|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
OHANA SPONSORS LOCAL RECOMMENDED
Last update:
This work is licensed under a |
Mr Luscombe told BBC News he turned round when he heard a noise, only
to see the Saab disappearing over the bank at Kingsbridge in Devon,
followed by a loud crash. The farmer says he was relieved Shep appeared
to be none the worse for his adventure. "My first concern was for the
dog, but when I got down to the stream, Shep was sitting behind the
wheel quite unconcerned," said Mr Luscombe.
... Mr Luscombe says Shep is now banned from the driving seat, and he will no
longer leave the keys in ... The car was winched back to dry land
and has only a broken light and a few dents and scratches. 5:03:46 PM Now your iPod® can get some action and do direct data transfers at the same time! Here's how it works. Simply apply a dab of the included iLube© onto the dock connector of your iPod® and slip it into one end of the iCopulate's™ latex sleeve. Find another consenting iPod® in the vicinity and deftly insert it into the opposite end of the sleeve. Features of the iCopulate™ include: I'll wait until they ship it in chocolate, or a least a minty fresh flavor 12:31:16 PM
Let me tell you a story
My job at the time was to visit campus book stores around the country,
evaluate their computer merchandising situations, redesign the stores
using minimal resources, implement that design, then host a conference
to share the results with other colleges in the area. Ultimately this
Scott and pony show was performed from MIT to UCLA with stops between
to paint the walls in Austin and dig out a location at OSU where the
entire signage strategy consisted of a tiny Apple sticker above the
doorknob. UCLA though, was in pretty good shape. During the first few
weeks of each semester they pulled in over $10,000 a day and were thus
well loved by their suppliers. This was going to be a slam dunk because
any improvement would benefit all involved, not just Apple.
One of our tricks was to organize all the merchandise displays with Mac stuff on the right and PC stuff to the left. This
saved the staff from having to spend time steering students to the
correct platform's products - after a few minutes they unconsciously
figured this out and steered themselves to the correct area, freeing
employees to do what made money. We even split the floppy disks onto
separate PC - MAC shelves - despite the fact that they were identical
products - because students kept asking which were the right disks for
their computers. College doesn't teach common sense.
So we reorganized the software racks placing everything in order from
left to right according to categories such as word processing and
graphics programs. That's when I tripped over the first nasty trick
from Microsoft. You see the store's contract required that they display
- I think - three copies of each title on the shelf at all times. That
was a bit compulsive but didn't appear to be a problem until we
realised that each box was at least three inches thick and much wider
than normal. By the time we put up three copies each of six different
titles for both PCs and Macs, there was no room for any other software!
At the time, shelf space in computer stores was what determined the
life or death of a product. Microsoft was using this little tactic to
drive competing products off the shelf.
The Microsoft Representative, who had until then been all smiles and helpful, said
that there was nothing he could do - those were the rules - too bad.
But the demon forgot it was dealing with the largest college system in
America. The book store manager's response was in that case they had no choice but to stop selling Microsoft products! The blood drained from the Microserf's face as he excused himself to make a call and ran out of the store.
By the end of the day we had a complete new set of Microsoft programs in neat little one inch thick boxes. The rep had changed his underwear and sheepishly helped us place them on the shelf among all the other products.
This was just the first of many dirty tricks I've encountered in dealing with the Dark Side. But bad faith and lies are not the worst of it. Geek-driven goods too
often show a complete lack of understanding of how we real people use
their products, but Microsoft seems to be doing it on purpose, in order
to restrict the choice and productivity of their customers. When you
buy a product it shouldn't make your life worse. But we overlook crap
such as cigarettes, cheap beer, bad cars and George Bush because the
ads and pundits say that's what everyone else does. Instead of judging
for ourselves, we are told to just accept shit and bad logic in order
to fit in. Yankee independence will continue the slide towards
complacency and mediocrity unless we stand up and say "Hey this sucks!"
More than anyone else artists have a commitment to quality
- it's what we do. Designers must defend the standards that make our
profession worthwhile. If we become tools of the crap merchants, then
the next to be assimilated will be us and the world will become a much
darker and uglier place. 8:40:56 AM
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The iCopulate