• Teen Girl Falls in Open Manhole While Texting: The family may sue the city.
• "Orgasm A Day" Campaign Directed At British Schoolchildren Sparks Controversy: The leaflet for high school students includes the slogan "an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away".
• Wells Fargo Bank Sues Itself: "Wells Fargo holds the first and second mortgages on a condominium [and as] holder of the first, Wells Fargo is suing all other lien holders, including ... itself."

I found the above screenshot via Mashable. See my prior example of bad ad targeting.

From the Los Angeles Times:

When the iPhone first hit the market in June 2007, those who paid the $499 entry price -- and signed the two-year AT&T contract -- owned a status symbol. A year later, we have the iPhone 3G, Apple's speedier, sleeker and, most important, less expensive smart phone, which introduced a section for downloading third-party applications. Now that the phone is affordable enough for a wider audience, a new status symbol has emerged: a seemingly useless application called I Am Rich.

Its function is exactly what the name implies: to alert people that you have money in the bank. I Am Rich was available for purchase from the phone's App Store for, get this, $999.99 -- the highest amount a developer can charge through the digital retailer, said Armin Heinrich, the program's developer. Once downloaded, it doesn't do much -- a red icon sits on the iPhone home screen like any other application, with the subtext "I Am Rich." Once activated, it treats the user to a large, glowing gem (pictured above). That's about it. For a thousand dollars.

Eight people bought the application before Apple removed it from its online store.

I saw this bumper sticker in the Google parking lot:

Don't get it? It's a reference to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) challenge to build a vehicle capable of driving itself and, of course, to the Christian bumper sticker, "In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned."

(Other responses to the rapture bumper sticker are In case of rapture, can I have your car? and In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned. It will then recklessly careen into children at a school crossing -- killing all of them.)

After complimenting the owner, I found out that the sticker is sold by ThinkGeek.

From Reuters via Consumerist:

Nearly half of British men surveyed would give up sex for six months in return for a 50-inch plasma TV, a survey -- perhaps unsurprisingly carried out for a firm selling televisions -- said on Friday.

Electrical retailer Comet ... found 47 percent of men would give up sex for half a year, compared to just over a third of women.

"It seems that size really does matter more for men than women," the firm said....

Presumably it's the upper half of men that would prefer the television to sex.

[After watching our nieces play with a Wii]

Ellen: Apparently, the physics simulation on the Wii is so advanced that it's even more accurate than real life.

[Discussing the week's news]

Ellen: Hillary Clinton criticized Barack Obama for trying drugs when he was younger.

Keith: As opposed to trying them but not inhaling?

[On a Chicago Hauntings Tour that our niece wanted to attend; we are more skeptical]

Tour guide: Signs of haunting include lights turning on and off, unexplained noises, broken glass...

Keith (sotte voce to Ellen): Sudden appearances of baseballs.

[Ellen and Keith with their nieces]

Ellen: Did you hear about the restaurant on the moon? It has great food ... but no atmosphere.

Niece: I thought it would have lots of dairy.

Keith: From cows jumping over the moon?

Ellen: Or ground beef from the ones who didn't make it.

According to The Consumerist, ratings plummeted for the TV show Desperate Housewives after high definition television (HDTV) "let viewers see the stars' wrinkles and age-lines in true detail". Fortunately, technology has a cure for the problems wrought by technology: airbrushes, now being used to precisely apply make-up and cover any imperfections. (I consider this the greatest use of technology to counter technology since the snooze alarm neutralized the alarm clock.)

This problem was reported on back in 1996 by The (British) Independent:

Greater clarity means viewers get a much better look at faces that for years appeared flawless. In the United States, where the images have already begun beaming, previously unseen spots, blemishes and crow's feet are being highlighted on visages, prompting outbreaks of fury and talk of legal action against commentators who have ridiculed celebrities over their looks....

"For the last few weeks in our make-up department we've started experimenting with make-up for HDTV," said Ms Gerbeau. "One of the big things is we've been using an airbrush to apply the foundation, which looks like a dentist's drill. It's like being a canvas that's spray painted, but the idea is that it gives a natural, uniform look to the complexion of the presenters."

