April 9th, 2010 | Posted in Facts of Life, Interesting Tech
Don’t you hate it when something breaks just after the warranty runs out? Or what about that new electronic gadget that fails to work with your old accessories from the same manufacturer?
Some of these infuriating problems were caused on purpose, by product designers practicing “planned obsolescence.” Planned obsolescence occurs when something is intended to wear out or stop being useful after a predetermined period of time — and that time is often as short as a few years.
Critics have long complained that planned obsolescence wastes consumers’ money, uses up valuable resources, and chokes our landfills.
The good news is that consumers are not entirely at the mercy of corporations. Armed with some information and foresight you can extend the life of some products or avoid buying them entirely. Here are strategies for dealing with some of the most irritating sources of planned obsolescence.
MP3 Players
Planned obsolescence is a fact of life when it comes to consumer electronices. MP3 players are a glaring example. These units are rarely upgradable with more memory and their lithium-ion batteries often wear out before the product does.
In the worst case, such as with Apple iPods, the battery can’t be removed easily by consumers, forcing an expensive service request when it runs out. These advanced batteries are often expensive ($75 or more in the case of laptops, but still pricey for smaller devices), so extending the life is no trifling matter.
Luckily, there are a number of good quality “generic” batteries on the market for many devices. You can easily find them on eBay and elsewhere. These typically are not recommended by manufacturers, but problems are rare. It also isn’t that difficult to replace the battery in your iPod, and directions and how-to videos are online.
Finally, you can often prolong the life of your device by taking good care of it. Keep it out of temperature extremes, keep it clean and follow the charging/use patterns recommended by your manufacturer. In many cases, lithium-ion batteries do better if they are not run all the way down.
Ink Cartridges
A set of new inkjet cartridges can cost more than the printer itself…yet you may be prevented from using every expensive drop of pigment. Many ink cartridges come with proprietary smart chips on them that disable printing when one of the colors falls to a certain level, even if there’s really enough ink to do the job. Plus, the smart chips can discourage refilling or use of third-party ink.
Buy cartridges that let you refill the ink. This cuts down on plastic use, and saves you serious money. You can also probably get away with printing less. Use draft and grayscale settings to save ink, and optimize content from the web or email before you send to the printer, so you don’t waste ink on headers, footers and ads you don’t want. You can also skip printing by using online backup services, Google docs and emailing things to yourself.
Software
In software, as with some video game hardware, many titles are incompatible with previous files or programs. This definitely gives consumers incentive to upgrade across the board. Many users are also forced to upgrade to new editions after publishers stop providing support to older versions.
Instead of proprietary software, use open source titles, which are usually free for typical users, including upgrades. You also may be able to save money by using general titles instead of specialized ones that only do one thing, since you are less likely to get trapped into expensive service or upgrades later. For example, use Microsoft Excel or Google Spreadsheets instead of custom accounting software. Some users may also find that they don’t really need to get the latest and greatest upgrades, unless there are security reasons to do so.
Textbooks
Planned obsolescence isn’t limited to newer kinds of technology. Even though not much changes from year to year for most core subjects, textbook publishers issue frequent updates. Trouble is, each new edition is usually printed with the information shifted to different page numbers, making it difficult to follow along in class with a previous volume.
Given that textbooks are quite expensive, some students are fighting back by buying recently used texts at a fraction of the cost from places like Craigslist. Or perhaps even cheaper and more convenient, you may be able to rent the textbooks you need. Chegg.com, for example, is a mail service not unlike Netflix, in which shipping on return books is free. Chegg plants a tree for every book users rent, sell or buy, and rental costs range from about 10% of list price to about 30%.
Finally, some savvy students have discovered that they need not even buy every text on the class list; rarely used ones can be referenced at the library or shared among friends.
Fast Fashion
One year fishnets are out, the next year they’re in. Unless you have your own warehouse like Demi Moore, chances are good that you don’t hang on to every piece of clothing you own to wait until acid wash comes back into vogue. Whether it’s because of cuts, hemlines or colors, a lot of what is advertised and sold is designed to go out of style in a short time.
