As far as a restaurant is concerned, why would they really care? It might annoy customers, but as long as the tables are still filling up, I feel the restaurant is more than happy, because they're still making the best of their available resources (tables and wait-staff).
It's a valid point how the artificial constraints are the envelope and the time, because the way she listed the rules was, clock starts when you open the envelope - it's almost a a ploy, or a method of trying to distract someone.
Imagine, if you were handed an envelope and were told "there's money inside there", wouldn't you immediately start to wonder "how much?" and you would immediately want to open it. She restricted this thought by applying a 2 hour time constraint, from the time you open the envelope, which almost forced the students to think twice about jumping to the money. Instead, all the groups achieved something without ever really having to open the envelope. I think it was interesting, and a job well done.
As far as a restaurant is concerned, why would they really care? It might annoy customers, but as long as the tables are still filling up, I feel the restaurant is more than happy, because they're still making the best of their available resources (tables and wait-staff).
You answered your own question -- to the customer, it's annoying.
... and to the restaurant owner, it discourages walk-in traffic.
It's immoral in that it's dishonest (We have a word for reserving space at the restaurant by claiming to be a party of two, but not being one -- it's called lying). If you wanted to do this in the moral clear, you need to speak to the restaurant owner first, and see if they'll pre-allocate you tables.
I never said whether it was moral or not, which it definitely isn't...I was just referring to the students response to the task at hand, which I still believe for what they were assigned was a job well done.
>As far as a restaurant is concerned, why would they really care? It might annoy customers, but as long as the tables are still filling up, I feel the restaurant is more than happy, because they're still making the best of their available resources (tables and wait-staff).
It's scalping. It raises the cost of a dinner in the restaurant without additional gains for them. Obviously restaurants would not go this.
It raises the monetary costs of dinner for people, who want to pay to avoid waiting. For the normal-waiting patrons the strategy feels like increased congestion. (And they bear the costs.)
Why do restaurants have queues anyway? Why don't they just raise their prizes until supply meets demand? There's more than one scholarly article about this question.
I do feel that it was sketchy to ignore the rules the way these teams did. However, the restaurants do not have a contract with their customers. If they want to have a contract with their customers, they can, but calling their expectations of what customers will do a "contract" dilutes the term.
Actually, 'Social Contract' is a term on its own, that is many things to many people, but in general, it is the idea that societies have unspoken rules in order to maintain order. I do not think he is diluting the term, as it (or at least the concept) has been around for quite some time.
Hey everyone, similar to using (trying out) Event Gel for setting up the event, maybe give http://coffee.gabandgo.com/sanfrancisco a run as you show up to help people know what crowd you're in, or where you're sitting...any feedback always welcome!
Hey icey, I checked out your posting on Event Gel the other week, definitely an interesting concept, good to see you using the feedback off the forums here, I've always found it helpful.
One thing to consider that I didn't catch when I just clicked the link above, you might want to add a .ics download so people can easily include the event in their calendar, I looked into this for http://coffee.gabandgo.com/sanfrancisco but decided it to not be worthwhile, since the point is to stop in and have coffee for a short period, not 'pre-plan'.
Anyway, google around a bit and you'll find the structure of the file (it's pretty simple), or you can always create a fake event in a calendar program you use, export it to .ics, then view it in a text editor.
Interesting post, and I do agree, it is important.
Your testimonials example is good, and is definitely a reason to promote the idea, but as with anything, I suppose there are several different angles on this. In the case that you use AJAX to drive a "linear" process (say a series of login screens), there's no advantage to having Step 5 indexed and accessible, without ever beginning at Step 1.
Worst case, we can always fall back to the flash band-aid, keep the same HTML content all on the same page, just place it -10000 off-screen where only the robots can locate it...but this, along with the "right way to do this for SEO" above are labor intensive...
Yup. You can set opacity for elements in all modern browsers. IE6, too.
On some sites, I've used it as a subtle hover state for image links, so they "pop" a little. (Set the default opacity to 92% and have it go to 100% on hover.)
And one more thing - if there are any special requests for other cities to throw into this first version, let me know...for all the help you guys at least deserve to get your city put up on the site! I saw a Milbrae and a Palo Alto - any NYC, Boston, etc.,?
It's a valid point how the artificial constraints are the envelope and the time, because the way she listed the rules was, clock starts when you open the envelope - it's almost a a ploy, or a method of trying to distract someone. Imagine, if you were handed an envelope and were told "there's money inside there", wouldn't you immediately start to wonder "how much?" and you would immediately want to open it. She restricted this thought by applying a 2 hour time constraint, from the time you open the envelope, which almost forced the students to think twice about jumping to the money. Instead, all the groups achieved something without ever really having to open the envelope. I think it was interesting, and a job well done.