Well, if you were born in the early eighties, you're about the same age as my son. His father (my husband) just wandered through here on his way home from work, so I asked him if he remembered the jingle. He got a sort of dazed look and replied, "Big green numbers and little rubber feet."
"Personal" (as opposed to scientific or engineering) calculators represented a fairly large investment for the average consumer at that point. I don't remember a single other radio or TV advert for a calculator, though there were plenty of print ads. I do recall, vaguely, that Rockwell arrived late in that "personal calculator" market. I can tell you that my own mother bought one of the Rockwell calculators. She was always an early technology adopter. In her case, the Rockwell name meant more than those newcomers at Texas Instruments. The calculator was a huge disappointment to her. It did nave big green numbers, but they burnt out fairly quickly and could not be repaired.
Though I don't often reply to replies, in your case I feel compelled. You may wish to read this story by Mark Twain, entitled "Punch, Brothers, Punch." It's a five-minute read, if that, and it may provide some insight into jingles in general. If it doesn't help, you can always think about me with pity. I've remembered the damned thing since childhood, and I know the tune as well.
In the early Seventies there was a calculator advertising jingle that was so stupid it has stayed with me for all these years:
You can't go wrong with Rockwell,
They're really such a treat.
They've got BIG GREEN NUMBERS,
And little rubber feet.
If your grandmother is stuck on her back, and it sounds like she is, she might enjoy an occasional reading session--not too lengthy, though. Check at home. Does she subscribe to any particular magazines or to the newspaper? Chances are she's missing those. Any particular authors she enjoys? Something lightweight in her favorite genre (mystery, sci-fi, thriller, classics whatever) might be enjoyable. Religious? Bible or other scripture might be wanted. Of course you can get audiobooks of all sorts, but the actual presence of somebody she loves, who cares enough to take time with her, is a good medicine in and of itself. Check with the occupational therapy folks regarding the boards they have for communicating needs/wants.
On the bright side, my fiance is a huge fan or organics and natural products, of which I do not think J&J make any. Apparently there is a brand called Method (we get ours at target.. and I hate target...) that has most household and personal cleaners that are all natural (or so my fiance tells me) to replace J&J products..
Be sure your're not confusing Johnson and Johnson with S.C. Johnson--they are two entirely different companies. S.C. Johnson makes the household cleaning products you're describing--floor wax, kitchen cleaners, window cleaners, plastic storage and trash bags, bug sprays, drain openers. They have a few personal care products such as shaving preparations, but mostly they are a household products company--and a very old one at that. Johnson & Johnson, the company involved in the lawsuit, manufactures personal care and pharmaceutical-type products, baby care stuff, contact lens juice, bandages and antiseptics, etc.
A boycott sounds like a good idea, but it would be a shame to boycott the wrong company
As others have pointed out, ignorance is generally not an excuse. And I don't have an analogy, poor or otherwise. But the picture we're getting from the newspaper shows a soldier away on active duty for his country, returning home, finding this situation, and correcting it. (He deleted the files.) Seems to me the RIAA has stepped into another pile of P.R. poo with this one--not to mention ethical and moral poo. Soldiers on active duty would rank right up there with single working moms, elderly grandmas, small children, and the recently bereaved as folks you just don't want to harass. It doesn't read too well in the newspaper article.
Vegas for one, where if you ask an ATM in a hotel or casino for a hundred dollars, it will give you a hundred dollar bill. Our more boring ATM's on the East Coast would dole out five twenties. I did a project in Vegas about ten years ago, and getting pocket money was a problem. Even in Vegas, hundreds aren't welcome in taxicabs, fast food restaurants, and mundane places like drugstores. I spent six months there. Every Monday morning I would withdraw a hundred dollar bill and detour to the hotel cashier who would trade it for some twenties, tens, fives, and ones so I could navigate through the ordinary affairs of living.
Oh, calm down and clean your glasses. Then learn to read critically. Then swallow your sarcasm.