Instead of buying the latest and greatest apparel, consider timeless classics. Vintage clothes are a great green choice, and offer nearly endless style possibilities. Avoid so-called “fast fashion,” which is churned out quickly based on ephemeral trends and isn’t designed to last. Rent the items you’ll only wear once or twice, like tuxedos, prom dresses or possibly even hand bags. Finally, learn to mend the clothes you already have — that’s the greenest option yet!
By becoming more educated consumers, we can enjoy higher value and have less environmental impact.
By Brian Clark Howard
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April 7th, 2010 | Posted in Strange Facts
When the body of Chicago’s school board president was found partially submerged in a river last fall, a bullet wound to the head, cameras helped prove it was a suicide.
Friends had speculated someone forced Michael Scott to drive to the river before shooting him — and maybe even wrapped his fingers around the trigger.
But within days, police recreated Scott’s 20-minute drive through the city using high-tech equipment that singled out his car on a succession of surveillance cameras, handing the image from camera to camera. The video didn’t capture Scott’s final moments, but it helped convince police his death was a suicide: He wasn’t followed. He wasn’t following anyone. He never picked up a passenger.
The investigation offered a riveting demonstration of the most extensive and sophisticated video surveillance system in the United States, and one that is transforming what it means to be in public in Chicago.
In less than a decade and with little opposition, the city has linked thousands of cameras — on street poles and skyscrapers, aboard buses and in train tunnels — in a network covering most of the city. Officials can watch video live at a sprawling emergency command center, police stations and even some squad cars.
“I don’t think there is another city in the U.S. that has as an extensive and integrated camera network as Chicago has,” said Michael Chertoff, the former Homeland Security secretary.
New York has plenty of cameras, but about half of the 4,300 installed along the city’s subways don’t work. Other cities haven’t been able to link networks like Chicago. Baltimore, for example, doesn’t integrate school cameras with its emergency system and it can’t immediately send 911 dispatchers video from the camera nearest to a call like Chicago can.
Even London — widely considered the world’s most closely watched city with an estimated 500,000 cameras — doesn’t incorporate private cameras in its system as Chicago does.
While critics decry the network as the biggest of Big Brother invasions of privacy, most Chicago residents accept them as a fact of life in a city that has always had a powerful local government and police force.
And authorities say the system helps them respond to emergencies in a way never before possible. A dispatcher can tell those racing to the scene how big a fire is or what a gunman looks like. If a package is left sitting next to a building for more than a few minutes, a camera can send an alert.
Cameras have recorded drug deals, bike thefts and a holiday bell ringer dipping his hand into a pot outside a downtown store. Footage from a camera on a city bus helped convince a suspected gang member to plead guilty to shooting a 16-year-old high school student in 2007.
In the death of the school board president, the cameras helped diffuse mounting suspicion and anger.
“It really closed that piece of the puzzle,” police Superintendent Jody Weis said. “We don’t know what was going through his head, but we definitely know he was alone.”
The network began less than a decade ago with a dozen cameras installed in Grant Park to deter violence during the annual Taste of Chicago festival. It now includes private cameras as well as those installed by a variety of public agencies.
While authorities won’t say exactly how many cameras are included, with 1,500 installed by emergency officials, 6,500 in city schools and many more at public and private facilities, nobody disputes an estimate of 10,000 and growing. Weis said he would like to add “covert” cameras, perhaps as small as matchboxes.
City officials from around the world have visited Chicago to see the system and how effective it is.
Chicago police point to 4,000 arrests made since 2006 with the help of cameras. And, an unpublished study by the Washington-based Urban Institute found crime in one neighborhood — including drug sales, robberies and weapons offenses — decreased significantly after cameras were installed, said Nancy La Vigne, director of the institute’s Justice Policy Center.
