Specifically, see this link for an explanation of the "SAFER" system - basically, nitrogen jets.
http://www.sciam.com/2000/0600issue/0600working. ht ml
You don't respond to a Day of Infamy with a trial.
on
Our New Pearl Harbor
·
· Score: 1
No "reasoned response"
No court trial.
This is war.
This is slaughter on a scale greater than Pearl Harbor, against millitary and civilian targets.
The only recourse is to kill the people behind it, and those who would give them shelter.
We are at war. I do not wish to repeat Munich. This is not an act of "terrorism", this is an act of war, and it cannot be negotiated away.
Their PR contact on their website redirects "as of August 3rd, you need to call..." to an outside agency - they won't comment on this story, as the person who handles the Metricom account is in a meeting. I left a message urging him to check this site.
I find it interesting that the metricom site mentions the upcoming public auction on the 16th but says nothing about "service going dark." -- it doesn't make sense that they would pull the plug 1 week before their auction - as the network has more value if it's up and running. I cannot believe they can't scrape up the cash to keep operating for only one week to last until the auction of the network, so I don't quite believe this story.
Telocity acquired Phoenix DSL, and at that time Phoenix DSL & the Telocity Migration page said you could keep the router.
I can't find the page now, unfortunately.
I would be willing to sin an affidavit to that effect (that they had a stated policy on their website allowing people to keep the Northpoint modems), if anyone needs it.
Linux has almost reached the point that there is no reason it cannot be placed on corporate desktops for users who have standard images and no need to modify the machine. IT can handle all software installs. This assumes the company is willing to invest in a day or two of training on the Linux Apps (StarOffice, etc) as well.
However, to truly be comfortable on the corporate desktop, two things are desperately needed:
1. Font Standardization. There MUST be better looking and a wider variety of fonts available, and a standardized place where apps can look for fonts.
2. Better cut & paste functionality across applications.
What can IBM do to help in these areas? I would think that IBM has the muscle and respect to lead a font standardization group...
People do take our cars to Mexico and then claim that they are stolen. It becomes a police matter, and more often than not, these idiots implicate themselves under questioning.
And, remember, ACME is not charging for a crime, but rather a contract violation. There is a distinction. And MY company does NOT charge for the speeding - we send out warnings, and then yank the rental rights. And, I approve of that. I have no problem billing a customer for expenses, after the fact (when we find the car's been damaged, etc). Our contract, along with every other rental contract, gives us that right. However, for this type of violation, I do not approve, from a customer service standpoint, of the practice of charging a penalty for speeding. I do, however, support their right to do so. Important distinction.
Many people seem to overlook that while I defended the practice of installing AirIQ, I also stated that MY company does NOT collect fees from violators.
Let me clarify:
1. A rental car company has the right to impose fees for violation of the contract. We choose NOT to impose those fees (for speeding, if your dog sheds all over our car, you're getting a cleaning fee), and, indeed, warn people to cease speeding in our cars BEFORE throwing them on the Do-Not-Rent list.
2. Several people have stated, "your tone assumes all customers are crooks" - well, hell, I wear many hats. I do tech work now. But I've done both the customer service thing and the security thing, and guess what - SECURITY TRUSTS NO ONE. Understand, yes, make exceptions, yes, bow to the needs of customer service, yes...but always assume the worst, verify everything, and take nothing at face value. If you're in loss-prevention, and do not think like that, there's something wrong. Yes, many of our customers do not commit violations intentionally. And, some of them honestly do not know the rules...and we let them slide. But, then you have idiots like the guy who said, "I left my driver's license at home...you have a copy of my license on file (which we did)...I rent here all the time (which he did)...please just let me have the car..." and the manager gives it to him...and he gets drunk and wrecks it...and he then turns around, and sues US, for giving him the car that HE begged for, because his license had been suspended the week before...so it was our fault that we trusted him. And he won. And we paid thousands. And this sort of thing happens all the time. So, the next time the rental agent is insisting that they need to verify your driver's license even though you rent every week...now you know why...and what we deal with.
3. Disputing credit card charges? Go for it. You dispute the charge. We get a faxed statement saying that we have 2 business days to respond. We fax a copy of the contract authorizing us to bill extra charges. The credit card company then must pay us, if we make our case. And, we almost always do, because we are ethical and generally only charge extra fees when warranted. Some companies make a habit of constantly making up crap, and billing for it. They get away with it for awhile, but eventually the credit card companies catch on and yank their accounts. If we don't respond within 2 days, you win. We almost always do. And, indeed, in the process of reviewing the case we sometimes realize we made a mistake and make an apology to the customer, and give them a credit. Once again, your mileage may vary.
