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Chris O.

6
Level 6 Contributor

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About Me

I last made serious contributions here in 2010 - please note the dates before commenting on anything I wrote back then.

686 Reviews by Chris

  • SeeNow

10/30/09

Upload a portrait and insert into hundreds of images. Face recognition technology gets the face centered for you, more or less, and then you can enlarge or reduce it and wiggle it around till it looks OK. Then you can either go back and see it already inserted into all the existing images, or you can OK it and post it to your blog or your choice of social networks or have it printed on a cup or a mousemat etc. Probably all been done before one way or another, but this is quick and easy and has everything there in one place. It's fun, for a while.

The downside for now is no image editing and the facial recognition doesn't extend to color matching. So the chances are that your picture is not going to match the color or texture of the image you're dropping it into. But if you're content with having your head on Arnold Schwarzennegger's body, you go for it. Personally I think it'd be funnier with my body under his head, but there you are.

  • ReoCities

10/29/09

As one door closed, another one opened. But not leading to a new hope, just rescuing an old dream. Yahoo finally pulled the plug on Geocities recently, which at one time had been home to thousands of those sites that search engines these days bury on page 4583 out of 4585 - personal home pages. At its peak in the mid- to late nineteen nineties, it was the leading example of what an online community might be, if it could give members a rudimentary way to create the framework of their own home sites and import all their own content.

Back then, if you wanted to throw together an awful, incoherent mix of inappropriate, slow loading, pointlessly animated graphics, irritating sounds and badly constructed text, there was as yet no MySpace. Ahhh, the Good Old Days.

So felt a lot of people, and when Geocities closed, a big part of it had been rescued for posterity. That's now being resurrected at reocities.com, which cleverly isn't just changing one letter for fun, it's making it easy for people with existing links to Geocities to point those links in a new direction. There's even a FireFox extension that will do it automatically.

All the cities of Geocities are there, and the neighborhoods are building, but a lot of the old sites are not there yet. They're coming, though. I suspect that in another ten years nobody's going to believe a project that looked like this could ever have existed, let alone survived for all these years. Some people will suggest it shouldn't have. But at least it'll still be here to debate over.

  • Tjoos

10/29/09

Claims to be the largest coupon site out there:

* 161,998 Online Stores
* 35,639 Verified Working Coupons out of 354,471
* 3,717 Exclusive Coupons
Looks fine to me but nothing staggeringly new. So only a MEH and with a caution that the Firefox extension has only 3 reviews so far, 2 of which alert potential users that it "phones home" and may therefore be considered spyware if it's transmitting any data back whatsoever without asking.

  • Makemoney.middlecreekmarket

10/29/09

This is cool: Google for this site and the first 2 links are for the complaints pages on SiteJabber. The site itself only makes it to 3rd. Enough said?

BTW great SEO, SJ guys:-)

  • AT&T

10/29/09

I guess what with ATT having such a generally poor reputation, most reviews are going to be about the company, rather than their website. Which is good, because I can have a whinge about the company too.

I was originally an SBC Global customer with DSL via Yahoo, and now that's ATT and the DSL is still via Yahoo but ATT prefer to call it ATT High Speed Internet. When I started with this service about 5 years ago I had a month of awfulness but then it settled and for the rest of the years, I've had no problems with it at all other than the usual drops in DSL speed which you expect. I'm on a 6Mbit line and I get about 5.5, which is OK. So much for the DSL service, except that I found one reviewer talking about the free wi-fi that comes with it, which ATT **never** bothered to tell me about. So that's my first whinge, though judging from the other review, I'm not missing much.

My real annoyances with this company concern their repeated attempts to sign me up for one of their U-Verse all-in-one packages, which I do not want. They send reps round knocking on doors once every two months like clockwork, even if you've repeatedly told them to go away. They were phoning me up all the time until I turned nasty, which was so loud that a clerk right over there in Mumbai got the drift.

But the door-knocking, that's the worst. The last rep that came round was particularly sneaky, or so she thought. I started by telling her (a) that I have been telling ATT reps for as long as I can recall that I don't want a U-Verse package, (b) that yes, I am aware that they installed fiber optic cable last year because they've been telling me about it ever since, and (c) that I'm happy with the DSL connection which I have been paying them for, for 5 years, making me the sort of loyal customer that you don't want to piss off.

