18. November, 2002 - The sky is falling!
- Leonid meteor shower promises to be repeat performance of last year's spectacular. And it's tonight. I probably won't manage to get outside the city lights, but that worked out okay last year, I guess. Today's already shaping up to be a non-productive day to follow my non-productive weekend. Maybe I expect to get too much done, but as it turned out, the only thing I got done all weekend was to help my friend Scott scan in a bunch of photos and back up about 18G of old music. It's a good thing to have done, but there were a lot of other things on the list. So this morning will be spent doing the things I should have done yesterday (paying the bills, hauling out the recycling, updating the neighborhood website) and whining about it here. Paying work's going to wait until at least this afternoon.
- Add-on costs permeating consumer culture [warning: popups]
A mandatory $10 airport fee? You've got to be kidding.
These extra costs once were limited to the phone bill and bank statement. Now they can be found in most every other industry and in government. Some of this nickel-and-diming makes sense, such as those fees that offset actual use, such as highway tolls. However, most of these fees are nonsensical or just plain evil, such as a charge from the phone company to have an unlisted number. These 'add-ons' have become the latest means of shaking-down the poor consumer who doesn't have the time to shop around or temerity to challenge unreasonable and unasked-for fees. [Reed and fark!]
- Vote-by-mail trend reexamined in wake of Wellstone crash. It's convenient for a lot of people, but it also requires people to vote before election day, so last minute changes (like Wellstone's death) are tough to accomodate. [strib]
- 99.9% of Websites Are Obsolete says Zeldman. Something about standards having moved on. But the browsers still haven't caught up completely, which is a drag, but it's no excuse for websites to be just plain wrong, which so many are. [some guy]
- Land of the toll-free road is set to pay way out of a jam. It'll be interesting to see how Seattle's experiment works out. But from what I saw out there in September I don't think their congestion problems are that severe. [strib]
Copyright 2008, Dave Polaschek.
Last updated on Mon, 18 Nov 2002 08:27:15.