peteashtondotcom

I heard about this a while back and was dead chuffed to get the following forwarded to me today…

Nike now lets you personalize your shoes by submitting a word or
phrase which they will stitch onto your shoes, under the swoosh.

So Jonah Peretti filled out the form and sent them $50 to stitch
“SWEATSHOP” onto his shoes.

Here’s the responses he got…
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

From: “Personalize, NIKE iD” < nikeid_personalize@nike.com
To: “‘Jonah H. Peretti’” < peretti@media.mit.edu
Subject: RE: Your NIKE iD order o16468000

Your NIKE iD order was cancelled for one or more of the following
reasons:

1) Your Personal iD contains another party’s trademark or other
intellectual property
2) Your Personal iD contains the name of an athlete or team we
do not have the legal right to use
3) Your Personal iD was left blank. Did you not want any
personalization?
4) Your Personal iD contains profanity or inappropriate slang,
and besides, your mother would slap us.

If you wish to reorder your NIKE iD product with a new
personalization please visit us again at www.nike.com

Thank you, NIKE iD

From: “Jonah H. Peretti” < peretti@media.mit.edu
To: “Personalize, NIKE iD” < nikeid_personalize@nike.com
Subject: RE: Your NIKE iD order o16468000

Greetings,
My order was canceled but my personal NIKE iD does not violate
any of the criteria outlined in your message. The Personal iD on
my custom ZOOM XC USA running shoes was the word “sweatshop.”

Sweatshop is not:
1) another’s party’s trademark,
2) the name of an athlete,
3) blank, or
4) profanity.

I choose the iD because I wanted to remember the toil and labor
of the children that made my shoes. Could you please ship them
to me immediately.

Thanks and Happy New Year, Jonah Peretti

From: “Personalize, NIKE iD” < nikeid_personalize@nike.com
To: “‘Jonah H. Peretti’” < peretti@media.mit.edu
Subject: RE: Your NIKE iD order o16468000

Dear NIKE iD Customer,

Your NIKE iD order was cancelled because the iD you have
chosen contains, as stated in the previous e-mail correspondence,
“inappropriate slang”. If you wish to reorder your NIKE iD
product with a new personalization please visit us again at nike.com

Thank you, NIKE iD

From: “Jonah H. Peretti” < peretti@media.mit.edu
To: “Personalize, NIKE iD” < nikeid_personalize@nike.com
Subject: RE: Your NIKE iD order o16468000

Dear NIKE iD,

Thank you for your quick response to my inquiry about my custom
ZOOM XC USA running shoes. Although I commend you for your
prompt customer service, I disagree with the claim that my personal
iD was inappropriate slang. After consulting Webster’s Dictionary,
I discovered that “sweatshop” is in fact part of standard English,
and not slang.

The word means: “a shop or factory in which workers are employed
for long hours at low wages and under unhealthy conditions”
and its origin dates from 1892. So my personal iD does meet the
criteria detailed in your first email.

Your web site advertises that the NIKE iD program is “about freedom
to choose and freedom to express who you are.” I share Nike’s
love of freedom and personal expression. The site also says that “If
you want it done right…build it yourself.” I was thrilled to be
able to build my own shoes, and my personal iD was offered as a small
token of appreciation for the sweatshop workers poised to help me
realize my vision. I hope that you will value my freedom of expression
and reconsider your decision to reject my order.

Thank you, Jonah Peretti

From: “Personalize, NIKE iD” < nikeid_personalize@nike.com
To: “‘Jonah H. Peretti’” < peretti@media.mit.edu
Subject: RE: Your NIKE iD order o16468000

Dear NIKE iD Customer,

Regarding the rules for personalization it also states on the NIKE
iD web site that “Nike reserves the right to cancel any personal iD
up to 24 hours after it has been submitted”. In addition, it
further explains: “While we honor most personal iDs, we cannot honor
every one.

Some may be (or contain) other’s trademarks, or the names of
certain professional sports teams, athletes or celebrities
that Nike does not have the right to use. Others may contain
material that we consider inappropriate or simply do not want to
place on our products.
Unfortunately, at times this obliges us to decline personal iDs
that may otherwise seem unobjectionable. In any event, we will
let you know if we decline your personal iD, and we will offer you the
chance to submit another.” With these rules in mind, we cannot accept
your order as submitted. If you wish to reorder your NIKE iD
product with a new personalization please visit us again at www.nike.com

Thank you, NIKE iD

From: “Jonah H. Peretti” < peretti@media.mit.edu
To: “Personalize, NIKE iD” < nikeid_personalize@nike.com
Subject: RE: Your NIKE iD order o16468000

Dear NIKE iD,

Thank you for the time and energy you have spent on my request.
I have decided to order the shoes with a different iD, but I
would like to make one small request. Could you please send me a color
snapshot of the ten-year-old Vietnamese girl who makes my shoes?

