After WWII, the U.S. government quite deliberately began to build a culture of consumption to prop up capitalism. (Great little artcile by David Suzuki here.) It's no coincidence that after 9/11, the one thing the government wanted everyone to do was to buy stuff. It's your patriotic duty to consume, consume, consume!
Right trend, wrong instigators (linking to a trivial consumption piece by a living Canadian is not a good way of showing the U.S. govt instigated something massive 60 years ago). Check out The Century Of The Self (or the web site of your favorite conspiracy theorist) for the more likely culprits -- the biggest of the big boys. They realized if they could get us lost in ourselves we would be easier to control. Once they got all the money (i.e. the Federal Reserve treason), they just needed to keep us all doped up to ensure an uninterrupted flow of cash to themselves. That dope takes the form of consumerism, fashion, video and sports. GOAL!!!!!!
And the Nissan Xterra ads that featured Lenny Kravitz - Fly Away. Thank goodness for those ads, without which I would not have that song on my faves list. Now when I see an Xterra I think of the song, not vice-a-versa.
Like many of you, I didn't think advertising worked on me. Yet a couple of weeks ago I inexplicably found myself spending half an hour at marines.com looking into enlistment. That the Marines are heavily advertised during adult swim, which I often have on while coding, can't be a coincidence.
But which came first, you getting what you see as a well-targeted ad, or you having the mindset of a Marine?
I could check off all the ways I am just like yourself: BASc (1984), news & web browser, thousand volume library (you meant DVDs, right?;-). And my wife would definitely go for a -1 stubborn mod.
That said, I love the Marines. I think they represent a standard of total commitment and excellence that is hard to match, and is certainly inspirational. I like to inspire others, so I am drawn to inspirational people. But does this mean if I see a Marines ad I immediately think "Wow, they found me!" Nope. [Besides, I don't fit the demographic they are after.]
The whole time I have been reading this thread I have been racking my brain to think of _any_ time I have been influenced by an ad (1) enough to buy the product, (2) enough to speak favorably of the company based solely on the ad(s). Answer: (1) never, (2) never.
But what I do remember is the first company that ever ruined a movie I was watching on TV but inserting an interstitial -- Safeway. Since that time (ten years ago or so), I have gone to Safeway no more than 3 or 4 times (and those times, to get something on sale). I hate Safeway and believe that if you study Safeway you will too. But I'm biased -- they made me biased.
World-class advertisers are very good at what they do. They literally have it down to a science. Even if you can use your intellect to protect yourself from the overt message, there's still the more subtle psychological cues and even sheer repetition if nothing else works.
So that would be the science of pile driving an idea into my forehead. Got it. Noted it. Permabanned it.
how did this become an acceptable state of affairs in IT?
I don't know about "acceptable" but it became a necessary way of operating when Microsoft switched Windows away from INI files to the registry. Windows 3.x systems had maybe 5 or 10 INI files that mattered (i.e. that you had to hand-tweak from time to time). Each rarely had more than 100 lines in it. Maybe a couple hundred thousands bytes all in. And if we needed a driver, it was usually a driver _file_ (except video drivers).
Today systems are ridiculously complicated. Windows 3.x would not even load, let alone run, if it was installed on a partition with the number of files an XP system has (over 100,000). Just the number of files alone would sink it (try it with more than about 60,000 files if you don't believe me).
On the other hand, install systems have kept pace with the complexity. Instead of shovelling 7 floppies (Windows 3.x) into a PC in 15 to 20 minutes, we have CD (XP) and DVD (Vista) installs that take the same (order of magnitude) time to install, despite 10 to 100 to 1000 times the increase in complexity. So, re-installing wins.
With DOS, we knew our systems down to the individual file level.
With Windows 3.x, we knew our systems down to the INI level.
With XP, we know our systems down to the Windows Update/services.msc level.
With Vista, we just know our system sucks.
Obviously, we could set our low priority "batch job" appliances (dishwashers, clothes washer/dryer,...) on low price/priority settings...
We ran into problems with this for the clothes washer. If it washes in the middle of the night then the wet clothes sit there for hours and can get musty smelling. Once that happens, you need to re-wash them with a washer that has a "sterilize" cycle or you are stuck with that smell forever. OTOH, if the washer itself would start on a time delay so that it finished half an hour before you got up, that would be perfect.
