Re: Collecting Plastic Bottle Tops For Wheelchairs etc
John Vreeland
<d...@dshields.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Does anyone know why these are so persistent and the believers so
>immune to being told that these are (as far as I know) hoaxes ?
>
>Snopes has a page on the aluminium pulltabs for dialysis hoaxes and
>comments "A legend this good-hearted should be true" which is fair
>comment.
>
>The problem I face in work is that merely mentioning to the organisers
>of these campaigns (there's one going on in our kitchen where I work
>right now) that they might want to check the veracity of the story
>produces a quite extraordinary reaction. Usually the tirade ends with
>"Our church has already obtained N wheelchairs".
>
>Is there some kind of psychological effect out of the ordinary at work
>here ?
I have seen people involved in these campaigns before, usually
associated with church.I don't see how the organizer can not know that
it is a hoax, so I cynically assume that they are flexing their
muscles by doing this.
Jack V (Vreejack)
"Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!"--_Ivanhoe_
JoAnne Schmitz
<d...@dshields.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Does anyone know why these are so persistent and the believers so
>immune to being told that these are (as far as I know) hoaxes ?
>
>Snopes has a page on the aluminium pulltabs for dialysis hoaxes and
>comments "A legend this good-hearted should be true" which is fair
>comment.
>
>The problem I face in work is that merely mentioning to the organisers
>of these campaigns (there's one going on in our kitchen where I work
>right now) that they might want to check the veracity of the story
>produces a quite extraordinary reaction. Usually the tirade ends with
>"Our church has already obtained N wheelchairs".
>
>Is there some kind of psychological effect out of the ordinary at work
>here ?
You mean besides not wanting to look like a fool? Not wanting to think
that they're really not helping anyone but instead wasting their time and
the time of others? I think it's called cognitive dissonance. That or
confusing wrong == "factually in error" and wrong == "bad or evil".
As to knowing whether the scheme works, it's possible the organizers don't
know. In February 2000, an interesting discussion of this phenomenon took
place on this very newsgroup. Actually an earlier discussion took place in
1993/1994 but apparently that's not archived on Google.
Someone (who went by the name of stan) involved as a student volunteer for
the National Kidney Foundation got interested in the legend, knowing it was
false, and traced the path of the collected objects. It turned out to
include a circle, so that objects flowed from A to B to C to D to E to A
again. It seemed to each person in the cycle that something was happening.
The author also addresses the phenomenon of people becoming angry when
confronted with their mistake.
Highly recommended reading:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=38A14A8A.BE9%40simirescue.org&output=gplain
JoAnne "no word on whether the circle was CW or CCW" Schmitz
--
The new Urban Legends website is <http://www.tafkac.org>
That's TAFKAC.ORG
Do not accept lame imitations at previously okay URLs
Dr H
On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, JoAnne Schmitz vociferated:
}On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 00:02:06 +0000, Dominic Shields
}<d...@dshields.demon.co.uk> wrote:
}
}>Does anyone know why these are so persistent and the believers so
}>immune to being told that these are (as far as I know) hoaxes ?
}>
}>Snopes has a page on the aluminium pulltabs for dialysis hoaxes and
}>comments "A legend this good-hearted should be true" which is fair
}>comment.
}>
}>The problem I face in work is that merely mentioning to the organisers
}>of these campaigns (there's one going on in our kitchen where I work
}>right now) that they might want to check the veracity of the story
}>produces a quite extraordinary reaction. Usually the tirade ends with
}>"Our church has already obtained N wheelchairs".
Might it be possible to check up on that last alleged fact?
}>Is there some kind of psychological effect out of the ordinary at work
}>here ?
}
}You mean besides not wanting to look like a fool? Not wanting to think
}that they're really not helping anyone but instead wasting their time and
}the time of others? I think it's called cognitive dissonance. That or
}confusing wrong == "factually in error" and wrong == "bad or evil".
A very nice and well-meaning person at a place I used to work once
circulated a memo regarding the aluminum-pull-tabs-for-dialysis hoax
and had collection bins placed at the front desk. I could have
circulated another memo debunking the hoax, but instead I sent her
a private message with the real story and a couple of web links.
The collection bins quietly disappeared the next day.
Dr H
Peachy Ashie Passion
> On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 13:05:14 -0800, Dr H <hiaw...@efn.org> wrote:
>
>
>>}>"Our church has already obtained N wheelchairs".
>>
>>Might it be possible to check up on that last alleged fact?
>
>
> I think that comes under the heading of "why should we?"
>
>
>>I could have
>>circulated another memo debunking the hoax, but instead I sent her
>>a private message with the real story and a couple of web links.
>
>
> Absolutely right, nobody likes a smart-arse who is appearing to
> belittle the earnest efforts of well-meaning people. If my angle was
> to mock then the reactions would be perfectly justified.
I wonder if it would be more effective to stop them by saying
instead "they had to stop doing that, here is where you can send
money instead."
--
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image,
when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
Anne Lamott
Lots42 The Library Avenger
collecting them.
Since it's my mom, I didn't bother to argue, I just pop off the tops. I did try
and figure out -what- manner of charity it is for but of course my mom isn't
exactly sure.
P.S. On the topic of collecting for wheelchairs, the flea market has at least
one person who SELLS the danged things. Just go buy 'em already.
Barbara Bailey
Avenger) wrote:
Possibly it's a mutation from an actual program?
Here in Wisconsin, there is one company that is in fact redeeming
bottle caps. It's the brand of beverage (milk, juices, sports drinks,
and water are all included,) that is sold through the Kwik-Trip
convienence store. The redemption value is $.05 per marked cap. The
Kwik-Trip chain is located in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota.
Each school has to sign up, and then collected caps are credited to
thier account. It's a cash pay-out, not specific items.
Here's a link to the announcement (it may be a pdf--I'm not certain
that the link will generate the "View as HTML" page I got from
Google.) < http://www.milkmoola.com/pr/milk_cap_05-14-03.pdf.>
Barbara
Lots42 The Library Avenger
purchase a wheelchair. I wonder if this lady even realizes people are selling
wheelchairs just five hundred feet to the north of her.
--
"Argh, the laws of science be a harsh mistress." - Pirate Bender
"If you want to say something relevant to this particular discussion, or
something vaguely logical, you might try to come up with it now."
-- Kettir, to me
Lee Ayrton
> Can someone put me out of my misery as to why they are collecting
> things that have no real monetary value rather than "coppers",
> "shrapnel" or whatever your local colloquialism for small denomination
> coins people are only to willing to get out of their pockets ?
I'd like to help, and I'm sure that there's no end of managers at
charities around the world who would _love_ to know the answer to that.
Find a way to bend that behavior to your will and you can name your price
as an advisor.
Consider the example of the collection program that McDonald's has put
into place in order to exploit well-meaning collectors. It has been
estimated that if those folks collected pennies instead of pop tabs the
charity would have gotten about $4 million, instead of the $300,000 the
program had raised the last time I looked.
I can hazard a guess: Pennies, no matter how worthless that are, are
Money, and a hundred of them is a Dollar. Bottle caps, pull tabs,
Proof-Of-Purchase coupons, what have you, are things we ordinarily throw
away. I won't give you money, but I'll gladly give you something I'm just
going to throw out, so long as it isn't Money.
The other side of that is karma: Giving you money, especially something as
worthless as a penny, doesn't do much to stroke me. To feel like I've
done something it has to be Real Money, a pile of cash,
name-on-the-building sized. But making some small effort by collecting,
pulling, whatever -- an effort not large enough to be an convenience, mind
you -- that earns me a Good Karma token, redeemable later, someplace.
Lookit me! I'm helping blind crippled children!
Should we compare that to people who repeat cautionary tales, even after
they've been shown that the tale is fiction, on the grounds that even if
it is false it might save just once person? The telling costs them
nothing, but it lets them feel like they're helping.