This all had no effect. I was (again) shown the brochure and serenaded with a song and dance about the other parts of the U-Verse package, including the fantastic cable package which was going to be way better and cheaper than the satellite service I already have. So, OK, I said let's see how much I can save with the cable service, and she got out her pen and started doing sums on the back of a form, until she came to a figure that was about identical to what I was already paying, for about the same channels. So, no difference and no reason to change to U-Verse, then. Well I could see a struggle going on in her mind between having to admit the truth, versus not wanting to lose a sale. Eventually the latter, as it turned out, was the winner.

She suggested that she write down all the details of the package anyway, and I said, OK, you can do that and leave it with me, that'll be fine, I can think it over. So she started to work out the prices and write them down, and as she was doing so she said that someone else would be by a couple of days later, and I said OK, if you like, and then noticed that she was actually writing the figures on an application form for a new service. I waited for her to finish this, and then she asked me to just sign the bottom while she held it out for me. Well I've got to tell you, this was no longer amusing, this was a direct, deliberate con trick. So I asked her why I should sign anything, and she then had to say that it was so they could come around and install the new service in a couple of days. But hang on, I didn't say I wanted a new service, absolutely not. And you know, she didn't like me saying that. She pouted. And I believe I may have expressed an opinion about the attempted con trick, at some length and possibly using some words that I can't quite recall here at present. But no, I'm too nice a guy, I probably didn't. Probably.

But you know, even then, and not discouraged by being caught trying to fool me into buying something I didn't want, she then offered me a business card and suggested that if I were interested in doing business with her, I could give her a call. I believe the conversation ended with me saying "oh, and why would I want to do that?"

Unbelievable, but I guarantee this story is true. The upside is that I haven't seen another ATT rep again. I can't imagine why.

  • Measy

10/28/09

This is so new bits are still stuck on with duct tape, but it's coming on and at least they're honest about it still being under construction. I guess these days it's useful to launch a half-finished project to get search engine rankings early on, but I'd still prefer to use and review something that's fully functional when the wraps come off.

That moan aside, this is a different take on review sites. Instead of using customer reviews, it's querying an existing database of so-called "expert reviews", collected from a handful of "reliable sources" I guess you'd say. This is handy because the reliable sources are going to promote the project, which gives it a good head start.

The downside is that you may not agree with expert reviews, which are often challenged for bias in favor of one manufacturer against another, whether that's a fair claim or not. You may not want to buy from the selected merchants. You may be misled by a device getting an overly high or low score due to the algorithm that calculates it from combinations of reviewers' scores. You aren't as yet told what the general public opinion of any of the suggested retailers is - no reviews for them as yet, and that may be crucial in choosing where to buy. Some gadgets have a choice of sellers, some don't, though there are more sellers out there than the site currently lists.
I presume the monetization comes in from the retailers, and maybe from the review sites, I don't know. But I do know that an income declaration, showing who, if anyone, is paying the site for promoting them, should be up front and prominently displayed. Or, if nobody is paying them per click or for insertion into the site then that should be said, too. Let's have that in the clear, please, guys. If it's totally objective and unbiased, let's know about it up front.

In other words, it's really not that much different from any customer-driven review site, unless you take the reliability and suitability of the reviewers and other resources at face value as being the best around. It's a new take only for people who spend a lot of time reading through Cnet, PC Magazine and so on, and who trust those sources already, and who buy online at Amazon or Buy.com or other common online retailers. For them, it will be a great time-saver.

Finally, I can't stop thinking of the name as "Measly" instead of measy. Sorry.

1: infected with measles
2 a: containing larval tapeworms b: infested with trichinae
3: contemptibly small

Perhaps the name might have been more fortuitously chosen?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE:
As this is a brand-new startup, these comments may be appropriate for a very short time. So I'd encourage you to check out the site in its current state in case it's developed a lot since I reviewed it. And if it has, and you want me to revise the review, please message me at SJ.

  • Ugg-mall

10/28/09

[UPDATED January 2010 (again)]

Apparently some honest reviewers are concerned that my comments below about phony reviews were incorrect and/or impolite. And now I re-read them, I see and apologize for a proofreading error: the word "their" is missing from the first sentence, which read:

'We have some issues with phony "reviewers" placing "reviews" claiming to have received genuine products from sites like this one. All such reviewers and reviews are phony.'

