What an amazingly useless waste of time, money, and energy. The best way for any president at this point in time to get re-elected would be to get some real fucking work done in the final year of their term instead of campaigning with goofy publicity stunts, like this. I don't want my president spending time twittering or facebooking any more than I want to sit and have a beer with them.
He's being brave in taking the chance that there are enough people both vain enough to want to see their name on IMDB for bankrolling three frames of the film, and simultaneously able to hang onto the willing suspension of disbelief required to ignore the fact that dilution of production credit by large-scale credit-bloat will make that as silly as it sounds, on the face of it.
Producer and production credits in this film are just as valid and meaningful as in any other production for any television show or movie. The credits who see for these roles are largely meaningless and are for vanity - whether in a little indie film or at the beginning of Lost on television.
Think of the level of involvement necessary to get someone to watch your film.
I have to be willing to set aside an entire evening. Drive to the nearest theater. Pay $10+ per ticket to see the film. Deal with people, their kids, talking, cell phones, sometimes poor projection jobs, sit in uncomfortable theater seats, focus my attention on nothing else but the film, get back to the car and drive home.
Or, I could turn on the laptop, desktop, iPad, home theater, etc. Watch at my leisure, pause when I need not deal with jackasses in public, not spend time driving and parking and getting gas, and enjoy my home theater which easily matches the quality I'd get at a theater, these days. The only hurdle left to over come is to get this shit to me sooner, instead of telling me that the only way I can see the film is at the theater unless I want to wait three or five months (and offering me a stupid home service where I can watch it for $10-$30 right after it hits theaters isn't a solution, either -- I don't give enough of a shit about anyone's film for that).
People need to remember that we consume media differently, today. We have and want instant access to anything anytime anywhere in our own way at our own convenience in our own format at a cheap price. It's not 1980, when it was a big ordeal for the whole family to pack up and head to the movies. Kind of the same way my grandparents probably got all dressed up in fancy outfits to make a big deal out of going to a fancy restaurant in the 30s or 40s, but most people just eat at home or throw on some jeans or slacks and hit a restaurant, today.
I haven't seen a movie in the theater since X-Files, in 1998. If you want me to see your film, you need to stream it to my home theater as soon after theatrical release as possible and for a reasonable price. I'm not going to pay $5 to watch it once or $10 to own it (like I'm ever going to watch it again?) and if you wait too long (more than a month or two after release), I'm probably going to forget about it and never see it.
I don't remember when Inception came out, but I wasn't going to pay $10 on iTunes or Xbox Live several months after it was already in the theater and it isn't on Netflix and I'm certainly not going to buy a physical copy just to take up room on a shelf, so . . . you can be pretty sure I'm never going to see that movie and they're never going to make a penny from me, as a result.
By which, I presume, they mean SCANTILY-clad women?
Also, this seems like investing in MySpace. People already were tired of a lot of GoDaddy practices, including the crap site full of attempts to pile on "value-adds" at the end of a purchase. Those who weren't tired of that were getting tired of the CEO's antics. All this will do is coax those who have meant to get around to switching registrars to finally do it. The only people who will still keep using GoDaddy will be a rank similar to those who still use Network Solutions -- the group of people who even in 2011 may still not know you can register domains elsewhere and for less than $70/yr.
Personally, this "investment" is hilarious. This is even funnier than Zynga (a marketing and spamming company masquerading as a gaming company entirely dependent on 2011's version of MySpace for its success). This is going to be fun to watch in the next three years.
You know, the same here. I play online via the 360 90% of the time, yet 90% of the messages containing nothing but "you suck" or "ur a fag" in them from random people that I've happened to play with or against online come from PSN. Go figure.
It seems to me that the target market for the Wii U is:
+ Middle aged people who haven't bought a console since the NES and they just remember that back in the day, Nintendo was "the shit". + Mom's who bought a Wii to stick in the living room for their kids and as far as they know, it's a total success and doing well and their kids love it, because they don't know any better, so when the next Wii comes out, it's an obvious replacement. + People who buy everything with Nintendo on it. Period.
