ChittahChattah Quickies

Teenagers Sharing Passwords as Show of Affection [NYTimes] – Can you believe it’s been 17 years since Seinfeld considered the shareability of an ATM password within a relationship? Now we have more passwords controlling more access to more parts of our lives, so the issue is just that much more pressing.

The digital era has given rise to a more intimate custom. It has become fashionable for young people to express their affection for each other by sharing their passwords to e-mail, Facebook and other accounts. Boyfriends and girlfriends sometimes even create identical passwords, and let each other read their private e-mails and texts. They say they know such digital entanglements are risky, because a souring relationship can lead to people using online secrets against each other. But that, they say, is part of what makes the symbolism of the shared password so powerful.

Waterstones drops its apostrophe [Telegraph] – The justification of digitalization is a curious one. Since I have no attachment to the brand, personally, I like the new name’s evocation of rocks just below the surface of a flowing brook, rather than the possessive-of-someone-with-a-classic-British-name seen in the previous version.

The country’s last remaining national chain of bookshops, founded by Tim Waterstone, has decided it is more “practical” to ditch the apostrophe. James Daunt, the managing director, who took over the chain last year following a change of ownership said: “Waterstones without an apostrophe is, in a digital world of URLs and email addresses, a more versatile and practical spelling.” One customer on Twitter responded: “Wish I’d used that in spelling tests …”. Others used the hashtag #isnothingsacred, while another tweeted that it was another step towards apostrophe extinction. John Richards, the chairman of the Apostrophe Protection Society said: “It’s just plain wrong. It’s grammatically incorrect. If Sainsbury’s and McDonald’s can get it right, then why can’t Waterstones. You would really hope that a bookshop is the last place to be so slapdash with English.”

At Bank of America, the Image Officer Has a Lot to Fix [NYTimes] – Buried in a hagiographic profile (that, given the subject matter, might have been just a tad more circumspect) is this familiar bit of corporate speak about what people do and don’t want and what they do and don’t say they want.

Ms. Finucane jumped to Hill Holiday, a Boston advertising agency, where she developed a flair for marketing. At one point, the agency conducted a study for Hyatt Hotels, aiming to distinguish between what customers said they wanted and what they really wanted.The lesson, Ms. Finucane recalls, was this: Customers don’t always know what they want. “You may say you want a bathrobe and slippers,” she says, “but the truth is you really want a telephone in the bathroom.”

Dating service connects people over their leftovers [Wired] – This little story is actually a leftover itself, from some of Julie’s scouring-the-web-for-curiosities. Might make more sense to pair up people with extra food and people with not enough food, rather than try to force a romantic connection into the mix. I guess that’s what sells, though.

Farmers cooperative Lantmännen has developed a dating tool that connects singles based on what food they have leftover in their fridges. It might not sound like the level of psychometric filtering touted by other dating websites, but Lantmännen aims to pair up fellow environmentally-conscious single people to share leftover dishes or ingredients. According to Lantmannen, a fifth of all food in Sweden is thrown away. It was this figure that led to the creation of the dating service, called Restdejting. People are invited to visit the website and enter up to five ingredients that they have hanging around the kitchen. This list is then published to Facebook for other Restdejting singles to peruse.

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