would be asked to inhale tear gas.
As the post insightfully argues, Apple's future is not entirely in Apple's hands. Not Apple but the music industry, through price-fixing, will play the decisive role in determining whose technology succeeds.
But have a problem with Apple hardware and good luck to you, bub. May you have a better experience than I!
First there was the iMac whose hard drive squealed like a stuck pig from day one. Took it in to the crowded Apple store where, not surprisingly, the ambient noise made it too hard for the "genius" to hear the drive. Long, long debate with the manager: "Maybe you have mice in your house." This from a store whom we'd sent no fewer than six sales in the previous year. Finally, after wasting an hour arguing, an exchange was made; what a prick.
Later there was a defective iBook battery. Wouldn't hold a charge, under normal conditions, after about seven months. Would I like to leave my iBook for 24 hours with the Apple store in order to have it tested? Love to!
In both cases, corporate policy saw more value in creating headaches for a loyal customer than in taking care of me. Sure, the corporation is just looking out for itself; one shouldn't expect Apple to be any different. But even from a perspective of pure self-interest, is it really good for your store to stand in the middle of prospective customers being seen as too miserly to replace a loud drive? Do you really want to spend the resources to test a defective battery for 24 hours?
My iPod's functioned brilliantly; the iBook, though being of the series notorious for mainboard and hinge cable problems, has persevered, and there are no problems with the Mac minis at relatives' houses and at the office. The once-noisy iMac in every other respect has been splendid. I'll continue to buy and recommend Apple hardware.
But love the customer service? Heh. Not bloody likely.
When Hollywood has to compete with home theaters, gaming, cable, web surfing and MySpacing, we're a long way as a society from the one that could support movie theaters. The interim period with its rat hole multiplex boxes hasn't pleased many, and now we're at a tipping point brought on by economics and disintegrating mass taste.
No need to mope about it, either. Technology has rewritten the rules, and in the future filmmaking and film distribution will answer to niche tastes, just as publishing does. For those who love independent, foreign and cutting edge cinema, the decline of the dinosaurs can only amuse us. You say you don't have a googleplex at which to go see your new Tom Cruise exploso-nationalismo-Scientologo flick or your Mel Gibson Christo-whippo-suffero flick? Oh no! Strap on your DVD hologlasses, then, and stfu!
Or not enough? ;-)
Technology is fascinating but vicarious corporate bean-counting is a queer sport for free men. Titling this story with an assassination metaphor isn't witty or even cute; it's a sign of the banal elevation of corporate identity in a certain flat imagination. Remember: the tech is supposed to set you free, not call you to your prayer rug.
However, last year brought three movies to my neighborhood that were superb: Capote, The Constant Gardener, and Broken Flowers. Films made for grown ups, intelligent and artful, assuming a sophisticated audience and as such not so simplified that the explosions have more syllables than the dialogue.
That's exactly three times more than I went out to see in each of the previous two years. And here's the not-so-secret secret: work of this caliber is being made all the time. It's just not shown at the octoplex. You need to do a bit of work to inform yourself, you need to have courage to try out different film styles, and you need to read subtitles. If that's not for you, fine; there's always another Spiderman movie coming down the chute.
Although I love movies, I'm not worried about either the fate of Hollywood or the corporate theater chains. They pretty much don't exist for me, anyway. If the chains care to book interesting films in our area, yeah, I'll be in line. Otherwise I'm perfectly content getting brilliant cinema in the mail and popping my own popcorn.
As the most recent Apple hole showed, the OS is only as secure as its latest patches. Apple's done a rather good job of keeping up, and it should and must continue keeping up. You don't do that by hiring a professional liar from the realms of PR--you do it with engineering, dedication and care.
The gratitude of thieves.
Kids, please leave dad alone. He's trying to sit on the couch and think of something to say about an industrial-sized hunk of Thinsulate with rubber bumpers.