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Introducing iDud

With all of the adorable accessories you can buy for an iPod now — from knitted or suede cases to handbags to hats (yes, hats) — Jason and I thought it'd be fun to come up with an accessory of our own. Thus, we are pleased to introduce the iDump Disposal System, a high-end, elegant trash bag designed exclusively for iPods (see fine print).

This is also my way of noting that we've soft-launched iDud, a new web site that calls attention to the shoddy construction of iPods and similar electronic devices.

If anyone is in the San Francisco Bay area and would be willing to help us hand out iDud literature (trash bags) at Macworld, January 8 - 12, by all means let me know.

The Areas of John Hodgman's Expertise

Did you know that the Dustbowl of the 1930s was spawned by hobos seeking to overthrow the United States government? Or that photographer Walker Evans was dispatched to hunt down and kill as many hobos as he could? Were you aware that all actuaries are marked by tattoos indicating the actuarial tribe to which they belong? Did you know there's an elaborate grift called the "Lenny and Squiggy"?

These and many other facts are enumerated, quite wryly, by Daily Show correspondent and computer impersonator John Hodgman in audiobook "The Areas of My Expertise". For some reason, all 7 or 8 hours are available on iTunes for free. I have no idea why or for how long, so get to clicking.

 

PRODUCT (RED) => INSPI(RE)D

(PRODUCT) RED is the latest cause marketing campaign sweeping the country with products from a variety of companies and celebrity endorsed advertising to boot. While the Global Fund to Fight Aids is a worthy cause, certainly there's more one can do than buy products.

INSPI(RE)D is a brilliant response to the campaign. Like (PRODUCT) RED, INSPI(RE)D raises awareness and money for the cause, but also "encourages conscious consumption, and provides a means of involvement for those unwilling or unable to buy Product (Red) products."  The folks at INSPI(RE)D are holding an ebay auction of their red products, like thrift store t-shirts with INSPI(RE)D printed over them, a red visor, and a red pot.  Compared with that fancy, AIDS fighting, Armani Watch, these products are certainly more useful to a guy like me.

Acura: embrace the dark side

Great Moments in Advertising 29

A screen shot from WABC-TV's website:

Now I'll never use a Honda to try to kill a teacher again.

RELATED: Acura ad touts "civilized" aggression.

(Via Streetsblog)

Is Apple trying to trick iPod users?

Steven Hoskins, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, recently told me the following story and I begged him to write it up for us. Basically, he found that Apple reversed the colors of standard AV cables so that people who try to hook their iPods up to a TV using a non-Apple cable assume it won't work:

For years I have used a standard AV cable that connects from the mini-AV-out on most digital cameras to composite video and audio RCA jacks on televisions. The jack/plug color coordination is standard: red and white is for stereo audio; yellow is video.

Apples latest iPod can be connected to a television as well, and I immediately uploaded an iPod movie and plugged in my trusty cable, but to no avail. After re-reading the manual, I turned to Apple's website, where I found a wealth of information on Apple's AV Connection Kit for iPod, about $100, which included a cable to connect the iPod to a television. Hmmm. I was fairly miffed my trusty $30 cable could not do the job.

Noted on its website: "Important: You should only use the included cable. Other RCA video cables won't work. Though other cables may look similar, only the Apple iPod AV Cable works with the iPod Headphones and AV port."

Somehow during later experimentation, I accidentally attached the wrong color plugs of my cable to the television RCA jacks -- and it worked!  It looks like Apple has merely changed the standard color scheme to make people believe their regular cables are incompatible. Sneaky Apple.

If anyone has similar results, please let us know. (We don't know if experimenting is dangerous to the devices, though.) I should add that the AV cable is now available from Apple without the full kit for $19.

RELATED:

Wall Street Journal on Broken iPods
A Call to Artists - and to Owners of Broken iPods
Good Luck With That Broken iPod (New York Times)
Pain in the Pod (Chicago Tribune)

I Ain't Sayin' He's A Gold Digger

I want to avoid the obvious headline but Evel Knievel ain't suing no broke niggas, so what am I suppossed to do?

