The states can get in on this too. New Hampshire has a proposal for a new state law to record abuses by the TSA. Here's a snippet of HB0628:
"VII.(a) In order to assist in the accuracy of records created by law enforcement officers in paragraph III, all citizens being searched shall be afforded their rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution for the United States of America and under Part 1, Article 22 of the New Hampshire Constitution to record, or designated a person to record, using any type of audio and video recording device, or a device that records just audio or just video, all interactions with an agent described in paragraph I, even in the presence of a law enforcement officer, without exception."
Paragraph I specifies the TSA by name.
Followed by:
"(c) If a law enforcement officer does not enforce the provisions of this chapter or makes it difficult for a citizen to exercise his or her rights as specified in this section, the law enforcement officer may be guilty of official oppression pursuant to RSA 643:1."
"Depending on the child's family, and the location of the school, many of these things are not available."
Fine, but that doesn't make it the school's responsibility to provide those things. His shopping list is full of things that a community needs, not just a subset composed of just students. He's comparing the dollar amount to provide all of that to prisoners when he should be considering the dollar amount of any education provided to inmates. That's what his school system is supposed to provide, education. It's not a valid comparison he's making unless he's trying to say the entire community is underfunded. But then he has to consider the costs of those other programs that are already in place, not just the amount his school gets per student.
Another person made an insightful comment below. Ignoring the sidetrack of whether prisons should provide all these things for inmates, the prisons provide them because typically, they're the only ones who can. The prisoners can't go work out at the Y or get themselves a cozy cell in a half-way house. They're in prison, behind bars. Non inmates will tend to provide for themselves.
As for the Y costing money, sure. But I know the one in my community sets the fee based on the person's ability to pay, and it's free in some cases such as the individual being unemployed. As I said the schools aren't there to provide everything a person needs in life, the government isn't there for that either. When exactly did people start thinking that the purpose of the government was to ensure that you had every basic need supplied to you? That's not the government's job, that's your job!
Does this guy know what public schools are for? They're for education. If people don't have a roof over their head, they get public housing. If people don't get three meals, they get food stamps or go to the local soup kitchen. If they don't have access to a fitness center, they get the Y. Want to earn a degree? Earn some scholarships, grants, or go the loan route, or get out into industry and go to night school. Books and computers? Public libraries typically have those.
It sounds like he does actually want to make a prison, because prison is likely the only place you'll find all that together. That doesn't mean they're not provided to the non-incarcerated. This type of thinking sends the school systems down the path of being replacement parents. That should not be our end goal.
If police forces do not want people knowing about the checkpoints, they should not announce them publicly. If it's a matter of the public record, then they can't fault an app for aggregating that public record.
I don't know about other states, but here in NH the courts require the police to give public notice x number of days in advance. The courts won't sign off on the checkpoint otherwise. So at least in my own state, there shouldn't be any argument over the app.
They post the results afterwards. The last few I've seen, they didn't arrest any drunks. What they're really doing is looking for registration and inspection stickers, lights out, and such. To me, these roadblocks are just a lazier way for the police to patrol.
What do you think his chances for future employment are? Any employer is going to Google him and discover that this happened. Granted he won the case on the merits, but if a company has a choice between a candidate that hasn't ever sued an employer and one who has, who do you think they'll choose?
"maybe it's time for the family of the deceased to answer questions about why they weren't better supervising their clearly vulnerable relative"
That can be something the defense explores. What's ludicrous and irresponsible is that someone died and you want to brush it under the rug like it never happened. What the heck is wrong with you?
If you're going to take something to court, you do your best to make sure you'll win. Like I said before, the toddler hitting the old lady isn't in doubt. It's an easy case to prove. Suing the parent isn't so easy. We all have different opinions on what qualifies as adequate supervision of a child. Either way, it's the parents that will be affected by the suit.
Rights do come with responsibilities. If your child kills someone, even accidentally, you have the responsibility to account for it in court if anyone challenges what happened. Even if the court dismisses the case on day one, the family who suffered a loss deserves the right to be heard.
"In most countries this would be ruled as an accident"
By whom? It hasn't been tried in court yet. Even if the coroner had ruled it so, does the victim's family not have the right to challenge the coroner's findings? It'd be a mighty authoritarian society that would refuse them.
