UPDATE [November 26, 2014]: Jordan’s Furniture repaired the ladder for free. The last time it broke they replaced the entire ladder; this time, they replaced the brackets. However, they have refused to acknowledge the design defect which has allowed the ladder to break twice, or the safety risk inherent in said defect. Honestly, I don’t… Read More »
Much ado has been made recently about Lena Dunham’s intention to invite seven lesser known artists to warm up the crowds during her upcoming book tour, without actually paying them. More generally, it seems like there has been a growing backlash against the idea that it’s OK to offer artists “opportunities” for “exposure” without actually… Read More »
The MBTA is currently beta-testing a project & corresponding web application called “Transit Diary“. Its purpose is to collect data directly from riders about their experiences riding the T, presumably to help the T evaluate how well it is serving riders’ needs and where service-improvement efforts should be focused. Unfortunately, Transit Diary employs obsolete, inferior… Read More »
Raising money for a worthy charity is a good thing. Raising awareness about a (currently) incurable disease that afflicts 30,000 people in the U.S. and many more worldwide, is a good thing. Encouraging people to think about the needs of others is a good thing. Doing all this using social blackmail that is guaranteed to… Read More »
To: openinternet@fcc.gov Subject: Internet must remain open To the commissioners: Those who object to regulating internet service providers to ensure an open internet, as the FCC is currently proposing to do, adhere to the rigid political philosophy that regulation, by definition, stifles competition, innovation, growth, etc. However, this philosophy is only even theoretically true when… Read More »
Dear T-Mobile, In my life, I am blessed in many ways. I have a wonderful family; I am part of several great communities; I have a good job I love with people I respect and learn from every day; I have a roof over my head and enough food to eat. However, like many other… Read More »
On Wednesday night, April 16, 2014, after our minivan sat idle for two days while we celebrated the beginning of the holiday of Passover, I went out to run an errand and found a sodden, disintegrating advertisement from “Beantown AutoMobile [sic] Detailing” stuck between the driver’s side window and its lower rubber gasket. When I… Read More »
For many years, I’ve been working assiduously to rid my (postal) mailbox of junk mail. The ongoing damage to the environment caused by the many tons of junk mail sent every day to people who don’t even bother to look at it is offensive, and want nothing to do with it. I wrote back in… Read More »
Dear Avi, “You know what the great thing is about owning your own business? You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.” That’s what you told me this morning when your food truck arrived 10 minutes past its scheduled opening time and still hadn’t opened 10 minutes after that. That’s what you told… Read More »
What would you say if I told you that there’s a Boston business that adds more than 34 tons per week of trash to the City of Boston’s waste stream*, trash that the residents of Boston end up paying to dispose of to the tune of >$100,000 per year**? What would you say if I… Read More »