Automated “intelligence” or just plain stupidity?

Our dryer broke. I repaired it. It broke again, and that was it.  We decided to replace it, and since the washer was acting up, we decided to replace it too

My wife called LG and placed an order - directly - with whatever discounts they offered her. We got confirmation and heard from the company delivering it.  A few weeks passed, and we didn't get any updates.

We called. And? 

The order was cancelled, apparently because the price was deemed to be too low and their automation decided it was fraudulent. And the person in customer service was unable to help.  

They gave so many excuses.  The best was that we needed to check with our bank to see why the amount was declined. Because that makes so much sense. 

It's kind of funny in a way. But more than that it's sad that it's this hard.

Anyway, my wife kept calling and asking for assistance, and then they offered her 10% off full price retail - even though the discount we had before was a larger percentage off of a sales price.  

More calls.  She finally got someone who could help.  He offered her the same price on the washer and dryer - but the washer was out of stock, and the deal was only good for a couple of days (longer than it will take to get a washer in stock).  They had it in stock in another color, but they couldn't honor the price for that model (even though it was less expensive in that color).

So the agent told her she was welcome to buy it elsewhere - at full retail price.

Its kind of unbelievable just how bad customer has become.  They offered us the price, then they cancelled it, and no one has the ability to honor what they offered us. Nor does anyone really care. They literally were trying to wear us down until we gave up. All over some appliances that will likely last 5 years because quality isn't a thing anymore, either. 

And for us, it means we'll be without a dryer for longer while we keep looking for another set. 

The backstory of made up words

I always find etymology interesting. But here's a case where words in written text were used for typesetting originally. More recently, they have been used to fill in a page, so you can see the page layout (which is a form of modern day typesetting I suppose). 

"Lorem Ipsum" doesn't actually mean anything. So where did it come from?

https://wordsmarts.com/lorem-ipsum/

Possible evidence of water on mars

The Curiosity rover went over an area that has all the tell-tale signs we have on earth for this being a likely former lake bed. 

It's intriguing, I have to say. Mars may very well have been like earth at some point, maybe millions or 100s of millions of years ago. 

https://www.sciencealert.com/curiosity-finds-evidence-of-open-water-on-ancient-mars

There will be no yeti in Utah

The Utah hockey club held a naming contest and The Yetis won, so the club applied for patent protection for the name. 

If you're keeping score at home, all major sports teams get trademarks so that no one else can produce merchandise using that name. Sure, it protects them from another club using the name and causing some confusion, but if we're being honest it's about money. 

The trademark office said no, because it might be confused with the yeti cooler products which already have the yeti brand trademarked. 

Sure the hockey club would be yetis with an s, but because they will sell merchandise including mugs and coolers, there likely will be confusion by the consumer. 

That leaves the hockey club these likely options:

1. Respond to the trademark office, and try and convince them that it's different. - this would probably end up in expensive and time consuming litigation 

2. Find a way to work with the Yeti brand (thus eliminating the confusion) - this would probably be infeasible 

3. Select another name - while this makes the most sense, will a billionaire accept defeat?

https://www.ksl.com/article/51234156/utah-hockey-club-facing-trademark-hurdles-in-finding-permanent-name

Sports in bizarro world

The Australian open tennis tournament was unable to provide live video from the tournament due to some quirky (and all too common) licensing deal.  The rights holders don't allow for it to be broadcast.

And that meant that the production company had to get creative.  They came up with a solution that had very wii-like figures playing, and included the audio commentary from the match, with a few minute delay.

https://www.npr.org/2025/01/17/nx-s1-5261006/australian-open-wii-animation

Now this isn't the first time we've seen this kind of thing, The NFL has had several football games that they have similarly animated.  Its a crazy, tech world we live in,  

Unbiased reporting

One of the challenges we're faced with is finding some sort of reasonable, independent journalism.  

Billionaires and corporate giants own most of the newspapers, tv new stations, and services that allow for consuming content on the internet that is timely and "news worthy" .... 

That leaves us in a position where we're (mostly) unable to find truth in reporting, or at least finding unbiased information.

Of the major news outlets, the NY Times still tends toward balance, but I believe they could do more more, and they are at risk of tipping farther.  And of course NPR still has integrity and does a little thing called "journalism," but they will probably get defunded under the new administration and have to evolve in order to stay solvent.  What that means at this point is mostly unknown.

The alternative is to find some independent journalism and support it.  At the top of my list is the Contrarian, which is run by journalists (including Jen Rubin) who left the big media and are now reporting as a "pro-democracy news outlet."  You can find them here: https://contrarian.substack.com/

And Meadowlark Media, formed by former people at ESPN, delves into sports, culture, and politics, too.  Its about informative entertainment.   https://www.meadowlark-media.com/

I also rather enjoy reading about good in the world, from The Good News Network https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/

But there are plenty of others. I found these two recently, and as far as I can tell they're somewhat independent, and may be worth some time to evaluate. 

• DCReport https://www.dcreport.org/
• WhoWhatWhy https://whowhatwhy.org/

And finally, there is also a site that is collecting some outlets that I haven't explored yet: https://www.trustworthymedia.org/list-of-independent-media/

As always, use your own best judgment to find outlets that work for you.

And of course, if any of you know about any others, please feel free to let me know!

The NFL playoffs

I find it intriguing how balanced the teams are in the playoffs. Doesn't matter if you were the best team in the regular season. Doesn't matter if you're at home. 

Everyone has a chance to win. Except for whoever is playing the chiefs; they get all the breaks. 

Anyway, the commanders story is that they had a bad owner and were wallowing in mediocrity. Then a new owner comes in. He cares about the team. He cares about the community. He cares about winning. 

He hires a coach who has a good philosophy and they draft a QB who understands the game and is the right fit. 

He's a rookie, and yet they knock off two good teams and are headed to the NFC championship. 

And let's see. Who are the two teams left without a playoff win for most of this century? The raiders who have a bad owner, can't find a coach and churn through QBs

And the dolphins. Who have a bad owner, think they have a good coach (but clearly don't), and have committed to a QB who they "hope" will be decent even though it's been 5 years and he's had more games missed due to injuries than wins (that last one may not be true, but he has had a significant number of injuries). 

It's amazing what a passionate owner can do isn't it?