The problem I see here is a narrow idea of what a 'perk' can be.

Typically office environments are over regulated, and antagonistic managers use things humans *naturally need*...random breaks, flexible hours, snack food, wearing hawaiian shirts, etc. and turn them into a *commodity for you to earn.*

Its part of the archaic business model we all struggle against.

As a former employee, I'd definitely take the *cash* over gamed-out 'perks'...

However, as a current employer, I'd like to defend the idea of a 'perk' from those who despise the notion....

See, businesses have **economy of scale**

We can buy things in bulk...including things our employees wouldn't otherwise be able to afford on their own.

To me, as a business owner, THIS is a perk....a non-compensatory benefit that you get b/c you work for me.

Food, drinks, etc. are all in this category, but that's really minor league perks. If a division leader has a budget for stuff to help employee morale, a wise use of it would maximize the economy of scale and wholesale access...not just get a discount on pizza (although that's nice too sometimes)

ex: when I was a snowboarding instructor, one of our 'perks' was that the managers would let us buy as much as we wanted off of their 'pro form' from their corporate sponsors. Which means snowboarding gear at 50% of *wholesale*....that was a fskign 'perk'...and it helped our performance as employees!

Most biz perks are just gaming out your needs and using it as a carrot/stick...

how is there a discussion over whether parent is trolling?

this concerns me as a /. mod...

I know that when Hollywood is involved it brings out the fanboi bots but this is starting to get out of control.

Parent's post is exactly what a /. post should be. It takes a position, assumes a level of nerd-knowledge for the reader, is succinct, and has support for its claims.

heh...and of course he didn't reference TFA...so this is definitely not a 'troll' comment...

Alot of the comments claiming he is trolling however...some of those are PR bots...mods be aware

http://www.chromium.org/Home [chromium.org]

You're welcome

See, this isn't a response...and it sure as siht isn't a 'zinger' or a 'witty retort'

so the hell what, Cromium exists? That does not answer parent's point at all...

in fact, it actually proves you wrong and him right, if anything, b/c the link was to a Google product's homepage. exactly the kind of useless information the parent was bemoaning...

jeez way to prove his point for him

fine, here:

"Assad's regime is part of a centuries-old supply chain supported by oil money from BP(English Crown) and Royal Dutch Shell ('royal' is in the name) going back to the 1600s when the Aristocracy was not hiding behind legal companies.

For another instructive look at how this works, examine the life of Reza Shah. He did function as leader, but what concerns us is his status as **stooge for the oil interests**. His ideology is secondary...it's about what he will do with the oil.

Do tell how the Assad family is descended from the Ottoman Empire.

That's not what I meant and I think you know it. You saw the grammar flaw and wanted to show how smart you are.

The Ottoman Empire is related to all of this of course, depending on what era of history we're discussing. The relationships changed over time as technology developed, markets opened, different leaders, etc. But the point that a Global Aristocracy is manipulating these events on a long time scale is not proven or disprove on your question.

Assad's regime is supported by oil money from BP(English Crown) and Royal Dutch Shell ('royal' is in the name) going back to the 1600s when the Aristocracy was not hiding behind legal companies.

The oil comes from Iran and Syria and gets loaded onto boats in a port on the Mediterranean in Syria then sails to points west including your gas tank.

The whole premise of "artificial intelligence" being a "thing" that we "acheive" by a certain date (be it in relation to processor development or not)...it's bunk. Hokus Pokus. Used-car salesman terminology to describe basic computation and programming.

Points 3-5 ring especially true from where I sit as a researcher and former network engineer. Everything is a 'network' at some level. Adding more nodes and calling it 'neural' doesn't mean you've invented the wheel. It's just terminology describing a machine programed with input.

There is no 'singularity' of artificial intelligence, because the concept itself is abstract language to describe programed machine responses. It's *humans* like Kurzweil (whom I respect greatly) who add the **emotional** stuff to the concept and then try to call it something **new**...like a **salesman**

There may be a singularity-type event when all humans all over the world have a free persistent connection to the internet. That would be something...but it would be just a digital extention of the existing, geography-limited current social network of humans!

what in my comment (you just quoted the whole thing...be more specific if you expect a response) woud indicate otherwise?

sell branded products or knockoffs of same.

no...unless 'squid' or 'apple' is a brand...and the clothes...they weren't 'brands' either

you're one of the people that's ruining American business with your lack of understanding. Your error is you label any human communication 'marketing'. Human behavior is much more complex and cannot be predicted by 'marketing' tactics.

Yes, things that have alot of marketing sometime sell alot, and sometimes they bomb. Yes, if you **hit the customer over the head** until they have an Aneurism, yeah...by the law of averages, you might make your margins...especially if you can limit their choices in alternatives. This is **NOT** business thinking...this is exploitation. You're an idiot if you don't see the difference.