I know they get aikido based training in Scotland. In that case, the heavier the opponent is, the more you can use their weight against them. If the attacker knows aikido too then they'd be kind of screwed though
Aikido is a purely defensive martial art (that our whole family studies). Two Aikidoka would do exactly nothing to each other. A student of Aikido acting aggressively is just an attacker, and attackers lose in Aikido. Kinda cool.
one of the most prominent tools for rich-media web application
To give Flash the dis-credit it deserves, why don't we call it indulgent-media, let-them-eat-cake-media, or artery-clogging media? Or at least put the word "filthy" in front of it.
Personally I prefer "baked-cake" media because:
(1) I can't see the URL of the link I am clicking
(2) I can't shift-click or middle-mouse click a link and have it open in a new window
(3) I can't get it to stop flashing at me
(4) I can't turn off images but still see the links & text
(5) And as previously posted, the filthy snob monopolizes my cpu whenever it wants to for no good reason.
Ok, one last try at a new name: "Paris Hilton" media (and I'd accept Paris-Rich Media).
Thinking of free software and not-as-free manuals brings to mind David Harris' now abandoned Pegasus Mail. He made his living entirely from the optional manuals. FWIW, I always wondered if he abandoned his product because he saw how the spammers were abusing it...
I have been known to register a free product to not only support it but to also get a shiney printed manual. It seems that manuals are a logical area to offer a pay-for upgrade while still having a free base product. Maybe Canonical could so the same, create a "Canonical Press" series? [Wait, they probably already have such a thing. Never mind.]
The most annoying pinball I played was something with curved flippers circa mid 1980. Oddly enough the flippers gave you points for just hitting them, so one could rack up a ton of replays even before you release the ball. The drawback was the flippers melted.
It seems like it was either "Disco Fever" or "Time Warp". I must have played "Time Warp" as I doubt I could handle staring at Revolta for very long.
I see Demolition Man listed as one of the possible pins to play. One of my top five favorite games for superb voice clips, audio effects, variety of features and difficulty. I'd drop a c-note for a day long tour of that "private collection of 400 machines"...
3D Ultra Pinball Thrillride has perfect physics. I got a surplused copy via Amazon some time back and have played it for hundreds of hours. Nicely designed for widescreen. Let me know if you beat 300B (no milking) or 11 lights out.
Some of the mirror sites: www.p0wned.com, www.dlwarez.com and www.freetoolbar.com
But seriously, seven different file sizes, depending on the mirror you go with? This sounds more like Harry's House of Mirrors...heh, I look pretty good in the thin one!
I think the reason Pinball is dying out is purely the cost of fixing them.
A mechanical game breaks all too often. Video games don't, and even damaged CDs are dealt with by downloading a cracked download. It's a shame -- hardly any pins anywhere any more.
Machine cost means only the richer types could afford _one_, or they were in a public place but set very difficult so the owner & renter could recoup their investments.
The Future Of Pinball just came out on DVD but I've yet to see it. Looking forward to it when I can. Pinball was the solitaire of physical sports. I miss it.
Well, there is a.SIG size limit --> TinyURL gets around this. Wait a tick, that is my situation exactly -- my TinyURL below links to a slashdot post I made in the past. Couldn't fit it all in without TinyURL.
.SIG size could be increased, with a user-defined setting that determines how big a.SIG each individual wants to see [sice/. only stores one copy per user (not per post) in any case this can't impact/. if the limit is moved to say 500 bytes]. Then the need for TinyURL is removed and such redirects could be filtered. Of course, one could still set up a meta-redirect page on a web site that sent the user to who knows what ultimate destination.
Vertical menus take more room. In this Opera window I have menu words of "File Edit View Bookmarks Widgets Feeds Tools Help". If I ran the menu vertically, the word "Bookmarks" would force the menu to take up at least 1" of window width. With the menu as it is, it has a width of maybe 3/8". I hear what you are saying about toolbars, and on my 1920x1200 Acer I minimize/consolidate those as well but top menus use less overall space -- hard to get around that without moving to Kanji.
BrianRegan.com got flashed a year or so back and I sent a complaint email (parts of it didn't work in Opera). Next thing I know, Brian used my first name for one of the dumber characters in a comic routine. So I'd suggest complaining anonymously...
What about Google? Still no ads on main page. Main page has a grand total of one graphic, no flash. Any new tabs added provide hefty new, and free, features. How are they not sticking with what is working?
As long as they don't marketing start producing the Evening News
You haven't been paying attention...TV news is controlled and selected from start to finish, and if the advertisers aren't completely happy, they go elsewhere. That Doctor guy on CNN is making a lot of drug and medical companies happy everytime he offers medical advice to Joe and Jane Public.
or writing content taught in schoolrooms,
Ok, I get it now -- you don't have children. Our children dutifully bring home mini-Time magazine, and watch me throw it out immediately. They also _have to_ bring home and bring back to school these massive advermagazines -- hawking who knows what, I certainly don't want to find out. At first the kids thought I would actually look at the products, and they had their own suggestions for things they wanted. Now they recognize trash as trash.
