- Finding out Starbucks is ripping you off (in another way) is a bit like finding out city workers have figured out a new way to slack off while in the job: You’re not surprised and you’ve seen this movie enough times that you’ve built up a tolerance to the point you’re just not that offended. People who get their coffee or coffee-like products from Starbucks are not focused on keeping costs to a minimum and dining/drinking on a budget, so maybe this isn't as big of a deal as it could be. However, it’s a big enough deal for the Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs to raise a major stink over Howard Schultz’s company charging an additional $1.50 fee to bags of coffee weighing less than a pound for customers who prefer to brew their own brand at home instead of downing it inside a chain restaurant while serenaded with crappy Top 40 music the store is also trying to sell them while trying to find a table not already taken by some self-employed kook who has set up their own office at a booth with their wireless printer and desktop computer. The surcharge wasn't posted or itemized on the receipt, meaning Starbucks could simply pry the extra $1.50 out of customers’ pockets without having anyone aware of it……or so they thought. The state of Massachusetts discovered the practice during the summer and fined the five locations engaging in the practice a total of $1,575. With the secret fee, beans listed at $11.95 per pound ended up costing $7.45 for a half-pound - not $5.98, or half the price. Just for kicks and giggles, what was the rationale behind the fee? A Starbucks spokesman said the company charged extra for half-pound bags to cover additional labor and packaging costs - or possibly so their disinterested baristas could add another stud to their growing collection of nose piercings. Following the complaint in Massachusetts, the practice has been dropped at Starbucks locations nationwide……………
- The Big Ten (11) has made some stupid decisions over the past year or so, but removing disgraced ex-Penn State football coach Joe Paterno's name from the new Big Ten championship trophy is not one of them. The conference announced the move Monday, just five days after the ongoing child sex-abuse scandal at Penn State led to Paterno’s firing. The trophy will be awarded Dec. 3 at the inaugural Big Ten football championship game at Indianapolis and was to be called the Stagg-Paterno Championship Trophy in honor of Paterno and legendary coach Amos Alonzo Stagg, who won 319 games in 57 years, most at the University of Chicago. "We believe that it would be inappropriate to keep Joe Paterno's name on the trophy at this time," Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said in a statement. "The trophy and its namesake are intended to be celebratory and aspirational, not controversial. We believe that it's important to keep the focus on the players and the teams that will be competing in the inaugural championship game." The trophy will now be called the Stagg Championship Trophy and ironically enough, Penn State is in good position to play for it as the frontrunner in its division of the Big 10. The winningest coach in college football history will not be a part of that game as Paterno and his 409 career wins await his fate during a U.S. Department of Education investigation into Penn State's response to the allegations of sexual abuse involving retired Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky and Paterno’s (and other school officials) inaction or indifference in responding to the allegations once they came to their attention. Penn State said it would not comment on the Big Ten’s decision, but Robert Stagg, a great grandson of Amos Alonzo Stagg, said last week his family was proud to have the Stagg name on the trophy whatever happened with Paterno's name. Now if the Big Ten would only eliminate the moronic “Legends” and “Leaders” names it gave to its newly-created divisions when they formed last year and replace them with something that doesn’t absolutely suck…………..
- Too late for many but still needed, Apple officially launched its iTunes Match service Monday. The $24.99-per-year iTunes Match debuted alongside the release of iTunes 10.5.1, an upgrade needed to fix a critical security vulnerability that could let hackers push fake software updates to Windows and Mac users. Then-CEO Steve Jobs introduced iTunes March in June and it was scheduled for a late-October launch. Jobs passed away in the interim and the company did not hit its target date. iTunes match allows users to take tracks they have ripped or acquired through other means (i.e. illegally downloaded) and listen to them from multiple devices, instead of only the Windows PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch where the files are stored. These tracks are automatically uploaded to iCloud, Apple's free syncing service. For security conscious users, iTunes Match doesn't require users to actually upload their music library, but instead the scans a customer's collection, matches it against the 18 million tracks in Apple's music store and makes the matches available for instant downloading to a maximum of 10 devices or computers from iCloud. A major positive for those who have pirated, er, um acquired lower-quality versions of songs is that the matched tracks on Apple's servers are 256Kbps copies, even if the ripped tunes were originally a lower-bitrate version. Users can have up to 25,000 tracks not purchased via iTunes stored on iCloud using iTunes Match; iTunes-bought tunes do not count toward the maximum. Apple created controversy with its initial launch of Match, tagging it with a message on its website claiming that "Due to overwhelming demand, iTunes Match is not accepting new subscriptions at this time." Some users attempted to sign up anyhow and a few were successful. When Jobs first announced iTunes Match, he claimed the matching procedure would take "minutes, not weeks" in a thinly veiled jab at the music lockers run by rivals Amazon and Google. The actual speed of the process depends on the size of the user's collection and the speed of his or her Internet connection and iTunes 10.5.1 is necessary to subscribe to iTunes Match from a Windows PC or Mac. can be downloaded from Apple's website. In addition to enabling iTunes Match, the software update also patched a vulnerability that could be used by hackers to stage "man-in-the-middle" attacks that appear to be available software updates. Not surprisingly, Windows users who have not installed the Apple Software Update utility on their PCs are most at risk. Yes, Windows still sucks. Credit for discovering the bug goes to Argentinian researcher Francisco Amato, who produced an attack tool dubbed "Evilgrade" that could inject fake updates for a variety of applications and operating systems, including iTunes, Mac OS X's Software Update and Microsoft's Windows Update. Thanks for the assist, Frankie……………
