Daily Dose of Common Sense

Well, folks, for those of you betting we couldn’t do this for a year…you lost. Daily Dose of Common Sense turns ONE on May 1st. It’s been a crazy first year, and if I would have known then how much I was committing to….

So, dear reader (yes, we know there is only one of you), please give us some feedback. Things you like, things you don’t like, what you’d like to see more of, site design, etc. Let ‘er rip!

Seriously. I’d like to hear what you have to say. The only thing you can’t say is to write more than one post a day, ’cause that ain’t happening at this juncture.

All this week we’ll be reposting some of our favorite posts from the past year. So, get ready for a clip show!

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Tiger Woods held a press conference today (that was streamed live on the Web, no less) to apologize to us.

In case you’ve been living under a rock with no TV, Woods has had some extramarital affairs. So, why do we need an apology in such a private matter? I’m not sure. Was it a PR move for his remaining sponsors? His wife’s idea? A dare? I would believe any of those reasons over just his need for the world’s forgiveness to get on with his life. Think about it… If a friend, co-worker, relative, or total (non-famous) stranger cheated on his or her spouse, would you get an apology? Absolutely not.

Tiger, go away and play golf. We don’t care about what you do in your free time. Really, we don’t.

Sometimes I envy the days when the media would look the other way on the transgressions of famous people (Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jr., JFK, FDR, etc.). There are things that are just none of anyone else’s business. Think of how many tabloids would be out of business!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc02ZEPJuF8

I wasn’t aware that labia color was a huge beauty issue. Apparently, some feel that the color fades over time and becomes less “youthful” and pink. Older ladies, are you horrified? Do you feel less attractive now that you know this fact? Yeah, me neither.

But, nonetheless, someone created this product:

It’s called “My New Pink Button” and it is a genital cosmetic designed to change the color of your labia. It even comes in different shades depending on your skin tone. The cost: $29.95.

I’m all for decorating and bedazzling your labia, if you wish. But, do it for the right reasons (fun, sex, a lark). Don’t let the “you’re old and no one wants your old-looking labia” marketing ploy be the reason.

[Via BlagHag.com]

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Just not when I want to travel.

You’ve probably heard about the 2,000 or so folks stuck in the Chunnel for 16 hours on Friday. No heat, no food, no water, no bathrooms. For SIXTEEEN hours. Doesn’t it seem incomprehensible that any person would be forced to endure these conditions in this day and age? After 4 or 5 hours, you think someone would have come up with a solution to get those people out of there. Or, at least found a way to get them food, water, and blankets.

Remember the Jet Blue incident a few years ago where passengers were left sitting on a runway for over 10 hours? They were so close to the terminal but no one was allowed to get off the plane. Again, this was during an intense winter storm.

Delays beyond three hours are rare and occur in extreme circumstances, usually during peak travel days in the winter, when extreme weather can have a huge impact on scheduling.

Over the 2008-09 winter period, U.S. airlines reported 373 tarmac delays in excess of three hours, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

So, the good news is that the DOT has just mandated that the maximum length passengers can be confined in a plane on the runway is 3 hours. It seems pathetic that we needed the government to get involved in this no-brainer. But, airlines see us as little more than cattle. In fact, they are complaining that a 3-hour cap is going to cause “more cancelled flights and greater passenger inconvenience.”

Yeah, because sitting for 10 hours on a runway isn’t inconvenient for us AT ALL.

I would much rather have my flight cancelled or rescheduled than sit on the runway for a few hours. Wouldn’t you?

Photo: Carl Court / AFP/Getty Images / December 19, 2009

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Sick of hearing about the Balloon Boy hoax? We are, too. But, we love to read about hoaxes that some nutjobs people have perpetrated over the years. It reminds us 1) don’t believe everything you hear and, 2) some people will believe anything.

Don’t believe us? Check out Live Science’s list of the World’s Greatest Hoaxes. A few of our favorite items are:

Crazy for crop circles
Though many people believe that crop circles have been reported for centuries, in fact they only date back about thirty years. The mysterious circles first appeared in the British countryside, and their origin remained a mystery until September 1991, when two men, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, confessed that they had created crop circles for decades as a prank to make people think UFOs had landed. They never claimed to have made all the circles–in fact many were copycat hoaxes done by others–but their hoax was responsible for launching the crop circle phenomena.