The RIAA has clearly been targeting all the people I described, and we're treated to regularly-scheduled stories about them right here on Slashdot. We've had the welfare mothers, the elderly ladies, the orphans--who were given a brief bereavement break after their father passed on--and all sorts and conditions of people. We've also had people like the woman and her daughter in this case who had the wherewithal to keep going with this.
The court order referred to in the article states that "reasonable attorney's fees" should be set at somewhere between $175 and $225 per hour. That seems a bit low by comparison with what senior attorneys make around here. (Here being the East Coast.) If you think about it, even a higher hourly rate for a lawyer would be fairly well in line with what's commanded by other skilled and/or professional individuals--including computer consultants. It's interesting to stop and think what the doctor who takes out your appendix earns in an hour. The woman's actual bills as submitted summed up to a little over $114,000. That included a lot of other expenses besides attorney fees, including fees paid to expert witnesses. The RIAA seems to have put up quite a fight of their own, and they've succeeded in whittling down the sum to be awarded to the plaintiff.
The problem is that not everybody has $68,000 or $114,000 or even a few thousand dollars to put up that kind of fight. If it's beneficial to continue to carry the fight back to the RIAA in this manner, it's going to take a combination of well-heeled individuals and civic-minded lawyers.
After I read the article and the document, a chilling thought occurred: If the RIAA knows that certain people have the means to turn and fight, will they then concentrate their efforts on those people without the means? That would be students, children, the elderly, people just starting their careers, people working at lower-paying jobs.
I can understand what you're saying, and I see how it works. What this thread seems to be saying is:
1) You run a business of some sort--a place where the public gathers. 2) There is some possibility, however remote, that you could play or perform music in this venue. Maybe you don't have a sound system. Maybe there's no stereo, no stage, no microphones or amplifiers, or anything else remotely related to playing or performing music. But conceivably, music could be played or performed. 3) Therefore, on that remote chance, you owe us money--from what people here are saying, lots of money.
This sounds like some sort of shakedown or racketeering. I certainly hope so. The way things are going in the music world, it seems more like a spreading cancer.
You should be modded "informative." From what you're saying, by extension they could shake down the local Macdonald's or Burger King, or any other place people gather in public. I'd like to see them try it on one of the ultramegafranchises.
I honestly love my iMac. I didn't think I was going to, and it's the first Mac I've owned that wasn't near the top-of-the-line. But it's done everything I want and need it to do, and it's done it well.
The problem? It's always grimy-looking. I don't think I'm dirtier than the average person; things around here get dusted and vacuumed with reasonable regularity. I also wash my hands a reasonable number of times during the day. But this white case is always a nightmare of filthitude, and the keyboard always looks a bit scabrous. It's not like the old beige cases that you could swipe at occasionally with 409. And I'm never sure of what to use on the screen.
The previous Mac, a G4, was the same way--the translucent plastic became dingy pretty quickly and stayed that way for the four years I used it.
Maybe not black. But computers are magnets for dust by virtue of what's inside them and how they function. Something that can be kept clean with the swipe of a static-free cloth would be most welcome. I'm not sure brushed aluminum is it.
Oh, and the wireless mouse is abysmal. The wee little trackball is a sink for finger-cruft.
You make a good point, but I don't think that's how it's supposed to work. If you sit back and call to mind some pleasant incident in the past--maybe a childhood picnic or family holiday--your recollections will be pleasant but somewhat hazy and lacking in details. Memories of the Christmas when you got some much-desired gift will be clearer but still not too sharply detailed. Because of the way they're collected, memories of traumatic incidents remain sharp, clear, and are often rendered in excruciating detail. You can try this for yourself even if you don't have a terrible trauma; it could be something bad that happened at school, some embarrassment or humiliation, or that broken arm you suffered in second grade.