Lee "Extraordinary delusions" Ayrton
--
Some conditions apply. YMMV. This message was packed by weight, not
by volume. TWIAVBP, local variation may occur. Dramatization, not a real
authority. Do not induce vomiting. No user-serviceable words inside.
John Francis
Lee Ayrton <lay...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> [ . . . ] The telling costs them
A.K.A. slacktivism - one of my favourite neologisms.
Cindy Kandolf
| P.S. On the topic of collecting for wheelchairs, the flea market has at least
| one person who SELLS the danged things. Just go buy 'em already.
The flea market vender almost certainly is selling mostly hospital
chairs. These are admirably suited to helping someone get around who
is temporarily immobile or weakened, such as, well, a hospital patient
recovering from surgery, or somebody with a broken leg, or a new mom
who's still a bit woozy from the birth. They are, however, not the
chair of choice for someone who is going to be using, and sitting in,
a wheelchair for sixteen hours a day for the rest of his or her life.
Uncomfortable, too wide and unwieldy to maneuver into tight spaces,
too hard to push.
Long-term wheelchairs are often custom-made for a particular patient.
Not the sort of thing you can pick up at the flea market.
- Cindy Kandolf, certified language mechanic, mamma flodnak
flodmail: ci...@nethelp.no flodhome: Bærum, Norway
flodweb: http://www.flodnak.com/
Dr H
On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Dominic Shields vociferated:
}On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 13:05:14 -0800, Dr H <hiaw...@efn.org> wrote:
}
}>}>"Our church has already obtained N wheelchairs".
}>
}> Might it be possible to check up on that last alleged fact?
}
}I think that comes under the heading of "why should we?"
Well if they really /had/ obtained a number of wheelchairs, the means
by which they obtained them would bear further investigation, no?
}> I could have
}> circulated another memo debunking the hoax, but instead I sent her
}> a private message with the real story and a couple of web links.
}
}Absolutely right, nobody likes a smart-arse who is appearing to
}belittle the earnest efforts of well-meaning people. If my angle was
}to mock then the reactions would be perfectly justified.
And if you're a full-time smart-arse like me, nobody's quite sure
when to take you seriously, anyway.
Dr H
Dr H
On Sat, 28 Nov 2004, Lots42 The Library Avenger vociferated:
}For the record, it turns out the friend of my mother IS collecting in order to
}purchase a wheelchair. I wonder if this lady even realizes people are selling
}wheelchairs just five hundred feet to the north of her.
And as has been pointed out many times before, if people do want to collect
to purchase wheelchairs/whatever, they would do better collecting the
whole damned /can/, which typically has a $0.05 to $0.10 redeemable deposit
on it.
Dr H
Paul Blay
> On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 15:26:11 -0500, Lee Ayrton <lay...@panix.com>
> wrote:
>
>>The other side of that is karma: Giving you money, especially something as
>>worthless as a penny, doesn't do much to stroke me. To feel like I've
>>done something it has to be Real Money, a pile of cash,
>>name-on-the-building sized.
>
> thinking I was writing a l follow-up post (hey the button are next to
> each other in Forte Agent).
They are in Outlook Express - but I threw that button out and burnt it.
Lee Ayrton
> The reason I repeat myself is that I hear on BBC Radio 5 as I wake up
> just now that top British financial outfit Prudential announced the
> results of a survey (OK, I'm as sceptical as anyone about them) that
> showed that "most people" throw away small change.
>
> This newsgroup setting the news agenda ?
This sort of thing happens from time to time, a discussion in AFU
coincides with something that pops up in real life or in the news media.
That it gets noticed (even with tongue in cheek) is a good example of the
pattern-seeking mechanism of the human mind at work.
There is no sekrit cabal. AFU Ltd. does not control BBC Radio. They can
go about their business. Move along. Move along.
Ralph Jones
<d...@dshields.demon.co.uk> wrote:
[snip]
>
>The reason I repeat myself is that I hear on BBC Radio 5 as I wake up
>just now that top British financial outfit Prudential announced the
>results of a survey (OK, I'm as sceptical as anyone about them) that
>showed that "most people" throw away small change.
>
though it's common to throw small change into a box and hand it out to
the children to spend. And we're getting a new outlet now:
supermarkets are gradually installing self-service checkout kiosks.
They accept both credit cards and cash, and one can simply feed in a
pocketful of coins while the machine does the work of counting them.
rj
Paul Blay
> On Wed, 01 Dec 2004 08:37:00 +0000, Dominic Shields
> <d...@dshields.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> [snip]
>>
>>The reason I repeat myself is that I hear on BBC Radio 5 as I wake up
>>just now that top British financial outfit Prudential announced the
>>results of a survey (OK, I'm as sceptical as anyone about them) that
>>showed that "most people" throw away small change.
Well on the superior BBC Radio _Four_ I heard that 1 in 7 people
admit to throwing away their coppers.
> They accept both credit cards and cash, and one can simply feed in a
> pocketful of coins while the machine does the work of counting them.
I presume they accept all coin values? Off hand I think most coin-accepting
machines over here take 5p as the smallest (if not 10p).
Ralph Jones
Yes, they take all coins. Some supermarkets also have coin-counting
machines...you just dump a sack of coins into a hopper and wait for
currency to come out.
The penny has been our smallest coin since 1858, and is generally
considered a net loss to the economy. Bills to eliminate it failed in
1990 and 1996 for reasons that can be explored by googling on "penny"
and "zinc industry."
rj
ra...@vt.edu
> >I presume they accept all coin values? Off hand I think most coin-accepting
> >machines over here take 5p as the smallest (if not 10p).
> Yes, they take all coins. Some supermarkets also have coin-counting
> machines...you just dump a sack of coins into a hopper and wait for
> currency to come out.
> The penny has been our smallest coin since 1858, and is generally
> considered a net loss to the economy. Bills to eliminate it failed in
> 1990 and 1996 for reasons that can be explored by googling on "penny"
> and "zinc industry."
The penny supposedly still costs slightly less than 1 cent to mint,
but yes, it's not a real cost effective coin these days. It used
to be that parking meters took pennies, and I'm sure some still do,
but most vending machines now take nickles (5 cent piece) as the
smallest denomination. In fact many commercial machines never
took pennies. For example, cigarette machines in the '50s had
packs of cigarettes with two pennies inside the outer wrapper because
the price was something like 23 cents and that was the way you
got your change back from a quarter.
The grocery store self checkouts are the only new machines I can
think of that take pennies, though the US Post Office vending machines
all take them. The Post Office machines are about the only ones
that take dollar coins. I'm not sure about the grocery store
self checkout machines.
Bill "1909 SVDB" Ranck
Blacksburg, Va.
Ralph Jones
[snip]
>
>The grocery store self checkouts are the only new machines I can
>think of that take pennies, though the US Post Office vending machines
>all take them. The Post Office machines are about the only ones
>that take dollar coins. I'm not sure about the grocery store
>self checkout machines.
>
I'll have to check on the supermarket machines; not sure if they take
dollar coins, but they definitely don't give them in change. The stamp
machine at my post office behaves oddly: it often gives me Sacajaweas
or Suebucks which it thinks are quarters, but always seems to identify
input coins correctly. I take that to mean that the machine that sorts
coins into its supply stacks is the one making the errors.
rj
Lon
> "R H Draney" <dado...@spamcop.net> wrote in message
> news:coofq...@drn.newsguy.com...
>
>>Ray Heindl filted:
>>
>>>The local paper recently had a story about a guy who had been
>>>collecting, counting, and rolling pennies for 34 years. He had $14,000
>>>worth, and he took them to a coin-counting machine to cash them in,
>>>paying $1246 for the privilege, but getting $1500 from the
>>>counting-machine company for his story. Cheap publicity for them,
>>>since he could just as easily have deposited them in a bank for free.
>>
>>*You* try walking into a bank with over eight thousand pounds of copper
>
> and see
>
>>if they'll let you deposit it for free....
