When SciFi was new it was inspiring. Now that it is so common place people are use to watching Star Trek people in space and wonder why the hell the space station is so difficult.
The same could be said about space expoloration as well. (i.e. "When space exploration was new it was inspiring.") When you've go a lot of firsts happening ("first in space", "first in orbit", "first on the moon"), it's a lot more exciting than saying "STS-1234567 will expand on what we did in STS-1234560". It's a lot harder to get people excited about the incremental increases in the knowledge / expertise of the current astronauts and space scientists.
you have to divide "the market" into meaningful sub-groups
That's my point. They aren't meaningful. They're arbitrary. Those subgroups are only a way to divide people by physical appearance, which is why it is the first thing that comes to mind when you want to divide people into groups.
Demographics include more than just physical appearance. If differences in demographics frequently coincide with differences in buying habits, why shouldn't marketing people look at that information? It's not arbitrary if there is a statistically significant difference in buying habits.
Way to completely miss my point and put words in my mouth.
Sorry about that.
[W]hich people the entertainment is going to appeal to [...] is defined by less obvious things like personality traits and subcultures which cross all age groups and both genders and is much more difficult to analyze.
So how do you propose to analyze this information and use it? It seems to me that demographics, while far from perfect, is a useful tool to analyze (potential) customers. Until business can figure out how to cater to each person individually (in a cost-effective way), you have to divide "the market" into meaningful sub-groups to decide where to focus your resources.
Corporate America needs to seriously redefine, or possibly even abandon, the whole concept of 'demographics'. The whole idea is fundamentally flawed.
So you propose they look at society as a whole and develop everything to be bland and acceptable to everyone? I really think that is what is "insulting to the consumer and puts crap entertainments on the market".
I think it's a perfectly reasonable approach to say, "This group of people is not buying games. Let's talk to them and figure out what kinds of games they would buy." If the company develops a game that fits a niche, that's good for the company and for the consumers. The challenges are
avoid developing a game that appeals only to the target audience
avoid marketing a game only to the target audience
avoid alienating gamers who enjoy the game in spite of not being part of the target audience.
as long as someone is around using it, and someone else maintaining it, there is no reason to remove support for it.
Someone else maintaining it?! Wouldn't the person(s) maintaining it typically be a subset of the persons using it? I would imagine most obscure hardware gets supports because someone thinks, "I really wish Linux supported this X that I own. I guess I'll have to write my own drivers."
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't spend my time maintaining support for hardware I don't personally have access to. Testing is a bit tough...
Well, that's certainly a possibility, but if they select people who agree with what they're lobbying for and offer to do this on a continuing basis (e.g. once a month), then the number of people who just take the money would be minimized.
Change the rules so political parties can only accept donations from businesses that are on the same scale as what private citizens could realistically offer and you've won.
That's fine in principal, but how can you ensure that lobbying groups don't abuse that?
Say that Lobbyist Group A gave 1,000 people $1,100 each if they would promise that they'd contribute $1,000 of that to Candidate X (and they could keep $100). How could you know which of the thousands of political contributions are from people bought off by the lobbyists? You can't investigate everyone.
Also, I put forth that you don't need superior Sales and Market if you have a high quality product. I have never seen a single advertisement for Pez, yet those things sell like... well, like candy. Even the tie-ins with comics or games or movies don't get any advertising from Pez themselves.
Maybe they're just not spending their marketing dollars on the consumer. They know that if you put a rack of Pez dispensers in the supermarket checkout line, they will sell a bunch of them. So they probably spend their marketing resources making sure they every supermarket has them in every checkout line.
I know from my time in retail that some vendors expend a lot of resources selling their product to retailers and working with retail salespeople.
According to the September 16-17, 2006 edition of the Wall Street Journal's Weekend Edition, about 20% of the CEO's of the top US companies have engineering degrees.
I don't think graduating with an engineering degree automatically makes someone an "engineer". My father-in-law has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA. He's spent most (possibly all) of his career in sales and / or management positions. I don't think I'd call him an engineer any more than I'd call my friend who got his degree in Philosophy a philosopher.
Actually, Photoshop (for the Mac) is compiled for a PPC processor. On an Intel Mac it runs through Rosetta (the PPC emulator built into OS X). For now, Photoshop users would be better served by keeping their PPC Macs.
Which questionable tactics? Like closing (and bulldozing) a public airport in the middle of the night with no notice for no good reason? I'd say blatantly disregarding federal law and FAA regulations, spending a large sum of taxpayer money to do so, and then using more taxpayer money to pay the fines are a little more than questionable.
That reads like the text of the last spam message I looked at. (i.e. I have to read each sentence four times to even know if it's really a sentence.) Unfortunately you forgot to attach the image (which is really text) to tell me what stock I'm supposed to buy.
My brain hurts... I guess it's time to get back to work.
I'm not sure how "serious" your classes will be, but you might consider teaching an AP Computer Science curriculum. The current language used for the AP test is Java, so you would need to get a good understanding of that language before you begin teaching it. If you prepare the students for the AP test, they have the opportunity to earn some college credit (and hopefully they'll take it seriously).