What they're trying to do is to blunt the sharpness and clarity of traumatic memories, rendering them hazy or distant as other memories. Since the memories have a way of re-surfacing at any time and causing havoc in the mind of the sufferer, this might be a good idea. On the other hand, the old conventional wisdom is that when we experience a trauma or loss we need to re-process and work through it at various stages of our lives. So if you lost a parent in a terrible accident at age six, you might have to re-work the memories in adolescence, early adulthood, at the onset of middle age, and even in old age. Each life stage will bring a different perspective and help in remaining healthy and stable. People whose experiences are suppressed and swept under the rug tend to have worse problems as they go on. I can't help wondering if blunting the force of these kinds of terrible memories might interfere with that re-visiting.
I think there are quite a few factors at work: 1) It takes either lots of money or a civic-minded attorney to put up a fight. Many good fights don't get fought because they're too expensive. 2) When taken at face value, a lot of what the RIAA says it stands for can look very acceptable to people who aren't thinking critically. That includes colleges and universities who deem it appropriate to give up their students; mainstream newspapers and other media in a lot of places; and anybody else who doesn't take the time to think clearly. I learned from a local news outlet just yesterday that the RIAA is fighting against drug money, illegal gun money, and even "terrorism." So even the news outlets aren't taking the time to observe and evaluate. 3) People are just flat-out terrified when they find they're being sued by such a massive organization.
People who read Slashdot, and other people who've taken the time to think this through, are scandalized by what RIAA is getting away with. We've all seen and read about their abuse of elderly people, single mothers, recent orphans, and children, and that's had an obvious impact. It's going to take something truly spectacular that is widely reported out there in the mainstream before the general public wakes up.
Re:Not quite the same as today's ATMs.
on
ATM Turns 40
·
· Score: 1
Hmm. Maybe people wanted to eat them because they were hungry and didn't get a chocolate bar??
Actually there may or may not be evidence of shady behavior. What is clear is that the school's protective measures, intended to block the porn and assorted other undesirable popups, were not functioning during the interval in question. It was also brought up in the original trial that she contacted the school authorities in an attempt to get some technical support with the problem. If she'd been thinking more astutely, she might have simply shut the computer down or might even have locked it away from the students. But she did what she was supposed to do in terms of alerting the school to the problem and requesting help with it. If you regard it in another light, she got a 40 year sentence due to somebody else's poor software and tech support.
Reuters. This last one has some interesting speculation on why altruism may be related to the similarly-entrenched idea that it's not OK to kiss your sister.
I was going to put something troll-ish in here about the fact that Slashdot seems to be serving up quite a bit of this warmed-over stuff recently--days and days after it's hit the mainstream news outlets. It would probably be a more effective use of time to go and read the article about Google and malware...
I don't think there ever was a link to buy; if there was, I couldn't find it. I think it's a PR ploy. TFA mentions a man buying an "antique collection of children's literature" for his son, and as well a woman buying "an armload of books on art, music, and education." He could, if he cared to, probably remarket those sorts of books at Powell's, Alibris, Thriftbooks, or even on Amazon, which does a brisk secondhand books business via its assorted vendors. If he had wanted to actually resell the books, he could have done so. This is some kind of hype, or somebody who's craving attention.
In more innocent days, the center ring, lower level of the Pentagon contained a mini-shopping mall (called the Concourse) with department stores, a bookseller and other shops, restaurants, a Post Office, and businesses such as dry cleaners. It was also a major transfer point for people taking public transportation (at that time it would've been all buses) into and out of Washington, DC.
You may have a point. I just took it to Google Fight, where I entered the terms "Global Warming" and "Britney Spears." Global Warming seems to have won by 67,800,000 results to Britney's 31,500,000. It also beats out Paris Hilton by a somewhat smaller margin and Lindsay Lohan by a huge margin.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, if you were born in the early eighties, you're about the same age as my son. His father (my husband) just wandered through here on his way home from work, so I asked him if he remembered the jingle. He got a sort of dazed look and replied, "Big green numbers and little rubber feet."