There is some debate about whether going even that fast in interstellar space is feasible
It seems to me that the faster a spacecraft travels, the more damage is done when a random chunk of whatever collides with the spacecraft. Outside of comet tails and meteor showers, I am not sure there are that many random chunks of matter in space but travelling at 1% of the speed of light when you hit a speck of sand, for example, must be a bad thing. Has this been quantified? Would a steel plate at the front of the spacecraft help?
It means if you're trying to do a little processing to a lot of data (i.e. watch a movie, manage a database, etc) the AMD will vastly outperform the Intel.
Tom's Hardware doesn't agree. Comparing, as you put it, the best versus the best (I chose the Intel QX9775 vs Phenom 9700, but I don't think it matters):
Superstring Theory -- The DNA Of Reality is spread over 24 thirty minute segments. There is a lot to absorb and consider. I find it hard to develop an intuitive understanding of each of the sub-atomic particles. The difference between a boson, a lepton vs quarks are clear when first explained, but when I have to take into account such differences while he is talking about some other particles like, for example, a graviton or a tachyon, then I find it hard to hold all these concepts in my head at the same time. And of course Superstring theory itself, with dimensions greater than 3 (or 4) is a constant challenge to visualize/work with.
I accept that this will happen to a 50-year-old fogey like myself. I really don't mind and really do look forward to listening to the series again in the not-so-distant future.
Kip Thorne (whom I've frequently heard called the greatest black hole theorist alive, Hawking not withstanding)
It is ridiculous to classify people's intellect by their skin color, but if we are doing that, what about S. James Gates? I found his "Superstring Theory" series of DVDs to be well over my simpleton head. I look forward to working my way through the series again.
Slashdot Mirror
After WWII, the U.S. government quite deliberately began to build a culture of consumption to prop up capitalism. (Great little artcile by David Suzuki here.) It's no coincidence that after 9/11, the one thing the government wanted everyone to do was to buy stuff. It's your patriotic duty to consume, consume, consume!
Right trend, wrong instigators (linking to a trivial consumption piece by a living Canadian is not a good way of showing the U.S. govt instigated something massive 60 years ago). Check out The Century Of The Self (or the web site of your favorite conspiracy theorist) for the more likely culprits -- the biggest of the big boys. They realized if they could get us lost in ourselves we would be easier to control. Once they got all the money (i.e. the Federal Reserve treason), they just needed to keep us all doped up to ensure an uninterrupted flow of cash to themselves. That dope takes the form of consumerism, fashion, video and sports. GOAL!!!!!!
And the Nissan Xterra ads that featured Lenny Kravitz - Fly Away. Thank goodness for those ads, without which I would not have that song on my faves list. Now when I see an Xterra I think of the song, not vice-a-versa.
Like many of you, I didn't think advertising worked on me. Yet a couple of weeks ago I inexplicably found myself spending half an hour at marines.com looking into enlistment. That the Marines are heavily advertised during adult swim, which I often have on while coding, can't be a coincidence.
;-). And my wife would definitely go for a -1 stubborn mod.
But which came first, you getting what you see as a well-targeted ad, or you having the mindset of a Marine?
I could check off all the ways I am just like yourself: BASc (1984), news & web browser, thousand volume library (you meant DVDs, right?
That said, I love the Marines. I think they represent a standard of total commitment and excellence that is hard to match, and is certainly inspirational. I like to inspire others, so I am drawn to inspirational people. But does this mean if I see a Marines ad I immediately think "Wow, they found me!" Nope. [Besides, I don't fit the demographic they are after.]
The whole time I have been reading this thread I have been racking my brain to think of _any_ time I have been influenced by an ad (1) enough to buy the product, (2) enough to speak favorably of the company based solely on the ad(s). Answer: (1) never, (2) never.
But what I do remember is the first company that ever ruined a movie I was watching on TV but inserting an interstitial -- Safeway. Since that time (ten years ago or so), I have gone to Safeway no more than 3 or 4 times (and those times, to get something on sale). I hate Safeway and believe that if you study Safeway you will too. But I'm biased -- they made me biased.
World-class advertisers are very good at what they do. They literally have it down to a science. Even if you can use your intellect to protect yourself from the overt message, there's still the more subtle psychological cues and even sheer repetition if nothing else works.
So that would be the science of pile driving an idea into my forehead. Got it. Noted it. Permabanned it.