4. The case above is certainly interesting. If it happened to us, we would accept that explanation but still keep a record that it happened. If you were "tailgated into 90mph" a few more times, we would certainly doubt your veracity. And, remember, in our case we don't get the alerts until you've maintained a speed of 90 MPH for 60 seconds or more.
5. Equipment error? If there's a way to prove it, go ahead. We've thought about ways to falsify reports ourselves. We've actually debated taking one of the AirIQ units and attaching it to a 12 volt power source when we go on a vacation cruise, just so we can see the reaction on the guy's face who reviews the reports when he gets a report that one of our vehicles has crossed the Mexican border and is merrily making its way across the Pacific ocean. Of course, he would most likely think the car was being stolen and smuggled on a freighter somewhere, so we'd have to tell him not to call the coast guard. But, while we've had people yell at us saying "you've got no right to monitor my speed", to the best of my knowledge we've never had anyone attempt a factual refutation of the fact that they were speeding, or driving in Mexico, or whatever. We'd certainly be willing to listen if they did - and then we'd check the other tracking data and see if it was consistent. If they are telling the truth, there would be errors or jumps in the logs and we'd give it to them. Hasn't happened yet.
Once again, my tone may be interperted as "screw the customer" - not so. I'm speaking strictly from a security standpoint, which in practice is balanced against customer service. We cannot survive as a business without security. We also cannot survive if our customers are unhappy. The trick is striking the right balance. And, for the record, after examining the practices of other companies, while I can find fault with some stuff we do, for the most part we are one of the most ethical companies in town. I know, I've resigned from companies that I felt behaved unethically.
In our case, we do NOT bill the customer for violations. We merely stop renting to them, after a warning. We are always eager to collect actual damages if something happens; however, in cases like this, we (the company I do work for) are content to merely stop renting.
However, I can state that it takes at least a half-hour to an hour's worth of time to deal with each incident...when you consider a high ranking management official, or semi-management offical, who has a cost to the company of $18-$29/hour, needs to review the case, review the rental, and fill out paperwork to the parent corporation explaining why we want this person on the do-not-rent list (the decision to stop renting to someone, while straightforward, is NEVER made lightly), and mailing the letter, there is a clear cost involved. It is reasonable to expect that other rental companies would either
a. seek to recoup their liability expenses from people who abuse the contract
and more often
b. hope that the deterent effect of the penalty will discourage the behavior.
We don't want people to speed in our cars (I speed in my car, in the middle of the desert. That's my choice, and I must live with the consequences). We have penalties for OTHER things built into our contracts, to cover our expenses and deter behavior we do not desire. However, we do NOT like to enforce those penalties -we'd rather keep the customer happy. This is NOT a feel-good customer relation bullshit statement - if it was, I'd mention the name of the company. We genuinely do not want to piss people off - but we'd rather piss someone off than see one of our cars in a risky situation, or incur expenses fixing someone else's mess.
Other companies may not be as ethical as mine. Some companies enjoy making money off of hidden charges. It depends on the company, the local management, etc. Your mileage may vary.
Several points have been brought up, which need to be addressed:
1. There's "no appeals process". Wah. This is not a court of law, this is a contract. We agree to let you use a car. If you use it in a means against our contract, you owe us more $$$. Don't like it? Pay the higher rates to rent from some other agency that is busy paying high overhead because all of their cars are getting stolen.
We get sued, every day, by people who have been injured by people who have rented cars from us, and that's WITH our stringent qualifications. Think the machine goofed? Sue us. We'll bring the records to court. People wreck our cars, EVERY SINGLE DAY, people try to steal our cars and take them to Mexico, EVERY SINGLE DAY.
2. We are a private business, protecting our interest. However, I would vehemently fight any government effort to use this technology to keep track of citizens. For those people who have been getting "red light traffic tickets", I don't know about other states, but here in Arizona we have a bunch of those monitoring things (photo radar, etc). A lot of people throw the mailed tickets into the trash. Why? They have a lot of threatening language on them, saying "you are subject to arrest if you don't respond, blah blah blah", but they don't tell you that superior/civil & city court rules here mandate that certified mail, regular mail, etc, DO NOT CONSTITUTE service of the complaint - to be valid, the ticket must be given to you by a police officer, officer of the court, process server, etc, within 120 days of the date of the incident. Consequently, in Maricopa County you can throw those tickets away because they can't afford to send process servers after everyone (although Mesa has tried it a few times). Don't believe me? Fine. Go read the court rules on what constitutes service of the complaint yourself.
