The Logic and Savings of Fuelperks! Promotions

Perhaps in your travels you have seen the fuelperks! promotion that is at many gas stations and supermarkets these days. Every gas station seems to have some kind of free gas rewards system, and in my area, they each have their own supermarket discount buddy. Holiday has Cub Foods, BP/Amoco has Rainbow, and Super America plays the town bicycle and honors any and all competing coupons.

The usual deal in these promotions is “for every $50 you spend on food at X store, you get 10¢ off per gallon of fuel up to X gallons.” This seems like a good deal. After all, groceries are a necessity expense, so why not take advantage of benefits given on a necessary expense? Would I benefit from this deal?

Well, I checked it out. I have two BP stations within a mile (0.7) of my house, yet the nearest Rainbow Foods (savings on up to 20 gallons) is 2.5 miles away. The nearest Cub Foods (savings on up to 12 gallons), where I buy my food now, is 2.6 miles away, but the nearest Holiday station is 1.6 miles away. The nearest Super America is 2.1 miles away.

Goodness, I love Google Maps. Twenty bucks if you can triangulate my address from that info.

This is important because my van gets, on a good day, about 11 miles to the gallon in the city. A round trip to Rainbow and BP is 6.4 miles. A round trip to Cub and Holiday is 8.4 miles. At $2.65 a gallon and rising, (and with the maximum I can save being $2 a fill-up) I barely break even. I usually spend $85/trip on a grocery run, and I do two runs a month.


Is all the running around just to save a few extra cents worth it? Is learning where all the food is in a Rainbow store worth it? Is Rainbow food cheaper than Cub food? Are the cashiers there as cute? These are all the questions I don’t need to answer by not participating in the promotion.

So what about you? Do you take advantage of any sweet promotion deals where you live?


_DZ

Desktop Colors, Productivity, and Useful Information

I found this article in Wednesday’s Minneapolis Sun-Herald.

“A new study by the American Computer Learning Society, the nations leading body on researching how to optimally use the personal computer in everyday life, reports that displaying a solid color on a computer’s desktop results in increased productivity for the user. While the current trend is to post a personal photo or “wallpaper” as a background image, researcher Laura Beechersmith says that this is a less-than-ideal situation for both private users and employers alike.

Says Beechersmith, “Since nearly the inception of the computer desktop, people have liked to put a picture of their kid, pet, favorite vacation destination or whatever as the backdrop for their personal computing. What we’re finding is that not only do people who have these customized wallpapers spend less time being productive, they also spend more time on things that should matter way less than they do.”

Beechersmith notes that those who like having control over their desktops are more often to browse the Internet in search of fresh images to display, and are 20% more likely to engage in idle, non-work-related conversation with their co-workers than those who just have a single, solid color as their background. In a widespread study that concluded last month, blue was seen as the best color to set a desktop background to in order to increase productivity.

“Employers would be wise to take note that solid colors result in more productivity and to likewise develop their workplace computing guidelines accordingly,” notes Ezra Gould, one of Beechersmith’s colleagues. “This could be as easy as a bulletin on a public board or as intensive as visual checks of each workstation.”

Public reception has understandably been mixed. Says local resident and employee of Three-Angle Computing Solutions Ashley Carrey, “I think it’s a big deal that this research might have an impact on my employers decision about computing in the workplace. I mean, I have a picture of my two sons playing baseball on my desktop, reminding me each day that I work hard so that they can have a better life. If that image were gone, my motivation would go down.”

Others seem completely fine with the change. Businessman Karl Simons of Uptown commented, “This will be great for my work. I have a guy who sits next to me all day who talks non-stop about how the Saints are the greatest football team in America, and how he is such a huge fan by having twenty different Saints wallpapers running on a rotation. Forcing him to have a solid color would save me countless headaches and no doubt increase productivity in my office.”

Whether yellow or blue, the research does seem to indicate that a solid color could certainly help productivity by decreasing distractions and helping the hardworking American concentrate on business at hand. Only time will tell if employers will heed the advice and take action in their workplaces.”

Pretty convincing, no?





Now, if you had done any Googling whatsoever of anything in the article, you would know that it is not a real article. The newspaper name is fake, the quotes are fake, and the research is fake. I wrote that article in fifteen minutes. So why bother writing it?