- Memo to anyone waiting in downtown L.A. for the “Twilight: Breaking Dawn” premiere: You are an irredeemable, pathetic loser. In fact, you are in the process of topping every dork who has ever camped out at the theater to get into the first screening of any new Star Wars or Lord of the Rings movies and blowing right by all of the ass hats who will spend all or at least part of next week camped out in line at their favorite store to secure the best Black Friday deals the day after Thanksgiving. How? While waiting for the premiere of their favorite movie, “Twilight” fans have set up camp in downtown Los Angeles in tents gathered under a larger tent at L.A. Live since Wednesday. These knobs are publicly proclaiming that they have nothing in their life in which they are important enough to make their presence for four-plus days a necessity. Camping out for the better part of a week for a movie premiere says to the world, “No one needs me and no one cares if I’m not there, so I can put my life on pause for four or five days and sleep outside all to be part of the premiere for a terrible movie whose outcome I ALREADY KNOW BECAUSE IT’S BASED ON A BOOK.” While the Occupy Wall Street movement’s left coast bastard brother Occupy L.A. goes on across town, the “Twilight” tools sit around not looking to affect any change at all or make the world a better place. These kooks got some extra entertainment Sunday morning in the form of some of the film’s supporting cast members, including Peter Facinelli, Jackson Rathbone, BooBoo Stewart, Casey LaBow and MyAnna Buring. All five made the mistake of encouraging the Twi-losers by showing up for a breakfast-time autograph session and photo fest ahead of Monday's big event. “Twilight” author Stephenie Meyer also showed ahead of the red carpet for the first time, handing out 600 pre-autographed copies of "Breaking Dawn" and chatting it up with the dweebs in line. The film’s big stars were held off for later in the day, while the film premieres across the Atlantic in London's Stratford district Wednesday and hits U.S. theaters Friday. Let the swooning over hunky vampires begin……………
- Basic cable networks already place hidden cameras in taxicabs to film secret confessions or covert versions of mobile quiz shows, so the next logical step has to be The Man listening in on citizens’ cab rides, right? The city of Oxford is taking up the quest and there are some extremely unhappy Brits as a result. Citizens and civil liberties group were quick to express outrage at the English city's plan to install audio recorders in licensed taxicabs as a security measure. City officials in Oxford announced Monday that starting next year, the city’s 600-plus cabs will carry audio-equipped cameras that run whenever the vehicle is in use, "leading the way" in ensuring the safety of passengers and drivers. The plan didn’t go well with the condiment-aly named Nick Pickles of Big Brother Watch, who blasted the decision and vowed his group would complain to an independent regulator. "This is a staggering invasion of privacy, being done with ... a total disregard for civil liberties," a sour Pickles said. Officials may have been able to head off some of the outrage had they merely been prepared to defend their decision with crime figures regarding taxi drivers or their passengers to justify the decision. Britain isn't exactly devoid of other examples of Big Brother watching its citizens’ daily lives, as the nation has hundreds of thousands of surveillance cameras in public places, including many trains, subways and buses. However, nonbinding guidelines from independent regulator the Information Commissioner's Office say recording conversations is "highly intrusive and unlikely to be justified." Oxford City Council was quick to dismiss concerns over privacy violations, stating the recordings of conversations between passengers would be available only to police or other authorities in connection with specific investigations. "The risk of intrusion into private conversations has to be balanced against the interests of public safety, both of passengers and drivers," said a council spokeswoman, who surprisingly declined to be identified, in keeping with departmental policy. Isn’t the purpose of a spokesperson to put a face to an otherwise faceless collection of individuals, be it a team, company or government agency? This mysterious spokeswoman added that the level of privacy passengers could expect in a taxi was "far lower" than in a home or personal vehicle. Julian Alison, the licensing team leader for the city, argued that the recordings would boost the confidence of taxi-users and create a safer environment for drivers. The council is "committed to ensuring the safety of those who live in, work in, and visit the city and through the implementation of schemes such as CCTV in licensed vehicles," Alison explained. As per the proposed council plan, conversations in taxis would be recorded from the time a cab’s engine is running until 30 minutes after the vehicle’s ignition is turned off. Filming in most taxis would require one camera positioned above the rearview mirror, but the council said larger vehicles could require an extra camera to ensure the whole of the interior is viewable. No one would view the footage recorded by the audio-equipped cameras unless an incident took place, but it would be kept on a hard-drive for 28 days in case a specific investigation or incident calls for a viewing. Still, civil liberties groups would undoubtedly argue the hard drive could be hacked and the footage leaked…………
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