Tag: complaint

How am I going to explain this to my daughter?

Boing Boing: Fake beauty, video about transhuman tricks used on models

That is, when I have a daughter.  But the likelihood of me having a daughter is pretty good.  I mean, the first kid has about a 50/50 chance of being a girl, right?  So if I plan to have multiple children, which the wife currently is on board with, I have a better than 50/50 chance of having a girl.

Anyway, the point is, how would you explain this to a little girl?  The video shows an attractive but perfectly normal woman, and the process to make her face into a billboard.  Makeup, which isn’t surprising, but then the digital manipulation of her face is a little shocking.  They make her neck thinner and longer, raise her eyebrows, make her lips fuller.

I can’t imagine explaining that to my (As yet unborn, or even conceived) little girl when she’s six and asks me why.  There’s a long time in a kid’s life when they understand enough to ask hard-to-answer questions, but they may not understand enough to hear the real answer.  Assuming there is one.  I mean, I don’t know why we’ve built up completely unreasonable expectations of beauty.

I’ve heard the arguments that some of it is based on propagation of the species, and the claim that a fit woman with wide hips is well-suited for reproduction.  But what do full lips and a long, slender neck have to do with reprodcution?

Absolutely nothing, that’s what.

You cant just say your domain name

Utube.com deluged with YouTube seekers | CNET News.com

How many times have you heard a radio commercial that directs people to a website?  And how many of those times has the actual site been something different than what you heard?  English is a funny language – we have these things called homophones, and they can make it difficult.  Sometimes you can figure it out from the context (Assuming you know how to spell), but I’ve heard commercials, although of course I can’t think of an example, where it’s impossible.

Part of this is due to the fact that sometimes the company name isn’t a real word.  If you’ve invented the spelling of the company name, I’m not necessarily going to be able to spell it if you say it.

I suppose it’s not that big a deal.  It’s just dumb.

New drink burns calories

Accidental Hedonist – Coke’s Caloric Sophistry

There are a couple things wrong with this.  First, they say that drinking three twelve ounce cans will burn about 100 calories.  Okay, fine.  How many calories are in a can?  There’s about 140 calories in a 12 ounce can of Coke.  Unless each can of this new stuff is less than 35 calories or so (Highly unlikely, but I can’t find the number online), even if the calorie-burning claims are correct, you’re still taking in more than you’re burning.

Second, you’d burn about 35 calories taking a slow walk for ten minutes.  35 calories is not that much.

Third, “The makers claim that a combination of extracts from green tea and caffeine speeds up the drinker’s metabolic rate, which helps the body to burn calories”.  How many can I drink in a day before my metabolic rate is at an unsafe level?  Artificially speeding up your metabloic rate just doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.

Fourth, “But, this is a positive step that people can take to make a difference to their health with regular physical activity and a balanced, healthy diet.”  So says Rhoma Applebaum, chief scientist for Coke.  Everything I’m reading from Coke implies that this is a health drink.  That is, something that will help you be healthy.  Is it healthy like Diet Coke is healthy?  I mean, sure, drinking it is probably healthier than drinking straight high-fructose corn syrup, or drinking battery acid.  But I doubt drinking one of these Envigas is healthier than drinking nothing.

Anyway, I love Coke.  Not the company, but the soda.  I know it’s bad for me, and that’s why I try not to drink it too often (Although I should drink less of it).  But this stuff is being marketed deceptively, and I’d like to see Coke get sued for it.

Winter is here

Yesterday morning, it was 65 degrees (18 C for those of you who use that ridiculous system.  Freezing is zero degrees?  Crazy!) out when I went to work.  Today, it was 34 (1 C).

Now, I like the cold.  But those first few days of cold are always a bit of a shock.  All the windows in the house were still open this morning, so it was a bit chilly inside.  And our flag football game tomorrow is at 8AM, so that will probably be cold.

Of course, it’s still hot in my office, as usual.

Anyway, that’s probably all I have to say about the weather.

Listening to NPR makes me cry

Charlie’s Diary: Playing the Genocide Card

The Lancet isn’t just any medical journal, it’s one of the big three that you used to — and probably still do — find in common rooms in hospitals all over the UK (along with the British Medical Journal and sometimes the New England Journal of Medicine). It is not noted for publishing random speculation, agitprop, and crank letters — it’s the top journal of record in its field. Getting an article into The Lancet is like getting one in Nature, or Science: it’s a big one.

This morning, for example, I heard President Bush and one of his big shot generals dismissing this report because they’ve never heard a number bigger than about 50,000, so this 650,000 estimate MUST be wrong.

Now, before you go doubting my source, I know Charles Stross is an author, not an expert in military excursions or whatever.  But we are bringing the qualifications of The Lancet into question here, not Stross.  The Lancet was founded in 1823.  When a scientific journal is that old, one guesses that it has not made a habit of inventing numbers more than 10 times the number we’d heard previously just for kicks.