Thanks,
Jonah Peretti

<no response>

Thanks Gill!

I’ve re-done, and updated, my reading list. Funnily enough I’ve been reading a lot more since feeling knackered. Maybe escape is needed?

More net toys. Having had a little AOL Instant Messenger icon at the top of the screen since loading Netscape many moons ago I decided I might as well sign up for it. My AIM name is peteash10. I’m usually online of an evening at some point between 6.00pm and midnight (or after depending on sleep patterns) for a couple of hours.

This is my good friend Dave. Dave works for Mill Film who did the special effects for Gladiator. Dave’s team won an Oscar. I get the feeling Dave’s been waiting for this day since he knew what an Oscar was.

Good cheer, sir!

Went to the doctors but the doctors was closed. Well, at least we have low taxes. That’s something.

Baptist Church of True Truth

PLEASE tell me this is a spoof…

I’m going to the doctors’ tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll be able to get an appointment immediately but I’ll make one. Today I was off sick. Thing is I don’t feel ill, just very very tired. Sunday I slept all day and today I slept all day (hence why I’m up at 2.30am…). When I’m awake I can’t concentrate and keep having to lie down. When I’m at work it’s a struggle and my body gets jabs of pain now and again.

This has been going on for a number of months, since November at a guess, but now it’s getting to the point where I can’t cope with it any more. I need this cleared up. I need to know if there’s actually something chemically wrong with my body (my mum had an overactive thyroid a few years back) or if it’s just my lifestyle. But above all I want to be able to get through a week in one piece.

I seem to be having a non-net week. As mentioned on Friday, I’ve been a wee bit tired of late, something that’s been dragging on and off since before Xmas and it’s getting a bit annoying all told. This weekend I’ve been physically exhausted and it’s got to stop. I’m going to spend a couple of weeks seriously chilling out, and that means not spending quite so much time actively online. I’ll still be checking emails and occasionally adding stuff to the weblogs, but nothing major.

Easter’s coming up soon and I’ll have five days off then. Can’t wait.

Little tip to keep you going for a few minutes: What Cud Have Been - the tribute site to my fave band of the ealy 90s (after the Pixies of course…)

GAPACT has arrived and it is called:

Passionate About Bookselling in the form of a nine page document packed full of “quotes” from “booksellers” about increasing sales.

God help us all…

This last week I’ve been absolutely fucking exhausted. There’s a big mirror in the lift to our floor with very unforgiving lights and I had a good look at my face last night.

I do believe I’m a wreck.

Need a break, need a rest, need to do nothing…

John Peel just read out my email about Bal Sagoth.

The last time you played Bal Sagoth it cheered me up for a week and tonight the timing was perfect. I don’t think you’ve made such an important difference to my musical life since playing Nirvana in 1991.

Woooo!

I’m so happy!

You will no doubt be aware of the Anthea Turner autobiography debacle which generated vast quantities of schadenfreude last year when it failed to sell 2000 copies across the country. Well, I have good news. Very good news.

The BBC, who as a publisher are the most smug, self righteous bunch of wankers I’ve ever had the displeasure to deal with (although their rep is a nice guy, which is a shame…) recently broke out of the TV tie-in market and started publishing books which do not have hours of free advertising in the national media. The first few books did pretty well. They timed the Steve Redgrave biography well (making one wonder if the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award might have been a fix) and were expecting great things of their most recent acquisition.

You’ll have heard that Esther Ransen has an autobiography out. It got a lot of coverage in the papers which care about this kind of thing and some of the papers which don’t. Something to do with her stepdaughter or something. I was published by the BBC a couple of weeks ago and, across the chain I work for has sold a grand total of 700 copies. We haven’t sold a single copy.

Once again, there is a god.

Now, publishers, please stop commissioning B-list celebrity biographies. Or if you must, don’t pay so much money for them. And stop being surprised when they don’t sell. These people do not have fans, they just have too much exposure. Terry Wogan has fans, that’s why his biography (another BBC book) was top ten at Xmas. Esther Ransen does not have fans. Yes, people might be interested in reading about her in the tabloids, but they ain’t gonna pay £17.99.

