I mean, if they relinquish their ownership of the plane and joined in with some sort of council that determined how to manage such assets I bet everyone claiming to be an anarchist would be fine with it. Anarchy as a political ideology doesn't mean no rules, it means no rulers.
Agreed. They are good ads if we're still discussing them. This is one of those critics that assumes the current times are the 'correct taste' and anything foreign to their taste is poorly done, even when it resulted in sales.
Author here, from another issue I sent about my definition of bad ads for this newsletter:
"tl;dr While I do exaggerate the “badness” of 80s tech ads to make things more fun, a nostalgic ad is not the same thing as an effective ad. What we see in advertising today is so depressing because it is often so bland AND more effective than its more playful predecessors."
They are fun to look at now. And soooo much more creative than marketing crap from today. But they're still 12-page long marketing gimmicks. I'd still take them over today's ads any day of the week, and that's why I spend dozens of hours every month tracking them down and learning their stories
I read your link and still don’t agree that these ads are “bad”.
I think these ads built brand awareness. The point of the MidWest Micro “Clue” ad was not necessarily to spur you to buy a MidWest Micro system today. The purpose was so that when you were in the market to buy a system, and you saw one of theirs on a magazine cover or (in the case of Gateway) at a mall storefront, you said “oh I’ve heard of them,” and then you buy one.
12 pages of marketing gimmicks builds awareness. Two pages of specs doesn’t. That I remember Gateway and MidWest Micro but not many of the others of the reams of price lists in Computer Shopper is a testament to this.
I think there's "bad" in the sense that it didn't accomplish the goal of selling a product (maybe not the case here) and "bad" in the sense that it made many readers cringe or was seen as stupid/tacky. I'm seeing more of the latter in these ads.
These old Gateway ads made me remember ads a vendor ran in Computer Shopper featuring bikini-clad women. Their ads weren't as good as Gateway's, I guess, because I can't remember their name.
This post would be improved by adding a sentence explaining what ScrollPods are. I don't mean the technical details that you promise in an upcoming post, but rather anything whatsoever about what it's like to use them.
Tell me what the thing IS! It's shockingly common for READMEs or About pages to already assume the reader knows what the product/project is.
> ScrollPods lets you scroll hands-free on your Mac with your AirPods in a precise, smooth, continuous, dynamic and inconspicuous way.
That's BELOW the viewport of my browser. So to figure out what the product is, I have to scroll. Maybe that's by design?
Honestly one sentence at the beginning explaining that "ScrollPods" is software that lets you use airpods (or compatible headphones) to scroll would be really helpful
Hah, there's a wall of text that starts with the developer's life story (whooo cares), some graphic that didn't explain anything. Read the conclusion and ask myself "did they implement a dictionary app?", and I had to click "Get ScrollPods" and navigate away from the page and guess it's something to do with ears/headphones and scrolling.
The text "lets you use airpods (or compatible headphones) to scroll would be really helpful" is also not very specific, mentioning the gyroscope would make it clear.
Fair comment. It’s a macOS app that lets you scroll hands-free with your Apple headphones (AirPods Gen 3+, AirPods Pro and AirPods Max) by gently nodding your head up or down. You can also set it up to scroll by moving your head right or left. I also strongly agree with your final comment, as I have a lot to share about what it’s like using ScrollPods day to day and the convenience that comes with this. Like sipping an iced coffee with right hand instead of scrolling or sitting 1 meter away from my desk to stretch my legs while reading a presentation. Thanks for reminding me and I will prioritise this in my next blog post.
> It’s a macOS app that lets you scroll hands-free with your Apple headphones (AirPods Gen 3+, AirPods Pro and AirPods Max) by gently nodding your head up or down.
Man, you write too damn much.
"Use your AirPods to scroll on macOS by head movement".
Taking a knee to lock in an American football victory used to be considered unsportsmanlike, but then the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_at_the_Meadowlands happened, where the Giants were up 17-12 with 30 seconds left and played normally. They fumbled the ball, the Eagles recovered it and scored a touchdown, the Giants' offensive coordinator was summarily fired and never worked in the NFL again, and ever since, dropping to your knee when it ensures your win is standard, accepted, and even sometimes called the Victory Formation.
Then 20ft should not be used in the explanation. They should just have one ball going at 2x speed hit the seesaw and have 4 of those balls go up at 1x speed.
That ends up begging the question, because the next step is "how high do you have to drop it from so that it's travelling twice as fast?" and you're immediately going round in circles.
“Cool, I’m going to fly in on a private plane”
“No not like that”
reply