Thursday Tube: A fine assortment
Missed the last Tuesday Tube? Head over to the tag search for ‘tuesday tube’ and browse through the archives.
Just a general mash up of interesting tubes. Sorry I’m late, it’s been a busy week.
Metronomes sync themselves up.
RiffTrax takes on one of those fan-produced
Star Trek episodes. Talk about shooting fish in a barrel…
This guy is some sort of quasi-nerd who loves QBasic.
I didn’t really understand a couple of these optical illusions.
Adolf Hitler is a Reds fan. Who knew?
And now, a two part Wendy’s training video.
I wish I could find the marble in the oatmeal…
This is a neat trick.
This is the world’s most annoying toy.
This is the world’s most annoying sound.
This is the world’s most annoying wrestling fan.
SOO-PER DRAG-GONE clap clap clapclapclap
Speedlinking, May 23rd, 2008
Speedlinking is yet another tool of the lazy blogger. Basically I smash together a bunch of interesting links that I collect every so often, and write a sentence or two about them.
This week’s Speedlinking is being brought to you courtesy of the useful Instapaper website, which I’ve been using to temporarily bookmark the below links.
- Remember that Javascript FPS? Try JavaScript Super Mario Kart.
- Everything you love, you owe to capitalism.
- Flatwire allows you to hide your wiring without drilling or wall-fishes or anything like that.
- I want one of these.
- Finally, kill yourself.
Laws of Marketing 4: Perception
I’ve picked up a book called The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries & Jack Trout, and I’m blogging a summary of each chapter.
Chapter 4. The Law of Perception
Marketing is not a battle of products, it’s a battle of perception.
This chapter is a bit existential, and at times it seemed rather silly to see in a marketing book. Points such as:
- There is no objective reality
- All truth is relative
- Most people think they are better perceivers than everyone else
- People project to cope with being alone in the universe
The basic point is this: purchasing decisions are not based entirely on objective facts. The reasons for this are rooted in psychology, but it boils down to people being unique, having unique opinions, and have unique perspectives. Slap different logos on the exact same product, and you won’t necessarily get a 50-50 spread in choices. Put the same logo on two different flavors of soda and people will tell you there’s a difference between the flavors.
But whether or not perception actually is reality, a marketer should behave as if it is.
Balance your checkbook with Microsoft Access
Does anyone use cash or write checks anymore? I know that some do, but it’s soooo last century to do so.
I’ve been using debit cards almost exclusively for every purchase I make since around 2003 (my first real job). Essentially I’m writing electronic checks with a debit card, so let me show you how I “balance my checkbook”, and how handy it is to do so.
1. Make a purchase. I always make sure to get a receipt. This is the key. Keep your receipts, and make sure anyone else who uses your account keeps their receipts (your wife). When you get home, put the receipts on your desk (or someplace you won’t forget about them).
2. Enter your receipts into your check balancing program. I use a custom Microsoft Access database because it’s perfect for this type of activity. Put in the amount, date, descrition, etc. More about the Access database in a later post.
3. Visit your bank’s website. Match any cleared transactions in the bank to the transactions in your database, and vice versa. Enter correcting entries if necessary, or call the bank or establishment to dispute duplicates, incorrect amounts, etc.
4. Check the current balance of your database and the current balance on the web site. Do they match? Done. If not, go back to step 3.
So, great. You have “balanced your checkbook”. But here’s a bonus for you: if you are using your debit card for most or all of your purchases, you now have an Access database which contains detailed information about every penny you’ve spent! You can run reports, get information to itemize your taxes, estimate a budget, etc.
I will upload an Access file that you can use in a future post and give you instructions on how to use it. I’ve been using it for years, and it’s been incredibly valuable for me.
Tuesday Tube: Footlongs
Missed the last Tuesday Tube? Head over to the tag search for ‘tuesday tube’ and browse through the archives.
Five. Five dollar. Five dollar footloooong.
Please note a couple of these videos may not b e safe for children or anyone with any sense of decency.
Subway commercial.
Anime version.
Here’s…another version.
Here’s the voice talent behind the commercial.
I think we all know where this has to go…
And that leads to this video.
Finally, Dr. Robotnik takes us home!
ROMs of the week
This week’s ROMs of the week are once again two NES games: Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers and Super Dodge Ball.
