Can’t sleep. This is keeping me awake. 🙂
Great Flash presentation on Copyrights, Fair Use, and the loss of unregulated use at an Open Source conference.
Recent Inflation in the Price of Boreal Climbing Shoes
If you’re a rock climber you may have noticed that in the last two months the price of Boreal climbing shoes ordered from online retailers overseas like Sport Extreme or Barrabes have sky-rocketed: shoes like the Ace, which used to cost $70-80 USD now cost $135-150. In the US, these shoes have always cost between $135-150, so myself and a lot of other people were just paying $10 shipping to buy them from our friends in Europe. (Boreal is based out of Spain).
I speculated over email with a budy of mine, Evan, as to why we’ve seen the drastic inflation:
I think what’s going on is when Boreal brought their shoes to the US, they
guaranteed retailers a “suggested retail value” on their Aces of $150.
They probably sell the Ace to retailers for $50/pair so the retails can
make a typical 150-200% markup.
Where Boreal screwed up is they made the shoes available in Europe for a
lot less, probably around $20-$25/pair, suggested retail value of $70-80.
What Boreal and the retailers are afraid of is, if Boreal drops the price
of their shoe to a lot less, the retailers will loose a lot of money on
their current inventory. The only way companies can get around this is to
offer a rebate, which is expensive to operate, and pretty unpractical and
such a low-volume product like rock climbing shoes.
I think what happened with the recent inflation of Boreal shoes overseas
is the US retailers got wise and complained to Boreal. Boreal then
changed their contract with their European dealers to prevent them from
exporting the shoes overseas themselves.”
I think this is a great tragedy for American consumers. If you or someone you know is an Economist that can offer a better explanation, please let me know! 🙂
Bush on North Korea: “We Must Invade Iraq”
“For years, Kim Jong Il has acted in blatant disregard of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation Of Nuclear Weapons, and last week, he rejected it outright,” Bush told reporters after a National Security Council meeting on North Korea. “We cannot allow weapons of mass destruction to remain in the hands of volatile, unpredictable leaders. Which is exactly why we must act quickly and decisively against Saddam Hussein.”
thanks wozz
Who Is This On My Phone Bill?!?
Use a reverse lookup service to find out what that mysterious phone number is on your phone bill.
Lazy Web Idea: Create a Caller-ID and reverse lookup integration so you know everything about who it is that’s calling you.
Where do terrorists get their money?
citystreets.org
The Detroit Project
Whether you choose to believe the hype or not, America needs to produce hybrid-electric cars. Once somebody makes one that looks like a normal car and can drive through snow I’ll buy one. Props to Honda on the Civic Hybrid.
Hey! I play that game all the time… 🙂
New York State Education System Lies to Children
As if we didn’t already know that public schools routinely sanitize information that is to be read by children, here’s a link to a documented case where the New York State Eduction Board removed all references in essay testing material that could ever possibly offensive to anyone.
What is even more shocking is that original authors of many of the works they modified as still alive, and when confronted, they were of course outraged.
In the Chekhov story “The Upheaval,” the exam takes out the portion in which a wealthy woman looking for a missing brooch strip-searches all of the house’s staff members. Students are then asked to use the story to write an essay on the meaning of human dignity.
Hacked Up State of the Union Address
This is hilarious!
9/11 “Conspiracies” and the Defactualisation of Analysis
9/11 “Conspiracies” and the Defactualisation of Analysis: How Ideologues on the Left and Right Theorise Vacuously to Support Baseless Supposition is a fascinating piece analyzing the various theories surrounding the failure (or success) of the US intellgence community in averting the 9/11 tragedy, the anthrax case, and other post-9/11 politicized items. This is an excellent article of unbiased research and reporting.
“…the FBI has never been keen to identify the perpetrator [of the anthrax letters] because that perpetrator may, in fact, be the U.S. Government itself. Evidence is mounting that the source of the anthrax was a top secret U.S. Army laboratory in Maryland and that the perpetrators involve high-level officials in the U.S. military and intelligence infrastructure? Forget unfounded conspiracy theories. The evidence is overwhelming that the FBI has consistently shied away from pursuing the anthrax investigation [under government pressure].”
“…the likelihood of political inaction being behind the administration’s failure to foil the Al-Qaeda plot, in itself implicates the existence of a web of strategic and economic influences acting upon the political establishment, which resulted in such political inaction. And given that this is a far more tenable and probable possibility than mere ‘incompetence’, then it is essential to investigate the matter more thoroughly – including specifically an evaluation of the information (and what was done with it) about the 9/11 attacks available to the U.S. intelligence community.”
At the very least, its entertaining.