Just curious. Why do we need handicapped parking at a fitness centre? I actually saw one at a Jiu-Jitsu and kickboxing place.
Surely, if you're fit enough to participate in those types of sports, you don't need a handicapped parking spot.
Oh, right, it's for the admin staff and spectators. I'm sure they're the only ones who park there.
Ah, New York cabbies. Luddites all. It seems they don't want to allow GPS technology in their cabs and are willing to go on strike to back it up. Read more.
The main reason, they claim, is privacy. They don't want their whereabouts to be tracked by their dispatchers. Well, duh? What could be more important than knowing where cabs are?
The real reason is that they don't want their customers to know that they're driving in circles or lost. The GPS would help them get to a destination faster – and cheaper. Therefore, the cabbies don't want it.
If you're the suspicious type (and who isn't in a New York cab?) you'll be able to tell if they're taking the long route to rack up charges. Would the average cab driver see a 25% drop in revenue?
I use 1and1.com for several domains and associated web sites. For the third time this year they had major downtime. The server running all my domains crashed and was down for hours.
Although I could get through to tech support quickly, they had nothing intelligent to say and could not provide an ETA on when it would be functioning.
As of this writing, most of the sites are up, but the CGIs are still bust and I can't FTP into the site to update the content.
1and1.com has cheap web hosting that works well when it works. But be prepared to have multiple, multi-day outages, perhaps yearly. And don't expect tech support to help at all.
1and1.com are the poster-boys for the phrase, “You get what you pay for.”
Update: A day has elapsed. The sites are back up but I cannot make any changes to my files, and my CGIs, like hit counters, are not working. It appears that the file system is in read-only mode. I called tech support, they answered instantly, and confirmed that there was a server problem and it had, indeed, been brought up in read-only mode. As usual, they had no clue when the problem would be fixed.
Update: Two days later and it seems that everything is working again. Clearly, they restored from backup as hit counters were reset to earlier numbers.
So there you have it. Expect multi-day outages with 1and1.
This article and this article talk about the decision by the Copyright Bored of Canada, who were so bored they decided it would be better to just approve the friggin' “iPod tax”, and get some more tax revenue, than to do what's right.
These good folks, who probably don't even know what an iPod is they're so out of it, have approved a tax on MP3 players like the iPod, and on memory chips, even though the previous tax was struck down costing retailers like Apple, and consumers alike a ton of money to refund the illegal tax.
Well, I guess these 'tards made it legal again.
You can read the whole decision in the PDF file linked from the Bored's web site. You could that is if it didn't make you puke.
Speaking of making me puke, take a look at the guy on the Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC) (A.K.A. The Borg) site. A big dufus smile on his face, hands clasped in the prayer postion, looking up to the heavens, no doubt praising the decision of the Bored.
Read what the Borg Collective wants to charge for media, including memory cards, here.
I use memory cards in my PDA, camera, GPS, and on USB thumb drives. The Borg believe, I swear they honestly believe, that we should pay them significant amounts of money just because memory cards can be used to hold music. Of course, they believe that all music has been stolen, so everyone must pay.
For files and photos on my PDA, for pictures I take with my camera, for routes and waypoints in my GPS, and documents I transport to and from work, the Borg says I need to pay them money.
As for music players, clearly, they all contain stolen music. The fact that you take the CDs you've already paid for, or tracks you download from the iTunes Store, and put them on your player is not enough. These robber barons, in collusion with the government, say you must pay them again.
But the Borg doesn't want to stop there. They also talk about anything with a disk drive, oh hell let's make it all materials in the universe, can be used to store music so, what the hell, let's think about applying a tax to them too. Mind-numbing, insatiable, unethical greed in it's raw form.
When someone takes money from me for something I've already paid for, or takes money from me when I don't even use their product, I call that theft. Ergo, the Bored and Borg are thieves, robbing from the little guy and giving to the feds and the music industry.
As one of the commenters says at this article, “The first rule of any scam is to pay off the government.” Looks like it worked.
Any rational person will look at this tax and say, “Geez, since I've already paid for my music, in advance no less, I guess I can download all I want for free, and guilt-free to boot.” Somehow I think that's going to be a lot less revenue for the Borg.
But, you see, they believe you still need to buy your music, then you need to pay to store your music, and no doubt they're formulating a plan to tax you every time you play your music, or even sing a tune in the shower.
Hey jerks! I'm going to sing Happy Birthday at my kids' parties. How much do I owe you?
Fortunately for me, I live close to the U.S. border. As soon as this tax takes effect, I won't be buying any iPods or memory cards in Canada. A quick hop across the border will ensure these jerks won't get any of my money.
If you're a Canadian retailer reading that last statement, expect to lose a lot of business from Canadians near the border. Thank your government. They're bending over now for you to plant a wet one on their asses.
I've wondered about this for years, decades, centuries, millenniums.
Why is it that road construction crews will come out, tear up a road, and then leave it to get pot holes and washboard. It's muddy and slippery during rain storms, yet there it sits, abandoned.
Meanwhile, everyone using the road is seriously inconvenienced.
I'll bet the wives of all the guys who schedule road construction are yelling at them too, “Finish what you start!”
I was at a restaurant for lunch on Sunday. It doesn't matter which one and and I'm not going to give them any business by mentioning their name. Take that T J's Roadhouse!
The food was overpriced, like $13 for fish and chips. Uh, you're on the waterfront. That means fish is supposed to be cheaper!
They charged an outrageous $2.50 for a small glass of Diet Coke. Sure you get refills, but there's a catch. Try to get the waitress to bring you one.
We ordered drink refills. After 15 minutes, we were ready to go, and still no refills. In fact, our waitress had disappeared.
Finally, another waitress brought our bills. When asked about our original waitress, the new one said that our waitress was also the bartender(!)