3. Back to AirIQ - on several occasions, we've had cars stolen, turned off the ignition remotely (rather, we set it so that the car can't be started again once stopped - it would be a Bad Thing(tm) to shut off a speeding vehicle with the requisite loss of power steering confusing an already drug-addled car thief), called the cops, had them circle the car, and take them away. We get our car back, the bad guys don't know what happened, and dozens of innocent pedestrians are happy instead of being smashed to pulp during a car chase. More boring for the TV news copters, but oh well.
4. We get reports when these things cross into Mexico. We then stop renting to these people, who try to cram 20 illegal aliens into a minivan and drive them across the desert.
5. There's a lot more to this system than the GPS crap. As stated previously, we can also shut the car off remotely.
6. Have you READ our contracts? There's tons of stuff in there, but it boils down to:
a. don't drive it drunk
b. don't loan it out to other people
c. don't drive incredibly recklessly
d. don't take it off road or to Mexico
e. don't rob any banks
f. you are responsible for the car (if it gets wrecked, damaged,etc). if you have insurance, great. but, we're gonna bill ya if anything happens, or if we have good evidence that you violated the above terms.
Don't like these terms? Fine. Show us a way to make money without them. We can't. Unlike other products, we're not just giving you something, we lay our asses on the line, liability wise, every time we do a rental.
AirIQ is wonderful for protecting our assets, and if you don't like it, rent from some other company. I say this as someone who works occasionally with a rental car company. As a private citizen, I believe that this level of detailed monitoring would be inappropiate for privately owned property that you own - i.e., the government should not be allowed to do this.
We routinely send notices out (we don't actually bill $$$) to people who exceed 90 MPH for 60 seconds (we understand that sometimes people have to speed a LOT to pass) saying, "do it again and we won't rent to you anymore".
We don't bill them, it's not worth the trouble for us, we just put them on the do not rent list. We do, however, have the right to put charges on the credit card, i.e., cleaning fees.
A company can put any charge they want on your cc if you sign a contract allowing them to.
7. Someone mentioned "this would make the rental car company an accessory" - not true. Speeding is generally a CIVIL violation, although there is also criminal speeding; however, the rental car company in this case is not enforcing a law, but rather collecting a penalty for violating our contract. The action may have violated a civil law, but an entity is not obligated to report civil violations. And, there is not enough evidence to file a criminal charge! You see, when you sign our contract, YOU are agreeing to be responsible for OUR card! WHATEVER our car does, you are legally responsible, TO US, for...however, from a legal standpoint of CRIMINAL charges, it would be very difficult to prove that YOU were driving at the time of the criminal violation. We know our car was speeding, we know you signed a paper agreeing to ensure that you would take care of the car. Thus, you owe us money. We cannot, however, go to law enforcement and say, "this person was speeding" because we have no evidence of WHO was driving the car and you can't file criminal charges against a car, only a driver.
As a practical matter, the cops would laugh at us if we tried.
I've played with GNUCash a bit, but in the process of trying to convert all of my business operations to Linux, I've found that I can't find an invoicing program that I like. Any plans to create an invoicing module for GNUCash? I'd write it myself but I haven't done any programming in 15 years and just recently started slogging through Sam's Teach Yourself C++ in Linux so the resulting project would be rather scary. I would be willing to help with documentation, however, if someone else wants to write an invoicing/reporting add-in.
The funniest thing is the very well-written Bill Gates interview that is linked to at the end -
Have lots of people read the code so that you don't end up with one person who is kind of hiding the fact that they can't solve a problem. Design speed in from the beginning. A lot of things that have helped us, even as the project teams have become larger, and the company has become a lot larger than it was. It is not some methodology where there is a lot of funny documentation. Source code itself is where you should put all your thoughts, not in any other thing. So, our source codes, all though there are a few exceptions, tend to be very well commented in a very structured way.
- Bill Gates, Interview with David Allison of the Smithsonian.
We pressured the Russians, hard, to de-orbit Mir.
