ChuckDoherty.com

I recently purchased a map update for the GPS on my motorcycle through Amazon.com. After a year or so, the map data becomes noticeably out of synch with reality, especially in areas where there is a great deal of road construction. Plus, businesses such as gas stations open and close fairly regularly, meaning you can’t always trust the old map data to get you to a gas station in the boonies when you are running on fumes.  I have never faced a close call myself, but it has directed me to a few stations with tumbleweeds rolling past rusty stumps of abandoned pumps.

What I actually bought was the license to visit their website and download updated map data up to four times each year for the usable lifetime (as defined by Garmin) of my GPS device.  The right to do this costs about $100, as opposed to shelling out around $59 for each one-time purchase.  What you actually receive for your money is simply a seven-digit alphanumeric code (like “JGKDFED”) which you then type in at the Garmin website. 

This code could very easily have been sent to me in real-time via email. Instead, the code arrived printed on the back of a plastic card similar to a credit card or gift card, and covered with scratch-off latex like you would see on a lottery ticket.

The card was in turn mounted on a piece of cardboard and, along with a shoplifting detection device, encased in one of those infuriating clamshell packages that are the bane of modern consumerism not to mention being responsible for a large number of injuries on the part of people trying to open them.

The clamshell, which could  have been shipped in a padded envelope, was instead nested at the bottom of a shoebox-sized cardboard box, and the remaining 95% of the volume in the box was taken up by a few of those plastic bag balloons that have recently replaced foam peanuts as the padding of choice.  The box, weighing all of about two ounces,  was then shipped to me via UPS and arrived at my back door about a week after I placed the order.

Putting aside all of the global warming, wasted materials, recycling, and fuel usages issues that surround this, it is frustrating to realize that the shipping and handling charges applied to this virtual item, as well as the delay in getting it, were totally unnecessary. 

The entire transaction should have lasted 15 seconds and gone like this;

“Here’s $100.” 

“Thanks. Now go to the website and type: ‘IAMASAP’ and you can download your maps.” 

</bitching>

Ben and I are striking off to London in the morning and will be there through Thursday afternoon. While in the UK you can reach me at (0044) 77 8938 0659. In the UK, you would dial 077 8938 0659. So much to write about when I get home, including but not limited to, Guinness-swilling dwarfs, old ladies seen chasing crows with cooking vessels, anti-abortion messages printed on beer coasters, fattening food, bathrooms built for Chinese acrobats, and some very cryptic road signs. One example: “calming traffic ahead.” Oh, and the Northern Irish accent is completely indecipherable.

In today’s email:

I get regular email from ikitchen.com, a site that sells cooking equipment and small appliances. Their prices are about what you would expect most of the time, but every now and then they will have a very good deal on something or other that I want for the kitchen.  I am a little reluctant to purchase from them based on the customer reviews I read on their website.  Not that I have read anything negative; far from it.  But that’s the point.  Every review of every product on their website is a glowing five-star tribute, written in a suspiciously-similar style and free from any grammatical or punctuation errors. Now, it may be true that every customer (click on the “reviews” tab) is thrilled, thrilled to have an easy-to-clean, dishwasher-safe drip pan, and an elegent embossed logo. And it may also be true that every one of these delighted customers entered their product reviews on the very same day, as the date stamp on the reviews indicates. But methinks that the reviews are seeded at best, and at worst are created out of whole cloth.  Even if these were written by real customers as their customer service representative assures me, I can only conclude that any review that does not gush with positive vibes never sees the light of day.  As I mentioned to them in a feedback comment form, online customers are not that naive. 

Just received this succinct gem:

MY DEAR,I AM DR.A.MUKOLU,I WANT TO TRANSFER $15M OUT OF MY COUNTRY,REPLY IF YOU RECEIVE IT FOR MORE DETAILS.ANENE.- DR.ANENE MUKOLU

Oh, come on. Now you’re not even trying.

This from www.defectiveyeti.com:

A number of web sites are now using context-sensitive advertising that makes hyperlinks out of certain phrases in the text, and links them to a site that – occasionally – has some sort of relationship to the word or phrase in question.  More of these seem to miss the mark than hit it, and I can’t help but wonder what sort of rules are used to figure these out. 

I was just online looking for some salmon recipes, and found one for making BBQ-flavored roasted salmon that was filled with these sort of links.  These change each time the page is loaded, but when last I looked the selections were fairly haphazard. At least the link associated with the words ”preheat oven” pointed to a company that sells appliances, and one attached to the words ”cooking spray” was an ad for a culinary school.  Those at least make some sense based on the context. However, a link on the word “tablespoon” pointed to a company selling musical instruments (based on playing the spoons, perhaps?) , while another link attached to “teaspoons” was an offer to participate in a research study for people suffering from constipation caused by pain medications.  Oddest of all was a link on the word “juice” which pointed to a website selling Panasonic ventilation systems. 

Some sites, like CNN.com, put ads on the side that are based on keywords in the text.  A few years ago, an article I read there featured several ads for scented body washes that were derived from some text in the article that mentioned a body having washed up on shore. 

Behold my new blog.  Thanks to the help of my friend Alex, I now have an honest-to-goodness blog that does all sorts of blogerific things.  I need to get my existing posts in place over the next few weeks, and will be adding new content at the same time.  Stay tuned, and feel free to leave your comments as well.

I receive at least three or four Nigerian scam emails a day.  They vary in their backstory and legibility, but all are pretty much the same. You know the deal; someone has a huge sum of cash that they want to share with you, and all you need to do is contact them and they will arrange for the transfer.  Many people believe that they defraud people by taking advantage of their personal banking information, but the actual fraud is usually in the form of telling the scamee that they need to open a local Nigerian bank account with some minimum deposit (usually around $700 or $800), and then they can transfer the big funds into that account. But once they get this far and have someone on the hook, they start in with “fees” and “taxes” which must be paid in order to release the funds, and all sorts of roadblocks start coming up that require more and more money.  Eventually people throw in the towel and realize they have been taken, but that sometimes comes after losing tens of thousands of dollars. And of course, there never were any funds to begin with.

Today I received a totally new one in the form of this email. This time, the approach is to say that they are writing on behalf of investigators who are working to fight the scammers, and that they want to help people recover money they may have been duped out of already. However, this too is a scam, and will result in people falling prey to the same people once again.  But I have to give them credit – they are going to catch quite a few people with this “TRANSMISION” from the Coporate (sic) Head Office. Plus, anyone replying to this will have identified themselves as having been a victim in the past, and thus someone who is most likely easily scammed again.