Tapping the Innovative Masses

Where does most product innovation come from? You might look for it in the R&D units of consumer-product manufacturers, but you'd be better off checking the basement workshop of your next-door neighbor. In a survey conducted in the U.K. last year, MIT's Eric von Hippel and colleagues found evidence that that the amount of money consumers spent tweaking products dwarfed the R&D outlays by all British consumer-product firms combined. David Talbot, Technology Review's chief correspondent, recently asked von Hippel, a professor of technological innovation at the Sloan School of Management, what lessons he gleaned from the survey on how companies can recognize and tap the power of user innovation.

TR: You surveyed 1,173 U.K. adults about their product-tinkering and inventive habits. What did you find?

Von Hippel: We found that 6.2 percent?representing 2.9 million people, or two orders of magnitude more than are employed as product developers in the U.K.?created or modified consumer products over the past three years and spent 2.3 billion pounds per year, more than double what the U.K. firms spent on consumer-product R&D.

What sorts of things were they doing?

Our surveyors found people who reprogrammed their washing machines to create a spin-only cycle, modified dog bowls so they wouldn't slide around the floor when the dog ate, built treetop trimmers based on a fishing rod and line, and reprogrammed their GPS gadgets for better usability.

We all know people who are tinkerers. What's new in your findings?

What's remarkable is the scale and scope of it, and that it's been unrecognized. Basically, nobody ever expected that consumers innovate. It's not in economic theory. It's not in policymaking. The traditional model that has been in place since 1934 [the economist Joseph A. Schumpeter published The Theory of Economic Development that year] is that producers are the innovators. Schumpeter even argued that producers, by what they offer, create user needs. Because there was an assumption that producers were innovators, nobody looked at individual consumers to see if they innovated. Now that we've taken a look, we find out it's twice as large as producer innovation in consumer categories.

Aren't companies already adopting these kinds of user innovations?

The normal method for innovating in a firm is to do market research in the target market, and then do in-house product development. The problem is that market researchers often disregard solutions contained in what users told them. If users said "I came up with a better way to do X," market research would convert that into "So-and-so needs a better way to do X," and ignore the user-developed solution. After all, they would think, "It's R&D's job?not the consumers' job?to find the solution."

That sounds like something from a Dilbert cartoon.

Well, yes, I guess it does have that entertainingly perverse quality.

Besides your survey, what other evidence has emerged for broad user innovation?

The Internet has made user innovation much more visible. You might know privately about your Uncle Joe modifying something in his basement. But when you start to see consumer innovation on the Web?on sites [about topics] ranging from software improvements to John Deere garden-tractor hacks?then it starts to strike you as a category.

Why do companies ignore this?

For many years it has been very difficult to convince people of the increasing importance of new product and service development by users serving their own needs. Part of the reason is that the ongoing shift from producer to user innovation is also a paradigm shift. User innovation does not fit into the traditional, producer-centered paradigm. Until people understand the new paradigm, even though user innovation is in plain sight, it can be invisible to them.

So how can companies understand this trend and know where to look for good ideas?

The key take-home is that they should look for innovators in the leading edge of markets, instead of ordinary consumers. In other words, if you have someone who has an intense need today for something, those are the ones who will innovate. Tim Berners-Lee was at CERN and had an intense need for networking. So he created the World Wide Web. Microsoft didn't think people had this need, because they served average consumers.

Once companies have found somebody's solution, what comes next?

You have to be open to those outside solutions, which R&D often isn't. Not only do you have to change market research processes?and look at the outliers, the leading edge?but you have to then adapt R&D processes to build upon user-developed solutions rather than starting from scratch. I have a free, how-to-do-it book on my website explaining how to implement lead-user innovation processes for any who are interested.

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Congressional Memo: New Senators? Goals May Be Shaped by Their Styles

Not long after Mr. Rubio?s exit, a second rookie Republican, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, charged in the opposite direction, hurrying to the chamber to challenge an aviation measure that had strong backing from both parties.

The sharp contrast between the styles of two conservatives who became national figures in last year?s campaigns ? and the varied approaches of others in the Senate?s freshmen class ? show that political goals, ambition, experience and personality are as crucial as tradition in shaping a Congressional entrance strategy.

