Welcome to another week of Buzzblog, The Newsletter:
* LATEST BUZZBLOG ITEMS WORTH CHECKING OUT:
FiOS stands for Fire is Our Specialty: The saga continues.
A young Pennsylvania couple and their baby are the latest to learn that a missed appointment is the least of your worries when it comes to Verizon FiOS installation. Two months after a fire sparked by a FiOS installer caused $58,000 worth of damage and expenses, the family’s attorney says Verizon’s best offer to compensate has been $1,800. As regular readers know, similar tales abound.
Cell phone jamming on the rise
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone either, as the number of inconsiderate dolts who yammer away oblivious to the disruptions their yapping is causing those around them continues to rise. Pocket-sized cell jammers are becoming a hot item, while proprietors of restaurants and the like look to defend themselves as well. Yes it’s illegal, but given that the rudeness is pretty close to criminal as well, it’s unlikely to stop any time soon.”
NY officials deny ‘E-Z Pass speed trap’ coming
The e-mail is being so widely circulated and contains such plausible detail — pilot programs and registration stickers with tracking chips — that New York Thruway authorities have been forced to deny publicly that they intend to use the state’s E-Z Pass technology to catch and fine speeders out on the road (as opposed to at toll booths, which is already done). Another reason that the rumor is gaining wide circulation could be that such an automated speed trap is not only possible but may be inevitable. Of course, that it would be unimaginably unpopular may be the only reason it’s not being done already.
Healthcare CEO to Gates: Study up, pal
Harvard Pilgrim CEO Charlie Baker says when Bill Gates professes that “Health Care Needs an Internet Revolution,” as he did in a recent Wall Street Journal piece carrying that headline, he’s making the mistake of treating a symptom instead of the disease.
Blog blunder costs another writer his job
An Indianapolis Star writer is the latest journalist to be fired for blogging over a cliff: In his case, using racially offensive language to describe the city council president. (Both the writer and the pol are black.)
Agency punishing poor kids for fed’s own Web snafu
Bottom line: The federal government failed for days to fix an online grant-filing system, and a bunch of poor kids are going to bear the price. That’s the charitable interpretation. Others see worse … with reason.
Blog readers make lousy editors
Not talking about you, of course, but rather the conventional wisdom that editors are not needed in blog nation because the citizens police their own. Well, it does work that way … sometimes … if you wait long enough.
* BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE:
– Was Amazon’s ‘crowdsourcing’ to find flier counterproductive?
– Why was did Microsoft sack CIO?
– PC no longer king in Japan?
– Google News all shook up
– An identity thief with ambition
– Why does Fox News hate little girls?
– ‘Oh, no, not the bomb joke’
– Who can appraise this 4.38-carat rock?
