Hasta La Gadget!

Keith Sharp is the 55-year-old mayor of a city in eastern England. He’s been a health adviser for the past decade and a half. He’s spent $3,000 on a 3D HD TV and $175 on 3D glasses. All the guy wanted to do was rent a copy of Piranha 3D and spend a quiet, bloodsplattered night at home.

An employee at the local Blockbuster video thought otherwise, telling Sharp that he couldn’t rent the film. The ailing movie rental chain has a policy against renting out 3D, offer hygiene concerns. Apparently the policy was misinterpreted by an employee, who thought it extended to 3D films (why the store would carry a bunch of movies it couldn’t rent is beyond us, of course), barring Sharp from going home with the comedy-horror flick.

“It’s absolutely stupid,” Sharp said, apparently distraught by the whole run in. “It’s one of those over-the-top health and safety issues I’m sick and tired of. Things like renting a DVD should be common sense. I’ve come across idiotic health and safety people in my time, and this is up there with the worst of them.”

Blockbuster apologized for the apparent mix up, telling the press, “Staff have been trained on our strategy-but unfortunately, in this case, they provided the wrong information to the customer.”

The Nissan Leaf may be dishing out achievements to hypermilers and wowing moms, but it’s also proving something of a disappointment to the thousands of people still stuck on the waiting list. Nissan blew through its 20,000 pre-orders and is pledging to get 25,000 cars on US roads by the end of next year, but right now that number is rather more modest: just 19 delivered. In Detroit this week PluginCars chatted with Brian Carolin, Nissan’s Senior VP of Sales, who indicates: “In hindsight, maybe we could have lowered expectations a little bit more.” He does, however, dispel the myth that the cars had to be held back due to some wiring issues. How long until we can all stop fretting? “I think in five to six months time this will be kind of behind us,” he says, which is actually quite a long ways away if you’re really pining for your first EV.

Nissan responds to Leaf launch disappointments, set expectations too high originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Jan 2011 11:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  PluginCars.com  | Email this | Comments

Virginia doesn’t want its teachers to be friends with students–not on Facebook. The state’s public school system is voting on a new rule titled “Proposed Guidelines for the
Prevention of Sexual Misconduct & Abuse in Virginia Public Schools,” which would ban extra curricular communication between students and teachers, including texting and Facebook friending.

According to the proposed rule, communication between students and teachers would be restricted specifically to school sanctioned communication platforms. Communication via texting and “personal online social-networking sites” is banned altogether. Teachers “must decline or disregard invitations from students” to join social networks.

If the teacher has to contact a student through one of these methods in the case of an emergency, all communication must be reported to a school supervisor. Online gaming with students is also out of the question, under these new rules.

How many times do we have to tell you to back up your data people? Let this serve as an object lesson–two leading cancer researchers at Oklahoma University had their computer stolen recently.

It may have contained the cure for prostate cancer–or, at the very least, some vital clues in the fight against it. Sook Shin and her husband Ralf Jankecht had years of data on the thing. And no, they didn’t back up. Sin told the press, “I’m so devastated, and I feel so guilty.”

The couple is offering $1,000 for the safe return of their 13 inch Macbook, which was stolen from their Jetta parked outside of an Oklahoma-area Panera Bread, after a thief broke the window and stole a computer bag containing the computer.

“Please return the computer with the data saved,” added Jankecht. “This would tremendously help us and you would do something for society.”

A 45-year-old South Carolina resident agreed to remove a set of dyed-pink male genitals from a snowman, after being confronted by local police.

The man was confronted by a deputy from South Carolina’s Union Country after building the too anatomically correct winter symbol. The man insisted that he ought to be able to build the snowman, pink genitals and all, so long as it was located on his private property. The police disagreed, threatening to arrest him, should the genitals stay in place.

The man complied, promptly removing said pink snow genitals.