Oren Etzioni is a renowned data mining expert who sold Farecast, his airline-ticket price predictor to Microsoft for $115 million. Now he's turned his focus to the general problem of finding when the best shopping bargains occur. Punch in a consumer electronics item and his website will tell you whether to buy now or to wait. Over time he'll be adding more product categories. In any case, he can tell you right now the best prices for most things aren't on Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
posted by storybored on Dec 1, 2011 - 14 comments

Forget shopping, Friday is Update Your Parents' Browser Day!
posted by brenton on Nov 24, 2011 - 55 comments

"Too many people are out of work, struggling to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Many are lacking health insurance and foregoing staples that in different times were a given. So please, protesting retail workers, stop whining about having to work holiday hours. Be grateful to have a job." [more inside]
posted by mightygodking on Nov 24, 2011 - 235 comments

“I feel terrible,” [Best Buy chief executive Brian] Dunn told attendees at a conference in San Francisco. “It will change some Thanksgiving plans for our employees. It certainly changes mine...We were going to be open at much more civilized hour, like 3 or 4 [AM].”

Feeling pressure from a weak economy and escalating competition from rival retailers, stores like Best Buy are somewhat reluctantly planning to open stores at midnight on Thanksgiving evening. Traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year, Black Friday has become Black Midnight. [more inside]
posted by 2bucksplus on Nov 9, 2011 - 191 comments

Bitcoin is growing up: early adopters lost money due to bad backups; the US Senate wants to crack down due to possible illegal drug purchases with the digital coins; it had its Black Friday, losing 30% of its value in one day (after a 5,600% increase in the first year); the Economist weighs in; and now an alledged heist of 25k bitcoins (original forum post), valued between $250k and $750k on the Mt. Gox exchange. Currently 154 petaflops of CPU and GPUs are computing SHA256 hashes in tight loops, easily beating the #1 on the top500, the Tiahne-1A with 2.56 petaflops. (Previously and more previously)
posted by autopilot on Jun 15, 2011 - 113 comments

SighFilter: In light of other Black Friday tales of horror or posts urging a more sober consumerism, now comes this story of a worker trampled to death at Wal-Mart and a woman who miscarried in a stampede. They ought to have read FEMA's Black Friday Advisory.
posted by resurrexit on Nov 28, 2008 - 135 comments

Time for Black Friday again and people just losing it and going fucking insane.
posted by Foci for Analysis on Nov 25, 2007 - 168 comments

Let's Go To the Mall!! Could Robin Sparkles be the patron saint of Black Friday? Ok, so maybe her myspace page is just marketing for a CBS sitcom, but her video is one of the funniest, most accurate (and too damned catchy for its own good!) 80's video parodies in recent memory. The show's not bad, either. Probably the best comedy not on NBC right now.
posted by ericbop on Nov 22, 2006 - 41 comments

Black Friday. The meaning of which brings either joy, bewilderment or disgust. Several retailers have sent DMCA notices to several deal hunting sites forcing them to remove any ads or information that reveal any specials that will be offered. WTF!? What other inane uses will the DMCA be used for?
posted by the biscuit man on Nov 21, 2002 - 17 comments

The day after Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day of the year in America. False. This and many other popular xmas legends debunked at snopes (also notable: Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer created by the Montgomery Ward store chain).
posted by mathowie on Nov 26, 2001 - 11 comments