Miscellaneous Heathen

You work for the TSA, and you're actually proud of confiscating things that nobody thinks are dangerous.

Turns out, if you're a journalist, and you repeatedly report on how bone stupid and ineffectual the TSA is, you'll end up on a watch list and have trouble flying. Nice.

I'm traveling this week. Stupid abounds.

• Starwood seems to be in a race to the bottom of customer service with, well, itself. The Westin Peachtree is charging for in-room internet, which is par for the course with so-called "full service" hotels (despite the fact that, in general, one's customer service experience is far better at a business-focused hotel like a Homewood Suites). However, they're doing it with real fuck-you aplomb here: it's part of a $15 per day "unlimited phone and Internet" plan. The kicker? The "unlimited" phone refers only to local and toll-free calls; long-distance calls are charged at an exorbitant rate, of course, and never mind what someone might think "unlimited" means. The gotcha is only apparent if you're cynical enough to ask (like me), or lawyerly enough to read the fine print. It's tricks like this that make it clear what Starwood really thinks of their guests.

• Starwood gets a twofer here: the Omni at CNN center is utterly devoid of service as well, but in new and interesting ways. They're now charging $7 every 15 minutes to use their business center, and it doesn't matter if you're a guest or not. Once again, the biz-class chains are all over the so-called full-service joints on these points, leading me to once again declare the big lodges utter ripoffs hell-bent on nickel-and-dime policies that are completely customer hostile.

• The security checkpoints in the building housing the Client this week are inconsistent with themselves. In the morning, at the front door, I was told not to worry about x-raying my wallet; after lunch, at the back door, much was made of the requirement to do exactly that. "Why?" your intrepid correspondent asked. "Well, because someone might have a razorblade or a handcuff key in there!" Fair enough. They x-rayed my wallet. They didn't find the spare razorblade I keep in there. Nice job, guys.

• WAIT THERE'S MORE: the Westin room-service menu is, by default, delivered on the TV only like some bizarre 70s-era vision of what the 21st century might be like. Ordering, however, must still be handled with the telephone. Fortunately, a print menu is available by request. I did, and I didn't tip the bellman, and I'm not sorry, because this whole thing is just stupid.

You set educational policy in Louisiana, where matters of personal conscience, not scientific consensus, determine whether or not creationism is taught in the classroom -- under the guise of "academic freedom."

The term "academic freedom" has historically been used to refer to the ability of tenured research faculty to work on whatever it is that interested them within their field (and that can be supported on its merits with publication). It ought not be used as a smokescreen for a bunch of non-publishing, non-researching halfwit redneck "educators" hell-bent on keeping wicked Darwin at bay.

You set USB cable prices for OfficeMaxDepot. Actually, this may be an "asshole" and not an "idiot," but either way they're worthy of contempt.

I went over at lunch to get an extension cable to facilitate more comfortable Rock Band play in the Steel Heathen Lounge, and discovered all they had was a Belkin six-foot for twenty clams.

"Gee, that seems a little high, and plus I'd like a longer cable. What does Amazon have?" Enter the glorious iPhone, and I discovered they stock the same Belkin cable for less than six bucks. The local price is 333% of the Amazon price (and we have Prime, so there's no shipping cost).

I expect a local premium in pricing to account for brick-and-mortar convenience, but I expect it to be ten or twenty percent. 233% more is "we see you coming, and we're gonna fuck you" territory, and that's the sort of thing people don't like.

Information is easy to get. People don't like being taken advantage of. Do the math.

You work for TSA.

From: (forged)
Subject: Get your watch now
Date: June 26, 2008 5:54:24 PM CDT
To: Chief Heathen

Did you watch the last 007 flick, Casino Royale? If you did, you probably noticed that all throughout the movie, James Bond wears an spectacularly beautiful Omega watch... and he even brags about it! How would you like to be wearing that same exact model watch?

What, you mean like this?

The designers are clearly on crack, but the staff isn't.

The bad news, then, is that I have to put pants on. But the good news is that my pants-wearing is so the hotel staff can bring me another TV, and a piece of furniture to put it on, so that the hotel room works like every other hotel room in America.

Wacky.

You work for Marriott, and you design a hotel room layout where the television isn't clearly viewable from the bed.

Front Desk: "It's designed to be viewed from the couch."

Heathen: "Do the people who design your hotels ever stay in hotels?"

Front Desk: "I don't know, sir, but I'm getting this a lot, so I'm starting to think no."

Time to cross the Courtyards off the list, methinks.

In the bad idea department: Agitator sends us over to Penny Arcade, where Gabe calls our attention to a truly terrible idea for a child's snack product: Lego Fun Snacks. That's right; fruity candies for children shaped like Legos.

I would love to know what sick bastard at Kellogs came up with this genius idea. I just spent the first three years of my sons life trying to get him not to eat blocks, and now you're telling him they taste like fucking strawberries. Thanks a lot assholes. Seriously, how in the hell did this ever get past their legal department. You can't tell me that this isn't a lawsuit just waiting to happen. I can only assume that their next product is fruit flavored thumbtacks.

You work for the AP, and are trying to convince the world that Fair Use doesn't exist.

Some geniuses at the Associated Press has started promulgating the policy that bloggers and web sites must pay them to link to and quote AP stories -- just like we just did, below, with the story on Big Bird. The AP thinks that Heathen should PAY them because we quoted an excerpt of the story, and never mind that people interested will click through and read the whole thing, thereby adding value to the AP's content and the AP's paid distribution channels (like Yahoo News, to whom we link below). Usage such as this is typically seen as Fair Use, and requires no license or permission. That's how references work. It's how research works. And it's how the web works -- and, as noted, how the web drives traffic to interesting sites and stories, a dynamic that you'd think the AP would be embracing.

This move is a stupendously bad idea, and impossible to defend legally besides, and the AP deserves to be heartily embarrassed as a consequence. And it gets worse: read the link above (to the analysts at Techdirt) to learn more about how the AP seems to think they can prohibit you from quoting them if you say bad things about the AP, for example. This isn't idle policy; they're actually acting on it.

Remember the Denon cable? There's a satirical Amazon review:

A caution to people buying these: if you do not follow the "directional markings" on the cables, your music will play backwards. Please check that before mentioning it in your reviews.

I was disappointed. I consider myself an audiophile - I regularly spend over $1000 on cables to get the ultimate sound. I keep my music-listening room in a Faraday cage to prevent any interference that could alter my music-listening experience. Sending any signal down ordinary copper can degrade the signal considerably. While ordinary listeners might not notice, to somebody with even a rudimentary knowledge of sound, the artifacts are glaring. Denon should have used silver wiring (hermetically sealed inside the rubber sheath to prevent any tarnishing, of course), which has a significantly higher conductivity than copper. Furthermore, Denon needs to treat the wires they use in the cable with a polarity inductor to ensure minimal phase variance.

Needless to say, I returned the cable and wrote an angry letter to the so-called engineers at Denon.

Wonder how long that'll last?

You paid FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS to Denon for a network cable.

You buy or sell books explicitly as home decor without regard to what's inside.

Our Danish printed, European imported books are sold specifically with interior design in mind.

Many people feel that it's silly to purchase books for pure decorative value. While we certainly understand this, we also savor the opportunity to change the mind of such individuals! Our books are so beautiful on the outside that their interior ceases to be important.

Jesus wept.