They basically did it to please us so they could devote more resources to the ISS.
They could have told the ISS to screw itself and maintained Mir - they went from be a leader to a partner.
Let the Russians send the guy up. It's the least we can do for them.
It's a mistake to treat the Russians with disrespect - we can a learn a lot from them if we get rid of our arrogant attitudes.
I hate online ads...except the ones on Slashdot.
Most of the slashdot ads are kind of interesting.
Ironic...the only website that bothers to ask my opinion on whether I should be able to pay to get rid of the ads happens to be one of the few websites with decent ads.
I sometimes buy distros...It's worth the $25 to me to get a nice package with 3 or 4 CD-ROMS, complete with full PDF's of various Linux books. My time is worth more than the time it takes to download. Specifically, RedHat 5.2 and Mandrake 7.2 were good deals because of the wealth of documentation on the CD-ROM's in the boxed set.
Check:
http://www.eisonline.com/twgs/#Order
under "Notice to Martech Customers" - get this - this company is HONORING Martech's Free Upgrade Policy
Definately nice to see a company understanding the importance of keeping users of their product happy.
I called them up to tell them that I wanted to file a friend of the court brief against them, and when I wouldn't immediately identify myself (I couldn't figure out if I wanted to file the brief as an individual or a member of an organization), they hung up on me. A shame.
So, since they seem to be so eager to sue people, I registered the domain www.boycott-referee-magazine.org and called them back, spoke to the same person (Bob Still, their PR guy), but, alas, he declined my generous offer to let them sue me. Damn. I really would have liked them to fly from Wisconsin to mix it up in court. Oh well.
Go to:
https://www.rightsports.com/legal/
to donate $10 to their legal defense fund.
I mean...what's $10, to all of us? Who cares?
but if a lot of people donate, it could make a difference to them.
Also, be sure to give referee.com a call at 262-632-8855 and tell them what you think of their business. It'll cost ya 7 cents a minute. Big deal.
Take a few minutes out of your day and show a company that thinks they own the English Language what you think of their crap. Also, keep in mind that if this doesn't get thrown out on appeal, it's gonna set a BAD precident - think of your $10 or $20 donation as legal insurance.
I had a new client.
I blew up their machine.
There was no way for them to know that I blew it up
I told them anyway, and said that it was my responsibility to replace it. I also said if they wanted to upgrade it, I would give them the upgrade at cost.
They must have been pleased with my honesty, because they've been coming back ever since.
The Arizona Attorney General has announced the arrests of four people on computer fraud charges for distributing the hacked Direct TV cards.
See:
http://www.attorneygeneral.state.az.us/pr/pr.html
Note that binary patches for the commercial version have been written by the same guys who found the back door in the first place. Check HERE: http://64.55.62.15/
I think you can trust them.
For more information, follow the links on www.interbase2000.org
These are most likely different from the official Borland patches, which are at: http://www.borland.com/interbase/downloads/patches.html
Feynman's highly intelligent and blunt overview of the shuttle problems can also be seen in the books:
What do you care what Other People Think? By Feynman & published after his death
and the book: Genius (I forget the author)
Here's the challenge..
What do you think we will see in our lifetime, and which will be more difficult to code for:
1. Reliable, 99.99% rock-solid voice recognition?
2. Artificial Intelligence
3. Slashdot being bought by Microsoft
4. Larry Ellison, Bill Gates and Richard Stallman joining a wife-swapping group.
5. Handwriting recognician software that can actually read a doctor's handwriting? (Have any of you actually seen a readable prescription in your life?)
My vote goes to the first four as most likely.
RAMBUS participated in an industry conference when the specs to SDRAM were being established, and walked out of the conference. RAMBUS then proceded to patent the hell out of various technologies related to SDRAM.
Hyundai, as a major maker of SDRAM, was sued by RAMBUS, which is slowly going after SDRAM makers, suing them on the grounds that they are infringing on RAMBUS patents.
Many industry observers believe that RAMBUS doesn't have a chance in a courtroom battle, since they signed a statement supposedly denying them the right to patent the SDRAM specs of the conference, and then reneged on that. However, some companies (Toshiba & a few others) have settled for secret terms.
Short version: RAMBUS is trying to control all memory. They suck. As the CEO of Intel has now stated, RAMBUS believes in making money in the courtroom, and not in technology.
