Just a week ago, it looked like an independent Illinois toy store would be going out of business after the bank chose to not renew the store’s business loan for another year. But online efforts to raise money by today’s deadline may have saved the store. [More]
NYC Deputizes All Citizens As Secret Shoppers
By July 28, 2011
Inspections by New York’s Department of Consumer Affairs found that two-thirds of the supermarkets they visited were overcharging customers at the checkout counter. That’s up from 1 in 3 last August. So now they’re turning all shoppers into “deputized inspectors” to report malefactors. [More]
Test Your Broadband Speeds For The FCC
By March 15, 2010
Last Thursday, the FCC started collecting information from consumers about the quality of their broadband service. If you’ve got a PC that can run Java, you can go to Broadband.gov and run the test now. (The FCC will collect your IP address and physical address, but not your name or email address, reports Wired.) If you’ve got an iPhone or Android smartphone, you can download an app to measure your connectivity and report it. [More]
Slate's 10 Ways To Fix Airline Seating
By March 2, 2010
Yesterday we covered Slate’s look at what’s wrong with airline seating–it’s not just overweight people who feel cramped on flights these days. Slate asked its readers to come up with some practical solutions to the problem, and today they printed the top ten suggestions. [More]
Google Aims To Answer The Question: "But If I Get Off The Highway, Won't It Just Be Worse?"
By August 26, 2009
Traffic reports are swell and all, but they don’t really help you when you’ve got no choice but to take the highway or risk the unknown — traffic on the regular roads. Google is trying to change that by offering “arterial” traffic data.
By April 28, 2009
Here’s why you don’t rely solely on Twitter for news about health scares. [xkcd] (Thanks to Rebecca!)
311 Street Improvement Photo Project Needs Your Help
By August 22, 2007
Stay Free’s Carrie McLaren and Steve Lambert have started a crowdsourced photo project for New Yorkers to submit photos of 311 conditions in their hoods.
