Our good friend Vincent Ferrari — the shameless self-promoter who recorded the AOL Cancellation call, tipped us, then tipped everyone else on the Internet before we could even get Boing Boinged (but we totally adore him anyway) — sent us word that he’s done a few more cancellation calls, this time for credit cards, with far better results. And by better results, we mean worse from the perspective of pure entertainment. But good service is what matters, right?
apple
Kill A Man At Ten Paces With An iPod Nano
By 6.30.06
While we’re subversively busy this morning giving our TSA lurkers more bullet-points for cool swag they can justify confiscating from us as dangerous weapons (we imagine a common determinant in their thought process is: “Wouldn’t I look just darling in that passenger’s swank rhinestone belt and Gucci stilettos?”) let’s add the iPod Nano to the list!
iPod Factory Admits Breaking Chinese Labor Laws
By 6.26.06
As you can easily imagine, breaking labor laws in China is a bit hard to do as an employer. However, Foxconn managed to do just that by forcing the workers in the Apple iPod factories to work up to 80 extra hours per month. Under local law, laborers can only be forced to work 36 extra hours.
iPodMechanic.com Takes Broken iPod, Runs
By 6.22.06
With the meaty heel of a palm resounding against the center of your forehead with a leathery slap, this might strike many of you as particularly astounding advice, but we think it needs to be said: please, please do not mail your $400 iPod to some random Internet stranger proclaiming himself to be an iPod Mechanic. Especially if there isn’t even a phone number on the website.
Consumer Writes, Consumerist Criticizes
By 6.21.06
We definitely love you guys, but it’s not all snuggles all the time here at The Consumerist. If you send us something, we’re not afraid to post it and say when you’re being a jerk. We don’t want to lose you as a reader… and as much of a jerk as you may or may not have been, we can nine times out of ten understand your frustration. But we also want you guys to be reasonable, polite, responsible consumers, and that means the occasional light slap.
Call An RIAA Slug on Friday!
By 6.21.06
Our friends at Defective Design aren’t just cramming their pallid flesh into hazmat suits and getting into stand-offs with bemused Cambridge cops in their fight against DRM. Now they are organizing a massive telephone campaign, coordinating on their site an effort to have as many consumers as they can call up the RIAA and tell them that DRM just plain blows. Although hopefully a hell of a lot more eloquently than that.
HazMat Protesters Drop Mad Science
By 6.21.06
Here’s another version of the DRM protest involving hazmat suits and the San Fran Apple store. It’s got less Talking Heads, more people speaking about (or, heads talking…) about why DRM is bad. If you don’t know why it is, watch. If you do and would like to have your beliefs affirmed, watch. If you like sweaty geeks, watch. All we know is DRM prevented us from easily transmogrifying our sister into the next Grandmaster Flash, so now we’re totally mad against it, even more than we were madly before.
iTunes Makes Weird Al Broke
By 6.20.06
If Chinese sweatshops or locking yourself into an anti-competitive DRM format aren’t enough reasons to stop you from buying songs from iTunes, at least take pity on polka’s favorite rockin’ freak: Weird Al Yankovic says he makes a lot less money if you buy a song from iTunes than if you buy one of his CDs.
Inflammatory Macbooks
By 6.19.06
Sometimes Apples have worms in them. Appledefects.com is a new blog dedicated to dissecting these worms. A recent one takes the cake. When the blog’s author complained about his Macbook running at 203 degrees fahrenheit, Apple told him, “the Macbook is a notebook, not a laptop, refer to your manual.” Which means that according to official documentation,
Apple Does Not Respond to “Mass’ah”
By 6.15.06
Now playing on an iPod near you, the sweet sounds of The Sweatshop Boys…
Greasy MacBooks Have Venereal Disease
By 6.13.06
What do these things have in common? The thighs of a cheap harlot. The armpit stains saturating a large Italian man’s undershirt. The Cheetos-dusted palms of a role-playing gamer. A used piece of toilet paper. A three-week old Macbook.
iPod Cities: Massive Chinese iPod Sweatshops
By 6.13.06
This morning we’re going to be doing some hating on Apple. Might as well just warn you now. So if you’re one of those smug idiot Apple zealots who were the main reason why I put off buying a Mac for as long as I did, you might want to avert your eyes. Because Steve Jobs isn’t God, iTunes DRM sucks and, oh yeah: iPods are made in Chinese sweatshops.
Sweaty Anti-iTunes Hazmat Geek Speaks!
By 6.13.06
e nerds who stormed the nation’s Apple Stores last Friday, wrote us in response to our recent post, calling our attention to a write-up he did of Defective Design’s protest at Boston’s Cambridge Side Galleria. The fuzz seemed pretty cool with the whole thing:
Anti-iTunes DRM Demonstration Brings Out The Haz Mat Nerds
By 6.12.06
We somehow missed news of this, but there was a nationwide protest at various Apple Stores on Friday, trying to educate people about the dangers of DRM. The primary danger being, of course, the fact that it’s bad for consumers because it locks you in to a single competitor… if you put your head in the microwave and then decide to switch from an iPod to a Creative Zen, you need to repurchase all your iTunes songs. Ironically enough, this protest was held the same day I decided to give my aged mother my old Dell DJ and invest in an iPod myself. Unfortunately, I went to Best Buy, so I didn’t run into any of the guys at the Boston Apple store; otherwise, we might have had some of that first-hand content Ben’s always telling me I should be trying to find.
Best Posts Ever, This Week
By 6.9.06
A review of the week that was in consumerism, as determined by popularity contest.
Pith & Vinegar & Electricity
By 6.7.06
• Lil’ ‘lectrician kit at Amazon. They’re never to young to learn about sticking stuff in electrical sockets. [Amazon]