“Okay”, you’re asking, “Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers? Seriously?”
Yes, seriously. Despite the deservedly horrible reputation of licensed games, Disney has got it right on many occassions: DuckTales, Kingdom Hearts, Mickey Mousecapades, and Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers.
This game is a co-op platformer. It’s like a combination of Contra and Mario. It’s fun, has good level design, and has great Capcom music–very Megaman-esque.
You can find it somewhere on the web to download, I’m sure.
Super Dodge Ball is a great game. It’s part of the Kunio-kun series of games, which you might know for River City Ransom, Renegade, Nintendo World Cup, and Crash ‘n the Boys. They didn’t really form a coherent franchise in the US, but there are a ton of Japanese games in this series.
Bean ball was one of my favorite game types from Super Dodge Ball. It’s a free-for-all similar to ball tag that I used to play during recess in middle school. Except that, you know, if I lost, I didn’t turn into an angel and fly away. This game also has catchy music.
I’m sure it’s out there somewhere on the internet to download.
Brand Tags
What does a brand mean to you?
Look at a brand logo and think of the first word that comes to mind. Now have a hundred other people do the same thing.
That is what brand tags is.
“The basic idea of this site is that a brand exists entirely in people’s heads. Therefore, whatever it is they say a brand is, is what it is.”
Each brand has its own tag cloud. This site has potential to be gamed, of course, but I think the idea is pretty cool, and it doesn’t really look like it’s being gamed too much. Here are some examples of the biggest words in a tag cloud.
- NPR: boring, liberal, news, radio, smart
- Coke: classic, coke, drink, red, refreshing, soda, sugar, sweet
- Pepsi: coke, cola, drink, not coke, refreshing, soda, sugar, sweet
- GE: electric, electricity, light, lightbulb, old
I don’t know about you, but I can see some validation for the laws of marketing in here.
Insurance or insulation?
Do you have health insurance, or do you have health insulation?
Insurance protects against risk, it isn’t meant to insulate against costs. Kling (above link), advocates that instead of the current health “insurance” that most people have, Americans should use tax exempt HSAs in combination with cheap, high deductible insurance for catastrophic/unforseen health issues.
In this way, you would pay (entirely) for your own routine/chronic health expenses (flu, cough, cold, checkups, etc). If you get cancer, or lose a limb, or even get pregnant (anything uncommon), you pay a high deductible to cover it with insurance.
Compare that to the current system, which is “insurance” for everything. What ends up happening is a version of the agency problem with misaligned incentives. If a patient has insurance, the doctor could recommend whatever they want, since they know it will be paid for largely by the insurance company. The patient has no incentive not to do what the doctor recommends, since they are far insulated from the real cost.
The end result is stifling of efficiency, waste of resources and perhaps even worse.
“For health care providers, insulation is a bonanza. Because consumers are not spending their own money, they accept doctors’ recommendations for services without questioning them and without concern for cost.”
From an anecdotal perspective, I can see this happening to me everytime I go to the doctor. Hundreds and thousands are being spent on services, but I only care about the $20 deductible. You might ask, why wouldn’t you do what a doctor recommends? This isn’t an economic problem, but an educational one. Consumers need better information and more openness from health care providers to make better decisions about what is necessary and what isn’t.
Tuesday Tube: Carvel ice cream
Missed the last Tuesday Tube? Head over to the tag search for ‘tuesday tube’ and browse through the archives.
Carvel ice cream is some sort of east coast phenomena, so I had no idea what Dana Snyder and Ken Plume were referencing on the latest episode of the Ken P. D. Syndecast.
So I went out and found some Tom Carvel narrated Carvel commercials.
Notice that a lot of these designs are strangely similar. That’s because Carvel would use the same set of a few cake molds and simply rotate them and use different colors and call it a new “character”.
Among some of the staple characters are Fudgie the Whale, Hug Me the Bear, and Cookie Puss, the latter of which is truly the stuff of nightmares.
Fudgie the Whale, for instance, was rotated and used for an Easter Bunny, a leprechaun, or Santa Claus.
While he owned the company, Tom Carvel would do the narration for the commercials with his comically raspy voice.
Here’s Cookie O’Puss, which is just Cookie Puss recolored for St. Patrick’s Day. Warning, once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