"Personal" (as opposed to scientific or engineering) calculators represented a fairly large investment for the average consumer at that point. I don't remember a single other radio or TV advert for a calculator, though there were plenty of print ads. I do recall, vaguely, that Rockwell arrived late in that "personal calculator" market. I can tell you that my own mother bought one of the Rockwell calculators. She was always an early technology adopter. In her case, the Rockwell name meant more than those newcomers at Texas Instruments. The calculator was a huge disappointment to her. It did nave big green numbers, but they burnt out fairly quickly and could not be repaired.
Though I don't often reply to replies, in your case I feel compelled. You may wish to read this story by Mark Twain, entitled "Punch, Brothers, Punch." It's a five-minute read, if that, and it may provide some insight into jingles in general. If it doesn't help, you can always think about me with pity. I've remembered the damned thing since childhood, and I know the tune as well.
In the early Seventies there was a calculator advertising jingle that was so stupid it has stayed with me for all these years: You can't go wrong with Rockwell, They're really such a treat. They've got BIG GREEN NUMBERS, And little rubber feet.
If your grandmother is stuck on her back, and it sounds like she is, she might enjoy an occasional reading session--not too lengthy, though. Check at home. Does she subscribe to any particular magazines or to the newspaper? Chances are she's missing those. Any particular authors she enjoys? Something lightweight in her favorite genre (mystery, sci-fi, thriller, classics whatever) might be enjoyable. Religious? Bible or other scripture might be wanted. Of course you can get audiobooks of all sorts, but the actual presence of somebody she loves, who cares enough to take time with her, is a good medicine in and of itself. Check with the occupational therapy folks regarding the boards they have for communicating needs/wants.
If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog?
Five?
No, calling a tail a leg don't make it a leg. - Abraham Lincoln
They can call their "system" whatever they want to. It'll still be bad news.
On the bright side, my fiance is a huge fan or organics and natural products, of which I do not think J&J make any. Apparently there is a brand called Method (we get ours at target.. and I hate target...) that has most household and personal cleaners that are all natural (or so my fiance tells me) to replace J&J products..
Be sure your're not confusing Johnson and Johnson with S.C. Johnson--they are two entirely different companies. S.C. Johnson makes the household cleaning products you're describing--floor wax, kitchen cleaners, window cleaners, plastic storage and trash bags, bug sprays, drain openers. They have a few personal care products such as shaving preparations, but mostly they are a household products company--and a very old one at that. Johnson & Johnson, the company involved in the lawsuit, manufactures personal care and pharmaceutical-type products, baby care stuff, contact lens juice, bandages and antiseptics, etc.
A boycott sounds like a good idea, but it would be a shame to boycott the wrong company
As others have pointed out, ignorance is generally not an excuse. And I don't have an analogy, poor or otherwise. But the picture we're getting from the newspaper shows a soldier away on active duty for his country, returning home, finding this situation, and correcting it. (He deleted the files.) Seems to me the RIAA has stepped into another pile of P.R. poo with this one--not to mention ethical and moral poo. Soldiers on active duty would rank right up there with single working moms, elderly grandmas, small children, and the recently bereaved as folks you just don't want to harass. It doesn't read too well in the newspaper article.
I don't know what ATM's you're using, but the ones I frequent permit withdrawals only in certain increments. $5 isn't one of them.
Vegas for one, where if you ask an ATM in a hotel or casino for a hundred dollars, it will give you a hundred dollar bill. Our more boring ATM's on the East Coast would dole out five twenties. I did a project in Vegas about ten years ago, and getting pocket money was a problem. Even in Vegas, hundreds aren't welcome in taxicabs, fast food restaurants, and mundane places like drugstores. I spent six months there. Every Monday morning I would withdraw a hundred dollar bill and detour to the hotel cashier who would trade it for some twenties, tens, fives, and ones so I could navigate through the ordinary affairs of living.
Who knew? Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go wash my cache out with soap.
