Everyone has had a terrible customer support experience at least once in their life. Those who are cursed into having to deal with customer service often would do well to learn The Art of Turboing. Turboing, essentially, refers to the actions of a customer who goes around the normal technical support process by contacting a senior person in the chain of command. The article does a great job describing the process and how to go about it. The idea of Turboing sounds worse than it is, but it is also made clear that you should turbo only when you’ve exhausted all other avenues of support and hit a dead end. So go forth, my service-maligned readers, and Turbo your way to victory. Or something. [via memepool]

Some good stuff being discussed over at DyREnet’s message board. First, it seems that Drifter has revealed the great secrets of Man.com (the mystery that started with a cryptic and utterly annoying Tandem Story entry on this page). Also, check out the discussion on Coke, including my own moronic exploits with cola.

A Mystery Wrapped in an Enigma by William Lombardy : A 1974 Sports Illustrated article providing a detailed account of Bobby Fischer’s struggle and eventual victory in the 1972 World Chess Championship. I’ve never been much good at Chess, but I have a certain fascination and respect for those who are. Fischer comes off as emotionally unstable in the article, but I have this sneaking sort of suspicion that every little move (or complaint) he made was calculated. Sometimes he won before he even entered the arena. But then, he is definitely an odd person as well, so who really knows?

Probabilities in the Game of Monopoly has all the numbers you could ever possibly need to play Monopoly more efficiently; most probable squares, how long it takes for investments to pay off, which properties are better to mortgage, where to build hotels, which squares get landed on first.

The railroads are excellent investments, particularly when owned together, although in absolute income terms they don’t keep up with heavily built on properties later in the game. The best return on investment to be found is from putting a third house on New York Avenue. In fact, the third house has the fastest payoff of any building on almost all of the properties. The square most landed on other than Jail is Illinois Avenue, and in fact a hotel there will bring the most income other than a hotel on Boardwalk. By far the worst individual investment is to buy Medeterranean Avenue without first owning Baltic. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t buy it, but it’s not going to make you much money without quite a bit of construction. The properties between the Jail square and the Go To Jail square are landed on the most, because of the jump caused by landing on Go To Jail. The Orange ones have the biggest bang for the buck as far as building goes.

All the probabilities were conducted with a long term computer simulation. I suppose this whole thing may seem excessive, but it is quite interesting and nice to know that the orange properties are the best to own and build on. The simulations do not, however, take into account all the shady dealings between players (I’ll trade you St. Charles Place, which will give you a monopoly, for Baltic Ave. and 5 free passes on any of your properties) that can be ever-so-crucial to the outcome of the game. [via Bifurcated Rivets]

Is It O.K. to Be a Luddite? by Thomas Pynchon : Luddite. It sounds like an element doesn’t it? Basically, a Luddite is someone who opposes technology. Pynchon tackles the subject with his usual gusto:

Except maybe for Brainy Smurf, it’s hard to imagine anybody these days wanting to be called a literary intellectual, though it doesn’t sound so bad if you broaden the labeling to, say, “people who read and think.” Being called a Luddite is another matter. It brings up questions such as, Is there something about reading and thinking that would cause or predispose a person to turn Luddite? Is It O.K. to be a Luddite? And come to think of it, what is a Luddite, anyway?

Pynchon goes into the history of Luddites, from the Ned Lud, straight through to Frankenstein and Star Wars references – oh, and lets not forget that all important folk hero, the Badass. Theres something about scholarly discussion of the Badass that I just find compelling. Anyway, if anyone wants to give themselves a headache, check out Pynchon’s acclaimed classic Gravity’s Rainbow (and for people who want to lessen the strength of said headache, you can buy a 345 page book containing the Sources and Contexts for Pynchon’s Novel). Actually, from what I’ve read of it (which is, admittedly, not much), its quite good. [via wood s lot]