Please learn.

atavar.guardianunlimited.co.uk

michael atavar has produced a series for newsprint … [i.e. three dots] archived on the guardian unlimited site. link to each title separately. or read his e-say why? contextualising the work

 [blue dot] 50 years on a mcdonalds sign fallen in the dust rusted

 [red dot] cluster of lights on a night time motorway far from home

 [kinda greeny like 70's carpet dot] a tangle of neon found under the wheels of a passing lorry

So, is this bollocks or brilliant? I’ve seen the newspaper insert. I’ve seen the site. I’m still undecided.

And I’m not some schmuck, you know. I’ve been to Tate Modern me! At least five times! Hmm!

In the “boxes from my mother’s attic” were some back issues of Private Eye from the mid 90s. In Eye 861 (16th December 1994) there’s this amusing feature on the Daily Express:

The Express turned its gaze on “The Barrons Making Huge Profits From Sleaze” and focussed on “seedy empires built on dirty money” (acompanied, purely to illustrate the nature of the problem, by photos of nine scantily dressed young women) with the emphasis on the activities of Paul Raymond, Ron Davey, and Richard Desmond.

The latter came in for particular scrutiny with his picture captioned “market leader” and the text explaining that “he lives in a London mansion near Hampstead Heath, drives a Bentley, sports a fat cigar and has rubbed shoulders with the Duke of Edinburgh”. But, the paper warned its readers, despite the shoulder rubbing, “just under the veneer of respectability is a story of women being exploited and degraded.”

Funny how things turn out in the end…

Jez has just carried eight tonnes of comics down from his attic…

Funnily enough, last weekend, when I was picking up a sofa from Winchester in a big van, my mother gently insisted I remove some of the boxes of comics and books from the attic which had been up there since 1995. The dust was so bad I came down with a bad sinus problem, something I never get. Streamy nose and eyes, tight chest, etc.

On Sunday we opened them, six boxes of joy and my parents wedding photos (interested in scans Dad?). It was a weird evening, digging through the paper-based records of my life from 1989-95, and Kate’s fascination with this secret history didn’t help my sense of foreboding as I opened each box.

I was a real hoarder back then and in the box were copies of Macworld from ‘95 reviewing the new 28.8Kbps modems (cheap at £299!), boasting “super-fast” access to the internet, and CDR disks selling for £97 for ten (I just bought 25 for less than a quid each).

Fascinating discovery was my sketchbooks from the wasted teenage years spent hanging around London comic shops getting sketches from comics luminaries. There’s some really neat stuff in there and it’ll be scanned up soon.

And then the comics. Some good, some bloody awful. Considering I’ve spent the last five years slowly reducing the stock to the current cream, this was rather a shock to think I used to buy this stuff. But then there were some gems in there which I might well have dumped at rasher times.

So, in conclusion, stashing a load of crap in your mothers attic and leaving it there for years is a good thing, although I would caution against having a loved one present when rediscovering them.

I didn’t remove the eight carrier bags of 2000AD back issues, nor the random bags marked “paper” and “mags”. Maybe in five years time.

Well, wadayaknow! My remove-request bounced! So the message can be legally considered spam after all. How nice.

Interesting sig on a piece of blatant spam:

This message is sent in compliance with the new email bill
section 301. Under Bill S.1618 TITLE III passed by the 105th US
Congress, this message cannot be considered SPAM as long as we
include the way to be removed, Paragraph (a)(c) of S.1618,
further transmissions to you by the sender of this email may be
stopped at no cost to you by sending a " Reply" email with
" remove" typed into the subject line. We really will remove you
immediately.

So, the legal ruling just means spam takes up more bandwidth by claiming it’s not spam. Now that’s progress.

Actually, I’m interested in the logic of this. If we take spam to be unsolicited email sent to a large number of addresses by persons unknown to the recipient, then merely including the ability not to be sent unsolicited mail again does not negate this description. If you enter my house against my will, your stating that you will not enter my house against my will providing I request you not to do so using the correct procedure does not mean you did not enter my house against my will.

Spam is spam is spam.

Or maybe I’m just narked because the spam was from some low-rent Flash animators and as we all know, Flash websites are a conspiracy deserving enternal damnation.

It seems the rest of the world has discovered the bookseller’s anal hobby of looking for weird texts on the books in print database. What will they make of Garner and Bailey’s masterwork The Law of Sewers and Drains or the miriad of others out there?

Cook`d And Bomb`d has loads of Chris Morris stuff to download, including whole episodes of his delightful sense-filled ramblings. Get in there.

Muppaphone. Kickass monkey-brain fun! 1812 Overture played on fuzzy balls! (Thanks LMG!)

