No, literally. This is the latest in a series of promotional videos from Sony, to bring attention to their Action Cam Mini. In this edition, they've strapped the camera to the back of a white-tailed eagle, and you can watch him soar from an eagle-eyed view of Paris. Victor (for that's the name of the fellow) leaves from the Eiffel Tower then and glides across the Trocadero, finally nose-diving at over 100 MPH to his ground landing. As wonderful as the view is, I was almost as fascinated by the sound rushing by.
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And no, that is not hyperbole. In fact, the video itself begins by saying on-screen, "The most epic safety video ever made." And it's being low-key and polite. To be fair, "Epic," in this case, is sort of a tongue-in-cheek reference, as you will see. But it's nonetheless epic in the generally accepted sense, as well. This is far and away like no in-flight safety video you've seen, or likely will ever seen. It's so far away that everything else is in third place. Just leave second place empty. And, honest, that's not an exaggeration. The in-flight video is for the safety explanation aboard Air New Zealand flights, and...well, let's just say as a reminder that New Zealand is where they filmed The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. And we'll leave it at that, and let your imaginations take over.. There are twists and turns here, and a lot of tongue-in-cheek fun, and some surprises. And further, when is the last time you ever saw credits at the end of an in-flight safety video? As a safety video, I'm going to guess that patrons aren't going to be paying the closest attention to what's being told them, which probably isn't ideal. On the other hand, a) most people by now have a pretty good idea of the safety procedures on an airplane, b) in some ways, people are going to watch this much closer than the regular in-flight safety videos they zone out of, and c) this is going to be see FAR more by people who are not on an airplane, so there's no risk of going down in the water. Which brings up the other point. Beyond being the Greatest (and Most Epic) In-Flight Safety Video Ever, this is also a brilliant promotional video for the next film in The Hobbit series. If I had the opportunity to bet all my cash money, it will go viral around the world, if it hasn't already. However much it cost, there will be no need to buy TV air-time (which is so expensive), and you wouldn't anyway, since it's 4-1/2 minutes long. Maybe they'll cut down a 30-second version, but it's really not necessary, and it won't do it justice. This is so wonderful and so smart. Just a brilliant idea, and whoever came up with the idea deserves a major promotion and bonus, and hats off to all the people on both sides of the aisle who approved doing it. So, here, then is the most epic in-flight safety video ever made. Really. No, really. I had a "fun" time, yesterday morning. It took an hour on the phone, so I'll just give you the very short version. The sub-heading here is to really watch closely if you click on any reasonable emails or webpages, even if they're from reasonably mainstream sources. And really watch closely most especially if you have someone in your family who's elderly and clicks on things with a wee bit less discretion than might otherwise be considered ideal...
I get the Visa bill for my 92-year-old dad, which I pay from his account. This month's bill arrived yesterday, and because he'd told me about some scam emails that he'd received and may have clicked on one, I looked closely at the charges this month. No charges for those scams appeared, though something else got me scratching my head. There were three charges I didn't have a clue what they were for, and I thought I might have seen before on his bills. When I'd seen such things in the past, I figured they might be charities he sometimes donates to, and so I never paid them close attention, as one-time charges. But this time, I looked at previous months' bills (which fortunately I keep, because they're for his account), and noticed that they were indeed there, and being charged every month. I did some online research, and though they seemed perhaps respectable to a degree they just didn't seem like anything he'd ever have signed up for, but likely something he clicked by accident or without reading the fine-print. Fortunately, they all had phone numbers listed, so I called them each. The first was for a reverse phone number lookup site. It cost only 95-cents -- but if a box was checked, it meant you signed up for their monthly "service." That worked out to $20 a month...for the past 11 months. I cancelled it and was able to get a refund for three months. That seemed a bit paltry, but at least it was three months, and the main thing was cancelling. I argued a bit, but could tell it would be convoluted to get more -- and I had other charges to deal with. So, on to the next one. That was for something called Health Care Magic, a medical-type information service. The person explained that for the $15 a month being charged, they provide the availability to contact medical professionals who -- and I immediately interrupted the person. "My dad was a physician for over half a century. There is no way on earth he subscribed to a service where he could call a doctor he'd never heard of in order to get medical advice." They cancelled the service and gave me...three months refund. Couldn't they give more, I replied? Well, if they refunded all charges to anyone who asked, that wouldn't make any sense. Right, because getting someone's money under