How very true. I think you have to have done customer support recently (within six months) to be mentally grounded in what the day-to-day of is really like. I tell people, "Customer support is where every issue ends up that QA, New Product Development, Sustaining Engineering, and Documentation failed to catch. It's where every corner case goes to die."

I'm not sure it's wholly accurate, but I use it as a starting point for discussing the topic.

How funny you should pick the 10% figure.

You'd think so, right? Apparently, that enterprise is run like any other. The Wire did a decent job of portraying its day-to-day.

I talked to someone who worked in a small Hollywood production company, and asked him about the preponderance of high-quality heavyweight fictional drama in the 2000's (pardon me if I list these together -- Deadwood, Buffy, Battlestar Galactica, etc). He felt that The Sopranos was the series that led this off, and I have a vague sense that the release of that show corresponded temporally to a change in the color and quantity of synthetic gravitas in both real and fictional mass media.

Was TV content a lot less heavy across the board prior to The Sopranos? Was it coincidence, or did it really change the balance of content, and the news sources you mention are examples of that change?

You thought that was creepy? It looks like Target gets predictive cyberstalking right.

Anyone trying to put a bill through like this should be able to answer this question first. Preferably in essay form, and then present something comparable to a thesis defense.

Oddly enough, I've been using an Alphasmart Dana -- 2-week battery life on 3 AA batteries, and about $40 used on ebay. Just make sure you IR-beam or sync the data to a computer before the battery runs out or you can lose everything. Working well for me so far for just taking notes. That, plus an audio recorder on the podium works well.

Some banks have floated the idea of it being almost an exact opposite. Interesting point about the disadvantaged being less able to make rational decisions possibly for other reasons than you'd think, assuming the mentioned research and conclusions hold in comparable situations.

The underpants gnomes were working way too hard.

1. As the relieved father of a young woman who has finally made it into her twenties

2. Identify target market

3. I could do with a book about awful stuff happening to horny teenage boys with adams apples and their parents' cars who are always hanging around trying to get daughters to go to parties at the homes of absent parents.

4. Write a book that can be as bad as a cheap romance novel and still appeal to your target market

5. I may have to check out these books.

6. Profit!

This case happened a while ago; any comparable non-tech companies that have a similar story to tell?