Category: Interesting

I don’t know. This site looks just a bit too nice and involved to be just a simple site for Scott and Helen’s wedding. Regardless, it’s a really nice site. Link via b3ta.

Because it tracks its users pretty well. From the story:

As you may know, Jamie Oliver bills himself as the “Naked Chef”. Quite the thing among those to like TV cooking shows.

There’s a Word document floating around the Internet that claims to be a copy of Jamie’s next book. The Times reports that it’s a hoax, and the Word doc contains previously-published recipes from Jamie’s earlier books. Jamie’s publishers aren’t amused. They stand to lose a considerable amount of money if people think that they already have a copy of Jamie’s latest cookbook. Who assembled this rip-off?

He goes on to examine the document, looking at the hidden fields in Word documents, and provides some interesting insight as to what a MS Word document really holds, other than your document.

Leave it to a lawyer with too much time on his hands and the Smoking Gun to come up with this gem of a court filing.

The biship says that’s just the beginning. He says the church will be collecting more money to buy-out other porno shops in the community so they can shut them down as well. Full Story.

Iraq has to rely on outside (read: other countries) help to get their uranium. I just buy mine online.

So says this guy.

By horrendously marking up their beer prices. From the story:

“According to local beer industry sources, the Mets’ and Yanks’ concessionaires purchase half-kegs in bulk for approximately $29 per half-keg, roughly half the cost charged to bars and restaurants. Each half-keg holds 1,984 ounces, or 124 16-ounce servings.

“So, if the teams sell 16-ounce servings for about $6.50, which they do, the profit over the initial purchase price of each half-keg begins when the fifth beer is sold and that profit, per half-keg, is nearly $800.”

Thanks to Al Tompkins for the link.

I really love Al’s Morning Meeting. It’s a great place for stories like these. For example, the whole Do Not Call idea may not work. Some of the biggest users of telemarketing are exempt. From the column:

Long-distance phone companies got an exemption for their nightly slam calls. There’s an irony in there someplace.

Airlines got an exemption, which I suppose is cool if they’re calling to let you know that they’ve gone bankrupt and your flight is canceled.

Banks and credit unions got an exemption, probably to offer the newest consumer credit package: zero-percent auto loans with zero-percent savings accounts.

Insurance companies got an exemption, too, so they can call and tell you that your rates are going up as a result of their lousy investments of your premium money in the stock market.

Wait, there’s more.

Charities got an exclusion. Hmm … I’m beginning to wonder whether this list is really going to cut down on my dinner-time calls after all.

Telephone surveyors don’t have to honor the list, either. Does it seem like the loophole is expanding?

And, I’m sure George W. was happy to note, the new Do Not Call list does not apply to political organizations.

Finally, there’s the biggest loophole of all: The Do Not Call list can be ignored if the company already has an existing business relationship with you. So, if you once gave $10 to the Tinker Toys for Tiny Tots Trust, you’ll be hearing from them again.

So, really, what is this Do Not Call registry protecting us from? Not a whole lot, especially since the FTC and the FCC can’t figure out what’s actually going to be enforced by that list.

So say the list does serve its purpose. Telemarketers will have to find other ways to bug us, so expect the amount of spam and junk mail to rise sharply.

Update: Since the articles are no longer on Fortune.com, I’ve linked to a Web Archive or Google Cache version of them where possible. If anybody has good copies of these articles, let me know.

Update on 10/02/05: Two years later, the list still isn’t working.

In case you needed another reason to not be a jerk on the phone, just be aware you could be giving away company secrets.

From Al’s Morning Meeting: “This is new from the Statistical Abstract. How does your state rank in number of physicians per population (Idaho is last; Massachusetts is first), number of persons living below poverty level (Mississippi has the worst record; New Hampshire has the best record) Alaskans use more energy per person than any other state, Hawaiians use the least.”

There are some very interesting stats for Oregon, as well.