If I ever have an affair, it will begin in a bookstore. (Thanks Jez

And there’s me working five minutes down the road from Cornhill…

FOOL’S FEST 2001

Adbusters wants to help you make $100 quickly and easily through the
Internet.

Here’s how: This April Fool’s Day, take one hundred dollars worth of
small bills and scatter them on the trading floor of your nearest
stock market or crowded shopping mall. Capture the action live on
film, then send us your photographs or video. Once we receive a
visual record of your money scramble, WE WILL SEND YOU $100.

Let money rain down on the heads of the shell-shocked!

For more information, check out http://www.adbusters.org

Might take more than £67 to make those fuckers take notice though…

From the history of Wired UK

On that flight, I got into a blazing row with Tony Ageh; the only row that
I’ve ever had with him. Tony isn’t efficient. He’s not really wired. But
he’s a very charismatic man, and I’d say a visionary too; he’s easily a
match for Louis in that.

We were talking about something that Louis had said, something that made
Tony uncomfortable. Louis had talked about Wired being for ‘the digerati’ -
‘guys who’d been teased at school for being geeks, and who are now earning
millions while their schoolmates flip burgers’. Wired UK, Tony insisted,
was going to be for everyone - even the burgerflippers. I stuck to the
Louis line. I said, these people are defining the future - you’ve got to
write a magazine for them. So why, said, Tony, can’t everyone define the
future? Isn’t that what it’s really about - everyone at last, defining
their own future? Can’t this magazine help create a place where everyone
can take these tools and use them for themselves?

What Louis is doing, he said, smacks of revenge - of comeuppance. He’s
turning a global change into a vengeance tale. And so it went on, me
insisting the value of representing the thoughts of the wired, Tony
claiming that the function of any magazine he produced was to distribute
power as widely and irretrievably as possible. We almost literally came to
blows, rocking and pushing on the plane even though we were only an armrest
away. The argument was never resolved; eventually we fell asleep, awkward

A few years back I’d have been with Louis. Now I’m with Tony. Why can’t everyone define the future? Fuck power. It’s not worth it. No fun.

Dancing Paul - Who needs television!

Japanese Engrish

More kitchy Japanese stuff from a weirded out European perspective, this time a bit piss-takey, but I’ll let that slide…

The perfect Goods to climax a happy occasion… to make any occasion happy. BITS GOODS goes along.

My name is Bits. Born in Japan. I’m an useful and enjoyable stationary. Let’s get along with me!’

Personally, though, I’m way happier getting along with the Tara Panda pencil Kate bought me last weekend.

From Douglas Rushkoff’s column in Adbusters #34 (copies from the print issue - not sure if it’s online - haven’t looked):

When you walk into the GAP, a young clerk will initiate a well-researched sales technique called GAPACT (Greet Approach Provide Add-on Close Thank) [This ensures the customer leaves with more items than they planned to purchase - Pete]. Should we be mad at her? Of course not. She’s just doing what her manager has told her to do. If she doesn’t end the day with a certain quota of multiple-item sales, she’ll get in trouble. So do we blame her manager? No. He’s got to meet a quota too, set by corporate headquarters. Do we blame the marketing department? Well, they’re just taking orders from the CEO. And he’s just taking his from the Board of Directors. And they’re just listening to their shareholders. And those shareholders, well, they’re some of the same people walking in the door as customers, who happen to have GAP stock in the mutual funds of their retirement plans.

Bit of a bugger really, isn’t it.

We have a similar initiative at work, although it’s in no was as calculated as GAPACT. At the end of each enquiry we are told to ask “Anything else?” because research has shown sales are often “lost” at this stage. It’s a bit of a weird one and feels really wrong. Bookselling is inherently a passive trade. We put the books on tables and shelves and invite the public to pick them up and buy them. You only “greet” people when they are looking really confused and lost or are standing at the till tapping their feet meaning the only time you can try and sell something to someone is when they actively want that procedure to take place. It’s one of the reasons I like bookselling and probably why the “lifestyle bookshop” (coffee shops, sofas, etc) has taken off. Compared to most of the high street it’s an oasis.