“It does stop people from coming out and acting the fool,” observed Larry Scott, who lives in one of the city’s last remaining public housing high rises.
He said residents rarely complain, unless they get caught for a minor offense or the cameras fail to record a violent attack.
“People were upset when that boy was killed by the 2-by-4 and there were no pictures,” he said, referring to the beating death of a high school student that was recorded by cell phone but not city cameras last year.
Police say they usually hear from Chicago residents about the cameras only when they want one installed in their neighborhood or worry one will be removed. Such a claim is supported by an unlikely source: The American Civil Liberties Union, which has criticized the use of cameras as an invasion of privacy and ineffective crime fighting tool.
“It does appear that people only object is when they get a ticket (because of a camera) for running a red light,” ACLU spokesman Edwin Yohnka said.
Although courts have generally found surveillance cameras placed in public don’t violate individuals’ privacy, Yohnka said they could too easily be misused.
“What protections are in place to stop a rogue officer from taking a highly powerful camera and aim it in a way to find or track someone who is perhaps a former love interest or something like that?” he asked.
Aric Roush, director of information services at the city’s 911 center, responded that dispatchers see nothing officers wouldn’t see if they were on the scene.
“You can’t afford to put a police officer on every single corner (and) it is a lot more cost effective and efficient to put a camera where you don’t have eyes,” he said.
Chicago residents tend to be tough on crime and are likely to support any tool police use, said Paul Green, a Roosevelt University political science professor. Many literally applauded the officers who swung billy clubs at protesters during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, he recalled.
Mayor Richard Daley, he said, “could put 10,000 more cameras up and nobody would say anything.”
By DON BABWIN, Associated Press Writer
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April 7th, 2010 | Posted in Food and Nutrition
There’s a lot of advice out there about getting good sleep; here are tips that work for me:
Good habits for good sleep:
1. Exercise most days, even if it’s just to take a walk.
2. No caffeine after 7:00 p.m.
3. An hour before bedtime, avoid doing any kind of work that takes alert thinking. Addressing envelopes—okay. Analyzing an article—nope.
4. Adjust your bedroom temperature to be slightly chilly.
5. Keep your bedroom dark. Studies show that even the tiny light from a digital alarm clock can disrupt a sleep cycle. We have about six devices in our room that glow bright green; it’s like sleeping in a mad scientist’s lab. The Big Man’s new pet, a Roomba (yes, he loves his robot vacuum), gives out so much light that I have to cover it with a pillow before bed.
6. Keep the bedroom as tidy as possible. It’s not restful to fight through chaos into bed.
If sleep won’t come:
1. Breathe deeply and slowly until you can’t stand it anymore.
2. If your mind is racing (you’re planning a trip, a move, Christmas shopping; you’re worried about a medical diagnosis), write down what’s on your mind. This technique really works for me.
3. Slather yourself with body lotion. It feels good and also, if you’re having trouble sleeping because you’re hot, it cools you down.
4. If your feet are cold, put on socks.
5. Stretch your whole body.
6. Have a warm drink. Some people claim that warm milk contains melatonin and trytophan and so helps induce sleep, but in fact, a glass of milk doesn’t contain enough to have any effect. But it’s still a soothing drink. My nighttime favorite: 1/3 mug of milk, add boiling water, one packet of Equal, and a dash of vanilla. A real nursery treat.
7. Yawn.
8. Stretch your toes up and down several times.
9. Tell yourself, “I have to get up now.” Imagine that you just hit the snooze alarm and in a minute, you’re going to be marching through the morning routine. Often this is an exhausting enough prospect to make me fall asleep.
Re-frame:
Re-frame your sleeplessness as a welcome opportunity to snatch some extra time out of your day. I get up and tackle mundane chores, like paying bills, organizing books, or tidying up. Then I start the day with a wonderful feeling of having accomplished something even before 6:45 am.
by Gretchen Rubin
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April 7th, 2010 | Posted in Current Affairs
The U.S. military said Tuesday it can’t find its copy of a video that shows two employees of the Reuters news agency being killed by Army helicopters in 2007, after a leaked version circulated the Internet and renewed questions about the attack.