That shouldn't matter. I don't care if she cleans toilets. OK, that's going too far. She shouldn't disappear before completing the service for a table she started with.
I wasn't afraid to tip appropriately. Next time I'll leave without paying my absent bill. I hope she loses her job.
Read this post fast as I wouldn't be surprised if the Google-owned Blogger yanks it.
You may notice as you read my home page that I use Google's AdSense program to generate a bit of revenue. Actually, an insignificant, almost unmeasurable amount of revenue, as this blog is not popular. That's not what frosts me.
I also try to use Amazon's ads as an alternate source of revenue, again, virtually unmeasurable. But if those ads appear on the home page of the blog, the Google AdSense ads disappear or are replaced by community service ads.
Why?
Here's what Google AdSense's Terms of Service state that's relevent (I think, 'cause I ain't no lawyer):
“You agree not to display on the same Web page in connection with which any Ad Unit, Ad, Link, Search Box, or Referral Button is displayed (a "Serviced Page") any advertisement(s) that an end user of Your Site(s) would reasonably confuse with a Google advertisement or otherwise associate with Google. [The Amazon ads have huge headers, so they can't be confused with Google ads.] If You have elected to receive content or Site-based Ads, You further agree not to display on any Serviced Page any non-Google content-targeted advertisement(s).”I think that highlighted sentence is the gotcha because I'm experimenting with Amazon's context sensitive link highlighting (which frankly doesn't work very well). I also use regular Amazon ads.
Well, at least that's one subject line that will get someone's attention.
Oil companies can screw us all while still being competitive with each other.
They charge an inflated price for their product, but they each try to grab as much business from us at that price point. Sure, it wobbles a few cents up or down, but it's basically the same gouging rate.
But we can't say they're not competitive, or that they're in collusion. Look at it this way. If two stations near each other are several cents apart, we get upset with the higher priced station and say, “I'm going to the other station 'cause this one's not competitive.”
Then we see two stations with the exact same price, because they see what each other are doing and match prices. We say, “They're the same friggin' price. I knew there was no competition in this business.”
Yes, oil companies are competitive, and yes, oil companies are gouging you. If you don't like it, I'm sure any of the CEOs of the oil companies will tell you where to put that nozzle.
Here's a cartoon indicating that oil companies are no different than small business people. The flaw with that cartoon is that we don't need to use that person's services. But, buying gasoline is only optional for a very short time. We can't live without gas – most of us anyway, or the world in general. Nice cartoon, but it's off the mark.
I'm going to deviate from my usual consumer comments for this entry, sorry about that.
Here's an interesting article about why it's such a bad idea to allow comments on blogs. Yet I allow comments on my blog, and so do many, many others. Why is that? Well, because I totally disagree with the author, Joel Spolsky, and Dave Winer, who Joel is quoting. These are both people I respect, but they can't always be right. ;-)
Joel has been publishing interesting articles for some time at his blog. I happen to agree with many of his articles, but not all.
I also know someone who thinks Joel is a god when it comes to thoughts on software development. That is, until it comes time to implement some of Joel's suggestions, like creating productive office space. Then Mr. Joel Worshipper shows how much he believes in his deity by giving software developers cubicles so small that telemarketers would revolt.
Oh well, we're all free to pick and choose whichever ideas we like.
“The important thing to notice here is that Dave does not see blog comments as productive to the free exchange of ideas. They are a part of the problem, not the solution. You don't have a right to post your thoughts at the bottom of someone else's thoughts. That's not freedom of expression, that's an infringement on their freedom of expression.”How is it an infringement on my freedom of expression if I allow people to comment? If I didn't want people to comment I'd turn off comments, like Dave and Joel have done. I take the mid-ground and moderate comments to ensure they add value to the topic.
“I'm really losing patience with anonymous posts, "anon", "anon for this one," people who don't even have the energy to sign their messages with a made up name and leave the whole signature blank. Frankly if every anonymous post disappeared from the Joel on Software discussion group, the overall quality of the conversation would go up, way up, and the discussion would be way more interesting.”But, but, anonymity is key to free speech. Not everyone can sacrifice everything just to be heard. There's only so many heroes in the world.
Here's an interesting article over at the spoof blog, Fake Steve Jobs, that unfortunately, makes a point. And not a satirical one at that.
You can read the whole rant, but I like the part about Google software always being in perpetual beta. Yeah, I've noticed that too. Or how about Google Maps features that come and go, seemingly on a whim?
Who really wants to trust their personal, private, important data to Google when they're constantly running beta software? If Google screws up because the developers weren't concentrating on the work part of their jobs, just the free food and sex part, and exposes your data for all to see on the Internet, or just destroys or loses it, then what?
Google will say, “Oops, you silly people should know better than to trust real data to beta software. Everyone knows you should just use test data.” Uh, yeah, right Google. We all use test data.
Well, like every reasonable person who uses beta software, we'll just back up our data. Uh, say Google, just how do we backup our precious data using any of your services? Oh, we can't. 'Nuff said. Google services are great to play with, but you wouldn't want to use them for anything important.
Go get 'em Steve'o!
In my “Customers per tree ratio?” posting I complained about the enormous waste of paper and the environmental cost of delivering pounds/kilograms of paper to our door each week.
What could be worse?
How about just throwing this massive wad of paper wrapped in a flimsy plastic bag (oh joy, more environmental waste) at the end of the driveway … just before a heavy rainstorm.
The flimsy bag doesn't protect the paper, so it sops up 10 pounds of water making the whole thing an unreadable, sodden blob of saturated paper.
So not only is this an environmental hit, it also hits the few advertisers whose flyers I bothered to look at, because their message doesn't get through.
