It Also Fixed Amy's Wallet. It Fixed it Real Good.

These advertisements pop up on all manner of websites, tapping into your vanity – while aiming for your wallet. It’s a perfectly legal scam, and I’ll tell you exactly how it works.

First of all, there’s no secret. In a nutshell the “Trick discovered by a mom” simply involves sending you a free sample of teeth whitening gel – a couple of tiny “trial” tubes purchased in bulk from reputable brands. All you pay for is the postage, which is how they get away with the “Under $5” claim.

Doesn’t sound so bad right? Well, this is where the ethics fly out the window. I’d like you to meet my friend: the small print.

If you do sign up for this miracle teeth whitening, you’ll only initially be charged for the postage.
However, if you don’t cancel your “free” trial within 10 days (not a lot of time to receive the item and trial it I might add) then prepare for Operation Shock and Awe on your credit card.

For example:
“In the event you do not cancel within ten days after you order your trial product, you will be automatically enrolled in our convenient home delivery plan and your credit card will be charged $92.37. Thereafter, 30 days from your initial order, you will be billed the monthly charge of $92.37 each month when product is sent to you.”

Doesn’t sound convenient to me. This means the “free trial” is only actually free if you manage to receive the item, trial it, and then cancel within 10 days of buying. If you can’t do that (let’s face it, that’s most of us) then the “free trial” for this one product will cost you $96.13 USD + plus that initial postage.

And I should warn you it get’s worse from here. I’ve read instances online of continued charges even after customers made their cancellation requests within the specified time. One of these many online “Mom” teeth-whitening scams (from the same entrepreneur) had over a thousand complaints against it on one website alone.

Once you’ve recovered from the initial assault on your credit card and cancelled your so-called free trial, you can forget any chance of a refund as the small print says, “If you call after 10 days of your trial date and you have opened the product then you are not entitled to a refund for that product.”

This smallprint covers the scammer from having to refund your money even if you haven’t opened the trial product.

If for some reason you haven’t been watching your credit card, and didn’t notice the initial $96.13 going out, the contract you’ve entered into allows this company to remove $96.13 + postage every single month from now until the end of time.

If you’re lucky you might even receive a new little trial pack each month for your $100+ US monthly fee.

Sadly, because of the small print this entire process is perfectly legal. Unethical, yes, but illegal, no.

It’s not breaking any laws, and it’s not only through one website or company. In fact the same offer is sold through numerous websites from numerous companies (it only takes a few minutes online to create registered companies). For example, this “Mom’s trick” is available at:
www.smilewhitespro.com
www.momtheethwhitening.com
www.white-smiles.com
www.momswhiteningsecret.com
www.myteethtrick.com
(and probably a dozen other sites).

There’s even a fake news site, www.tallahasseereporter.com, which raves about the scheme – uh, I mean scam.

Personally, I hate these sort of scams as it eliminates people’s trust when buying products online.
As many of you know, I sell a tutorial package on the internet which is ethical – and which I stand behind.
I even use my real name, and any internet search can find out exactly where I live, in case you feel the need to post me a dead marsupial. Again.

Yet because of the plethora of scams out there, my sales are impacted and I get constant emails from wary buyers asking me to verify that my product is genuine and that I’m not another “fly-by-nighter”. This takes time away from A: my customers, and B: my life!

A good rule of thumb is to look for real testimonials on sites selling things. Not emails or letters that have been written by “Sandy from Arkansas” or “Jeff from NY”, but actual videos of real people, with real names offering real reviews. My site has them, and I’m proud of them!

Remember that line, “If it sounds to good to be true; it probably is”? It’s especially true when it comes to buying online. Remember, do your research and always, ALWAYS read the small print!

I think my keys are in there somewhere...

Disposable diapers (also known as Nappies) were invented in the 1940’s and slowly gained popularity due to their convenience. These handy crap-catchers eliminated the unpleasant task of (usually) the mother having to clean out the goodness so the diaper is ready for it’s next use.

It wasn’t until recent decades that the disposable diaper has really taken off globally. These time-savers mean you can simply throw all that “home-made organic produce” right in the trash. No unpleasantness, and lots of time saved.

There’s a down side to this convenience however, as you can probably guess from the title, as the average disposable diaper takes between 350 to 500 years to decompose.
This means that by the time your baby has grown up, bought a house, raised a family, worked all his/her life, retired and eventually died of old age, that 2.5 tonnes of diapers from your son/daughter won’t have even begun to decompose. It’ll still be sitting there in a hole, long after your grandchildren have passed away.

It’s an impressive statistic, but perhaps what’s more impressive is the sheer amount of diapers we throw out every single year: twenty seven billion of them – and every single one of them is still sitting in a landfill.
There they sit, each one a tightly wrapped bundle of urine and feces that partially and slowly decompose only over many centuries.