false pretense is not a good thing, is it? I did say something like that to the person, though a bit more politely. The third call was a hoot in two ways. It also was another reverse phone number service. (Apparently my dad likes such things. Though he insists he doesn't remember ever using one. "In all fairness," I said, "just 30 seconds ago you joked that I'm lucky you remembered my name." So, remembering this from a year ago might be a challenge, for anyone.) It was another $20 monthly charge dating back for a year, all for an initial, simple 95-cent fee. The first funny thing about the call resulted from the difficulty in getting them to access the account, since I made the mistake of saying I wasn't the primary cardholder. In fairness to them, it was good security. In fairness to me, I had all the main information they wanted, and all the other companies I'd just contacted made the change right away. But not being the prime cardholder, I needed to be able to access his account with a user name and password -- which there was no way conceivably that my dad would have set up, let alone remembered. "What would have been the situation if my dad called up directly himself?" I asked. "We would have asked for his name, last four digits of his credit card and home address." "No user name or password?" "No." "So, in other words," I asked, "I could have just called up, said I was my father, and you would have accessed everything immediately?" "Well...er, I can't tell you, er...that you should...er..." the guy stammered. "Right, I understand. I was just curious, that's all. I understand." "So, is there something else I can help you with tod..." "No, thanks, goodbye." And so I hung up, called the same number right back, got a different operator, explained that I was my dad (feeling somewhat like, "I am your father, Luke..."), gave them all the information they wanted, and got the charges cancelled. No request for a user name and password. Easy as pie. And I then asked about a refund. That's what brought up the other funny thing. He said he could give me a month's refund. One month? Well, that's not much, I replied. The other places I spoke with at least gave me two or three months of refunds. "Well, what kind of a refund would you want??" he asked a bit snarkily. I was about to say the same three months the others offered, but since he had sounded snarky, I figured that I had nothing to lose. "What kind would I like?? Well...honestly, what I'd like is to have the whole past year refunded." "Okay," I'll refund last twelve months." Say what??? I didn't know if I heard him right. "So...you'll refund all the entire amount??" "Yes, the last 12 months." Hey, great. Works for me! What I found so hilarious is that he only offered to refund one month -- yet when I got annoyed off enough to ask for all 12, just to be pointed, he didn't blink and said fine. Now, mind you, I have idea if he actually will refund the past year, but I'll find out when next month's Visa bill arrives. But then, I don't know if any of these people will actually refund anything -- the truth is though that although that's a hefty coin, what I mainly I want is the charges cancelled. But my sense is that none of these companies want problems. As I said, they're all fairly normal companies, not Nigerian Prince places. And it's probably SO much easier to refund charges than risk masses of people furious and contacting the FTC or government trade agencies. But we'll see what happens. The larger point of this story though is even if something is from a fairly legitimate source...check the fine print. And if you have an elderly family member who is trusting upon the world of clicks -- keep relentlessly reminding them not to. And if they like to do things like check reverse phone numbers, perhaps suggest that instead of contacting a website, they contact you instead, and let you handle things... If you'd like to receive more tips like this, it's only 95-cents. Just click here... One of the huge challenges authors face is how to deal with intentionally bad reviews on places like Goodreads and Amazon that go out of their way to bring down ratings, made all the worse for being "catfish," false personas hiding under a front. You're warned not to respond, since that will drag you into a sinkhole -- but when they go unanswered, what stands appears to be the truth.
Here's a bizarre, mind-numbing story in the London Guardian by an author about her experience diving into an insane Wonderland as she makes the choice, against all advice, to deal with someone out to trash her. This should be a movie. You can read it here. You'll no doubt recall the variety of pieces I've written about the Kickstarter campaign for Sofft fabric softener and stain repellent co-founded by my PhD friend Greg Van Buskirk, a former project manager at Clorox. I just wanted to mention that the company has a very nice article about them in Popular Science magazine, so you know that I tries not to steers ya wrong. You can read it here.
By the way, just to update you, Sofft has far-exceeded its $25,000 Kickstarter goal by almost 50% and is currently at $36,424, still with six days remaining in the campaign. Somewhat like Uber, the car service Lyft lets you get a ride by using their app to select a nearby driver. On the Conan Show, the host decided to try out the service along with his buddies Ice Cube and Kevin Hart, calling up an unsuspecting driver. They installed cameras inside the car, so let's go along for the ride... |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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