For all we know, they did go through arbitration. If not, I don't necessarily see what's wrong with going straight to the court. Who can arbitrate better than a judge? Used to be, that's what we had courts for. To settle matters of law. Good grief, I doubt the people on this site are in favor of mandatory arbitration.
If someone has a grievance, they get to have it heard in a court of law. Yes, that means that sometimes people will bring cases that sound absurd. It's not unlike free speech giving rise to speech we find absurd. But you can't have one without the other. In fact, it may be your own perception and bias that makes the case absurd, and once they have a chance to make their case, facts may come out or a line of reasoning may take shape that changes your mind. Why are you so against that? Why are you so quick to victimize the victim's family for exercising their rights under the law?
"the police and legal authorities would rule that cause of death was an unfortunate coming together of circumstances"
The court may very well do the same. I'd prefer for both sides to have the opportunity to make their case. A person died and you're suggesting that no one be allowed to question what happened? It's absurd. That's not a free society.
Shit like what? A lady died. I don't think it's completely insane for the family of the victim to want to be heard in court. They lost a loved one. The kid and the parents just have to appear and account for their actions. I know I'd be a bit fed up if I lost someone and it was quickly dismissed as being just something that happens. It's not like the courts are going to send the kid to prison, and I doubt there will be any significant financial penalty. Yes, people get absurd amounts of money for stupid reasons, but that's not the norm.
As for suing the child, it's likely an easier case to prove. The child ran into the old lady. It's a fact. If they sued the parent that was watching the child, it's not so clear cut. My idea of proper supervision and your idea of proper supervision could vary by a great deal. It makes for a disturbing headline, but logically I think it makes perfect sense.
Sure, and it has nothing to do with the $1.8 million dollars that Soros just gave to them. No way there'd be strings attached. Nothing to do with the million he just gave Media Matters, whose mission it is to destroy Fox by taking quotes painfully out of context. Juan has been appearing on The Factor for a long time now. If NPR didn't like it, they wouldn't have sat on it for so long. His dialog on the show hasn't changed so far as I can tell. He's honest, he speaks from the heart. I don't agree with much of anything liberal, but I enjoy his presence on O'Reilly's show.
The irony here is that NPR's action adds credence to FNC's claim of being "fair and balanced". I don't see O'Reilly getting fired for appearing on The View. I don't see Juan being excluded from FNC for having been on NPR.
"You must not advocate for political or other polarizing issues online."
He wasn't advocating for anything. He was talking about his feelings. The only reason he'd bring it up is because he recognizes that such an emotional response is wrong, but being honest, he admits to feeling that way. He's not saying O'Reilly's audience should be afraid. He's not saying that anyone should be excluded from air travel. All he did was state his own emotional state. NPR, a network that even has show called "All Things Considered" refuses to tolerate a man's irrational fear, even as he's using it to promote dialog on a touchy subject? It's absurd. We'll never get past issues like this if we refuse to discuss them.
I have to wonder, if it's so clear to you.. why did you post as an anonymous coward?
A guy was harassed at his home by police. He had cameras in his home and they recorded the incident. When he took the recording to the police to file a complaint, they confiscated it and arrested him. He had signs warning of the surveillance equipment just as any business catering to the public does.
The guy has a questionable history with the law, but even so, the actions of the police were totally uncalled for. This relatively quiet town in New Hampshire started getting attention from all around the world as the story grew legs. I believe that's the only reason why they eventually dropped the case.
I see the incident mentioned on local news sites on occasion, and last I read, the police have still refused to give back the tape even after stating that the complaint had merit.
I don't see why the robot is needed. A soldier could walk to where the known unmined area ends and fire this thingie.
Perhaps it's clearing the way for a horde of other robots carrying anti-personnel weaponry? The military of the future may not need to put lives on the front-lines. I think we're seeing a glimpse of that with the air drones that are taking out terrorists via rockets.
You must be a youngin'. Back in the bad old days of DOS you typically had a choice between "PC speaker", "Adlib", or "Soundblaster". Later it evolved to include "Soundblaster 16", "Soundblaster AWE32", and "general MIDI". Heck, who doesn't remember "SET BLASTER = A220 I5 D1"?
Video cards were there too. You had EGA, CGA, VGA, and so forth. Later on you were even tied to a certain vendor such as with sames that only supported VOODOO cards. I remember, I never had one and there were plenty of games I was locked out of because of it.
Sullivan Tire. The MA SJC shot down the attempt, so I don't think it's much of a precedent. NH did pay close attention to this, various public officials said they would fight this matter to the end.