To give you an idea of how much waste that is, imagine each diaper could be squished into a coffee cup (which it probably could). A coffee cup fits about 10 fluid ounces (300 ml).
Multiply that by 27,000,000,000 every single year, and you end up with a final annual volume of around 843,750 home swimming pools filled to the top. And next year there’ll be more.

Things have the potential to change however after a recent survey concluded that apparently a third of parents would be willing to switch to the reusable cloth diaper, after hearing how their current disposable traits are affecting their child’s world – now and in the future.

The cloth diaper has also come a long way since you and I were using them as little poopy treasure-holders. No longer do you need a Michelin-man sized fece-fetcher, with safety pins each side.

Cloth diapers have come a long way

Some new-design cloth diapers even have a reusable synthetic outer (with velcro strips) allowing you to change the multi-layered cotton inside without spillage. Others (like the one above) are entirely cotton, but thick and multi-layered, giving more absorbency and softness.

It looks and feels like a disposable, but no plastics or untreated waste end up in landfill. Instead you throw the cotton section into a bucket of biodegradable disinfectant for an hour, then put it in the washing machine.

All you’ve used is water, which is renewable. Your baby will thank you later – especially if he or she grows up to be an eco-warrior.

Look familiar?

Garages and basements are the worst. They tend to be dumping grounds for all their excess belongings.
Pronounced “Garaahges” in the USA (“Garridges” everywhere else) are the permanant storage holds for dusty – but often like new – bicycles, extra TVs, camping equipment that gets used once every two years, sporting equipment that gets used, well, never, piles of books, shelving, cookware, et cetera.

You might think that it’s just you who has this collection of “stuff” (it works best if you screw up your face and say stuff it with a disgusted expression). I’ll bet you just tried it didn’t you?
Anyway, my point is that it’s not just you; your neighbour has all this stuff in their garage too; and so does their neighbour. I know this from more than a decade of climbing through cluttered garages.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not a nutjob who thinks we shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy our lives. There’s no law against having material possessions – and there never should be. However there does come a point when a lot of that stuff will simply be thrown out, ending up in a landfill – and that’s what I’m worried about.

We humans are a lazy bunch and I’m probably no exception. Chances are, when you finally get around to throwing out that box of children’s toys or outdated computer CDs, it’s not going to be recycled. Instead it’s going to end up in a landfill because you’ll just chuck it in the trash.

Disposable diapers (known as nappies in the rest of the world) are the worst. By the time your baby has grown up, studied, got a job, retired, then finally died from old age, those synthetic disposable diapers in a hole somewhere will not have even begun to decompose yet.
But diapers are a whole other story – let’s stick to your shed/garage/basement/guest room full of stuff for now.

Whether you use it or not, you’re most likely hanging onto your stuff because you think you’re going to use it again one day.
And who knows, maybe you will actually use your nephew’s skateboard sitting in that box – maybe even this summer? Or maybe next decade? Or perhaps the only time you’ll actually make use of it is when trying to elude Jesus’ henchmen when he returns for the rapture sometime in the future…

What I’m trying to say is you’re kidding yourself: most of that stuff is really just junk that you’ll never use again, ever. So my advice is to get rid of all that stuff – responsibly of course.

Tonight, go into your garage and write a list of what you have. Then after you’ve slept on it, and the enormity of your junk-pile has been digested, take that list and put every item into one of two categories.

Now this is where you have to be ruthless. No I mean it, really ruthless.

I want you to put a little tick next to every single item on that long list if you’ve used it within the last 12 months, and if you honestly believe you will use it again before this time next year.
On the other hand, put an “X” next to it if you haven’t used it within 12 months – and won’t use it again in another 12 months. Be honest.

That 3-person tent on the shelf for example. You didn’t use it last summer, and you have no plans to use it this summer – well, until you saw it of course, then you started creating reasons why you should keep it.
Don’t do it. Be realistic, then be ruthless and put an “X” next to it.

That table-tennis set folded up against the wall. Same thing, get rid of it. Again, be ruthless!
Same goes for that old TV, the unused computer printer that “just needs a refill”, the dead motorbike, the half-started car restoration from 3 years ago that’s become a shelf for more junk to sit on – believe me I’ve seen it many times – the list goes on and on. Be honest with yourself, and be ruthless

Can you sell some of that stuff with the “X” next to it? Good, do it. Then use the money to do something worthwhile such as a holiday, a hot-tub, or an electric car conversion.

