Closing soon, if you have a time machine.

Advertisement for "Animal Inside Out", rear of Coca-Cola truck, Vancouver, BC 

The "Animal Inside Out" exhibition was at Science World in Vancouver, BC from October 15, 2015 to March 28, 2016. Coca-Cola was one of of the sponsors of the exhibition, hence the advertisement on the back of this Coca-Cola delivery truck.

So far so good, but I took the photo on April 10, 2017, over a year after the exhibit closed. One of the unfortunate realties of out-of-home advertising is that it often stays up long after the event it is promoting is over. In this case staying up over a year after the event finished. This sort of sloppiness just makes every look as if they are not paying attention.

What does "Made in the USA" really mean?

Stages Power Meter for Shimano Ultegra cranks
(Source: https://www.mec.ca/en/product/5047-314/Power-Meter---Shimano-Ultegra-6800-%28Gen-2%29) 

Stages Power Meter for Shimano Ultegra cranks (Detail)
(Source: https://www.mec.ca/en/product/5047-314/Power-Meter---Shimano-Ultegra-6800-%28Gen-2%29) 

So, where was this product made? The Shimano bicycle crank arm is designed and made in Japan and the power meter, attached to the side of the crank arm, is "Assembled in USA". The electronics inside are most likely made in China.

Like Apple, Stages probably does its research and development in the USA, and outsources the circuit board assembly to an Asian contract manufacturer using components from multiple countries.

The sort of multi-national supply chain is increasingly common. But in this era of uncertainty about the future of trade agreements how are products like this classified? There are content rules, but some American trade fundamentalists expect everything to be made in the USA. A pipe dream? Most likely, but that won't stop people from pushing for more domestic manufacturing.

For manufacturing to increase in the USA the obvious options are that either American workers will have to accept lower, Chinese-level, wages or American consumers will have to accept higher prices. And neither of those were planks in Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" platform.

When is the "largest" not the largest?

End cap of a LEGO fixture, ToysRUs, Metrotown, Burnaby, BC

End cap of a LEGO fixture, ToysRUs, Metrotown, Burnaby, BC
"LARGEST Selection of LEGO Toys in Canada! *excluding LEGO brand retail stores and LEGOLAND Discover Center"

Sometimes the "largest" really is the largest. It wins the prize, gets a blue ribbon, and earns a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.

But in this case the "largest" has a loophole. Does a LEGO store have twice the selection? Three times? Ten times? Who knows. But if you really want the largest selection of LEGO  in Canada, ToysRUs is not the place to go.

Diversity at H&M

Recruiting sign, H&M, Pacific Centre, Vancouver, BC

Retailers are showing a greater willingness to hire diverse employees that ever before. Part of this is the demographic shift and the smaller number of "retail age" candidates available. But I think that it is also reflective of the increasingly diverse nature of the available workforce.

Featuring a young woman with a nose ring featured in a recruitment advertisement is not something we would have seen even five or ten years ago. I think it is great change.

H&M and other retailers adopting similarly diverse approaches to their workforce are to be commended.

Popular in the late 1990s, and that is when the updates of this website appear to have stopped

ty.com website
(Source: http://www.ty.com)

Ty Beanie Babies were a huge hit in the late 1990s. People were paying silly amounts of money for them. But unlike many firms who have benefited from toy fads, Ty has managed to keep things going and twenty years later the firm's sales are still going strong.

However, I was on the website today an saw a site that barely appears to have changed since Beanie Baby fans were following UPS trucks around waiting for deliveries of new models. I wonder why?