That’s not to say we don’t try. There are certain tables and display areas I have identified as places you can sell anything. Similarly there are juxtapositions of books I can use to convince people they want to buy them. We’ve recently started putting non-discounted hardbacks in these key areas scattered around bestsellers, the idea being that people will gravitate towards stuff they recognise and then look at the other stuff in that area. And it works. We’re currently consistently meeting sales targets and are on track to make our sales forecast. Admittedly there’s not much coercion going on here and people are generally happy to discover something new and take the risk, but the fact remains that when I’m at work I’m actively trying to change people’s buying patterns to the benefit of the shop, the company and the shareholders. Which is a bit weird but then I am being paid top wack (as a bookseller) to do this. Sometimes this can be a good thing - I honestly believe Haruki Murakami (see my reading list is an author everyone should try at some point so you’ll often find his books in these key areas, but at other times you’ll find books by Roger Scruton and Peter Hitchens there because I know, when placed next to Jeremy Paxman’s The English (a very good book), they’ll sell to our predominantly Conservative customer base. The last thing I want is more people out there reading bilge by Hitchens Minor (his brother Christopher is much more preferable), but it gets the sales up, keeps “them” off my back and pays my rent.

I don’t think this is a problem per se, more an interesting observation. So, how do you coerce members of the public in your job?

Now, I really don’t like the general concept of Jeanette Winterson. Her novels annoy me. She epitomises a kind of pretentiousness that makes my skin crawl. But as is so often the case with people you take a surface dislike to, they so often prove to be full of good ideas. Maybe it’s because they’re relatively way out there, looking at life from a completely different angle that when they hit common sense it hits you harder. I dunno.

Her article in The Guardian on Tuesday was about the foot and mouth outbreak. Apart from the guff about middle class women changing the farming industry, she hit home with one very important observation.

Try this experiment - junk all the ready meals and snack foods, decide to eat meat only two or three times a week, and buy the best of everything. You will save a fortune. One of the most fascinating things about Channel 4’s 1940s House was what happened to Mrs Hymer after the series ended. She did not go back to supermarket shopping and she no longer bought convenience foods. The result was a saving of £70 a week for a family of five.

We went to an organic vegetable stall at Spittalfields market last weekend and I was rather put off by the prices. And then on Tuesday I spent about £4.00 on Pret sandwiches, coke, chocolate, etc. Something doesn’t add up here.

Earth scientist James Lovelock has worked out the true cost of a rain forest hamburger. He arrived at this figure by ruling out all the economically invisible benefits rain forests provide - habitat, livelihood for indigenous people, etc - and focused on the fact that rain forests act as giant cooling systems for the whole planet. He then calculated the cost of providing this service technologically. He divided that cost per hectare of forest, averaged the number of cattle ranched on each cleared hectare, then worked out how many hamburgers could be got from each animal. So next time you pay 99p, remember the $65 the planet has paid for you.

I made a knowing joke about not being able to buy factory farmed chicken this week. Not much of a joke really.

Going to Sainburys is not really a convenience. It’s more a fucking nightmare. Agriculture in this country is completely screwed up and it’s not the fault of the farmers or the government or the supermarkets or any easily identifiable group. It’s my fault, and your fault.

We figured out that we spend about £200-£250 a month on food, and that’s not including snacks, meals out, pre-packed sandwiches, etc. I was rather shocked to discover this. It seems like rather a large amount considering we don’t have that much posh stuff in the fridge and the freezer is not full.

Something has to change.

Amusing headline on Guardian Unlimited

A Budget for families
- Child tax credit up
- Cash for schools & hospitals
- Alcohol duty frozen

Yes, families need alcohol. Mine coundn’t have done without it!

Today I bought a mobile phone.

This is a very solom and tragic day. I have betrayed one of my most strongly held tenents. I now own a “fucking mobile”. For that it is it will be called. I will answer the fucking mobile. You will call me on the fucking mobile. The fucking movile will remain turned off most of the time.

The annoying thing is, it’s a fascinating piece of technology and potentialy very useful indeed. The mere fact that I have a piece of plastic seven centermetres tall in my pocket which can make phone calls, send messages, etc etc is really quite stunning. But it makes a stupid noise and is addictive. I spent about two hours tonight playing with it even before I discovered the game where the penguin pushes the ice blocks around.

Anyway, I have a mobile. It will remain switched off most of the time and I’ve got a very expensive call rate (25p per minute) to persuade me not to use it too much. But the fact remains I have one.

If I’ve ever ranted at you about how evil they are, if I’ve ever given you dirty looks when yours goes off in the pub when we’re talking, I apoligise with the caveat that hopefully I will be able to restrain myself.

I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.

That said, it’ll be really useful at comic conventions!

Aparently Mile End tube station (which I can see from the window) was had a bomb scare this afternoon. Kate left work at 6.00pm and was unable to get home so we met in the pub (eventually, but that’s another story) and waited it out. All seems calm now but it’s kinda weird/cool to think that, had I been at home today, and had it gone off, I could have seen something along the lines of this from our living room. I somehow doubt we’d have any windows that night though…