Somebody posts, on a website for freelance writers, an offer to pay $40 for someone to write a very specific essay that looks very much like an academic assignment. The student leaves his name, UWEC e-mail address, snail mail address, and telephone number. One of the freelancers who reads that message board decides to let…
“Technology pioneers typically get steamrollered, then look on helplessly from the sidelines as a bunch of Johnny-come-latelies make billions. First movers, the theory goes, are too smart for their own good, churning out gizmos that are too expensive or too complex for the average consumer’s taste.” Brendan I. Koerner —TiVo, We Hardly Knew Ye: Sorry…
“As a longtime [Volkswagon] Bug devotee, I knew the car’s origins, but the depth of Hitler’s involvement in the design detailed here gave me pause. And Patton explains the strange paradox of why Americans were so ready to accept a product from their sworn enemy: VW’s innovative Jewish ad agency, Doyle Dane Bernbach, was willing…
“I still can understand people like Pete Seeger joining the Party back in the 30’s during the Depression, when it looked like unregulated capitalism had cruelly immiserated America, when racism and lynchings reigned down South and it looked (looked, I said) as if the Soviet Union was the only force willing to stand up to…
“For some reason, everyone seemed to know that Disney is the one company you don’t want to cross. Even if the person you’re consulting can’t point to specific cases, he or she has heard things. Scary things. Severed horse head on the bed pillow, that kind of thing.” —Careful What You Wish Upon a Star…