People with email@msn.com addresses never receive YahooGroups.com invites. I get them bounced back to me routinely.
This IM blocking is just another reason to boycott msn.com, hotmail.com & live.com.
[Of course, YahooGroups now adds spaces in URLs I try to send to my groups. I have to TinyURL everything these days.]
how did this become an acceptable state of affairs in IT?
I don't know about "acceptable" but it became a necessary way of operating when Microsoft switched Windows away from INI files to the registry. Windows 3.x systems had maybe 5 or 10 INI files that mattered (i.e. that you had to hand-tweak from time to time). Each rarely had more than 100 lines in it. Maybe a couple hundred thousands bytes all in. And if we needed a driver, it was usually a driver _file_ (except video drivers).
Today systems are ridiculously complicated. Windows 3.x would not even load, let alone run, if it was installed on a partition with the number of files an XP system has (over 100,000). Just the number of files alone would sink it (try it with more than about 60,000 files if you don't believe me).
On the other hand, install systems have kept pace with the complexity. Instead of shovelling 7 floppies (Windows 3.x) into a PC in 15 to 20 minutes, we have CD (XP) and DVD (Vista) installs that take the same (order of magnitude) time to install, despite 10 to 100 to 1000 times the increase in complexity. So, re-installing wins.
With DOS, we knew our systems down to the individual file level.
With Windows 3.x, we knew our systems down to the INI level.
With XP, we know our systems down to the Windows Update/services.msc level.
With Vista, we just know our system sucks.
Obviously, we could set our low priority "batch job" appliances (dishwashers, clothes washer/dryer, ...) on low price/priority settings...
We ran into problems with this for the clothes washer. If it washes in the middle of the night then the wet clothes sit there for hours and can get musty smelling. Once that happens, you need to re-wash them with a washer that has a "sterilize" cycle or you are stuck with that smell forever. OTOH, if the washer itself would start on a time delay so that it finished half an hour before you got up, that would be perfect.
I know they get aikido based training in Scotland. In that case, the heavier the opponent is, the more you can use their weight against them. If the attacker knows aikido too then they'd be kind of screwed though
Aikido is a purely defensive martial art (that our whole family studies). Two Aikidoka would do exactly nothing to each other. A student of Aikido acting aggressively is just an attacker, and attackers lose in Aikido. Kinda cool.
one of the most prominent tools for rich-media web application
To give Flash the dis-credit it deserves, why don't we call it indulgent-media, let-them-eat-cake-media, or artery-clogging media? Or at least put the word "filthy" in front of it.
Personally I prefer "baked-cake" media because:
(1) I can't see the URL of the link I am clicking
(2) I can't shift-click or middle-mouse click a link and have it open in a new window
(3) I can't get it to stop flashing at me
(4) I can't turn off images but still see the links & text
(5) And as previously posted, the filthy snob monopolizes my cpu whenever it wants to for no good reason.
Ok, one last try at a new name: "Paris Hilton" media (and I'd accept Paris-Rich Media).
Thinking of free software and not-as-free manuals brings to mind David Harris' now abandoned Pegasus Mail. He made his living entirely from the optional manuals. FWIW, I always wondered if he abandoned his product because he saw how the spammers were abusing it...
I have been known to register a free product to not only support it but to also get a shiney printed manual. It seems that manuals are a logical area to offer a pay-for upgrade while still having a free base product. Maybe Canonical could so the same, create a "Canonical Press" series? [Wait, they probably already have such a thing. Never mind.]
The most annoying pinball I played was something with curved flippers circa mid 1980. Oddly enough the flippers gave you points for just hitting them, so one could rack up a ton of replays even before you release the ball. The drawback was the flippers melted.
It seems like it was either "Disco Fever" or "Time Warp". I must have played "Time Warp" as I doubt I could handle staring at Revolta for very long.
I see Demolition Man listed as one of the possible pins to play. One of my top five favorite games for superb voice clips, audio effects, variety of features and difficulty. I'd drop a c-note for a day long tour of that "private collection of 400 machines"...
3D Ultra Pinball Thrillride has perfect physics. I got a surplused copy via Amazon some time back and have played it for hundreds of hours. Nicely designed for widescreen. Let me know if you beat 300B (no milking) or 11 lights out.
Some of the mirror sites: www.p0wned.com, www.dlwarez.com and www.freetoolbar.com
But seriously, seven different file sizes, depending on the mirror you go with? This sounds more like Harry's House of Mirrors...heh, I look pretty good in the thin one!
I think the reason Pinball is dying out is purely the cost of fixing them.