Because I want to make a point that not everything on the Internet is believable just because it looks good. Web design has come a long way in a very short time span, and having a good website with lots of information does not necessarily mean that it’s good information. In an age where we expect everything to be linked or cited, we often take such things for granted and don’t investigate the credibility of articles we may come across. I wrote this article in fifteen minutes - imagine what it could look like if someone was really intent on fooling you and was willing to put a lot more time and effort into it!

Investigate what you read!


_DZ

Second Life: Unlimited Ability to Create The Ordinary

The other day I watched a presentation by Linden Lab CEO and Second Life creator Philip Rosedale. Second Life, for those of you who don’t know, is a virtual world in which people interact with each other on a social and economic level much like, well, Real Life. Once you register an account in Second Life (SL from now on) you can create an avatar that represents you in the virtual world and in that world you can make friends, set up a business (or two!), attend social events, and even learn at an educational institution. In his talk Rosedale explained the motivation behind SL and the ideas he has for its future.

The first question he introduced was “why build a virtual world at all?” I say ‘introduced’ and not ‘addressed’ because, try as I might, I never found him directly answering this question. He instead took a round-about approach in which he gave some history of himself - how he was a creative kid who always wanted to build things - as well as his opinion on the purpose of the Internet.

Mr. Rosedale thinks that the ultimate use of said Internet is to simulate a world in which we have the unlimited potential to create. He thinks that everyone on earth has awesome ideas but is limited when it comes to actually realizing them. Second Life, then, is supposed to be a space where we can create without boundaries. Rosedale actually likened SL to outer space. Like outer space, he said, virtual worlds fascinate people because they allow us to reinvent ourselves. They allow us to begin again. And, like outer space, virtual worlds allow us to fantasize that maybe, just maybe, if we went far enough, we would find a place that will allow us to create a whole new identity. We truly have no idea what we will find if we travel far enough.

This perplexed me, because as I watched screenshots of SL pop up on the PowerPoint behind him, I saw nothing but objects and places that could easily be produced in the real world. A slice of watermelon. A Japanese-style outdoor boardwalk. A jazz bar complete with grand piano. If SL is supposed to be this awesome place where we can create anything, why are all the objects in it so familiar? Though space in SL is purportedly boundless and its world boasts 100 terabytes of user-created content (25,000 times bigger than World of Warcraft), why is it all familiar? Sure, I might run into something weird like a player avatar who has an internal combustion engine for a head, but an artist can draw that, can’t they? You don’t need a computer to display that creativity.

Maybe creativity isn’t the point. Maybe the point of SL is to bring people from all over the world together. SL claims to have a population of about 250,000 residents, all sharing information with one another. Rosedale says that virtual worlds, and SL in particular, are the best way for us to organize, share, remember, and experience information. He used the example of a common object, a chair. The web as we know it now presents information in the form of text and links, and maybe a few pictures. SL shifts everything to images. Creativity is expressed solely in graphic form. If I show you a picture of a chair instead of just telling you about it, you’re more likely to remember that I talked about a chair. And everyone, regardless of what language they speak, understands an iconic representation of a chair.

But what does this do to abstract thought? If I casually insert a chair into a story without elaborating about it in any way, you would conjure up an image of a chair in your head. Maybe it would be an image of your favorite chair at home, or a chair at Grandma’s house that you had fond memories of as a child. Or maybe the only chair that comes to mind is The Chair from the movie Juno. Regardless, you have now, on a cognizant level, interacted with my mention of a chair in a way that is meaningful to you. My description of a chair may be utterly forgettable, but your mental image will stick with you. Your ability to think abstractly has been enhanced.

Though SL features an interactive environment with 3d graphics and personal avatars, it is not a game. There is no way to win; there is no overarching goal to achieve. The point is simply to be social and creative. Because of this, SL has its own economy. Players are able to buy land from Linden Lab, set up shop, and sell virtual goods and services to other avatars. The SL currency, Linden Dollars, or L$, is able to be exchanged for real dollars at any time.

The existence of an economy makes sense when the point of the virtual world is to create. Rosedale points out that people who create want two things - fair ownership of their work and the ability to sell it. If the whole point of a virtual world is to provide an infinite playground in which to create, it is natural that an economy is right behind. When money comes into play however, things can go awry rather quickly. Pyramid schemes surface, adult entertainment runs rampant, and people have to be more wary of one another in general. Money corrupts the innocent and pure rather quickly.