The stuff you can’t sell, donate! Homeless shelters and charities will gladly accept useful items of clothing, shelving, furniture, sports equipment etc. Then of course, the stuff you can’t give away – recycle it at a plastics depot. If in doubt, ask your local council where you can drop it off. Don’t just throw in in the rubbish – remember what hasn’t yet happened to all those disposable diapers?

You’ll get extra cash, you’ll get your space back, and you’ll get something you can’t buy – a genuinely positive feeling that you’ve made a difference. So set the VCR/DVD recorder and record your favorite TV shows tonight, making a list of your stuff instead.
Don’t procrastinate, and remember, be ruthless!

Flat, flexible solar panels look better, but offer lower efficiency.

The short answer is no, it’s not typically worth it.

The long answer is because of a lack of efficiency in the solar panels, and the fact that as efficient as they are compared to gasoline/diesel vehicles, electric vehicles still use a reasonable chunk of electricity.

For example, a typical home-converted electric car uses around 300 watt-hours (Wh) to travel 1 mile. A watt-hour is a measurement for electricity used over a period of time. It’s the only way to measure electricity as if it were a unit. For this reason you could imagine a watt-hour is like a spoonful of electricity.

So, now that we know it takes your electric car around 300 Wh to move a mile, let’s figure out how much a big fat solar panel of the roof can generate. Let’s start with one of those 4-foot (1.2 meter) monsters.

A really good one might put out around 150 watts in bright sunshine. Therefore over the course of an hour that works out to be 150 watt-hours, or 150 watts per hour. With me so far?

So for your car to move a mile – which uses 300 Wh – you’ll need to have it parked in constant sunshine for a minimum of two hours. This is because 150 Wh x 2 = 300 Wh.

Or in really simple English, 1 hour in the sun = 150 spoonfuls of electricity generated; 2 hours in the sun = 300 spoonfuls of electricity generated; and the car uses 300 spoonfuls per mile.

Therefore in order to drive 5 miles your single 150 W solar panel would have to sit in the sun for ten long hours. Maybe in Australia or California this could be helpful, but in some locations you’d be lucky to get 10 hours a month.

This is why the solar-powered cars you may have seen racing across the Australian Outback are all very light, very flat, and covered from tip-to-tail in expensive solar panels. Yet even with all those panels, and all that “Downunder” sunshine, they only reach 62 mph (100 km/h) occasionally.

Car makers are still looking into solar panels as a helping hand however, as they can prove useful in sunny locations to help with the air conditioning and stereo etc, but they’re not efficient enough to recharge an electric car’s 16,000 Wh battery pack – unless you can afford to wait a month in the sun!

I hope that helps to explain how much power a typical solar panel puts out for it’s size, and why many electric car converters aren’t too keen on spending such a large sum of money for such a small overall result.
Why not spend that $800 on electricity instead – that will pay for more than 2 years of electricity used in a typical electric car!

Now if only Renault offered self esteem courses after being seen in their vehicles

Renault proudly announced that they’re going to set up special training courses to electric car buyers get the most from them.

In non-marketing-speak that translates into: Renault proudly announced that their customers are morons who have trouble finding their front door in the mornings, let alone safely drive the future of automotive transport. Renault firmly believes it’s customers couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery.

In all honesty though the course could prove useful to that group of drivers out there who expect nothing from their cars but dull gray transport, and prefer a more mind-numbing driving experience. The sort of people who don’t have a computer.
Or a phone.

The courses could prove especially useful in helping to solve the number one mental illness induced by electric cars: Range anxiety. For those who’ve driven an EV regularly as a commuter vehicle, or those who have a long-range EV, range anxiety isn’t an issue. But ask one of those “What’s an internet?” motorists and before you know it you’ll have a pandemic of sheer chaos, followed by howling and gnashing of teeth etc.

These EV driving schools will be an extension of those Renault already runs in France – which explains a lot about the amusing driving habits of French motorists. These lessons are also planned to be extended to that fresh new country, the Czech Republic, then Germany, Poland and Spain, with the UK and Portugal later in the future.

Non-marketing-speak: out of all those European countries, UK and Portugal need driving lessons the least.

Renault’s first electric cars will come to the UK next year. There will be a battery-powered version of the fairly unattractive “Kangoo” van, and a utterly stupid, completely ridiculous, four-wheeled disability scooter called the “Twizy” (pictured at the top of the article). If you listen very carefully you can actually hear my skin crawling.

If Renault’s reputation can survive those electric comedy acts, then in 2012 we finally get real electric cars, when Renault introduces a compact saloon called the Fluence (an abbreviation for Flatulence) and a zippy electric supermini called the Zoe.

In the same press release Renault did their annual tweaking to their gasoline and diesel engines to make them a little “less worse” – but no one really cares about that stuff; come on Renault! Give us EVs!