Bitchin Dave's Newsletter - April 21st
Journalism has reached such a sad state. I mean, we keep hearing nonsense on every front. But I thought I’d take a moment and share something I saw that was more trivial, and try to explain why it’s so misguided.
The headline read Costco hit with class action over unexpected membership renewals.
The stories on the topic all repeat the same thing. Costco is doing something and consumers are upset and Costco could be in a lot of trouble over the way they treat their customers! And on the heels of other ongoing lawsuits (and the ongoing stupidity about DEI) this will affect them!
At the heart of this story is that some guy got Costco’s 60 day renewal email, which is the standard. And ... the horror of it all! He missed the notification, and was charged $60 for a renewal. And he’s claiming it’s an unfair business practice and runs afoul of the law.
The articles all point out (blindly) that California law requires 45 day notices, and he’s saying that the 60 day window violates California law because 60 days is just too long!
So he’s suing and is in process to have a class certified for the suit.
What they are missing are a few little things: journalism, research, and a look at actual details.
If they spent 10 minutes googling, they might have discovered:
- He could have clicked to cancel when he got the initial email, or at any time during the 60 days.
- While the law does say “The notice must be delivered no earlier than 45 days and no later than 15 days before the renewal date,” I should point out that Costco’s does send several reminders within that window. I'm no lawyer, but I suspect this meets California law.
- Now that his membership has been renewed, he can cancel the membership, for a full refund. NO QUESTIONS ASKED.
On that last one, I think he can do that by simply calling customer service. Though on their website they state it can be done in any warehouse. Chill out, dude. They’ll let you still get the $1.50 hot dog, if you go. Have some fun with it. Enjoy the moment and don’t create so much stupidity.
The stories didn’t bother to look into it at all. They simply reported what this guy said when he filed the suit.
And then it got picked up and repeated.
It is truly unbelievable how bad journalism has gotten. Don’t even bother gathering any info about Costco's policies. Who needs any facts?
And on the bigger point, if we can’t have a story like this make sense, how can something “meatier” be expected to, either?
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A team in China has developed a laser that can transmit data from a high earth orbit to a ground station that far exceeds the data stream that SpaceX uses in starlink.
It's the next evolutionary step in seamlessly transmitting data from deep space - and to allow for transmission worldwide in near-real time via a satellite.
With fewer satellites, and the potential for lower cost.
I made a recent visit to the Disney theme parks, and was struck by how everyone was so focused on their phones, and the next thing they were going to do, that they missed out on living in the moment.
And with the price increases, and these "extras" you can add on for a fee (I'm looking at you Lighting Lane), you can see why people want to maximize their time in the parks.
Then, just to drive the point home, I got a survey from Disney that asked for my opinion about the technology they use and the relative cost of buying these extras. Its clear that they are sensitive to what they are doing, but they are letting market forces drive them.
By the way, I did notice on this visit that there were a fair number of guests who hired Disney's own tour guides, which I suppose makes some sense because there's more of a return on that investment; they can navigate you around the park. I had a chance to chat with one CastMember who was waiting for his guided family and he told me that particular family was pretty happy with how it was going and they got to see everything they wanted to that day.
But.... its more complicated than that of course. I happened to catch this video, where the host does a good job of laying it all out there, and wonders why Disney is ruining their theme parks.
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In spite of the derision, we've reached a point where wind and solar power generation in the US combined to provide about 17% of the total power in 2025.
It's only a modest increase over 2024, but it's nice to see it headed in the right direction.
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Scientists testing new scanning technology discover mysterious structure beneath an ancient Egyptian city |
Gotta love this leap forward, using traditional methods of searching, some 3D modeling, and satellite views.
The results of this study demonstrate the effectiveness of combining geophysical measurements and remote sensing data, which gave a very accurate vision in detecting buried settlements in a region that was hard to see from ground level.
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Kimchi is a delicious solution to the problem of microplastics accumulating in the human body.
In summary "The lactic acid bacterium found in the dish helps bind nanoplastics inside the intestine, allowing them to remain together when exiting through the bowel."
The answer is that we should all be eating more fermented vegetables.
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This is a summary of an extensive research paper about how land animals evolved from sea creatures around 550 million years ago.
They studied the genetics of animals and found that there are specific things that the animals adapted to in their new environment.
While the summary is interesting, I encourage you to read the detailed paper.
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Bonus: I'm sorry. But the fees for travellers to enter the US is insanity. Bad enough they opted to make the rules racist at their core. But the rules are also ridiculously complicated.
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