We’d like to believe that the packaging for this HDMI cable is the victim of poor translation or some kind of misunderstanding. We sincerely hope that no one working in the consumer electronics industry believes that digital video is susceptible to viruses, those viruses cause noises, and that you can fend them off with a nice coating of Mylar. But we’ve had to deal with the public, and know better. [More]
stupidity
Everyone Knows How To Handle A Stolen Checkbook Except For Verizon
By 7.3.09
Yesterday I was musing that Time Warner Cable was passing the cost of customer care off to other businesses, by requiring customers to take half-days or full days off of work just to wait for a cable repairman. Today I think I stumbled upon another hidden economic impact of bad customer service: it’s responsible for generating a lot of the “free” content online. The next time you’re reading an IMDB entry about “Damages” or “Big Love” for example, you can thank Verizon’s collection of angry, confused, and possibly insane employees, and all the idle time they create for a customer who has to deal with them.
By 6.22.09
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A cancer unit at the V.A Medical Center in Philadelphia “operated with virtually no outside scrutiny and botched 92 of 116 cancer treatments over a span of more than six years.” The team even continued to perform surgeries for a year after a key piece of equipment broke. [New York Times] (Photo: OakleyOriginals)
Hank Paulson Admits He Never Really Understood How Mortgage-Backed Securities Worked
By 5.25.09
Here’s more proof that the people who probably should have known how they were making all that housing bubble money never did—even those who personally made tens of millions off of it. The Business blog at The Atlantic notes a quote Hank Paulson, former Goldman Sachs CEO and Treasury Secretary, gave Newsweek: “I didn’t understand the retail market; I just wasn’t close to it.”
Target Shelf Tag: This Is Not A Sign
By 4.22.09
Fear not, art history majors. René Magritte is alive and well and working at Target in Chicago. Reader Cecil spotted this shelf tag last week underneath some soda bottles. Clearly someone either wasn’t reading the signs, or needs to drink more soda. (click to view full-size image)
Prison Officials Lose Flash Drive With Data On 3,500 Volunteers And Visitors
By 3.31.08
The San Francisco Chronicle has reported that “a flash memory drive containing names, birth dates and driver’s license numbers of more than 3,500 people who either volunteered or visited San Quentin State Prison in a group tour has been lost.” Our reader Paul, who sent us the tip, adds, “When I read it my first thought was, “Gee, I wonder what the chances are of this personal data ending up in criminal hands? Mmm, maybe 100%.” Our favorite part of the story: the data wasn’t encrypted, but prison officials have said that now they’re going to start encrypting it.
The Man Who Owns DoNotReply.com Knows All The Secrets Of The World
By 3.24.08
If your company is in the habit of using a “donotreply.com” address in the “From” field of its emails, you might want to forward your IT department this entry from the Washington Post’s “Security Fix” blog—when customers don’t pay attention and reply to a “donotreply.com” email address, it goes to Chet Faliszek, a programmer in Seattle who registered the domain seven years ago.
With the exception of extreme cases… Faliszek says he long ago stopped trying to alert companies about the e-mails he was receiving. It’s just not worth it: Faliszek said he is constantly threatened with lawsuits from companies who for one reason or another have a difficult time grasping why he is in possession of their internal documents and e-mails.