This should have read:

'We have some issues with phony "reviewers" placing "reviews" claiming to have received genuine products from sites like this one. All such reviewers and THEIR reviews are phony.'

It was not my intention to upset or challenge honest reviewers who were posting positive reviews, and I apologize if that meaning was taken from my words.

I've amended the rest of the comment to be clearer, as follows:

"We have some issues with phony 'reviewers' placing 'reviews' claiming to have received genuine products from sites like this one. All such reviewers and their reviews are phony. There are also genuine, honest reviewers who mistakenly claim or suggest that the goods supplied by this site are either entirely genuine, or perhaps-genuine. This particular site is a known counterfeit operation, don't be misled by claims that it isn't, however well-intentioned."

My intent, badly worded as it may have been, was to prevent anyone from buying fake goods from this or any other site.

Why is this important, if the fakes are so close to the originals that it's impossible for an average wearer to tell the difference? Where shall I start?

Firstly, this is an illegal trade. At both ends, not just in China. It is illegal for this business to import counterfeit goods into any other country, and US Customs (or Customs elsewhere) has the right to seize your boots if they find them, which they certainly do, at least some of the time. Because of the way these packages are labeled, and because Customs is already familiar with these people, the only way the packages make their way to your door is because it's impossible to inspect every single box that arrives from China. If Customs happens across your box, though, it's gone and you will never see it.

Secondly, these products are not made in the same factories as the genuine items. You have no way to know the conditions of the workplace or the wages that are being paid to the people who work in them. Nothing is subject to any control or inspection by, in this case, Deckers Corp., the owners of the UGG® Australia brand. The factory is itself operating illegally so one assumes that nobody is going to complain even if working conditions and wages are bad. Child labor and even slave labor is common, we hear.

Thirdly, there is evidence associating the import and sale of counterfeit goods with serious criminal activities, because it's a multi-billion-dollar trade that is entirely illegal everywhere and law-abiding folks don't go looking for careers in this business. There is no way to know how exactly large the profits are, or where they go to. But you can be certain that they don't go to the people making the counterfeits, and they don't go into the American economy by way of the American companies that own the brands. According to the FBI there are known links to organized crime. And there is at least some indication that profits may also go to finance terrorist organizations.

Fourth: The sale of counterfeits as genuine directly affects the companies who make the real thing. Admittedly Deckers Corp. is not short of a dollar or two, but why should they bother to maintain brand quality when half the boots out there are fakes masquerading as the real deal, worn by people who can't tell the difference? They might as well just make a lower quality product. A smaller company could be put out of business entirely because their brand's reputation has been so diluted by counterfeiting. The more counterfeiting there is, the lower the reputation of the genuine product. Sales fall, styles are abandoned, it's not good news for a company and that means bad news for customers too. Another impact may be that the purchasers of exclusive designer goods stop buying them when they see half the people in town walking around with "genuine" fakes that look the same. A status symbol ceases to be a status symbol if everyone has one.

Fifth: The quality of fakes is not as high as the quality of the genuine articles. They are not made in the same factories nor are they made with skilled labor, quality controls, or the best quality materials. They may look like the real thing but that's where the similarity ends. The quality is incredibly variable: sometimes someone will get a "mirror image" fake that is to all intents and purposes identical to the genuine product at the time of purchase, other times the item will already have fallen apart before it arrives. Even good-looking items may last a considerably shorter time than the genuine products, and they may not wear in the same way either. It isn't uncommon, in the case of fake boots, to read of stitching coming apart or other major faults developing within a month of use. When you order a fake, you really have no idea what you're going to get. When you order the genuine article, consistent quality control is normally assured.

Lastly: You are giving your personal and credit card details to people whom you would never normally give that information to. Where those details go, is unknown. And the whole financial deal can explode in your face: use a credit card, and unauthorized charges can be made by people in a foreign country, using false names and accounts. That might not happen today, or this week. But it still could happen, at any time during the life of your credit card account. Use PayPal outside of Ebay and you'll discover you don't have any protection worth a bean. Use Western Union, or any other kind of cash transfer, and you can pretty much guarantee that's the last you'll see of your money or the person at the other end who collected it.