How lazy does a carrier have to be that they can't walk up to your front door and put the flyers in the mailbox, or on the mat under the overhang protected from the elements?
(click image at left for a larger view)
There are many promotions now at restaurants and gas bars, on chocolate bars, soft drink bottles, coffee cups, and many other products.
They entice you to enter a code printed on the product to see if you win a prize. But you can't anonymously enter the code. You have to give them your personal information first. Essentially, you create an account on their server, provide all kinds of personal information, including your date of birth, then you enter the PIN, and then they tell you to try again.
This way they already have your information before you find out what a loser you are.
If you try to enter phony information, you better read the Terms & Conditions first. They'll say that you must enter valid information, including your birth date, otherwise you can't win.
Goodness knows what all they use your personal information for. They probably track your purchases, aggregate this data with other associated companies to find your buying habits, or even sell the data outright so you can be spammed or otherwise harassed.
So you've given them your valuable person information in exchange for a minuscule chance to win a prize. I'm not saying the companies aren't on the up-and-up about giving out the prizes, but they do fail to quote the odds. They simply say that the odds of winning are dependent on the number of entries, but they don't tell you the approximate number, or even the current number to date. If they're giving out hourly prizes, they won't quote the average number of entries per hour or hour of the day. Why the heck would they want you to know how little chance you have of winning in exchange for your valuable personal information?
Don't fall into the trap. Your personal information is worth much more than a vague promise, isn't it?
The subject of this posting is the title of an article over at InfoWorld.
I like it because it nicely compares the iPhone with other, more capable smart-phones.
Note that when the author, Tom Yager, talks about the minimum $60 plan, he's referring to AT&T, not the infamous Rogers Wireless, who will no doubt gouge us for far more when the iPhone comes to Canada.
The only thing I really disliked about this article was that it was broken up into 5 pages, to serve more ads to you, instead of the one page it should have taken.
At the left is an advertisement from 417 Suzuki. I had to laugh when I saw the mileage/fuel consumption figure.
72 km/gallon!
What's funny about this is that we use metric measurements in Canada. Fuel consumption is measured in litres/100 km. The lower the better.
For those Canucks who haven't accepted the metric system, they continue to use miles/gallon. The higher the better.
Nobody, but nobody, uses km/gallon.
The only reason this dealer is using a mix of metric and imperial measurements, is to inflate the appearance of the mileage figure. There are 1.6 km/mile so the number should have been quoted to be 45 miles/gallon. Still nothing to sneeze at, but it doesn't sound anywhere near as good as 72.
Of course, people will remember the 72 figure, but not the bizarre units. That's the intention. To deceive the consumer.
To top it all off, there are two different engines for the Swift, and Transport Canada quotes both City and Highway consumption figures. It looks like this figure is for the 4AT engine on the highway. It only gets 31 mpg in the city. Hmm, not so good anymore. Compare this to the Honda Fit, which gets noticeably better mileage or fuel consumption, and perhaps you understand why the creative use of measurement units.
I'm wondering why these dolts didn't just quote 1,858,528 m/barrel. It's the same mileage, but sure looks a hell of a lot better than a measly 72 km/gallon.
There's a very beautiful park nearby where I live. I walk my dogs there daily, on a leash.
Why on a leash? Because it's a city bylaw that requires all dogs in the park to be on a leash (and the owner to pick up after their mess, but that's for another rant). However, it's not just that I respect the law that my dogs are on a leash, it's because I respect other users of the park.
You see, my dogs are bit excitable around other dogs. I know many people are afraid of dogs, so even though my dogs are friendly, their rambunctious play behaviour can scare people.
Other park users believe they don't need to respect either the law or other users of the park. They let their dogs run loose. They run up to my dogs, who are handicapped because they're restrained by the leash, and trouble can occur. My dogs think they're being attacked and are ready to defend themselves and me.
When you yell at those bozos to put their dog on the leash there are several reactions:
I was in Burger King today (if you've been following this blog, you know I'm a junk food junkie), and ordered a Whopper Combo. Simple.
The burger was placed on my tray quickly but they were behind in making the fries. That's poor planning.
But then, the person who was taking care of my order decided the drive-through was a priority (see previous rant), and my burger was left to cool waiting for the fries.
The fries were finally ready, and Ms. Drive-Through filled an order for one of her customers, still leaving me waiting. Meanwhile, another BK zombie looked at my order to see what was missing, and then went back to taking new orders.
To all fast food managers who may stumble across this entry, smack your staff silly until they get it drilled into their heads that the customer waiting to have an order filled is higher priority than taking a new order.
The zombie looked at my order again, looked at the fry bin, and went back to the cash.
While I was tempted to see how long this pathetic situation would persist, I decided I wanted my burger while it was still luke warm and before it petrified, so I spoke up. The guy next in line waiting for his order grumbled, “Really poor service here.” I didn't disagree.
The zombie got my order of fries and did apologize for the delay.
Here's what should happen at every fast food place that prides themselves on meeting the “fast” part of the phrase …
Every time a customer is made to wait an inordinate amount of time (and every franchise has service targets so they know what that time is), or has their order screwed up, they should get a coupon for a free combo on their next visit.
This accomplishes two things:
Here's a web site that, to be kind, is ugly! However, it has some interesting information. I wish more people would post their experiences online.
Better yet, have a central web site that everyone could use to post about good and bad companies, instead of the badly fragmented Internet today.
1and1.com is offering a great deal on business web hosting. Yes, you can save 50% on a Business Hosting Package. See that image on the left? Do you see any asterisk? Nope. I guess there are no strings, right?
Don't be silly, of course there are!
Here's the text that accompanied the offer, “Sign up for a 12 month minimum contract term and get 50% off the first 3 months!”
