Penn and Teller have a segment in "How to Play With Your Food" - you put electricity thorugh a pickle, and it lights up. It's great fun at parties. It looks quite dangerous, and the more squeamish folks will be convinced that you're going to electrocute yourself. My neighbor, after seeing the initial demonstration years ago, was so impressed that he's built an "improved" model every year. I think we're up to 6th gen now. The newest unit looks like a pickle-sized electric chair, and it works wonderfully.
For reasons I can't explain, *everybody* loves the Pickle-ator.
Unfortunately, "standards" can be as much of a problem as a benefit. Many companies will view an industry standard as a method to obstruct competitors. If Company A can get their document format adopted as the "standard," they've got a built-in head start on everyone else who has to rework any existing products they have in the pipe to be "standards compliant."
My former employer designated me a their rep to the ANSI T1 standards body back in the mid-90's when SONET was the hot thing. I entered with youthful ignorance and enthusiasm, but exited as a complete cynic. I've never seen so much posturing and pandering with respect to corporate positions. Some folks had strong corporate agendas (i.e. MCI,) while others (HP) tended to have a more open viewpoint.
Regardless of the politics involved, there always seem to be corporate positions that hide just beneath the surface of industry standards. Instead of being the wild west frontier, introducing a standard says you must "be at least this tall to play in this market." Oh, and you have to pay the extortion fee to the standards body in order to get the specs. The PICMG is a good example. A so-called "open" body, you're welcome to participate. Oh, but you need to pay the annual fee to join the group first. Oh, and expect to shell out a couple hundred bucks for copies of the documents.
The PICMG is only one example. They're open enough to let non-members purchase the standards. The ITU has similar non-member document purchase options, but participation in the committees is substantially more restricted. The SD-Card cartel is much more closed. So don't think that standards creation benefits you first. That's just a convenient symptom. Companies establish standards as defensive barriers. If Company X thinks it's too expensive to enter Market A because the standards compliance is so draconian, then the standards have done their job for the membership. The fact that consumers get $10 ethernet cards out of the deal is completely coincidental.
LinuxDevices has an article about this device shipping in October of 2004... that'd be a year ago...
The linked article doesn't provide any information about availablility to the public. I recall that AMD originally said it was going to restrict sales to developing nations, and maybe they've removed that restriction. I don't see any evidence of that, though.
I took my exam on 10 September, and was in the FCC database by 12 September. The ARRL welcome package showed up about a week later, then another week and my official paper package from the FCC arrived. The entire process was painless. And yes, the recent disaster scenarios played into motivating me to actually go take the test.
I'm licensed Technician, but I passed all the written exams up through Amateur Extra. I studied pretty hard for the Technician exam, and I must admit that the practice exams over at eHam.net were a great help. I went to the exam session intending only to take the Technican test. I got 100% on the test, so the VEs (Volunteer Examiners) convinced me to take the General test. There's no cost, and they said "it's more of the same kind of question. You'll need to guess a bit on certain ones, but given your score on the Technician exam, you'll probably pass." So what do I have to lose? I took the test, and missed three questions. Repeat the same scenario for the Amateur Extra test. On that, I missed 13 questions, which is barely passing. But in the spirit of pass/fail college couses, D-minus is passing, so I'll take it. (Incidentally, taking the Amateur Extra exam motivated me to go back and review the question pool to see what questions I answered incorrectly and why, so it actually got me to go study some more after the fact.) My credit for the written exams lasts for 365 days, so somewhere in that period I need to learn Morse to get upgraded to full privileges.
So I agree with the Parent's statement that you should go out and get your Technician license. It's not complicated, and you should draw confidence from the fact that your survival skills are enhanced a bit. No matter how badly the power or telepone infrastructure is damaged, radio propagation still works.
Inalienable rights - life, liberty, pursuit of hapiness - are fundamental to the human condition.
Copyright, on the other hand, is completely fabricated an attempt to spur creativity, innovation, and risk taking. The copyright laws in the US extend the privelege of an allegedly finite-term monopoly on a work in exchange for that work falling into the public domain at the end of the term. The content distributors have hijacked the system for their own personal gain, at great expense to the general public.
