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Comment The franchisees don't want the machines to work (Score 1) 80

The franchisees don't want the machines to work. The daily clean-up time (and believe me... when dealing with dairy you want it to be VERY clean) takes a long time. They lose money unless they are selling TONS of servings. Nobody could possibly sell enough ice cream to break even.

Let's suppose it is going to take 1 person-hours each day to clean the machine and you make 10 cents profit per serving. Assuming labor cost of $10/hour (these numbers are all fiction). You're going to have to sell 100 servings just to break even. That would mean a TON of advertising and promotion to drive that kind of sales volume. Doing those promotions cost even more money, which requires more sales to make up for.

It is much more profitable to leave the machine broken and have that 1 hour of labor doing something that they know makes money... like grilling burgers.

Of course... this is an excellent opportunity for iFixit and others to advocate for the changes they want. McDonald's can't publicly admit they don't want the machines fixed. It gets good PR for iFixit and friends.

Comment SIGGRAPH TPPT is exactly what you asked for! (Score 2) 95

SIGGRAPH is the ACM computer graphics research conference. You won't find anything more cutting edge. Each year they produce a video "SIGGRAPH $YEAR : Technical Papers Preview Trailer". This is exactly what the OP was looking for. Here's 2017's video:
  https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3F...

Comment Measuring cost instead of profit. (Score 1) 327

This report measures the wrong thing. If GF is profitable purely by itself (no accounting tricks, no assumptions about how much additional ad revenue could be generated, as son on), then the investment would be justifiable no matter the cost.

Also, since Google has released zero actual cost numbers, this is making guesses based on how Time Warner or other highly inefficient companies operate. Why do that?

Comment Re:I'm sorry, why should we care? (Score 1) 246

You sound like one of those people that piss all over the public bathroom floor and say, "ha! it's someone's job to clean it up! why should I care!" (since you made the janitorial analogy, I thought I'd complete it)

The biggest change in business in the last 10 years is the realization that IT is not a "cost to be reduced" but the driver of innovation that should be invested in, respected, and optimized.

Comment Re:What does Google need with a building? (Score 1) 87

Those advertisements don't sell themselves. Google has a very large salesforce. Since NYC is the center of the universe for advertising (think "Madison Avenue") and magazine publishing (name just about any magazine) it is obvious that Google has a large salesforce there.

Google already rents a large part of that building and has been quoted as saying there are at leaset 2000 employees there. It's cheaper to own then rent.

Power

Jaguar's Hybrid Jet-Powered Concept Car 334

An anonymous reader writes "Jaguar has developed a hybrid car that runs on gas turbines. The range extended vehicle usually uses four electric motors (one on each wheel) plus a lithium-ion battery pack for propulsion, but can achieve a performance boost from a pair of gas turbines mounted in the rear. Cnet UK reports the car can do 0-60 mph in 3.4 sec. (and 50-90 mph in 2.3 sec.) and reach 205 mph while emitting less CO2 than a Toyota Prius."
The Almighty Buck

Micro-Transactions Coming To Team Fortress 2 Via Steam Wallet 161

whoop writes "Valve has announced that Team Fortress 2 will be getting a new Mann Co. Store to buy trinkets with real money through a service called Steam Wallet. TF2 is the first game to use this new Steam Wallet, but the money can be spent on anything in Steam, including full games. This would open them up to featuring gift cards, micro-transaction games, and more." PC Gamer has an interview with Valve's Robin Walker about why they're doing this. Walker says everything they're selling will still be obtainable by playing the game, other than a few cosmetic items.

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