"Why can't we harness all the radio waves in the air for power?"
Maybe because you can't create or destroy anything. When your device turns channel 4 into AC for you, don't you think other people might notice some loss of signal? Doesn't the FCC reg on the back of almost every home electronic device say "must not create unwanted interference"? Wouldn't this device be in pretty clear violation of that?
IANARO (I am not a radio operator). However, I did buy one of those nifty little transmitters you can use to play cd's/mp3's on a walkman over radio waves for cars with no tape or cd players. It's powered by 2 AAA batteries, which it drains very quickly (still worth it tho), while instantly losing coherent signal if you move the transmitter more than a foot or so from the radio itself. Seems like the reverse would apply, but then IANARO... Maybe you could make a lot of AC from antennas right underneath giant transmitters (hey, wait a minute, that's where my house is located... hmm)
Also, my memory is muddy, but wasn't Tesla found to be faking a portion of his supposed "demonstrations"?
...let them stay home? We've got automated radar guns, automated facial recognition, biometrics... Hell we could just give the cops pagers that go off when the computers are finished doing their jobs for them so they could show up to make the actual arrest. The rest of the time they could just sit in their Barca-loungers and we'll just mail them checks for doing nothing.
"Did you see anything done with they $$ they took?"
Well, let's see... police, fire trucks and ambulances when I call 911, that's pretty spiffy. Public schools and Universities don't exactly suck. It's also pretty nice to be able to go to an ER when my appendix bursts and know that I won't be dumped on the street if I'm broke. I take the bus to work every day, that's subsidized by taxes. I watch PBS every night, that's (theoretically) subsidized by tax dollars, even though they barely get any govt money anymore.
So, to answer your eminently, and I suspect willfully, ignorant question, yes, I see them doing plenty with the money they took, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Look, you pay rent on the apartment or mortgage payments on the house where you live, right? You're happy to do it because the house provides you with benefits like shelter, heat, and running water. All taxes are is rent to live in a country. Just like rent on an apartment or a mortage on a house, it's money that you pay because it brings benefits to you. I suspect that you're simply so jaded to those benefits, because you've had them for so long, that you've lost any and all appreciation.
And it's you who miss the point - it's not a matter of the money belonging to either you or the government, the whole idea of democracy is that you *are* the government. Or is the whole concept of representative democracy as lost on you as the concept of paying for services is?
One final thought - it is possible, in most states TTBOMK, to "disenfranchise" yourself from the government. Meaning, there's a set of forms you fill out, you get a different looking ID card or driver's license (I've seen some), and.... you never have to pay taxes again. Of course, you can never call the police, or the fire department, or the ambulance, or the animal control people, or the sewerage district, or the truant officer, or the Public Service Commission, or the city planner, ever again, and if you do they will bill you on a per-use basis. OR you can do the smart thing and pay your bulk rate for these services through normal taxes like non-retarded people do. Why don't you try this out and see how it works? Oh wait, I know! Because for all the faux-libertarian Friedman-esque crap you're spewing, you know in your heart that you live in the best country on Earth, and there's not a thing you would seriously do to change it. If you're so pissed about taxes than disenfranchise yourself. Put up or shut up.
I disagree. I know plenty of liberals (like me) who are going to vote for Kerry regardless of the fact that they don't really like him. I've heard plenty of liberals freely admit Kerry's shortcomings. I've not heard one republican admit anything of the kind for Bush. Just the sound of millions of knees jerking...
Almost as though they're trying to corrupt the most the institutions that historically would have been the first to cry foul - the Church, the media, and the watchdogs (don't forget the AARP's shameless shilling for the medicare bill that they lied about)... why if I didn't know better, I'd say something seems pretty fucking rotten in Denmark...
Wow. what he said. And let me just add that I think part of the problem with the way the political debate is framed these days is that, somehow, people have been browbeaten by the media into thinking that the Democratic Party is somehow liberal. The last time we had a "liberal" democrat as president he gave us NAFTA, WTO and the end of welfare as we know it.