Even if you don't do a full AP curriculum, there are some good text books written to take HS students with no previous programming experience and prepare them for the test. You might also consider some older texts written when C++ was the AP CS language (1998-2003).
Slashdot Mirror
Your post was as clear as mud. That is how you do simile stuff!
The same could be said about space expoloration as well. (i.e. "When space exploration was new it was inspiring.") When you've go a lot of firsts happening ("first in space", "first in orbit", "first on the moon"), it's a lot more exciting than saying "STS-1234567 will expand on what we did in STS-1234560". It's a lot harder to get people excited about the incremental increases in the knowledge / expertise of the current astronauts and space scientists.
Demographics include more than just physical appearance. If differences in demographics frequently coincide with differences in buying habits, why shouldn't marketing people look at that information? It's not arbitrary if there is a statistically significant difference in buying habits.
Sorry about that.
So how do you propose to analyze this information and use it? It seems to me that demographics, while far from perfect, is a useful tool to analyze (potential) customers. Until business can figure out how to cater to each person individually (in a cost-effective way), you have to divide "the market" into meaningful sub-groups to decide where to focus your resources.
So you propose they look at society as a whole and develop everything to be bland and acceptable to everyone? I really think that is what is "insulting to the consumer and puts crap entertainments on the market".
I think it's a perfectly reasonable approach to say, "This group of people is not buying games. Let's talk to them and figure out what kinds of games they would buy." If the company develops a game that fits a niche, that's good for the company and for the consumers. The challenges are
Who would that be? Steve Jobs and the iPhone development team?
Yes, but we're talking about hardware X. Linux currently supports only the software version.
Someone else maintaining it?! Wouldn't the person(s) maintaining it typically be a subset of the persons using it? I would imagine most obscure hardware gets supports because someone thinks, "I really wish Linux supported this X that I own. I guess I'll have to write my own drivers."
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't spend my time maintaining support for hardware I don't personally have access to. Testing is a bit tough...
You expected Google to fix MSN?
Well, that's certainly a possibility, but if they select people who agree with what they're lobbying for and offer to do this on a continuing basis (e.g. once a month), then the number of people who just take the money would be minimized.
Say that Lobbyist Group A gave 1,000 people $1,100 each if they would promise that they'd contribute $1,000 of that to Candidate X (and they could keep $100). How could you know which of the thousands of political contributions are from people bought off by the lobbyists? You can't investigate everyone.
Maybe they're just not spending their marketing dollars on the consumer. They know that if you put a rack of Pez dispensers in the supermarket checkout line, they will sell a bunch of them. So they probably spend their marketing resources making sure they every supermarket has them in every checkout line.
I know from my time in retail that some vendors expend a lot of resources selling their product to retailers and working with retail salespeople.
I don't think graduating with an engineering degree automatically makes someone an "engineer". My father-in-law has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA. He's spent most (possibly all) of his career in sales and / or management positions. I don't think I'd call him an engineer any more than I'd call my friend who got his degree in Philosophy a philosopher.
I don't get it... What possible benefit could keyboard manufacturers gain by changing the layout of these keys?
Don't forget "The All-New Netscape Browser 8.1.2"!
I think you mean "one plus two plus one plus one".
Or was that "one plus one plus two plus one"?
Probably the same way e360 Insight's judgement against Spamhaus was enforced.
Oh, nevermind...
Considering how clean the average dump truck is, I'd rather burn the DVDs than put them in my computer.
Actually, Photoshop (for the Mac) is compiled for a PPC processor. On an Intel Mac it runs through Rosetta (the PPC emulator built into OS X). For now, Photoshop users would be better served by keeping their PPC Macs.
Which questionable tactics? Like closing (and bulldozing) a public airport in the middle of the night with no notice for no good reason? I'd say blatantly disregarding federal law and FAA regulations, spending a large sum of taxpayer money to do so, and then using more taxpayer money to pay the fines are a little more than questionable.
As much as I love the rest of the state, Chicago can take a flying leap.
But I agree with the rest of your post...
That reads like the text of the last spam message I looked at. (i.e. I have to read each sentence four times to even know if it's really a sentence.) Unfortunately you forgot to attach the image (which is really text) to tell me what stock I'm supposed to buy.
My brain hurts... I guess it's time to get back to work.
I'm not sure how "serious" your classes will be, but you might consider teaching an AP Computer Science curriculum. The current language used for the AP test is Java, so you would need to get a good understanding of that language before you begin teaching it. If you prepare the students for the AP test, they have the opportunity to earn some college credit (and hopefully they'll take it seriously).
Even if you don't do a full AP curriculum, there are some good text books written to take HS students with no previous programming experience and prepare them for the test. You might also consider some older texts written when C++ was the AP CS language (1998-2003).
Inflection point? Did I stumble into the "High School Calculus" section of Slashdot?
Unfortunately, legislator (and governer) salaries are the one thing Illinois does reliably pay on time.