Todd did it! Drag and drop to your hearts content.

Respond | 3 cheers | Cheer this | 7 months ago (Oct 03, 10:52AM)

That is a confusing one. And what about Luke 9:59-62 I’ve never understood that one.

1 response | Cheer this | 7 months ago (Sep 17, 12:22PM)

Have you heard of Amazon’s Subscribe & Save program? It ought to be a great way to get goods you use on a regular basis automatically shipped to you. I use it for vitamins and baby diapers, and if they improve their organic selection, I’d add on cereals and granola bars. For subscribing, Amazon adds on a 15% discount to the price of the goods.

I’ve only been using the service briefly and my impressions were good, but I just ran into a silly snafu. I got a notice that my subscription to Huggies Supreme Gentle Care Diapers Step 2 Super Mega (Pack of 80) was about to ship. Great! A week later I got a notice that “Though we are restocking the item, we wanted to inform you that your shipment will be delayed. We are very sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.” OK, bummer, but I think my diaper supply will hold out. At this point I was thinking, since I put in this order 2 months ago, didn’t I give Amazon enough notice that at least one customer wanted a pack of those diapers? It seems to defeat the purpose if the Subscribe & Save plan is taking orders for the future, but ignoring those orders in their inventory planning.

Another week after the delay, I got a message that said: “Though we are restocking the item, we have had to cancel a scheduled shipment of your subscription item. We are very sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.” So now I’m out of luck. The service totally failed me. I had to go to a competitor (diapers.com) and order the diapers I needed.

Amazon’s Subscribe & Save service has great promise, but someone needs to think through how to use the order information to get the inventory in place. Otherwise, Amazon delivers disappointment and sends customers off to competitors looking for satisfaction.

Respond | Cheer this | 8 months ago (Sep 13, 10:52AM)

I had to update my credit card recently. Despite being an amazon.com user for over 11 years, I had a really hard time accomplishing this task. At one point, I found a link to edit your payment method. When I got to the following page (shown here) there was a notice that my card was going to expire soon but no way to update my card or add a new one. Not even a link to where I could do this! Why not link the helpful “you may want to update your card” message to a place where I actually could do so?

I think I eventually added a new card by pretending to order something new – but it took a lot of time to figure out. Amazon.com could do better.

Respond | Cheer this | 8 months ago (Sep 13, 10:40AM)

Here’s a list of recent entries http://www.43things.com/zeitgeist/entries

and here’s a list of recent goals http://www.43things.com/zeitgeist/recent_goals

Respond | Cheer this | 8 months ago (Sep 11, 07:38AM)

I understand the parts, but I can never seem to make it work. And I sure could not explain it to someone else. I’d love to see a plain speaking explanation of how to download a BitTorrent file.

Respond | 1 cheer | Cheer this | 8 months ago (Aug 23, 11:31AM)

Why not free groceries instead? I eat a lot of groceries and free groceries would be really great. Plus eating well could help prevent a lot of health related complications. Why go without food and get sick, only to use free health care when you could eat well and avoid the doctor altogether?

I’m not totally serious about groceries, but I do think people make a fetish out of health care. If we are going to pick some really expensive social good to provide universally, health care is toward the back of my list. I’d rather see universal access to quality education (preschool – university), housing, transportation or nutrition before focusing on health care. I’m fine with care for the indigent, but why should the government pay the health care costs of middle class people? Most health care expense happens in the final weeks of life. Lets put the dollars toward the living and not the dying.

4 responses | Cheer this | 8 months ago (Aug 23, 11:11AM)

I get tired of the tyranny of the alt weekly’s candidate ratings, which often coddle incumbents while posing as backing some sort of alternative. How many terms of Licata, Conlin, Drago, McIver do we have to have before we ask “how come Seattle politics is still so stagnant”?

2 responses | Cheer this | 8 months ago (Aug 23, 11:00AM)

My friend Marcello’s company Sampa has come up with something that is really creative. It is a family tree tool, built from your address book. To back up a bit, Sampa is architected as a generic site building tool, but by saying “generic” it is in no way simple or lacking in power. This family tree idea takes something we all understand and applies it to something we don’t: permissions. Sampa is using the address book to bootstrap who is in your “friends” list. And in that germ of an idea, I think Sampa has come up with something they could use to build a whole product around.

A lot of people would like to have a family blog that let’s people stay in touch. Using the addressbook/family tree as a way to add authors to a family blog – or a way to subscribe to separate blogs solves all sorts of geeky features (subscribing to RSS feeds, permissions, etc) that normal people just don’t understand. Add to that the ability to let other family members build out the tree (and thus the readership/authorship), as well as features like family photo galleries and birthdays – and I think Sampa has the ingredients for a mainstream hit.

Respond | Cheer this | 8 months ago (Aug 20, 11:17AM)

I’m sure it is hugely challenging to be a consumer financial leviathan, but BofA needs to kick their IT department into gear. If you live in Washington or Idaho you live in some tech backwater that basically makes it impossible to get your data into any financial software. And don’t even try checking your balance with an iphone.

Respond | Cheer this | 8 months ago (Aug 20, 10:51AM)