critical thinking – Page 17

consumers strike back

1-866-879-5172 has been calling for months, off & on and at all hours. It’s a telemarketing and contact centre called Minacs, or Aditya Birla Minacs. Spammy, evil robots. Enough is enough. Here’s how you can affect them back:

– If you have a website of your own, like a blog, post the phone number, Minac‘s full company name, and a few words like “spammer” and “evil”.
– save and publish the post.
– write another post with the number and company name and the same words and link each of the key words to the first post (and vice versa if you want to take the time to edit again).

Google will then associate all those words, and if enough of us do it anyone who searches their company name will see exactly what they have been doing to all of us. Our complaints will show up even before their own website in web searches. Then they can explain to their clients why everyone hates them and refuses to answer the phone when they call. Suddenly they have no more business and we win.

It works, though you should avoid mentioning Google in your post, seeing as Google is no doubt aware of the Googlebomb phenomenon since the glory days of “George Bush is an ass” and is probably keeping an eye out for their own name in this sort of post.

By all means, pass this on to everyone you know.

batman gone bad. very sad.

critical thinking, random

Oh Mr Batman. You have lost the plot.

Original (because it’s funnier if you start with this one.):

Remixed (the payoff):

It sounds like the DP wandered across the background during a take, which would be the best I could say in Bale’s defence. It blows the take, and can pull an actor right out of the moment. The DP should have all the details squared away by the time the camera rolls. If, on the other hand, the DP were cruising the set during a rehearsal, then not only is the DP within his right, it’s his JOB to triple check the lighting and Bale should expect that sort of last minute quality proofing from a professional.

Bale, obviously, is way offside here. There’s no doubt in my mind this will affect his career. And I think that’s exactly as it should be. I don’t think the prima donna effect is acceptable behaviour. In a production the size of T4 there would be well over a hundred people on the team any given day, and everybody has to work together. The talent just happens to be the part of the team on the other side of the camera. Everybody has bad days, but we are expected to conduct ourselves professionally. And that’s it.