Aliens landed on Earth and all I got was this lousy crop circle.

Mary Toft’s bunny births
In 1726 England, a young woman named Mary Toft told a neighbor that she had been sexually assaulted by a huge rabbit while weeding a nearby field. Her story was dismissed as a bizarre delusion until six months later a doctor was called to her bedside. According to his published report, the woman gave birth to five bunnies! While news of the strange birth spread throughout England and Europe, Toft gave birth to a few more rabbits, astounding many learned men of the day. Eventually skeptical investigators exposed her, and she confessed to having her husband secretly hide bunnies in her bedsheets, whereupon she would further secrete them in what was euphemistically called the “dumb oracle.”

A woman giving birth… TO BUNNIES. If only she hadn’t taken that left turn at Albuquerque.

Amityville horror
In 1974, six members of an Amityville, New York, family were killed by their youngest son, Butch DeFeo. The following year George and Kathy Lutz and their three children moved into the home, and soon, they claimed, they were supernaturally attacked by a demonic ghost or spirit. They collaborated with novelist Jay Anson, who embellished their tale, and the story was soon adapted into a screenplay for the hit film “The Amityville Horror.” Investigators, skeptical of their claims, were proven correct years later when DeFeo’s lawyer admitted that he and the Lutzes made up the whole thing, and all profited handsomely from the hoax.

Why invent ghosts when the original story is probably scary enough? The kid killed SIX members of his family. What went wrong in that family tree?

Live Science talks about other hoax gems, like the original alien abduction hoax, the 2012 end of the world, and more. There’s no shortage of people trying to get attention from crazy stories.

Photos courtesy of Flickr: Kecko, aussiegall, camshafter

Technology can be overwhelming, no doubt about it. But if anything, that should make you more eager to do your homework before buying, not less. Otherwise, you will get ripped off.

So, why is it that so many otherwise wary consumers, who would smack down a car dealer trying to sell them “serial number glass etching”, get duped into buying expensive computer and A/V cables they don’t need? Because we fear what we don’t understand.

Cables are one of the highest margin items any electronics or office retailer sells. That 10 foot Ethernet patch cord at the office superstore that costs $18? Well, it works no better than one you can buy on-line for $3 (or less), and both are quite likely to have been made in the same factory in China. Likewise for USB.

Cables for your new flat screen TV can be even more overpriced, because now you are contending with marketing-driven brands. There’s no doubt these high-priced cables are engineered superbly, but there’s also no doubt they are overkill when compared to a no-name cable that meets the same specifications but doesn’t have to cover the cost for throwing expensive parties in Hollywood.

Even the moderately overpriced cables are a rip-off. When I recently received a flat-screen TV as a gift, I only had the cables to hook it up like my old TV, low-def analog. The local electronics shops had 6-foot HDMI (combined digital video & audio) cables for no less than $50, with the cool brands costing over $100.

By resisting the (admittedly HUGE) temptation to buy them on the spot, I was able to get very nice, good spec, gold-plated cables from a well-known web retailer (whose 2-day free-shipping plan I’m on) for $6. That is not a typo. For three cables my decision to wait saved me at least $150.

The key, of course, is being able to wait. Like the convenience store that charges double or triple for a bottle of soda, retailers count on you needing the cable right now.

So, when you are researching your next computer or electronics purchase, don’t forget to look into the cables you’ll need as well. With the money you save, you can order a spare (I didn’t need that 3rd HDMI cable) AND pay for dinner. Nothing goes with a new flat-screen TV like free take-out.

Photo courtesy of Flickr: Mathieu Ramage

Dear loyal readers:

Daily Dose of Common Sense is on vacation. We will return late next week.

Welcome to Daily Dose of Common Sense.

This site aims to cut through the crap, hype, and pseudoscience to tell it like it is. Part science, part news, and part, er, common sense, we may be harsh sometimes but it’s just tough love.

We will attempt to post daily, but we do have lives (jobs, kids, laundry). So, please cut us a small break if we miss a day now and then.