I'll probably buy the Wii U at some point, even though I doubt I'll use it. I sort of collect consoles, anyway. I bought the Wii at launch and I know for a fact that I haven not played more than 20 hours total with it. Further, I haven't played it at all in three years (the week Boom Blox came out, in 2008). For the last year and a half, I haven't even plugged it in. In fact, after I bought my house, I think I left it in the garage in a box with a bunch of other stuff and haven't felt compelled to go dig it out.
As someone who buys a lot of games every year and owns every console and over 400 games on Steam and has shelves of old game boxes, let me say what most disappointed me about Nintendo's future via their E3 press conference:
+ They announced a Mario game. + Another Mario game. + Another Mario game. + Another Mario game. + Another Zelda game. + Another Zelda game. + Another Zelda remake. + A pokemon game.
After thirty years, I think it's time to start doing new things instead of rolling out another iteration (or worse, a remake) of the same two or three franchises. Yes, they're cute. Yes, it's nostalgic. No, it's not enough to justify buying a console. I want that Nintendo pinache and a focus on fun games, but not necessarily in the form of the 800th Mario or Zelda game. And yes, there are other games for the Nintendo platform: shovelware.
When was the last time you received spam on PSN or XBL? After several years of using both, I have never received one piece of spam on either one. At any rate, it's a lame excuse for not having a way to play with other people online or chatting while you play in 2011, without going through a bunch of ridiculous hoops.
Exactly, because I'm sure a thirteen year old is likely to run away from his family and go start a new life in whatever their version of "south of the border" is, to avoid a hearing.
And it's a stupid condition for bail. The purpose of bail is to ensure that the accused will not flee and will actually show up to court. Since the kid is . . . you know, a kid . . . I'm pretty sure that isn't going to be a concern. Unless he is an orphan and living on the streets.
To the contrary. There's nothing stupider than when a judge tries to be cute and orders someone to, say, wear a sandwich board in public. The correct punishment would be to repay the victims for any theft and damages as well as actual punishment for the crime itself.
No, the US Patriot Act is making political geographical borders a useless invention. That you are across the ocean, with your own history, culture, laws, government, and values is of no consequence to us anymore.
Those reviewers got into the vine program by repeatedly writing fair quality reviews, in the first place. The ones I have read (and maybe you and I browse a different category of products) have been quite fair and realistic in their reviews. I don't think that people who have enough of a history of writing useful reviews for things are going to suddenly have their opinion bought and paid for because they got a free *galley* copy of a shitty book to review or a free can of baby formula to review. For one thing, their continuation in the program relies on their continuing to write useful reviews of things. If you're dishonest or too glowing on an undeserving product, then people aren't going to find you useful and you won't remain in that program for long. It's set up so that you are "rewarded" not by giving products great reviews, but by giving products *fair* reviews, whether they are positive or negative.
You don't have a clue what you're talking about. They don't pay people for reviews. They give people review copies of things and they are free to review them however they feel is appropriate. Guess what? Book reviewers get advanced copies of books. Movie reviewers get advanced screenings. TV reviewers get advanced copies of seasons. Game reviewers get advanced copies of games and hardware. Tech reviewers get advanced copies of software and hardware. The only difference is that Amazon facilitates an opportunity where people who the community have voted up as the most helpful reviewers over all have the same chance to review something as, say, someone who is paid a salary by the Chicago Sun or IGN or CBS to review the same things. And if the reviews are bullshit and lead people to make a bad purchase, they're going to come back and downvote that reviewer, which will drop them in the rankings at Amazon an that reviewer will no longer be a trusted source and will no longer be part of that Vine program. The whole point of the Vine program is obviously to take people who are already trusted by the community and have them review products (because they have proven they are reliable and fair by the community) and have them review things that they might not otherwise bother to buy and review.