The sad fact of the matter is there is no serious representation of liberals, which in my experience make up the silent majority, in our government today. You know, there was a snappy quote from a while back about where you could shove taxation without representation, let me try and remember it...
It's only prohibitive until technology improves to the point where it's not anymore, which is still way too soon for me.
And I've heard the argument that technological advances can't change the basic physical laws of radio, but I maintain that technology won't have to change the laws to find a way around them. Long-lasting microbatteries being the most obvious, micro-string construction being the second most, especially for clothes. The basic physical laws of electricity haven't changed either, yet electronics grow steadily smaller.
What I'm really worried about is mainstream acceptance of the idea that it's OK for innocent, law-abiding citizens to have the contents of their home broadcast to anybody outside with the proper equipment. I grew up with the American ideal of a man's home being his castle, and I'd like to see it remain so.
Like I've said before, all I'm asking them to do is de-activate the things when I pay and leave the store.
IF they can they will, you can bet on it. As soon as it's not cost-prohibitive, which is to say as soon as technology advances some more (which it will). I don't understand why people defending RFID focus on the technical limitations as a defense. It's obvious to me that any technological problems will be overcome very quickly.
I also don't understand why you're so apparently insecure and unconfident in your opinion that you feel the need to hide your identity behind anonymity and obscenity. If you've got a real rebuttal I invite you to make it.
"An RFID designed to be read from 18 inches won't be read by this RFID scanner from 300 feet (if that scanner can even read it properly from the 18 inches). Furthermore the RFID's intended for products can be disabled."
Well as I understand it, which might well be wrong, the type of RFID being implemented in stores consists of a tag which responds to radio stimulation, similar to the way a reflector responds to a beam of light. So if I can't see a reflector 50 feet away with my maglite, I go to get a much bigger, brighter light and shine that on the reflector, and I'll have a greater chance of seeing it. Even if the tags are passive, what's to stop anybody from just using a massively powerful reader from a greater distance?
I just have zero faith in people doing the right thing once technology makes it possible for them to do the wrong thing. There's nothing wrong with barcodes, they're not broken, and the "solution" seems to me to be much worse than the problem - yeah, if you run a retail business, you might actually have to pay some cashiers.
"The simple solution is to not buy things containing RFID's if you oppose them and let the free market decide."
That's what I said about sweatshop-made shoes. But you can't buy any American-made shoes in any retail store anymore. So my choice is either wear Korean sweatshop shoes or go shoeless, which would get me fired. The problem isn't that RFID will be competing on it's merits in an open market - the problem is that it won't. When WalMart implements RFID you can bet that within the year Target, KMart and whoever else can afford to will do the same. I'd give RFID maybe 3 years tops from the first WalMart rollout to complete, near-100% adoption by the retail industry. The sad fact is that you can't choose to buy an alternative product that the marketplace doesn't provide (which would be real capitalism).
No, this genie needs to stay in the bottle for a good long time.
... I told you so (although that sentiment's probably redundant by now). RFID apologists defense of choice is that the readers only work at a distance of up to 18 inches, IIRC. Well these work up to 300 feet. Meaning that as soon as RFID is universally accepted, I just get my hands on one of these 300-foot-range scanners, and go driving through the suburbs looking for the house with the most stuff to rob... And yes, I did read the article, and yes, they are battery powered, but so what? Creating a very small battery to go along with the RFID chip is a technical problem that's very easily overcome, just like the 18 inches limitation was easily overcome when many here declared vociferously that said limitation would make RFID all cuddly and innocuous.
The point is that everybody who said that RFID will never have a range longer thatn 18 inches have already been proven wrong, even before RFID has even begun to be implemented. You pro-RFID folks care for some salt with that crow?
The real point of the matter is that NOBODY has a right to see what possessions I have in my house. Not a stranger/burglar on the street, not the government, NOBODY.
Which is why when, not if, this happens, you'll see another two lines of very fine print appear in your service agreement. This seems to me to be the obvious (and easy for ISP's) way out.