Oh, it's not 50% of the package for the minimum term. It's only good for 3 months, but you have to sign up for 12. By my math, that works out to only 50% off 1/4 of the package, or a measly 12.5%.
Doesn't sound so good now, does it?
Why, oh why, do companies insist on misleading consumers?
Many of you may have seen the hilarious videos of the Blendtec blender pulverizing anything placed in its gaping maw.
Here's the iPhone getting blended. Enjoy!
So the iPhone's been hacked. Big deal! Did anyone think it wouldn't be? It's running OS X, which is eminently hackable, and there are determined people with lots of time on their hands.
All kinds of missing features are being added, like being able to use the Wi-Fi and iPod features without locking in to AT&T; using the iPhone as a disk like you can with all the iPods; chat capability without using SMS; and Skype-like voice over IP.
Ho hum.
Not having an iPhone, I find it rather amusing to watch all the frenzy. But the consumer curmudgeon in me can't help thinking about why Apple didn't just release all these features to start with. They're not stupid; they knew it was going to be hacked. Couldn't they do a better job, especially given the shockingly high price of this thing (55% profit margin not counting fees from AT&T)?
Perhaps not.
As many pundits are saying, they probably rushed it to market and didn't have time to get all the bells and whistles working properly. With all the crashes and lockups I've been reading about, that's probably an accurate assessment. No doubt the iPhone will have numerous updates over the course of its lifespan and many new features will be added.
Early adopters are used to getting hosed and suffering with instability, and the iPhone is delivering on that promise.
This is one consumer curmudgeon who won't be looking for an iPhone when it comes to Canada. It's overpriced, I don't need most of the features, and Rogers will soak those rich customers for all they're worth. That's what Rogers does best.
With this posting, you get two-rants-in-one.
Let's start with the environmental considerations of drive-throughs. At any busy restaurant, particularly ones that serve morning coffee like Tim Hortons, you get a lineup of 20 or so cars idling. 
Then accelerating a bit and stopping. This goes on for the 10 to 15 minutes it takes to get to the head of the line.
This line is usually jammed for at least a couple of hours on weekday mornings, and longer on weekends.
Now do the math. The steady state is arguably 15 cars idling for a couple of hours. Think of the enormous amounts of pollution dumped into the atmosphere by all these people who are too lazy to get out of their cars and walk, yes walk, into the restaurant.
Now multiply that by the number of drive-throughs in any major city.
Screw the environment, just get me my damn coffee!
Then there's the second half of this rant. Most fast-food restaurants I've been to favour the drive-through. At my local McD's, they'll have 4 people serving the drive-through and one person handling the walk-in cash, and gathering and packaging the food. They do this so as not to slow down the drive-through. If the drive-through backs up, they ask people to go park to wait for their food so they can serve the next lazy customer. So the lazy customer gains nothing.
But, the employees don't want to have to go outside to deliver the food, particularly if it's raining or cold. So everyone diligently works hard to service the drive-through as a priority.
Realizing that banning the drive-through is like banning guns in the U.S., or banning poutine in Quebec, I humbly suggest charging a drive-through tax for those lazy polluters. My recommendation is 50% of the order price with all proceeds going to fight pollution.
I was spammed today by a franchisee of the Sandler Sales Institute. I guess this bozo didn't read my previous posting. Read that now and then you'll know what I'm talking about.
Good, you're back. If I've already pointed out how dumb spammers can be, then why the extra story?
You see, this twit had a lesson about how to get a sale. His story was designed to help sales people and to screw the consumer, so I thought I'd summarize for you:
The TACTIC: Never answer an unasked question.There you have it. Salespeople are being taught not to disclose all the facts because that could cost a sale. The fact that this customer would have regretted her purchase after it was too late and the buffet was in her home, well, that's just good business.
I’m reminded of a salesperson in a furniture store helping a young couple look for a dining room set. After the couple picked out the set that they loved, and the salesperson had checked and confirmed that it was in stock, and the order form had been written, the salesperson decided to show the young couple how easily the drawers opened and closed on the buffet.
...She then told her husband that she couldn’t possibly have anything with ball bearings in their house because she had swallowed a ball bearing as a little girl and nearly died.
...And the lesson this salesperson may learn is that you never say there are ball bearings.... And if I come into the store specifically looking for a dining room set with ball bearings, what chance do you think there is that I’ll ever be told about them?
...Knowing about your product/service and wanting to tell anyone who will listen is what drives the need to answer unasked questions. Unfortunately, many salespeople wind up giving answers that cause the prospect to further question whether or not he is doing the right thing by considering your product/service.
...This knowledge is NOT meant to be used to bury the prospect with facts and figures hoping that some of the facts and figures will convince him to buy.
...Don’t give the prospect reasons to raise objections by answering his unasked questions. Your job is to ask the questions and then evaluate whether the answers the prospect gives qualify him for your product or service.
This article reminds me of the whole music and movie industry that couldn't handle the shift to Internet transmission of content. Now Jim Balsillie, the CEO of RIM, is saying that the iPhone is “dangerous” because it's removing some of the control away from the carriers.
Maybe his title should be CID (CEO In Denial).
“It’s a dangerous strategy,” says Balsillie. “It’s a tremendous amount of control. And the more control of the platform that goes out of the carrier, the more they shift into a commodity pipe.”This is great for consumers, and thus obviously bad for the carriers and anybody in bed with them. But Apple is being screwed by AT&T now, so I'm not sure what he's thinking.
No Jim, people like you who are in positions of power but are too dense to see the business model changing, are the dangerous ones. Or is it just pathetic?
I mean, don't you feel sorry for someone, who's supposed to be a smart person, and can't see that he wants to perpetuate the status quo business model that failed so miserably for music and movies?
