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Mind-control Oreos

Free will and its supposed limitations.

October 15, 2013 at 5:33PM

(The Minnesota Star Tribune)

We've moved into the latter half of October now, cool and wet. Days like this makes you regret having a ten-day outlook on your weather app. The 60s are gone and they're not coming back.

Well, any year when you can hold off turning the furnace on before property taxes are due is acceptable. So there's that.

YO HO HO People scratch their heads over movie and music piracy, searching for the reasons why people do it. Perhaps because it's like shoplifting in an empty store? WaPo:

Well, maybe. I don't think there are many people out there who really, really want to see "Pacific Rim" tonight, can't find a digital rental anywhere, and decided "that's it, I've been driven into the shadowy bazaars of Torrent Country." One comment says there are three kids of pirates: the people who will never pay for anything ever period good day sir; the people who think digital purchases are overpriced, and a third boring reason that rails against the greedy media companies.

Greedy, as ever, means charging more than I want to pay.

But is Hollywood to blame, really? In a way. It's not that the pricing is wrong, it's that the pricing makes no sense. Five bucks to rent from your TV. One dollar from the machine in the grocery store. Of course, you pay more for convenience, but the knowledge that something is worth a buck over there in one format makes you likely to think it doesn't have to be five, over here, in another.

(The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Also from "The Switch," which is the WaPo's Techblog: A few years ago they'd be calling this a "smart shelf," back when that word was in vogue. It's a shelf that senses what you've picked up and pitches you a commercial, based on its scan of your head.

Let's look at the assumptions buried in that last sentence. 1. Junk food should be resisted. If you're a healthy-living time who abhors Doritos, sure, that's how you see the world. If you don't care, and regard "junk food" as one of the dependable pleasures in life, then the idea of some stringbean with pursed lips tell you to resist those Doritos is not only annoying, but another example of the busybody betters you've dealt with all your life. 2. People who are on the cusp of buying junk food, struggling with their fading will, will be pushed over the edge by a targeted ad. As opposed to, say, your desire to buy the product is reinforced by the offer of a coupon, in which case you've made a rational decision based on value. 3. "Almost certain to make it more difficult" isn't exactly one of those assertions you can measure against an objective standard.

Here's the headline for the piece:

Really? ME? What if I don't think it's creepy? What if I think it's an interesting experiment in marketing that will either capture the consumer's fancy, or, more likely, irritate people to the point where the units are disabled or the store avoided?

Here's the subhead of the piece: "And it involves using Microsoft's Kinect sensor to make you buy more Oreos." Ahem. No one can make you buy Oreos at all. No corporation, however powerful or enormous, no matter how big their advertising budget or marketing strategy, can make you buy cookies. It's called Free Will.

Anyway, you want creepy? Here's creepy, from Cracked.

WAR The war in Syria - remember that? - has been broadcast on YouTube, beneath the notice of the mainstream media. The FSA seems to specialize in videos of their guys getting shot, for some reason. Here's something from Syrian TV. You've seen those videos where the reporter's doing a stand-up, and someone jumps around and makes faces in the background, or runs up and hugs the reporter, or otherwise disrupts a live broadcast? Well:

MOVIES Sly and Arnie are in a movie together. Finally. But it's not like no one's tried before.

No mention of "Stop Or My Mother Will Shoot," which would suggest Stallone doesn't have the most discriminating taste in scripts. Then again, the new script seems to have it right; for a while they punch each other and then they team up and punch other people. When you see "Story by" in the credits, that's what it means. They had to bring in a story doctor to add a twist - at the end, the bad guy comes back to life and can only be vanquished when Sly and Arnie punch him at the same time. That's the stroke-of-genius moment that earns a fellow the long green.