The fan noise from a serious computer has long been the single bigegst noise problem in the modern digital recording studio. It used to be the most popular solution was putting your tower in a closet somewhere with long extension cords for the keyboard, mouse, and whatever else. I've seen this used in several studios.
I think I speak for audio engineers everywhere when I say HALLELUJAH! This is a seriously practical and useful invention, hopefully it will be affordable!
Hmm. Seems to me that instead of trying solely to piss off the 8 million pound gorilla, the name "lindows" is a clever amalgam of "windows" and "linux". So "lindows" is a "purposeful ripoff" but "x-windows" (fine, "x-window system") is not? How can you tell?
Well since we're on the subject, I remember my Commodore 16 had some sort of graphical mode where the manual talked a lot about how you could draw and manipulate "windows" - I never used it so I don't know if Commodore's windows were similar in functionality to Microsoft's. This was 1984.
I remember thinking, "that's stupid, who'd ever want to do that?" while skipping that section of the manual entirely in favor of juicy BASIC programming tidbits... is my face red...
OK, this is a pricier solution, but can't you get "business class" cable or DSL from most providers? It seems obvious to me that "business class" means that you can resell it. Or at least sell services to other people using it. Sure you'll wind up paying through the ass, but you'll get around the TOS agreement completely.
OK, but what about somebody who was genuinely ignorant of encryption? Some Joe Schmoe who just went to Best Buy, bought a wireless router, subscribed to some broadband service, turned it on and never thought about it again? How can you tell the difference between intentionally and unintentionally unsecured networks?
Amen to that. Just think how nice it would be to see the US AG going after people who robbed billions of dollars from thousands of people who trusted them, instead of spending all his time worrying about covering up boobs on statues.
I seem to remember from back in the mists of pre-history, a BASIC program you could write on a commodore 64 that would make the monitor catch fire or something...
"It responds to outside stimulation."...which includes the energy which powers the device, which enables it to transmit. If data is leaving the device it is being transmitted, whether you choose to define it as such or not.
"Tranceivers are powered. Passive RFID tags are not powered."
but I thought
"They respond to radio stimulation."
OK, so it's "stimulation" that's entering the device, entering into electronic circuitry, and causing it to function... but it's not power...
The sympathic vibration you use as an example, take it to the extreme. A very loud jet plane, or opera singer, or whatever... can and have caused glasses like the ones you mention to shatter.
But according to you, there is no energy entering the glass, just sound. So the glass loses its physical integrity with net energy input of zero.
If I were you, I'd give that one some rethinkin'.
"what about something as simple as the practical service life of an AA battery? That hasn't changed significantly in decades."
Do you have a source for this? I can remember batteries running out more quickly when I was younger, and needing more of them. Although it could just be technology getting better.
"...fundamental breakthrough in the "power-to-range" wall that we've been up against since the very birth of radio. That breakthrough isn't coming any time soon, my friend."
Point taken. But I think you're giving human inginuity short shrift. And who says they have to stick to radio? The concept of a device that exists for the sole reason of monitoring my purchase, that I cannot remove once I have purchased it, and which continues to perform a monitoring function once within my home is abhorrant and unacceptable.
"You're either lying, or a teenager who still lives with his parents."
Now you're just being rude. But that either was the case... My parents live in Florida and I live and work in Milwaukee, so that'd be a hell of a commute. Not that my parents would mind.
I am a senior master console operator and production services analyst (MVS/JES2, AIX, OS/390, and yes, W2K/2003), for a very succesful internaional retailer. If you shop for clothes in malls, there's a distinct chance that you are at this moment wearing something from my company, or a subsidiary. I turn 30 this year, and am losing my hair before losing my teenage-like complexion. I wish I could give you a webcam or something, but, due to an illegal eviction, I'm currently couch-surfing and therefore without reliable net access. Believe it or don't, I don't really care, but I have nothing to hide.
"It is quite simply impossible to live in today's society without a bank account."
Well, I'll be the first to admit it's not easy, and it does make some things more complicated, but I'm living proof that it's not "simply impossible" (don't they teach anybody about not trying to prove universal negatives anymore?)