In another era, I think Jimbo would have required us to use only certain telephones on our telephone lines. Uh, wait a sec, that's exactly the way it used to be – in the stone age. Remember when the telephone company only let you put phones on your line that they rented to you for an exorbitant amount each month? Seems that Mr. Ballssilly pines for the good ol' days.
Consumers should have the option to use any cell phone on any cell network just like we can …
What he really means is the iPhone is dangerous to RIM, and his share price. More visionary manufacturers of mobile devices will look at this as an opportunity to innovate, not stick their heads in the sand and whine that the sky is falling.
- use any phone on any land line,
- use any computer on the Internet,
- use any car on the roads,
- use any mower on our lawns,
- use – oh, you get the idea.
I guess I should go to see Michael Moore's latest movie called “Sicko.” Rumour has it that he thinks that the Canadian health system is wonderful. I suppose it is in that it won't bankrupt you as fast as the American health system. You'll just die of old age before being able to see anyone. That's how you save money.
Our family doctor retired and no other doctor wanted to take on his practice. That left us scrambling to find another doctor in the Ottawa area that accepts new patients. You see, in Canada, we have so few doctors, that many, many people are left waiting for hours in drop-in clinic waiting rooms just to be seen. Since you don't see the same doctor each time, there's no continuity of care. Or people just go to languish in a hospital emergency waiting room.
In one clinic, we refer to them as the “30-second doctors” because their sole objective seems to be to get you out the door as fast as possible. That way they maximize revenue. When I visited this clinic complaining of a chronic sore neck that didn't go away in a few days, the doctor felt my neck for 3 seconds and the only question he asked was if I wanted physiotherapy or massage treatment. You're the friggin' doctor for chrissakes! Why the hell are you asking me about the treatment? He decided to prescribe physio, which by the way, is not covered by Canadian health care.
If you don't have supplementary health care with your employer, you're screwed.
The waiting time to see specialists is measured in months or years – yes, you heard that right – years! If you run out of medication and need to have a prescription renewed, tough! The doctor won't renew it without seeing you first (they gotta bill for that 30 seconds they see you). That means you wait for months to get a prescription renewed.
People complain that the U.S. health care system is for the rich. I don't argue that. But the same is true in Canada. People who are wealthy just hop across the border to the U.S. to avoid the horrendous lines in Canada. Or, they donate sums of money to the cash-strapped hospitals to ensure preferential treatment.
Of course, there's always the insiders – the doctors, nurses, and their families who jump to the front of the line. The politicians who are responsible for this mess? Why they're at the head of the queue.
Health care professionals will publicly deny any of these shenanigans are going on; that everyone gets equal treatment. They're lying. I know enough people in the industry to know the truth.
If anyone tells you that your health care system should be modeled after Canada's, laugh in their face. That kind of stupidity doesn't deserve politeness.
Here's an article that says it much better than I can.
The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) is the publicly-funded television network in Canada.
I know the CBC is always fighting for funding, but the first rule they should observe is professionalism. If they haven't got the time, money, or energy to keep their web site up to date, then remove the obsolete pages.
CBC Marketplace is a very interesting consumer show. I thought I'd drop by their web site and see what was new. Here's the text on their main page for this show,
“Marketplace returns in January 2007 with a full season of consumer stories that will change the way you shop and live. We're bringing you several startling hidden camera investigations, and testing for the truth behind products and services you use everyday. Join Erica Johnson and Wendy Mesley for our season premiere, Wednesday, January 10th at 7:30 p.m.”Well, if you've noticed the date of this posting, it's July 9th! Six months out of date. Wow! I guess nobody at Marketplace reads their own web site, or at least gives a damn about presenting a professional image. Sigh.
I find it very amusing to watch people arriving at their fitness centre by car. They drive around for minutes trying to find the spot closest to the door.
Uh, shouldn't people who are paying good money to exercise outside their home be fighting for the spot furthest from the door to maximize their workout?
Notice the photo of the Bacinator in the previous posting. How come we never get real burgers that look like the ones in the pictures? What if there was a law that said that you got the burger free if it didn't look substantially like the photo? Wouldn't that be cool?
Of course, that would be too subjective, so who will judge? You can't take something this trivial to court. How about snapping a photo with your cell phone and sending it to a site that lets consumers vote? The result of the vote would be binding on the restaurant.
I'm not going to work out all the details of implementing this idea, because it's just silly. Still …
The subject of this posting is the tag line for Wendy's latest health destroyer.
Wendy's is offering a special burger called the “Bacinator™”. Six slices of bacon and half a pound of beef. It packs 840 calories, 51 g of fat, of which a whopping 22 g (43%) is saturated fat, and 2.5 g (5%) is trans fat. And it has a heavy 1760 mg of sodium. Yikes!
Now, I happen to like Wendy's burgers and other food. I confess I eat there more than I like. Their once a year special Bacon Mushroom Melt is to die for (perhaps literally). I think the Bacinator is replacing the BMM this year. Too bad.
I do find it strange with the trend towards healthier eating, such as offering salads instead of fries in the combos, that Wendy's would come out with a heart-stopper like the Bacinator. Of course, I had to try one because I'm a junk food junkie, and was disappointed. It wasn't particularly good. Just as well, I don't need any more of these heart-attacks-on-a-bun.
I'm sure that Wendy's is just filling a customer need, which is kind of sad.
What's really sad is that Wendy's knows the Bacinator isn't good for you and their advertising blatantly indicates that. Yet they offer it anyway.
I guess it's good business to kill off your customers.
I was just idly wondering why motorcycle manufacturers never build a motorcycle with the same number of cc's that they advertise. For example, they say a bike has 1000 cc's but in reality it has 998.
It certainly doesn't make any difference to us consumers, but given the state of engineering technology today, they could easily build the motor to have exactly the displacement they specified. Yet, I've never seen them do that.