Slashdot Mirror
Specifically, see this link for an explanation of the "SAFER" system - basically, nitrogen jets.
. ht ml
http://www.sciam.com/2000/0600issue/0600working
No "reasoned response"
No court trial.
This is war.
This is slaughter on a scale greater than Pearl Harbor, against millitary and civilian targets.
The only recourse is to kill the people behind it, and those who would give them shelter.
We are at war. I do not wish to repeat Munich. This is not an act of "terrorism", this is an act of war, and it cannot be negotiated away.
Their PR contact on their website redirects "as of August 3rd, you need to call..." to an outside agency - they won't comment on this story, as the person who handles the Metricom account is in a meeting. I left a message urging him to check this site.
I find it interesting that the metricom site mentions the upcoming public auction on the 16th but says nothing about "service going dark." -- it doesn't make sense that they would pull the plug 1 week before their auction - as the network has more value if it's up and running. I cannot believe they can't scrape up the cash to keep operating for only one week to last until the auction of the network, so I don't quite believe this story.
Telocity acquired Phoenix DSL, and at that time Phoenix DSL & the Telocity Migration page said you could keep the router. I can't find the page now, unfortunately. I would be willing to sin an affidavit to that effect (that they had a stated policy on their website allowing people to keep the Northpoint modems), if anyone needs it.
Linux has almost reached the point that there is no reason it cannot be placed on corporate desktops for users who have standard images and no need to modify the machine. IT can handle all software installs. This assumes the company is willing to invest in a day or two of training on the Linux Apps (StarOffice, etc) as well.
However, to truly be comfortable on the corporate desktop, two things are desperately needed:
1. Font Standardization. There MUST be better looking and a wider variety of fonts available, and a standardized place where apps can look for fonts.
2. Better cut & paste functionality across applications.
What can IBM do to help in these areas? I would think that IBM has the muscle and respect to lead a font standardization group...
People do take our cars to Mexico and then claim that they are stolen. It becomes a police matter, and more often than not, these idiots implicate themselves under questioning. And, remember, ACME is not charging for a crime, but rather a contract violation. There is a distinction. And MY company does NOT charge for the speeding - we send out warnings, and then yank the rental rights. And, I approve of that. I have no problem billing a customer for expenses, after the fact (when we find the car's been damaged, etc). Our contract, along with every other rental contract, gives us that right. However, for this type of violation, I do not approve, from a customer service standpoint, of the practice of charging a penalty for speeding. I do, however, support their right to do so. Important distinction.
Heh.
Many people seem to overlook that while I defended the practice of installing AirIQ, I also stated that MY company does NOT collect fees from violators.
Let me clarify:
1. A rental car company has the right to impose fees for violation of the contract. We choose NOT to impose those fees (for speeding, if your dog sheds all over our car, you're getting a cleaning fee), and, indeed, warn people to cease speeding in our cars BEFORE throwing them on the Do-Not-Rent list.
2. Several people have stated, "your tone assumes all customers are crooks" - well, hell, I wear many hats. I do tech work now. But I've done both the customer service thing and the security thing, and guess what - SECURITY TRUSTS NO ONE. Understand, yes, make exceptions, yes, bow to the needs of customer service, yes...but always assume the worst, verify everything, and take nothing at face value. If you're in loss-prevention, and do not think like that, there's something wrong. Yes, many of our customers do not commit violations intentionally. And, some of them honestly do not know the rules...and we let them slide. But, then you have idiots like the guy who said, "I left my driver's license at home...you have a copy of my license on file (which we did)...I rent here all the time (which he did)...please just let me have the car..." and the manager gives it to him...and he gets drunk and wrecks it...and he then turns around, and sues US, for giving him the car that HE begged for, because his license had been suspended the week before...so it was our fault that we trusted him. And he won. And we paid thousands. And this sort of thing happens all the time. So, the next time the rental agent is insisting that they need to verify your driver's license even though you rent every week...now you know why...and what we deal with.
3. Disputing credit card charges? Go for it. You dispute the charge. We get a faxed statement saying that we have 2 business days to respond. We fax a copy of the contract authorizing us to bill extra charges. The credit card company then must pay us, if we make our case. And, we almost always do, because we are ethical and generally only charge extra fees when warranted. Some companies make a habit of constantly making up crap, and billing for it. They get away with it for awhile, but eventually the credit card companies catch on and yank their accounts. If we don't respond within 2 days, you win. We almost always do. And, indeed, in the process of reviewing the case we sometimes realize we made a mistake and make an apology to the customer, and give them a credit. Once again, your mileage may vary.