A friend's father used to advocate the installation of pork-fat sprayers in the aircraft cabin. Granted, that's only effective on the folks who believe that such pork contact will keep them out of heaven. But I always thought it was a creative way to keep certain hijackers from doing suicidal things.
If I've got access to install spyware on your computer, why would I go through the Rube-Goldbergian process of recording sound, processing, etc? Can't I just sniff the keypresses directly?
Now, using the mic in a laptop to sniff sounds made by *other* computers would be pretty slick.
Nope, arhaeology and history would be parts of a Liberal Arts education... and tend to lead to said educated persons issuing phrases like "you want fries with that?" during their carreers.
While there probably are a bunch of archaeology geeks out there, I tend to side with the definition of "geek" as having a fundamental technology-basis. Of course, that's just my opinion, and it's worth every cent you paid for it.
[peeve]
"... all intents and purposes..."
[/peeve]
Unfortunately, you've performed the apples/oranges comparison yourself. For your argument to be valid, you need to scale-up the power generation capabilities of your car's tank of gas to be comparable to that of a nuclear power station. Lesse... time for some napkin math - let's say your typical nuclear power station churns out 1000MW. A typical energy density of gasoline is about 130MJ/gallon. Your 10-gallon tank contains about 1300MJ. Estimating that you'll burn that whole tank at highway speeds in about 4 hours, the car's energy consumption rate is about (1300MJ/(4h*3600s/h)) = 90.2kW. Now we're taling a kW-to-kW comparison here. The 1000MW nuclear plant is about equivalent to 11086 cars... running 24/7 at highway speeds. From this point, you should be able to mathematically compare deaths/kW for both automobiles and nuclear power stations. (I don't feel like hunting down the statistics.)
As for the car analogy being safer because the problem is localized... that's crap. In 2000 we managed to kill 41000 people with our cars in the US, and injure another 3.2 million. We have lots of cars, and that's a big multiplier. Just because you spread the issue out into a really large volume, doesn't make it inherently safer.
Here's a link to the PDF spec sheet. Note that the regen braking isn't mentioned in the "brakes" section, but rather in the "controller" section. I suppose it's appropriate to put there, but ends up being somewhat misleading.
And here's an unsolicited link to the NHSTA's ruling on Neighborhood Electric Vehicles. It's worth a read just for some insight into the bureaucracy that's involved with manufacturing a "Low Speed Vehicle." Yuck.
They've already got the motor, geartrain, and controller up front. Remove the front hydraulic system and substitute the "upgraded" regen controller. I'd bet the dollars come out about even. Then opt for trailer-style electric brakes in the rear - that eliminates *all* of the hydraulic plumbing, and still allows the use of a cable operated parking brake. You may build redundancy into the system as you see fit.
I just don't see these guys trying very hard. If they expect to be considered an EV and not a glorified golf cart, they need to behave like they're building the former. If I want a golf cart, I'll go buy a Club Car. Hey looky! The Club Car golf cart has regenrative braking... so the GEV isn't even that good...
I find it difficult to believe that an EV manufacturer would product a series of EV's that don't include regenerative brakes. Another reader commented that this is "a modified golf cart," and I'd have to say he's right. I'd have *some* respect for these folks if they had regen brakes as an option, or had "regen + hydraulic backup." As it stands, it really is just a golf cart with a NEV rating. Meh...
See, by actually building stuff yourself, you deprive business owners of the profits that they're pretty much about to be guaranteed by upcoming crappy legislation. So by by building instead of buying, you're damaging the economy.
You're not a fool... you're gonna be labeled... a TERRORIST !!!
{cue Monty Python Lumberjack music}
Oh, I'm a Terrorist and I'm okay,
I scheme at night, and I plot all day.
{a group of riot police show up for the chorus}
Oh, he's a Terrorist and he's okay,
He schemes at night, and he plots all day.
I blow things up, I train at camp,
I hate all different than me.