Call me crazy, but I don’t think that Rosedale created Second Life with altruistic intent. People can create, sure, but they have to pay Linden Labs for that privilege. SL is a business just like any other online business. It creates content and tries to sell it to consumers as value. The rather utopian notion that people can be anything or anybody they want is refuted by the participants themselves who merely re-create the real world in cyberspace. True freedom to create anything one might imagine is so paralyzing that people keep to what is safe. As one Second Life user I talked to puts it, “Everywhere you go in SL, it’s either Star Wars or nudity.”


_DZ

The Combini and Filling Station as Unique Aspects of Culture

When was the last time you wanted a snack or a drink really suddenly, or forgot you needed an extra pack of cigarettes? What did you do? Chances are, if you were in the neighborhood of a convenient store, you drove or walked over there to get what you needed. Once inside, maybe you realized you needed some other things too, like milk, bread, or cough drops. You bought the items, and walked outside. Now, if you had driven there, you might decide that you also needed some gas, and took the opportunity to fill up. You have just had a uniquely suburban American experience.

Because the expansion of the suburban US was based around the automobile and, subsequently, the highway, gas stations and convenient stores have mostly evolved as one and the same. It seems natural to be able to stop by the gas station on the way home if you suddenly realize you need bread or some other grocery item. The separation of the convenient store and the gas station is seen only in very urban areas, at least in America. In other cultures, in this case I will highlight Japanese culture, it is not always the case.


Take a look at this picture. This is a Casey’s General Store, a chain prevalent in the upper midwest United States despite its name being best said in a Southern drawl. It is in a suburban neighborhood, as evident by the houses around it. It is not stranded on some highway exit oasis. It has a few gas pumps, and inside you will likely find fresh pots of coffee, donuts, coolers full of soda pop, bags of chips, and beef jerky, among many other things. The store will probably stock some basic automotive items, such as motor oil and air fresheners, and along one window will be a magazine rack, filled with glossy periodicals. Behind the counter you will also probably find cigarettes and in the back cooler, depending on the state, there will be alcohol. In short, it seems to be a typical American convenient store. I imagine that the store follows the formula typical of just about any so-called “convenient store” around the globe. But why the gas pumps? Why is shopping for goods and gassing your car associated with one another? Because of America’s fondness for the automobile and the prevalence of it in the expansion of suburban American life across the continent.

Japan is a nation that loves its cars. They are very good at making them, as evidenced by the availability of Mazdas, Toyotas, Hondas, and Nissans, etc, all around the world. But cars came to Japan after the country was already entirely settled. Cars were a luxury; a way of getting from Point A to Point B more quickly as opposed to exploring a brand-new Point C. As such, the homogeneity that convenient stores have with gas station in the US did not play out the same way as it did in Japan. Indeed, convenient stores and gas station in japan are two entirely separate businesses. Popular convenient store, or combini, brands in Japan such as 7-Eleven, Lawson, FamilyMart, AM/PM, Sunkus and MiniStop have nothing to with selling gasoline, instead leaving that to well-known petrol brands such as Shell, Jomo, Esso, Eneos, and Cosmo. These filling stations almost always have garages and car-washes attached to them as well. They are also the hubs of the local automotive culture. Hot-rodders congregate at the local gas stations late at night, admiring one anothers’ cars, and full-service attendants will pump your gas, wash your windows, and empty your cars ashtray with a smile. A Japanese gas station will occasionally have a restroom or vending machine inside, but not much else. Certainly not food.

Combinis, on the other hand, are always stocked with a wealth of foods, drinks (both hard and soft), cigarettes, magazines, and household items. Most will even stock toys and video games and will let you pay your cellphone and utility bills! These goods and services are almost never found in American convenient stores. There are a few other notable differences as well.

• Combinis do not have fountain drinks. This is indicative of Japan in general, actually, where free-refill-type fountain drinks are rarely found.
• Also related to drinks, combinis do not have fresh coffee. Japan seems to have cornered the market on canned coffee (though the legitimacy of actual competition in this market is debatable), and most coffee in Japan is thus sold in a can.
• Japan in general is not a big consumer of beef jerky. While in any American gas station one can be expected to be confronted with a wall of dried beef as soon as they enter the store, this is not the case in a combini.
• Apart from a delicious dish called oden, very little food in a combini is what Americans would consider “fresh”. While it’s true that most food in a combini is encased in plastic, it does taste surprisingly fresh once removed and eaten. I attribute this to the ease of transport across Japan (though I mean mainly Tokyo and other cities here). Food is able to to be moved quickly, allowing for fresher food on the combini shelves. It is wrapped in plastic because, well, let’s face it, nearly everything in Japan comes wrapped in plastic.
• Lottery is handled by a separate system in Japan, and combinis do not sell lotto tickets.
• Despite having bottled soft drinks in the store, most combinis will have vending machines right outside the door selling the exact same things! Not only do Japanese vending machines sell drinks, but also tobacco and alcohol as well. It is truly curious to see vending machines right outside of the stores.