4. The case above is certainly interesting. If it happened to us, we would accept that explanation but still keep a record that it happened. If you were "tailgated into 90mph" a few more times, we would certainly doubt your veracity. And, remember, in our case we don't get the alerts until you've maintained a speed of 90 MPH for 60 seconds or more.
5. Equipment error? If there's a way to prove it, go ahead. We've thought about ways to falsify reports ourselves. We've actually debated taking one of the AirIQ units and attaching it to a 12 volt power source when we go on a vacation cruise, just so we can see the reaction on the guy's face who reviews the reports when he gets a report that one of our vehicles has crossed the Mexican border and is merrily making its way across the Pacific ocean. Of course, he would most likely think the car was being stolen and smuggled on a freighter somewhere, so we'd have to tell him not to call the coast guard. But, while we've had people yell at us saying "you've got no right to monitor my speed", to the best of my knowledge we've never had anyone attempt a factual refutation of the fact that they were speeding, or driving in Mexico, or whatever. We'd certainly be willing to listen if they did - and then we'd check the other tracking data and see if it was consistent. If they are telling the truth, there would be errors or jumps in the logs and we'd give it to them. Hasn't happened yet.
Once again, my tone may be interperted as "screw the customer" - not so. I'm speaking strictly from a security standpoint, which in practice is balanced against customer service. We cannot survive as a business without security. We also cannot survive if our customers are unhappy. The trick is striking the right balance. And, for the record, after examining the practices of other companies, while I can find fault with some stuff we do, for the most part we are one of the most ethical companies in town. I know, I've resigned from companies that I felt behaved unethically.
In our case, we do NOT bill the customer for violations. We merely stop renting to them, after a warning. We are always eager to collect actual damages if something happens; however, in cases like this, we (the company I do work for) are content to merely stop renting.
However, I can state that it takes at least a half-hour to an hour's worth of time to deal with each incident...when you consider a high ranking management official, or semi-management offical, who has a cost to the company of $18-$29/hour, needs to review the case, review the rental, and fill out paperwork to the parent corporation explaining why we want this person on the do-not-rent list (the decision to stop renting to someone, while straightforward, is NEVER made lightly), and mailing the letter, there is a clear cost involved. It is reasonable to expect that other rental companies would either
a. seek to recoup their liability expenses from people who abuse the contract
and more often
b. hope that the deterent effect of the penalty will discourage the behavior.
We don't want people to speed in our cars (I speed in my car, in the middle of the desert. That's my choice, and I must live with the consequences). We have penalties for OTHER things built into our contracts, to cover our expenses and deter behavior we do not desire. However, we do NOT like to enforce those penalties -we'd rather keep the customer happy. This is NOT a feel-good customer relation bullshit statement - if it was, I'd mention the name of the company. We genuinely do not want to piss people off - but we'd rather piss someone off than see one of our cars in a risky situation, or incur expenses fixing someone else's mess.
Other companies may not be as ethical as mine. Some companies enjoy making money off of hidden charges. It depends on the company, the local management, etc. Your mileage may vary.
and...it works.
Several points have been brought up, which need to be addressed:
1. There's "no appeals process". Wah. This is not a court of law, this is a contract. We agree to let you use a car. If you use it in a means against our contract, you owe us more $$$. Don't like it? Pay the higher rates to rent from some other agency that is busy paying high overhead because all of their cars are getting stolen.
We get sued, every day, by people who have been injured by people who have rented cars from us, and that's WITH our stringent qualifications. Think the machine goofed? Sue us. We'll bring the records to court. People wreck our cars, EVERY SINGLE DAY, people try to steal our cars and take them to Mexico, EVERY SINGLE DAY.
2. We are a private business, protecting our interest. However, I would vehemently fight any government effort to use this technology to keep track of citizens. For those people who have been getting "red light traffic tickets", I don't know about other states, but here in Arizona we have a bunch of those monitoring things (photo radar, etc). A lot of people throw the mailed tickets into the trash. Why? They have a lot of threatening language on them, saying "you are subject to arrest if you don't respond, blah blah blah", but they don't tell you that superior/civil & city court rules here mandate that certified mail, regular mail, etc, DO NOT CONSTITUTE service of the complaint - to be valid, the ticket must be given to you by a police officer, officer of the court, process server, etc, within 120 days of the date of the incident. Consequently, in Maricopa County you can throw those tickets away because they can't afford to send process servers after everyone (although Mesa has tried it a few times). Don't believe me? Fine. Go read the court rules on what constitutes service of the complaint yourself.