On Wednesdays I go shopping, and have buttered scones for tea.
{chorus}
He blows things up, he trains at camp,
He hates all different than me.
On Wednesdays he goes shopping, and has buttered scones for tea.
I kill random folks, I skip and jump,
I think of the afterlife for hours,
I like to put on women's clothing, and hang around in bars.
{chorus}
*CLICK* *CLICK* *CLICK* (sounds of rounds being chambered)
Automatic speed control will never happen. Not because the tinfoil-hat brigade will be successful in lobbying against it, but rather it'll be the law enforcement personnnel who will kill it. Speeding fines are too large a part of the police budget, and that opportunity must be maintained. The police vehemently oppose any measure that justifies a reduction in the number of officers required. The insurance companies will probably oppose anything that eliminates fender-benders, too. Fatal accidents cost them money, but the fender-benders are income generators.
They can have my co-worker when they pry her from my cold, dead hands!
In all seriousness, your employer doesn't own you, no matter what he thinks. If your employer expects to direct your actions 24/7, he can pay you 24/7. Folks who are on-call 24/7 should be paid accordingly. Read your employment contract before signing... abusive employers will try all sorts of stunts like "all your thoughts belong to us, even the ones you had before being hired."
My former employer tried the all-encompassing "we own everything you think of" trick. I explained that I was already an officer at another company, and that obligation preceeded this one. (Start your own business... it's worth the minor hassles.) I crossed out about four paragraphs in the contract. They signed anyway - and I would've bailed on the job had they not done so.
The Harris Dracon TS-21 rules, but alas, it's not available anymore. The TS-22 is a close second. Harris' tools division is now part of Fluke Networks, and their selection of butt sets can be found here.
If you consider "survival of the species" to be one of the goals of space exploration, then that should help you to understand. No amount of undersea science will help the species survive if we have any one of the "planet killer" scenarios come to bear... that includes the man-made nuclear ones.
I'm a firm believer that we need a permanent presence of humans somewhere off this rock. One on the Moon and one on Mars would be a good start. And I'm not talking about some rinky-dink "two people at a time" effort. We need to make a committment to putting a couple hundred folks on the Moon in a sustainable habitat. The "sustainable" part is going to be difficult given current technology.
Lots of speed = lots of heat, and you need a way to shed it if you don't want to burn up. They've known that for years and it doesn't change just because you have a famous name and don't work for NASA.
Ehhh... I disagree. Lots of speed = lots of energy you need to do something with. Aerobraking is only one way to slow down. It's not the only way. It just happens that it's pretty efficient in terms of mass penalty on a spacecraft. You could use a retro-burn with your engines, slowing in a controlled fashion, but the rocket equation says that's going to carry a pretty big mass penalty in terms of the additional fuel required. The fixed ablative heat shield is a much more economical method. The Shuttle's "brick" exterior is less efficient (mathematically and practically) than one that's ablative, but they insisted on it being re-usable. Personally, I think the whole allure of "re-usable" is completely irrational, as expendable boosters are soooo much better at getting stuff off this rock. Who cares if it's not re-usable? It costs less to build a new EELV than to refurb the so-called "re-usable" Shuttle... why is the re-usable one better?
I hear ya. And no, I don't expect anyone from the store (especially the bigger ones) to come pleading for me to bring my business back. However a lot of retailers realize that folks are better connected nowadays, and the internet can be as much a liability to them as an asset. If it's easy for people to rate stores' performance (as many websites like epinions et al do) then folks may actually get steered away from the crappy shopping experiences. Of course, folks are fundamentally cheap, so I fully expect a good sale to bring them right back in. Most "consumers" have a shorter memory than my 13-year-old cat.
Unfortunately, this "we need your personal information" behavior is symptomatic of a larger problem. Children at an early age are taught to obey people in authority. The "you must obey or else" threat is continued up until college. The teaching isn't really well bounded, so folks end up blindly obeying anyone who portrays himself as being an "authority figure." When retailers start this crap, I can't help but wonder why people put up with it, but they do. We're raising our children to be consumer sheep.