Curious.
I was talking with a friend who was unhappy in her job hunt because she couldn't simply submit a résumé to a company. Too many companies wanted her to create a profile on their site and fill in some cumbersome template. The job hunt was getting her down.
From a consumer viewpoint, I can certainly sympathize.
Pre-electronic submission days, one would simply write a letter and use postal mail to send it to the company. It was slow and resulted in a company having to file reams of paper resumes that are difficult to search. That made it difficult to find the right candidate, particularly if they received hundreds or thousands of submissions.
With the advent of email, she could simply fire off either a text-only message, or attach a .doc or .pdf file. That was certainly faster, and somewhat easier for the companies because they could process the documents, index them, and easily search them.
The trend today seems to be for every company to require her to register on their site, or a special site that manages job postings for the company, and fill in a template. She has to copy and paste all the information into the right place. They may also require her to answer specific questions with limited selections in drop-down menus. But, none of the mandatory choices fit, so what's a person supposed to choose?
After spending a lot of time on one site, off she goes to the next and repeats the process yet again, but with another template. This is all very exhausting for the job seeker and now she has to manage all these silly accounts at numerous sites.
And what do most of the companies do in return? Well, they don't even acknowledge the submission. No “thank you for applying”; no feedback whatsoever if they will ever offer her a job.
I understand why the companies do this. They want to be able to use their fancy search algorithms to match candidates. This is a noble goal, and if it works, then everyone benefits. But how many qualified people, whose time is valuable too, just say, “screw it!”, and walk away from the site?
And the companies who do accept email, but are too freakin' lazy to even auto-reply so that she knows her email wasn't zapped by a spam filter, well, there's no excuse for that. It's so easy to set up a rule in your favourite email program that can auto-reply.
“We thank you for your submission, but only qualified candidates will be contacted.” What that really means is, “We're too lazy or stupid to create an auto-reply rule, or a small set of pre-canned replies, to acknowledge your pathetic interest in our hallowed company.”
Why has getting the courtesy of a reply become a novelty?
Regrettably, I don't have any sage advice for her. Since people aren't fighting for her talents, then she's got to do whatever the companies require. And they know it.
I stumbled across a job advertisement that says, “Required skills: 3-5 MUST HAVES. Desired skills: 3-5 NICE TO HAVES (differentiators) 1000 characters allowed. (insert skill requirements — use 10 point Verdana font- use dash or indent)”
That quote comes from a job posting on Ajilon's web site. This is quite a large recruiting/placement firm, that I assume has a good reputation. But don't they proofread postings?
There are three things wrong with the quote.
Some grocery stores have garden departments where you can buy compost. That's not what I'm referring too.
What I mean is, don't buy so much produce, bread, and dairy products, that you can't possibly consume, just to throw it in the compost – or worse yet, the garbage, and eventually clog the landfill.
First of all, buying compost at the grocery store is very expensive. When you buy two bunches of bananas, but can only eat less than one before the rest are too ripe to eat, then think what that miniscule bit of compost just cost you to create.
Having all that extra food in the house encourages over-consumption as people who don't like to see needless waste, eat more than their fill.
It causes marital problems as the two spouses go at it about the waste of food, the expense, the over-eating, etc. The offender will get mad that you're not eating all the food. But no matter how many times you tell them to buy less, and they can always buy more when needed, they don't heed the advice.
Why?
Is this a petulant, “I'll do what I want. I don't have to listen to you,” reaction? Is it about power? Is it a mental illness?
I'm guessing the latter. I say that because some of you reading this right now exhibit the behaviour described above, but you don't believe I'm talking about you.
“You're protected by one of the strongest privacy policies anywhere.”
This quote is from Plaxo's web site. Plaxo is a way to sync your contacts and calendars between multiple applications and online services. However, this quote is totally meaningless.
Words don't protect your privacy. If their servers get hacked and all your info is posted on the net, you're screwed. I don't know anything about their infrastructure security, but even a disgruntled employee can do a lot of damage.
While Plaxo may be a fine service, I would prefer that they wouldn't mislead people about how protected their data is. They may have the best of intentions, and be taking all reasonable precautions, but sh*t happens.
Having said that, their privacy policy is one of the best I've seen.
All too often we see advertisements where they charge you for a product and then tell you about all the free stuff you get too. Like rebates, (oh please, don't get me revved up on the whole rebate scam), they're bribing you with your own money.
The goodies aren't free at all. What they should say is that they're included in the price. But that's not as good an offer, is it? Actually, it is identically the same, but free sounds better.
And the “buy one, get one free” offers are the lamest. Just sell me the one item I need at half the price you nimnels.
This is yet another case of how advertisers try to bamboozle customers by making their lame offer sound better than it is.
This is one cranky consumer who ain't fooled.
Nothing ruins a nice shopping trip than arriving at a busy mall and finding some jerk taking up two parking spots. Yes, this really is the time that you're fully justified in keying the guy's car.
I said "guy" but let's face it, women are equally idiotic as men in this type of selfish behaviour.
The real jackasses are the people, usually guys in this case, that park at an angle so that nobody dings their precious, pricey, pimp-mobile. I had a friend with a real beat-up old car who would deliberately park right beside the driver's door of these expensive cars, so close that the offender had to crawl over the passenger seat to get in and then gingerly back out so as not to scratch his car. Yes, that means my friend was angle parking too, but it was so funny it was worth it. But don't stay much longer after Mr. Flashy Car leaves, otherwise you become the jerk.
So please, all you people with rolling wrecks, do a community service by parking a hair's breadth from those expensive, angle-parked cars. Teach the twits a lesson, or at least give 'em a heart attack.