There was a slight difference. Sullivan actually had some stores in MA. I think MA was trying to use that fact to exert pressure on the chain to supply info on sales that took place in other states.
Reminds me of way back when MA used to send state police to NH to stake out the parking lots of liquor stores. They'd record MA license plates and radio cops along the border to pull those vehicles over for not paying tax on the alcohol they purchased. NH didn't want to lose the sales, so they sent out our own state troopers to remove the MA police.
The fun continues. Not too long ago a MA state rep was photographed at a liquor store in NH buying alcohol. The ironic thing was that he had just voted on increasing the liquor tax in MA. No laws broken, but it seemed a bit unethical to many. "Do as I say, not as I do."
It had the ability to be reliable. I used to work for a company developing telephony voice response applications. The vast majority of our voice response units ran OS/2. We had dinosaurs still running MS OS/2 1.3, most running Warp. I can't remember if we ever sent any out with 4.0. It wasn't unusual to have uptime over a year even with heavy call traffic.
Mass Effect 2 is a great example. I purchased it on Steam ahead of the release and preloaded it. Yet the day of release, EA's authentication servers couldn't be reached. Worse, you end up having to make accounts in different places to prove you own the game, even though Steam already knows you do. It reminds me of GTA-IV. Set up an account here, now set one up over there. Now figure out how to link them. For what? All I want is to be able to play the game I purchased! Using a game for the first time is getting to be as bad as doing taxes.
It would cost more. What part of that don't you understand? You think you're "getting screwed" less by paying a lot more for the card?
These programs can't run forever. The toll free numbers cost money, having customer support set up for it cost money, the carrier circuits cost money, the switch and servers cost money, the techs to run them cost money. That's why the programs have a definitive end date. That's why the cards are sold with a set expiration date.
No one is "getting screwed". The cards are sold with the expiration date posted right on them. Don't want a card that expires in a year? Don't buy one. There are a bazillion of them to choose from. Find one with a longer expiration and be prepared to pay for it. Nothing in this life is free.
It's a march towards communism when people despise a company because it makes a profit. That's the whole point of capitalism people. That's what puts money behind your paycheck.
I used to work in the phone card business. We had all sorts of calling card programs. There were promotional cards (buy three packs of diapers, get twenty minutes talk time), we had cards for telco providers to rebrand (like AT&T), we had the convenience store quickie cards that were use and toss, and so on.
Most of them were use and toss. The whole program was meant to have a certain life span, then we shut it down and finalized all the accounting on it.
We knew not all the minutes of all the cards would be used. We would estimate how much wouldn't be, and factor that into the cost of the program. If by some fluke, it was all used up, we would have lost money. Instead, we'd usually be close and it would keep the cost of the minutes down as well as give us (the service provider) and the company selling the cards a useful profit.
If the states decide to take the unused time, there are huge problems. For one, which state? Many calling card users bought cards because they were traveling. Is it the state where the card was sold? Where it was most used? Where the database is? What if the account is replicated to many distributed databases?
If the government were to succeed with this, it would be a billing nightmare for providers, and it would raise the costs for consumers. The industry is practically dead as it is since most people use cell phones now for roaming. This proposal would likely kill what's left of it, making it too expensive and too burdensome for providers to run.
What's next, if I don't finish my coffee at Dunkin's, the state is going to claim a monetary value on what's left over? If I put ten quarters in a self-serve car wash, is the government going to demand a record of how much time I actually used?
If it's like deep brain stimulation (DBS) that already exists today, the electrodes aren't the component that needs replacing. At least, I've never read anything that suggests they wear out. It's the batteries in the electric pulse generator that need to be replaced. In time, perhaps they'll find a way to make that an external component somehow. If they could perfect the initial surgery to make it affordable, why wouldn't people do it? People are willing to pay thousands out of pocket to have the surface of their eyes sliced open like a flap and then have a laser shot into their pupils. Been there, done that.. it's just like being in a horror/sci-fi movie.
MRI machines are already getting cheap. It's not just hospitals that have them anymore. Smallish orthopedic centers have them now. Then you need an OR, a drill, a frame for guiding the electrodes in. Seems doable. It could even be like medical marijuana where everyone ends up having glaucoma. We could see a rise in essential tremor or Parkinson's, all with DBS surgery paid for by Universal Healthcare (i.e. the taxpayers). Find a doctor willing to risk it all for his cut of the money and some nurses willing to look the other way..