Evel Knievel is suing Kanye West for imitating him in his Touch The Sky video. I agree that it would be hard for Kanye to argue that the scene isn't an homage to the Snake River Canyon jump - but it's also pretty hard for America's Legendary Daredevil to argue that it isn't a parody.

Via The Smoking Gun.

26th Anniversary + 2 Days R.I.P.

Just heard John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" on the radio. Thirty-five years after its release, the song is as moving and relevant as ever this holiday season. But upon this listen, I was struck by a quirk of the opening lyrics: "So this is Xmas/And what have you done/Another year over/And a new one just begun."

Not to quibble with one of our great modern poet-philosophers, but, hey, is it Christmas? Or is it New Year's? Sure, "done" rhymes with "begun." But if the year has already begun…well, you catch my drift. Perhaps "So this is Xmas/And a war we're not winning/Another year almost over/And a new one soon beginning" would've cleared things up. Just my two cents.

If John was still with us, I'd post this as a comment on his myspace page. After thanking him for the add.

Mary Cheney Quite Contrary

With some conservatives bugging out about Mary Cheney's recently announced pregnancy, Hit & Run beats The Onion to the punch: Christians Urge Mary Cheney to Abort Her Baby.

Fantastic.

Give a penny. That is an order.

Aren't pennies annoying? They clog your pockets during the day and annoy your significant other as your end-of-day pocket dump results in a pile of copper that can be put up for bid on the Commodities Exchange.

Is there a solution? Finally, yes. Stay Free! crossword constructor Francis Heaney found a restaurant that has decided to solve the problem for you. By rounding up.

This will come as a great relief to those among us who get antsy when their credit card bill isn't divisible by a nickel.

WSJ on Broken iPods

This just in: our paper of record has joined the New York Times and Chicago Tribune in covering the broken iPod story.

When iPods Die:
Gripes Over Breakdowns Grow as Players Become Ubiquitous
Wall Street Journal, December 6, 2006

[ Full text below the fold; image from the Wall Street Journal ]

 

...which reminds me: the deadline is dawning for our broken iPod art project. If you have a broken iPod and would like to contribute, please get your photos in as soon as you can.

When iPods Die
Gripes Over Breakdowns Grow
As Players Become Ubiquitous;
The Drop-Start Technique
By NICK WINGFIELD
Wall Street Journal
December 6, 2006; Page D1

This holiday season Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod is once again a top seller in stores and the music player's white earphones remain a nearly ubiquitous sight on city streets and at gyms. But as it reaches deeper into the mainstream, more users are becoming familiar with a new sense of loss: the death of an iPod.

Among users of the device, it's long been common to hear of iPods laid low by batteries that no longer hold a charge, malfunctioning hard disks and screens with cracks. In some cases, problems are caused by users who accidentally drop their iPods or otherwise subject them to abuse, but other users say their iPods go belly up even after normal use.
[Graphic]

The iPod's durability could become a more important issue as consumers become less dazzled by cutting-edge technology and more concerned about longevity, especially for a device that can cost hundreds of dollars.

"Some people swear there's a self-destruct mechanism in it after the warranty is up," says Matthew Bremner, a founder of iRepair.ca, an iPod fix-it service with a store in Toronto and on the Internet. "For a small device that's that expensive it probably should last a little longer."

Steve Dowling, a spokesman for Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., says the rates at which iPods fail -- less than 5% -- are "extremely low" compared with other electronics devices. "IPods are designed to last for years, but as with any complex consumer-electronics product such as digital cameras, they can be broken if dropped or mishandled by users," says Mr. Dowling, who adds that the "overwhelming majority" of iPod users are happy with their devices.

Even if only a tiny percentage of iPods malfunction, the huge popularity of the devices means a significant number of users could be affected. Apple has sold nearly 70 million iPods in the five years since the product first went on sale. If just under 5% of that number failed, that could still amount to millions of affected devices. Apple declined to comment on the specific number of iPods that have failed.
WSJ.COM FORUMS

[Go to Discussion]
Have you had problems with your iPod? What did you do? How would you gauge Apple's handling of complaints? Join a discussion.

