Post: #1

http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor...ping-cart/

In her keynote speech at last year’s annual Netroots Nation gathering, Darcy Burner pitched a seemingly simple idea to the thousands of bloggers and web developers in the audience. The former Microsoft programmer and congressional candidate proposed a smartphone app allowing shoppers to swipe barcodes to check whether conservative billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch were behind a product on the shelves.

Burner figured the average supermarket shopper had no idea that buying Brawny paper towels, Angel Soft toilet paper or Dixie cups meant contributing cash to Koch Industries through its subsidiary Georgia-Pacific.

Post: #2

Nice, I like the idea. Just downloaded this app

Post: #3

Quote:At the time, Burner created a mock interface for her app, but that’s as far as she got. She was waiting to find the right team to build out the back end, which could be complicated given often murky corporate ownership structures.

In other words, she was waiting to find men to do the real heavy-lifting, which would require some actual smarts and technical skills. I'm sure she got plenty of experience at MSFT leveraging men's work, though, fortunately for her--and it sounds like she had her hopes answered.

What's the intersection between frequent supermarket shoppers, people who know who the Koch brothers are, and people who are consistent app users? Effectively nill, no?

Post: #4

This sounds like a good idea. I would like the app so I can know what to buy to support the Koch brothers.

Post: #5

I would be concerned about it being abused, the way the Southern Poverty Law Center list is.

But it's just too fucking unwieldy to matter. Like anyone's got time to scan every thing they buy to see if it's politically correct.

Post: #6

(05-16-2013 09:12 AM)Blackhawk Wrote:  Like anyone's got time to scan every thing they buy to see if it's politically correct.

Probably something you might use if you were unsure about a particular product versus scanning everything. You might have a general sense. For instance in this case you know this dudes deal with a lot of shit:

Georgia-Pacific became a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries in 2005 after the two brothers paid $21 billion to take over the company and take it private. Georgia-Pacific’s North American brands include: Quilted Northern (toilet paper), Angel Soft (toilet paper), Brawny (paper towels), Sparkle (paper towels), Soft ‘n Gentle (toilet paper), Mardi Gras (paper towels), Vanity Fair (paper napkins), and the Dixie brand of tabletop products.

Post: #7

Imagine the horror when you scan product after product and it turns out that all cereals and breads belong to Monsanto.