Category Archives: Interesting

America’s Favorite Gas Stations, Ranked

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From average gas bills to how many minutes they’d go out of the way to fill up at a particular gas station, here are America’s favorite, and least favorite, places to fill up the tank.

America's Favorite and Hated Gas Stations

Payless Power surveyed 1,011 Americans about their gas station preferences, asking them about brand loyalty and how much they usually spend when filling up the tank. Ten percent of the survey respondents were Baby Boomers, 22 percent were Gen X, 43 percent were Millennials and 25 percent were Gen Z. Just over half (57 percent) were men.

Overall Costco was rated the best gas station, while Valero was rated the worst. Costco was ranked cleaner and cheaper than others, while Valero was ranked as one of the meanest stations.

On average, people who stopped at a Circle K, Speedway, Shell, Love’s or Wawa gas station spent more than $50 on each visit, whereas Costco and 7-Eleven had the cheapest bills.

Average Spend at Each Gas Station Visit

See More [Digg]

How to Block Scam Calls, the Top Source of Fraud Against Older Adults

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Scam­mers are al­ways find­ing new ways to dupe peo­ple out of money. In the U.S., phone calls re­main the pri­mary way swindlers hook older vic­tims.

A study pub­lished last month by the Fed­eral Trade Com­mis­sion found that 24% of adults over age 60 who re­ported los­ing money to a scam in 2021 said it started with a phone call—the largest per­cent­age of any method, in­clud­ing email, text and mail. For vic­tims 80 and older, phone calls were be­hind 40% of scams.

Scams range from robo­calls pitch­ing car war­ranties to young peo­ple pos­ing as grand-chil­dren in need of a bailout. The best way to pro­tect against phone scams, on­line-safety ex­perts say, is to not re­ceive the phone calls in the first place.

So how do you do that?

While ig­nor­ing mys­tery calls is ef­fec­tive, it isn’t al­ways fea­si-ble. Per­haps you don’t have all the num­bers of health­care providers, in­sur­ance com­pa­nies and other vi­tal ser­vices stored in your phone’s con­tacts. Also, caller ID of­ten doesn’t iden­tify the name of the busi­ness that is call­ing. Tech com­pa­nies are de­vel­op­ing so­lu­tions for di­vert­ing scam calls. And even though the ma­jor­ity of Amer­i-cans over 65 have smart­phones, there are also ways to pro­tect your­self if you’re on a land­line.

See More [Wall Street Journal]

www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-block-scam-calls-the-top-source-of-fraud-against-older-adults-11673051224

Automated Commercial Dishwashing

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Employment at restaurants continues to be replaced by machines. As employee costs go up, machines and these types of services become more affordable for businesses.

Dishcraft uses proprietary robotics and AI to deliver clean dishes everyday while reducing waste, improving efficiency, and increasing reliability.

See More [Dishcraft]

Brother and Sister had to Stop 6 Times in 1 Day on Cold Trip to Charge Rented Tesla

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  • A brother and sister rented a Tesla and found they had to stop six times in one day to charge it.
  • Xaviar Steavenson and his sister Alice drove from Orlando, Florida to Wichita, Kansas.
  • They said other customers with rented Teslas had called Hertz with similar charging problems.

Xaviar and Alice Steavenson wanted to find out what it’s like to drive a Tesla, so they rented one from Hertz for a road trip from Orlando, Florida to Wichita, Kansas.

They knew that the electric car would need charging en route, but what the siblings did not expect was just how often they’d need to plug it in.

They realized it would take longer to charge the car after the weather turned so cold in late December.

However, it got to the point that the “battery would drain faster than it would charge,” Xaviar told Insider.

When they set off they could drive for at least two and a half hours before needing to charge the Tesla. “We ended up having to stop every one to one and a half hours to charge for an hour, then an hour and a half, then two hours,” he said.

“So beyond the lost time, it also got to the point it was between $25 and $30 to recharge. Just in one day, we stopped six times to charge at that cost,” Xaviar said.

Hertz said on its website that renting a Tesla was “always cheaper than gas,” according to Xaviar, but he said that claim was far from the truth.

See More [Yahoo News]

Attracting and Converting Customers with a Content Marketing Funnel

Customer Journey Content Mgmt Funnel

Content marketing is all the rage now. The big questions are, what content, where, and at what stage of the customer buying funnel? So I came up with a Content Marketing and Customer Journey Funnel infographic to help clients and content producers know the content marketing roadmap to success.

See More [R. Michael Brown Feature Story]

Happy New Year!

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Fireworks from our Bed and Breakfast 3rd floor window downtown Mount Dora, FL

Photography Learning is Never Done

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Doing a refresher on my #Sony camera. PXW- #FS5 Super 35. If you don’t use it you lose it.

#camera #photography #producerlife #producer #storytelling #storymaker

Wide-Leg Khaki Pants Are Back. For Real This Time.

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Wide-leg and longer-rise trousers—khakis, jeans, even Cary Grant-ish suit pants—are selling out in the early fall shopping season.

The pants are huge. Sales have been, too.

After years of edging into the mainstream, wide-leg trousers are officially back according to at least one metric: J.Crew’s “Giant-Fit Chino Pant” is completely sold out online. An early hit of the mall brand’s recent refresh, the baggy, off-the-thigh pants have a leg opening nearly 50% wider than its standard slim-cut chinos.

See More [Wall Street Journal]

Wide-Leg Khaki Pants Are Back. For Real This Time.

BrownieBytes: Finally I’m a fashion icon. They’re catching up to me. I’m years ahead of my time….

I’ve always found fashion reporting to be funny.