Social Engineering

[Evil Roy Slade]

A few days ago I was reading a travel book, Tim Moore's Continental Drifter. In a small town in the south of France, he notes:

In 1848, the huge bronze statue of Louis XIV on his horse that still stands outside the local McDonald's was saved from a threatening crowd only after someone persuaded them it would be an even more effective insult to replace the royal inscription with one in praise of the sculptor, a local boy. No one seems to know who brokered this unlikely feat of diplomacy -- only in France could a baying mob be prevailed upon to throw down their pitchforks in favour of irony.

Today, Social Engineering arrives and hey presto, there it is -- the Irony technique on page 81. GURPS really can do anything.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Evil Roy Slade

Today, Social Engineering arrives and hey presto, there it is -- the Irony technique on page 81. GURPS really can do anything.

LOL very good example.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Evil Roy Slade

Today, Social Engineering arrives and hey presto, there it is -- the Irony technique on page 81. GURPS really can do anything.

I must say, I was bemused by how very timely my final vignette, with the police line facing an angry crowd outside a bank, turned out to be.

Bill Stoddard

[ClayDowling]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Been there, tried that. The added expenses (extra personnel, shipping stuff between the two locations, etc.) of having an Austin office and Las Vegas warehouse went a long way toward mitigating the tax savings, to the point where it wasn't worth the headache and hassles.

The logistical challenges of remote operations generally means that it's only practical for very large companies, and probably ones who need to do it for reasons besides taxation.

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by Landwalker

The "just-in-time" or "lean production" strategy O'Donnell points out isn't something unique to the publishing industry, of course. It's widely taught and practiced across almost all manufacturing industries (and was really popularized by Toyota). For most industries, it's terrific. Unfortunately, publishing (or rather, writing, since the writer is ultimately the one in a squeeze) isn't one of them.

Lean goes beyond manufacturing, though that's where it was initially popularized; the principle of minimizing work done that isn't producing value is fairly generally applicable (Google is the usual poster child, in most books I've seen, for lean methods outside of manufacturing, and software development is probably the area that there is the most written on it outside of manufacturing, though there's quite a bit on lean elsewhere, including government.)

And I don't know that lean methods are any less good in writing and publishing. Tax rule changes that make "leaning up" the only option to survive because they make the inherent cost of work that is done but not producing value (in the form of inventory) obviously are going to more painful in an industry where there are bigger economies of scale in production and comparatively low warehousing costs, such that keeping a fairly large inventory has a strong incentive (I get the impression that was historically the case in print publishing), but lean methods themselves don't seem to be a bad thing so much as one with limited applicability where there are strong incentives to keep inventory like that.

SJG, with GURPS, seems to be putting out more and better content since they started focussing on smaller units of work with shorter turnaround time, which seems to be good for customers, presumably has improved their profitability compared to what it would be without the change given the same climate, and -- unless they've reduced their pay scale to writers -- would seem likely to be good for writers, too (both because of the increased volume of work available, and because the units of work are smaller which means writers, like SJG, are sitting on less of an inventory of work that has been done but isn't returning value to them.)

And as an aside, I know people like to demonize the IRS, but they get a bad rap. The IRS didn't and still doesn't have anything to do with this. Congress writes the tax code. The IRS just carries it out and makes sure people follow Congress's rules (which Thor, and evidently many other companies and industries, weren't). It's like blaming the police department or state patrol if you get a speeding ticket—they don't make the rules; they just enforce them.

Well, the IRS does do more than that, since the IRS has some latitude in determining how to carry out Congress's rules, both in terms of regulatory authority and administrative practice (just as police may use their enforcement powers in ways, including undesirable ways, that are not mandated by the laws they are enforcing.) However, the point that people often fail to distinguish whether the responsibility for a particular IRS behavior is the IRS's choice or that of the Congress is a good one.

[Lord Herman]

I'm almost done reading the book cover to cover, and I'm very impressed. This adds a lot of useful detail to a part of GURPS that was always a bit too vague for my tastes. Great work, guys!

[jacobmuller]

OMG I'm only getting to read this now - shocked it's over 2 years - so many missed opportunities.
Great piece of work.