Capt. Jack Hanzlik, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said that the military has not been able to locate the video within its files after being asked to authenticate the version available online.
“We had no reason to hold the video at (Central Command), nor did the higher headquarters in Iraq,” Hanzlik said in an e-mailed statement. “We’re attempting to retrieve the video from the unit who did the investigation.”
It’s the latest twist in a three-year saga that raises questions about the rules of engagement in battle and the safety of journalists sent to cover wars.
Advocates for increased government transparency also have questioned why the military withheld the video from the public, even though Reuters requested a copy through the Freedom of Information Act after watching it in an off-the-record meeting with the military in 2007.
The video includes audio of troops calling to “light ‘em up!” and referring to the men as “dead bastards.” An internal investigation concluded that the troops had acted appropriately, despite having mistaken the camera equipment for weapons.
“Clearly, it is unflattering to the military, but that is not justification for withholding it,” said Steven Aftergood, an expert on government secrecy with the Federation of American Scientists.
The July 12, 2007, attack has been reported before. But Web site Wikileaks.org on Monday posted the video shot from one of the Apache helicopters, putting it on “collateralmurder.com” site.
Military officials said they believed the video was authentic, but that they had to compare the images and audio with their own video before confirming it publicly.
When pressed Tuesday on why the military had not released the video when other documents related to the investigation were made public, officials said they were still looking for it and weren’t entirely sure where it was.
The video was taken by the tactical unit that operated the helicopters. The unit has only been identified as a “1st Air Cavalry Brigade,” which reported to the Multinational Division in Baghdad.
By PAULINE JELINEK and ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer
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November 25th, 2009 | Posted in Finance Management
Avoid bank and retailer fees and other big money wasters this year.
Holiday time is tough enough on your budget. You don’t want to spend more than you planned because a retailer or credit-card company came up with some tricky way to squeeze more money out of you. Well, you can beat the system! You just need to know where to look for these sneaky shopping traps.
Trap No. 1
Hidden debit-card fees
Whipping out your debit card to pay for holiday goodies probably seems like a budget-friendly idea because the cash is immediately withdrawn from your account. No need to worry about paying interest on a credit card or fees for bounced checks. But using a debit card could end up costing you a lot more than you’d think. In the past banks would reject a debit purchase that was more than the amount you had in your account. But many banks now process the purchase-and then hit you with an overdraft fee. Those charges range from $25 to $35 at 16 of the largest banks, according to a July Consumer Federation of America survey. If you buy several gifts in one day and use your debit card to pay for gas, groceries, and lattes, you could be hit with multiple fees. In September, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo announced plans to lower or eliminate overdraft fees. Let’s hope other banks will follow suit.
Dodge it! Use a credit card for large purchases, especially if you pay the full balance each month. Credit cards give you a lot more protection than other forms of payment if your account number falls into the wrong hands or if you have a legitimate beef with a seller and want to dispute a charge. Use a debit card only for small purchases if you’re relatively certain you won’t need the extra protection a credit card provides and you’re sure you won’t go over your balance.
Trap No. 2
Phony sales
Many highly promoted “door buster” sales, particularly ones that take place on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) and the following Cyber Monday, offer deep discounts on hot-ticket items. Black Friday has earned the reputation as a bargain-hunter’s dream because retailers feature a limited quantity of high-profile, attention-grabbing toys or electronic items at or below cost to draw you in, hoping you’ll also purchase lots of full-price merchandise. There’s a more deceptive version of deep-discount sales, though: An item is advertised at a superlow price on a Web site, but it’s a phony come-on. The goal is to get you to buy something else and spend much more. If you try to buy just the sale item, you’ll often find that the retailer cancels the sale, claims the product has been back-ordered for months, or sends you lower-quality merchandise or items that you never ordered. Returns can be difficult, if not impossible.
