But in Lodz, Poland, a teenage boy hacked into the local trolley system to use it like “a giant train set.”
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But in Lodz, Poland, a teenage boy hacked into the local trolley system to use it like “a giant train set.”
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13. U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
Amid concern about overheating notebooks and exploding batteries, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in September issues a helpful tip on how to use a laptop:
"Do not use your computer on your lap."
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10. Comcast
... or stay on the line and one of our representatives will wake from his drunken slumber to assist you.
During a routine service call in June, a Comcast cable repairman falls asleep on the couch of customer Brian Finkelstein.
Finkelstein's ensuing video, complete with soundtrack ("I Need Some Sleep," by the Eels) and commentary on the company's poor equipment, high prices, and lousy customer service, quickly becomes a viral hit on the Web.
Comcast apologizes and fires the nodding worker -- who was stuck on hold for more than an hour while calling in to the company for assistance.
Check out this article on CNN below:
Betrayer!
All right, so I'm an idiot, but I just now figured out that my new Dell computer came with pre-downloaded music. Did your computer do this? How did Michael Dell know what to send? I mean, did he read my mind? Clearly NOT, because he loaded up Nickel Creek, someone named Carey Ott, The Greencards, and Freakhouse (who the hell are THEY?) and when I finally figured out how to download MY music (i.e., GOOD music), there was this musical CLUTTER sitting in there and I had to delete it all. Humph!
Doesn't Michael Dell know that music is SACRED and that he can't just determine a person's musical taste for them? Do you think those bands PAID Mr. Dell to load them on my computer, or does he simply thinks he knows best? I mean, the man is worth $16 million dollars; does he really need to take payola from Nickel Creek?
Guilty!
P.S. Thanks for the Karsh Kale, Mike.
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In January 2007 a blog post titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year proposed the theory that a black version of the Google search engine would save a fair bit of energy due to the popularity of the search engine. Since then there has been skepticism about the significance of the energy savings that can be achieved and the cost in terms of readability of black web pages.
I think they just want to show off how punk rock they are. Plus, black goes with everything.
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I'm sort of addicted to this stuff. It's light, vanilla scent is just the thing on a hot day, or after a cool shower on a REALLY hot day, when fragrance is just too much. The spray has a nice feel, and it's not at all as "sparkly" as you might think (or even hope). The problem (if it is one), is that this is a product marketed for 7-year-olds! Or even younger.
According to Ad Age, “Girls have started using deodorant younger and younger,” said Dave Knox, assistant brand manager at P&G overseeing the body-spray launch. “If you don’t target the consumer in her formative years, you’re not going to be relevant through the rest of her life.”
This makes perfect sense, right? P&G figures that if you don't get 'em young, you won't get 'em at all. So, they've come up with Sparkle Body Spray, and an advertising strategy designed to capture youngsters where they live - online.
Supposedly, imc², an "interactive ad agency" (go ask Lauren what that is) has created a first for the Procter & Gamble brand - 'character' blogs wherein each "Sparkle Body Spray Girl" has her own posts on the website, written in a tone and language to match her unique personality. Rose is a romantic. Vanilla is a hip music lover. Tropical is a cheerleader. And Peach is into computers. (I'm Vanilla - go figure). Some folks (like those over at the Big Blog Company) are ecstatic. Others are less so, citing "fake blogs" and "fake people" as a sign of mass marketing manipulation that poor smelly 7-year-old girls won't be able to figure out.
In fact, the uproar was so loud that P&G has pulled the ad campaign. According the CBS News Marketplace, "Procter & Gamble has quashed its Secret Sparkle Body Spray ad campaign that targeted preteen girls with a deodorant body spray.
The move comes after the Children’s Advertising Review Unit complained that P&G was ignoring its guidelines for advertising to children. The CARU rules say that “products inappropriate for children should not be advertised to children. This is especially true for products labelled ‘Keep out of reach of children.’”
The offending deodorant spray line carried a ‘Keep out of reach of children’ label, but nonetheless P&G’s advertising for the product was directly aimed at preteen girls as young as seven."