In other words, it's a smart way of saying "we have all these really great reviewers out there, but how can we get these people to review other stuff?". If the reviewer can't be trusted and is a shill or just writes poor reviews or misleads readers, then the entire program falls apart.
I occasionally find so many reviews that are so glowing on a product that it seems obvious it might be the right choice for me - but more often, I find a product that I've seen reviewed well elsewhere (say, Consumer Reports, etc) with dozens or hundreds of very negative reviews that warn me away from one. I'm pretty grateful on the occasions where I might have otherwise been lead down a bad path, but for the sake of other consumers who already took the bullet for me and took a minute to warn others off.
What do you mean by "independent"? I've written about a hundred reviews on Amazon in the decade that I've been a customer. They've never edited or altered a single word and I've been free to update or even delete my reviews after the fact, as I see fit. I've left positive reviews and scathing reviews. I've even left two on products I received via Vine (one four star review and a one star review) which were unaltered.
Amazon is actually one of the places I check when researching a product that I might want to buy. Though it's kind of impossible to weed out all the fakes, they do a pretty good job and it's extremely easy to spot the few people here and there who have reviewed thousands (or tens of thousands) of items, given them all glowing reviews, and are clearly being paid as some sort of a shill by another company (almost certainly not related at all to Amazon -- because Amazon benefits from you being a happy customer; not from you being scammed into buying something and deciding never to buy from them again).
They could do a better job at cutting off the people who are clearly on-contract with some publisher to glowingly review every single book they put out (and probably making a living at it), but other than that, I don't have too much to complain about. It's obviously been a good enough experience to keep me coming back for over a decade, I guess.
Of course he's still around. He does a twice-weekly podcast with Adam Curry where they talk about all sorts of conspiracy theories and spend about 30 minutes talking about how they are commercial-free, so they aren't obligated to be beholden to any corporate entity and can report things freely of any influence. They get people sending in hundreds of dollars of donations at a time per person. They have an entire class of people called "No-Agenda Knights" which are people who have donated $1,000 or more to the show -- and some people are knights several times over.
Anyway, I think he's correct that a lot of the top reviewers receive payola. However, that is NOT the Vine program. The top reviewers who get payola are the ones who have written thousands or tens of thousands of reviews on items (often in the same genre or category) and given everything a 4 or 5 star and are clearly receiving a paycheck by some company to write these bullshit reviews. These people have nothing to do with the Vine program, however, which are people who the community has declared as the "most helpful reviewers" by voting their reviews up. Then those people are offered a chance to participate in Vine. When you accept the offer, you occasionally get an email with a list of items you can offer to review. They send you the thing you selected (they're often things like a galley print of a book or a pack of pens or a can of baby formula), you test it out, you write a review, you click "submit", it gets posted. On the site, it has a big icon by your name that says "VINE VOICE" so people know you participate in that program. Then at the top of your review, it says that you obtained the item being reviewed through the Vine Voice program. I don't see how it can be more transparent than that. (By the way, 90% of the products in Vine are books. What's the difference between you getting a galley copy of a book to review before it's published and any other reviewer on earth who ALL receive galley copies of books to review before they're published?).
At any rate, I like Dvorak, on the whole. You have to remember that he's not a journalist. He's a pundit. A commentator. An opinionator. That's it.
Really? Do you think they're biased because they got a free $2 pack of erasers to review? You understand that they have absolutely no obligation to write a positive view, right? In fact, writing an inaccurate review would negatively impact them, because people would rate the person's review as "not helpful" and it wouldn't be long before they are no longer in the top 1,000 reviewers (and remember, you only reach the top 1,000 reviewer spots because other consumers have found your reviews to be helpful in the first place). Also, it's not like it's a secret if someone is part of the Vine program. It says "VINE REVIEWER" right by their name on the review and points out that the product being reviewed by that person was provided them through the VINE program. Pretty transparent.
Personally, I participate in the Vine program for kicks. I let them send me stuff that I otherwise would never care about or want or buy and am only accepting, for the sake of giving a review on something unusual. I've written positive reviews. I've written extremely critical reviews. They've all been posted. They've never been altered or removed.