>>
>>R H "did it with $25 worth once and almost got arrested" Draney
>
>
> While not quite arrested, I did something similar once at my lo cal branch
> and had to prove I had an account there. I would imagine I would have either
> been refused or had to pay a service fee for them to accept $45 in pennies,
> nickles and dimes, (wrapped, yet!) had it not been my branch. They
> carefully wrote my account number on every roll to make sure that when it
> went through their hopper that I wasn't shaving off a coin per roll. Even if
> it was all dimes, I guess someone out there thought I was making a good
> living grifting 90 cents per transaction for the half hour I stood in line
> and they had to draw the line somewhere.
The lo cal Bunk Of Amerika will tell you not to put your account
number on the coin wrapper any more....but none of the tellers I've
asked can tell me why, since they rewrap them in those plastic
things anyway.
Lon
> On Wed, 1 Dec 2004 23:11:35 -0000, "Paul Blay"
> <ra...@saotome.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>"Ralph Jones" wrote ...
>>
>>>On Wed, 01 Dec 2004 08:37:00 +0000, Dominic Shields
>>><d...@dshields.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>>[snip]
>>>
>>>>The reason I repeat myself is that I hear on BBC Radio 5 as I wake up
>>>>just now that top British financial outfit Prudential announced the
>>>>results of a survey (OK, I'm as sceptical as anyone about them) that
>>>>showed that "most people" throw away small change.
>>
>>Well on the superior BBC Radio _Four_ I heard that 1 in 7 people
>>admit to throwing away their coppers.
>>
>>
>>>They accept both credit cards and cash, and one can simply feed in a
>>>pocketful of coins while the machine does the work of counting them.
>>
>>I presume they accept all coin values? Off hand I think most coin-accepting
>>machines over here take 5p as the smallest (if not 10p).
>
>
> Yes, they take all coins. Some supermarkets also have coin-counting
> machines...you just dump a sack of coins into a hopper and wait for
> currency to come out.
We have a coupla those. They don't give cash, rather a slip you then
have to go stand in a regular checkout line to convert to cash.
Worse, they charge a surcharge almost as bad as just dropping the
ones bigger than a penny into a one-armed bandit in Reno.
>
> The penny has been our smallest coin since 1858, and is generally
> considered a net loss to the economy. Bills to eliminate it failed in
> 1990 and 1996 for reasons that can be explored by googling on "penny"
> and "zinc industry."
... and fuse boxes
Daniel W. Johnson
> I take that to mean that the machine that sorts
> coins into its supply stacks is the one making the errors.
Another possibility is that the sorting into supply stacks is done by
meat rather than by a machine.
--
Daniel W. Johnson
pano...@iquest.net
http://members.iquest.net/~panoptes/
039 53 36 N / 086 11 55 W
ron saarna
"R H Draney" <dado...@spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:coofq...@drn.newsguy.com...
> Ray Heindl filted:
> >
> >The local paper recently had a story about a guy who had been
> >collecting, counting, and rolling pennies for 34 years. He had $14,000
> >worth, and he took them to a coin-counting machine to cash them in,
> >paying $1246 for the privilege, but getting $1500 from the
> >counting-machine company for his story. Cheap publicity for them,
> >since he could just as easily have deposited them in a bank for free.
>
> *You* try walking into a bank with over eight thousand pounds of copper
and see
> if they'll let you deposit it for free....
>
> R H "did it with $25 worth once and almost got arrested" Draney
While not quite arrested, I did something similar once at my lo cal branch
and had to prove I had an account there. I would imagine I would have either
been refused or had to pay a service fee for them to accept $45 in pennies,
nickles and dimes, (wrapped, yet!) had it not been my branch. They
carefully wrote my account number on every roll to make sure that when it
went through their hopper that I wasn't shaving off a coin per roll. Even if
it was all dimes, I guess someone out there thought I was making a good
living grifting 90 cents per transaction for the half hour I stood in line
and they had to draw the line somewhere.
Ron "The Change Bank: People ask us how do we make money? Volume." Saarna
Ray Heindl
> On Wed, 1 Dec 2004 23:11:35 -0000, "Paul Blay"
> <ra...@saotome.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>I presume they accept all coin values? Off hand I think most
>>coin-accepting machines over here take 5p as the smallest (if not
>>10p).
> Yes, they take all coins. Some supermarkets also have
> coin-counting machines...you just dump a sack of coins into a
> hopper and wait for currency to come out.
The supermarket where I shop has one of those. It charges over 8
percent.
The local paper recently had a story about a guy who had been
collecting, counting, and rolling pennies for 34 years. He had $14,000
worth, and he took them to a coin-counting machine to cash them in,
paying $1246 for the privilege, but getting $1500 from the
counting-machine company for his story. Cheap publicity for them,
since he could just as easily have deposited them in a bank for free.
More info: http://tinyurl.com/6rbx2 (Feel free to lie when they ask
for your zip code, sex, and year of birth. It won't accept birth years
earlier than 1901, a clear case of age discrimination.)
--
Ray Heindl
(remove the Xs to reply to: xvortr...@yaxhoo.com)
R H Draney
>
>The local paper recently had a story about a guy who had been
>collecting, counting, and rolling pennies for 34 years. He had $14,000
>worth, and he took them to a coin-counting machine to cash them in,
>paying $1246 for the privilege, but getting $1500 from the
>counting-machine company for his story. Cheap publicity for them,
>since he could just as easily have deposited them in a bank for free.
*You* try walking into a bank with over eight thousand pounds of copper and see
Louise Bremner
> More info: http://tinyurl.com/6rbx2 (Feel free to lie when they ask
> for your zip code, sex, and year of birth. It won't accept birth years
> earlier than 1901, a clear case of age discrimination.)
Or simply click on the link beside "Outside The US?"....
________________________________________________________________________
Louise Bremner (log at gol dot com)
If you want a reply by e-mail, don't write to my Yahoo address!
Ray Heindl
> While not quite arrested, I did something similar once at my lo
> cal branch and had to prove I had an account there. I would
> imagine I would have either been refused or had to pay a service
> fee for them to accept $45 in pennies, nickles and dimes,
> (wrapped, yet!) had it not been my branch. They carefully wrote
> my account number on every roll to make sure that when it went
> through their hopper that I wasn't shaving off a coin per roll.
> Even if it was all dimes, I guess someone out there thought I was
> making a good living grifting 90 cents per transaction for the
> half hour I stood in line and they had to draw the line somewhere.
The first time I deposited a lot of coins (~30 pounds (avoirdupois, not
Sterling)) the bank didn't have any problem with it. In fact, the
other tellers came over to get some of the rolls; I guess they were
short of change that day.
The second time, at a different branch, they wanted my account number
on each roll, and handed me a pen. I wrote the number on the first few
rolls, then made an illegible scribble on the rest that seemed to
satisfy them.
Ray Heindl
He wouldn't have had to do it all at once. Besides, walking anywhere
with 8,000 lbs of anything would be no mean feat.
I've heard that some banks now charge for any transaction with a teller
involved, so that might make it prohibitively expensive, depending on
how much weight one can carry.
Ray Heindl
> Ray Heindl <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
>> More info: http://tinyurl.com/6rbx2 (Feel free to lie when they
>> ask for your zip code, sex, and year of birth. It won't accept
>> birth years earlier than 1901, a clear case of age
>> discrimination.)
>
> Or simply click on the link beside "Outside The US?"....
I prefer lying just to mess up their statistics.
Having tried it, I find it doesn't work because I don't allow them to
set cookies. It just takes me back to the "prying questions that are
none of their business" screen.
Charles Bishop
On Wed, 1 Dec 2004, Dominic Shields wrote:
> The reason I repeat myself is that I hear on BBC Radio 5 as I wake up
> just now that top British financial outfit Prudential announced the
> results of a survey (OK, I'm as sceptical as anyone about them) that
> showed that "most people" throw away small change.
>
Reading an article at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4056291.stm
It looks as if the people aren't throwing away their change, as in the
trash, but putting it in pocket change bins (containers), for use later.
