How to use GPS to lead your compatriots to certain death

As if Garmin wasn't screwed enough with today's announcement of a GPS-enabled, half-price iPhone.

Maybe I'm reading this commercial wrong, but are they implying that Napoleon led his army to catastropic near-annihilation in Russia with the steady guidance of a Garmin system?

"Is it really negative 40 degrees? Are they destroying all sources of food?! Sacrebleu! Let's go home!"

"Go straight to Moscow"

"OK. Onward!"

If they wanted to make a "ha ha short driver doesn't need to see with GPS!" joke, why not ALF? He's short and funny! And fuzzy!

Hard drive manufacturers: bite me

Dear hard drive manufacturers of the world:

When will you stop lying to everyone?

Case in point: I just bought a 320 GB hard drive to replace the 120 GB one in my computer.

This is what I get when I plug it in:



Hmm, that new hard drive certainly isn't 320GB. In what bizarro universe does 297=320?

What about that 500 GB external hard drive I got last month? Nope, 465.

465=500? I love this math! I'm cutting my car payment and rent checks by 8-odd percent, post-haste!

Yes, I realize the technical cause of this: I know that a "bit" does not equal a "byte." Thus, the formatted drive is not as large as advertised. So what?! That's my point!

"But it IS 500 GB when it's not formatted for use..." I KNOW! That's not an excuse, that's mealy-mouthed technical gobbledy-gook. What good is an unformatted drive? It's useless, that's how good.

When your box says 500 GB in 144 pt 72 pt bold slab-serif, I think I could be forgiven for expecting it to hold 500 Giga-something-usefuls!


That damn pesky evidence

How long until we, as customers, finally call hard drive manufacturers on their lies? When everyone plugs in their first shiny 1000 GB drive to discover it only holds 920? That's a entire placeholder digit you've been robbed of!

It's a set percentage that you're losing every time, so it's only going to keep looking worse as drives get larger, gang.

(Side note: why, after 30 years, do we still not have one single hard drive format that works flawlessly on both a Mac and a Windows PC? Did someone not think that'd be useful?)

Is there any other product that can get away with this? Boxes of cereal and bags of chips come to mind, with their "Contents may have settled" (read: the bag is half empty) warnings.

Am I off my rocker? Is this not a big deal? Any other products that instantly become 8% less useful as soon as you want to use them? Let me know in the comments.

Another aside: I feel a little remorseful about using a picture of a Seagate drive box, because, discounting the capacity lie, their packaging is refreshing and, frankly, delightful. Scan their boxes when you're at the store next time. And check out their instruction manual:

The Skittles Touch

Because nothing sells candy quite like the magical negro stock character taken to its ludicrous extreme:



I love the part about the man on the bus.

And I swear some day I'll have some real content to share. Not just YouTube videos. Really.

Slate was really on top of their game today

Wow, Slate was really kicking ass on the Alps today.

First, they unearthed the fax that Chimpy McFlightsuit used to cede power to Cheneytron while he was in surgery. Yes, a fax. The same official, super secure document transmission method I use to order Chipotle burritos. You'd think he'd at least call!

If you're interested in some Harry Potter discussion, they have a nice series of letters about their predictions and feelings after it's over. Spoilers, obviously. Will Leitch, busybody editor of Deadspin gets in on the action.

Finally, they had not one but two killer slideshows. First up are examples of the video game clichés that let us instantly pick up new games, like medpacks and The Konami Code.

I guess Medpacks are preferable to eating cute fairies (picture link goes nowhere):



Second up is an exploration of the 12 major types of advertisements. They've put together some pretty good examples, and Seth Stevenson totally digs up one of my favorite ads ever, Nike's "Awake:"



Man, now I'm pumped. Might as well clear out some of my other Slate links here:

Did you catch their Action Movie one-liner contest? I would say my favorite was "Myspace friend add … denied!" but screw Myspace! "Dénouement-ized, man-kisser!" takes the cake. One blogger really took it to another level though with "Spoiler Alert! You die." and "You’re Tony Soprano and I’m an artsy fade to black." or "Subway: Eat death."

They launched a new video service, SlateV, with some very excellent video versions of their articles. Frankly, they're the best I've ever seen for internet videos. They certainly know when to let ridiculous material speak for itself. It also has a blog that tracks 'net videos that nicely complements the AV Club's "Videocracy" column as places to find fun videos without getting your fingers dirty by actually going to YouTube, land of daxflames and lonelygirls. Yeck.

Last but not least, a classic article by Hua Hsu about inexplicable hit "My Humps:"

Irony and camp have recast taste as an ethical shell game and we feel no guilt celebrating things that are, in the parlance of VH1, Awesomely Bad. But are there still songs that qualify as "bad"? Consider the Los Angeles hip-hop quartet the Black Eyed Peas. Their current single, "My Humps," is one of the most popular hit singles in history. It is also proof that a song can be so bad as to veer toward evil.

At least "My Humps" gave us this, which almost makes up for "You Oughta Know:"

This could backfire

Newest online "security" feature that is bound to fail: those "Verify Your Age" forms that where you put in your birthday to A) verify that you're 18, or however old you have to be (some beer sites check if you're 21); B) test if you're capable of second-grade math.

I don't know if anyone else had this experience, but turning 18 merely meant that I didn't feel as guilty when I told the porn sites that, yes indeed, I was old enough to be looking. Just sayin'...

Dear internets: give people some credit. Especially now that these time-wasting surveys are slapped on everything from beer sites to YouTube videos with naughty language.

I also considered that these things could just be ploys to get demographic data for advertisers--have to get that 18–34 male demo! If that's the case, I just like to screw with them:



I figure if they use this to target advertisements, saying I'm 98 will merely increase the number of targeted ads I receive for Fiber One and pralines while keeping the amount of adds for penile enlargement creams roughly the same.

Dear Yahoo!: For enlightenment, look within

Two internet advertising quips:

First, as the Consumerist blog points out, perhaps Yahoo doesn't need to look far for the source of the looming housing crisis:




Next, I received this prompt upon signing in to MySpace:



Needless to say, I didn't try to save Britney.

Ack!

So, I checked my mail today and found this friendly postcard in my mailbox (These are small, but you'll get the idea...):






Umm, excuse me? How did this ad campaign meeting go? Probably a little like this...

Post Office Ad Exec 1
Hey, Bob, how should we let people know that the current Post Office is fuckin' wired. People can do, like, everything with the internets! We need a clear signal that we're modern and up with the times. What screams "modern"?

Post Office Ad Exec 2
Hmm... what do the kids these days like... are they still into Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots?

POAE 1
They must be! Dodge beat us to that one. Kids are all now well aware that their Dodge trucks are fully immmune to computer animated robot attacks.

POAE 2
Damnit! That must be so effective!

POAE 1
I know. Wait... I think I've got something... idea forming...

POAE 2
I think I've got one too! You go first. Whatcha got?

POAE 1
I got it! We'll use Cathy! It's brilliant!

POAE 2
Cathy? The comic strip?

POAE 1
Yup.

POAE 2
The one that's had the one freaking joke every day since 1976? That no one reads? That no one finds funny? That no one even remembers ever being funny? That rivals Family Circus in sheer level of mockery, satire, and outright parody?

POAE 1
That's the one.

POAE 2
Sounds great! I had an idea, but let's go with that.


It's too bad they went with Cathy... since Ad Exec 2 had a great idea: