Full Spectrum Culture » Market Invading Neighbor

Best Buy Optimization Is A Big Stupid Annoying Waste Of Money

Ben — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 02:51:59 +0000

“Based on the results of the tech team’s tests, we believe that optimization is not a good deal for most consumers. Our tests show that the service did not improve performance, and there are a number of free ways to do many of the same tasks (though you may be out of luck if you just have to have those exclusive “100 system tweaks”). We’ve listed a few of them below.

“Yes, having Geek Squad download your Windows updates can save you time, but the tech team found that the service was inconsistent. Best Buy hadn’t finished installing all the updates, and of course, a power cable was missing from one of the computers. The computers we received still had the trialware installed – only the shortcuts were removed from the desktop…”

Why the Mythbusters won’t do RFID — Adam Savage on Youtube

Ben — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:10:38 +0000

RI bishop wants US to halt mass immigration raids — Ray Henry, AP on Yahoo! News

Ben — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:48:43 +0000

Associated Press expects you to pay to license 5-word quotations (and reserves the right to terminate your license) — Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

Ben — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:15:50 +0000

Going Postal: Mailing rate hikes pinch small magazines, thanks to Time Warner — Callie Enlow, The New York Review of Magazines

Ben — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:04:32 +0000

Materialistic society is ‘damaging’ children: poll — AFP on Breitbart

Ben — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:28:44 +0000

Geek Wins Copyright Lawsuit Against Corporation — kdawson, Slashdot

Ben — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:31:25 +0000

School Choice Isn’t Enough: Instructional Reform is the key to better schools — Sol Stern, City Journal

Ben — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 22:29:05 +0000

Rich Man, Boor Man: We live in an age of great wealth… and lousy manners. — Peggy Noonan, OpinionJournal

Ben — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 21:19:29 +0000

Hotmail Fails To Deliver Up To 81% Of All Attachment Emails — Hal Licino, HubPages

Ben — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 22:01:53 +0000

False Copyright Claims — kdawson, Slashdot

Ben — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 21:49:11 +0000

Six months on, Vista users still griping – Jessica Mintz, AP on MSNBC.com

Ben — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 21:42:29 +0000

See also these recent articles on Slashdot:

Programs Cannot Be Uninstalled In Vista? — kdawson
Firefox Now Serious Threat to IE in Europe — CmdrTaco
Warning On Office 2007 “Try-Before-You-Buy” — kdawson

Buy Blog Comments: A Sick New Comment Spam Service Launches — Darren Rowse, problogger

Ben — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 21:47:27 +0000

Public or Private Space? Line Blurs in Silver SpringMarc Fisher, Washington Post

Ben — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 22:35:20 +0000

Journalists shouldn’t write ad copyHarry McCracken, PC World

Ben — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 22:40:46 +0000

CallerID Spoofing to be Made IllegalCowboyNeal, Slashdot

Ben — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 22:37:30 +0000

Property Owners Win OneJohn Stossel, RealClearPolitics

Ben — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 21:22:39 +0000

CBS News fires producer for plagiarism — AP on Yahoo

Ben — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 01:56:21 +0000

Schoolgirls celebrities after exposing RibenaMike Steere, New Zealand Press

Ben — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 16:55:51 +0000

Is Flixster a Big Fat Spammer? Are They Accessing Your AOL or Hotmail Address Book? The Answer to at Least One of These is Yes! — Anne Mitchell, The Internet Patrol

Ben — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 16:45:48 +0000

Tricking the social voting sitesCory Doctorow, BoingBoing

Ben — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 00:34:00 +0000

Horseshoes and Hand Grenades: Joel Johnson Returns…to Spank Us All for Supporting Crap — Joel Johnson, Gizmodo

Ben — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 17:22:53 +0000

Land Grab in the Magic KingdomRussell Brown, Public Address

Ben — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 03:10:00 +0000

…There have been at least 14 English-language films based on Carlo Collodi’s 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio (which itself drew on classical sources), and many more in other languages. If Disney was to obtain such trade marks (which cover “motion picture films”), would it then become impossible to make – or at least market – another one without Disney’s permission? Would it be a copyright lockout via the back door?
Fortunately, the claims are still under examination and it appears that IPONZ won’t simply wave the rubber stamp. Disney is being asked to prove its original rights in the characters and their names. One would hope that Disney is not allowed to annex stories that are out of copyright (in some cases, that’s precisely why Disney was able to make movies of them) merely because it adapted them. That would be creepy…

A Librarian’s Lament: Books Are a Hard SellThomas Washington, Washington Post

Ben — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 02:41:12 +0000

See also Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, if you actually have the attention span to sit down and read the book, that is.

Blog Power: The Top 10 Blog Stories Of 2006Danny Glover, Beltway Blogroll

Ben — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 12:46:43 +0000