By Ruben(nerd) Schade, a UTS university student and IT guy in Sydney and Singapore. c.2004
Aside from the technological significance of the DEC PDP11 computers, I'm also so thoroughly in love with their design, colours, fonts and advertising material.
Quintessentially 70s. I want that chair! The carpet! The red walls! A bank of dead PDP11s for hanging my clothes in, with a Mac Mini running an emulator inside it!
Scan by PanelswitchMan on Flickr.
Another story the mainstream media have blown out of proportion? Who'd have thought? ;)
From that now infamous BBC News article by Adrian Goldberg:
Google is profiting from ads for illegal products generated by its flagship automated advertising system, the BBC has found.
The ads include unofficial London 2012 Olympics ticket resellers, as well as cannabis and fake ID card sellers.
Fortunately however, Adrian concedes:
These ads were promptly removed by Google after the BBC brought them to the company's attention. [..] Google has also taken down links to illegal Olympic ticket resellers following requests from the police.
Isn't it interesting that the same people who blast Apple for their uphill battle screening software for the App Store are often the ones who rush to Google's defence for not catching all fraudulent advertising? It's not double standards though, because they don't call it that, and because It's Not Apple So It's Okay™.
I'm free to empathise with Google's position, because I empathise with Apple's. It's impossible for them to catch all illegal advertisements; the sheer volume ensures abuses will get through and the system will be gamed from time to time. The best Google can do is make a sincere effort, and gather feedback. I'm satisfied they're doing this, department store chains notwithstanding.
I also worry any attempts at legislating such behavour would be overbearing, miss the point and/or would end up making things worse. I suppose that's a sliver of libertarian thinking slipping through, wish I were cool and alternative enough to be fully libertarian.
The writers at the Brand New blog received followup from HP:
In 2008, HP asked marketing agency Moving Brands to propose new ideas for various elements of HP’s brand identity, including fonts, graphics, and logos.
HP is one of the world’s most valuable brands and has no plans to adopt the new logo proposed by Moving Brands. HP did implement some of the other design elements shown in the case study.
Old news, but I discussed HP's potential new logo at length in December last year, and I figured I should follow up on it. "Last year"... that phrase still sounds funny.
I'm relieved they're not changing their logo. HP may have lost the plot a bit in the consumer space of late, but I still hold out hope for them.
I was born too late to be a part of the Fortran generation, but upon discussing the language with my sister this evening I received the following in response:
You mean 4chan?
As I said on The Twitters, I think a part of my brain just melted.
In other news, I need that font. Retro futuristic is one of the single greatest design methodologies of all time. I also need their slogan printed on a shirt.
This brings my Rubénerd Database of Anime Pizza Hut References to four, as previously blogged. I'm sure there are far more.
My working theory is the Hidan no Aria writers decided to do this to further differentiate the series from Shana to deflect criticism that it's merely a stopgap derivative. I mean, pizza isn't melonpan!
That looks like a veggie pizza too, my favourite flavour ^_^.
So HP are doing another run of TouchPad hardware. Was this all an elaborate marketing stunt?
In macroeconomic terms, dumping refers to when a company floods a new market with products at unprofitable prices in order to establish a presence. Foreign companies flush with cash are able to sustain this long enough to drive local businesses bankrupt, and are then able to own the market and set the prices. Most free market economists consider dumping to be the only valid reason for protectionism, unless they're Libertarian.
While it's tempting to think HP have done this with the TouchPad, it fails on three counts. No wait, four counts, I'm not Discovery News!
Despite the firesale of devices, TouchPads still only count for a tiny fraction of the tablet market. Granted people who own Palm devices give the brand exposure, but there simply isn't enough of them for it to be considered a "flooding".
While it would be a masterful stroke of genius to let people think a product is dying only to have it brought back with artificially increased marketshare, we've seen no evidence that HP's marketing departments are savvy enough to have created the concept and pulled it off.
There's also no evidence to suggest HP's revolving door executives are creative or forward thinking enough to have instigated such a plan. Mr Apotheker was the former CEO of SAP, so we know where he stands on consumer devices.
I've read reports the reason why they're manufacturing more devices is due to their hardware suppliers having quotas or obligations to fill, or they have excess inventory. I'm not entirely sure that makes sense either, but it seems more likely than HP suddenly learning how to do marketing.
While I'm all for looking deeper into the meaning behind corporate decisions and doublespeak, in this case I really am willing to believe HP retired Palm hardware due to a lack of sales. I've lamented this many times here given my belief webOS was the best mobile OS ever developed.
This spring's major security breach has blemished the reputation of Sony's fledgling subscription-music service, Qriocity. And Sony already had plenty to worry about even before the intrusion. ~ CNET
Nervousness about security and privacy of Sony data aside, they were most likely worrying about what their marketing department was smoking when they called it Qriocity. Can't be good for the corporate health plan.
