In 1999, UC-Davis civil engineer David Phillips was grocery shopping when he noticed something peculiar. Healthy Choice Foods was offering frequent-flyer miles to customers who bought its products. But a 25-cent pudding would bring 100 miles — the reward was worth more than the product itself.
Recognizing a good thing, Phillips bought 12,150 servings of pudding for $3,140, claiming he was stocking up for Y2K. Then he enlisted the Salvation Army to help him peel off the UPC codes, in exchange for donating the pudding.
He mailed his submission to Healthy Choice, and to their credit they awarded him 1.25 million frequent-flyer miles, enough for 31 round trips to Europe, 42 to Hawaii, 21 to Australia, or 50 anywhere in the United States.
There’s no downside. Phillips also got Aadvantage Gold status for life with American Airlines, which brings a special reservations number, priority boarding, upgrades, and bonus miles. And he got an $815 tax writeoff for donating the pudding.
^ Another reason we should always pay attention to the small details.
Most people want to survive the apocalypse, I’m just looking to enjoy it.
-From reddit
Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, “This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!”
This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it’s still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.
-Douglas Adams
The contents of a Daily Show giftbag:
-Monopoly Board game.
-One huge bottle of Cherry Flavored Vodka — in case you want to go get some high school kids hammered after the show.
-One bottle of 1800 Tequila
-A package of those Nespresso packets but no machine by which to actually make an espresso
-One Daily Show Hat
-One Daily Show T-shirt
-One gift certificate to get a professional photographic portrait of your pet — in case you are ever traveling through NY with your dog.
Good Superbowl, glad to see the Saints win and have it be a close game for most of it.
I have to say, the most interesting topic I was involved in today was on sex changes in Islam. I never thought six years ago that I’d help create a community that had those discussions. It’s nice to see things blossom. They grow up so fast.
I have to feel bad for whoever duped Qualcomm into thinking FloTV was a good idea to spend millions on. The concept isn’t bad; mobile TV is a very cool product. It just isn’t worth the allocation of so much capital for a venture that will have a minimal ROI. The service has been tried with cell phones and it miserably failed. 15/month + 200 for the unit is a high price to pay. Media like sports scores and play-by-play can be had on mobile websites, as can political news. Adult Swim and other network TV can be had on netbooks, laptops, etc. with their respective network sites or on places like Hulu. Phones that support Flash even have those. And it’s not anything extra than your monthly overall data plan. The target market already has these phones too. The luxury market doesn’t need this, as they will already have satellite radio in their Lexus’ SUV’s and multiple TV’s.
On a side note, the “bi-cultural” MTV Tres AKA the MTV channel aimed at Hispanic/Latino markets failed on actual TV and now has been banished to the title of “exclusively on V Cast Mobile TV” for “select phones” on the Verizon service. Sad.
Mercenary
A long human life adds up to only about 650,000 hours.
That works out to be around 27,000 days.
Something to think about, and something to not take for granted.
This Week
Positive :: Moving the trial out of NYC. Security nightmare (200million at that), whereas a smaller town or a place like 29 Palms could would be much more secure and utilize military personnel.
Neutral :: State of the Union. I see the connection between increasing math and science leading to new service jobs and contributing to a doubling of exports “in the next five years”. At the same time, we are a country at a loss in the production of goods and resources.
Industrial hemp, wind, solar energy, and the production of capital resources to use them is the way to go. Look at Japan in the 80′s, when they focused on developing new technology and machinery instead of simply focusing on consumer goods. The banks may have tanked in the 90′s but they are still a powerhouse and have companies like Sony, Onkyo, Toyota, etc.
If America was to do this in conjunction with the emphasis on math and science, we could move forward and not ruin the environment with destructive acts like shearing the tops off mountains for coal mining.
Negative :: Let’s focus on the positives. No negatives this week