communication. community. cognition.
Archive for May, 2009
Reunion Caught on Tape
May 29th
Picture of Julia Rakoczy distributed with Amber Alert of her alleged abduction
Julia Rakoczy is back at home with her father. That we should celebrate.
We saw her reunion on television. That we should not celebrate, but instead ought to shudder.
Not because I don’t like happy endings, because I do. It’s the way we saw it that gravely concerns me.
First, the recap for a little historical perspective:
The ex-husband of a Philadephia woman who faked her abduction and fled to Disney World with their daughter had a tearful reunion today with the little girl who was upset that her mom had to stay in jail.
Anthony Rakoczy arrived in Florida to take custody of 9-year-old Julia Rakoczy one day after she and her mother, Bonnie Sweeten, were stopped by police at their Disney World hotel.
At an emotional family reunion in a police office at the Orlando International Airport, Julia broke into tears as her sister Paige ran to hug her, followed by their father.
“I feel great that I have my daughter back, but I feel bad for her mother,” Anthony Rakoczy told “Good Morning America” shortly after talking to his daughter on the phone before he arrived at the Orange County Detention Center to pick her up.
(for those of you finding those post weeks or months later, since Julia’s 15 minutes will likely have expired.)
Here’s the story as it appeared on Good Morning America, Friday May 29. After the 30 second commercial, about 20 seconds in you see the happy reunion. 34 seconds in, you hear the following sentence:
“ABC News flew Julia’s worried father, Anthony Rakoczy, to Florida to pick her up.”
How nice of them to pick up the tab. It’s also a great way to snag the “exclusive,” because your camera crew and producer who accompanied Anthony Racoczy on the plane would have access to the touching moment that other media outlets would not.
I did a quick search, and same-day round-trip tickets from Philadelphia to Orlando run around $300, so this wasn’t a huge expense. Not a bad price to pay for an exclusive interview, right ABC? If you keep watching the video, about a minute in, you’ll see an example of the exclusive facts the network was able to bring to light:
(reporter) “When reunited, all Julia wanted to talk about was her favorite Phillies baseball player.”
(Julia) “His birthday is Decemeber 23rd and last year he had 48 saves out of 48 save opportunities and his number is 54 and his name is Brad Lidge… and he’s an ending pitcher.”
Knowing Philadelphia sports fans like I do, the city is very lucky that Lidge didn’t blow a save last year, because there’s no telling what Julia might have said.
(For the record, Lidge converted 41 out of 41 opportunities in 2008. As of the beginning of Julia’s unplanned Florida vacation, Lidge was 8 out of 12 in 2009. That bum.)
Truly Powerful Addiction
“Those who most enjoy speaking truth to power often lack the ability to differentiate it from its highly addictive cousins; tilting at windmills, reciting aphorism to applause and plausible but unprovable allegation.”
Review Session
May 19th
A novel way to present a product review.
The guy is entertaining, and while I wouldn’t want it in large doses, it certainly makes the review more watchable.
Bottom line – more reviews could use this level of energy and flair, much in the same way this review lacks meat and substance.
Get Angry
May 18th
Still somewhat inspired by Mark Story‘s initiative, I thought I’d point out another person you ought to check out online.
Russ Nelson is The Angry Economist. He’s also an interesting guy, into just about anything involving freedom. He does open-source mapping, he bikes, he rows crew, and he jabs his virtual thumb into the virtual eye of very real authority, only because his physical thumb isn’t close enough to go in authority’s actual eye.
Samples of his wit include:
Then there was the time a security guard tried to tell him photography was illegal.
Russ is a fascinating guy, and like me he is prone to an erratic rhythm in his work. Long essays punctuated by short bursts, and both make you think.
You can follow him on Twitter, too…
Tightening the Noose
“Those who use government to reign in business make both business and government stronger. Those who make it their business to lobby the government make both government and business stronger.”
Inspired by a Twitter discussion with Carmen Villadar.
Your Welcome
May 14th
More Facebook application failure:
“Your just like spongebob.”
I wonder how the creator of that quiz did on the Your/You’re test.
The Math of Spam
May 12th
Spam works because it scales.
It costs very little to ramp up from 100,000 addresses to 10,000,000 addresses, and all it takes is a couple of hits to make the effort profitable.
How do I know this? Because it exists.
Here’s another example of the principle at play:
On my recent trip to Las Vegas, my wife and I took a couple of walks down the Miracle Mile. We encountered something we did not see in the tourist information: hundreds of day laborers lining the sidewalks, handing out stiff glossy cards.
The cards had pictures of various professional women, with their various phone numbers. The laborers wore t-shirts bearing the names of the various escort agencies they represented. Some even wore backpack harnesses with lighted signs.
As you walk down the street, they will desperately try to hand you a card. Even if you are walking with your wife, holding her hand on one side and with your other hand intentionally in your pocket. The sidewalk ends up making a crunchy noise as you walk on the thousands of discarded ads.
Rarely do you see someone keep the card. It makes you wonder just how effective the strategy really is.
The night we walked, there must have been 300 workers wearing shirts and trying to sell me and my wife a night we’d never forget. Why 300? Why not 200? Why not 400 or 500?
That is the mystery of the Invisible Hand. Over time, there will be feedback to those hiring the workers for nightly work. 600 might be too many, 100 too few. Over the days and weeks, the formula gets refined, where dollars spent on card-hustlers yields trackable and visible results. It may well be that on Wednesdays, 400 are needed to make it worthwhile, where on Fridays and Saturdays there is less need to boost business.
Or, it might be that enough escort agencies are in the game that it’s market share they are after, not trying to grow the overall market.
Or… just maybe, the spammers are just bad at math. Like the one who sent me an email with this subject line:
Female Orgasm – How to Make a Woman Orgasm in 66 Simple Steps
There’s nothing ‘simple’ about 66. (Or maybe they just know 62 things I don’t…)