Dodge it! To protect yourself when you’re shopping online, be wary of unrealistically low prices. Don’t make a purchase if you’re pressured to buy additional products or services. To be supersafe, stick with merchants you know. Also, follow these other tips:
* If you go to a door-buster sale, don’t buy other items in the store unless you have done the research ahead of time and know they’re a good deal.
* Don’t worry about missing a one-day sale. It’s very likely that another supersale will come along. Last year we found plenty of so-called one-day sales that were extended.
* If someone on your list wants this year’s hot item, hit the stores as soon as you can. Go early to beat the crowds or try online. Last year we found that online retailers sometimes offered special savings early in the morning.
Trap No. 3
Unnecessary warranties
This holiday season, shoppers are expected to spend more than a billion dollars on extended warranties. Appliance and electronics retailers push shoppers to buy extended warranties or service plans because the store keeps 50 percent or more of what they charge for them. That’s much more than they can make just selling the products. But extended warranties are notoriously bad deals because some repairs are already covered by the standard manufacturer’s warranty that comes with the product. And our data show that products seldom break within the period the extended warranty covers — after the standard warranty has expired and within two to three years of purchase. When electronics and appliances do break, the repairs, on average, cost about the same as an extended warranty.
Dodge it! Our decades of brand research have shown that products are reliable enough that we don’t think you need extended warranties. But if you’d like the peace of mind an extended warranty can provide, you might be able to get similar coverage by charging the item on a credit card. Check your card agreement; some cards, especially gold and platinum ones, lengthen the original manufacturer’s warranty by as much as one year. If you can’t rely on your card’s additional coverage, channel your inner Scrooge. Get the cheapest deal you can on an extended warranty by including the cost of one in your price comparison. Always try to negotiate a better deal. And don’t pay more than 20 percent of an item’s purchase price for any warranty.
Trap No. 4
Gift-card charges
Sure, buying gift cards can shorten your holiday shopping time. You don’t have to rack your brain to come up with an appropriate gift for the hard-to-please folks on your list or spend hours hunting for whatever present you settle on. But we advise shoppers to avoid gift cards. Some come with purchasing and processing fees, expiration dates, transaction fees, and inactivity fees that unfairly diminish their value over time. And the recipient could end up with a worthless piece of plastic if a company goes out of business or files for bankruptcy protection after you buy its card. There’s also a good chance your card will not be used. A quarter of the people we surveyed last November still hadn’t used a gift card they received during the previous holiday season.
Dodge it! In one bit of good gift-card news, American Express announced in September that it would no longer impose fees on its gift cards — but it will still charge you $3 to $7 to buy one. Consider giving cash instead of any gift cards issued by credit-card companies, banks, or malls. If you do buy a gift card, stick to those issued by retailers, which are relatively free of expiration dates and pesky fees.
Trap No. 5
Return fees
Many electronics items, especially cameras, camcorders, computers, monitors, printers, scanners, projectors, PDAs, and GPS devices, are subject to a 15 to 25 percent restocking fee if they are returned opened or if they’re not in a factory-sealed box. If you return a refurbished item, it might be subject to a restocking fee, too. You might even be charged a 15 percent restocking fee for some appliances, tools, and lawn-and-garden products if you don’t return them in their original packaging. Merchants can’t resell as new any item after the package has been opened, so they penalize you for opening it.
Dodge it! Don’t open the package if you don’t want what’s inside. Items like computer software, music CDs, and movie DVDs aren’t generally returnable for another title after the seal has been broken. But if you do break a seal, some stores will give you a partial refund of a restocking fee if you ask. You should not have to pay a restocking fee if the item was defective when you unwrapped it. And always find out about a store’s return policy before you buy. Things like restocking fees and limits on what you can return vary among retailers, and some retailers have a different policy online than they do in their stores.
Provided by ConsumerReports.org
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