Oh, calm down and clean your glasses. Then learn to read critically. Then swallow your sarcasm.
The RIAA has clearly been targeting all the people I described, and we're treated to regularly-scheduled stories about them right here on Slashdot. We've had the welfare mothers, the elderly ladies, the orphans--who were given a brief bereavement break after their father passed on--and all sorts and conditions of people. We've also had people like the woman and her daughter in this case who had the wherewithal to keep going with this.
Gakkh!
The court order referred to in the article states that "reasonable attorney's fees" should be set at somewhere between $175 and $225 per hour. That seems a bit low by comparison with what senior attorneys make around here. (Here being the East Coast.) If you think about it, even a higher hourly rate for a lawyer would be fairly well in line with what's commanded by other skilled and/or professional individuals--including computer consultants. It's interesting to stop and think what the doctor who takes out your appendix earns in an hour. The woman's actual bills as submitted summed up to a little over $114,000. That included a lot of other expenses besides attorney fees, including fees paid to expert witnesses. The RIAA seems to have put up quite a fight of their own, and they've succeeded in whittling down the sum to be awarded to the plaintiff.
The problem is that not everybody has $68,000 or $114,000 or even a few thousand dollars to put up that kind of fight. If it's beneficial to continue to carry the fight back to the RIAA in this manner, it's going to take a combination of well-heeled individuals and civic-minded lawyers.
After I read the article and the document, a chilling thought occurred: If the RIAA knows that certain people have the means to turn and fight, will they then concentrate their efforts on those people without the means? That would be students, children, the elderly, people just starting their careers, people working at lower-paying jobs.
Another informative post. (Was it Muzak??)
I can understand what you're saying, and I see how it works. What this thread seems to be saying is:
1) You run a business of some sort--a place where the public gathers.
2) There is some possibility, however remote, that you could play or perform music in this venue. Maybe you don't have a sound system. Maybe there's no stereo, no stage, no microphones or amplifiers, or anything else remotely related to playing or performing music. But conceivably, music could be played or performed.
3) Therefore, on that remote chance, you owe us money--from what people here are saying, lots of money.
This sounds like some sort of shakedown or racketeering. I certainly hope so. The way things are going in the music world, it seems more like a spreading cancer.
You should be modded "informative." From what you're saying, by extension they could shake down the local Macdonald's or Burger King, or any other place people gather in public. I'd like to see them try it on one of the ultramegafranchises.
I honestly love my iMac. I didn't think I was going to, and it's the first Mac I've owned that wasn't near the top-of-the-line. But it's done everything I want and need it to do, and it's done it well.
The problem? It's always grimy-looking. I don't think I'm dirtier than the average person; things around here get dusted and vacuumed with reasonable regularity. I also wash my hands a reasonable number of times during the day. But this white case is always a nightmare of filthitude, and the keyboard always looks a bit scabrous. It's not like the old beige cases that you could swipe at occasionally with 409. And I'm never sure of what to use on the screen.
The previous Mac, a G4, was the same way--the translucent plastic became dingy pretty quickly and stayed that way for the four years I used it.
Maybe not black. But computers are magnets for dust by virtue of what's inside them and how they function. Something that can be kept clean with the swipe of a static-free cloth would be most welcome. I'm not sure brushed aluminum is it.
Oh, and the wireless mouse is abysmal. The wee little trackball is a sink for finger-cruft.
You make a good point, but I don't think that's how it's supposed to work. If you sit back and call to mind some pleasant incident in the past--maybe a childhood picnic or family holiday--your recollections will be pleasant but somewhat hazy and lacking in details. Memories of the Christmas when you got some much-desired gift will be clearer but still not too sharply detailed. Because of the way they're collected, memories of traumatic incidents remain sharp, clear, and are often rendered in excruciating detail. You can try this for yourself even if you don't have a terrible trauma; it could be something bad that happened at school, some embarrassment or humiliation, or that broken arm you suffered in second grade.
