Steven Feuerstein's Blog, page 8

Coding Therapy Videos from Dell

For the past several years, I have given my Coding Therapy talk to Oracle technologists, offering insights through:
Dream therapyShock therapyGame therapyCouples therapyIt is, of course, entirely tongue-in-cheek, but also (I hope) helpful to programmers, in giving them a different perspective on some of the challenges they face in their work.

These talks have usually been very well-received, which inspired then-Quest Software to bring me out to Hollywood (well, Aliso Viejo, anyway) to shoot a series of videos in which I impersonate a therapist and provide coding therapy to a programmer in need.

Here I am, deep in my therapist role:

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Very convincing, right?

But then Dell bought Quest Software and I worried: would they still release the videos?

Of course, they would, and they did, starting today!

The therapy sessions will be released on Facebook over the next month. Check out the first one here.

And if you share this video on Facebook, you will be entered automatically in a raffle to win a thoroughly delightful Toad t-shirt.

McDonald's Confesses: Our customers are bored

This past Sunday, the Chicago Tribune featured a lengthy article (access restricted, so I reproduce some of the article below) about the success of McDonald's Dollar Menu.

Recently McDonald's had seen a slide in sales after many years of steady growth. "Critics" (unnamed) seem to feel that the problem is not enough "new products" in 2012.

As a result, there has been an "acceleration of testing" of new products - and MickyD's is about to get seriously experimental.

For the 10th anniversary celebration of its Dollar Menu, McDonald's is going to take a leap into the Great Unknown and add the Hot 'n Spicy McChicken to that menu!

Why did it do this? McDonald's found "a desire for experimentation" among its customers that was "not limited to specific age, gender, socioeconomic status or ethnicity." "There's a growing interest in food with bolder flavor," Neil Golden, chief marketing officer of McDonald's USA, said. "We wanted to make sure we made it easily available to all of our customers. You'll see bolder flavors in a lot of other things we're doing as well."

Oh, this is just too delicious! Let's translate all of that into something eaiser to, ahem, digest:

McDonald's customers - most of them, apparently - are really bored with the usual McDonald's selections. What they'd like, apparently, is food with some more flavor.

Another way to interpret this change in McDonald's customer base might be more simply expressed as: more and more Latinos are eating at McDonald's (or maybe it would be more accurate to say: McDonald's wants more Latinos to eat at its "restaurants").

You can't deny the demographics. The burgeoning Latino population in the U.S. threatens to make the GOP an irrelevancy (at least when all the very old, very wealthy, very white incumbents "move on" to a far better life - for everyone else). But those same Latinos also eat. And, let's face facts, "they" like spicy food.


From McDonald's doubles down on Dollar Menu

Leading up to the initial sales decline in October, critics say, McDonald's did not have enough new products in 2012. With a number of new items in the wings for 2013, such as a McWrap sandwich, and other items in test, such as chicken wings, the current Dollar Menu focus likely gives the chain some breathing room.

"You have to have some compelling products in the pipeline to get people to the restaurants," Morningstar analyst R.J. Hottovy said, adding that there need to be some higher-margin impulse items that can easily be added on to meals otherwise based on the Dollar Menu. "You have to have a compelling lineup of those types of products as well."

Golden said there's been "an acceleration of testing" of new products in recent months for the entire menu, and also for dollar-priced items. McDonald's started with the Dollar Menu because it appeals particularly to its most loyal customers, who he said "love the McDouble and the McChicken" but were simultaneously wondering, "Is there something that would make me want to come more often?"
In December, McDonald's moved its limited-time grilled onion cheddar burger to the Dollar Menu and credited the burger's popularity with better-than expected sales. The product will remain in stores until early June.

This month, as part of a Dollar Menu 10th anniversary celebration, the chain will promote a Hot 'n Spicy McChicken sandwich as a limited-time offer for $1. also tested a burger called the McCruncher for the Dollar Menu; it features white cheddar, crunchy onions and a chipotle ranch sauce.