Tom Westrup, an investment professional in Austin, Texas, has had worse luck than most with iPods. Mr. Westrup says he bought his first iPod online three years ago and it quickly began freezing up while playing songs. Resetting the device solved the problem only temporarily, so Mr. Westrup says he sent his iPod into Apple for a replacement.

The problems occurred again with the new iPod. He says he visited a technician at a local Apple retail store, who raised the possibility that Mr. Westrup's problems were being caused by his PC but the technician couldn't say how to diagnose the glitch. So Mr. Westrup says he again swapped his iPod for a replacement from Apple through the mail.

Mr. Westrup says he is now awaiting his fifth iPod replacement from the company after similar problems with subsequent replacements; the company has continued sending replacement models despite the expiration of Apple's standard one-year warranty. (IPod users can extend the coverage period to two years from the device's purchase date for $59.)

Mr. Westrup says he and his wife used the iPods carefully during activities such as walking their dogs or working out on an elliptical trainer. "I'm 51 years old -- I'm not a teenager throwing it across the room," he says. "I wouldn't say I'm abusing it."
WSJ.COM VIDEO

[Go to Video]
More consumers are raising questions about the lifespan of iPods, battery issues, repairs and easily scratched -- or cracked -- screens. WSJ's Bryan Keogh reports.

The best-known complaint about the iPod, dating back to its earliest models, is about its battery. Many users grumble that the charge of the lithium-ion battery inside the device appears to get progressively shorter the more they use the music player. Last year, Apple agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by users whose iPods saw significantly diminishing battery life, agreeing to compensate owners of certain early iPod models $25 in cash or with a $50 Apple credit on Apple products.

What ticks off many users is that the iPod's battery and other parts are not designed to be replaced by the average user. There are no screws on the outside of its case that allow iPods to be easily disassembled, giving the device a sleek, unblemished appearance. Apple replaces the batteries on out-of-warranty iPods for $65.95, including shipping charges.

Hard disks, which are used in higher-end iPods to store songs, can also fail. Bill Torpey, a software developer in New York, says the iPod he bought for his daughter, now in high school, a couple of years ago stopped working after the product's warranty expired, and the hard disk inside of it started making a strange noise.

After doing some research online, Mr. Torpey decided on a somewhat daring fix for the problem: He held the iPod about six inches above a desk and dropped it.
[The iPod family of models, including the Nano and Shuffle.]
The iPod family of models, including the Nano and Shuffle.

The fix worked for a few weeks, he says, but then the iPod stopped functioning again. Meanwhile, an iPod Mr. Torpey bought for his son also has begun acting up, restarting itself seemingly at random. "Caveat emptor," he says. "I won't buy another one."

For such situations, there's a cottage industry of independent iPod repair shops that offer replacement services for less than what Apple charges for comparable repairs, including do-it-yourself battery replacement kits ranging from $25 to $35 that usually include a special tool for prying open the iPod. In his experience, Mr. Bremner of iRepair.ca estimates iPod batteries, on average, last about two years before needing to be replaced.

Despite the beefs, consumers' love affair with the iPod shows no sign of going sour. In spite of determined competitors in the portable-player market like Microsoft Corp. and SanDisk Corp., Apple's share of the market for 2006 will likely end up roughly where it was last year, between 73% and 75%, says Stephen Baker, an analyst at retail sales tracker NPD Group Inc.

In an online survey of more than 6,400 consumers that NPD conducted earlier this year, the firm found that 82% of iPod owners were completely or very satisfied with the device, compared with 76% for rival music devices.

The iPod's shortcomings "haven't impacted their sales any that I can tell," says Mr. Baker. "However widespread, obviously customers are not considering [a lack of durability] an issue."

There's also no getting around that the iPod is a sensitive piece of electronics and that some users are simply too rough with them. Ryan Arter, president of ResQ Systems LLC of Kansas City, Kan, says most of the devices his iPod repair service, iPodResQ.com, receives from customers are damaged by, for instance, being dropped on the ground or tossed around inside a book bag.