Manufacturers use an insidious quantity reduction scheme to reduce the value we consumers receive. For example, there used to be 200 pills in the bottle, but now it's been reduced to 180. They do this so that the prices can be held the same or with a smaller increase.
What's hilarious are the bar soap manufacturers that reduce the size of the bar saying that consumers prefer the smaller size because it's easier to hold in their hands. Bull! It's not at all easier to hold and as the bar is used and becomes smaller, it's harder to hold still. Just try to use the last little piece of a bar without it breaking into pieces or dropping down the drain.
But that increases consumption so that not only is the price the same for less, meaning the manufacturer makes more profit, but it doesn't last as long and we consume more. Double whammy!
The manufacturers don't look ahead. How long will they continue to reduce the quantity? 180 pills becomes 160, then 140, then 100 and, guess what, there's now a new size of 200 at an all new (higher) price.
Hey guys, we know what you're doing and it's stupid. Give us standard sizes and don't change them so we can compare prices. Oh, right, you don't want us to be able to compare. Why? Because you get a sexual thrill out of deceiving consumers.
Being chronically late is not a genetic trait in some people. It's all about power.
What has this got to do with consumerism? If you've ever waited for a movie or library book to be returned, or you're a hair dresser waiting for someone to show for an appointment, then you'll understand. It also applies to people who are waiting for a key person to attend a meeting, but I'll confine this topic to consumers.
You may think that some people who are perpetually late are just lazy, but they're not, really. They're power tripping. You have to wait for them. They have that movie you want, that you're on the waiting list for, that you planned to watch this Friday night. But the bozos are late returning the movie and you're screwed.
Not a big deal when it happens occasionally, but it's often the same people who are the late ones. Their pathetic lives disappoint them so much that the only joy in life they have is making other people wait for them.
The term, "fashionably late", is what spawns this attitude. It really means, "unconscionably rude". When visiting a friend's house for a casual party, you usually agree amongst yourselves how late is acceptable. It's often good to be a little late, say 15 minutes, to allow the host to finish the last minute preparations. But more than that, especially for a dinner, is rude.
Being late to a theatre affects all the patrons who had the decency to show up on time. And weak-kneed theatre owners are too wimpy to tell the late-comers that they have to wait for intermission to enter.
The late arrivals waltz in with a phony apologetic look on their faces (they've mastered this look), and excuse themselves as they stumble over everyone getting to their seats. And they're not the seats at the back or on the aisle. No, these idiots always seem to sit in the center-front. They do this deliberately to maximize the disruption and get attention.
"See everyone, I'm so powerful I can disrupt your pleasant experience and there's not a damn thing you're going to do about it because you're polite." Actually, you're not powerful, you're an ass.
Rogers Wireless is back again. This time I'm moaning about the fact that there is no way to check wireless usage during the billing cycle. Nope. No way to check voice minutes, SMS messages sent, or data bandwidth – all those things they bill extra for if you go over.
Is that intentional? Well, duh! Of course it is. This is really lucrative for them when you're roaming and getting hosed up the whazoo. You have no idea how much of your net worth you're promising Rogers Wireless until you get your month-end bill.
And there's no way for you to be warned that you're approaching any limit so that you can make a financial decision whether to stop gabbing, texting, browsing, or to continue.
Again, this is a consumer hostile situation that Rogers Wireless revels in because they reap the benefits on the backs of their customers.
Strangely enough, with Rogers Internet, I have a 100 GB cap that I get nowhere near using each month, yet I can check that consumption at any time. And even if I go over, Rogers will probably just send me a polite letter to cool it.
But Rogers Wireless has such small limits, with expensive fees for exceeding the allotment, that you know they must be rolling in dough each month.
Rogers Wireless has put their financial well-being before their customers'. By the way, this is known as "good business" on their side and "getting the business" on our side.
¢ = $ It doesn't matter if it's 99¢ or 95¢ or 98¢ or whatever, it's a dollar. Who do merchants think they're kidding with that pricing?
If you want to have a good time, try this. Talk to a clerk about the price. They'll quote you something like $59.99. Say, "I don't know, $60 is a lot of money for that." They often get a confused look and say, "At $59.99, it's a fair price." Respond with, "But I don't want to pay $60 for that." I've actually heard this said, "But sir, it's not $60, it's $59.99."
I find it very difficult not to burst out laughing.
The point is, and I'm sure there's a lot of psycho-babble research that supports the effectiveness, this is deceptive pricing. The sole motive behind quoting $59.99 instead of $60 is to deceive you into thinking it's less than it really is.
That's right. Merchants are out to deceive you. They're not interested in you understanding the value of their product, they simply want you to buy it. So they quote an absurdly misleading price.
But you know what? I think this is actually a case where the merchants are smarter than the consumers because we keep putting up with this practice.
Be a consumer guerrilla (no, not a gorilla) and take a marking pen with you to the store next time. Change all the prices of items you look at and round them up to the dollar. It's a more realistic price, after all.
There's only one web site I visit that, when reviewing products, rounds up ridiculous prices to the highest dollar. They even take prices like $59 and call it $60. Good for them.
Good ol' Air Canada Aeroplan. Don't worry, this is not going to be a rant about how useless air miles are, or about the numerous blackout periods, or the lack of "reward" seats, or what a joke it is for these to be called reward miles. Nope, this is going to be a simple rant about trying to get a replacement Aeroplan card.
For some bizarre reason, I seem to be the only one of the family with an ancient card that doesn't have the magnetic stripe. As a result, I cannot use my card to authenticate for rapid check-in or to claim various promotional miles, such as using the card when buying gas at Esso.
It should be simple to get a new card, right? Ha! If you believed that, then you obviously haven't been reading my tales of woe. I'm a cranky consumer for a good reason.
I send an email request for a new card using the form on their web site. They even have a pre-canned subject for the Aeroplan card as a drop-down menu. What could go wrong?
