I was buying a Kingston 4 GB microSDHC Class 4 Flash Memory Card SDC4/4GB from amazon.com, which seemed a good deal at $8.99 with zero-marginal-cost-shipping (Amazon prime, cough), when I noticed something pretty funny.
It seems Amazon also offers the same product in “Amazon Frustration-Free™ Packaging,” for just $10.56 — only $1.57 extra.
Pay more, get less packaging — something you can actually open. I guess it's a business model.
slacktivist: Same to you, buddy writes a great rant about the costs of being poor
Last year, U.S. banks collected about $36 billion in overdraft protection fees. This year, they expect to transfer about $38.5 billion out of customers' accounts in the form of such fees.
$38.5 billion. $105 million every day. $4.4 million every hour. $73,250 every minute. More than $1,200 a second. Transferred directly from the poor to the rich.
$38.5 billion.
And by the time he says,
The point here, I suppose, is that check-cashing fees may be an exploitative scam run by sleazeballs, but that they may turn out to be a more prudent option for the working poor than the even-more exploitative scam run by the more mainstream, but sleazier sleazeballs of the banking industry.
… the banks look far more exploitatrive than Wal-Mart charging $3 to cash a check.
Evan Brown at Internet Cases has a good writeup of Steinbach v. Village of Forest Park, No. 06-4215, 2009 WL 2605283 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 25, 2009) which holds that email snooping can be a tortious intrusion upon seclusion.
My e-home is my (cyber) castle.
Fafblog! the whole world's only source for Fafblog. finds the silver lining in an ugly cloud of bigotry at a health care town hall.
Unfortunately, the silver lining is this:
On the bright side, though, the Mayan zombie gods should wipe us all out in just a couple years
I signed Pam Samuleson's marvelous Academic Author Letter setting out a number of flaws in the proposed Google Books settlement.
It's probably the best-drafted and most cogent group letter I've ever signed. And, wow, I'm in good company among the signatories.
Amygdala explains why you might want to care about dysprosium, terbium, and neodymium.
I look forward to his discussion of scandium and yttrium.
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