Later the survey asked if smaller coins should be done away with, similar
to the cry here in the good ole USA to get rid of pennies.
Begin quote****
Last Updated: Wednesday, 1 December, 2004, 03:06 GMT
A quarter of Britons would happily get rid of copper coins for good, a
survey suggests.
Some 5.3 million of us admit to just throwing small coins away, the survey
for the Prudential says.
For those who hoard coins, a jar is the most popular place, with the
north-east and Scotland putting most of their spare change in jars. More
than 15 million people admit their collection of small coins is out of
control.
Young people are the most likely to throw away money with 33% binning
their change, compared to only 2% of 55-64 year olds, the study found.
Londoners are the most dismissive region, with 30% wanting to see the back
of 1p and 2p coins, compared to Scotland and Yorkshire where only 19%
would like to see them go.
***end quote
charles
Charles Bishop
ra...@nomeking.spambloze.com wrote:
An article at BBC news said the same thing-people are putting their coins
in containers *not* throwing them out with the trash.
charles
Louise Bremner
> dame_...@yahoo.com (Louise Bremner) wrote:
>
> > Ray Heindl <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
> >
> >> More info: http://tinyurl.com/6rbx2 (Feel free to lie when they
> >> ask for your zip code, sex, and year of birth. It won't accept
> >> birth years earlier than 1901, a clear case of age
> >> discrimination.)
> >
> > Or simply click on the link beside "Outside The US?"....
>
> I prefer lying just to mess up their statistics.
There is that, of course. Even more enjoyable when they present many
questions such as "Your position in your company", with CEO as the first
option....
R H Draney
>
>There is that, of course. Even more enjoyable when they present many
>questions such as "Your position in your company", with CEO as the first
>option....
I like the one on a lot of surveys I get that asks for your zip code, then
cautions you to enter a number, not a range....
R H "somewhere along a line from Natchez to Mobile" Draney
Lon
> Louise Bremner filted:
>
>>There is that, of course. Even more enjoyable when they present many
>>questions such as "Your position in your company", with CEO as the first
>>option....
>
>
> I like the one on a lot of surveys I get that asks for your zip code, then
> cautions you to enter a number, not a range....
They probably have programmers that would parse the extended zip as a
range...
Karen J. Cravens
news:Xns95B4A7CD...@130.133.1.4:
> Having tried it, I find it doesn't work because I don't allow them to
> set cookies.
Firefox, at least, allows you to make cookies session-only, so you can
give them different statistics every time you visit.
--
Karen J. Cravens
Nick Spalding
What I love - not - is US firms that insist on a Zip Code in addresses because
in the Republic of Ireland we don't use them. Dublin and I think Cork do have
postal districts within them but there is no such thing as a Zip Code and the
placing of the demand for it on the form is frequently below the Country slot
so that it is not the appropriate place to put the Dublin district code.
--
Nick Spalding
Louise Bremner
...and telephone numbers that fit into the US pattern. And billing
addresses in the US (even for software for download).
And then there's the button marked "International Shipping". Click on it
and you find they're soooooo proud of themselves because they also ship
to Alaska and Canada, and even Hawaii too!
________________________________________________________________________
Louise "Sorry--long-standing rant" Bremner (log at gol dot com)
R H Draney
>
>And then there's the button marked "International Shipping". Click on it
>and you find they're soooooo proud of themselves because they also ship
>to Alaska and Canada, and even Hawaii too!
Having bought things from a number of countries via eBay, and noticing which
countries take the longest to receive an item from, that's a credit deserving of
considerable pride...involving Canadian Post in a transaction is the equivalent
of shipping to the Horsehead Nebula....
R H "or the Hosehead Nebula" Draney
Lon
> What I love - not - is US firms that insist on a Zip Code in addresses because
> in the Republic of Ireland we don't use them. Dublin and I think Cork do have
> postal districts within them but there is no such thing as a Zip Code and the
> placing of the demand for it on the form is frequently below the Country slot
> so that it is not the appropriate place to put the Dublin district code.
At this point, I could make a supercilious comment that, well, you
see, American Programmers *know* that the entire world is organized
exactly like their own little hick town and therefore in order to
ensure accurate data it is mandatory that these type of fields be
filled in. What prevents me from making this supercilious comment
is that there are no american programmers still employed gainfully
in that field, what you have is american marketing executives giving
orders to outsourcing firms located in places like.... ummm, well,
Ireland for one.
Lee Ayrton
> And then there's the button marked "International Shipping". Click on it
> and you find they're soooooo proud of themselves because they also ship
> to Alaska and Canada, and even Hawaii too!
Do they ship to New Mexico, or only to destinations in North America?
--
Some conditions apply. YMMV. This message was packed by weight, not
by volume. TWIAVBP, local variation may occur. Dramatization, not a real
authority. Do not induce vomiting. No user-serviceable words inside.
Charles Bishop
<d...@dshields.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 21:36:00 GMT, ctbi...@earthlink.netttt (Charles
>Bishop) wrote:
>
>>An article at BBC news said the same thing-people are putting their coins
>>in containers *not* throwing them out with the trash.
>
>My apologies, but the announcers said "throw away", in the sense I
>have outlined how I throw them away, I would say that is reasonable.
>Naturally I only know about me.
No worries. I think the article had the same confusion: they said throw
away, but then later it was clear people were only putting them in
containers.
charles, wacky Brits, eh?
Lee Ayrton
> On Wed, 1 Dec 2004 10:04:45 -0500, Lee Ayrton <lay...@panix.com>
> wrote:
>
>> That it gets noticed (even with tongue in cheek) is a good example of the
>> pattern-seeking mechanism of the human mind at work.
>
> I'm reading "How we know what isn't so (The fallibility of human
> reasoning)" by Thomas Gilovich at the moment, he goes into this.
Ohhh, excellent choice. I like that book, very readable. _Extraordinary
Delusions and the Madness of Crowds_ is also on the AFU suggested reading
list, but it is very different from Gilovich's book.
Lee "Buy it used" Ayrton
Thomas Prufer
>And then there's the button marked "International Shipping". Click on it
>and you find they're soooooo proud of themselves because they also ship
>to Alaska and Canada, and even Hawaii too!
And never mind the postage and "handling" fees, if they do send it to "other"
places. Instead of sticking your $15 desktop art calendar from the Metropolitan
Museum of Art (to pick an example not at random) in a "Global Priority One"
envelope for under ten bucks, it'll cost $45 shipping, and be mailed with
export/import declaration papers suitable for mailing uranium.
Still, once I was recommended language software[1] while in a small town in the
US. I was worried about ordering it, and getting it in time to take it back.
"Oh, just *go* there, the company is only a block away." I walked in, described
what I wanted, got it, and paid in cash. Then the secretary hollered to the
programmers, who had to reprogram the sales software to include "walk-in" as an
option, and got ribbed for not thinking of that one.
Thomas Prufer
[1] "Rosetta Stone" by Fairfield Language Technologies
Ray Heindl
> And then there's the button marked "International Shipping". Click
> on it and you find they're soooooo proud of themselves because
> they also ship to Alaska and Canada, and even Hawaii too!
The programmers are probably ham radio operators. In USan ham circles,
Alaska and Hawaii are considered separate countries, at least for
purposes of counting how many different countries one has talked to.
Ray Heindl
That sounds like a good idea; I'll have to see if Opera has something
similar. I just don't let anyone set cookies at all, unless they're
someone I do business with regularly.
I wonder if the software of the site in question is smart enough to
realize that "00000" isn't a valid zip code.
Nope, it's not. But it does accept a birth year of 2003; they must
cater to the precocious set.
Not to change the subject or anything, but I just discovered (in
checking on the zip 00000) that only 43,000 of the possible 100,000
five-digit codes are actually used. I wonder why that is.
Ray Heindl
> On Wed, 1 Dec 2004, Dominic Shields wrote:
>> I'm reading "How we know what isn't so (The fallibility of human
>> reasoning)" by Thomas Gilovich at the moment, he goes into this.