Well, I get an email stating, "Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are currently unable to respond to your request electronically." They then go on to tell me to call the Customer Service number. That is so bogus. It's totally under their control. Why the hell do they have a special pre-canned subject for email if they're not going to resolve the issue via email?
As this is Air Canada, and I'm used to their stellar level of incompetence, especially when it comes to rewarding any customer who dares to claim air miles, I shrug my shoulders and call the number. I'm prepared for an hour or so wait.
My fears are confirmed as the automated voice system tells me that "Due to unexpected call volumes, wait times are longer than normal." When has anyone ever called Aeroplan and not heard that line?
But wait, I can't even get to talk to an agent. I first have to create a security voice print so they know it's me in the future. To do this I have to say my Aeroplan number three times and then confirm with my PIN. Huh? This is more secure how?
If I tell them my Aeroplan number and PIN, then don't they trust that it's me? If they don't, then why are they trusting me to create a voice print based on just that information? What a false sense of security. The Aeroplan security folks are scary, don't ya think?
I get through that process, avoiding the temptation to use some silly voice as that would probably prevent me from using the system in the future.
They ask for me to speak a few words about the reason I'm calling, finally. This part goes smoothly as I say, "Aeroplan card", and it correctly guesses I need to have my card replaced. Cool. They verify my address and then …
… they tell me it's going to take 4 to 6 weeks to get a new card. Geez Louise, what the heck are they doing?
This should be totally automated. The request should result in a card being printed the same day and mailed the next business day. That would mean only a 3 or 4 business day turnaround. I should have the card in under a week.
What the heck are they doing for the remaining 3 to 5 weeks? Creating a special job opening for this request, filling it with a summer student, and then having them hitch a ride cross country to deliver it to me personally?
Air Canada, and particularly the Aeroplan program, has got to be one of the worst run companies in Canada. I have yet to hear anyone say anything nice about them. What's it like to be an Air Canada employee at a party? I bet most of them will never say what they do for a living. It would be like saying you clean sewers during the day and clean up after hookers and junkies at night. The look of disgust on people's faces would ensure they would only tell the truth once. It would be better to say they had the job of emptying old cooking oil at McDonalds than to say they worked at Air Canada.
I'm sure the card will show up within the stated time. Even Air Canada can't screw up that bad. Hey, stop that laughing!
Sorry Steve, but AT&T won this battle. They don't have the "Death Star" logo for nothing.
Apple got totally sucker-punched by AT&T by locking the iPhone into AT&T for five years. Consumers don't win with that arrangement.
While Apple may be revolutionizing the mobile user experience with the iPhone, they sure ain't revolutionizing the closed business model. The carriers control what appears on the phone, how locked up it is, and how you use it.
What, no iChat on the iPhone? You have to use SMS? Can't use the iPod or Wi-Fi functions without locking in to AT&T? It really is a brick without activation? Does that surprise you? Not me. Apple is being reamed to the core.
Hey Steve, is that how you want the Mac to be used? Locked in to one Internet provider? At one time Apple partnered with Earthlink for Internet access, but you could use any provider you wanted. Would Apple be alive today to give you the iPhone if they locked the Mac to Earthlink? Nope.
Yet Apple is willing to concede to this business arrangement with AT&T to ensure they are allowed to enter the mobile market. Remember, all the carriers need to do is tell Steve to take a hike and he'd be dead in the water with his great invention.
AT&T didn't tell him to take a hike as they saw a way to capitalize on the Apple coolness factor. That's smart business. And they forced Apple to be locked to AT&T. Great move for AT&T, bad move for Apple.
While Apple may be the puppet-master for folks in the music, and maybe TV and movie business, Steve's certainly getting his strings pulled by AT&T. Does Steve know this? Is he taking a lot of pain now to enter the market so he can stick it to the carriers in five years? (If five years is true, this might as well be forever).
If huge companies like Nokia, Motorola, LG, et. al., are shafted by the carriers, why would Steve think he could fare any better? We'll know in five years if Apple made the strategically correct move.
Of course, you've gotta wonder what's going through the heads of the execs at AT&T. They've got this Apple cobra by the tail and they're flinging it around pretty good and smiling, but if they falter for a second, that cobra is going to turn and sink its fangs in deep.
Meanwhile, the other carrier spectators will start to worship the cobra.
So is this a good deal for consumers? I think in the long run it might work out. Consumers are happy now as they've got the iPhone. Other consumers will be happy as the other mobile phone suppliers try to play catchup and release new features. Eventually, we may all be happy when we get a lot of bells and whistles on our mobile devices.
But we'll likely still be locked to a carrier, and that's only good for the carriers. Well Steve, can you free consumers from the death grip of the carriers? I'm hoping you can, but I don't think you will.
Oh, and why the retro, multi-coloured Apple logo above? When it comes to the cell phone biz, Apple really hasn't changed what's important.
And you know I'm referring mainly to male teenagers, regardless of the reason.
We had a very pleasant Canada Day yesterday. We saw some female clog dancers on stage who were excellent and enjoyed the professional fireworks.
The next day as I walk the dogs through a park I find the debris of spent fireworks all over the place. Girls don't buy fireworks – it's a "guy thing." I certainly don't mind kids having fun as long as they don't try to burn down anything. But to then walk away and leave the garbage there makes them jerks.
Unfortunately, I don't remember when I was a teenager to know if I was as big a jerk as today's kids. I don't think so. We had more respect for parents, adults, and property back then.
To any male teenager who's stumbled across this blog entry, no doubt you think I'm an old fogey. And either you are, or know someone your age who is, a selfish jerk.
Consumers have responsibilities. If you buy it and use it, it's your responsibility to dispose of it properly.
