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3/17/2008 The Cheapskate's DilemmaI want to buy a product that's for sale online. The exact product doesn't really matter; what matters is that it's a relatively new product that I've never used before, so I'm not sure if I'm going to like it and want to keep it. Every place that sells this product charges the same price, so there's no bargain hunting. The dilemma is that I can buy it either directly from its maker (which I generally prefer to do) and get free shipping and handling and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Or I can buy it from a high-end retailer, pay $20-25 S&H and get a lifetime money-back guarantee. This means that I'm essentially paying an extra $20+ dollars (in this case, around 10-15% of the product's price) for an extended insurance policy and I have to decide if it's worth it. 3/11/2008 All Hail the Red Ring of Death!After nearly two mostly uneventful years, our Xbox 360 appears to have succumbed to the red ring of death. Fortunately we still have our ReplayTV to function as a backup DVR, but our ability to rock has been curtailed. We'll see how long it takes to get it fixed. I will say that the self-service repair request web site was pretty easy to use, which is encouraging. 3/6/2008 Resolving the Democratic Nomination Through the Free MarketIf you don't strongly prefer that either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton wins this year's presidential election rather than John McCain, you can stop reading now.
I have a simple -- dare I say, modest -- proposal for how to "help" the Clinton and Obama campaigns resolve their little struggle over who deserves the presidential nomination, in the likely event that neither gets enough committed delegates to clinch the nomination prior to the Democratic convention.
What we need is to have every person who would rather have either Clinton or Obama win than McCain agree to not make any campaign contributions directly to either Clinton's or Obama's campaigns. These people should instead donate their money to the "Eventual Democratic Nominee Trust Fund," where it will be held in escrow until a nominee is chosen. If we want to get a little fancier, we can have the funds in escrow expire at some predetermined date (to be returned to the donors), or be reduced gradually over time, or let contributors decide on an individual basis whether and how to let their donations reduce or expire.
If this were really to happen and succeeded in drawing away significant sums from the two candidates, it would demonstrate to their campaigns how important it is to their supporters to resolve the nomination promptly.
One more thing: I would also raise contributions for the fund by fining people $5 each time they use the word "Democrat" as an adjective when they should be using "Democratic." |
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