Chase solved the financial crisis
Chase has figured out how to recoup their losses, and it’s ingenious. Don’t give out money, but pretend like you did.
Let me explain.
I went to an ATM today and requested forty dollars. I don’t know if I’m the only one, but every time I’m at an ATM I have an irrational fear that it’ll screw up the counting and nobody will believe me when I try to correct the mistake. I always think this, but of course, it has never happened.
Today was worse. It said, “Please take your cash” and did not give me anything to take. I didn’t request a receipt, because they always end up in the trash two seconds later.
A woman saw my confusion and said, “Did it not give you your money? That happened to me. You need to make like 10 calls to your bank, a few calls to the number on the ATM and it’s all super annoying, but you’ll eventually get your money back.”
I went into the Duane Reade that houses the ATM (for those who don’t know, Duane Reade is like a CVS or Walgreens) and told the manager that the machine was broken.
He said, “Sorry, we can’t put a sign on the ATM. Chase doesn’t allow us to.”
I was stunned. Not only do I have to go through this hassle, but every person for the rest of the day will also get screwed.
Now, here’s the best part. The fact that you have to jump through hurdles to get your money back makes it just like mail-in rebates. There’s simply some percentage of people that will not bother or forget about it. At that point, it’s turned into free money for Chase. Woo! Financial crisis over.
I don’t actually believe this was their motive, but it’s quite ridiculous that they won’t allow employees to mark the machine out of order. Then again, are banks sleazy enough to have thought this through?
Cursor humping
This is one of the funnier things I've seen happen with showing people's cursors on a website. I decided to check the chat logs and noticed that there were about 50 instances of documented cursor humping happening within the firefly community.
Yes, the web has now been reduced to cursors humping each other.
If you'd like to see for yourself, go head over to firef.ly or you can also turn on firefly on this page (the switch to the right or by clicking here).
I'll post any other funny screenshots people take
Firefly is in public beta
I opened up the firefly install page today and now anyone can install it on their websites. So far it's been going smoothly, with a lot of great conversation happening.
If you have a sec, please go to the Alley Insider article here and maybe digg it too 
If you're unfamiliar with firefly, you can visit the homepage at firef.ly
Alexa’s usability makes me cry
I am no usability expert nor do I try to pass myself off as one -- but Alexa's new tweaks have made the site even more unbearable. I have been using Alexa out of habit, but no more.
1. They pre-populate their fields. Why? Do they really think this adds to the user's experience? People are going there with a list of sites on their mind and don't care what Alexa thinks are interesting comparisons.
2. I was marginally able to handle their pre-populated list because they gave a "clear" button that removed them. That pesky convenience has been removed. Now I have to manually remove each field before continuing with my graph.
3. Check your major browsers! Their site displays a broken layout in firefox 3. I'm guilty of not checking every browser when I create something, but I at least have the common sense to check firefox 2/3, IE, and Safari. Both on Mac and PC. It usually ends up with me writing a ton of CSS and javascript that is special cased.
How all this stuff passed through the levels of Q/A, testing, and developers boggles my mind.
Is ‘Subway’ still promoting health?
We're all familiar with Jared and how he used to wear whale-sized pants. They also cram down our throats how Subway is so much healther than fast food, with such gems as below.
But here's the real skinny (in three lovely varieties).
Pizza
Subway has added pizza to their menu. The side of their cups proudly compare your subway sandwich to the Big Mac (540 calories). The most basic pizza starts at around 750 calories and up (which cannot be found on their site, but luckily is required on NYC menus).
That's 200 calories more than a big mac. I could eat a Cheeseburger (300) + Large Fries (500) for about the same as the "healthy" subway food. Sure people realize that pizza is unhealthy, but by promoting health in their commercials and stores, people will by association, assume Subway's pizzas are healthier.
The $5 footlong
Subway now offers a footlong sandwich for $5. In New York, some 6 inch sandwiches actually cost more than the $5 footlong. It's fiscally responsible to eat more.
Chips + drink
Every time you buy subway, no matter what you get, you're offered a chips and drink combo. They also just recently decided to bump up the size of a subway cup from huge to ginormous.
I wrote a letter to Subway a few weeks ago and have heard no response.
Starbucks challenge
In my post about the most expensive drink at starbucks, I challenged other people to make a more expensive drink (by using a free starbucks coupon), and Sherryl made a drink that was a $1.25 (pre-tax) more in L.A. Here is what she says:
"I ended up ordering a Venti White Chocolate Mocha with the following additions:
16 shot of espresso, 10 pumps of vanilla, x white mocha, x caramel, soy milk and an energy boost. My drink cost me a total of $13.95 (w/out tax in LA CA).Mine was more expensive than his. YAY!...
Oh wait.. I forgot to tell you how it tasted.. It wasn't the best. I took a few sips and it was very thick and you can taste the coffee and hints of sweetness. I didn't drink it all (no plans of bouncin off the walls today) and a couple of my co-workers took a sip as well. LOL! Good thing it was a free drink.. thank God for coupons!"
Her receipt:
Nice job Sherryl!!
Solution to Airline Fuel Cost: Charge by the pound
Hey, it's the system we use when sending packages -- why not us?
Not only will it help the airlines with the rising fuel costs, but it will be an incentive to go on a diet.
The iPod Killer
The news of the new iPhone is exciting, with probably the only drawback being the required 2-year contract (which we're all so desensitized to, it barely matters).
However, one place it may matter are iPod sales. The new iPhone pricing is now within the realm of iPods. Apple has sold over 140 million iPods, and although sales are decreasing, they are still selling well. In order to avoid cannibalizing their iPod sales, the 2-year contract was introduced.
Even if you don't want the phone part of the iPhone, you would still get a portable player of videos, music, internet and now real GPS and applications (such as games, location aware stuff, etc). It's quite a package. So why would you buy just an iPod instead? A pesky 2-year contract with AT&T is probably enough of a barrier.
In fact, the new iPhone is such a great package that I predict a huge burst in "non-contract iPhone 3Gs" being sold online at places like eBay and Craigslist. It's pretty simple to get out of mobile phone contracts. You can find guides all over the internet on what to say. Awhile ago, I used the excuse that I was moving to Maine (where Verizon service was limited). If they can't provide their service, they have to let you out (with no penalty to me). I'm not sure if that still works, but some simple google searches reveal many other methods.
So the question may be, how many times can you pull that on AT&T? Well there is nothing that says you can't open multiple contracts at the same time, so buy 5 phones (for your family) and then use a contract breaking excuse. Then sell them on eBay for $100 over the buy price (brand new, never used!) and make a $500 profit. Repeat.
About me
I'm an artist and software developer.
Currently, I'm the CEO of a company I co-founded called, stickybits
Prior to stickybits, I co-founded betaworks, where I created chartbeat, a real-time analytics service and firef.ly, a chat service.
You can view my artwork at billychasen.com
Creations
Tweets
- Hilarious news satire care of the bbc http://bit.ly/cfvRI9
- RT @HLMorgan: RT @joshk: Nice coverage of @Firstround's @phineasb on today's Reuter's Video! http://frc.vc/3KD #frc
- Wait, this isn't a spoof? RT @peretti: Titanic II looks like a pretty good movie ;) http://bzfd.it/aRAZBn
- @tarekp I wish! We did see some football stadiums though
- This is how I roll http://bit.ly/aZpQOq
