Dell Linux PC storefront fails the thoroughness check

At the time of writing, the following could be seen atop the Dell Linux storefront:


I'm not sure if they wanted "system" to be plural or for the words "one of" to be removed, but one or the other must happen! I notified Dell support. I wonder see how long it'll take their corporate structure to respond.

Update 6/1/2007 @ noon: In the comments, JohnP@Dell said: Kyle, Great catch! ...Passing your post on to our Web team.

Wow, Dell definitely passed the responsiveness check. Now, on to buying my new Ubuntu machine...

Update 6/5/2007 @ 10:40: I forgot to check the site for the last few days, but I looked this morning and the grammatical error is fixed. Good job, Dell!

Shopgoodwill.com: buy weird crap from the kinds of people that will NEVER use the internet

Tonight, I realized that I now buy nearly everything online. In fact, I really only have IRL shopping experiences at thrift stores, Asian/Mexican bazaars here in the Mission District, or Walgreens (the place that bleeds me dry when I purchase something I need urgently enough not to buy it online). It's impossible to replace the ambience of the bazaars with a website, and Walgreens is necessary for stated reasons, so I decided to look for online thrift stores.

After a quick Google search, I stumbled upon this site, Shopgoodwill.com, and I thought to myself "uh oh... this could be a pretty important find." I made a mental note to blog about it if it were, indeed, a pretty important find. And here we are.

It didn't take me long to find the Men's Clothing section, and I wasn't disappointed to find this:

Mens XL Disco Shirt DESCRIPTION: This shirt needs cleaning.

Then, in the Women's Clothing section, this:
Fake Fur Vest

However, the clothing selection here suffers from the same thing as Goodwill's brick and mortar incarnations: the inverse bell curve. See the following graphs:




As you can see, at Goodwill, more people fit into the 'WTF' size range or the ~0 size than anything else (the second graph). Because of this polarized populace, there are remarkably low numbers of size 'M' people at Goodwill, considering that this is the size most represented in the population as a whole (the first graph). And, I assume as a result of this, the number of size 'M' garments is also dangerously low. This inverse bell curve, I found, applies to both the selection and the people at Shopgoodwill.com.

I left the clothing section behind, happy with what I found there.

At first, the weirdness of the crap I was digging through felt like an adventuresome treasure hunt and yielded hilarious results, like any reasonably good day at the real thrift store. This is a ringing endorsement -- I had found a new hobby! However, as my search went on, the item selection deviated increasingly from the norm:

Newspaper Clip in frame from 1936
Two Old Hand Saws
Oil Painting of a Girl on a Beach
Case of 500 - 3"x2"x2" Boxes

This is brilliant! I'm finding more and more bizarre crap -- the kind that is definitely not available for purchase on other websites, because the people selling this crap aren't the kinds of people that use the internet in the first place. These products are provided by people dumping their junk off at several federated Goodwill locations nationwide -- and many of these people aren't advanced enough as netizens to become sellers on sites like eBay and Craigslist. But Shopgoodwill.com lowers the barrier to entry for the internet economy, if only in this weird little niche. Some Goodwill dumpers are people moving house (or, hopefully, moving trailer) with a need to offload a ton of junk quickly. Others are donating the contents of the storage shed of a recently deceased uncle -- perhaps one with oil paintings? Most are probably thrift store community members who have no idea that there's even an online component of the system that sells their bizarre crap.

This bizarre crap is mixed with another kind of crap -- the kind that, while it may be available on eBay from time-to-time, I would never find because it's not like I perform constant searches for items like these -- these are the kinds of products that I don't know I want til I see them.

And for that kind of impulsive and weird consumer, vintage and thrift stores have long been a haven. Shopgoodwill.com is a kickass extension to that.

If you find weird junk at the site, post it in the comments!

Writing your own headlines (ignoring your own deadlines)

My parents, both nurses, recently moved to Columbia to work at the University Hospital there. Out of curiosity, I was browsing the Wikipedia article on Columbia, MO, when I came upon a link to an article entitled Columbia College ranked among “America’s Best Colleges”. I was intrigued, but upon reading it, I noticed an astounding difference between the meaning of the headline and the meaning of the story:

The college ranked 35th for the second consecutive year in the Best Comprehensive Colleges-Bachelor’s category for the Midwest region.

As I was reading, I honestly thought the number of qualifiers would never end.

Municipal Classification by Playground Analysis

I have developed a pretty simple method for judging the crime level in a neighborhood. Here’s the quick and dirty version:

Go to the neighborhood park, and check out the basketball goal/hoop. Particularly, just below the rim, check to see if there is one of the following: (A) a nylon net, (B) a chain net, or (C) nothing at all. This list is arranged in ascending order of the crime level of the surrounding neighborhoods. That is, at least in areas with similar levels of municipal contribution, “type A” neighborhoods that can sustain nylon nets have lower crime than the “type B” neighborhoods with chain nets. The worst neighborhoods, then, are the “type C” neighborhoods with no nets at all.

Explanation: In “type B” neighborhoods, the local kiddies just love to burn nylon basketball nets. Depending on the variety of net, this activity can be very enjoyable. This is just the sort of entertainment that somewhat bored suburban kids might partake in before stealing another kid’s bike. So, the local government uses the extent of its awesome power to switch to metal chains. Minor basketball hoop abuse leads to minor crimes.

In significantly worse “type C” neighborhoods, gang members and other tough young ruffians make it a habit to dismantle metal basketball nets and use the chains as weapons in various violent misadventures. Wise city council members convene once more, voting to stop arming these young mercenaries. They get rid of nets altogether. In the end, there is no longer a satisfying “swish” or “clang” to reward talented shooters for draining threes, and to believe my analysis, this happens in the neighborhoods that need the relaxing auditory feedback the most!

Ernst & Young Irony

I stumbled upon this about a year ago at ey.com. Note how the black doesn't line up.

Update 1/31/2007: This flaw is still on the site. I'm starting to feel guilty that I noticed this and didn't email them about it, or something. I'd surely lend them a hand if the logo didn't make such a bold claim...

Update 4/2/2007: Their website took a huge while to respond, and the flaw is still there. I'm seriously thinking of calling them to let them know.