MONDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2006
Monday Edition: MousePrint
I am crazy about a new Web site, called
MousePrint.org, which seeks to expose the
lies, distortions and cover-ups that advertisers tuck in tiny little print in
their ads or on product labels.
Mouse Print, for example, went after Scott toilet paper which
still advertises that every roll contains 1,000 sheets of paper. How could it
be, when competitors are shrinking their rolls? Mouse Print learned:
Each of the 1000 sheets is now 3.7 inches instead of
the old 4.0 inches long, thus making each roll 300 inches shorter.
I think it is not so much about toilet tissue as it is about
consumer awareness. Mouse Print also looks closely at claims for cars,
cell phones, sweepstakes, travel and groceries. For example,
Mouse Print points out that mayonnaise was always sold in quart-size (32-ounce) jars. Now,
Hellmann's comes in a 30-ounce jar. It sort of looks like the old 32-ounce jar,
but it is a little bit smaller. Who knew? The company said the cost of making the product has
gone up and rather than raise prices it just shrank the container.
Then there was this, an examination of Chrysler's money-back
promotion:
Imagine spending $25,000 for a new car and then having buyer's
remorse. To give customers more peace of mind, Chrysler has begun
offering a 30-day return program. TV commercials promise "if not
satisfied, simply return it within 30 days."
The truth is, it is not quite so painless a process, particularly to your
pocketbook.
*MOUSE PRINT: "Customer responsible for 5 percent
MSRP restocking fee, 50 cents per mile driven, and all financing, insurance and
tax charges."
One might reasonably expect to have to return the car in good condition
(additional fine print requires that), and to have to pay a usage fee for every
mile driven. In this case, if one were to drive an average amount of
1,000 miles during the first month, that means there will be a $500 charge for
use.
The real bite comes from the restocking fee, which on a $25,000 list price
car (even if you paid $20,000), would amount to $1,250. It is unclear how
much the taxes, financing and insurance charges would add to this, but the
total charge to change your mind about buying this car could easily
be over $2,000.
I think this idea would make a wonderful TV consumer
franchise or regular newspaper column. It also, of course, will raise questions
about why publications and commercials allow deceptive "mouse print" to run in the first place.
More Dispatchers to Get Medical Training
This idea makes so much sense, I wonder why it took so long to happen.
The
Bangor Daily News reported that Maine
is the 20th state to adopt mandatory training standards for Enhanced 911 dispatchers. Soon, every dispatcher in Maine's
45 largest emergency call centers will have the training to coach callers through medical
emergencies as they wait for an ambulance.
How much medical training do your local dispatchers get? Is
there ongoing/follow-up training, too?
Autumn Colors
Here in Florida,
it is hard to believe the rest of the country is in the midst of autumn-leaf
season. Autumn here means the palm trees drop big orange nuts that clog my
gutters and conk me on the head.
This
is a map of the normal peak times for fall colors.
- Why do
leaves change color, anyway? Here
is a site that explains it all.
- Here
is a
painless little chemistry lesson.
- Lots
of people share
their autumn pictures on Web sites like Flickr. Here is a site
that helps you learn how to take better pictures of those fall colors.
- What
kind of trees are those, anyway? Click here for
some help.
- Even
if you can't go there in person, you can use live Webcams to see the
colors changing in lots of places. About.com listed these:
- Acadia
National Park -- Maine -- View turning leaves on 40,000 acres of Atlantic coast shoreline. Mixed
hardwood colors light up the green spruce/fir forest.
- Selway-Bitterroot --
Montana -- The Selway-Bitterroot real-time digital camera system is installed
outside of the Stevensville USFS Ranger Station, Montana.
The camera views Crown Point,
7 miles to the northwest and overlooks the third-largest wilderness in the Lower 48.
- Glacier
National Park -- Montana -- There are now five outside digital cameras located in Glacier
National Park. You can curser
over each link to see an updated quick shot.
- Great
Smoky Mountains National Park -- Look Rock Cam
- Great
Smoky Mountains National Park -- Purchase Knob Cam -- North
Carolina
-- The Great Smoky Mountains National Park offers views via Look
Rock Tower
and Purchase Knob. These digital cameras offer some of the best autumn
views of the Smoky Mountains.
- Dolly
Sods Wilderness- - West Virginia -- The Dolly Sods Web camera system was installed in the USFS Bearden Knob
air quality monitoring compound in November 2003. The camera views the Canaan
Valley and Mt. Port Crayon, 13
miles to the south.
- The
Nation's Capitol -- Washington D.C. -- This Web cam view is from the
Netherlands Carillon looking east toward the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington
Monument and the Capitol building.
- Mt.
Washington -- New Hampshire -- Web cam view of part of the Presidential Range of the White
Mountains, the highest mountain in New England.
- Brasstown
Bald -- Georgia -- Web cam view from Georgia's
highest point, near Blairsville.
- Mammoth
Cave National Park -- Kentucky -- View of Green River Valley looking north-northwest. The visual range is
approximately 15 miles and overlooks a massive upland hardwood forest.
- Shining
Rock Wilderness -- North Carolina -- A
view of Cold Mountain
from the largest wilderness area in North Carolina.
- Penn
State Campus -- Pennsylvania
E-Tutoring
So your kid needs some help on his/her schoolwork and you
don't have the dough to hire a private tutor. What is a parent to do?
Some are now finding help online, from tutors in India.
See
this story from Reuters. The online
tutoring costs as little as a few bucks an hour and call centers report that
tutors often have years of teaching experience and advanced degrees.
A New Delhi
tutoring company, Educomp Solutions Ltd.,
estimates the U.S.
tutoring market at $8 billion and growing. Online companies, both from the United
States and India,
are looking to tap millions of dollars available to firms under the U.S.
No Child Left Behind Act for remedial tutoring.
It would be interesting to experiment with these online
services and see what kind of instruction a kid would get.
NBC recently
did a story on TutorVista -- take a look.
How Is Barbaro?
It has been some time since we heard how Barbaro, the
Kentucky Derby winner who was seriously injured in the Preakness, is doing.
The
University of Pennsylvania Veterinary Medicine Web site updates his condition regularly and says
he is still in a leg cast but is hanging in there pretty well. Barbaro walks
outside a half-hour each day and is eating well. Click here for
more. (Penn still has a message board set up, where fans can post notes to the horse.)
Here is a piece from the Associated Press' racing
writer.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's
Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story
excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as
original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly
from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided
whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the
accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and
inaccuracies found will be corrected.
Posted at 1:16:37 AM
E-mail this item |
Add/View Feedback (1) |
QuickLink this item: A111407
Al's Morning Meeting Archive
MAIN
|
Back to Top