Some, like Mr. Paul and Senator Mark Steven Kirk, Republican of Illinois, seem to view the old Senate rituals of biding one?s time and deferring to senior members as passé. They joined the fray on the Senate floor almost as soon as they took their hands off the Bible after being sworn in.

?It might be somewhat my style to hit things on the head and not be too bashful about it,? said Mr. Paul, who gave his first speech less than a month into his term, a break from the tradition of waiting considerably longer before having the temerity to speak.

Mr. Rubio, who was embraced by conservatives nationwide when he opposed and ultimately defeated former Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida?s Senate race, has taken the opposite tack.

He eschews national political coverage and talks primarily to the state news media. He has passed up high-profile gatherings like a recent conservative conference in favor of events back home. And unlike Mr. Paul, he did not join the Senate?s new Tea Party Caucus despite having been backed by Tea Party advocates.

?First and foremost, he has a responsibility to the people who elected him in Florida, and that is where the focus of his work is,? said Alex Burgos, a spokesman for Mr. Rubio. ?The schedule reflects that as much as his public appearances.?

In moving into hunker-down mode, Mr. Rubio is following in the footsteps of previous celebrity senators who did not want to irritate their new constituents by striking a high-profile, national pose too early in their tenures.

At the beginning of her Senate career, Hillary Rodham Clinton put her energy almost exclusively into New York media and issues, though she was seen even then as a potential presidential candidate. Senator Al Franken, a former ?Saturday Night Live? writer and performer, still does not typically talk to the news media from outside his state of Minnesota, despite being a member of the Senate since mid-2009.

Senator John Thune, a South Dakota Republican who joined the Senate by knocking off Tom Daschle, then the Democratic leader, also homed in on parochial concerns upon his arrival in 2005.

?After having the high-profile Senate race, I wanted to focus on South Dakota, keep my head down, do the work as a senator, and avoided the spotlight, the Sunday shows and that kind of stuff,? said Mr. Thune, who just took himself out of the 2012 presidential race. ?We made a conscious decision to do that.?

Mr. Thune said he could understand both the approach of Mr. Paul, ?who has a big mandate to come here and shake things up,? and Mr. Rubio?s decision to ?really solidify himself in his state and convince people he is here to do the work of a legislator.?

Mr. Rubio, in the view of many analysts and colleagues, is planning longer term. The thinking is that Mr. Rubio, a former speaker of the Florida House, needs to build credibility and establish himself as a serious senator if he is take advantage of a promising future. Even with his lower profile, Mr. Rubio, 39, is still regularly mentioned as a potential vice-presidential candidate for 2012.

Other members of the freshman class are approaching their early days in their own ways.

Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, is a veteran of the House and President George W. Bush?s administration, and has already been called on by leadership to be a spokesman on budget issues because of his previous job as director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, formerly the No. 3 Republican in the House, has given his maiden speech and is a confident Senate newcomer. Senator Dan Coats of Indiana served in the Senate previously.

Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican who is essentially new to politics, is not avoiding the media but is not chasing after it, either, and has yet to have his inaugural speech.

?I?m not saying a whole lot until I have something to add to the conversation,? Mr. Johnson said. ?I want to speak when I have something valuable to say.?

For his part, Mr. Paul said that he did not go to the Senate to be a shrinking violet, and that if his early assertiveness has political repercussions, so be it.

?I told people when I ran that I was unafraid not to be elected,? Mr. Paul said. ?I truly meant that. I am incredibly privileged to have been here, but I was happy as a physician.?

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Hardware 19 - The Cockney Cast

Hardware 19 - The Cockney Cast

Posted on 18th Feb 2011 at 10:18 by Podcast with 6 comments

This week's bit-tech and Custom PC podcast is brought to you by Clive, Antony and Paul.

First on the agenda is the continuing Intel Sandy Bridge saga, and what motherboard manufacturers are doing to sort it out. We also comment on MSI's returns strategy, which the company announced on Wednesday.

Next we make some time to talk about the gorgeous Silverstone FT03. It's a pretty peculiar case due to its inverted design, but it's always refreshing to see manufactures taking a different approach.

