Friday, July 02, 2004

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Defending Wal-Mart George Will with a ringing defense of Wal-Mart. I agree with every word in it. "McKinsey consulting group [estimates that Wal-Mart is responsible for about] 25 percent of the nation's astonishing productivity increases in the 1990s". I would add that a substantial portion of the anti-Wal Mart sentiment occurs out of a subtle form of snobbery: people who hate the idea of shopping there, but need an excuse to pay higher prices find it convenient to pile on. 9:49:26 PM    comment []

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I've written before about evil credit card activation scripts. Got to give Amazon credit (I just got their branded Visa): their activation was pitch-free. 9:13:08 PM    comment []

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Backup Credit Card in Case Lost/Stolen I lost my wallet, for the first time in my life. No fun. Not a total disaster, it was lost, not stolen, and I was at home. But--we were about to leave for vacation. Fortunately, I have long had a deliberate practice of keeping one credit card out of my wallet for this very contingency--credit cards are just too vital to risk being without for 7 days while awaiting replacements. Another idea along those lines has since occurred to me: to avoid the hassle and confusion of auto-billing items failing, make a point of using your backup credit card for such items (e.g., your domain registration). 8:13:15 PM    comment []