Damn. Now you can't find the Sparkle Girl blogs, nor can you find them on the "immersive online advertising" on www.neopets.com, or at www.secret.com. And what totally fun stuff will Vanilla be doing this weekend? What about her iPod downloads? Now I'm worried that if I can't find the Sparkle Girls, I won't be able to find my Sparkle Body Spray. Maybe P&G will pull that too. And that will just stink.
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Why don't you have an iPhone yet? No time to camp out, not available in your favorite color?
Peter Basch from LA2Day asks us to tell the truth, "We are too poor," but before you get despondent, consider his great pointers on how to reject the iPhone, including ways "to make the iPhone early adopter feel like a bit of a git."
Here then are a few positive answers that will leave you one-up:
"Tell you the truth, I'm kind of over it, now that it's available"
"Hope you’re keeping your old phone around, because you'll be sending your iPhone back for a new battery after your 1-year warranty has expired, but before your 2-year contract is up"
"Without GPS it's really kind of, you know, lame"
"I do a lot of calling from the car, and I need voice dialing or, at least, tactile feedback so I can keep my eyes on the road"
"It doesn't have a Bluetooth A2DP profile for listening to music with wireless headphones (note: this one is particularly effective, as nobody knows what it means)"
"Family plan costs $30 a month extra, not the $10 you expect - read the 5pt type in your AT&T contract"
"Thank god I don’t need to be writing emails all the time, and, if I did, a keyboarded phone, like a Blackberry, would be a lot better"
And then, of course, there's always my personal favorite - the truth - which is: Call me a Luddite but I really only want my phone to do one thing - call people!
]]>In any case, I bought a new Dell Inspiron e1705, and here it is:
I'm enjoying the 17" display and the various bells and whistles. The wide screen gives me the opportunity to have multiple screens open with real estate to spare, so I can shop online and compare sites. Heaven! I haven't had a chance to play with Vista, so I'll reserve judgement on that. And so far, I haven't downloaded any photos, so I haven't backed them up yet. But I'm planning on it. Oh, yes, I'm planning on it.
And did I mention that my new Dell came with LoJack? That's right. I pity the fool that tries to steal this puppy and finds me at their door.
A pal at work has been mind-raping me for the better part of the week with this little gem via inter-office IM:
btw, you've been RickRoll'd!!!
I have an H-bomb waiting for that smug bastard when he gets back in:
OMFG! You've just got Blazed!!!!1!!!!SHIFT1
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*btw, once you watch these videos, no matter how hard you may try, you will not be able to unwatch them.
My first response upon hearing the news via Twitter and then reading Kathy's post on my mobile whilst driving to Las Vegas yesterday was to start singing old punk songs about self-defense and community unity. My second thought was "Let me at 'em with my steel toed panda shoes on..." My third thought was, "Hmmm... Self-Defense...Gun or karate?" Violence does not stop violence.
Here is my final response after a day of deliberation: Kathy, please keep blogging. The trolls win when you are silenced.
In March of 1998, Daniel Glass of Royal Crown Revue called me and asked, nee pleaded, that I take over the RCR mailing list. It was big and brawling. Old school punks plus hardcore swing dancers plus a bunch of tech geeks make for an interesting but at times explosive mailing list. I naively took it on and renamed the list "The Barflies Mailing List" after the RCR song. Up to 500 emails a day on subjects ranging from music to dancing to living to computers to bicycling to .... devolved into many of awful emails a day of 1 punk troll versus 1 swing-dancing-engineering troll plus their various factions warring.
In the first week of February of 2000, I took the list down and fled to Key West Florida and Nashville (Wahoo... BR549!) for a week. Upon my return, over 650 people hated me and not our 2 trolls.
In the 20/20 hindsight of 7 years, I can see that I should have trusted the community to fight for themselves and not let the trolls take over. Or maybe I should have IP banned the two trolls and let the community deal with the aftermath. What I know now is that I should have not taken the whole mailing list down.
Please, Kathy, report the event to the police (check), IP addresses and all. Ask the community of bloggers to help you (check). Wait for the community to rally and get the job done. Keep blogging about creating passionate users, as passionate users become passionate communities. Passionate communities make for an internet worth fight for.
p.s. Dear former Barflies.net mailing list folk (1998-2000), I am sorry.