Your problem is caused by a mixture of unearned hubris and ignorance. you have no concept of how money is made. you're a perpetual employee...underling employee

get me a cup of

The backlash is from nerds who have had to confront the fact they are easily entertained...comic is *awesome* and is obviously 'art'

He probably made a full frame 5 minute animated short movie using high-level animation software then saved it as a .gif

With a few tweaks he could write a program to update the comic page with the new frame

selling X at price Y to someone who needs X and is willing to spend price Y...that's **as easy as falling off a log**

don't underestimate how hard it is to sell any product, even a very good one.....because it requires a lot of resources to convince people to buy something.

It is hard. But you didn't hit why. People LOVE buying things. It is competing **independently** in a gamed-out large corporate dominated environment.

Take an Asian market (mine is in Korea b/c i lived there for a year)...so much commerce happens in Asian open-air style markets. Billions of transactions. Virtually **zero** marketing...why? It isn't necessary because humans naturally exchange resources. It's part of our social/tribal nature evolved into fiat currency.

And humans will always need resources. Marx's theories are instructive here.

No, it is hard b/c our government sets the rules of the game, and the big players have games out every possible avenue of decision control and applied their MBA project management bullshit to it...it's done. Now we watch it play out and hit the margins where we can.

2. A second (some might say the more salient) reason why marketing budgets are so huge is American business philosophy is dumb and run like a casino. The going idea is 'perception is reality.'

If they can make you think you're getting a quality product, what does it matter if they cut corners? Sure this is good sense to a point, but as I said above, it has been gamed-out to the Nth degree and human needs are (as shown by history) typically secondary to short-term profit.

America (and by default the global economy) is a hucksters game...people shilling cheap junk. Business doesn't *have* to be this way, but government must provide incentives in the direction of long-term investment and consumers must have a free press to educate them.

Is that how hard up for "news" this site has gotten?

yeah, I thought it was interesting...the company is borderline criminal, almost certainly Republican-linked, and should have learned from Anon pwned that security company last year.

I don't read or comment at reddit.com, but in spite of its 'all AC all the time' quality I still visit the site. I checked out Obama's 'AMA' and a few odds and ends.

I did visit a few 'sub-reddits' (dumb name) once to get some design ideas and it helped but the comments were weeks apart.

Both reddit and 4chan and w/e else the kids use these days is worth noting on issues like free speech/Republitard legal trolling.

Where's Tim's outrage at the wholesale corporatization of his creation???

The fact that Tim Berhners-Lee isn't setting his hair on fire over this is telling. He should at least speak out against it in an Op/Ed or on a blog post. Fuck a tweet...anything.

IMHO, TBL did not 'create the internet' and does not speak for those interested in an open internet with cross-platform standards.

as in National Rifle Association. It's not about gun safety/open internet standards...it's about corporate $$$

The W3C is the general 'tech industry' representative in this fight. I know that technically of course W3C is a non-profit, but their statements and general position on DRM and HTML5 (which **W3C opposed, remember?) show they are practically working for teleco's and 'content providers'

If it wasn't for WHATWG as an alternative working group HTML5 would not exist. And CSS3 would still be in trial fucking beta.

Ditch the W3C. They are trolls in this discussion.

Ditch the DRM notions while you're at it.

Did they lack funding? What's the deal?

They suck at space. Space is a bitch of a place to try to do business. Operational decisions **must** be made by engineers and astronauts...not businesspeople or actuarial risk analysts.

First, I was happy to see SS1, but it was also sad. Why? It was 40's technology dressed up with plastic and circle windows. SS1 was mostly **hype**

2. SS1 was a C- business concept at best. Hype aside, people need stuff in space, so even though we all knew SS1 was kinda silly, we figured it would be the first of many (progreessively better) companies. It would *start a trend* so we endured and played along with the hype.

The progress never happened. Why? Geeks have great concepts but there is a disconnect between the concept and the execution. All the innovation gets stripped when you let sub-moronic 'investors' make the operational decisions.

Solution: We must speak with a united voice at what needs to happen next in space. No singularity bullshit. No ridiculously expensive missions to 'find life'...no...fuck that shit. We go to asteroids and the moon and we *fucking mine that shit*

mining = money = more spaceflight

I am embarrassed that we are celebrating this...it's like a grown man celebrating learning to ride a bicycle. Our space technology has regressed.

I know it's a trope for some, but I have to mention the X planes we had that achieved LEO in the 50s...**and** they took off and landed properly, on wheels...like a lady.

Yeah, we killed those planes.

Now we have the Air Force's space drone...which has got to be an insult to real astronauts who could certainly, easily pilot a full-size version of our space drone.

We **could** have a space plane **right now** but NASA beuracracy and their ridiculous 'risk management' proceedures that take human ability and decision out of the loop completely.

anger!