Of course they'll post it, as long as it's relevant to the item being reviewed.
I've posted around a hundred reviews on Amazon in the ten years or so that I've been a customer and I've never had a single one declined, no matter how critical they've been. Amazon knows that their money is made by satisfying their customers so they keep coming back. It's not in satisfying a company selling a shitty product that is upset because of a bad review.
Hell, go back and read the reviews for Spore from a couple years ago and you'll see that they absolutely don't have an itchy trigger finger whatsoever.
What does the Vine program have to do with payola? I'm an Amazon customer and I've participated in the Vine program. They send me a free product and I review it. There is no reason to review it any other way than how I like. If it's a good product, I review it as such. If it sucks, I review it as sucking. Yes, the very top reviews on Amazon are completely fucked, but it has nothing to do with Vine. It has to do with people who very clearly make a living reviewing products where they are directly payed for providing solid reviews. You can spot these people easily. They're the ones who have given 4 and 5 star reviews to an average of ten novels every single day for ten straight years. You click their name and in about give seconds of looking at their profile, it becomes obvious what's going on.
The Vine program actually seems like a good idea, because rather than waiting until people pay good money for items to find out they suck and then leave a review so further customers don't make the mistake, people who otherwise may not even consider buying something can give it a once over, review it, and give future buyers an idea of whether it's worth spending cash on or not, before anyone actually blows money on something that sucks.
Plus, seriously, are you going to suggest that giving someone three pads of multi-colored post-it-notes to review post-it-notes is "payola"? Maybe if they live in a trailer park, I guess . . . ?
Yep. People in all sorts of fields are required to wear dosimeters, including working in a hospital, dentist's office, and so on. You can google for all sorts of information about TSA workers being denied the use of dosimeters, but I think the following pretty much says it all. It's directly from the TSA branch of the AFGE website (American Federation of Government Employees). If you get a private moment aside with a TSA security agent who works the floor, they tend to be fairly open about how concerned they are about the conditions in which they are forced to work and are not any happier about the concerns with these machines than you and I are.
TSA Union Calls for Immediate Radiation Monitoring at Agency - 03/22/11
In July 2010, AFGE Health and Safety Specialist Milly Rodríguez testified on behalf of AFGE before the House Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia. While she testified on health and safety issues in the entire federal government, Rodríguez specifically discussed workplace exposure to ionizing radiation at TSA—which has been an issue since the agency's inception. TSA has held the position that there is no harmful exposure from radiation emissions from the X-ray machines used to view the contents of checked baggage as well as carry-on baggage. AFGE offered to conduct an independent study of radiation emissions, but TSA declined the offer. AFGE also offered to fund the purchase of dosimeters (which measure exposure to radiation) but TSA said TSOs are not allowed to wear dosimeters not issued by TSA, even though they refuse to provide them. TSA's position is that the agency has done the necessary testing and is not required by any applicable standards to issue dosimeters to its employees.
A full copy of the testimony can be found here.
We know TSOs continue to be concerned about radiation. The lack of information, the agency's refusal to provide dosimeters, and the unsafe work practices TSOs implemented by TSA, contribute to TSOs' fears about radiation and its health effects. This year, AFGE locals in Boston and San Juan raised concerns about cancer deaths and diagnosis of thyroid conditions that appeared to be higher than expected. Their actions lead to studies by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and while the studies did not find excess cancers that could be attributed to radiation exposure, TSOs are still concerned about the effects of long-term exposures.
The researchers tried to downplay that aspect of the study. It wasn't an intentional "let's see if they're pay for sex" study. It was the byproduct of the introduction of currency and economy and trade that occurred naturally and definitely disturbed those involved.
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What an amazingly useless waste of time, money, and energy. The best way for any president at this point in time to get re-elected would be to get some real fucking work done in the final year of their term instead of campaigning with goofy publicity stunts, like this. I don't want my president spending time twittering or facebooking any more than I want to sit and have a beer with them.
