How Much is the Internet Worth to You?

photo of the map of the internet pictures

You know what I love about the internet? Besides all the cats, pornography, and cats making pornography, I love that the internet is essentially made by us. The people who use the internet are those who drive up its value. We create the content, and we fuel that content. Even the largest attractions on the internet are fuelled by individual input; we use Facebook to access others who use it, we read Wikipedia for realm of contributors, and we watch YouTube for access into the lives of others. People are the internet, and that is why is has always irked me that we have to pay for it.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) regulates all telecommunications carriers in Canada. In the past, I’ve used the CRTC to threaten my phone company (one of the many occasions that one of my infamous angry letters has yielded results) and to block telemarketers from calling my phone. They also monitor Canadian content, both on television and on the radio. In …

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Just Looking At Beauty Products Makes Women Feel Bad

photo of beauty products pictures photographs

This fall, the Journal of Consumer Research published a study that gave us another way young women can feel bad about themselves: While looking at beauty products. In a study lead by researcher Debra Trampe and Frans W. Siero of the University of Groningen and Diederik A. Stapel of Tilburg University entitled, “The Self-Activation Effect of Advertisements: Ads Can Affect Whether and How Consumers Think About the Self,” it was found that looking at objects in the context of advertising prompted a college-age women to think differently of themselves than if one was …

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A Rethink on Pink Toys for Girls’ Christmas Presents in 2010?

photo of pink toys and blue toys

Viv Groksop writes an interesting article in this morning’s Guardian, regarding pink toys for girls and how, with Christmas 2010 swiftly approaching, it appears that toymakers may finally be changing their assumptions about what little boys and girls really want from Santa.

The article comes on the back of a report this week from campaign group Pink Stinks, who reported that, one year on …

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Looks Like Those Ugly “Workout While You Walk” Sneaks Are Just Hype

Photo of Skechers Shapeups

There’s an interesting societal trend toward the path of least resistance, to the “magic solution” that will give maximum results with minimal effort.  The modern day equivalent of snake oil salesmen thrive in large part because the idea of losing weight, increasing sexual prowess, whatever in effortless and relatively inexpensive ways make for an easy bandwagon to jump upon.

Those ugly toning sneakers (such as Shape-ups by Skechers), the funny-looking ones with the thick sole that supposedly provides a gym workout while walking, are just the latest in a long line of fads that appear to have been outed as a bunch of hype.

$1.5 billion worth of hype, in fact, as an astoundingly large number of people decide to work out while they walked.

From MSNBC:

The American Council on Exercise (ACE) commissioned a study at the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse. Researchers compared people walking on a treadmill wearing a regular running shoe by New Balance and three brands of toning shoes: Skechers Shape-ups, Rebook EasyTone and MBT shoes from Masai Barefoot …

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