So, NPR followed that with a little bit telling how Bush has made absolutely sure that we associate North Korea with terrorism.  The only thing North Korea has in common with Al Qaeda is that they have been making a nuisance of themselves (And by “making a nusiance” I of course mean “testing nuclear weapons”) at the same time as we are fighting a war that we like to think has something to do with Al Qaeda.

I suppose it is fair to lump North Korea in there with Iraq, though.  There’s probably just as much chance of finding Bin Laden in North Korea as finding him in Iraq.

I was a Republican during the Clinton administration.  By the end of this administration, I expect to be huddled on the floor in a corner, rocking back and forth and mumbling something about “the days of yore”.

Why I dont blog at home

HOWTO: Draft A Good Complaint Letter – Consumerist

The wife is half-looking over my shoulder as we watch some Sunday Night Football, and she saw the headline.

“How to draft a good complaint letter?  What are you doing?”  She says.  And it’s the tone she used that’s important here.  The tone implied that blogging about how to draft a good complaint letter is utterly worthless and ridiculous.

I run a blog called “Complaint Hub”.  Blogging about complaining is what I do.  And Consumerist also does a lot of complaining.  So sometimes I link to their site (Don’t tell them it’s because they pay attention to who links them, and sometimes link back.  Tell them it’s because they’re so witty.  They’ll like that.).

I don’t think that’s ridiculous at all.  I’m here, providing a service to the community by helping to spread the word about how to write a good complaint letter.

So, go out and write a complaint letter to someone who has wronged you.  It will feel good, trust me.

Norton Antivirus kills my processor

I hate my laptop.  It’s a Dell, and I have a Dell desktop that I’ve had since 1998 that I love.  Once it got too old to do much with, I installed Ubuntu Linux on it, and that’s been pretty cool.  But this laptop has been a piece of crap ever since I bought it.  And now I’ve found that maybe I’ve put too much blame on Dell, and not nearly enough on Norton.  My antivirus that came with the computer expired long ago, and I refuse to pay for virus protection.  I’ve never had a virus in my life.  Never.  And I don’t trust Norton to work, anyway.

So, the computer has been running slowly for a while.  Finally I decided to uninstall all the extra junk I’ve gathered along the way.  Soon enough, I got to Norton.  I can’t believe how much faster the computer is running now that Norton is gone.  It’s not just Norton, but that was the only thing I uninstalled where I saw an immediate change in how the computer was running.

I would suggest to all of you that you get rid of Norton, but I don’t know what you should replace it with.  So I won’t recommend that you do that just yet.  It’s one thing for me to go without virus protection, but I’m not going to recommend that you do it.

But I have to say that I’m thrilled with my uninstalling exploits.  I’ll keep you all posted on how it works from here on out.

Guest blogger Gayles bathroom experience

Gayle originally left this as a comment on this post, but I have to share it on the main page.

this guy intrigues me. first, he obviously has a hair dryer at work…but no towel? i would think most guys would have a towel before a hair dryer. of course, i’m a girl and i just blow dryed my hair for the first time in several years the other week (it’s long hair, too).

second, he was drying his body with the dryer? as opposed to his hair or shirt?? i think it’s safe to say that’s a little strange, even in the privacy of your own bathroom.

third, this post prompts me to share a related work bathroom etiquette complaint:

i work in a building with 2 women’s restrooms and maybe 6 women total. each bathroom is a single locking room (no multiple stalls, so one person at a time, technically). one of the women i work with is just coming off maternity leave and has to pump her breast milk every few hours. this takes up about half an hour of single bathroom time. i am completely on board and understanding of that.

the thing that bothers me is, another one of the women in my lab will come in, go into the only other bathroom (while the first is unavailable), and put on make up and do her hair…with a curling iron! this seems a little less pertinent to me than pumping breast milk, especially when i have to use the bathroom for more legitimate reasons. and to add insult to injury, this woman generally doesn’t look any different after all of her primping.

as a result of this whole scenario, i can say i’ve: a. been inconvenienced on more than one occasion, and b. been inside (and used) the men’s room at my work.

Does this cross the line?

I work in a nine-story building, made up of primarily government and military contractors.  As one would expect, there is a men’s room (And a women’s room, though I’ve never been inside) on my floor.  There is currently a man in the men’s room, shirtless, drying himself with a hair dryer.  Let me say again that he is completely shirt-free. I believe this is inappropriate in a semi-public restroom.  There are probably eight offices on my floor, so he probably won’t know most of the people who might come in to the men’s room.  Although knowing them might make it worse.

Anyway, am I being ridiculous?  Is this just an unlucky guy who got rained on while coming to work, and he’s trying to make the best of it?

Children are being exploited, lets punish them

Time.com – Time to Close the Book on Washington Pages?

Some are calling for an end to the page program after Mark Foley’s illegal-no-matter-what-the-FBI-says activities.  This is a truly wonderful idea.  Really great.  They haven’t been punished enough already.  We should also take away this wonderful opportunity for young people to learn about politics just because one jackass can’t control his sexual urges.  Surely Foley’s actions must mean that all pages are being molested by all senators and congressmen, right?