Yumekui Merry episode five is brought to you by... Citroën and Toyota! Maybe?
Code Geass, some sort of Railgun anime thing and Angel Beats (from what I've been told!) had those blatant deals with Pizza Hut, perhaps JC Staff are getting a cut from automakers! It's genius!
Then again who needs cars when you're someone like Merry who can just jump and glide around? And for that matter, would you need cars at all in the dream world? Can dream daemons even apply for drivers licences?
I really should have got into Angel Beats more to satisfy my current obsession with purple. Then again, should I be basing what I watch on... a colour?! I'm sensing a potential anime niche blog idea!
So I made the mistake this evening of clicking on a link someone sent me to the Sydney Morning Herald website. Hey look, 0% interest on credit cards!
Under the heading of Compare and Save in the footer area of most articles on the SMH website, there's a heading encouraging us to check out 0% interest payments as a solution to our Christmas woes. There are so many things wrong with that, but I'll leave the other ethical and philosophical discussions to other fine weblog author folks ;).
Balance transfers
Recover from Christmas with credit - 0%!
Compare all Credit Cards
Upon clicking said link you're presented with a page at SMH Money that includes a series of credit cards based on their balance transfers. Sure enough, as advertised there is a credit card advertised by The World's Local Bank that carries a 0% balance transfer rate.
Well, it almost carries a 0% balance transfer rate. Turns out its only good for six months, which the initial advertisement didn't mention, not even with one of those dodgy asterisks followed by footer print that's barely readable or in a language non-financial folk can understand.
But it gets better! After that six month period, the interest skyrockets to a whopping 21.99%, which is higher than any of the other cards on the SMH site. Also higher than all but one of the cards is its general interest rate of 17%. Owies.
I wrote a long-winded post about Citibank's dodgy late night advertising on balance transfers back in 2008 (Misleading late night Citibank commercials). Suffice to say, I consider it a form of predatory lending. All that enticing, low rate, limited time balance transfer rates do is lock people into even higher rates of interest in the future.
... I'd say it's below the Sydney Morning Herald's standards of journalistic integrity to place such false advertising on their pages. Journalistic integrity, you know, that stuff they and their colleagues at other print publications are always accusing us online interweb folks of not having! I guess I'm not pretending to be a journalist with such ethics here, I'm just a developer who rambles on incessantly about things he thinks he knows or that he has an opinion on. Like how pouring custard on a grilled cheese sandwich is an interesting if thoroughly disgusting idea.
I haven't lived back in Australia to know the finer points of the law here regarding false and/or misleading advertising, and I suspect I've only pointed out one of a litany of examples you've all seen on a regular basis and got used to, but it still kinda pisses me off. Banks suck, and media companies that promote them are willing accessories to misleading the public.
While attempting to find information on the dietary requirements of dust bunnies, I came across perhaps the most epic website of all time.
Firstly, may I say, just straight off the bat, out of left field, out of nowhere, right off the cuff, putting it out there, shouting out loud, mentioning in passing, that I've never been that dusty before. That is enough dust to cover someone from head to toe, or toe to head as the case may be. In this case it could be both, judging from the degree of dust coverage.
Needless to say, that's a lot of dust, and I've never had so much on me before personally. Dust is fairly soft I've been lead to believe, but from experience I can attest to the fact the stuff contains a fairly high degree of materials that cause me convulsions of the nasal cavity. That's what a sneeze is, right?
To think it causes that with just a small amount thrown into the air from vigorous activity like vacuuming or dusting, if I were covered from head to toe as this poor gentleman is I'd be sneezing so violently and regularly I'd probably start setting off security alarms in cars parked around the block.
Fortunately through the use of some Dustless Technologies, our friend Darren here seems to be dust free which is a tremendous relief. I hear its really hard to wash and keep dust clean, easier to just not have it I've always thought.
If you're all alone
With dust on 'ur phone
Who ya gonna call?
Go Dustless!
I digress, but some of this stuff on the Dustless Technologies website is pretty cool. Their flagship product appears to be a vaccum cleaner device you can attach to hardware such as angle grinders. That way, while you're... grinding... the dust and splinters that are generated get sucked into the vaccum cleaner instead of going into the air that you're breathing as you're dong this stuff.
My personal favourite, because of the name, is the DustBuddie:
The DustBuddie Dust Shroud captures up to 99% of the dust created by a hand grinder – before it escapes into the air. Designed to be used with the Dustless Wet Dry Vacuum, this dust control shroud fits most hand grinders and is quick and easy to install. With its brush skirt, adjustable height, and removable front lip, the DustBuddie performs smoothly and accurately.
See, I go to their website and have every intention of just talking about a guy covered in dust, but I end up talking about their products. Shrewd geniuses. They even have a link which at this stage I have no choice but to include now, you see.
This is the third time I've mentioned industrial cleaning product on this site, for no reason.