Some of Mr. Arter's customers don't immediately fess up to the causes of the technical problems, even when their iPods have dented cases. As a general rule, he says, "natural" iPod failures tend to occur with devices that are a year old or older.

Mr. Arter says roughly a third of the iPod repairs his company does are for damaged screens, a third for batteries and a third for other miscellaneous problems like hard-disk failures. He adds that newer models of iPods appear to be getting more durable. Mr. Arter says his company has seen far fewer repair requests for Apple's new version of the iPod Nano than it did for the first iPod Nano, a slim device for which iPodResQ saw replacement orders for cracked screens quickly after its release.

As pricey as many models of the iPods are, some users seem to accept the idea that their iPods are more or less disposable, a phenomenon common in the cellphone market where users regularly upgrade to more stylish models. One gauge of that, Mr. Arter says, is the growing popularity of a buyback option iPodResQ.com offers for iPods with technical problems. Rather than pay to have the devices repaired, growing numbers of its customers opt to sell them for parts to iPodResQ, typically for between $35 and $95 -- money that can then be applied to the purchase of a new iPod.
[iPOD problems chart]

Write to Nick Wingfield at nick.wingfield@wsj.com

Schadenfreude Street

Speaking of England, the way those crazy Brits go after motorists really warms my heart. Thanks to an ingenious government plot, drivers who try to sneak into the high-speed lane meet their just desserts.

(Via Streetsblog)

New York Gridlock

After last week's news about congestion pricing, I'm all fired up about Growth or Gridlock, an extensive report about New York's coming traffic disaster (and by "extensive," I mean "terrifying").

The report has been making a lot of waves in metro sections this week, probably because it's not geared to lefty tree-huggers or health-conscious types, but to business people. (The report is by the Partnership of New York City, a nonprofit organization "comprised of a select group of two hundred CEOs from New York City’s top corporate, investment and entrepreneurial firms.")

The findings: traffic congestion in the city leads to annual losses of over $13 billion to businesses and consumers. How so? A few examples from the report:

• Nearly all of New York's freight (about 99%) is shipped by truck, but trucks are increasingly unable to make timely deliveries

• Worker productivity declines when employees get stuck in traffic

• Lacking sufficient parking, UPS, Fedex, et al. doublepark and rack up fines

• Congestion creates higher fuel costs (and more pollution), as cars sit idle

Unfortunately, at this point, Bloomberg and his cronies are unwilling to consider congestion pricing, despite its promising results in cities like London. The battle has just begun, though. And with its strong supporter base, the Partnership will hopefully meet its goal of convincing the Bloomberg administration to apply for federal funding to study the issue.

In a wildly successful move, London recently transformed a popular shopping area into a car-free pedestrian zone for holiday shoppers. Bloomberg's response to traffic congestion? Open up Central Park to cars. (See also the short video, Cars Ruin Central Park.)

(NYCP's Press release)

GNR C&D

Is it possible to own rights to music that hasn't been made? Axl Rose thinks so.

In homage to (and, if it needs to be said, parody of) the no-longer-eagerly-anticipated Guns N' Roses album Chinese Democracy, Colin Helb and Cornslaw Industries commissioned Chinese Democracy: A Tribute to an Unheard Album. Cornslaw asked artists to create songs based on the rumored song titles on the unseen GNR album and Chinese Democracy: A Tribute, a web-only album composed of original songs, is the result.

It appears that Mr. Rose is spending more time in his lawyer's office than in the studio: Cornslaw Industries has received a Cease & Desist letter (and a cease and desist MySpace message!) from Axl's attorneys.

A friend is worried that she is the only person who cares about Chinese Democracy. She shouldn't be concerned; Axl Rose also cares. Just not enough to release an album.

(Thanks, Colin.)

Flying Spaghetti Monster's First Ad

You knew it had to happen eventually: the Flying Spaghetti Monster would cash in on His fame and awesome power by becoming a product pitchman.

The first lucky brand to get touched by the Noodly Appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is Haribo, for its "Sour S'ghetti" candy. As the Monster says, KIDS AND GROWN-UPS LOVE IT SO.

