Selling A Printer Can Get You Sued And Other Facts
Welcome To What We Learned This Week, a digest of the most curiously important facts from the past few days. This week: why you shouldn't sell anything online, groups of clams are scary and men eat too much.
SO SUE US… NO DON'T DO THAT
Selling Anything Online Is Fraught With Legal Peril
The story of Doug Costello, a man who just wanted to sell a printer, and Gersh Zavodnik, a man who sued him over it, involves a printer but has little to do with printers. No, this six-and-a-half year legal struggle over a $40 printer is yet another example of some of the bureaucratic nightmares the US legal system can accidentally birth.
You see, Zavodnik is known within Indiana legal circles as a bit of an abuser of the justice system. He files frivolous lawsuits. He bought a printer from Costello, claimed it was broken, and then sued him for $30,000 in damages. Obviously, the courts would eventually throw this out, so Zavodnik then filed two requests for admissions, demanding Costello acknowledge responsibility for another $900,000 in damages. Costello, as any sane but not legally-savy person would do, just ignored them. Unfortunately, according to Indiana trial law, you can't just do that. After 30 days of silence, the Indiana courts took that as a "Yeah, sounds good," and now Costello was on the hook for a cool million dollars in damages.
After going through a whole slew of judges, Special Judge J. Jeffery Edens performed the legal equivalent of just throwing up his hands and awarded Zavodnik $30,044.07. His decision, which admitted the damages were "seemingly high," boiled down to that lovely bureaucratic catch-all: This sucks, but hey, rules are rules.
Thankfully, an appeal by Costello brought the case to the attention of yet another judge, who then promptly threw this nonsense out. Zavodnik claims his abuse of tort law is to expose corruption within the legal system. Which, sure yeah, mission accomplished. But at what cost? I suppose that's how the citizens of Gotham feel about Batman.
SCREENING INFIDELITIES
Smartphones Will Not Make Your Children Dumb. We Think
As anyone with a child can tell you, smartphones and tablets are a godsend. If you need like a half-hour to eat some lunch, deal with the dishes in the sink or just take a dang shower, just fire up the ol' iPad and let your kid go crazy with that one YouTube video of the ducks. Of course, the effectiveness of this pacifier-with-a-screen is troubling to parents. Should it be okay to just placate your kid with a fancy piece of technology? It's so easy, there should be ill-effects, right? The short answer, from Olivia Solon's exhaustive look into the science behind tablets and childhood development, is we're not sure, but early signs say it's probably okay. It might come as a shock to some, but a screen cannot replace real-life experiences — which are vital for developing minds — and it's probably not great to use mobile devices as a regular means of entertaining your child. But, as in many things on this Earth, in moderation tablets and smartphones are just fine for your child. Go ahead, take a shower. It's fine. The iPad will watch the kids.
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WOULD YOU FIGHT ONE HORSE-SIZED CLAM OR…
Clams Are Much Scarier In Groups
The humble clam might be nothing more than just a living rock to us humans, but in this footage captured by one brave soul, when it's clam feeding time you better run away from the dang beach. One moment, the sand is peaceful, serene. The next, thousands of clams surface to ruin your relaxing day at the shore. The only way to strike back is to head to your local crab shack and order up a huge basket of fried clams.
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LET'S MAP IT OUT
The Only Thing Google And Apple Maps Have In Common Is A Map
Justin Obeirne knows maps. He helped Apple design their maps app. He once examined how Google's map design has changed over the years. And in his comparison between Apple and Google's maps, you would think the two largely accomplish the same thing — show you where things are and tells you how to get to them. And in terms of representing the geographic layout of our planet, then yes, Apple and Google's maps are exactly the same.
Where the two diverge from each other is what, exactly, those maps display. In other words, both Google and Apple have fundamental differences in what they believe should be on the map. On balance, Apple maps just labels more stuff — more points of interest, more restaurants, more smaller cities, more hospitals, more roads, etc. Google, on the other hand, presents you a clean, crisp view of your surroundings. And neither approach is overly right or wrong, it's more a matter of what each company thinks a map should accomplish. For Apple, their design suggests that users should use it more like a traditional map — open it up, see what things are nearby, and then find your way. With Google, it's clear that they would much prefer, and encourage, their users to enter search queries to find things.
Apple Maps is the paper map made digital, Google Maps is a Google Search that returns a point on a map — which is fine. Different perspectives make the world go 'round.
BUT ACT LIKE YOU'RE 20
You Need To Start Eating Like A 50-Year-Old When You're 30
In this excellent Flowing Data visualization of calorie consumption over the ages, one thing is very clear: Even the most active 30-year-olds eat like shit. Well, more specifically, even the most active 30-year-old men eat like shit. Nathan Yau pulled average calorie consumption data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2009 and 2012, and found that, on average, women eat far less compared to men, and men in their prime tend to eat a whole lot. I'm sure there are a whole slew of sociological explanations for why this is. And I'm going to assume that you, dear readers, can guess as to what those might be.
DAM IT ALL TO HELL
A Good Way To Get Rid Of A Dam Is To Just Blow It Up
Okay, maybe it's not that good, since exploding a dam results in a massive wave that's probably going to mess with the immediate area. But it looks cool, and probably takes a fraction of the time to do. Just like, you know, ripping a Band-Aid off or something.
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Previously on What We Learned This Week
You Need To Make $20 Per Hour To Afford A Two-Bedroom
A Chromebook Is Probably Better Than A Mac
For more Internet distillations like this, check out our back catalog of Digg Roundups. And for more stuff from Digg, check out our Originals archive.