Finally, Antony gives us a sneaky look at the CPU cooler group test from the latest issue of Custom PC, which went on sale at newsagents yesterday. Make sure you pick up a copy if you want to see which new CPU coolers offer the best combination of cooling and value.


As always, we've also set up our weekly competition, although there's a slightly different twist on it this week. The lucky winner will be able to get their hands on a Mionix Propus 380 mousepad, which will provide the perfect tracking surface for whichever mouse you choose to use.

As ever, the bit-tech hardware podcast features music by Brad Sucks, and was recorded on Shure microphones. You can download the podcast direct, listen in-browser or subscribe through iTunes using the links below. Also, be sure to let us know your thoughts about the discussion in the forums.

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Enermax to launch CPU coolers

Enermax to launch CPU coolers

Posted on 19th Feb 2011 at 10:32 by Richard Swinburne with 18 comments

During a brief discussion with Enermax recently, a PR person let slip that the company's planning to launch a new CPU cooler range, which will be based on the principles of vortex generator flow technology, while featuring a couple of Enermax's Twister bearing fans.

The cooler has six heatpipes that get direct contact with the CPU, while a Twister fan sits on either side of the tower. Meanwhile, the LEDs can be switched off using the little buttons below each fan in the picture. The fans *should* feature 4-pin PWM power connectors as well, but we don't know whether they'll be tied together with a single connector yet.


More information about the coolers is likely to start doing the rounds soon, though, as Enermax is encouraging folk to visit its booth in the usually wet (sometimes snowy), cold and miserable surroundings of the CeBIT tradeshow in Hannover, Germany, at the start of March.

Does this design look like a winner to you? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.

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Thoughts on The Arctic Cooling GCM

This isn?t really a review, and I can?t label it as such, if only because Arctic Cooling?s GCM isn?t really the type of device we usually cover. Still, when it landed in the office I just couldn?t help myself. It looked so cheap and nasty that the other guys in the office recoiled from it in melodramatic disgust. I had to write about it.

You?ve seen gizmos like the GCM before, probably. It wouldn?t be out of place on the prize rack of a fairground attraction, or in a machine at that really run-down arcade that your parents never let you go to. The packaging is emblazoned with bold claims that try to sell the GCM to you on a sheer value factor ? 80 games in 1? Wowee! ? all of which strengthens the impression that it?s going to be rubbish.

But, hey, at least it comes with its own Arctic Cooling batteries!

Of course, you can tell from the moment you turn it on and first hear those tiny, tinny speakers squeak into life that the 80 games it offers are going to be terrible; the lowest, cheapest emulations of the franchises and games that the creators feel they can get away with. You know that they?re going to be full of simplistic knock-offs at best, if they work at all.


Still, if you?re anything like me, you can?t help but hope a little. Maybe one of those games could actually be quite good, eh? Or maybe it?ll be just entertaining and cheap enough for it to be worth shoving the GCM into the bottom of your rucksack and keeping it for an absolute last resort ? those times when your DS, PSP, iPod Touch, Gameboy Color and mobile phone are all out of battery life. And your solar charger is broken. And you?ve not got a book. Then the GCM might sputter its way towards usefulness, maybe.

As soon as I picked up the GCM, however, all these ideas scuttled out of my head and it suddenly dawned on me what the others knew intuitively ? that there is no way the GCM could ever be good at anything, ever, for whatever reason. It?s too light and flimsy to even make a good paperweight, too bulky to fit into a pocket and too flimsy to feel satisfactory in your hands.

The GCM seems to sum up everything bad about mass production; vomited onto the market thoughtlessly and crudely because ? and I'm guessing this is the extent of any executive approval it might have received ? ?someone must want to buy this crap.?

And, seriously, it?s so badly made and designed that it makes broken glass look like a solid product. The sensitive Reset and Main Menu buttons are on the shoulders, right where your fingers normally rest. Even the screen rattles.