> Ohhh, excellent choice. I like that book, very readable.
> _Extraordinary Delusions and the Madness of Crowds_ is also on the
> AFU suggested reading list, but it is very different from
> Gilovich's book.
Project Gutenberg has "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions" by
Charles Mackay, in three volumes, available for free download. From
the listings at the local library, it looks like this might be the
source for "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds."
Jackie Laderoute
Canada Post has never been an issue for me - frankly, they're fast and
efficient.
However, a huge block in the system is Canada Customs and their
insistence on collecting that extra 15% at the border. Worse still are
the Customs brokers, who will merrily bill you $25 for processing $15
worth of taxes.
The last time I got a bill from one of these sharks, I sent a
snarkygram right back. I included copies of my original bill of sale
and all relevant documents and invited the twerps to show me
*anything* on it that showed that I had agreed to having them act as
my agents or obligated me to pay them.
That was almost a year ago, and I haven't heard back, so I'm assuming
they just decided it wasn't worth the money it would cost them to
fight me for such a paltry amount.
Jackie "going for broker" Laderoute
--
< o \"/ Don't play cat and mouse with me! (
---@ ) ()-()
< o /"\ Jackie Laderoute jflad...@shaw.ca (o o)
*****************************************************************/\o/\
Karen J. Cravens
news:2ba4r0135c50bf8sc...@4ax.com:
> Canada Post has never been an issue for me - frankly, they're fast and
> efficient.
> However, a huge block in the system is Canada Customs and their
> insistence on collecting that extra 15% at the border. Worse still are
> the Customs brokers, who will merrily bill you $25 for processing $15
> worth of taxes.
What baffles me is why the US Postal Service's webpage happily declares
that Global Priority to Canada is 3-4 days (or was it 2-3?) even when
stuff invariably takes a week, minimum. (The package I mailed the 22nd
arrived last night.)
Maybe they just mean 3-4 days to arrive in Canada, after which Customs
will sit on it.
--
Karen J. Cravens
Louise Bremner
> dame_...@yahoo.com (Louise Bremner) wrote:
>
> > And then there's the button marked "International Shipping". Click
> > on it and you find they're soooooo proud of themselves because
> > they also ship to Alaska and Canada, and even Hawaii too!
>
> The programmers are probably ham radio operators. In USan ham circles,
> Alaska and Hawaii are considered separate countries, at least for
> purposes of counting how many different countries one has talked to.
You know.... That sounds just so plausible.
________________________________________________________________________
Louise Bremner (log at gol dot com)
Louise Bremner
> On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 13:16:47 GMT, dame_...@yahoo.com (Louise Bremner)
wrote:
>
> >And then there's the button marked "International Shipping". Click on it
> >and you find they're soooooo proud of themselves because they also ship
> >to Alaska and Canada, and even Hawaii too!
>
> And never mind the postage and "handling" fees, if they do send it to
> "other" places. Instead of sticking your $15 desktop art calendar from the
> Metropolitan Museum of Art (to pick an example not at random) in a "Global
> Priority One" envelope for under ten bucks, it'll cost $45 shipping, and
> be mailed with export/import declaration papers suitable for mailing
> uranium.
Or it'll cost $180 for courier service, justified on the grounds that
otherwise a member of staff would have to go down to the post office and
stand in line.
(Thinks: If the customer has a large number of parcels to send out,
doesn't the US post office provide a pick-up service? Similarly, if the
customer doesn't have a large number of parcels to send out, wouldn't a
member of staff have to go down to the post office anyway to stand in
line?)
________________________________________________________________________
Louise "" Bremner (log at gol dot com)
Donna Richoux
> Project Gutenberg has "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions" by
> Charles Mackay, in three volumes, available for free download. From
> the listings at the local library, it looks like this might be the
> source for "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds."
Same book. My copy, printed 1995, shows facsimiles of the title pages of
1841 and 1852; it was then titled "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular
Delusions."
Checking the used books at Abebooks.com, it appears that 1856 and 1869
editions used the longest possible title: "Memoirs of Extraordinary
Popular Delusions and the madness of Crowds". The modern form
"Extraordinary Popular Delusions : And the Madness of Crowds"
starts to appear in 1932.
Publishers feel little loyalty towards titles.
--
Donna "Alice's Adventures, The Wonderful Wizard, etc" Richoux
ron saarna
"Ray Heindl" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:Xns95B5A645...@130.133.1.4...
No answer there, but this is going to be a real problem eventually, because
Canadian zips require 6 characters, so when you come tumbling across the
border and assimil......
(Message deleted by moderator due to Bop)
Ron "nevermind the fact we use letter/number/letter/number/letter/number for
our scheme. You thought hexadecimal was confusing..." Saarna
BTW, what is the term for a base 26 numbering system?
John Francis
Ray Heindl <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
>Not to change the subject or anything, but I just discovered (in
>checking on the zip 00000) that only 43,000 of the possible 100,000
>five-digit codes are actually used. I wonder why that is.
Two reasons, basically.
First of all, there needs to be room for expansion. There's
(pretty much) a hierarchy of zip codes; the first three digits
define a so-called zip3. So there need to be enough unused
values withing the 100 possible 5-digit zips to handle new
developments within the geographic area encompassed by the zip3.
(This is a simplification; the full story is more complicated).
Secondly, there are only so many post offices, which limits the
number of geographic zip codes needed. It's not a one-to-one
mapping; apart from the geographic zip codes there's usually
a separate zipcode for PO boxes, and big customers such as
mail order fulfilment houses often get their own zipcode.
Add a few other special ranges reserved for US forces overseas,
etc., and the current 5+4 scheme seems pretty good to me - it's
not overly-large, but it's got enough slack that it will last
for a few years yet (to the relief of many a database designer).
(Note that a 9-digit value fits in a 32-bit word. Coincidence?)
Daniel W. Johnson
> That sounds like a good idea; I'll have to see if Opera has something
> similar. I just don't let anyone set cookies at all, unless they're
> someone I do business with regularly.
My copy of Opera has a "throw away new cookies on exit" option in the
privacy preferences.
--
Daniel W. Johnson
pano...@iquest.net
http://members.iquest.net/~panoptes/
039 53 36 N / 086 11 55 W
Daniel W. Johnson
> Then the secretary hollered to the programmers, who had to reprogram the
> sales software to include "walk-in" as an option, and got ribbed for not
> thinking of that one.
One local DVD store added "in-store pickup" late in the development
process for their website. They added it as an alternative to "Ship
Complete" (i.e., wait for any/all backordered items before "shipping")
and "Ship Partial" (i.e., send stuff out as it becomes available). Of
course, you still have to select shipping and payment methods.
Bob Ward
Room for expansion.
Bob Ward
Alphabetical
Ray Heindl
> In article <Xns95B5A645...@130.133.1.4>,
> Ray Heindl <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>>
>>Not to change the subject or anything, but I just discovered (in
>>checking on the zip 00000) that only 43,000 of the possible 100,000
>>five-digit codes are actually used. I wonder why that is.
>
> Two reasons, basically.
>
> First of all, there needs to be room for expansion. There's
> (pretty much) a hierarchy of zip codes; the first three digits
> define a so-called zip3. So there need to be enough unused
> values withing the 100 possible 5-digit zips to handle new
> developments within the geographic area encompassed by the zip3.
> (This is a simplification; the full story is more complicated).
Do zip codes ever get divided, the way area codes have been, so that
the zip for a given address changes?
> Secondly, there are only so many post offices, which limits the
> number of geographic zip codes needed. It's not a one-to-one
> mapping; apart from the geographic zip codes there's usually
> a separate zipcode for PO boxes, and big customers such as
> mail order fulfilment houses often get their own zipcode.
I presume that all mail for a given zip code goes through the same post
office; is that right?
> Add a few other special ranges reserved for US forces overseas,
> etc., and the current 5+4 scheme seems pretty good to me - it's
> not overly-large, but it's got enough slack that it will last
> for a few years yet (to the relief of many a database designer).