Yep, the only reason I know where zip 12345 is... filling out online registration forms. You can usually put whatever crap into the address fields, but most folks have gotten smart enough to cross-check the city, state, zip combo before accepting the form.
Like it or not, the cashier represents the store during the sale. During my experience at the store, I probably have the most "face time" with the cashier, and checking out ends up being the part of the sale that tends to stick in my mind. I want it to be pleasant and hassle free.
Asking for personal information will get you a polite but terse "no." I have no intention of justifying my response to you or anyone else. Pressing the matter restults in me getting annoyed. Pressing *again* puts you in risk of losing the sale, and yes, I'm going to tell the manager why. I recognize that the cashier doesn't set the store policy. I don't think I've ever yelled at a cashier for that very reason. However, unless the store management hears about the cheesed customers and the lost sales, the store policy won't change.
I vote with my wallet and my feet. Yelling and screaming just gets you written-off as a whackjob. Telling the manager why you're taking your business elsewhere, and then doing so, punishes the crummy vendor and rewards the competitor who doesn't have the crappy policy.
I went to a clothing store a few years ago to buy a present for the wife. I handed the cashier cash for the items, then had the following conversation -
Cashier: May I have your phone number?
Me: No.
Cashier: It's only for customer satisfaction purposes...
Me: What part of "no" was ambiguous?
Cashier: We need your phone number to improve customer service...
Me: Get your manager over here right now so I can explain why you're losing this sale, and all future sales...
Cashier: {types in store phone number}
I get amazingly cheesed when businesses fail to respect my privacy (whether I have a "right" to privacy is a whole separate rant.)
Slashdot Mirror
Penn and Teller have a segment in "How to Play With Your Food" - you put electricity thorugh a pickle, and it lights up. It's great fun at parties. It looks quite dangerous, and the more squeamish folks will be convinced that you're going to electrocute yourself. My neighbor, after seeing the initial demonstration years ago, was so impressed that he's built an "improved" model every year. I think we're up to 6th gen now. The newest unit looks like a pickle-sized electric chair, and it works wonderfully.
For reasons I can't explain, *everybody* loves the Pickle-ator.
Unfortunately, "standards" can be as much of a problem as a benefit. Many companies will view an industry standard as a method to obstruct competitors. If Company A can get their document format adopted as the "standard," they've got a built-in head start on everyone else who has to rework any existing products they have in the pipe to be "standards compliant."
My former employer designated me a their rep to the ANSI T1 standards body back in the mid-90's when SONET was the hot thing. I entered with youthful ignorance and enthusiasm, but exited as a complete cynic. I've never seen so much posturing and pandering with respect to corporate positions. Some folks had strong corporate agendas (i.e. MCI,) while others (HP) tended to have a more open viewpoint.
Regardless of the politics involved, there always seem to be corporate positions that hide just beneath the surface of industry standards. Instead of being the wild west frontier, introducing a standard says you must "be at least this tall to play in this market." Oh, and you have to pay the extortion fee to the standards body in order to get the specs. The PICMG is a good example. A so-called "open" body, you're welcome to participate. Oh, but you need to pay the annual fee to join the group first. Oh, and expect to shell out a couple hundred bucks for copies of the documents.
The PICMG is only one example. They're open enough to let non-members purchase the standards. The ITU has similar non-member document purchase options, but participation in the committees is substantially more restricted. The SD-Card cartel is much more closed. So don't think that standards creation benefits you first. That's just a convenient symptom. Companies establish standards as defensive barriers. If Company X thinks it's too expensive to enter Market A because the standards compliance is so draconian, then the standards have done their job for the membership. The fact that consumers get $10 ethernet cards out of the deal is completely coincidental.
LinuxDevices has an article about this device shipping in October of 2004 ... that'd be a year ago ...
...
The linked article doesn't provide any information about availablility to the public. I recall that AMD originally said it was going to restrict sales to developing nations, and maybe they've removed that restriction. I don't see any evidence of that, though.