He's being brave in taking the chance that there are enough people both vain enough to want to see their name on IMDB for bankrolling three frames of the film, and simultaneously able to hang onto the willing suspension of disbelief required to ignore the fact that dilution of production credit by large-scale credit-bloat will make that as silly as it sounds, on the face of it.
Producer and production credits in this film are just as valid and meaningful as in any other production for any television show or movie. The credits who see for these roles are largely meaningless and are for vanity - whether in a little indie film or at the beginning of Lost on television.
For now, maybe.
Think of the level of involvement necessary to get someone to watch your film.
I have to be willing to set aside an entire evening. Drive to the nearest theater. Pay $10+ per ticket to see the film. Deal with people, their kids, talking, cell phones, sometimes poor projection jobs, sit in uncomfortable theater seats, focus my attention on nothing else but the film, get back to the car and drive home.
Or, I could turn on the laptop, desktop, iPad, home theater, etc. Watch at my leisure, pause when I need not deal with jackasses in public, not spend time driving and parking and getting gas, and enjoy my home theater which easily matches the quality I'd get at a theater, these days. The only hurdle left to over come is to get this shit to me sooner, instead of telling me that the only way I can see the film is at the theater unless I want to wait three or five months (and offering me a stupid home service where I can watch it for $10-$30 right after it hits theaters isn't a solution, either -- I don't give enough of a shit about anyone's film for that).
People need to remember that we consume media differently, today. We have and want instant access to anything anytime anywhere in our own way at our own convenience in our own format at a cheap price. It's not 1980, when it was a big ordeal for the whole family to pack up and head to the movies. Kind of the same way my grandparents probably got all dressed up in fancy outfits to make a big deal out of going to a fancy restaurant in the 30s or 40s, but most people just eat at home or throw on some jeans or slacks and hit a restaurant, today.
I haven't seen a movie in the theater since X-Files, in 1998. If you want me to see your film, you need to stream it to my home theater as soon after theatrical release as possible and for a reasonable price. I'm not going to pay $5 to watch it once or $10 to own it (like I'm ever going to watch it again?) and if you wait too long (more than a month or two after release), I'm probably going to forget about it and never see it.
I don't remember when Inception came out, but I wasn't going to pay $10 on iTunes or Xbox Live several months after it was already in the theater and it isn't on Netflix and I'm certainly not going to buy a physical copy just to take up room on a shelf, so . . . you can be pretty sure I'm never going to see that movie and they're never going to make a penny from me, as a result.
scantly-clad women,
By which, I presume, they mean SCANTILY-clad women?
Also, this seems like investing in MySpace. People already were tired of a lot of GoDaddy practices, including the crap site full of attempts to pile on "value-adds" at the end of a purchase. Those who weren't tired of that were getting tired of the CEO's antics. All this will do is coax those who have meant to get around to switching registrars to finally do it. The only people who will still keep using GoDaddy will be a rank similar to those who still use Network Solutions -- the group of people who even in 2011 may still not know you can register domains elsewhere and for less than $70/yr.
Personally, this "investment" is hilarious. This is even funnier than Zynga (a marketing and spamming company masquerading as a gaming company entirely dependent on 2011's version of MySpace for its success). This is going to be fun to watch in the next three years.
You know, the same here. I play online via the 360 90% of the time, yet 90% of the messages containing nothing but "you suck" or "ur a fag" in them from random people that I've happened to play with or against online come from PSN. Go figure.
It seems to me that the target market for the Wii U is:
+ Middle aged people who haven't bought a console since the NES and they just remember that back in the day, Nintendo was "the shit".
+ Mom's who bought a Wii to stick in the living room for their kids and as far as they know, it's a total success and doing well and their kids love it, because they don't know any better, so when the next Wii comes out, it's an obvious replacement.
+ People who buy everything with Nintendo on it. Period.