Since zip+4 is nine digits, they could just start using social security
numbers in lieu of addresses. I'm sure identity thieves would
appreciate that.
> (Note that a 9-digit value fits in a 32-bit word. Coincidence?)
With two bits to spare.
--
Ray "that and $3.75 will get you a cup of coffee" Heindl
Ralph Jones
[snip]
>
>Do zip codes ever get divided, the way area codes have been, so that
>the zip for a given address changes?
>
Yes. My delivery area fissioned circa 1980, and my zip code changed
from 80012 to 80017.
rj
R H Draney
The technical term for this process is "building a new post office"....r
Lizz Holmans
Bremner) wrote:
>
>...and telephone numbers that fit into the US pattern. And billing
>addresses in the US (even for software for download).
>
>And then there's the button marked "International Shipping". Click on it
>and you find they're soooooo proud of themselves because they also ship
>to Alaska and Canada, and even Hawaii too!
Last summer when I fell over with heat exhaustion (in front of
B.B.King's nightclub, which was the only kewl part) in Memphis,
neither the ambulance service or the hospital had any way to deal with
an international address, let alone fone number.
So I gave them TAFKAH's.
Two months later I get a call from TAFKAH asking me what to do about
the ambulance bill. I told him to give them my insurance company's
details (NEVER travel without international insurance), fix their
goddamn software, give them my fone number Over Here if they had any
questions, or otherwise they could just stick it.
Lizz 'where the gerbil don't shine' Holmans
--
It's getting to the point where I'm no fun anymore.
Lee Ayrton
> In article <Xns95B5A645...@130.133.1.4>,
> Ray Heindl <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>>
>> Not to change the subject or anything, but I just discovered (in
>> checking on the zip 00000) that only 43,000 of the possible 100,000
>> five-digit codes are actually used. I wonder why that is.
>
> Two reasons, basically.
>
> First of all, there needs to be room for expansion. There's
> (pretty much) a hierarchy of zip codes; the first three digits
> define a so-called zip3. So there need to be enough unused
> values withing the 100 possible 5-digit zips to handle new
> developments within the geographic area encompassed by the zip3.
> (This is a simplification; the full story is more complicated).
2. ZIP code - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
<URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_code>
Summary: ZIP is a deliberate acronym standing for "Zone Improvement
Plan". The first digit indicates a zone consisting of a group of states
or territories. For instance: New England is zone "0", along with Puerto
Rico and the Virgin Islands. The next two digits specify a region within
that zone, the last two digits indicate a specific post office or
destination (office building substation, large-volume mail house, &c).
ObTidbit: The White House has a Sekrit ZIP Code in addition to the public
one.
Disclaimer: Having been called once on Wikipedia's lack of oversight on
submissions I feel obligated to say that the above article fits well with
my recollection of the scheme, but has not been checked against other
sources.
JLB
>
> Disclaimer: Having been called once on Wikipedia's lack of oversight on
> submissions I feel obligated to say that the above article fits well
> with my recollection of the scheme, but has not been checked against
> other sources.
Here's a view on Wikipedia from an informed but hardly disinterested party
http://www.techcentralstation.com/111504A.html
--
Joe * If I cannot be free I'll be cheap
Marc Reeve
from the more plebeian Menlo Park and was incorporated as a city in its own
right, the zip code changed from 94025 to 94027. There's still no post office
in Atherton, though - mail either goes through the Menlo Park (94025) post
office or the Woodside (94062) post office.
Marc "woke up one morning and was suddenly going to school in another city" Reeve
R H Draney
>
>Marc "woke up one morning and was suddenly going to school in another city"
>Reeve
From mid-1969 to January 1971, my phone, mailbox, and schoolbus stop were in
three different cities, and the house wasn't within the city limits of any of
them....r
grey...@yahoo.com
> Nick Spalding proclaimed:
>
>> What I love - not - is US firms that insist on a Zip Code in addresses because
>> in the Republic of Ireland we don't use them. Dublin and I think Cork do have
>> postal districts within them but there is no such thing as a Zip Code and the
>> placing of the demand for it on the form is frequently below the Country slot
>> so that it is not the appropriate place to put the Dublin district code.
>
> At this point, I could make a supercilious comment that, well, you
> see, American Programmers *know* that the entire world is organized
> exactly like their own little hick town and therefore in order to
> ensure accurate data it is mandatory that these type of fields be
> filled in. What prevents me from making this supercilious comment
> is that there are no american programmers still employed gainfully
> in that field, what you have is american marketing executives giving
> orders to outsourcing firms located in places like.... ummm, well,
> Ireland for one.
Used to be. Now on to India, and Southern South America. The Irish
office is retained to confuse the American Tax Authorities.
--
greymaus
97.025% of statistics are wrong
grey...@yahoo.com
> Lon wrote, in <zp9sd.436788$wV.11498@attbi_s54>:
>
>> R H Draney proclaimed:
>> > Louise Bremner filted:
>> >
>> >>There is that, of course. Even more enjoyable when they present many
>> >>questions such as "Your position in your company", with CEO as the first
>> >>option....
>> >
>> >
>> > I like the one on a lot of surveys I get that asks for your zip code, then
>> > cautions you to enter a number, not a range....
>>
>> They probably have programmers that would parse the extended zip as a
>> range...
>
> What I love - not - is US firms that insist on a Zip Code in addresses because
> in the Republic of Ireland we don't use them. Dublin and I think Cork do have
> postal districts within them but there is no such thing as a Zip Code and the
> placing of the demand for it on the form is frequently below the Country slot
> so that it is not the appropriate place to put the Dublin district code.
I enter 000000. Ireland dosn't have codes because of the hassle from
people who do not want to be under the `wrong' code. Also, the PO says
that they have bypassed the ZipCode era with optical recognition.
[I got a letter from the US last week, only the town part of the
address, and `Ireland' . Aged relative. It got to me]
Ray Heindl
I hope the Post Office continued to deliver your mail even with the
wrong zip code on it.
A few years ago the residents of a nearby street decided to change the
street name, and got the city to go along. Unfortunately nobody
thought to notify the Post Office, though I guess they eventually found
out.
(Somebody tried to do the same thing on my street, but they were
soundly outvoted.)
--
Ray Heindl
Charles Wm. Dimmick
> From mid-1969 to January 1971, my phone, mailbox, and schoolbus stop were in
> three different cities, and the house wasn't within the city limits of any of
> them....r
That pretty much couldn't happen in Connecticut. No matter where
you are you are within the Town limits of an incorporated
Municipality, even if you are in the middle of nowhere. And
unless the Town Line runs right through the middle of your house,
your mailbox and your schoolbus stop would of necessity be in the
same Town as your bedroom. Your phone number, on the other hand,
might be for an adjacent town under extraordinary circumstances.
And we do have a few instances where the Official Town Name as
recorded by the State of Connecticut is not quite the same as
the Official Town Name as recorded by the post office.
Charles
Charles Bishop
grey...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>[I got a letter from the US last week, only the town part of the
>address, and `Ireland' . Aged relative. It got to me]
Send us your photo and we'll put it on the outside of the envelope and see
if the letter gets to you.
Back in the day, someone put a picture of Alfred E. (What, me Worry)
Neuman[1] on the outside of an envelope. The envelope was successfully
delivered to Mad Magazine in New York City.
Back in the late 60's someone was selling a red plastic "egg" with a slot
in the top. You would put a slip of paper with a message on it inside the
egg and then write the name, and possibly address of someone you wanted it
to go to. You then left the egg in a public spot. The egg had on the
outside, directins for those who found it to add their own message and
take the egg as far as they were able to it's destination. I put several
out and about, but as far as I know they never reached the destinations.