I think perhaps the most compelling of these arguments is that child labor, or even slave labor, may have been employed in the manufacture of your fake boots and that not only are you funding this industry but it's likely you are at least partially funding organized crime as well. Those things should be more important than whether or not your boots have the labels on straight or not, at least in my opinion.

So I hope that has explained my concerns about claims that the goods sold by this site are genuine. They are not genuine UGG® Australia products. However good the fakery, the boots sold at this website are not and will not be genuine UGG® Australia products, ever. If you should happen to read a comment such as "they might or might not be fakes" please remember, these are fakes, no maybe's. And if someone you believe is entirely honest, writes that there is no apparent difference between the fakes and the real branded items, and even if you believe wholeheartedly that the fakes are genuine "mirror image" goods that will last and wear in exactly the same way as the genuine products, these are still fakes and you should, I believe, consider what that implies.

If you have any comments that relate to my review, or any of my reviews, do feel free to send me a message through SiteJabber's internal message system. I appreciate being corrected, or getting any sort of heads-up that one of my reviews needs my attention. Thanks.

[/ UPDATE]

[UPDATED January 2010] and subsequently modified as above.

We have some issues with phony 'reviewers' placing 'reviews' claiming to have received genuine products from sites like this one. All such reviewers and their reviews are phony. There are also genuine, honest reviewers who mistakenly claim or suggest that the goods supplied by this site are either entirely genuine, or perhaps-genuine. This particular site is a known counterfeit operation, don't be misled by claims that it isn't, however well-intentioned.
[/UPDATE]

[UPDATED November 2009]

Please also see:
http://ugg-hall-of-shame.posterous.com/wwwugg-mallcom

Thanks!

[/UPDATE]

Another phony, nothing with UGG in the domain name and claiming to sell UGG ® Australia boots is what it appears to be except the official site.

If possible cut and paste the following, which is from the genuine site at www.uggaustralia.com, anywhere you think it will be seen by people who can use this knowledge to avoid being caught by counterfeiters.

Please also RT this if you have a Twitter account by clicking on the Share button below.

"Be wary of websites that contain UGG® anywhere in the domain name. If you are viewing UGG® Australia products online anywhere other than uggaustralia.com and the domain name includes "UGG." or any variation of this word, or includes one of our style names in the domain address, e.g. "Cardy," this product is most certainly counterfeit."

  • The Best Camera

10/28/09

A relatively new site strictly for iPhone owners, the rest of us can go home right now, nothing to see here.

This project revolves around a new (paid) app for the iPhone by a photographer named Chase Jarvis, who has also written a book entitled The Best Camera, full of his own iPhone images from around the world to illustrate that the best camera is the one that's with you. I'm not sure I'm allowed to say that because it's already been trademarked but I'll risk it.

The app looks impressive indeed, is apparently all its claimed to be and iPhone users are all over it. The site itself is an almost-real-time display of iPhone images captured and transmitted with this app, coming in from iPhones all over the world. Cleverly, you can sit for hours and watch as the new images appear; the ones I looked at were less than an hour old. No idea how they keep the porn out but they seem to, so I guess someone has to watch all these coming in. They have a strict no-porn, no-commercial-use, nothing illegal or you get thrown out, policy and you aren't allowed to use the app to send an image of the couch you have for sale on Craigslist or Ebay. As if iPhone owners would even think of such a thing.

This is going to be great fun if you have an iPhone, and I gather that if you have an iPhone you can enter a competition to win an iPhone. Not having an iPhone because I don't have that sort of money, I can't tell you more about that. But there's also a blog entry here that might be helpful to you:
http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2009/09/best-camera-thanks-you-bigtime.html

  • Uggsale.cc

10/27/09

Identical to the site at uggsalea.com at present, so, a copy of a site selling copies. There may be more identical sites out there, be careful. These are all phony.

Also see: http://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.uggsalea.com

PLEASE IGNORE any review claiming that the boots sold on this site are authentic, they are not. They have not been, neither will they ever be. This is a Chinese wholesaler selling copies and they will not have been made in the same factory that makes the genuine article. If you have any doubts then ask UGG Australia themselves.