I agree that everyone doing a thing doesn't make a thing right. My only point is that WA shouldn't go after DirecTV exclusively. Like the comment I replied to initially said, it's going to harm their customers.. who are already being harmed. What's the point? It's not like they're going to change their ways and become a "nice" company to do business with. There's no such thing.
I agree. A lot of this sounds like sour grapes. I didn't buy my HD-DVR at Worst Buy, I bought it direct from DirecTV. They made it perfectly clear that the cheap price was to lease it, and to buy it outright it was insanely expensive. You'd have to know this when you go to activate it, it's part of the process.
EVERYONE has termination fees. Go get cable and cancel it the next day, same deal. I have no problem with states going after companies over outrageous fees, but DirecTV certainly isn't the only one doing it. Same thing with contract extensions. My cell carrier will extend my contract if I even so much as breathe while on the phone with them.
The introductory fee thing isn't unique either. I called my local cable provider not too long ago to price out the competition. They couldn't tell me the non introductory rate. They didn't know (or wouldn't say)! This is the price for a year, you'll have a two year contract. What happens the second year, it's a mystery.
Seems like there needs to be a consumer bill of rights that lays down the law. The billion dollar corporations have way too much power. An individual consumer has little to no effective recourse. I'm not a fan of more government, but other than shunning all technology, what's a person to do?
It's not a solution for the geek that asked the question, but it could be for others.
I use a Fujitsu Lifebook for note taking. With Office 2010, OneNote finally has native MathML support. You could use the Windows 7 math input panel for interactive entry or you can just scribble in OneNote directly and use its "convert to math" command when you're ready. Best of both worlds. For anyone wanting to go that route, the Office 2010 public beta opens up in November. I've been using the Technical Preview since it was first offered and haven't had any problems.
Slashdot Mirror
The states can get in on this too. New Hampshire has a proposal for a new state law to record abuses by the TSA. Here's a snippet of HB0628:
"VII.(a) In order to assist in the accuracy of records created by law enforcement officers in paragraph III, all citizens being searched shall be afforded their rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution for the United States of America and under Part 1, Article 22 of the New Hampshire Constitution to record, or designated a person to record, using any type of audio and video recording device, or a device that records just audio or just video, all interactions with an agent described in paragraph I, even in the presence of a law enforcement officer, without exception."
Paragraph I specifies the TSA by name.
Followed by:
"(c) If a law enforcement officer does not enforce the provisions of this chapter or makes it difficult for a citizen to exercise his or her rights as specified in this section, the law enforcement officer may be guilty of official oppression pursuant to RSA 643:1."
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2012/HB0628.html
It passed in the house. Now it goes to the senate.
"Depending on the child's family, and the location of the school, many of these things are not available."
Fine, but that doesn't make it the school's responsibility to provide those things. His shopping list is full of things that a community needs, not just a subset composed of just students. He's comparing the dollar amount to provide all of that to prisoners when he should be considering the dollar amount of any education provided to inmates. That's what his school system is supposed to provide, education. It's not a valid comparison he's making unless he's trying to say the entire community is underfunded. But then he has to consider the costs of those other programs that are already in place, not just the amount his school gets per student.
Another person made an insightful comment below. Ignoring the sidetrack of whether prisons should provide all these things for inmates, the prisons provide them because typically, they're the only ones who can. The prisoners can't go work out at the Y or get themselves a cozy cell in a half-way house. They're in prison, behind bars. Non inmates will tend to provide for themselves.
As for the Y costing money, sure. But I know the one in my community sets the fee based on the person's ability to pay, and it's free in some cases such as the individual being unemployed. As I said the schools aren't there to provide everything a person needs in life, the government isn't there for that either. When exactly did people start thinking that the purpose of the government was to ensure that you had every basic need supplied to you? That's not the government's job, that's your job!
Does this guy know what public schools are for? They're for education. If people don't have a roof over their head, they get public housing. If people don't get three meals, they get food stamps or go to the local soup kitchen. If they don't have access to a fitness center, they get the Y. Want to earn a degree? Earn some scholarships, grants, or go the loan route, or get out into industry and go to night school. Books and computers? Public libraries typically have those.
It sounds like he does actually want to make a prison, because prison is likely the only place you'll find all that together. That doesn't mean they're not provided to the non-incarcerated. This type of thinking sends the school systems down the path of being replacement parents. That should not be our end goal.