And of course, here's a link to the previous Slashdot discussion
I took my exam on 10 September, and was in the FCC database by 12 September. The ARRL welcome package showed up about a week later, then another week and my official paper package from the FCC arrived. The entire process was painless. And yes, the recent disaster scenarios played into motivating me to actually go take the test.
I'm licensed Technician, but I passed all the written exams up through Amateur Extra. I studied pretty hard for the Technician exam, and I must admit that the practice exams over at eHam.net were a great help. I went to the exam session intending only to take the Technican test. I got 100% on the test, so the VEs (Volunteer Examiners) convinced me to take the General test. There's no cost, and they said "it's more of the same kind of question. You'll need to guess a bit on certain ones, but given your score on the Technician exam, you'll probably pass." So what do I have to lose? I took the test, and missed three questions. Repeat the same scenario for the Amateur Extra test. On that, I missed 13 questions, which is barely passing. But in the spirit of pass/fail college couses, D-minus is passing, so I'll take it. (Incidentally, taking the Amateur Extra exam motivated me to go back and review the question pool to see what questions I answered incorrectly and why, so it actually got me to go study some more after the fact.) My credit for the written exams lasts for 365 days, so somewhere in that period I need to learn Morse to get upgraded to full privileges.
So I agree with the Parent's statement that you should go out and get your Technician license. It's not complicated, and you should draw confidence from the fact that your survival skills are enhanced a bit. No matter how badly the power or telepone infrastructure is damaged, radio propagation still works.
Inalienable rights - life, liberty, pursuit of hapiness - are fundamental to the human condition.
Copyright, on the other hand, is completely fabricated an attempt to spur creativity, innovation, and risk taking. The copyright laws in the US extend the privelege of an allegedly finite-term monopoly on a work in exchange for that work falling into the public domain at the end of the term. The content distributors have hijacked the system for their own personal gain, at great expense to the general public.
Prior to 1978, you had to apply to the US Copyright Office to get your work protected. Now it's automatic. If copyright is a "right", why do the legislators keep dicking around with the terms so often? The Sonny Bono Retroactive-Indefinite Copyright Extension Act is the worst example of this behavior.
Your "Rights" are described in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Copyright ain't part of either.
The folks at mp3car.com claim to have Nano-ITX motherboards in-stock. They also sell a complete system in a spiffy blue case.
...
The fine folks at Damn Small Linux also have a Nano-ITX system. There are several versions of the machine at the bottom of this page.
Looks like I gotta stop calling it "Nano-ITX Forever"
A friend's father used to advocate the installation of pork-fat sprayers in the aircraft cabin. Granted, that's only effective on the folks who believe that such pork contact will keep them out of heaven. But I always thought it was a creative way to keep certain hijackers from doing suicidal things.
If I've got access to install spyware on your computer, why would I go through the Rube-Goldbergian process of recording sound, processing, etc? Can't I just sniff the keypresses directly?
Now, using the mic in a laptop to sniff sounds made by *other* computers would be pretty slick.
Nope, arhaeology and history would be parts of a Liberal Arts education ... and tend to lead to said educated persons issuing phrases like "you want fries with that?" during their carreers.
While there probably are a bunch of archaeology geeks out there, I tend to side with the definition of "geek" as having a fundamental technology-basis. Of course, that's just my opinion, and it's worth every cent you paid for it.
[peeve] ..."
... time for some napkin math - let's say your typical nuclear power station churns out 1000MW. A typical energy density of gasoline is about 130MJ/gallon. Your 10-gallon tank contains about 1300MJ. Estimating that you'll burn that whole tank at highway speeds in about 4 hours, the car's energy consumption rate is about (1300MJ/(4h*3600s/h)) = 90.2kW. Now we're taling a kW-to-kW comparison here. The 1000MW nuclear plant is about equivalent to 11086 cars ... running 24/7 at highway speeds. From this point, you should be able to mathematically compare deaths/kW for both automobiles and nuclear power stations. (I don't feel like hunting down the statistics.)