Counterfeit education
http://www.uggaustralia.com/retailStores/counterfeit.aspx

  • Uggsalea

10/27/09

More fakes, this one is currently identical to the site at uggsale.cc, also reviewed on SJ and there may well be more copies around, so beware.

See also: http://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.uggsale.cc

  • Uggstopaustralia

10/27/09

Gone.

Good riddance.;-D

  • Whatpercent

10/26/09

Vote on a very mixed bunch of user-created polls, and then vote on the comments attached to those polls as well. Create your own polls and see if people agree with you or not. Invent something totally ludicrous that nobody would ever believe and watch in amazement as people rush to support it (well it almost worked for Sarah Palin).

It'll be a fluke if you find a poll that agrees with broader public opinion, of course, so this is just for fun. Not that people won't get very serious about their opinions, but the overall result of a poll will have meaning that doesn't extend beyond the site. No TV channel is likely to be using anything here to prove anything in the real world.

Come to think of it, scrub that last comment.

  • eBay

10/25/09

I'm a sporadic user of Ebay but my wife has been buying from it for at least ten years (somebody stop her, please? LOL) and has had no bad deals that I know of in all that time.

I got into it I think about 8 years ago and it's changed a lot since then. It's opened the doors to professional dealers of varying trustworthiness, it's acquired PayPal and Skype, it's changed it's rating scheme to make buyers look better and sellers look worse, it's invented Ebay stores and Buy It Now, both fixed price transactions, and it's continuously messed around with the design of members' home pages in an ongoing attempt to make them as unhelpful as possible. The site itself has got gradually more slow-loading over the years too, as more and more Flash and interactivity has been deployed. Currently the front page is trying to be "Web 2.0" by having a word cloud, which slows the page down a bit and really isn't serving any useful purpose at all.

I've mainly been a buyer rather than a seller. I've sold maybe a dozen things and bought maybe a hundred. All my transactions went fine and I had no PayPal problems. I understand this is not everyone's experience. I've always paid promptly and have a 100% rating as a buyer (though this is easier to get now than before). I do enjoy the excitement of the chase in those last few seconds, and if I can manually "snipe" a bid in at the very last moment and win a great deal, it's a great experience. Sadly, people now deploy sniping programs, "bots" that bid for them in that vital last moment and can monitor and bid in multiple auctions simultaneously. Not cheating, but not fair either.

Whatever you're looking for, Ebay is like a landfill, everything ends up there sooner or later. If you think of it just like a physical auction, and remember the golden rules of physical auctions - Only bring as much money as you can afford to waste, and keep your hands in your pockets unless you really mean to bid - then you should generally be OK. Never, ever assume that anything cheaply sold is anything other than cheaply made. If it's priced like a fake, it's a fake. If you don't know how to tell, walk away.

Personally I wouldn't buy anything very large or very valuable this way unless it was specialized enough to be of little interest to your average second-hand junk dealer and the seller was knowledgeable enough to answer questions accurately. Though of course people routinely do, up to and including used fire engines and the occasional submarine. I just don't play in that league.

You're well advised to take with the proverbial pinch of salt anyone who says "I don't know anything about these". That's potentially a dealer who bought the item at either a local auction, estate sale or even thrift store precisely because she knew *everything* about these. People commonly use such expressions to distance themselves from an item, and sometimes in the hope that you'll bite only because you think you've found a bargain that the seller doesn't know about.

Volumes - literally - have been written about trading on Ebay and the temptation is to write another one, because the subject is so complex. Commonsense will take care of many of your concerns, though, and the strength to walk away from a deal you're not too sure of.

What's missing here is the sellers' points of view. Hopefully we can get some regular sellers to tell us about their experiences with Ebay as well, because buying is only half the story.

  • SavingsAce

10/24/09

These people must have an online popularity rating of zero, judging from the number of complaints about them charging fees that were never agreed. Take a look at the page at complaintsboard.com:

http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/savings-ace-c*******.html

While you have to take anybody's complaints with a degree of caution - sadly not everyone suddenly becomes fair and honest when they get online - there are enough criticisms here, and for the same reasons, to suggest that unless you have an overwhelming need to join this scheme you should stay well away.

The good news is that it seems people who complain loudly enough do get their money back eventually, though not without a struggle. But given how many people lose out completely in internet dealings, getting anything back, let alone all of it, is a bonus.

