World Backup Day

I was already having a really good World Backup Day, and it only got better when I received this great offer from Carbonite:

Of course, it's a joke how many e-mails I get from Carbonite trying to upsell me on their already-expensive service. But this one seems particularly annoying. I'm annoyed that I have to waste a keystroke to delete this email because you invented a holiday to peddle your product. I'm annoyed that you think I have a bunch of computers sitting around, and I'm just waiting for the right offer to pull the trigger and start backing them up.

C'mon Carbonite. We both know you're going to send me 6 more 30% discounts before the end of the month. Your faux holiday gives me no urgency to panic and purchase more of your service.

Spam Meeting Invites

We all find it annoying when our co-workers spam us with too many meeting invites. But lately I've been hit with a new problem - literal spam meeting invites!

I hadn't noticed this until a few weeks ago. I have meeting reminders popping up in my email, except they are not for meetings. They are spam coming in as meetings instead of emails.

Below are two examples:

They are particularly insidious. I'm hesitant to delete them, because maybe they are real meetings? Who knows, maybe Joe from Accounting wants to talk about Anti Virus protection. And I certainly don't want to click to open them to make sure. Clicking on one of these things will probably knock out the entire Mid-Atlantic oil pipeline, which the media will surely trace back to my inanely opening this obvious malware. So I just sit here staring at these meeting invites, wondering what to do with them.

I'm Doing Okay

Every once in a while, I get random emails from Verizon that tell me how I'm doing with regard to my monthly data limit:

My initial reaction is slight annoyance, because why do I need an email if I'm doing okay on data? But ok, at least they're trying to give me some information so I'll accept it. Even though (oddly) they sent it at 4:20am.

However, there's a terrible problem with this email. See if you can figure it out before reading on.

The email doesn't say what day the month ends! The email is dated March 4th. If the month ends on March 31, then I most certainly am not doing okay on data. So when does my data reset for the next month? I honestly have no idea.

Remember to Use Your Garage

Check out this patronizing item from our HOA community newsletter: 

I'm imagining my neighbors reading this and then thinking to themselves "Holy Toledo, it never occurred to me to park my cars in my completely empty garage and my driveway. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to start parking my primary car in the garage and my secondary car in the driveway so there can be more available parking spaces for everyone else."

AirBnB Bait and Switch

I used to be a big fan of AirBnB. I mean, what's better than sticking it to the hotel industry by staying in a spare room in someone's house for $25?

Sadly, like most things, AirBnB was too good to last. Nowadays, I find that a decent AirBnB may run me as much or more than the local hotel. But I still like to use it when I can. It's still more interesting than staying in the same stuffy hotels all the time.

What I really find annoying is the bait and switch you get when trying to find the cost of a reservation. For example, here is a typical search that I did recently:

Notice that in the map on the right they (supposedly) show you the prices of available units. Then when you click one it shows up on the left. But the real price is usually much more than what it says on the map. Here I clicked on the "$65" item shown on the map. But if you look on the left, the actual price of that unit is "$131 total" (more than double what I expected!). This is ridiculous. The $65 on the map is meaningless. It should say $131 on the map. You can see the same issue with the other two units shown.

Finally - A Truly Unlimited Data Plan

Like most Americans, I'm tired of my limited data plan that always has me scrambling to look for Wi-Fi hotspots in mortal fear that I exceed my monthly data limit. I've been waiting years to find an affordable service that gives me unlimited data.

So of course I was thrilled to see this ad for T-Mobile's new "Truly Unlimited" plan:

Wait, what's this I see in the fourth bullet? "If congested, customers may notice reduced speeds that may be further reduced for a small number of customers who use >40GB".

So apparently the real name of this plan should be "Truly Limited to 40 GB". I guess the marketing folks didn't like that as much.

Facebook Ads

 I feel like the ads in Facebook are getting increasingly sketchy recently.

First off, I used to scroll through Facebook and see mostly posts from friends with a few ads mixed in. Nowadays, when I scroll through, about 50% of the posts are from groups I’m a member of. I don’t enjoy most of these posts because people have strong opinions and argue with each other. Another 40% of the posts are either ads or inspirational videos from things that I never signed up for. Finally, maybe about 10% of posts are from friends (mostly the same 5-10 friends who regularly post on Facebook).

Today I saw this ad which I was very troubled about:

 

The whole thing is dubious. The fact that they are selling stamps at that steep of a discount. The “U. S Postal Service” at the top. The URL “USPSSTAMAPS.COM” (why STAMAPS and not STAMPS?). The “ONLY $39.9!” price. I googled the site and it said the domain USPSSTAMAPS.COM was just purchased a few days ago! But there were many comments on the post with “people” saying they received their stamps and they were great. No way I’m ordering from these clowns.

Then a minute later I see this:

 

Same concept, completely different trashy URL. “TODAYIS LIMITED TIME”. Yikes.

I’ve heard that Facebook is really suffering because Apple and Android are both implementing policies that block Facebook from getting everyone’s data by default. Apparently their ad revenues are plummeting. I don’t know if this is related, but after seeing this I am extremely leery about ordering anything I see advertised on Facebook.

I think it’s sad what happened to Facebook because many people have all of their contacts in Facebook and nowhere else. Even if another site came along that was not evil like Facebook, I doubt most people would be willing to go through that exercise again to connect to all their friends.