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On my post “Shutting off the Student Loan Sharks“,  a poster known as CollegeLoanSearch, who runs a blogspot blog of the same name, left the following comment.

Yes, it is annoying, but lender access to NSLDS is not the impetus to all the solicitions you get. NSLDS does not yield your address, phone number, or email to the lenders. You’re targeted by lenders who use your credit bureau record for prospecting.

The temporary shutdown to NSLDS is affecting the student borrower more than any of the lenders.

I was not aware of that. I was going by the US News and World Report article that said that the database was shut down due to marketing activities and I made an assumption. Looks like it won’t shut the sharks down (and hasn’t).

On my post “The Revolutionary HP Printer No One Can Buy” poster Phil left the following comment:

Over the past 5 years we have seen the number of printer produced by the major manufacturers go through the roof. It appears that a new model is launched and discontinued within a time span ranging only a few months. Why is their a need for so many models that all appear to need a slightly different ink cartridge? We are all being taken for fools and it’s about time someone did something about it. The production of all these plastic entities is an environmental scourge and it appears that everyone is oblivious to the fact. I can remember when products lasted you for years not months - are we all going mad? or just brainwashed by a huge marketing machine?

Phil has a point that I never considered. The environmental impact of the constant waste of cartridges is immense. Most people don’t take their cartridges to be “recycled” (btw, the store turns them back to the manufacturer that simply reuses the container and saves themselves the cost of manufacturing one) so all of that plastic ends up in dumps. The constant turnover of model numbers has more to do with marketing (gotta have the newest machine!) than anything else.

I agree with Phil that I hope the Kodaks and the Walgreens of the world take back the printer industry from this razor and blade model, but I’m not holding my breath.