McDonald's chose the spicy sandwich because the chain found "a desire for experimentation" among its customers that was "not limited to specific age, gender, socioeconomic status or ethnicity."
"There's a growing interest in food with bolder flavor," Golden said. "We wanted to make sure we made it easily available to all of our customers. You'll see bolder flavors in a lot of other things we're doing as well."

Industry experts have backed McDonald's strategy. "By focusing on the dollar menu, it is helping them drive traffic back into the restaurants," analyst Hottovy said of McDonald's fourth-quarter same-store sales, which just beat his expectation of flat performance.

Derrick Rose's Camp

I don't follow sports much, but I enjoy looking through the sports section of the newspaper now and then. There's usually something outrageous or outrageously entertaining in there somewhere.

This past Sunday, the Chicago Tribune had (of course) another article addressing the question "When will Derrick Rose return to the Bulls?"

Shortly after signing a 5-year extension to his contract worth (no, this is not a typo) $95 million, he tore his ACL - requiring surgery and extensive rehab.

Now he has been cleared to play full court practice and "everyone" wonders: when will he play again?

Anyway, the article in the Tribune sported the title:

GM Forman: No rift with Rose's camp

and went on to say:

Bulls general manager Gar Forman reiterated Saturday there is no communication rift between Derrick Rose's camp and the organization regarding the return date for the All-Star guard from his left knee injury.
"We talk all the time -- high-level communication," Forman told the Tribune on Saturday before scouting the DePaul-Pittsburgh game at Allstate Arena.

I love this! Derrick Rose has a camp! And when the General Manager of the team that is paying this guy $20M a year to (right now) sit on his butt wants to talk, well, you know it's gonna be a high-level communication!

Oh, yeah. High level. Right up there. In the camp. Now the only question is how "high level" can the GM go? Who in Rose's camp has the awesome responsibility to communicate with the GM>

Is it the Media Spokesman? The Social Media Manager? The Wife? The Agent? The personal trainer? The personal physician?

Or - wait, could it be....Derrick Rose himself?

I wish I had a camp. 

Another trip to Prague - and Brno

I have just returned from a week in Prague (first time visiting there during the winter) and then Brno (first time visiting ever, second largest city in the Czech Republic).

It was nice to see Prague covered in snow - that gave me a reason to take pictures of many of the sights I'd photographed earlier - now they looked completely different, with new shadows, geometries and patterns.

You can check out my latest Prague photos here, while the Brno shots (mostly taken at night, after my course was over, when I walked up to Spilberk Castle) can be seen here.

Silver Linings Gunbook

From the New York Times:

Joel Alioto, 44, an Iraq war veteran who lives in the area, said he recently sold an AR-15 rifle at a gun show for $1,700, more than three times what he had paid for it. “I think the shooting in Connecticut was a terrible thing,” said Mr. Alioto, who is unemployed. “But before the shooting the gun was worth 500 bucks. I don’t think I did anything wrong. I wanted to get my teeth done, get a computer and pay for my first year of Bible college.”

I agree with Joel. Why shouldn't he get something out of it? Especially considering that he probably voted for and will continue to vote for Republicans who will take money out of his pocket and give it to those who don't need it, who push the US into more wars and whose children don't fight in those wars.

From the Chicago Tribune:

A python hunting competition starting on Saturday is drawing hundreds of amateurs armed with clubs, machetes and guns to the Florida Everglades, where captured Burmese pythons have exceeded the length of minivans and weighed as much as grown men.

I like this idea. Sure, the article points out that the Everglades are filled with poisonous (native) critters and dangerous environments. Some hunters could die as they hunt down the pythons. But the native species of the Everglades definitely need lots of help now that stupid, careless people have dumped their pet pythons (pets!!) in the wild.

I just hope that all the people who are buying up AR-15s take them into the Everglades, blast a whole bunch of pythons, and maybe thin the herd along the way. Go, evolution, go!