While it s no secret that frameworks of commerce in countries reflect the lifestyles of its people, I find it really interesting to compare the cultural differences evident when contrasting the American filling station and convenient store with the Japanese combini and gas station. Japan clearly was a nation where the combini came first and cemented itself as the go-to spot for spur-of-the-moment groceries and other goods, while the gas stations sprung up later to cater solely to the automotive needs and demands of a growing economy. In America, however, the growth was synergic, resulting is brands like BP, Casey’s General Store, WaWa, and Texaco that have a good deal of food and home products for the man or woman on the go. Such contrasts are beautiful examples of diversity in this increasingly connected world, and should be enjoyed and treasured.






_DZ

Netbooks are not Apple's design

Several weeks ago Apple, Inc. unveiled its hot new line of laptop computers to much rejoicing and hullabaloo. These were gorgeous machines with respectable spec sheets and for the first time the entire Apple notebook line had sturdy all-aluminum casing. Not all was well in the Mac community, however. There were some who had wanted Apple to release a notebook in the emerging 'netbook' market, and they were sorely disappointed.

Netbooks are an emerging market, a market so new in fact that my copy of OpenOffice still throws a red squiggle under the word. They are essentially a bare-bones laptop with a very small footprint - usually a 8 or 10 inch screen. They are meant for browsing the Internet and word processing and not much else. They aren't for gaming, storing your entire media library, or multi-tasking between seven different applications. They usually don't have webcams, CD drives, or other fancy-shmancy add-ons. They are also really cheap -usually under $500 - which is their main draw. Some would say that they have a low price point, but those people are idiots. A word of advice to them – there is no need to use the word 'price point' when 'price' conveys the exact same idea. You are not going to ask your friend what the price point of the new toaster he purchased was. No, you're going to ask him how much it cost, or how much he paid for it.

So these netbooks are really cheap and are apparently selling like hotcakes. Well, hotcakes with screens. And some “loyal” – I use that word lightly here – Apple fans think that Apple should produce a laptop for this market. (One could I suppose argue that they just wanted the Mac Air for cheaper.) They think that by releasing a sub-$800 laptop, that Apple would make a lot of money and gain new customers. This is a misguided wish for several reasons.

Reason 1: Apple is a respected brand that has always made higher-end consumer products. Their laptops typically are released at a price of around $1200 going all the way up to their Pro line of $3500 or so. Historically they make products for the artistic professionals – movie makers, photographers, designers, etc. The business world uses Windows and all the art is made on Macs. (This accounts the disproportionate amount of Macs you see in movies and TV shows.)

Reason 2: Apple puts a lot of work into designing their products, and it shows. People don't realize that making good design is usually expensive and requires a lot of hard work. Somebody has to pay for all of that gorgeous design that sets apart Macs from the rest of the computer world.

Reason 3: Most Mac users are extremely loyal. (Since 2002 I have owned five different Macs, and that was not because I needed them. I just liked having them around.) What this translates to is a very active second-hand Mac market. Macs have famously high resale value, which happened to be one of my considerations when buying my MacBook the weekend it was released. I bought my Mac for around $1500 three years ago and WILL be able to resell it for 700-800 dollars if I choose to sell it even now, almost three years later. When my mom needed a new laptop, I advised her to buy a used Aluminum PowerBook rather than a new MacBook because it was essentially the same machine, only $300 cheaper. Mac fans who whined about no $500 notebook failed to see that they already had one – the 12' G4 PowerBook. Sure it doesn't have the newest Mac OS or other nice features, but hey, it has a wireless and can run OS X, right? That's really all the average netbook user would need. For even cheaper you could buy a used iBook and still have OS X.

By releasing a netbook Apple would not only risk jeopardizing their respected professional brand, but they would also risk sabotaging their second-hand market that keeps enthusiasts abated until they decide to buy another new Apple machine. They would also risk having to release a machine that was not iconic in its design, like nearly every Apple machine has been. Way to go Apple, for continuously sticking to your guns and releasing great computers at reasonable prices.


_DZ