Some of the recent activity at our internal 37signals Campfire chat room:
New Xerox logo
| Ryan S. |  |
cries |
|
| Jason F. | RS: Ugh. |
I don’t mind the new type |
|
But the ball. omg. |
|
| Ryan S. | the new type looks like it could be anything. a video game company, a brand of sneaker, a prescription med |
the old one was authoritative and distinctive |
|
also had a nice “precise” quality to it that fits with their line of products |
|
| Jason F. | RS: Yeah. I don’t like the lowercase trend.. |
| Matt L. | yeah, looks like totally generic software logo thing at the end too. |
| Ryan S. |  |
| Sam S. | i like the 1907 kodak logo |
 |
|
| Ryan S. | that logo is wild. |
| Jeremy K. | Sam – that’s awesome |
| Sam S. | reminds me of |
 |
|
| Jeremy K. | like wax seals with the family initials |
| Sam S. | yeah totally |
Neverending receipts
| Sarah H. |
|
This is the receipt for the GIFT CARD i bought my dad. |
|
17 inches FOLDED IN HALF |
|
| Jeremy K. | Sarah – wow |
I got a two-footer from Staples earlier this week and was blown away |
|
But half of it was to print the terms of some impossible-to-redeem rebate |
|
| Sarah H. | yeah it’s totally ridiculous |
half of it is a survey I’m never going to take. |
|
| Jeremy K. | haha |
Argentina vs. US
| Jeremy K. | I worked with a guy in Argentina who was rolling in the money at $16/hr, relatively speaking |
living like a king in Buenos Aires |
|
I kept telling him he could ask 4x that and his clients wouldn’t blink, but he didn’t want to push it :) |
|
| David H. | I believe that |
Also, the apple fans down there take some real dedication |
|
The price is something like 180% US prices |
|
so it amounts to something like 10x in purchasing power |
|
| Jeremy K. | Yeah I’ve talked to some Rails guys who have saved for YEARS to buy a Mac – incredible |
| David H. | imagine a macbook being $20,000 |
| Jeremy K. | exactly |
Cook’s Illustrated
| Jamis B. | my wife recently picked up an issue of Cook’s Illustrated |
really amazing magazine |
|
instead of just saying "to make a great lasagna, do X, Y, and then Z" |
|
it says |
|
"first, we tried this, which didn’t work well because of X" |
|
"so then we tried Y, which was better" |
|
"but the best was Z, which resulted in such and such" |
|
it shows you the process |
|
instead of just the result |
|
| Ryan S. | oh neat |
| Jamis B. | which is SO IMPORTANT in helping you understand the reasons behind things |
really really good magazine |
|
| Ryan S. | recipe-as-story |
what a cool idea |
|
| Jamis B. | highly recommended |
| Sarah H. | They also do really honest, thorough product reviews |
which is hard to find in advertising-driven magazines |
|
no one wants the risk of saying something doesn’t work |
|
their recommendation is "Parchment Paper: Inexpensive and Versatile" |
|
instead of these high priced baking sheets. You’d just never see that on the food network |
Justin Reese
on 15 Jan 08Echo you guys on the Cook’s Illustrated rec. Phenomonal mag. I don’t even cook often, but was turned on to it by a foodie coworker, and was able to appreciate it for its principles and content alone. (Although the EIC wrote one of the weirdest, most rambling “From The Editor” openings ever a few months ago.)
It feels odd to be continuing one of your Campfire discussions here on SVN…
Josh
on 15 Jan 08Cooks Illustrated seems like a cool magazine. I’ll have to check it out.
But @Sarah H… you should watch more Alton Brown. ;) I think that’s just the kind of tip he’d push on the Food Network (assuming he agreed with it, of course).
MichaelM
on 15 Jan 08I hardly ever bother with comments but gotta agree with Josh. Alton constantly pimps the idea that “unitaskers” are worthless and parchment paper is god (or at least a lower diety).
Brian
on 15 Jan 08Cooks Illustrated is a great magazine. The companion show America’s Test Kitchen is excellent as well. I would totally love to work there if it weren’t in Vermont. Personally I think the PBS cooking shows, such as ATK, and Cooking with Ming Tsai, are way better than the food network. They’re really about the food.