3. Back to AirIQ - on several occasions, we've had cars stolen, turned off the ignition remotely (rather, we set it so that the car can't be started again once stopped - it would be a Bad Thing(tm) to shut off a speeding vehicle with the requisite loss of power steering confusing an already drug-addled car thief), called the cops, had them circle the car, and take them away. We get our car back, the bad guys don't know what happened, and dozens of innocent pedestrians are happy instead of being smashed to pulp during a car chase. More boring for the TV news copters, but oh well.
4. We get reports when these things cross into Mexico. We then stop renting to these people, who try to cram 20 illegal aliens into a minivan and drive them across the desert.
5. There's a lot more to this system than the GPS crap. As stated previously, we can also shut the car off remotely.
6. Have you READ our contracts? There's tons of stuff in there, but it boils down to:
a. don't drive it drunk
b. don't loan it out to other people
c. don't drive incredibly recklessly
d. don't take it off road or to Mexico
e. don't rob any banks
f. you are responsible for the car (if it gets wrecked, damaged,etc). if you have insurance, great. but, we're gonna bill ya if anything happens, or if we have good evidence that you violated the above terms.
Don't like these terms? Fine. Show us a way to make money without them. We can't. Unlike other products, we're not just giving you something, we lay our asses on the line, liability wise, every time we do a rental.
AirIQ is wonderful for protecting our assets, and if you don't like it, rent from some other company. I say this as someone who works occasionally with a rental car company. As a private citizen, I believe that this level of detailed monitoring would be inappropiate for privately owned property that you own - i.e., the government should not be allowed to do this.
We routinely send notices out (we don't actually bill $$$) to people who exceed 90 MPH for 60 seconds (we understand that sometimes people have to speed a LOT to pass) saying, "do it again and we won't rent to you anymore".
We don't bill them, it's not worth the trouble for us, we just put them on the do not rent list. We do, however, have the right to put charges on the credit card, i.e., cleaning fees.
A company can put any charge they want on your cc if you sign a contract allowing them to.
7. Someone mentioned "this would make the rental car company an accessory" - not true. Speeding is generally a CIVIL violation, although there is also criminal speeding; however, the rental car company in this case is not enforcing a law, but rather collecting a penalty for violating our contract. The action may have violated a civil law, but an entity is not obligated to report civil violations. And, there is not enough evidence to file a criminal charge! You see, when you sign our contract, YOU are agreeing to be responsible for OUR card! WHATEVER our car does, you are legally responsible, TO US, for...however, from a legal standpoint of CRIMINAL charges, it would be very difficult to prove that YOU were driving at the time of the criminal violation. We know our car was speeding, we know you signed a paper agreeing to ensure that you would take care of the car. Thus, you owe us money. We cannot, however, go to law enforcement and say, "this person was speeding" because we have no evidence of WHO was driving the car and you can't file criminal charges against a car, only a driver.
As a practical matter, the cops would laugh at us if we tried.
Hope this clarifies some things.
I've played with GNUCash a bit, but in the process of trying to convert all of my business operations to Linux, I've found that I can't find an invoicing program that I like. Any plans to create an invoicing module for GNUCash? I'd write it myself but I haven't done any programming in 15 years and just recently started slogging through Sam's Teach Yourself C++ in Linux so the resulting project would be rather scary. I would be willing to help with documentation, however, if someone else wants to write an invoicing/reporting add-in.
The funniest thing is the very well-written Bill Gates interview that is linked to at the end -
Have lots of people read the code so that you don't end up with one person who is kind of hiding the fact that they can't solve a problem. Design speed in from the beginning. A lot of things that have helped us, even as the project teams have become larger, and the company has become a lot larger than it was. It is not some methodology where there is a lot of funny documentation. Source code itself is where you should put all your thoughts, not in any other thing. So, our source codes, all though there are a few exceptions, tend to be very well commented in a very structured way.
- Bill Gates, Interview with David Allison of the Smithsonian.
Exodus, where the machines are hosted, has its own backup systems for the building.
how, and in which gory fashion, did CmdrTaco blow up his laptop?