P.G. Wodehouse reports that he (or a friend of his) would throw his
stamped, addressed letters out of his window where they would fall down to
the street below. Him being in England at the time, he was assured that a
passing stranger would take them to the local postbox and send them on
their way. I actually did this, but scattered the letters over a portion
of Santa Cruz, CA. All but one of seven was delivered, and I even got a
postcard from someone who told me they had found and mailed the letter.
charles
[1] this is the version I've heard. If you have a different version,
please share
Derek Lyons
>Lee Ayrton wrote:
>
>> Disclaimer: Having been called once on Wikipedia's lack of oversight on
>> submissions I feel obligated to say that the above article fits well
>> with my recollection of the scheme, but has not been checked against
>> other sources.
>
>Here's a view on Wikipedia from an informed but hardly disinterested party
>
>http://www.techcentralstation.com/111504A.html
There was a recent slashdot discussion on that very article. Sadly,
much thoughtful commentary was buried under the geek-kneejerk reaction
against anyone not slavishly worshiping something so beloved of geeks.
D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.
-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
John Francis
Derek Lyons <fair...@gmail.com> wrote:
>JLB <J...@bigbad.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Lee Ayrton wrote:
>>
>>> Disclaimer: Having been called once on Wikipedia's lack of oversight on
>>> submissions I feel obligated to say that the above article fits well
>>> with my recollection of the scheme, but has not been checked against
>>> other sources.
>>
>>Here's a view on Wikipedia from an informed but hardly disinterested party
>>
>>http://www.techcentralstation.com/111504A.html
>
>There was a recent slashdot discussion on that very article. Sadly,
>much thoughtful commentary was buried under the geek-kneejerk reaction
>against anyone not slavishly worshiping something so beloved of geeks.
Depressingly predictable.
I've never had very high expectations of Wikipedia. Not that it's the
first attempt at rejecting the concept of "experts", and accepting any
and all submissions without prior editorial review - that's the original
premise on which "Wired" magazine was founded. That didn't last very
long at "Wired", but it seems rather harder to eliminate at Wikipedia.
Apparently the Wikipedia proponents seem to be unable to learn from the
experience of Google; the strength of Google is the way it is able to
sift through multiple competing sources of information and quantify the
reliability of those sources. Sure, it isn't perfect, but it's a great
deal better than no evaluation whatsoever.
Ray Heindl
> In article <slrncr9avn....@darkstar.example.net>,
> grey...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>>
>>[I got a letter from the US last week, only the town part of the
>>address, and `Ireland' . Aged relative. It got to me]
>
> Send us your photo and we'll put it on the outside of the envelope
> and see if the letter gets to you.
>
> Back in the day, someone put a picture of Alfred E. (What, me
> Worry) Neuman[1] on the outside of an envelope. The envelope was
> successfully delivered to Mad Magazine in New York City.
The version I heard was that someone drew a picture of Alfred on the
back of a stamp, and the Post Office delivered it to the Mad offices.
It seems highly improbable to me that anyone would have bothered to
look at the back of a loose stamp.
Daniel W. Johnson
> Back in the day, someone put a picture of Alfred E. (What, me Worry)
> Neuman[1] on the outside of an envelope. The envelope was successfully
> delivered to Mad Magazine in New York City.
Games Magazine would print copies of the really funky addresses (usually
rebuses and ciphers) that would still get the letters to their office.
Eventually, they found out that the local post office was just giving
them all of the strange envelopes, so anything followed by a readable
zip code would work.
Charles Bishop
<m...@privacy.net> wrote:
I googled and came up with
http://www.timewarner.com/corp/newsroom/pr/0,20812,668789,00.html
where at the bottom of the article is this quote:
"In fact, a fan in Europe once sent a letter to Mad with Alfred's face on
the envelope in lieu of a mailing address. The post office knew exactly
where to deliver it. "Now that," say the editors, "is consumer
confidence.""
No date given though.
There was also
www-jime.open.ac.uk/book-reviews/stoll.html
a review of the Cliff Stoll book, _Silicon Snake Oil_ which mentions the
gag, but I couldn't get the page to load.
There is also
http://bimmer.roadfly.org/bmw/forums/e46/478549-6.html
which is an article on the new Mad, with color and advertising. It has
this quote:
"His [Alfred E. Neuman's] idiotic grin is so recognizable that someone in
Europe once put his face on an envelope with no other information, and the
letter still made it to Mad headquarters in New York, Ficarra says. Then
again, that incident happened several decades ago. If the same stunt were
tried today, the envelope might land on the desk of Neuman look-alike Ted
Koppel or David Letterman, Ficarra says."
charles
Charles Wm. Dimmick
>>Back in the day, someone put a picture of Alfred E. (What, me
>>Worry) Neuman[1] on the outside of an envelope. The envelope was
>>successfully delivered to Mad Magazine in New York City.
WOOD
JOHN
MASS
supposedly delivered successfully to:
John Underwood
Andover, Massachusetts
Charles Wm. Dimmick
> The version I heard was that someone drew a picture of Alfred on the
> back of a stamp, and the Post Office delivered it to the Mad offices.
> It seems highly improbable to me that anyone would have bothered to
> look at the back of a loose stamp.
>
True story:
Back when I lived the other end of town, at
1718 Highland Avenue, Cheshire, CT
[now the home of Jordan Caterers] I once
received a letter addressed to me at:
1718 Island Avenue
Chester, CT [Yes, there is a Chester, CT]
Charles
Dr H
On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Ray Heindl vociferated:
}"ron saarna" <dukiesp...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
}
}> While not quite arrested, I did something similar once at my lo
}> cal branch and had to prove I had an account there. I would
}> imagine I would have either been refused or had to pay a service
}> fee for them to accept $45 in pennies, nickles and dimes,
}> (wrapped, yet!) had it not been my branch. They carefully wrote
}> my account number on every roll to make sure that when it went
}> through their hopper that I wasn't shaving off a coin per roll.
}> Even if it was all dimes, I guess someone out there thought I was
}> making a good living grifting 90 cents per transaction for the
}> half hour I stood in line and they had to draw the line somewhere.
}
}The first time I deposited a lot of coins (~30 pounds (avoirdupois, not
}Sterling)) the bank didn't have any problem with it. In fact, the
}other tellers came over to get some of the rolls; I guess they were
}short of change that day.
}
}The second time, at a different branch, they wanted my account number
}on each roll, and handed me a pen. I wrote the number on the first few
}rolls, then made an illegible scribble on the rest that seemed to
}satisfy them.
That's just bizarre.
It's not unusual for a bank to ask if you have an account with them
prior to /any/ transaction, since if you don't there are all sorts of
nifty services fees they can charge.
But writing your account number on the coin wrappers??
Most banks around here will tell you not to bother putting the coins in
rolls at all, since all they do is tear off the rolls, toss them, and
dump the coins into the hopper of the coin-counter.
Dr H
Dr H
On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Louise Bremner vociferated:
}Ray Heindl <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
}
}> dame_...@yahoo.com (Louise Bremner) wrote:
}>
}> > Ray Heindl <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
}> >
}> >> More info: http://tinyurl.com/6rbx2 (Feel free to lie when they
}> >> ask for your zip code, sex, and year of birth. It won't accept
}> >> birth years earlier than 1901, a clear case of age
}> >> discrimination.)
}> >
}> > Or simply click on the link beside "Outside The US?"....
}>
}> I prefer lying just to mess up their statistics.
}
}There is that, of course. Even more enjoyable when they present many
}questions such as "Your position in your company", with CEO as the first
}option....
And "prone" as the last?
Dr H
Dr H
On Mon, 6 Dec 2004, R H Draney vociferated:
A cosmopolitan dwelling.
Dr H
Derek Lyons
>In article <41b6f174...@supernews.seanet.com>,
>Derek Lyons <fair...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>JLB <J...@bigbad.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>Lee Ayrton wrote:
>>>
>>>> Disclaimer: Having been called once on Wikipedia's lack of oversight on
>>>> submissions I feel obligated to say that the above article fits well
>>>> with my recollection of the scheme, but has not been checked against
>>>> other sources.