Grant Hutchins
on 15 Jan 08Check out the flag of Kyrgyzstan and compare it to the Xerox logo.
Morley
on 15 Jan 08Actually, Alton Brown (host of Good Eats on FoodTV) has espoused the versatility of parchment paper (and poor value of baking sheets) for years. He’s also roasted meats in ceramic plant pots from the hardware store.
Joe
on 15 Jan 08NCR has Two-Sided Thermal Printers that reduce the paper usage of a reciept in half, might want to encourage sears to save the planet.
Nicole
on 15 Jan 08I love recipe process explanations which is why my go-to cookbook for the last couple years has been the Cook’s Illustrated The New Best Recipe Cookbook. I have yet to find a bad recipe and the explanations are indeed top notch.
Try the cinnamon rolls, or the scones, or the dutch chocolate cake…
FredS
on 15 Jan 08Xerox logo pic from Brand New (a great blog): http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/
Mike
on 15 Jan 08My wife works a system to maximize her grocery savings. She regularly brings home receipts that are 4 feet long or longer. I think she loves the sensory experience of the receipt printer just going and going and going. (And the people behind her thinking, “What the?”) To her, the long receipt is money in the bank.
John
on 15 Jan 08Christopher Kimball, the cooking geek, founder, editor and publisher of Cook’s Illustrated, produces opinionated cooking information like 37 Signals writes opinionated software. He has always had a clear vision of what he wanted to accomplish and what he wasn’t interested in.
P.S. the magazine’s recipes can sometimes be intimidating and my wife generally won’t cook out of the magazine, although I do. She will, however, cook out of the simpler, but still excellent America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook.
Mike-2
on 15 Jan 08Yeah, Cook’s Illustrated is awesome, it’s how I learned to cook. I tried other books, and in my experience, there are two main genres: “Heating things up from a can” and “Cooking is about expressing yourself, not about following rules!” Cook’s Illustrated is pretty unique in actually explaining how food works.
Re: comments on the new Xerox logo: hmm, how to put this gently? Classic hipster bullshit, i.e. bemoaning the loss of an aesthetic through a cultural shift, while being at the forefront of that cultural shift. If you were in the business of making wax seals, it would be different :)
SH
on 15 Jan 08“But @Sarah H… you should watch more Alton Brown. ;)
Actually, I own the box sets of Good Eats and Feasting on Asphalt on DVD. I think everyone who knows me agrees that I don’t really need to watch anymore of it. :)
Anyway, it was an example. No one was assuming or implying that Alton Brown doesn’t like, promote, or encourage the use of parchment paper often. The point was: Cooks Illustrated bucks the trend of appealing to advertisers in their “product reviews”. And it’s a great point when you don’t get too nitpicky about it.
Adam
on 15 Jan 08Re: Argentina
Yes the prices for anything related to computers is extremely high. I just don’t understand why the tarriffs are so high on imports for computers. There is no domestic computer industry to protect; why penalize the Argentine public?
The net result? Fewer Argentines with computers and those that do have computers are hand-me-downs (because after all, Tio Raul saved his money for 3 years to buy that iMac).
Josh
on 15 Jan 08@Sarah: I hear ya… I was just making a suggestion (not trying to be nitpicky). I’m a big Alton Brown fan and it sounded from what you said in the chat log that you might like him—seems like I was right about that. ;)
Nathan
on 15 Jan 08Xerox and Kodak – Rochester, NY’s finest!
beto
on 15 Jan 08Argentina’s situation with Macs and technology in general is not really exclusive to that country. I live in Costa Rica and being a Machead on these lands also implies paying through the nose for the goods as well, courtesy of outrageous import taxes by our government. That is, unless you visit the U.S to buy Mac stuff and find a way to sneak it in without being noticed – a practice few ever want to talk about but that is pretty much widespread.
Marcelo Ruiz
on 15 Jan 08re Argentina:
Apple prices are a lot higher here, but maybe not 180%. Some samples:
iPod classic 80 GB Black $600 in Argentina $250 in US
MacBook 13” $2000 in Arg $1099 in US
On the other side, PCs are a lot more accessible. I recently updated to a good PC with Pentium Core 2 Duo and I spent $700 (USD).
