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A Call to Artists - and to Owners of Broken iPods

We hereby announce that Stay Free! is seeking artists and (broken) ipods for an upcoming project about planned obsolescence. Why does the portable player widely considered the hallmark of savvy design typically die in little over a year? Are ipods "made to break"? Or simply, as some critics have suggested, run-of-the-mill e-waste?

If you know someone who owns an iPod, chances are good that you know someone with a broken ipod. Environment groups have taken Apple to task for its dirty practices, and we'd like to join them -- by making lemonade out of lemons.

Here's what we're looking for:

I. TURN (BROKEN) IPODS INTO ART

Transform your broken ipod into something deliciously useless: finger puppet? toy car? coaster? Use your creatively to come with something beautiful, funny, or otherwise engaging. Take a photo and email it us with your contact information at temporary181 at stayfreemagazine.org. Favorite projects will be featured in Stay Free! and ultimately exhibited in New York (venue TBA).

Artists unable to find a broken ipod should contact us for assistance (though, due to our limited resources, we recommend asking your peers first).

Deadline: *** Friday, December 8 ***

II. SEND IN YOUR BROKEN IPODS

Don't have time to create something but want to help? Please donate your broken ipods to Stay Free!, a nonprofit organization. Donations are tax deductible. We'll distribute broken ipods to working local artists for this project.

Address:

Stay Free!
23 Hawthorne Street
Brooklyn, NY 11225

For more information about this project, stay tuned to www.ifrod.org.

BACKGROUND ON THE IPOD

"Good Luck with that Broken iPod"
New York Times (February 4, 2006)

"Pain in the Pod" 
Chicago Tribune/news services (July 24, 2006)

Greenpeace's Green My Apple campaign

Computer Take Back campaign

WHAT IS PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE?

The iPod Is Bad Garbage: An interview with Giles Slade

Craigslist is a little off-target

This Craigslist posting may be the worst ad ever:

Up for sale is a brand new, still in the box, Mission Folding Bookcase from Target. ...

Located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.  Asking for $60, it retails for $59.99 - I may even give you the penny - OBO.

Box is very light - I'll even bring it down the steps for you.

What a deal! This is much better than getting it at Target. But more expensive. And (s)he probably won't take credit cards. Or returns. Or have other things to buy. Or easy subway access. (Did I mention this is in Greenpoint?)

This person will "bring it down the steps"? For the same money Target will bring it to your house!

Achoo-cadabra

The tissue wars have heated up, with Puffs' controversial new ingredient, magic. While the FDA continues to sleep at the wheel, expect Kleenex to announce a partnership with Lord Voldemort.

Spam marketing tries a new approach

There is one rule in spam. No matter what the subject line is, the content is probably prOn. It may not be - fake Cialis and low-interest-rate mortgages aren't going to sell themselves, pal - but it's a good rule of thumb. So what am I supposed to expect when the subject line says, simply, "dick"?  Comfortably within the one rule, right?

Dear Home Owner,

Your crd. rating doesn't matter to us. If you own property and need immediate capital to use any way you want or simply want to cutback your monthly payments by a third or more, fill out this simple, secure one minute form for an instant quote. No sensitive information will be asked on the form...

[removed link]

Regards,
Darrell Root
Approval Manager

Can't blame Mr. Root for what was a pretty rude come on - he was so polite in the letter, after all. Sex sells.

Fool Me Once, GlaxoSmithKline...

Late last year, I wrote a post about comment-spam by GlaxoSmithKline that was picked up in USA Today's technology blog. But who will have the last laugh? Evidently as a result of corresponding with GlaxoSmithKline on the topic...they are now sending me spam!!!

Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2006 13:24:51 EDT
From: "MyDentureCare"
Subject: Denture wearers: Feel fresh breath for up to 5 hours!
To: jacksilbert@yahoo.com

Dear Jack,
You can try Polident fresh cleanse for FREE* with our rebate offer at MyDentureCare.com!
This breakthrough in denture care:

Keeps your breath feeling fresh for up to 5 hours
Microcleans away tough stains and plaque
Kills 99.9% of odor-causing bacteria

To celebrate new Polident fresh cleanse, we're also giving away a TRIP FOR TWO to an incredibly fresh, clean destination. Simply click here, to enter the Polident® fresh cleanse TM Mystery Trip Sweepstakes. One lucky person will win a TRIP FOR TWO to this fresh, clean location!