  • TinEye

10/24/09

If TinEye succeeds in indexing the web quickly enough, it'll be able to offer unmatched image recognition technology in a usable form. They're aiming to compare any image that you upload or point them to with every other image out there and tell you where it's already appeared - every single duplicate of that image, even if it's been modified subsequently, which is, you must admit, dead clever. The engine is not able to handle face recognition, though, and typically returns exact matches, not similar images.

If successful, it will help copyright owners to find unauthorized copies of their work, and help out folks like us who are trying to figure out if a site is authentic, by letting us see if images are original or not. It will find higher or lower resolutions of the same image. It will help identify the subject of an image that has no description, and so on. Registered users may save their searches and registration is free, though the engine is available to anyone and anyone can recommend a site to be indexed.

Currently they've already indexed over a billion images and that number is constantly increasing. It sounds a lot, but it's a tiny percentage of the images to be found out there (Photobucket alone hosts more than 8 billion images), and that figure is growing all the time too. You may strike lucky already, but don't be discouraged if you're unsuccessful. Bookmark this one for a return trip a little further down the line.

There is a version for the iPhone (naturally) and a useful plug-in for Firefox that adds a search option to the right-click menu.

For people who can see a use for this, it's going to be a great asset for sure.

  • Jessica Watson

10/24/09

Jessica Watson is a 16-year old Australian girl who is planning to become the youngest person to sail around the world, single-handed and unassisted. At the time of writing she's 500 nautical miles on her way towards a 23,000 nautical mile target which will bring her back to Sydney in eight months' time, the first time in that eight months that she will be permitted to come ashore. This is her second attempt, after being hit by a tanker a week into her first journey. She doesn't give up easily.

Her blog already has close on half a million hits and her first few entries, sent from the ocean, have attracted from 300 - 900 comments each. She will be blogging and sending photos for the next 8 months, so drop by and share in this remarkable adventure.

  • CookThing

10/23/09

Here are a pair of awesome cookery sites!

If you know what you want to make, think you might have some ingredients for it, but you don't have a recipe, then consult Cook Thing, http://www.cookthing.com/. Select the sort of thing you want to cook. Up will come a long list of likely ingredients, rated from the most to the least common, and you can just tick off the ones you have or the ones you want to use. Hit the button and back comes a results page of recipes.

If you don't have a clue what to cook but you have a handful of ingredients, then go over to sister site Recipe Puppy, http://www.recipepuppy.com. Type in a list of your ingredients, hit the button, and back will come a Google-like results page of recipes for you to choose from.

It's nothing you couldn't do with a string of Google's advanced search terms, but it's w-a-y easier, a darn site faster, and there's nothing to remember. Simple and brilliant.

  • RecipePuppy

10/23/09

Here are a pair of awesome cookery sites!

If you've got a bunch of ingredients there but no idea what to do with them, just key them into the Recipe Puppy search engine and it will return a Google-like search featuring recipes that contain those ingredients.

If you already know what you want to make and think you have some ingredients for it, go over to the sister site at Cook Thing, http://www.cookthing.com/. And select the sort of thing you want to cook. Up will come a long list of likely ingredients, rated from the most to the least common, and you can just tick off the ones you have or the ones you want to use. Hit the button and back comes a results page of recipes.

It's nothing you couldn't do yourself with a good grasp of Google's advanced search terms, but this is w-a-y easier and a darn sight faster and there's nothing to remember. Simple and brilliant.

  • Speakingfaces

10/23/09

Well this is something new. And oddly compelling. Simply upload a photo portrait of yourself, or link to an existing URL, and site visitors will give you their first impression of you from a shortlist of single words (boring, smart, sexy, cute, interesting...)

And that's it. As long as your photo is there, visitors will see it and rate it and gradually you'll build up enough votes to get a much better idea of how other people see you. You can then use that information to change your appearance, if necessary, grow a beard, wear a paper bag or whatever seems appropriate.

You can upload a different photo any time you like, which will reset the count and start over. So if you got a negative result the first time (you wouldn't believe how many faces got a "boring"), you can try a different look and try again. Theoretically voting should be objective as the chances of people recognizing you are hopefully remote.

