Best Buy has backed off and apologized for sending the Laughing Squid blog a cease and desist letter over their posting on other group’s Best Buy parody shirts. Initially, Best Buy didn’t feel the blogger’s free speech rights were of importance, saying Laughing Squid was “promoting” rather than reporting.” Now Best Buy says, “…we do not object to fair and accurate reporting of fact, and respect the First Amendment rights of Laughing Squid and other bloggers to provide articles or commentary on current events. Now that we have a better understanding of your website, we regret sending you the demand letter.” Hooray, the internet wins again!
BLOGS
Best Buy Apologizes For Sending Cease And Desist Letter To Blogger For Reporting Factual Information
By 12.12.07
Best Buy Cease And Desists Blogger For Reporting Someone Else's Parody
By 12.12.07
Ok, so there’s these guys called Improv Everywhere and they like to do mass coordinated pranks inside stores. They did one where they sent a whole bunch of people in blue polo shirts and khakis to go to Best Buy and stand around. Genius. Anyway, they made some Tshirts that parody the Best Buy logo. Unfortunately, they’re selling them, so they’re infringing on Best Buy’s intellectual copyright. They get a cease and desist letter. Fair enough. Where it gets freaky is that Laughing Squid blogged about their Tshirts, and Laughing Squid got a cease and desist letter too. Bwuh? Best Buy PR said the problem was that Laughing Squid wasn’t “reporting” but was “promoting.” Ok… So bloggers aren’t journalists now, we’re promoters? Duly noted. We’ll get right on ordering kilos of coke and cutting up our enemies and dumping them in the East River.
Man Fakes Death For Three Years To Avoid Debt Collectors
By 12.11.07
Man fakes death for three years to avoid debt collectors. Hides in in house and flees via secret compartments whenever guests are over. When he finally resurfaced, he did it by walking into a police station and claiming to be suffering from amnesia. He was arrested on suspicion of fraud. Debt makes people do crazy things. That’s why we’re allergic to it when it comes to buying depreciating assets (unless they’re needed to make more money.
Stores Can't Force You To Show ID With Your Credit Card
By 12.11.07
Here’s an interesting fact in this Red Tape Chronicles post about how to protect your private data bits from retailers who don’t know any better: by the terms of their merchant agreement with credit card issuers, stores are not allowed to force you to present ID in addition to your credit card.
Comcast Solves Problems For ComcastMustDie Readers
By 12.10.07
Want to get your Comcast issue resolved? Post it and your account number over ComcastMustDie.com. The guy who started the blog, journalist Bob Garfield, was interviewed on NPR’s On The Media yesterday and he said that everyone who has done so has gotten a followup call from Comcast to look into their problem. If you look at the people who commented on the post, “Has Comcast Gotten Back to You?” you’ll see a number several people saying the executive office reached out to them (Some people initially say Comcast didn’t respond, but then a few days later write again to say that Comcast had). So, if you’ve got an unresolved Comcast issue, it can’t hurt to give posting it and your account number over at ComcastMustDie a try.
Fine Print Mars In-Store Pickup Guarantees
By 12.8.07
Best Buy, Sears, and Circuit City all promise fast and easy in-store pickup for online orders and are willing to pay if they fail to deliver. Mouseprint scoured the fine print of each guarantee in search of loopholes.
What Goes Into A Foot-Long Toys R Us Receipt?
By 12.8.07
Toys R Us rewarded Greg’s purchase of a four-pack of Play-Doh with an 18-inch receipt. Greg tried to give the senseless printing an inch of meaning by breaking down the components of his massive receipt:
- Exciting Sweepstakes Offer: 4.5 inches
- Essential Purchase Details: 6.5 inches
- Gift Receipt Section: 7.75 inches
Greg did not purchase the Play-Doh as a gift and did not need a half-foot gift receipt. Huge receipts are not endemic to Toys R Us—Home Depot and Kmart also print to excess—but do they have any use other than as shredder fodder?
By 12.7.07
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Turkey subs from Subways in Manhattan now cost $11.03! [East Village Idiot]
Commerce Bank Wins Lobby Pen Wars
By 12.7.07
If you want to compare how much a bank cares about its customers, you need look no further than its lobby. On the left, we have Chase’s limp, and probably, dried-out-pen. On the right, Commerce Bank’s veritable champagne bucket of pens. Now if Commerce could just update their online banking system so it doesn’t look as poorly designed as some boiler room e-commerce scam site, then they’d really have something going on.
By 12.6.07
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How to calculate compound growth in Excel using the RATE function. [AllFinancialMatters]
By 12.6.07
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First there was jeans and shirts. Now Nike is reissuing old sneakers “already-vintaged.” Will they fall apart in a few months, just like the real thing? [Nice Kicks via Don’t Believe The Hypebeast]
Someone Should Have Stopped This Mortgage
By 12.5.07
Here’s another mortgage that should have never been made: A single mother earning $34,000 a year buys a ranch house for $385,000 by taking out two mortgages. Her then boyfriend was helping with payments, but then there wasn’t more more construction work. Blogger JLP figures she was probably putting 86% of her income towards the mortgage.
Cellphones Could Replace Boarding Passes
By 12.5.07
You might be able to board flights using just your cellphone, if a three-month test program by Continental Airlines at Houston International Airport is successful. Under the proposed system, a special code, in a mass of black and white boxes, gets sent to your cellphone or PDA. At the gate, the airline scans it with a barcode reader. You must still show photo ID. Air Canada has been using it since September and says the number of people using it has doubled every week since inception. Imagine that, a new security procedure that is both more secure, and more convenient. Just hope your batteries don’t run out.
Wired Editor Reveals Magazine Subscription Card Lies
By 12.4.07
Wired Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson annotated a typical magazine subscription card to showcase its numerous lies. He asks, “Why do magazine circulation departments treat people like idiots?” Then he answers his own question: “because it works.”
Airlines Quietly Institute Annual Two-Bag Max Policy For Caribbean And Latin American Travel
By 12.3.07
If you’re traveling to Latin America or the Caribbean, don’t pack more than two bags, and don’t let them be overweight. People traveling to and from these countries have a propensity to pack heavily this time of year. And so every year at this time of year the airlines impose stringent restrictions, though you’ll have to do some Googling on the airlines’ sites to find mention of the policy. No worries, cougars only need one coat anyway.
By 12.3.07
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A Comcast rep called “absolutely ridiculous” the rumor that they might have disrupted a Good Morning America broadcast featuring a Comcast-office-smashing-with-hammer-customer. [Comcast Must Die]
Man Arrested For Smashing "Dangerous" "Toy Lamp" Outside Walmart
By 12.3.07
Based on an advocacy group’s “10 Most Dangerous Toys” list, an Arkansas man became convinced that a Dora the Explorer lamp sold at Walmart posed an imminent electrical shock threat to any children for whom which it was bought, so he conducted his own personal recall…