And the games? Sheesh. There are 80 of them, but they're all even worse than you might have feared ? mostly boring one-button affairs with no depth or excitement, in which bland Mii-like avatars drift floatily around boring backgrounds and respond to your button presses after a half-second delay. There are a few titles in the mix, such as the obligatory Breakout clone and Schmup, which work OK, but even they lack enough lustre or speed to encourage more than the first five-minute fiddle.

Most of the included games don?t even work, in fact. The GCM has got more bugs than an ant farm, and it crashes regularly too. One time I tried to boot up Jet Girl, one of the less obnoxious titles in the Racing Games category, but got nothing more than a 12 second loading screen followed by a burst of numbers running across the screen. A moment later the Fencing game loaded up instead. In French.

The GCM is really a joke, and its punchline must be the price. £40 for this pile of cheap, worthless trash? It?s one thing for the GCM to fulfil expectations by turning out to be a poorly built and cheaply produced pocket-toy full of games you wouldn?t play if you had to. It?s something altogether to charge such an outrageous RRP ? you could have a nice meal for two for the cost of this bloody thing!

As I predicted earlier, the GCM is indeed the type of product you?d expect to see in an oversized gumball machine outside a hairdresser in the bad part of town. No wonder this isn?t a proper review; there just isn?t a score low enough.

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Enermax to launch CPU coolers

Enermax to launch CPU coolers

Posted on 19th Feb 2011 at 10:32 by Richard Swinburne with 18 comments

During a brief discussion with Enermax recently, a PR person let slip that the company's planning to launch a new CPU cooler range, which will be based on the principles of vortex generator flow technology, while featuring a couple of Enermax's Twister bearing fans.

The cooler has six heatpipes that get direct contact with the CPU, while a Twister fan sits on either side of the tower. Meanwhile, the LEDs can be switched off using the little buttons below each fan in the picture. The fans *should* feature 4-pin PWM power connectors as well, but we don't know whether they'll be tied together with a single connector yet.


More information about the coolers is likely to start doing the rounds soon, though, as Enermax is encouraging folk to visit its booth in the usually wet (sometimes snowy), cold and miserable surroundings of the CeBIT tradeshow in Hannover, Germany, at the start of March.

Does this design look like a winner to you? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.

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Where Solar Power Meets the Oil Field

Extracting heavy oil from the ground carries a large carbon footprint, because the oil must be coaxed from the earth with steam. In California's Kern County, where steam-hungry oil fields account for 9 percent of the state's natural-gas consumption, GlassPoint Solar is testing an alternative: a one-acre greenhouse full of solar heat collectors. The Fremont, California, firm hopes this method will deliver steam in a way that's cleaner and cheaper than burning natural gas.

GlassPoint's technology is a cut-rate version of commercial solar thermal power plants that use mirrors to focus sunlight on pipes and then convert the captured heat to steam to drive power-generating turbines. GlassPoint's system is cheaper because it doesn't need the turbines, and because it has redesigned its mirrors and pipes to pump out steam that's 250 °C to 300 °C (whereas the steam required to drive turbines must be 350 °C to 400 °C).

Also, rather than building steel structures to support weather-hardened precision mirrors, GlassPoint uses comparatively flimsy foil mirrors in greenhouses. Its heat-absorbing tubes, meanwhile, are coated steel, rather than the power plants' high-efficiency glass vacuum tubes.

The result, predicts John O'Donnell, GlassPoint's vice president of business development, should be steam at a cost of $3 to $3.50 per million BTUs (including federal tax incentives for solar equipment). He compares that to an estimated $11 to $12 per million BTUs for conventional solar thermal collectors, and roughly $4 for natural gas. The spread over natural gas will widen under California's cap and trade system, set to take effect next year, which will add at least 50 cents per million BTUs to the cost of gas-fired steam.

O'Donnell says the pilot plant unveiled at a site operated by Berry Petroleum, California's biggest independent oil producer, is intended to provide a rapid test of the system's performance and operating costs. Its 40-meter-long string of mirrors and collectors will provide about one million BTUs of steam per hour, which he acknowledges is barely 1 percent of the site's gas consumption.