Simple as it is, I found several minutes had passed while I was looking at faces and rating them. It's compulsive. And interestingly, or worryingly perhaps, it's obvious that the majority of people have fixed archetypes in mind when they vote. Girls are almost universally voted "cute" or "sexy" or if they're lucky, "omg!". Men with glasses are generally boring or smart; older men who hold a non-committal pose are likely to be "self-confident" or "interesting", teens in shades are "arrogant" and so forth. It may be amusing to strike archetypal poses and see if you get the kind of voting pattern that you expect.

At the moment, all voting is entirely anonymous. I would like to see voters register their sex and birthdate, though, so that we can get a voting breakdown by age and gender. It would be useful to know whether your image is more appealing to men or women, and whether you're pitching yourself to an audience too young or too old. Still, even as it is, it's a fun, free idea and you can definitely waste a coffee break here.

  • People of Walmart

10/23/09

This is, if nothing else, an entirely American phenomenon.

Elsewhere in the world, people also capture images of others in the local stores, or in the street, or elsewhere in public. There are two main reasons for this: journalism, in which photographers claim that the public needs to know, and art, in which photographers use the immediacy of a moment and their skills in framing and composition to tell a story, convey a feeling, or simply create an image and let their viewers decide how to feel about it. Sometimes the two blend into one.

Americans, however, and I believe they may be unique in the world for this, take photographs of each other being American and then roll about laughing at them. You do not generally see, say, the French doing this sort of thing. C'est du pipi de chat. The Germans wouldn't get the point at all. And the English would merely gaze westward, and shake their heads in a mixture of pity and disgust. No, this is definitely not a European thing. And further east, while it's true that the Japanese love taking photos of each other, they don't really do the laughing part. That's saved for the TV, where they are happy to be humiliated beyond sane boundaries by game show companies. No, I believe only in America could a site such as peopleofwalmart.com exist and thrive.

You see, it's all to do with Freedom. And your average American would fight to the death to protect his right to it. That this site survives is thanks to a dilemma: if we were free to take it down, doing so would be a denial of freedom. So it stays. It would not do so in any country which holds freedom in less regard.

Being English, and never having been within miles of a Wal-Mart, I had to take the plunge and wade through 75 pages of photographs to understand what I was looking at. Apparently, it's traditional for some folks to use a trip to Wal-Mart as an excuse to deck themselves out in whatever they fancy, however outrageous or ill-advised. I'll discount them, because they're actors on the stage, costumed heroes who know what they look like and choose to look that way. What's left are mainly photographs of fat people and gay people and occasionally fat, gay people. Neither of which in itself, or in combination with the other, is an uproariously funny thing to be. But every now and again, there is a genuine "WTF?" moment, when you know you're in the presence of true genius, the art of appearing in public dressed in the absolute most inappropriate manner imaginable, yet entirely unintentionally. And I wouldn't be in the least surprised if those aren't the ones that make you laugh, even though you know you shouldn't.

The site relies to a great extent on the written commentaries that accompany the images. Whether you find them funny or not, the site wouldn't raise a laugh at all without them. Aside from those odd images which prompt instant astonishment and need no further commentary, for the most part the photos are interesting and sometimes mildly amusing but that's about it.

In almost every case, the photos have been taken from behind or to the side of the subject, except when cell phones have been deployed more craftily to get a frontal view. On only two or three occasions that I recall did the photographer get a posed shot. These "Wal-Creatures", as the site unkindly christened them, are to be feared; we fear that which we do not understand, and we ridicule it and call it names to hide our fears.

I urge you to go visit this site, especially if you're across the world from the USA and the only images you have are the President and some imported TV series. Skip the commentaries and the debates, just regard it as a photo gallery. This is a big chunk of America you're looking at, and however much you might like to think this is an unrepresentative sample of American society, if Wal-Mart's customers were to all vote the same way, they could bring down a President. These aren't just the people of Wal-Mart, they're people of America. They're often obese, thanks to poor nutrition and even poorer healthcare, assuming they can get any at all. They're poor, often unemployed, ill-educated, and maintained at a social and economical level that would befit a third-world nation, and not a developing one at that. Viewing these images will not explain America to you, but it will broaden your understanding if you have eyes to see. Although it's unfortunate that it needed this rather seedy project to bring these images to you, it's an unique opportunity to see a slice of working class America through the eyes of its own people.

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