I'll probably buy the Wii U at some point, even though I doubt I'll use it. I sort of collect consoles, anyway. I bought the Wii at launch and I know for a fact that I haven not played more than 20 hours total with it. Further, I haven't played it at all in three years (the week Boom Blox came out, in 2008). For the last year and a half, I haven't even plugged it in. In fact, after I bought my house, I think I left it in the garage in a box with a bunch of other stuff and haven't felt compelled to go dig it out.
As someone who buys a lot of games every year and owns every console and over 400 games on Steam and has shelves of old game boxes, let me say what most disappointed me about Nintendo's future via their E3 press conference:
+ They announced a Mario game.
+ Another Mario game.
+ Another Mario game.
+ Another Mario game.
+ Another Zelda game.
+ Another Zelda game.
+ Another Zelda remake.
+ A pokemon game.
After thirty years, I think it's time to start doing new things instead of rolling out another iteration (or worse, a remake) of the same two or three franchises. Yes, they're cute. Yes, it's nostalgic. No, it's not enough to justify buying a console. I want that Nintendo pinache and a focus on fun games, but not necessarily in the form of the 800th Mario or Zelda game. And yes, there are other games for the Nintendo platform: shovelware.
When was the last time you received spam on PSN or XBL? After several years of using both, I have never received one piece of spam on either one. At any rate, it's a lame excuse for not having a way to play with other people online or chatting while you play in 2011, without going through a bunch of ridiculous hoops.
Exactly, because I'm sure a thirteen year old is likely to run away from his family and go start a new life in whatever their version of "south of the border" is, to avoid a hearing.
Depends what state it occurred in. If it was in Texas, they'd execute him.
And it's a stupid condition for bail. The purpose of bail is to ensure that the accused will not flee and will actually show up to court. Since the kid is . . . you know, a kid . . . I'm pretty sure that isn't going to be a concern. Unless he is an orphan and living on the streets.
To the contrary. There's nothing stupider than when a judge tries to be cute and orders someone to, say, wear a sandwich board in public. The correct punishment would be to repay the victims for any theft and damages as well as actual punishment for the crime itself.
No, the US Patriot Act is making political geographical borders a useless invention. That you are across the ocean, with your own history, culture, laws, government, and values is of no consequence to us anymore.
Those reviewers got into the vine program by repeatedly writing fair quality reviews, in the first place. The ones I have read (and maybe you and I browse a different category of products) have been quite fair and realistic in their reviews. I don't think that people who have enough of a history of writing useful reviews for things are going to suddenly have their opinion bought and paid for because they got a free *galley* copy of a shitty book to review or a free can of baby formula to review. For one thing, their continuation in the program relies on their continuing to write useful reviews of things. If you're dishonest or too glowing on an undeserving product, then people aren't going to find you useful and you won't remain in that program for long. It's set up so that you are "rewarded" not by giving products great reviews, but by giving products *fair* reviews, whether they are positive or negative.
You don't have a clue what you're talking about. They don't pay people for reviews. They give people review copies of things and they are free to review them however they feel is appropriate. Guess what? Book reviewers get advanced copies of books. Movie reviewers get advanced screenings. TV reviewers get advanced copies of seasons. Game reviewers get advanced copies of games and hardware. Tech reviewers get advanced copies of software and hardware. The only difference is that Amazon facilitates an opportunity where people who the community have voted up as the most helpful reviewers over all have the same chance to review something as, say, someone who is paid a salary by the Chicago Sun or IGN or CBS to review the same things. And if the reviews are bullshit and lead people to make a bad purchase, they're going to come back and downvote that reviewer, which will drop them in the rankings at Amazon an that reviewer will no longer be a trusted source and will no longer be part of that Vine program. The whole point of the Vine program is obviously to take people who are already trusted by the community and have them review products (because they have proven they are reliable and fair by the community) and have them review things that they might not otherwise bother to buy and review.
In other words, it's a smart way of saying "we have all these really great reviewers out there, but how can we get these people to review other stuff?". If the reviewer can't be trusted and is a shill or just writes poor reviews or misleads readers, then the entire program falls apart.