Assembling and starting up the plant in just six weeks has given GlassPoint a jump over solar thermal power generators eyeing the oil field market. BrightSource Energy expects to complete a solar thermal steam plant this year at an oil field in Coalinga, California, operated by Chevron?a BrightSource investor. Spain's Abengoa Solar, which has already built plants supplying solar steam to a California potato chip factory, a federal prison in Colorado, and a groundwater treatment operation in Arizona, says oil fields are a potential market for its industrial steam systems.                                                                                         

Stanford University petroleum engineer Tony Kovscek, an expert in heavy oil recovery and an unpaid advisor to GlassPoint, says he is excited by how easy it is to integrate GlassPoint's system with oil fields burning natural gas. "There's a pretty significant carbon footprint associated with these more viscous oils, and GlassPoint has created the potential to reduce that carbon footprint fairly significantly," says Kovscek.

How significantly depends on how quickly oil field operators are willing to adapt and follow the sun's cycle. Kovscek says that under current oil field procedures, which call for heating 24 hours a day, solar steam could displace the one-third of natural gas burned during the day. But he says preliminary research suggests that a large solar plant could inject extra heat during the day and trim overnight heat demand, thus displacing another third of a field's gas consumption.

Convincing oil field operators to experiment will take some time, says Kovscek: "The guys who operate these projects are some of the most conservative people you can imagine, and they don't like to change things."

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Tapping the Innovative Masses

Where does most product innovation come from? You might look for it in the R&D units of consumer-product manufacturers, but you'd be better off checking the basement workshop of your next-door neighbor. In a survey conducted in the U.K. last year, MIT's Eric von Hippel and colleagues found evidence that that the amount of money consumers spent tweaking products dwarfed the R&D outlays by all British consumer-product firms combined. David Talbot, Technology Review's chief correspondent, recently asked von Hippel, a professor of technological innovation at the Sloan School of Management, what lessons he gleaned from the survey on how companies can recognize and tap the power of user innovation.

TR: You surveyed 1,173 U.K. adults about their product-tinkering and inventive habits. What did you find?

Von Hippel: We found that 6.2 percent?representing 2.9 million people, or two orders of magnitude more than are employed as product developers in the U.K.?created or modified consumer products over the past three years and spent 2.3 billion pounds per year, more than double what the U.K. firms spent on consumer-product R&D.

What sorts of things were they doing?

Our surveyors found people who reprogrammed their washing machines to create a spin-only cycle, modified dog bowls so they wouldn't slide around the floor when the dog ate, built treetop trimmers based on a fishing rod and line, and reprogrammed their GPS gadgets for better usability.

We all know people who are tinkerers. What's new in your findings?

What's remarkable is the scale and scope of it, and that it's been unrecognized. Basically, nobody ever expected that consumers innovate. It's not in economic theory. It's not in policymaking. The traditional model that has been in place since 1934 [the economist Joseph A. Schumpeter published The Theory of Economic Development that year] is that producers are the innovators. Schumpeter even argued that producers, by what they offer, create user needs. Because there was an assumption that producers were innovators, nobody looked at individual consumers to see if they innovated. Now that we've taken a look, we find out it's twice as large as producer innovation in consumer categories.

Aren't companies already adopting these kinds of user innovations?

The normal method for innovating in a firm is to do market research in the target market, and then do in-house product development. The problem is that market researchers often disregard solutions contained in what users told them. If users said "I came up with a better way to do X," market research would convert that into "So-and-so needs a better way to do X," and ignore the user-developed solution. After all, they would think, "It's R&D's job?not the consumers' job?to find the solution."

That sounds like something from a Dilbert cartoon.

Well, yes, I guess it does have that entertainingly perverse quality.

Besides your survey, what other evidence has emerged for broad user innovation?

The Internet has made user innovation much more visible. You might know privately about your Uncle Joe modifying something in his basement. But when you start to see consumer innovation on the Web?on sites [about topics] ranging from software improvements to John Deere garden-tractor hacks?then it starts to strike you as a category.

Why do companies ignore this?

For many years it has been very difficult to convince people of the increasing importance of new product and service development by users serving their own needs. Part of the reason is that the ongoing shift from producer to user innovation is also a paradigm shift. User innovation does not fit into the traditional, producer-centered paradigm. Until people understand the new paradigm, even though user innovation is in plain sight, it can be invisible to them.