When you say it like that, it almost sounds as if they've formed a public labor union.
If police forces do not want people knowing about the checkpoints, they should not announce them publicly. If it's a matter of the public record, then they can't fault an app for aggregating that public record.
I don't know about other states, but here in NH the courts require the police to give public notice x number of days in advance. The courts won't sign off on the checkpoint otherwise. So at least in my own state, there shouldn't be any argument over the app.
They post the results afterwards. The last few I've seen, they didn't arrest any drunks. What they're really doing is looking for registration and inspection stickers, lights out, and such. To me, these roadblocks are just a lazier way for the police to patrol.
What do you think his chances for future employment are? Any employer is going to Google him and discover that this happened. Granted he won the case on the merits, but if a company has a choice between a candidate that hasn't ever sued an employer and one who has, who do you think they'll choose?
"maybe it's time for the family of the deceased to answer questions about why they weren't better supervising their clearly vulnerable relative"
That can be something the defense explores. What's ludicrous and irresponsible is that someone died and you want to brush it under the rug like it never happened. What the heck is wrong with you?
If you're going to take something to court, you do your best to make sure you'll win. Like I said before, the toddler hitting the old lady isn't in doubt. It's an easy case to prove. Suing the parent isn't so easy. We all have different opinions on what qualifies as adequate supervision of a child. Either way, it's the parents that will be affected by the suit.
Rights do come with responsibilities. If your child kills someone, even accidentally, you have the responsibility to account for it in court if anyone challenges what happened. Even if the court dismisses the case on day one, the family who suffered a loss deserves the right to be heard.
"In most countries this would be ruled as an accident"
By whom? It hasn't been tried in court yet. Even if the coroner had ruled it so, does the victim's family not have the right to challenge the coroner's findings? It'd be a mighty authoritarian society that would refuse them.
For all we know, they did go through arbitration. If not, I don't necessarily see what's wrong with going straight to the court. Who can arbitrate better than a judge? Used to be, that's what we had courts for. To settle matters of law. Good grief, I doubt the people on this site are in favor of mandatory arbitration.
If someone has a grievance, they get to have it heard in a court of law. Yes, that means that sometimes people will bring cases that sound absurd. It's not unlike free speech giving rise to speech we find absurd. But you can't have one without the other. In fact, it may be your own perception and bias that makes the case absurd, and once they have a chance to make their case, facts may come out or a line of reasoning may take shape that changes your mind. Why are you so against that? Why are you so quick to victimize the victim's family for exercising their rights under the law?
"the police and legal authorities would rule that cause of death was an unfortunate coming together of circumstances"
The court may very well do the same. I'd prefer for both sides to have the opportunity to make their case. A person died and you're suggesting that no one be allowed to question what happened? It's absurd. That's not a free society.
Shit like what? A lady died. I don't think it's completely insane for the family of the victim to want to be heard in court. They lost a loved one. The kid and the parents just have to appear and account for their actions. I know I'd be a bit fed up if I lost someone and it was quickly dismissed as being just something that happens. It's not like the courts are going to send the kid to prison, and I doubt there will be any significant financial penalty. Yes, people get absurd amounts of money for stupid reasons, but that's not the norm.
As for suing the child, it's likely an easier case to prove. The child ran into the old lady. It's a fact. If they sued the parent that was watching the child, it's not so clear cut. My idea of proper supervision and your idea of proper supervision could vary by a great deal. It makes for a disturbing headline, but logically I think it makes perfect sense.
Sure, and it has nothing to do with the $1.8 million dollars that Soros just gave to them. No way there'd be strings attached. Nothing to do with the million he just gave Media Matters, whose mission it is to destroy Fox by taking quotes painfully out of context. Juan has been appearing on The Factor for a long time now. If NPR didn't like it, they wouldn't have sat on it for so long. His dialog on the show hasn't changed so far as I can tell. He's honest, he speaks from the heart. I don't agree with much of anything liberal, but I enjoy his presence on O'Reilly's show.
The irony here is that NPR's action adds credence to FNC's claim of being "fair and balanced". I don't see O'Reilly getting fired for appearing on The View. I don't see Juan being excluded from FNC for having been on NPR.
"You must not advocate for political or other polarizing issues online."
