Avaktavyam

Standford has put up an exhibit on cigarette advertisements. It is unbelievable what the tobacco industry fed people. I am particularly amazed at the number of vague claims made. For instance: “from the report of a well-known research organization…”, “what distinguished doctors found…”. If the institution is so “well-known”, then why [...]

Executive Summary: On November 28, 2007, I put in a request through CatalogChoice.org to stop receiving Pier 1’s catalogs. I visited Catalog Choice’s site on January 25th to find that Pier 1 refused my request. In effect, Pier 1 is refusing to collaborate with Catalog Choice. When I complained to Pier 1, the CSR told me that Pier 1 accepts requests to stop receiving their catalog only through the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) or if contacted directly but not through Catalog Choice. In my opinion, this clearly shows that Pier 1 has decided to adopt aggressive practices when it comes to advertising to potential customers.

Chris Anderson, editor at Wired, claims that print publishing does not emit more carbon than web publishing. I find his analysis extremely unconvincing. I am noting here some of the problems with his analysis and also with a Swedish study he claims supports his conclusions.

Paulo Coelho has shown that giving away intellectual content for free helps boost sales and in the end help boost profits. It is a matter of visibility: a product has to be visible before people will want to buy it. DRM and unreasonable pricing both are obstacles to visibility and ultimately hurt profits.

Nude buttocks may cost ABC $1.4 million - Yahoo! News
Now I can sleep peacefully knowing that the FCC is hard at work preventing asses from getting on TV. Hmm… wait! How come Fox News is still broadcasting?

Hubert Guillaud noted in a post titled Perplexité des éditeurs face au numérique that a study reports that book publishers still do not know how to handle the digital revolution. (The actual study is a pdf file.) I will here quote two passages of the study and offer my reaction.

By and large, professors [...]

Robert, yesterday you shot and killed 8 people in a mall in Nebraska. The report from the Associated Press notes:

Eight people were killed and five wounded before the shooter ended the horror by taking his own life. He left behind a note that read, in part, “Now I’ll be famous.”

I don’t think you thought [...]

The TV is on this morning while I’m preparing to go out. A few minutes ago, CBS’ Julie Chen presented a report on the horrific case of the murder of Riley Ann Sawyers. What horrors humans are capable of truly boggles the mind. For sure the media should report about such incidents. [...]

I’ve recently watched an episode of a series called Exposé. This specific episode showed serious lapses in how airport security is currently implemented. The producers called that episode “Security Theater” with good reason, since, as demonstrated in the episode, the security currently implemented at airports is more for show than for real. [...]

A few days ago, I finally posted my belated reaction to the AAP’s position on a possible government mandate to make all articles published from publicly funded research freely available to the general public. I was not aware at the time but some reactions to the AAP’s position had already been published when I [...]