I have (well, had) rent and bills. If not being a homeowner makes me "not a normal member of society" then, with all due respect, fuck you.
I get paid in checks from ADP, and cash them at my local Community Financial Service Center. And yes, they do charge an exorbitant fee for doing so, and I look forward to the day when you can accuse me of having a bank account and be correct.
"Some of these bills require a bank account to be paid. Yes, that's right. Some of my bills cannot be paid with cash. They will only accept check, credit card, or automatic debit."
Sucks to be you. I pay (well, paid) SBC, WE energies, and Time Warner with cash, at an authorized payment location - my local Community Financial Service Center ("The Check Cashing Place!"). And yes, they did charge me an additional fee for doing so. But I paid cash.
"You have to pay with a check or debit."
Except that you don't. Go find your company's datacenter, mail room, or physical plant and hang out with us peons, you'll find a few p
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"Why can't we harness all the radio waves in the air for power?"
Maybe because you can't create or destroy anything. When your device turns channel 4 into AC for you, don't you think other people might notice some loss of signal? Doesn't the FCC reg on the back of almost every home electronic device say "must not create unwanted interference"? Wouldn't this device be in pretty clear violation of that?
IANARO (I am not a radio operator). However, I did buy one of those nifty little transmitters you can use to play cd's/mp3's on a walkman over radio waves for cars with no tape or cd players. It's powered by 2 AAA batteries, which it drains very quickly (still worth it tho), while instantly losing coherent signal if you move the transmitter more than a foot or so from the radio itself. Seems like the reverse would apply, but then IANARO... Maybe you could make a lot of AC from antennas right underneath giant transmitters (hey, wait a minute, that's where my house is located... hmm)
Also, my memory is muddy, but wasn't Tesla found to be faking a portion of his supposed "demonstrations"?
Mr. Fusion, anybody?
...let them stay home? We've got automated radar guns, automated facial recognition, biometrics... Hell we could just give the cops pagers that go off when the computers are finished doing their jobs for them so they could show up to make the actual arrest. The rest of the time they could just sit in their Barca-loungers and we'll just mail them checks for doing nothing.
This is different from welfare... how??
"Did you see anything done with they $$ they took?"
.... you never have to pay taxes again. Of course, you can never call the police, or the fire department, or the ambulance, or the animal control people, or the sewerage district, or the truant officer, or the Public Service Commission, or the city planner, ever again, and if you do they will bill you on a per-use basis. OR you can do the smart thing and pay your bulk rate for these services through normal taxes like non-retarded people do. Why don't you try this out and see how it works? Oh wait, I know! Because for all the faux-libertarian Friedman-esque crap you're spewing, you know in your heart that you live in the best country on Earth, and there's not a thing you would seriously do to change it. If you're so pissed about taxes than disenfranchise yourself. Put up or shut up.
Well, let's see... police, fire trucks and ambulances when I call 911, that's pretty spiffy. Public schools and Universities don't exactly suck. It's also pretty nice to be able to go to an ER when my appendix bursts and know that I won't be dumped on the street if I'm broke. I take the bus to work every day, that's subsidized by taxes. I watch PBS every night, that's (theoretically) subsidized by tax dollars, even though they barely get any govt money anymore.
So, to answer your eminently, and I suspect willfully, ignorant question, yes, I see them doing plenty with the money they took, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Look, you pay rent on the apartment or mortgage payments on the house where you live, right? You're happy to do it because the house provides you with benefits like shelter, heat, and running water. All taxes are is rent to live in a country. Just like rent on an apartment or a mortage on a house, it's money that you pay because it brings benefits to you. I suspect that you're simply so jaded to those benefits, because you've had them for so long, that you've lost any and all appreciation.
And it's you who miss the point - it's not a matter of the money belonging to either you or the government, the whole idea of democracy is that you *are* the government. Or is the whole concept of representative democracy as lost on you as the concept of paying for services is?