I occasionally find so many reviews that are so glowing on a product that it seems obvious it might be the right choice for me - but more often, I find a product that I've seen reviewed well elsewhere (say, Consumer Reports, etc) with dozens or hundreds of very negative reviews that warn me away from one. I'm pretty grateful on the occasions where I might have otherwise been lead down a bad path, but for the sake of other consumers who already took the bullet for me and took a minute to warn others off.
Not only can you mark it as "unhelpful" or write a better review, but you can directly respond to the review itself, by leaving a comment on it.
What do you mean by "independent"? I've written about a hundred reviews on Amazon in the decade that I've been a customer. They've never edited or altered a single word and I've been free to update or even delete my reviews after the fact, as I see fit. I've left positive reviews and scathing reviews. I've even left two on products I received via Vine (one four star review and a one star review) which were unaltered.
Amazon is actually one of the places I check when researching a product that I might want to buy. Though it's kind of impossible to weed out all the fakes, they do a pretty good job and it's extremely easy to spot the few people here and there who have reviewed thousands (or tens of thousands) of items, given them all glowing reviews, and are clearly being paid as some sort of a shill by another company (almost certainly not related at all to Amazon -- because Amazon benefits from you being a happy customer; not from you being scammed into buying something and deciding never to buy from them again).
They could do a better job at cutting off the people who are clearly on-contract with some publisher to glowingly review every single book they put out (and probably making a living at it), but other than that, I don't have too much to complain about. It's obviously been a good enough experience to keep me coming back for over a decade, I guess.
Of course he's still around. He does a twice-weekly podcast with Adam Curry where they talk about all sorts of conspiracy theories and spend about 30 minutes talking about how they are commercial-free, so they aren't obligated to be beholden to any corporate entity and can report things freely of any influence. They get people sending in hundreds of dollars of donations at a time per person. They have an entire class of people called "No-Agenda Knights" which are people who have donated $1,000 or more to the show -- and some people are knights several times over.
Anyway, I think he's correct that a lot of the top reviewers receive payola. However, that is NOT the Vine program. The top reviewers who get payola are the ones who have written thousands or tens of thousands of reviews on items (often in the same genre or category) and given everything a 4 or 5 star and are clearly receiving a paycheck by some company to write these bullshit reviews. These people have nothing to do with the Vine program, however, which are people who the community has declared as the "most helpful reviewers" by voting their reviews up. Then those people are offered a chance to participate in Vine. When you accept the offer, you occasionally get an email with a list of items you can offer to review. They send you the thing you selected (they're often things like a galley print of a book or a pack of pens or a can of baby formula), you test it out, you write a review, you click "submit", it gets posted. On the site, it has a big icon by your name that says "VINE VOICE" so people know you participate in that program. Then at the top of your review, it says that you obtained the item being reviewed through the Vine Voice program. I don't see how it can be more transparent than that. (By the way, 90% of the products in Vine are books. What's the difference between you getting a galley copy of a book to review before it's published and any other reviewer on earth who ALL receive galley copies of books to review before they're published?).
At any rate, I like Dvorak, on the whole. You have to remember that he's not a journalist. He's a pundit. A commentator. An opinionator. That's it.
Really? Do you think they're biased because they got a free $2 pack of erasers to review? You understand that they have absolutely no obligation to write a positive view, right? In fact, writing an inaccurate review would negatively impact them, because people would rate the person's review as "not helpful" and it wouldn't be long before they are no longer in the top 1,000 reviewers (and remember, you only reach the top 1,000 reviewer spots because other consumers have found your reviews to be helpful in the first place). Also, it's not like it's a secret if someone is part of the Vine program. It says "VINE REVIEWER" right by their name on the review and points out that the product being reviewed by that person was provided them through the VINE program. Pretty transparent.