He wasn't advocating for anything. He was talking about his feelings. The only reason he'd bring it up is because he recognizes that such an emotional response is wrong, but being honest, he admits to feeling that way. He's not saying O'Reilly's audience should be afraid. He's not saying that anyone should be excluded from air travel. All he did was state his own emotional state. NPR, a network that even has show called "All Things Considered" refuses to tolerate a man's irrational fear, even as he's using it to promote dialog on a touchy subject? It's absurd. We'll never get past issues like this if we refuse to discuss them.
I have to wonder, if it's so clear to you.. why did you post as an anonymous coward?
Speaking of disappearing footage:
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/29/188221&tid=172
A guy was harassed at his home by police. He had cameras in his home and they recorded the incident. When he took the recording to the police to file a complaint, they confiscated it and arrested him. He had signs warning of the surveillance equipment just as any business catering to the public does.
The guy has a questionable history with the law, but even so, the actions of the police were totally uncalled for. This relatively quiet town in New Hampshire started getting attention from all around the world as the story grew legs. I believe that's the only reason why they eventually dropped the case.
I see the incident mentioned on local news sites on occasion, and last I read, the police have still refused to give back the tape even after stating that the complaint had merit.
I think this senator (John Lieberman) don't have any idea about the computational impact of this bill (almost impossible).
Nor the irony. Perhaps they ought to try securing our borders first.
I don't see why the robot is needed. A soldier could walk to where the known unmined area ends and fire this thingie.
Perhaps it's clearing the way for a horde of other robots carrying anti-personnel weaponry? The military of the future may not need to put lives on the front-lines. I think we're seeing a glimpse of that with the air drones that are taking out terrorists via rockets.
You must be a youngin'. Back in the bad old days of DOS you typically had a choice between "PC speaker", "Adlib", or "Soundblaster". Later it evolved to include "Soundblaster 16", "Soundblaster AWE32", and "general MIDI". Heck, who doesn't remember "SET BLASTER = A220 I5 D1"?
Video cards were there too. You had EGA, CGA, VGA, and so forth. Later on you were even tied to a certain vendor such as with sames that only supported VOODOO cards. I remember, I never had one and there were plenty of games I was locked out of because of it.
You are quite right. I was looking at it from the point of view of a New Hampshire resident.
Sullivan Tire. The MA SJC shot down the attempt, so I don't think it's much of a precedent. NH did pay close attention to this, various public officials said they would fight this matter to the end.
http://salestaxbuzz.org/2009/08/26/live-fee-or-die-vs-taxachusetts-how-story-ends/
There was a slight difference. Sullivan actually had some stores in MA. I think MA was trying to use that fact to exert pressure on the chain to supply info on sales that took place in other states.
Reminds me of way back when MA used to send state police to NH to stake out the parking lots of liquor stores. They'd record MA license plates and radio cops along the border to pull those vehicles over for not paying tax on the alcohol they purchased. NH didn't want to lose the sales, so they sent out our own state troopers to remove the MA police.
The fun continues. Not too long ago a MA state rep was photographed at a liquor store in NH buying alcohol. The ironic thing was that he had just voted on increasing the liquor tax in MA. No laws broken, but it seemed a bit unethical to many. "Do as I say, not as I do."
It had the ability to be reliable. I used to work for a company developing telephony voice response applications. The vast majority of our voice response units ran OS/2. We had dinosaurs still running MS OS/2 1.3, most running Warp. I can't remember if we ever sent any out with 4.0. It wasn't unusual to have uptime over a year even with heavy call traffic.
Mass Effect 2 is a great example. I purchased it on Steam ahead of the release and preloaded it. Yet the day of release, EA's authentication servers couldn't be reached. Worse, you end up having to make accounts in different places to prove you own the game, even though Steam already knows you do. It reminds me of GTA-IV. Set up an account here, now set one up over there. Now figure out how to link them. For what? All I want is to be able to play the game I purchased! Using a game for the first time is getting to be as bad as doing taxes.
It would cost more. What part of that don't you understand? You think you're "getting screwed" less by paying a lot more for the card?
These programs can't run forever. The toll free numbers cost money, having customer support set up for it cost money, the carrier circuits cost money, the switch and servers cost money, the techs to run them cost money. That's why the programs have a definitive end date. That's why the cards are sold with a set expiration date.
No one is "getting screwed". The cards are sold with the expiration date posted right on them. Don't want a card that expires in a year? Don't buy one. There are a bazillion of them to choose from. Find one with a longer expiration and be prepared to pay for it. Nothing in this life is free.