So how can companies understand this trend and know where to look for good ideas?

The key take-home is that they should look for innovators in the leading edge of markets, instead of ordinary consumers. In other words, if you have someone who has an intense need today for something, those are the ones who will innovate. Tim Berners-Lee was at CERN and had an intense need for networking. So he created the World Wide Web. Microsoft didn't think people had this need, because they served average consumers.

Once companies have found somebody's solution, what comes next?

You have to be open to those outside solutions, which R&D often isn't. Not only do you have to change market research processes?and look at the outliers, the leading edge?but you have to then adapt R&D processes to build upon user-developed solutions rather than starting from scratch. I have a free, how-to-do-it book on my website explaining how to implement lead-user innovation processes for any who are interested.

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Thoughts on The Arctic Cooling GCM

This isn?t really a review, and I can?t label it as such, if only because Arctic Cooling?s GCM isn?t really the type of device we usually cover. Still, when it landed in the office I just couldn?t help myself. It looked so cheap and nasty that the other guys in the office recoiled from it in melodramatic disgust. I had to write about it.

You?ve seen gizmos like the GCM before, probably. It wouldn?t be out of place on the prize rack of a fairground attraction, or in a machine at that really run-down arcade that your parents never let you go to. The packaging is emblazoned with bold claims that try to sell the GCM to you on a sheer value factor ? 80 games in 1? Wowee! ? all of which strengthens the impression that it?s going to be rubbish.

But, hey, at least it comes with its own Arctic Cooling batteries!

Of course, you can tell from the moment you turn it on and first hear those tiny, tinny speakers squeak into life that the 80 games it offers are going to be terrible; the lowest, cheapest emulations of the franchises and games that the creators feel they can get away with. You know that they?re going to be full of simplistic knock-offs at best, if they work at all.


Still, if you?re anything like me, you can?t help but hope a little. Maybe one of those games could actually be quite good, eh? Or maybe it?ll be just entertaining and cheap enough for it to be worth shoving the GCM into the bottom of your rucksack and keeping it for an absolute last resort ? those times when your DS, PSP, iPod Touch, Gameboy Color and mobile phone are all out of battery life. And your solar charger is broken. And you?ve not got a book. Then the GCM might sputter its way towards usefulness, maybe.

As soon as I picked up the GCM, however, all these ideas scuttled out of my head and it suddenly dawned on me what the others knew intuitively ? that there is no way the GCM could ever be good at anything, ever, for whatever reason. It?s too light and flimsy to even make a good paperweight, too bulky to fit into a pocket and too flimsy to feel satisfactory in your hands.

The GCM seems to sum up everything bad about mass production; vomited onto the market thoughtlessly and crudely because ? and I'm guessing this is the extent of any executive approval it might have received ? ?someone must want to buy this crap.?

And, seriously, it?s so badly made and designed that it makes broken glass look like a solid product. The sensitive Reset and Main Menu buttons are on the shoulders, right where your fingers normally rest. Even the screen rattles.


And the games? Sheesh. There are 80 of them, but they're all even worse than you might have feared ? mostly boring one-button affairs with no depth or excitement, in which bland Mii-like avatars drift floatily around boring backgrounds and respond to your button presses after a half-second delay. There are a few titles in the mix, such as the obligatory Breakout clone and Schmup, which work OK, but even they lack enough lustre or speed to encourage more than the first five-minute fiddle.

Most of the included games don?t even work, in fact. The GCM has got more bugs than an ant farm, and it crashes regularly too. One time I tried to boot up Jet Girl, one of the less obnoxious titles in the Racing Games category, but got nothing more than a 12 second loading screen followed by a burst of numbers running across the screen. A moment later the Fencing game loaded up instead. In French.

The GCM is really a joke, and its punchline must be the price. £40 for this pile of cheap, worthless trash? It?s one thing for the GCM to fulfil expectations by turning out to be a poorly built and cheaply produced pocket-toy full of games you wouldn?t play if you had to. It?s something altogether to charge such an outrageous RRP ? you could have a nice meal for two for the cost of this bloody thing!