... that's crap. In 2000 we managed to kill 41000 people with our cars in the US, and injure another 3.2 million. We have lots of cars, and that's a big multiplier. Just because you spread the issue out into a really large volume, doesn't make it inherently safer.
"... all intents and purposes
[/peeve]
Unfortunately, you've performed the apples/oranges comparison yourself. For your argument to be valid, you need to scale-up the power generation capabilities of your car's tank of gas to be comparable to that of a nuclear power station. Lesse
As for the car analogy being safer because the problem is localized
I say "bah" on your emotional "theory of evolution." If you want an answer about extraterrestrial life, just ask the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Here's a link to the PDF spec sheet. Note that the regen braking isn't mentioned in the "brakes" section, but rather in the "controller" section. I suppose it's appropriate to put there, but ends up being somewhat misleading.
And here's an unsolicited link to the NHSTA's ruling on Neighborhood Electric Vehicles. It's worth a read just for some insight into the bureaucracy that's involved with manufacturing a "Low Speed Vehicle." Yuck.
Hydraulic brakes ain't free ...
... so the GEV isn't even that good ...
They've already got the motor, geartrain, and controller up front. Remove the front hydraulic system and substitute the "upgraded" regen controller. I'd bet the dollars come out about even. Then opt for trailer-style electric brakes in the rear - that eliminates *all* of the hydraulic plumbing, and still allows the use of a cable operated parking brake. You may build redundancy into the system as you see fit.
I just don't see these guys trying very hard. If they expect to be considered an EV and not a glorified golf cart, they need to behave like they're building the former. If I want a golf cart, I'll go buy a Club Car. Hey looky! The Club Car golf cart has regenrative braking
I find it difficult to believe that an EV manufacturer would product a series of EV's that don't include regenerative brakes. Another reader commented that this is "a modified golf cart," and I'd have to say he's right. I'd have *some* respect for these folks if they had regen brakes as an option, or had "regen + hydraulic backup." As it stands, it really is just a golf cart with a NEV rating. Meh ...
See, by actually building stuff yourself, you deprive business owners of the profits that they're pretty much about to be guaranteed by upcoming crappy legislation. So by by building instead of buying, you're damaging the economy.
... you're gonna be labeled ... a TERRORIST !!!
You're not a fool
{cue Monty Python Lumberjack music}
Oh, I'm a Terrorist and I'm okay,
I scheme at night, and I plot all day.
{a group of riot police show up for the chorus}
Oh, he's a Terrorist and he's okay,
He schemes at night, and he plots all day.
I blow things up, I train at camp,
I hate all different than me.
On Wednesdays I go shopping, and have buttered scones for tea.
{chorus}
He blows things up, he trains at camp,
He hates all different than me.
On Wednesdays he goes shopping, and has buttered scones for tea.
I kill random folks, I skip and jump,
I think of the afterlife for hours,
I like to put on women's clothing, and hang around in bars.
{chorus}
*CLICK* *CLICK* *CLICK* (sounds of rounds being chambered)
"Never get involved in a land war in Asia
Automatic speed control will never happen. Not because the tinfoil-hat brigade will be successful in lobbying against it, but rather it'll be the law enforcement personnnel who will kill it. Speeding fines are too large a part of the police budget, and that opportunity must be maintained. The police vehemently oppose any measure that justifies a reduction in the number of officers required. The insurance companies will probably oppose anything that eliminates fender-benders, too. Fatal accidents cost them money, but the fender-benders are income generators.
I'm not paranoid, just following the money.
They can have my co-worker when they pry her from my cold, dead hands!
In all seriousness, your employer doesn't own you, no matter what he thinks. If your employer expects to direct your actions 24/7, he can pay you 24/7. Folks who are on-call 24/7 should be paid accordingly. Read your employment contract before signing
My former employer tried the all-encompassing "we own everything you think of" trick. I explained that I was already an officer at another company, and that obligation preceeded this one. (Start your own business
The Harris Dracon TS-21 rules, but alas, it's not available anymore. The TS-22 is a close second. Harris' tools division is now part of Fluke Networks, and their selection of butt sets can be found here.
