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When I was hired to sell hi-fi almost 20 years ago, I figured I knew my stuff and I knew audiophiles. How hard could selling good gear be? I wondered. Phenomenally hard, it turned out. I began to learn how to sell and the crux of it wasn't trickery or fast-talk, but actually listening to what people wanted (and, granted, sometimes hearing stuff they weren't actually saying).
I offer this website because: 1) It contains a lot of good information and 2) It contains a lot of effective information, some of which you need to be aware of in order to resist scam-ish blandishments.
In the…
Set your irony scanner to high and read about the kerfluffle involving the MPAA making copies of a film submitted for a rating. Even better, if the film maker sues, the MPAA's defense will probably hinge on whether or not it intended to sell it. Does that mean if they argue successfully that intent to profit is the definition of piracy that we can make copies too if we promise not to sell them?
Bwah hah hah hah hah!
More from Ars Technica.
And at the LA Times.
Great, readable essay by William Gibson on the season that changed his life. He has some fascinating thoughts on H.G. Wells that have made me want to dip back into that writer's work.
Here's an article from USA Today about vendors selling fully loaded iPods on eBay. Is this a legitimate fair use issue? My gut reaction is no—if vendors were selling loaded iPods for market value or used value, it might not trip my BS detector. But when you are charging several hundred bucks extra for the 11,000 songs you've loaded on the iPod, it seems to me that you've crossed that fair use line in the sand—we've established what you are and now we're just negotiating price.
Your thoughts?
If we were late, we didn't care. An elevator showed us out onto a floor where people gathered round a table blanketed in champagne and wine. We made our way, and caught attention.
"I'll have a glass of that."
"A glass of that?"
"Yes."
"Here you go."
"And one more, please."
"Another?"
"Yes."
"Here you go."
"Thank you."
We took our glasses of white into the dark and crowded room. People swayed and stumbled, looking to discover the few empty seats that remained along the far walls and others that were lost within the circles and rows. We would…
Over at NewScientist, there's an article on an alternate gravity theory called scalar-tensor-vector gravity (STVG), which seems to have an edge on Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). Which one meshes best with the data? Why the one that contains quantum, of course! Well, kinda sorta.
Researchers do say that STVG explains how Pioneer 10 ended up 400,000km off course, whereas MOND can't.
Parts is parts you say? They don't make 'em like these any more.
Via Boing-Boing.
You simply have to read "The Peekaboo paradox," a fantastic piece of writing by Gene Weingarten. (It's long, so you might prefer to print it out and save it for later.) It conforms to a formula I admiringly call The New Yorker paradigm, in which a writer introduces you to a subject you think you don't have much interest in (in this case a children's party entertainer) and makes it fascinating. Then you discover that the real story is so much deeper and compelling than you could have ever imagined.
You can only do that if you totally own the story and if you have serious writer's chops—both…