But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.
Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina
Vintage Quotes
Vintage Quotes
Not everyone hits on America, who for India sets sail.
Bertrand Meyer
Poor Design
Petty Million Dollar Lawsuits
Right now there’s a nasty defect in ebay’s system. When you look at an item’s listing, you are shown the item’s price and how much it will cost to ship. If you agree to buy the item, ebay policy says you are then obligated to pay for it.
That’s where the problem arises.
You see, when you’re set to pay for it, the price goes up! Yes, that’s right:
1.) You agree to buy the item at a certain price.
2.) ebay policy says you are now obligated to pay for the item.
3.) Woops, the price goes up! Sorry, but please enter your credit card number!
In my estimation, based on various heuristics, this looks like a slam dunk for any law firm. In this case, if a law firm filed a class action lawsuit against ebay, it would literally be the same thing as ebay writing that law firm a check for seven or eight figures. ebay’s clearly guilty, they might be looking to cover this up as we speak, and they’ll surely want to settle the lawsuit. The number of affected customers is probably high. And most probably don’t even realize they’ve been overcharged, or, depending on your point of view, been a victim of a breach of contract.
The few times I’ve noticed it, this defect is not a result of the user choosing a different shipping option. It sometimes exists when there is just one shipping option. It can be for a few cents, or as much as $10.
Vintage Quotes
The people die fast when the money is slow.
Variant of a Song Lyric
Vintage Quotes
The best way to realize the pleasure of feeling rich is to live in a smaller house than your means would entitle you to have.
Edward Clarke
Vintage Quotes
A fight does not start with a referee asking if you’re ready.†
Royce Gracie
† This statement can be generalized to all of man’s struggles, not just physical altercations.
Miscellany
The Perfect Double Bacon Cheeseburger
“Mostly-Vegan” Ingredients:
- Lettuce
- Tomatoes
- Morning Star Griller’s Original Veggie Burgers (2)
- Morning Star Veggie Bacon Strips (2)
- Go Veggie! Pepper Jack Rice Vegan Slices (2)
- Pepperidge Farm Italian Bread with Sesame Seeds
- KA·ME Hot Mustard
- Grilled with: Smart Balance Omega-3 Buttery Spread
- On the side: Heinz “No Salt” Ketchup
The price is right. This costs less than a typical double bacon cheeseburger, and the labor is minimal.
The biggest offender here is the sodium. It adds up to about 58% of the recommended daily sodium (which some say is too lenient as it is!). Just for comparison, a Bacon & Cheese Whopper from Burger King will set you back about 59%.
The sodium here could be scaled back with craftier product selection, as well as by not making everything a double. Here the veg*n beef and bacon accounted for the most sodium, although these Morning Star products did have the lowest sodium out of the veg*n product selection that was available to me, so there isn’t much room for improvement there. The bread added 10% sodium, and so there is definitely potential there. It’s good bread though.
Great Design
One Shot, One Kill, Plus Some Swagger
The Sniper movie franchise has been wrung out like a dirty rag containing just a few more drops of water. After having seen the original Sniper film, I was somewhat disappointed when I heard all the sequels were bad.
Which is why, after seeing the box cover for Sniper: Legacy, I couldn’t stop laughing, and yet also half-wanted to see this film.
The main reason for these mixed emotions was Tom Berenger wearing a baseball cap half-sideways in the field. This, coupled with the official tagline (“Like Father Like Son”), made it priceless.
The unexpected swagger with the baseball cap implied Tom Berenger had finally ascended to the level of sniper deity. He was so good at his job, he was now taking out his targets with style. This was something new. This was something fresh! And not only that – we couldn’t tell for sure – but it looked like he wasn’t necessarily interested in passing the torch to any of his descendants! Maybe not a figurative torch anyway.
But alas, a second box cover revealed the truth. Tom Berenger was actually wearing some sort of fisherman’s hat. And if you clip that image at just the right spot, it produced what looked to be a half-sideways baseball cap.
Was this clever editing designed to produce different images that might appeal to different demographics? Riding, perhaps, right on the edge of Gestalt Theory? If I had to guess, probably not. But at the same time I can’t rule it out.
Vintage Quotes
Expect the unexpected.
Unknown
Miscellany
Dougles And Gripples
Sometimes I like to optimize the smallest of things. For instance, what do you do when you want to compare products at Lowe’s and Home Depot? This is what I do. I type lowes homedepot on Google.com (my browser’s homepage) and hit enter.
The top two results are what I’m looking for. I middle click on each and proceed with my comparison. It shouldn’t be lost on the reader how incredibly stupid this optimization is, but just the same, what would we even call this optimization? Has this phenomenon even been discovered by anyone else?
If not, we can throw some ideas out there. A successful two-hit search (as in the above example) could be a Dougle (portmanteau of double and Google). A successful three-hit search (extremely difficult) could be a Gripple.
And I would be shocked if there existed four search terms where a home run were possible. I refuse to believe it can be done. Remember, they have to be the top results. They can’t simply be on the first page of results. They have to be the very top results.