I think what I like most about this FSM illustration is the religious symbolism. While the religious right tries, a la Kramer, to stick a fork in His Noodliness for his heretical existence, he extends a middle finger at those who would undermine science in education.

Ramen.

Personal Kyoto

For those on the East Coast, Con Edison users can sign up to a new website, Personal-Kyoto.org, that better tracks energy use in your home.  You basically sign in and Personal Kyoto creates graphs of your energy use history. Then you try to reduce your annual use by 25% over the course of a year, which is close to what the Kyoto Protocol would require.  You can see what turning off your lights, using efficient bulbs, shutting down your computer at night, etc. actually does. 

The site also allows you to compare your energy use to others in your borrough, New York City, and against the national average.  One of the encouraging/scary things is that New York residential energy use is close to half the national average. 

The site was developed in the OpenLab at Eyebeam by Ben Englebreth.  Ben is planning a round of improvements to the current site, as well as expanding it out to other major energy providers.  He's very accessable, so if you have ideas or can offer assistance, let him know through the site.

What's wrong with architecture?

The next issue of Stay Free! magazine (due out in 2014*, at the rate we're going) is going to look at how architecture and the built environment affect everyday life. I know next to nothing about architecture, so I've been poking around looking for ideas... and just came across a handy example of what I hate about this subject that I know nothing about...

Here is a piece by Witold Rybczynski -- a highly respected architecture critic -- with a headline that poses an interesting question:

Healthier by Design
A new charitable trust asks whether good architecture can help cancer patients.

But instead of trying to answer that question, Rybczynski merely fawns over the light and airy spaces created by fancypants modernists like Frank Gehry and Daniel Libeskind.The real people who use and live in these spaces seem almost an afterthought. If these buildings are intended for cancer patients, why are there so many staircases? Why the emphasis on building exteriors? A letter to the editor from the parent of a cancer patient says it best:

It's not clear...what condition the patients are in when they're staying at the Centres. Chances are they're not in the middle of chemo, that is, their immune systems aren't compromised at the time they're there. Otherwise, pretty design and materials just make it easier to catch some opportunistic disease... For example: in the ward my son was in, the double doors to the unit formed an air lock to keep airborne disease out. Visitors had to wear surgical masks and gloves, and scrub their hands before entering his room. No one could use the bathroom in his room but him, from the time he began chemo until he was ready to leave. How could these rules be observed in the Centres? Sounds impossible, so I have to assume that there is limited use except in hospice-style arrangements. Otherwise, Maggie's Centres are just prettier versions of Ronald MacDonald House.

Arguably, this relates more to architecture criticism than architecture itself, but I'd say the former reflects the priorities of the latter.

Anyway, I'm just getting going on this, so if anyone has any suggestions of things I should read or investigate for the next Stay Free!, by all means let me know.

*Actual wishcasting: Spring 2007.

MPAA: You Are All Enemy Combatants

In the wake of the Hewlett-Packard pretexting scandal (not to mention the furor over warrantless wiretapping), people seem to be thinking a lot more about privacy. So it seemed like a no-brainer that California would pass a strong bill protecting people from having their personal information given away under false pretenses.

Alas, Wired reports that the MPAA used all of its lobbying muscle to shoot down the pretexting bill. They were opposed because, according to an aide to the bill's sponsor ""The MPAA told some members the bill would interfere with piracy investigations."

I can already predict Wired's scoop for next month:

MPAA Opposes Anti-Torture Legislation

"The parents always say that they don't download," said an MPAA spokesman, "They say that their kids are using the computer. But the only way to get a parent to testify truthfully against their kid is with advanced deprivation techniques and sustained beatings." 

NYC Scaffolding Ads

Haven't got the chance to read it just now, but this looks to be a good run-down on the enormous vinyl scaffolding ad banners that have taken over NYC. I'm guessing the gist is: they're illegal, but only to the extent that the advertisers and building owners can be fined. The fines are minimal in respect to the profits being made and so are considered an expense of doing business. And nobody has the authority to make them come down.