Posts tagged as "consumerist" - Chris Hardie

At some point when I was fairly young, I was excited to learn about the concept of "truth in advertising" - the notion that it actually matters whether what you say in a public announcement or description of products or services is true or not.  I was even more excited to learn that there was an official government entity (in the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission) empowered to enforce truth in advertising standards, and punish those who would dare publish falsehoods.  It totally knocked my socks...

Based on a true story: Them: "Please fill out our online form and we'll get back to you right away!" You in online form: "Hi.  I'm trying to find the button that does the thing I want, and your documentation says it should be there but it's not - can you tell me how to do the thing I want?" Them: "Thank you for opening your tech support case - your question is very important to us.  We will get back to you very soon now." Them: "Hi there, my name is Tech Support Rep#2342 and I'm going...

There's an interesting and sad article in today's Palladium-Item, Main Street struggles for survival.  Articles like it are being written about struggling downtown areas across the country, so of course it's nothing new in "this economy," but because it's about the downtown in my community, I take special notice. The article contains some interviews with downtown business owners, some perspective on the history of the Main Street organization there, and some talk of renewed activity from merchants...

A few short stories of recent FAIL and WIN experiences in customer service: Trying to stop getting unsolicited postal mail from Comcast I'm not a Comcast customer, haven't been for a long time, and never at my current address. I get postcards, letters and brochures from them on a regular basis - sometimes several times a week.  It's annoying and wasteful.  I searched the Comcast website and the Internet at large for a while for a web-based form to get on a "do not send me mail" list, and couldn't...

This weekend I had the opportunity to sample three local/regional shopping destinations that were all new to me: 1) The Fireplace Shop at 1000 North F Street in Richmond is an amazing little brick complex that showcases all that can be done with wood and other heat sources. From traditional fireplaces to wood burning stoves to corn pellet stoves to crazy other conflagrant configurations, it was quite a wonderland of temperature control. With the added bits of atmosphere like lazy cats sprawled...

The "do it yourself" (DIY) movement is sometimes talked about as a new or emerging phenomenon, but when you reduce it to its essence - "people creating or repairing things for themselves without the aid of paid professionals" - it's clear that DIY is just a new label for a way of living that is as old as human existence itself. Our culture likes to take the old and repackage it as the new so it's more exciting and engaging. I don't have any problem with that per se - there can be something creative...

This is a republishing of a series of blog posts looking at the pal-item.com Terms of Service, discussing what they actually mean and how they might impact your use of the Palladium-Item website.  (The Palladium-Item is Richmond, Indiana's daily newspaper.)  You can view the original posts where they appeared on the Pal-Item site: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. The pal-item.com Terms of Service (TOS) are the policies and terms that the Palladium-Item and its parent corporation, Gannett, have set forth...

The Story of Stuff - "From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns." The Official Blog of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, and the New York Times article that introduced me to it. I wonder how much comment spam *he* gets? Local geek Charlie Peck is still...

Are you brave enough to say no to a high-stress holiday? "The problem with Christmas is not the batteries. The problem isn't even really the stuff. The problem with Christmas is that no one much likes it anymore." Richmond News Review podcast episode #23: Debate bid followup, buying local, media coverage gaps from last weekend. And don't forget to submit your suggestions for the upcoming podcast segment, What news stories did Richmond media miss in 2007?. Energy Efficiency Jobs at Google: Get paid...

I've generally been content not having a physical phone line at home and using my cell phone instead. I'm not much of a phone person anyway, my back yard looked a lot nicer when Verizon cut down the unsightly cable, and it's certainly a cost savings. But sometimes, I still long to have a regular old phone sitting on my desk that I can pick up and make a call on. Recently, for various reasons, I've been playing with having just that setup, but with a twist: my new home phone setup is run on open...