>>>
>>>Here's a view on Wikipedia from an informed but hardly disinterested party
>>>
>>>http://www.techcentralstation.com/111504A.html
>>
>>There was a recent slashdot discussion on that very article. Sadly,
>>much thoughtful commentary was buried under the geek-kneejerk reaction
>>against anyone not slavishly worshiping something so beloved of geeks.
>
>Depressingly predictable.
<nods> Agreed.
I dug up the Slashdot article, it makes for illuminating reading.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/16/1319242&tid=95
>I've never had very high expectations of Wikipedia. Not that it's the
>first attempt at rejecting the concept of "experts", and accepting any
>and all submissions without prior editorial review - that's the original
>premise on which "Wired" magazine was founded. That didn't last very
>long at "Wired", but it seems rather harder to eliminate at Wikipedia.
"Wired", unlike the 'pedia, is run for profit and has a group of
managers dedicated to that idea. The 'pedia has a group of managers
dedicated to the idea that experts are unneeded and that truth can be
reached through populism. The Open Source movement has glommed onto
the 'pedia as well and donates cash to them whenever the 'pedia runs
short.
Both Slashdot and Everything2 should have warned the editors of the
'pedia of the dangers of populist truth, but they seem immune to
anything that contradicts their sociological construct. (Somewhere in
the Wikimedia multiverse, I even a found a page dedicated to
'countering common criticisms of Wikipedia', the logical fallacies on
the page are both appalling and glaringly obvious. Yet any edit of
the page is instantly reverted.
>Apparently the Wikipedia proponents seem to be unable to learn from the
>experience of Google; the strength of Google is the way it is able to
>sift through multiple competing sources of information and quantify the
>reliability of those sources. Sure, it isn't perfect, but it's a great
>deal better than no evaluation whatsoever.
I'd have to say that Google fails abysmally at that task as well.
Mostly because of the flaws of the 'net itself - it's mostly shallow,
mostly unedited, mostly un-fact-checked, highly biased etc... The
'net is wonderful in spots, but once you get beyond computers, pop
culture, and fansites, the waters become murky indeed.
Crashj
(Charles Bishop) wrote something like:
>In article <slrncr9avn....@darkstar.example.net>,
>grey...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>>
>>[I got a letter from the US last week, only the town part of the
>>address, and `Ireland' . Aged relative. It got to me]
>
>Send us your photo and we'll put it on the outside of the envelope and see
>if the letter gets to you.
>
>Back in the day, someone put a picture of Alfred E. (What, me Worry)
>Neuman[1] on the outside of an envelope. The envelope was successfully
>delivered to Mad Magazine in New York City.
<>
I had heard it was the playboy bunny silhouette.
--
Crashj
Crashj
<cdim...@snet.net> wrote something like:
<>
>And we do have a few instances where the Official Town Name as
>recorded by the State of Connecticut is not quite the same as
>the Official Town Name as recorded by the post office.
The post office address in some locations is based on the location of
the post office, not the name of a town.
Etters PA 17319 is not a town. The post office had been located in a
store operated by a Mr. Etter.
--
Crashj
David DeLaney
> It's not unusual for a bank to ask if you have an account with them
> prior to /any/ transaction, since if you don't there are all sorts of
> nifty services fees they can charge.
>
> But writing your account number on the coin wrappers??
Confirmed here in TN; at this gaming store, Jym the owner says the bank wants
him to put the store's account number on any coins we roll ourselves. He
uses the same stamp that he uses on the checks...
Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Bob Ward
Don't be silly! What would Alfred E. Neumann want with a Playboy
Bunny silhouette?
R H Draney
>
>On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 04:55:28 GMT, Crashj
><leader00...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>>On or about Tue, 07 Dec 2004 06:07:10 GMT, ctbi...@earthlink.netttt
>>(Charles Bishop) wrote something like:
>>
>>>Neuman[1] on the outside of an envelope. The envelope was successfully
>>>delivered to Mad Magazine in New York City.
>><>
>>I had heard it was the playboy bunny silhouette.
>
>Don't be silly! What would Alfred E. Neumann want with a Playboy
>Bunny silhouette?
He may be an idiot but he's no fool....r
JLB
they seem immune to
> anything that contradicts their sociological construct. (Somewhere in
> the Wikimedia multiverse, I even a found a page dedicated to
> 'countering common criticisms of Wikipedia', the logical fallacies on
> the page are both appalling and glaringly obvious. Yet any edit of
> the page is instantly reverted.
Well, be fair, that is one way to counter common criticisms.
Thomas Prufer
wrote:
>True story:
>Back when I lived the other end of town, at
>1718 Highland Avenue, Cheshire, CT
>[now the home of Jordan Caterers] I once
>received a letter addressed to me at:
>1718 Island Avenue
>Chester, CT [Yes, there is a Chester, CT]
A letter addressed to "Prufer, Munich" was successfully delivered from the US,
sometime in the early seventies...
Thomas Prufer
Lee Ayrton
> Dr H <hiaw...@efn.org> wrote:
>> It's not unusual for a bank to ask if you have an account with them
>> prior to /any/ transaction, since if you don't there are all sorts of
>> nifty services fees they can charge.
>>
>> But writing your account number on the coin wrappers??
>
> Confirmed here in TN; at this gaming store, Jym the owner says the bank
> wants him to put the store's account number on any coins we roll
> ourselves. He uses the same stamp that he uses on the checks...
And confirmed here in sunny Connecticut. On the desk behind me is $21.00
in rolled coins with my bank account number written on each roll.
But why would this be a business practice to be questioned? My bank won't
stall the line to run the coins through a counter while-U-wait and they
want to be able to track the rolls that are short, long or contain slugs.
--
Some conditions apply. YMMV. This message was packed by weight, not
by volume. TWIAVBP, local variation may occur. Dramatization, not a real
authority. Do not induce vomiting. No user-serviceable words inside.
Dr H
On Tue, 8 Dec 2004, David DeLaney vociferated:
}Dr H <hiaw...@efn.org> wrote:
}> It's not unusual for a bank to ask if you have an account with them
}> prior to /any/ transaction, since if you don't there are all sorts of
}> nifty services fees they can charge.
}>
}> But writing your account number on the coin wrappers??
}
}Confirmed here in TN; at this gaming store, Jym the owner says the bank wants
}him to put the store's account number on any coins we roll ourselves. He
}uses the same stamp that he uses on the checks...
Oh I wasn't doubting that someone, somewhere did it. It's just a
strange thing to do, IMO.
Dr H
Dr H
On Wed, 8 Dec 2004, Lee Ayrton vociferated:
}On Wed, 8 Dec 2004, David DeLaney wrote:
}
}> Dr H <hiaw...@efn.org> wrote:
}> > It's not unusual for a bank to ask if you have an account with them prior
}> > to /any/ transaction, since if you don't there are all sorts of nifty
}> > services fees they can charge.
}> >
}> > But writing your account number on the coin wrappers??
}>
}> Confirmed here in TN; at this gaming store, Jym the owner says the bank wants
}> him to put the store's account number on any coins we roll ourselves. He uses
}> the same stamp that he uses on the checks...
}
}And confirmed here in sunny Connecticut. On the desk behind me is $21.00 in
}rolled coins with my bank account number written on each roll.
}
}But why would this be a business practice to be questioned? My bank won't
}stall the line to run the coins through a counter while-U-wait and they want to
}be able to track the rolls that are short, long or contain slugs.
I've never had any bank issue me paper currency for coins without first
putting the coins through their counter. If they're busy they either
ask me to come back at another time, or they direct me to a seat in the
lobby where I can wait until they have suficient break in the customer
flow to process the coins.
Bear in mind that Eugene, Oregon is not exactly the same sort of teaming
metropolis as, say, Chicago, or even Seattle, so banks here may not be
as crowded as where you do business.
Although come to think of it, I've had the same experience with banks in
New York and New Jersery.
Dr H
Lon
Presuming you believe that this was not just one of the many
entries in "Clever Mail Addresses" articles.