A mechanical game breaks all too often. Video games don't, and even damaged CDs are dealt with by downloading a cracked download. It's a shame -- hardly any pins anywhere any more.
Machine cost means only the richer types could afford _one_, or they were in a public place but set very difficult so the owner & renter could recoup their investments.
The Future Of Pinball just came out on DVD but I've yet to see it. Looking forward to it when I can. Pinball was the solitaire of physical sports. I miss it.
Yeah, the muzzies blew up the world trade center...
You are kidding, right? The WTC was demolished, "pulled" to use Silverspeak.
Well, there is a .SIG size limit --> TinyURL gets around this. Wait a tick, that is my situation exactly -- my TinyURL below links to a slashdot post I made in the past. Couldn't fit it all in without TinyURL.
.SIG size could be increased, with a user-defined setting that determines how big a .SIG each individual wants to see [sice /. only stores one copy per user (not per post) in any case this can't impact /. if the limit is moved to say 500 bytes]. Then the need for TinyURL is removed and such redirects could be filtered. Of course, one could still set up a meta-redirect page on a web site that sent the user to who knows what ultimate destination.
Vertical menus take more room. In this Opera window I have menu words of "File Edit View Bookmarks Widgets Feeds Tools Help". If I ran the menu vertically, the word "Bookmarks" would force the menu to take up at least 1" of window width. With the menu as it is, it has a width of maybe 3/8". I hear what you are saying about toolbars, and on my 1920x1200 Acer I minimize/consolidate those as well but top menus use less overall space -- hard to get around that without moving to Kanji.
BrianRegan.com got flashed a year or so back and I sent a complaint email (parts of it didn't work in Opera). Next thing I know, Brian used my first name for one of the dumber characters in a comic routine. So I'd suggest complaining anonymously...
What about Google? Still no ads on main page. Main page has a grand total of one graphic, no flash. Any new tabs added provide hefty new, and free, features. How are they not sticking with what is working?
As long as they don't marketing start producing the Evening News
You haven't been paying attention...TV news is controlled and selected from start to finish, and if the advertisers aren't completely happy, they go elsewhere. That Doctor guy on CNN is making a lot of drug and medical companies happy everytime he offers medical advice to Joe and Jane Public.
or writing content taught in schoolrooms,
Ok, I get it now -- you don't have children. Our children dutifully bring home mini-Time magazine, and watch me throw it out immediately. They also _have to_ bring home and bring back to school these massive advermagazines -- hawking who knows what, I certainly don't want to find out. At first the kids thought I would actually look at the products, and they had their own suggestions for things they wanted. Now they recognize trash as trash.
There is some debate about whether going even that fast in interstellar space is feasible
It seems to me that the faster a spacecraft travels, the more damage is done when a random chunk of whatever collides with the spacecraft. Outside of comet tails and meteor showers, I am not sure there are that many random chunks of matter in space but travelling at 1% of the speed of light when you hit a speck of sand, for example, must be a bad thing. Has this been quantified? Would a steel plate at the front of the spacecraft help?
It means if you're trying to do a little processing to a lot of data (i.e. watch a movie, manage a database, etc) the AMD will vastly outperform the Intel.
Tom's Hardware doesn't agree. Comparing, as you put it, the best versus the best (I chose the Intel QX9775 vs Phenom 9700, but I don't think it matters):
The best AMD cpu uses almost 3 times as much CPU time to play a Blu-Ray disk
This CloneDVD test is mostly disk I/O bound -- but the Intel is one-third faster
This WinRAR test is probably disk/data transfer bound as well -- Intel is one-third faster
The same holds true for the other 32 benchmarks...
Superstring Theory -- The DNA Of Reality is spread over 24 thirty minute segments. There is a lot to absorb and consider. I find it hard to develop an intuitive understanding of each of the sub-atomic particles. The difference between a boson, a lepton vs quarks are clear when first explained, but when I have to take into account such differences while he is talking about some other particles like, for example, a graviton or a tachyon, then I find it hard to hold all these concepts in my head at the same time. And of course Superstring theory itself, with dimensions greater than 3 (or 4) is a constant challenge to visualize/work with.
I accept that this will happen to a 50-year-old fogey like myself. I really don't mind and really do look forward to listening to the series again in the not-so-distant future.
Wow, did I mis-read your comment or what. I read "greatest black theorist". My apologies.
Kip Thorne (whom I've frequently heard called the greatest black hole theorist alive, Hawking not withstanding)
It is ridiculous to classify people's intellect by their skin color, but if we are doing that, what about S. James Gates? I found his "Superstring Theory" series of DVDs to be well over my simpleton head. I look forward to working my way through the series again.