What they're trying to do is to blunt the sharpness and clarity of traumatic memories, rendering them hazy or distant as other memories. Since the memories have a way of re-surfacing at any time and causing havoc in the mind of the sufferer, this might be a good idea. On the other hand, the old conventional wisdom is that when we experience a trauma or loss we need to re-process and work through it at various stages of our lives. So if you lost a parent in a terrible accident at age six, you might have to re-work the memories in adolescence, early adulthood, at the onset of middle age, and even in old age. Each life stage will bring a different perspective and help in remaining healthy and stable. People whose experiences are suppressed and swept under the rug tend to have worse problems as they go on. I can't help wondering if blunting the force of these kinds of terrible memories might interfere with that re-visiting.
I think there are quite a few factors at work:
1) It takes either lots of money or a civic-minded attorney to put up a fight. Many good fights don't get fought because they're too expensive.
2) When taken at face value, a lot of what the RIAA says it stands for can look very acceptable to people who aren't thinking critically. That includes colleges and universities who deem it appropriate to give up their students; mainstream newspapers and other media in a lot of places; and anybody else who doesn't take the time to think clearly. I learned from a local news outlet just yesterday that the RIAA is fighting against drug money, illegal gun money, and even "terrorism." So even the news outlets aren't taking the time to observe and evaluate.
3) People are just flat-out terrified when they find they're being sued by such a massive organization.
People who read Slashdot, and other people who've taken the time to think this through, are scandalized by what RIAA is getting away with. We've all seen and read about their abuse of elderly people, single mothers, recent orphans, and children, and that's had an obvious impact. It's going to take something truly spectacular that is widely reported out there in the mainstream before the general public wakes up.
Hmm. Maybe people wanted to eat them because they were hungry and didn't get a chocolate bar??
Actually there may or may not be evidence of shady behavior. What is clear is that the school's protective measures, intended to block the porn and assorted other undesirable popups, were not functioning during the interval in question. It was also brought up in the original trial that she contacted the school authorities in an attempt to get some technical support with the problem. If she'd been thinking more astutely, she might have simply shut the computer down or might even have locked it away from the students. But she did what she was supposed to do in terms of alerting the school to the problem and requesting help with it. If you regard it in another light, she got a 40 year sentence due to somebody else's poor software and tech support.
NeoOffice does the same thing only better and more reliably.
I'm not sure why the Post is just getting around to this when everybody else was discussing it back in March:
USA Today
The BBC
Reuters. This last one has some interesting speculation on why altruism may be related to the similarly-entrenched idea that it's not OK to kiss your sister.
I was going to put something troll-ish in here about the fact that Slashdot seems to be serving up quite a bit of this warmed-over stuff recently--days and days after it's hit the mainstream news outlets. It would probably be a more effective use of time to go and read the article about Google and malware...
I don't think there ever was a link to buy; if there was, I couldn't find it. I think it's a PR ploy. TFA mentions a man buying an "antique collection of children's literature" for his son, and as well a woman buying "an armload of books on art, music, and education." He could, if he cared to, probably remarket those sorts of books at Powell's, Alibris, Thriftbooks, or even on Amazon, which does a brisk secondhand books business via its assorted vendors. If he had wanted to actually resell the books, he could have done so. This is some kind of hype, or somebody who's craving attention.
In more innocent days, the center ring, lower level of the Pentagon contained a mini-shopping mall (called the Concourse) with department stores, a bookseller and other shops, restaurants, a Post Office, and businesses such as dry cleaners. It was also a major transfer point for people taking public transportation (at that time it would've been all buses) into and out of Washington, DC.
You may have a point. I just took it to Google Fight, where I entered the terms "Global Warming" and "Britney Spears." Global Warming seems to have won by 67,800,000 results to Britney's 31,500,000. It also beats out Paris Hilton by a somewhat smaller margin and Lindsay Lohan by a huge margin.
Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth to a child. She must be found and stopped. --Sam Levinson