Personally, I participate in the Vine program for kicks. I let them send me stuff that I otherwise would never care about or want or buy and am only accepting, for the sake of giving a review on something unusual. I've written positive reviews. I've written extremely critical reviews. They've all been posted. They've never been altered or removed.
Of course they'll post it, as long as it's relevant to the item being reviewed.
I've posted around a hundred reviews on Amazon in the ten years or so that I've been a customer and I've never had a single one declined, no matter how critical they've been. Amazon knows that their money is made by satisfying their customers so they keep coming back. It's not in satisfying a company selling a shitty product that is upset because of a bad review.
Hell, go back and read the reviews for Spore from a couple years ago and you'll see that they absolutely don't have an itchy trigger finger whatsoever.
What does the Vine program have to do with payola? I'm an Amazon customer and I've participated in the Vine program. They send me a free product and I review it. There is no reason to review it any other way than how I like. If it's a good product, I review it as such. If it sucks, I review it as sucking. Yes, the very top reviews on Amazon are completely fucked, but it has nothing to do with Vine. It has to do with people who very clearly make a living reviewing products where they are directly payed for providing solid reviews. You can spot these people easily. They're the ones who have given 4 and 5 star reviews to an average of ten novels every single day for ten straight years. You click their name and in about give seconds of looking at their profile, it becomes obvious what's going on.
The Vine program actually seems like a good idea, because rather than waiting until people pay good money for items to find out they suck and then leave a review so further customers don't make the mistake, people who otherwise may not even consider buying something can give it a once over, review it, and give future buyers an idea of whether it's worth spending cash on or not, before anyone actually blows money on something that sucks.
Plus, seriously, are you going to suggest that giving someone three pads of multi-colored post-it-notes to review post-it-notes is "payola"? Maybe if they live in a trailer park, I guess . . . ?
Yep. People in all sorts of fields are required to wear dosimeters, including working in a hospital, dentist's office, and so on. You can google for all sorts of information about TSA workers being denied the use of dosimeters, but I think the following pretty much says it all. It's directly from the TSA branch of the AFGE website (American Federation of Government Employees). If you get a private moment aside with a TSA security agent who works the floor, they tend to be fairly open about how concerned they are about the conditions in which they are forced to work and are not any happier about the concerns with these machines than you and I are.
source: http://tsa.afge.org/workerscomp.cfm
Radiation Exposure
TSA Union Calls for Immediate Radiation Monitoring at Agency - 03/22/11
In July 2010, AFGE Health and Safety Specialist Milly Rodríguez testified on behalf of AFGE before the House Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia. While she testified on health and safety issues in the entire federal government, Rodríguez specifically discussed workplace exposure to ionizing radiation at TSA—which has been an issue since the agency's inception. TSA has held the position that there is no harmful exposure from radiation emissions from the X-ray machines used to view the contents of checked baggage as well as carry-on baggage. AFGE offered to conduct an independent study of radiation emissions, but TSA declined the offer. AFGE also offered to fund the purchase of dosimeters (which measure exposure to radiation) but TSA said TSOs are not allowed to wear dosimeters not issued by TSA, even though they refuse to provide them. TSA's position is that the agency has done the necessary testing and is not required by any applicable standards to issue dosimeters to its employees.
A full copy of the testimony can be found here.
We know TSOs continue to be concerned about radiation. The lack of information, the agency's refusal to provide dosimeters, and the unsafe work practices TSOs implemented by TSA, contribute to TSOs' fears about radiation and its health effects. This year, AFGE locals in Boston and San Juan raised concerns about cancer deaths and diagnosis of thyroid conditions that appeared to be higher than expected. Their actions lead to studies by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and while the studies did not find excess cancers that could be attributed to radiation exposure, TSOs are still concerned about the effects of long-term exposures.
The researchers tried to downplay that aspect of the study. It wasn't an intentional "let's see if they're pay for sex" study. It was the byproduct of the introduction of currency and economy and trade that occurred naturally and definitely disturbed those involved.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/magazine/05FREAK.html?pagewanted=1