Apple is considered a brand of luxury here. Having a Mac is more a symbol of status.
There is a famous Mac store here in BA that really makes me sick, because their marketing is focused very clearly to the jet-set, the high-society, etc. and they organize all sort of events with that people :-)
I saved a lot to buy my Mac G4 and, luckily, I don’t need to updated because it works as good as the first day.
I recently bought a Mac Book in USA, and I could save an interesting amount of dollars.
If you consider that a ticket to Miami or NY is around $800, sometimes you can make the trip, buy the Mac and save some money
Tom G.
on 16 Jan 08I worked On a project with a guy from Argentina and he was great. Very good with flash and really cared about his craft. He got things done on time and communicated very well.
I got to thinking, why does everyone want to go to India if they think they need work done off shore. Argentina is pretty much in our time zone. Working with them is very easy.
I think I’ll call this guy up and ask if he want’s to be paid in Mac Book pros or maybe even Thin Air…
ariel
on 16 Jan 08While I have seen some really horrible logos that have no chance…for most logos (new Xerox one included) I think it takes years to evaluate their effectiveness and it’s a mistake to evaluate a logo on font type, weight, lower/upper-case, etc. How the company values, products, marketing messages reflect that logo are actually more important then the logo design itself.
Juan Melano
on 16 Jan 08re: Argentina
The problem with mac’s in Argentina is not taxes, but abuse from stores trying to make a profit of a 100% over the sale.
Regarding outsourcing, Argentina is getting bigger every day, not only as the call center for Latin America, but with software production and creative realted tasks (design, advertising, fashion)
The main reason is we have a great educated work force but the worst economical/industrial enviroment to grow within the country.
And currency exchange do make a difference with a 1/3 relation with US Dollars, 1/4.5 with euros and almost 1/6 with pounds.
We can only expect great things from outsourcing at Argentina, maybe even a price cut on mac related products… (if only!)
(by the way, rails community is getting bigger every day down here)
sean
on 16 Jan 08i’ve had a subscription to cook’s illustrated for a year now, and i’ve decided not to renew. while i liked the recipes, the write-ups struck me as unforgivably obnoxious and repetitive. every two months their by-lines would be a new permutation of “Everyone likes X, but how do you make a well-cooked X that isn’t bland and insipid?” to me, that sort of attitude grows increasingly tiresome.
the straw for me was their recipe for onion soup – they insisted on deglazing the pan three times for maximum flavor.
anyway, cook’s illustrated is fun at first, but really starts to get on one’s nerves.
martial
on 16 Jan 08What I like about Cook’s (and Julia Child, the spiritual godmother of Cook’s) is how the description of the process gives you the tools to be a better cook in general. You don’t have to follow their recipes (e.g. my onion soup is much better and way simpler than theirs), but because they’ve explained why such-and-such technique leads to this-n-that result, I can reproduce the effect in any other dish.
I haven’t subscribed for years, but I’m in their database and they call me every Christmas to offer the yearbook (a collection of the year’s issues) at a discount off the cover price (though I’m sure the cover price is set such that the “discount” price isn’t really). They also, however, keep sending me offers to resubscribe that look like past due notices. This is really, really, really obnoxious and is eroding my desire to keep buying the yearbooks.
benjamin reece
on 16 Jan 08I guess you guys don’t intend on citing Brand New?
Rob
on 16 Jan 08If you like Cook’s Illustrated, then you should really also check out Cuisine at home magazine.
They also tend to follow the recipe-as-story model, and put out a lot of really great product reviews, but with one major difference: No Ads. They operate from a subscription-based model instead. And because everything is subscription-driven, you can really trust that their reviews are in the best interest of the reader.
Mobile gal
on 16 Jan 08I’ve found that new Xerox logo looks like Kyrgyz flag too.
Andrew S
on 17 Jan 08The parchment paper recommendation is a great one. I’ve converted every roommate of mine into using it since your food won’t stick and cleanup is a cinch. Although it did take some convincing that the paper wouldn’t burn in the oven…
acap.
on 17 Jan 08I like the KODAK , equal times, equal logos…
This discussion is closed.