It's a march towards communism when people despise a company because it makes a profit. That's the whole point of capitalism people. That's what puts money behind your paycheck.
I used to work in the phone card business. We had all sorts of calling card programs. There were promotional cards (buy three packs of diapers, get twenty minutes talk time), we had cards for telco providers to rebrand (like AT&T), we had the convenience store quickie cards that were use and toss, and so on.
Most of them were use and toss. The whole program was meant to have a certain life span, then we shut it down and finalized all the accounting on it.
We knew not all the minutes of all the cards would be used. We would estimate how much wouldn't be, and factor that into the cost of the program. If by some fluke, it was all used up, we would have lost money. Instead, we'd usually be close and it would keep the cost of the minutes down as well as give us (the service provider) and the company selling the cards a useful profit.
If the states decide to take the unused time, there are huge problems. For one, which state? Many calling card users bought cards because they were traveling. Is it the state where the card was sold? Where it was most used? Where the database is? What if the account is replicated to many distributed databases?
If the government were to succeed with this, it would be a billing nightmare for providers, and it would raise the costs for consumers. The industry is practically dead as it is since most people use cell phones now for roaming. This proposal would likely kill what's left of it, making it too expensive and too burdensome for providers to run.
What's next, if I don't finish my coffee at Dunkin's, the state is going to claim a monetary value on what's left over? If I put ten quarters in a self-serve car wash, is the government going to demand a record of how much time I actually used?
If it's like deep brain stimulation (DBS) that already exists today, the electrodes aren't the component that needs replacing. At least, I've never read anything that suggests they wear out. It's the batteries in the electric pulse generator that need to be replaced. In time, perhaps they'll find a way to make that an external component somehow. If they could perfect the initial surgery to make it affordable, why wouldn't people do it? People are willing to pay thousands out of pocket to have the surface of their eyes sliced open like a flap and then have a laser shot into their pupils. Been there, done that.. it's just like being in a horror/sci-fi movie.
MRI machines are already getting cheap. It's not just hospitals that have them anymore. Smallish orthopedic centers have them now. Then you need an OR, a drill, a frame for guiding the electrodes in. Seems doable. It could even be like medical marijuana where everyone ends up having glaucoma. We could see a rise in essential tremor or Parkinson's, all with DBS surgery paid for by Universal Healthcare (i.e. the taxpayers). Find a doctor willing to risk it all for his cut of the money and some nurses willing to look the other way..
"Minimum term agreement required. Early termination fee applies."
http://www.comcast.com/Corporate/legal/TriplePlay_Offer.html
I agree that everyone doing a thing doesn't make a thing right. My only point is that WA shouldn't go after DirecTV exclusively. Like the comment I replied to initially said, it's going to harm their customers.. who are already being harmed. What's the point? It's not like they're going to change their ways and become a "nice" company to do business with. There's no such thing.
I agree. A lot of this sounds like sour grapes. I didn't buy my HD-DVR at Worst Buy, I bought it direct from DirecTV. They made it perfectly clear that the cheap price was to lease it, and to buy it outright it was insanely expensive. You'd have to know this when you go to activate it, it's part of the process.
EVERYONE has termination fees. Go get cable and cancel it the next day, same deal. I have no problem with states going after companies over outrageous fees, but DirecTV certainly isn't the only one doing it. Same thing with contract extensions. My cell carrier will extend my contract if I even so much as breathe while on the phone with them.
The introductory fee thing isn't unique either. I called my local cable provider not too long ago to price out the competition. They couldn't tell me the non introductory rate. They didn't know (or wouldn't say)! This is the price for a year, you'll have a two year contract. What happens the second year, it's a mystery.
Seems like there needs to be a consumer bill of rights that lays down the law. The billion dollar corporations have way too much power. An individual consumer has little to no effective recourse. I'm not a fan of more government, but other than shunning all technology, what's a person to do?
It's not a solution for the geek that asked the question, but it could be for others.
I use a Fujitsu Lifebook for note taking. With Office 2010, OneNote finally has native MathML support. You could use the Windows 7 math input panel for interactive entry or you can just scribble in OneNote directly and use its "convert to math" command when you're ready. Best of both worlds. For anyone wanting to go that route, the Office 2010 public beta opens up in November. I've been using the Technical Preview since it was first offered and haven't had any problems.