All of this is good news for the cosmetics companies. Clinique has launched a line of products for television firms that will also be released on the general market. Dr David Orentreich, a dermatologist for Clinique, said that advance orders were already coming in for the company's "HDTV kit", which includes a "pore minimiser", "colour correctors" and an "anti-oxidant rescue serum"....

Other presenters are reported to be requesting "Botox budgets" on their expense accounts and contributions towards facial peels. They are doing so largely as a result of what has happened in the US. There, celebrities ranging from Desperate Housewives actress Teri Hatcher to pop star Britney Spears have been slaughtered over their "real" appearance. One commentator, Phillip Swann, has become a pseudo celebrity in his own right for highlighting HDTV horrors on his cult website, www.tvpredictions.com.

I continue to be happy with a twenty-something inch analog TV set.

Two months after releasing the iPhone at $600, Apple reduced the price by $200. Early purchasers are outraged, despite the $100 credit Apple subsequently gave them. There were two outraged pleas on The Consumerist, a blog I ordinarily enjoy.

One whiner writes:

In response to the announcement issued yesterday by Mr. Jobs, I would like to know how is it even reasonable to expect that pissed off customers WANT $100 towards more Apple gear? What good does $100 towards new stuff do, if I never plan to shop at Apple again as a result of this greedy stunt? I'm in the tech industry--one could reasonably expect that a new version and a lower price would happen around December, given the holidays and the fact that it's 6 months after the launch. But this week, and a 33% cut? That's outrageous, especially when the standard return policies for most smart retailers are 30, 60 or 90 days...not 14. Apple has just destroyed their brand in my eyes.

I would like to know how this company plans to legitimately address my (and others') concerns--not just pay lip-service and attempt to get us to buy more stuff.

As far as I'm concerned, Apple was under no obligation to provide the $100 credit, for which early buyers should be thankful. Commenters shared my lack of sympathy:

BY CAPTAINCONSUMER

Uh oh, somebody better call the waaaaaaaaambulance.

Look if the prices on these STAYED high or even went up, these same early adopters who defied every warning prices would fall would be GLOATING and CROWING about how they were ahead of the curve and SMART shoppers.

BY YAHONZA

Unbelievable. This whole episode should convince Apple and other companies not to lower their prices so much or so quickly. Nice work, assholes.

BY HOMERJAY

Way to bite the hand that feeds you cool gadgets, douche. Be happy you didn't trade the lease to your car for a Ribwitch.

I found out from FARK about a diet fork with the following features:

• Shorter and dulled teeth inhibiting user from grasping larger pieces of food at any one time
• Smaller triangular shaped surface area allowing dieter to hold less food than many other forks
• Uncomfortable grip compelling user to put fork down between bites, slowing the user's eating speed

This appears to be a real product, available for purchase.

A cliché of the software industry is "That's not a bug, that's a feature". (See, for example, the jargon file.) While normally limited to software, this equivocation was applied to hardware with the Apple Shuffle. Specifically, the Shuffle's lack of an LCD screen and the ability to select which song to play next were touted as a feature with the slogan "Life is random!"

I'd love to see other people's favorite examples of bugs marketed as features.

A North Denver Newsarticle article by James Benfly reported:

Thomas Martel, 28, of Bonnie Brae is a big guy. So he has a hard time using the features on ever-shrinking user interfaces on devices like his new iPhone. At least, he did, until he had his thumbs surgically altered in a revolutionary new surgical technique known as "whittling."

"From my old Treo, to my Blackberry, to this new iPhone, I had a hard time hitting the right buttons, and I always lost those little styluses," explains Martel. "Sure, the procedure was expensive, but when I think of all the time I save by being able to use modern handhelds so much faster, I really think the surgery will pay for itself in ten to fifteen years. And what it's saving me in frustration - that's priceless."....

Apparently meant as satire, the August 8 article was reported elsewhere as fact, such as by the Christian Broadcasting Network, but questioned by Richard Martin in Information Week.