Even if you've already requested a sample of Polident fresh cleanse or used a Try Me Free rebate offer, you can still enter the Mystery Trip Sweepstakes.

Either way—at the Mystery Trip Destination, or every day with new Polident fresh cleanse—here's your chance to Experience Lasting Freshness! Enter to win now! No purchase is necessary.

I wonder how many Glaxo marketing decisions are driven by "irony."

Oh, P.S., I am not a denture wearer.

Get Grandma on IM!

In a dual effort to drag more gossipy old ladies online and to breathe some new life into the kids' IM lingo, I've spent a great deal of development and expensive computer time coming up with a new batch of IM little acronym thingies based on classic old-lady speak. By now I imagine we're all about ready to open our wrists if we have to read another lol, rotfl, imho, brb, or even lmfao.

So, here's a new batch of these strings of letters, guaranteed to please jaded IMer and old biddy alike!

mw: my word

win: well, I never!

htb: heavens to betsey!

wibamu: well I'll be a monkey's uncle!

imr: I mean, really!

yds: You don't say!

gg: Goodness gracious! (alt: good grief)

gh: Good heavens!

tle: The living end

itp: Isn't that precious?

cis: Charmed, I'm sure

n: No! (scandalized)

60 Minutes on Bumfights, brain surgery

I watched 60 Minutes for the first time in ages on Sunday. There was a decent segment on the recent rash of attacks by teenagers on homeless people. Apparently, Bumfights -- a series of videos produced by scary white boys who assault homeless men and pay them to hurt themselves on camera -- has inspired several dolts to imitate what they've seen on screen and brutally batter homeless men. After watching the segment, I think I know how they feel, because I desperately wanted to throw a brick at the TV and pummel the smug dickwad who created Bumfights.

The interview took a predictable course, with Ed Bradley blaming Dickwad for the copycat crimes. But, despite my loathing of the kid, I found the exchange kind of ironic considering that, in the same program, 60 Minutes ran a favorable story on a dubious new surgical procedure designed to treat depression. "Deep brain stimulation" -- at least at this point in time -- is highly risky and experimental (involves inserting electronic "nerve stimulators" in the brain) and yet 60 Minutes promoted it on national television, all but guaranteeing that people are going to start demanding it before it's been properly tested. The episode reminded me of the medical disasters Elliot Valenstein documented in his brilliant history of the lobotomy. Scary stuff.

Merck's latest scam

Don't know if anyone caught the news last week about Merck's $1.5 billion in tax fraud. The pharma giant (makers of Vioxx) set up a subsidiary in notorious tax haven Bermuda, transferred ownership of its patents to the subsidiary, then paid cash -- which it deducted as a business expense -- to license the patents from itself. Pretty sneaky? Not sayeth Merck.

Merck says it did nothing wrong and that the deal was simply a way of raising financing for its 1993 acquisition of a pharmacy-beneifits management firm, Medco...

I love that defense. It essentially boils down to: "But Your Honor, we needed to make more money!"

The Foley-finger no one is pointing

By now we're all pretty much secretly delighted and drunk on the shadenfreude of watching Republican Mark Foley's lurid fall from questionable respectability into the filthy bath-house of underage sex-scandal. But I think we've all been too focused on this GOP horndog to properly point an accusing finger at the OTHER participants in this mess: the 16 year old pages!

Now, I was a 16 year old boy. I was horny all the time. I wasn't gay, but you can be damn sure if I was, I sure as hell wouldn't be IMing sexually with some doughy, 52 year old, right-wing closet queen with bad skin. I mean, come on! A healthy 16 year old boy in a big city like Washington DC, away from his family for probably the first time in his life should be able to attract a much, much, much better class of sexual predator! This is repugnant-- these kids are throwing away their sexual bloom of youth for what? Power? The ultimate aphrodisiac? Bullshit, I say. Washington MUST have a decent population of buff 20-something sexual predators more than happy to take advantage of a young, nubile page. There's absolutely no reason for these pages to have to settle for these right-wing pasty trolls.

So, young, horny congressional pages, I'm taking you to task here. Step up and take some pride in yourselves as sexual beings! Stop settling for the first Representative that comes along and sends you some dirty emails. You're the ones in power here. It's time to use it.