We pressured the Russians, hard, to de-orbit Mir.
They basically did it to please us so they could devote more resources to the ISS.
They could have told the ISS to screw itself and maintained Mir - they went from be a leader to a partner.
Let the Russians send the guy up. It's the least we can do for them.
It's a mistake to treat the Russians with disrespect - we can a learn a lot from them if we get rid of our arrogant attitudes.
I hate online ads...except the ones on Slashdot. Most of the slashdot ads are kind of interesting. Ironic...the only website that bothers to ask my opinion on whether I should be able to pay to get rid of the ads happens to be one of the few websites with decent ads.
I sometimes buy distros...It's worth the $25 to me to get a nice package with 3 or 4 CD-ROMS, complete with full PDF's of various Linux books. My time is worth more than the time it takes to download.
Specifically, RedHat 5.2 and Mandrake 7.2 were good deals because of the wealth of documentation on the CD-ROM's in the boxed set.
Check :
http://www.eisonline.com/twgs/#Order
under "Notice to Martech Customers" - get this - this company is HONORING Martech's Free Upgrade Policy
Definately nice to see a company understanding the importance of keeping users of their product happy.
I called them up to tell them that I wanted to file a friend of the court brief against them, and when I wouldn't immediately identify myself (I couldn't figure out if I wanted to file the brief as an individual or a member of an organization), they hung up on me. A shame.
So, since they seem to be so eager to sue people, I registered the domain www.boycott-referee-magazine.org and called them back, spoke to the same person (Bob Still, their PR guy), but, alas, he declined my generous offer to let them sue me. Damn. I really would have liked them to fly from Wisconsin to mix it up in court. Oh well.
Go to: https://www.rightsports.com/legal/ to donate $10 to their legal defense fund.
I mean...what's $10, to all of us? Who cares?
but if a lot of people donate, it could make a difference to them.
Also, be sure to give referee.com a call at 262-632-8855 and tell them what you think of their business. It'll cost ya 7 cents a minute. Big deal.
Take a few minutes out of your day and show a company that thinks they own the English Language what you think of their crap.
Also, keep in mind that if this doesn't get thrown out on appeal, it's gonna set a BAD precident - think of your $10 or $20 donation as legal insurance.
I had a new client.
I blew up their machine.
There was no way for them to know that I blew it up
I told them anyway, and said that it was my responsibility to replace it. I also said if they wanted to upgrade it, I would give them the upgrade at cost.
They must have been pleased with my honesty, because they've been coming back ever since.
The Arizona Attorney General has announced the arrests of four people on computer fraud charges for distributing the hacked Direct TV cards.
See:
http://www.attorneygeneral.state.az.us/pr/pr.html
Note that binary patches for the commercial version have been written by the same guys who found the back door in the first place. Check HERE: http://64.55.62.15/s .html
I think you can trust them.
For more information, follow the links on www.interbase2000.org
These are most likely different from the official Borland patches, which are at: http://www.borland.com/interbase/downloads/patche
Feynman's highly intelligent and blunt overview of the shuttle problems can also be seen in the books: What do you care what Other People Think? By Feynman & published after his death and the book: Genius (I forget the author)
Here's the challenge..
What do you think we will see in our lifetime, and which will be more difficult to code for:
1. Reliable, 99.99% rock-solid voice recognition? 2. Artificial Intelligence 3. Slashdot being bought by Microsoft 4. Larry Ellison, Bill Gates and Richard Stallman joining a wife-swapping group. 5. Handwriting recognician software that can actually read a doctor's handwriting? (Have any of you actually seen a readable prescription in your life?)
My vote goes to the first four as most likely.
RAMBUS participated in an industry conference when the specs to SDRAM were being established, and walked out of the conference. RAMBUS then proceded to patent the hell out of various technologies related to SDRAM.
Hyundai, as a major maker of SDRAM, was sued by RAMBUS, which is slowly going after SDRAM makers, suing them on the grounds that they are infringing on RAMBUS patents.
Many industry observers believe that RAMBUS doesn't have a chance in a courtroom battle, since they signed a statement supposedly denying them the right to patent the SDRAM specs of the conference, and then reneged on that. However, some companies (Toshiba & a few others) have settled for secret terms.
Short version: RAMBUS is trying to control all memory. They suck. As the CEO of Intel has now stated, RAMBUS believes in making money in the courtroom, and not in technology.