Internet providers play tricks to raise your bill. Here are the worst. Washington Post
Washington Post: “Last year, I encouragedWashington Post readers to participate in a major nationwide study of ISPs by uploading a copy of their monthly bills to Fair for Fair Internet, a project of Consumer Reports and other partners. Some 22,000 Americans did, and the results released Thursday reveal the many ways internet and cable companies get away with jacking up our bills.
For you and me, the study of big and small ISPs alike offers a clearer view of their worst behaviors — and how to fight back. The most important cost-saving lesson: Calling up and threatening to quit your internet service works. It’s super annoying, I know, but Verizon (for example) applied discounts to nearly 60 percent of the bills people submitted, with an astounding monthly median discount of $40.”
“The Design Thinking Bootleg is a set of tools and methods that we keep in our back pockets, and now you can do the same. It is the latest iteration of the Design Thinking Bootcamp Bootleg (archived), now with new tools. These cards were developed by teaching team members, students, as well as designers from around the world. It’s a deck of cards, so you can start wherever you want. We think of these cards as a set of tools/methods that constantly evolves. Within the tools you’ll find tangible examples that take you to action. Anyone that is interested in design thinking can use it for inspiration when you get stuck or to generate new ideas for potential ways of doing things.”
The clever way some states are trying to reduce waste, boost recycling
Fast Company: “An increasing number of states see an answer in an innovative regulation that tackles trash on the front end, incentivizing manufacturers to make their product packaging more easily recyclable or else pay to recycle it on the back end. The laws, known collectively as Extended Producer Responsibility, or EPR, could, some experts say, be a partial solution to the problem of diminishing landfill capacity. The main target is plastics pollution. A study released last week by Greenpeace USA, an environmental advocacy group, found that the United States recycled only 5%-6% of its plastic waste last year, down from a high of 9.5% in 2014 and 8.7% in 2018. In the past two years, four states—California, Colorado, Maine and Oregon—have enacted EPR laws, and at least a dozen other states, including Tennessee, have considered EPR bills. Scott Cassel, founder and CEO of the Product Stewardship Institute, a nonprofit that has pushed Extended Producer Responsibility legislation around the country, said fast-filling landfills such as Nashville’s are driving the effort, along with the overall environmental benefits of reducing the emissions and waste that comes from producing plastic packaging. EPR laws are increasingly common in Europe and Canada, and Cassel hopes recent state legislative action will bring a significant change to waste management in the United States. Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills signed the nation’s first EPR law in July 2021. The Maine measure, which takes effect in 2026, doesn’t ban any type of packaging. Instead, it levies a fee on producers based on their packaging choices and the net amount of packaging they sell in the state. The law defines a producer as the brand owner of a packaged product or, if the brand is from overseas, the importer of the product into Maine…”
What was in the minds of the originators of the NDIS, of the nature of disability? How did they see the role of the NDIS within existing social, health, and economic, environments?