As I predicted earlier, the GCM is indeed the type of product you?d expect to see in an oversized gumball machine outside a hairdresser in the bad part of town. No wonder this isn?t a proper review; there just isn?t a score low enough.

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Standoffs, Protests and a Prank Call

Brian Bosma, the Republican majority leader of the Indiana House, opened the chamber?s session on Thursday, but as has been true all week, a roll call vote showed that 37 of the 40 Democrats were absent, preventing a quorum for any state business.

Democrats in Wisconsin and Indiana have fled their home states to avoid voting on Republican-sponsored legislation that would strip unions of much of their authority.

?Thank you for being here,? Mr. Bosma said to the mostly Republican members present in Indiana. Just outside the door, protesters could be heard chanting loudly, ?This is our House!?

Mr. Bosma said he had spoken to B. Patrick Bauer, the minority leader, twice that morning. Mr. Bauer had given no indication, Mr. Bosma said, that he or the other Democratic lawmakers would be returning from their self-imposed exile in Urbana, Ill.

One of three Democrats present in Indianapolis on Thursday morning, Scott Pelath, who represents Michigan City, said he was listening to the protesters and was inspired by them.

?I know a lot of our members are going to have a hard time letting them down,? he said.

While Republicans insisted that the bills were required to balance state budgets, Democrats and thousands of protesters who circled and chanted outside the Capitols in Indiana and Wisconsin insisted that the legislation was an all-out attack on the middle class.

In Wisconsin, the State Assembly began final debate on Thursday on the governor?s budget legislation, which would severely limit collective bargaining for state unions. Republican leaders said they expected a vote late Thursday.

But even if the Assembly passes the bill, it will still be stalled because the Senate cannot vote on it without a quorum of 20 members. There are only 19 Republicans in the Senate, and their Democratic counterparts remained camped out in Illinois to prevent a vote. Wisconsin troopers do not have jurisdiction to order them back home.

Senate Republicans once again issued a ?call to the house? on Thursday morning, sending troopers in the hope of finding at least some of the Senate Democrats at home. But they found none, extending the crisis.

?The Senate Democrats need to come to work and do their jobs,? said Scott Fitzgerald, the Senate?s Republican majority leader. ?Ask any employer, anywhere in this state if they?d be this patient if one of their employees refused to show up for a week.?

Unions began running new advertisements against the legislation. And protesters who have been camped out at the Capitol marched around the building, chanting ?Kill the bill.? Union supporters planned rallies in at least 17 cities, and new union print advertisements joined statewide television and radio ads opposing the legislation.

In Ohio, where thousands of protesters last week had argued against a bill that would ban collective bargaining for state workers, Senate leaders agreed to change the legislation, to allow state workers the chance to negotiate wages. But the measure would now bar public employees from striking.

As the fights in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana have garnered national attention, more fights were expected soon. In Oklahoma, the House is considering legislation that would ban collective bargaining with municipal unions. In Tennessee, Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation to prevent collective bargaining between teachers? unions and local school boards.

In Wisconsin, Democratic lawmakers said the state?s Republican governor, Scott Walker, was out purely to break the unions, noting that the unions had already agreed to the concessions on wages and benefits to balance the budget.

Their suspicions were increased after the publicizing of comments Mr. Walker made during what turned out to be a prank phone call from a blogger posing as a well-known conservative donor. In the call, the governor discussed tactics to trick Democrats back to the Capitol, and compared his efforts to President Ronald Reagan?s firing of the air traffic controllers in 1981. ?This is our moment, this is our time to change history,? Mr. Walker said.

The caller was Ian Murphy, the editor of the New York-based Web site Buffalo Beast, posing as David Koch, who with his brother Charles leads Koch Industries, which finances libertarian causes like the Cato Institute and Americans for Prosperity and which helped mobilize a Tea Party demonstration in support of the governor on Saturday.

Kate Zernike reported from Madison and Susan Saulny from Indianapolis. Reporting was contributed by Steven Greenhouse and A. G. Sulzberger from Madison and Sabrina Tavernise from Columbus, Ohio.

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