Brendon J. Wilson | Page 9 | www.brendonwilson.com

October 17, 2009 by Brendon J. Wilson

Treehugging: You’re Doing It Wrong

I saw this faucet in a local mall in Vancouver, and it took me a moment to realize it wasn’t a joke. Your eyes aren’t deceiving you: What you’re seeing is a solar-powered electronic faucet, complete with a handy informative plaque:

By installing this electronic faucet, this facility is demonstrating its commitment to water conservation and protecting/preserving our environment.

The mind boggles. Apparently, conserving water requires electricity and someone figured that adding a solar panel to the device would turn the conservation-cred of this faucet up to eleven.

It’s almost comical. For one thing, a solar-powered faucet can’t be solar-powered when it’s indoors – solar implies the light source is the sun, but in this case the light source is the fluorescent lights.

But really, focusing on the idiocy of an indoor solar-powered faucet overlooks the biggest problem: a faucet that requires electricity to run in the first place. The primary touted benefit of an electronic faucet is its ability to conserve water – something which was already achievable with spring-powered faucets. So, if it was already achievable without electricity, what’s the point of this thing?

The answer lies in the secondary benefit: touch-less operation. While I doubt there’s a high risk of contamination from a faucet in a bathroom, I suppose there can be a case made that it reduces costs to keep the faucet clean. There is, however, an alternative solution: a pedal-based faucet. We saw these in France, and I thought they were brilliant: no power, water-conserving, touch-less operation (I don’t think the bottom of your shoes are at any increased risk of contamination).

It the greenwashing by companies like Sloan, the manufacturer of this device, that fuel resistance to attempts to fight climate change and reduce our impact on the environment. Critics view these devices as a cynical attempt by companies to make a buck – surely the whole environmentalism thing is trick to make us buy different stuff!

Seriously Sloan, knock it off.

in Technology 14 comments

September 26, 2009 by Brendon J. Wilson

Open Letter to Yuk Yuk’s

Note: This is the second time an entertainment establishment in Vancouver has made dramatic alterations without any acknowledgment to their customers of the changes. Last time, my wife and I went to see Spinal Tap, only to discover TicketMaster had decided to move us from the orchestra to the last row of the balcony section. It appears that entertainment groups in Vancouver simply don’t understand how to communicate changes to their customers.

Dear Yuk Yuk’s:

My wife and I attended Yuk Yuk’s last night to see the 8pm ‘Garfunkel and Oates‘ show, who were previously advertised as your headline act for the night. It was the only reason I went. Not only did Garfunkel and Oates not play the gig, there was no notice to this effect at the box office or anywhere prior to the show. It wasn’t even acknowledged by the MC that the advertised headliners weren’t going to be playing.

I am aware that you state that “Acts are subject to change without notice.”; however, this as a legal term is only defensible in cases where a player or act is physically unable to make the gig (illness, accident, detention while crossing the border due to house arrest – I’m thinking of Andy Dick here, of course). To simply gloss over the fact that the very act people came to see won’t be playing the gig and attempt to hand-wave it away under this overly-broad disclaimer is poor form and, quite frankly, insulting to your customers. In other businesses, it’s called a bait-and-switch, and it’s illegal (for a reason).

In the future, it would be useful to at least acknowledge that the acts have changed. You’ll find that customers are a lot more forgiving if you communicate the change, than if they get to the end of the show and wonder why they didn’t end up seeing the very act they paid good money to see. It’s just good business.