So, hot on the heels of this post (and/or the original article), Terri Cullen has written a bit in her "Fiscally Fit" column in the WSJ about "Complaining the Right Way" (see http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120413183493397095.html; warning: behind paywall) which covers more common-sensical notions like being polite, knowing what you want (to remedy the situation), starting at the bottom, and being sure it's worth the time / effort.

Great ... now we're all gonna have to take off our belts for inspection at airports ... and some TSA flunkie will decide the prong of mine is "suspiciously sharp" and offer me the opportunity to toss it ... then I'll be doin' a OJ-as-a-rapper imitation as I run/shuffle thru the airport.

Reminds me of the "physics diet." Very funny, but to the point ... a reasonably famous MIT physicist (who served on the JASON presidential advisory board) wrote two papers on physics (and specifically, the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics) and dieting ... the first can by synopsized as "energy in minus energy out equals energy conserved (the 1st law of thermodynamics is also known as "Conservation of Energy") and the second is basically that "since you inhale O2 and exhale CO2, to remove carbon (i.e., the stuff food is converted to) from your system ya gotta breath more" (the 2nd law of thermodynamics is, sorta, about conservation of mass). Great stuff!

See The Physics Diet by Richard A. Muller in MIT’s Technology Review (November 14, 2003)

See The Physics of Gluttony by Richard A. Muller in MIT’s Technology Review (November 12, 2004)

FYI ... update on 070929 ... both of these have been removed .