If you consider "survival of the species" to be one of the goals of space exploration, then that should help you to understand. No amount of undersea science will help the species survive if we have any one of the "planet killer" scenarios come to bear ... that includes the man-made nuclear ones.
I'm a firm believer that we need a permanent presence of humans somewhere off this rock. One on the Moon and one on Mars would be a good start. And I'm not talking about some rinky-dink "two people at a time" effort. We need to make a committment to putting a couple hundred folks on the Moon in a sustainable habitat. The "sustainable" part is going to be difficult given current technology.
Lots of speed = lots of heat, and you need a way to shed it if you don't want to burn up. They've known that for years and it doesn't change just because you have a famous name and don't work for NASA.
... I disagree. Lots of speed = lots of energy you need to do something with. Aerobraking is only one way to slow down. It's not the only way. It just happens that it's pretty efficient in terms of mass penalty on a spacecraft. You could use a retro-burn with your engines, slowing in a controlled fashion, but the rocket equation says that's going to carry a pretty big mass penalty in terms of the additional fuel required. The fixed ablative heat shield is a much more economical method. The Shuttle's "brick" exterior is less efficient (mathematically and practically) than one that's ablative, but they insisted on it being re-usable. Personally, I think the whole allure of "re-usable" is completely irrational, as expendable boosters are soooo much better at getting stuff off this rock. Who cares if it's not re-usable? It costs less to build a new EELV than to refurb the so-called "re-usable" Shuttle ... why is the re-usable one better?
Ehhh
I hear ya. And no, I don't expect anyone from the store (especially the bigger ones) to come pleading for me to bring my business back. However a lot of retailers realize that folks are better connected nowadays, and the internet can be as much a liability to them as an asset. If it's easy for people to rate stores' performance (as many websites like epinions et al do) then folks may actually get steered away from the crappy shopping experiences. Of course, folks are fundamentally cheap, so I fully expect a good sale to bring them right back in. Most "consumers" have a shorter memory than my 13-year-old cat.
Unfortunately, this "we need your personal information" behavior is symptomatic of a larger problem. Children at an early age are taught to obey people in authority. The "you must obey or else" threat is continued up until college. The teaching isn't really well bounded, so folks end up blindly obeying anyone who portrays himself as being an "authority figure." When retailers start this crap, I can't help but wonder why people put up with it, but they do. We're raising our children to be consumer sheep.
Yep, the only reason I know where zip 12345 is ... filling out online registration forms. You can usually put whatever crap into the address fields, but most folks have gotten smart enough to cross-check the city, state, zip combo before accepting the form.
Like it or not, the cashier represents the store during the sale. During my experience at the store, I probably have the most "face time" with the cashier, and checking out ends up being the part of the sale that tends to stick in my mind. I want it to be pleasant and hassle free.
Asking for personal information will get you a polite but terse "no." I have no intention of justifying my response to you or anyone else. Pressing the matter restults in me getting annoyed. Pressing *again* puts you in risk of losing the sale, and yes, I'm going to tell the manager why. I recognize that the cashier doesn't set the store policy. I don't think I've ever yelled at a cashier for that very reason. However, unless the store management hears about the cheesed customers and the lost sales, the store policy won't change.
I vote with my wallet and my feet. Yelling and screaming just gets you written-off as a whackjob. Telling the manager why you're taking your business elsewhere, and then doing so, punishes the crummy vendor and rewards the competitor who doesn't have the crappy policy.
I went to a clothing store a few years ago to buy a present for the wife. I handed the cashier cash for the items, then had the following conversation -
... ... ...
Cashier: May I have your phone number?
Me: No.
Cashier: It's only for customer satisfaction purposes
Me: What part of "no" was ambiguous?
Cashier: We need your phone number to improve customer service
Me: Get your manager over here right now so I can explain why you're losing this sale, and all future sales
Cashier: {types in store phone number}
I get amazingly cheesed when businesses fail to respect my privacy (whether I have a "right" to privacy is a whole separate rant.)