"'Pottery Barn' is in for a world of hurt."

Kramer, entering Jerry's apartment: Well...I've had it with these jackbooted thugs!
Jerry: 'Pottery Barn'?
Kramer: I got three 'Pottery Barn' catalogs in one day. That makes eight this month.
Jerry: Why don't you just throw 'em out?
Kramer: Oh, no. I've been saving them up here in your apartment. And now, it's payback time. 'Pottery Barn' is in for a world of hurt.
-- The Junk Mail (Seinfeld)

I just learned from Sierra Club Magazine about CatalogChoice, a site which will help you unsubscribe from magazines and catalogs. I intend to unsubscribe myself from the numerous items which go straight to recycling. I will also unsubscribe all the previous residents of my apartment from their magazines as well.

Kramer, throwing his catalogs in the Pottery Barn store: Hey, you like sending out catalogs!? How do you like gettin' 'em back!?

Photos: Ice Picks II

Pictures of various nearby frozen items (VNFI) can be seen here.

Dancing Deer writes back

(Update 11.9.2008: be sure to see their second response in the comments of this post here and my final post on the issue.)

I got a response to my email to Dancing Deer bakeries (see this post):

Dear David,

Thank you for your e-mail. The Deers always appreciate feedback. As you mention in your e-mail, Dancing Deer is a company that prides itself on environmentally friendly practices - this means packaging too!

Originally, the product development team intended the shortbread cookies to be a "lunchbox" cookie. This meant that the individual packaging (though arguably excessive) would allow parents to easily add a quick dessert to their child's lunch. Since the cookies' usage has become more widespread, we have (and will continue to) consider using less packaging. I'll be sure to pass your suggestion onto the packing team!

Thanks again, David - it's conscientious consumers like you, who allow us to continually improve our products!

Best,

Alison

Customer Service

I'm fairly satisfied with the response -- it's not automated based on keywords and they clearly read the email. We'll see if they actually change the packaging, but this is a start.

Recommended viewing: Daily Show 3.7.2005

Or specifically, this clip of Lewis Black where he talks about Mafia cops, accountability in Abu Graib, and terrorist watch lists. Depressing yet hilarious.

Oh Deer

(Update: See their first and second response. This post is essentially retracted.)

I'm having trouble taking Dancing Deer's eco-friendly claims seriously. It is possible that they are extremely environmentally friendly and socially responsible in almost all cases, but I fear that their Triple-Chocolate Shortbread Cookies contains a major oversight. But first, I'll describe their policy.

In their own words:

Caring for the Environment
To the extent possible we make choices in our packaging, production and facilities management, which are friendly to the environment.
(source: Dancing Deer: How We Think)

The cookies in question come twelve to a (purportedly recycled) cardboard box. Each two cookies are wrapped in plastic resulting in six plastic wraps rather than wrapping all twelve at once. They'd use much less plastic in the latter case. I'm assuming the silly wrapping is for freshness and, as the website says, "makes them lunch box friendly." So apparently, being lunch box friendly is more important than being fully environmental friendly. See (for example -- there are tons) this article for some more information about plastic's environmental unfriendliness.

Possibly what bothers me the most is that Dancing Deer has been written up and praised multiple times for their "environmental packaging":

The Innovator Award is the most recent accolade for the natural foods company that has received public acclaim for their fresh baked products, community activism, and artful and environmental packaging.
(source: SocialFunds.org)

Dancing Deer uses all natural ingredients, minimal packaging and environmentally-friendly materials.
(source: Winning Workplaces)

[Dancing Deer's CEO] also often hears praise for the $8 million company's philanthropy, green packaging, and commitment to its 65 employees and inner-city Boston. [...] Its cookies, brownies, cakes, and mixes, all packaged in recycled fiber and whimsically illustrated with stick-figure bakers...
(source: BusinessWeek)

I'm willing to believe that Dancing Deer could potentially be an otherwise environmentally aware and socially responsible company, but it seems very strange to praise them for something that is clearly bogus. Social Funds and Winning Workplaces need to do some more fact checking it seems. (It's too bad, since I was hoping to use Social Funds to help me find an enviromentally/socially conscious mutual fund, but now I have doubts as to whether they will be accurate.)

I will send my comments to Dancing Deer.

Coder-Photographer

While my favorite (pseudo) warrior-poet is Stephen Colbert, (as he currently describes himself in his show's opening title sequence) my favorite coder-photographer is probably Lennart Poettering. In the first category, he made PulseAudio, an awesome open source sound system which allows you to (among other things) combine sound cards and send audio across computers. In the second category, he has taken some incredible panoramas and shares a list of tips for making them in hugin. Kudos!

Free the Phones

This article, Free My Phone, does a good job of explaining many of the things that are wrong in the telecommunications world. I hope that Google or (much less likely, unfortunately) OpenMoko can break things open (I intend to buy an OpenMoko phone in a year or two, provided they have reasonable stability). Also, the problem is slightly worse than he describes for Sprint -- they couldn't even transfer numbers from my old phone to the new phone, let alone the rest of my data. Also, they're responsible for the br0x0red Bluetooth implementation which prevents my phone from synchronizing contact information (or anything else) with my computer.