One final thought - it is possible, in most states TTBOMK, to "disenfranchise" yourself from the government. Meaning, there's a set of forms you fill out, you get a different looking ID card or driver's license (I've seen some), and
I disagree. I know plenty of liberals (like me) who are going to vote for Kerry regardless of the fact that they don't really like him. I've heard plenty of liberals freely admit Kerry's shortcomings. I've not heard one republican admit anything of the kind for Bush. Just the sound of millions of knees jerking...
Almost as though they're trying to corrupt the most the institutions that historically would have been the first to cry foul - the Church, the media, and the watchdogs (don't forget the AARP's shameless shilling for the medicare bill that they lied about)... why if I didn't know better, I'd say something seems pretty fucking rotten in Denmark...
Wow. what he said. And let me just add that I think part of the problem with the way the political debate is framed these days is that, somehow, people have been browbeaten by the media into thinking that the Democratic Party is somehow liberal. The last time we had a "liberal" democrat as president he gave us NAFTA, WTO and the end of welfare as we know it.
The sad fact of the matter is there is no serious representation of liberals, which in my experience make up the silent majority, in our government today. You know, there was a snappy quote from a while back about where you could shove taxation without representation, let me try and remember it...
It's only prohibitive until technology improves to the point where it's not anymore, which is still way too soon for me.
And I've heard the argument that technological advances can't change the basic physical laws of radio, but I maintain that technology won't have to change the laws to find a way around them. Long-lasting microbatteries being the most obvious, micro-string construction being the second most, especially for clothes. The basic physical laws of electricity haven't changed either, yet electronics grow steadily smaller.
What I'm really worried about is mainstream acceptance of the idea that it's OK for innocent, law-abiding citizens to have the contents of their home broadcast to anybody outside with the proper equipment. I grew up with the American ideal of a man's home being his castle, and I'd like to see it remain so.
Like I've said before, all I'm asking them to do is de-activate the things when I pay and leave the store.
IF they can they will, you can bet on it. As soon as it's not cost-prohibitive, which is to say as soon as technology advances some more (which it will). I don't understand why people defending RFID focus on the technical limitations as a defense. It's obvious to me that any technological problems will be overcome very quickly.
I also don't understand why you're so apparently insecure and unconfident in your opinion that you feel the need to hide your identity behind anonymity and obscenity. If you've got a real rebuttal I invite you to make it.
"An RFID designed to be read from 18 inches won't be read by this RFID scanner from 300 feet (if that scanner can even read it properly from the 18 inches). Furthermore the RFID's intended for products can be disabled."
Well as I understand it, which might well be wrong, the type of RFID being implemented in stores consists of a tag which responds to radio stimulation, similar to the way a reflector responds to a beam of light. So if I can't see a reflector 50 feet away with my maglite, I go to get a much bigger, brighter light and shine that on the reflector, and I'll have a greater chance of seeing it. Even if the tags are passive, what's to stop anybody from just using a massively powerful reader from a greater distance?
I just have zero faith in people doing the right thing once technology makes it possible for them to do the wrong thing. There's nothing wrong with barcodes, they're not broken, and the "solution" seems to me to be much worse than the problem - yeah, if you run a retail business, you might actually have to pay some cashiers.
"The simple solution is to not buy things containing RFID's if you oppose them and let the free market decide."
That's what I said about sweatshop-made shoes. But you can't buy any American-made shoes in any retail store anymore. So my choice is either wear Korean sweatshop shoes or go shoeless, which would get me fired. The problem isn't that RFID will be competing on it's merits in an open market - the problem is that it won't. When WalMart implements RFID you can bet that within the year Target, KMart and whoever else can afford to will do the same. I'd give RFID maybe 3 years tops from the first WalMart rollout to complete, near-100% adoption by the retail industry. The sad fact is that you can't choose to buy an alternative product that the marketplace doesn't provide (which would be real capitalism).
No, this genie needs to stay in the bottle for a good long time.
... I told you so (although that sentiment's probably redundant by now). RFID apologists defense of choice is that the readers only work at a distance of up to 18 inches, IIRC. Well these work up to 300 feet. Meaning that as soon as RFID is universally accepted, I just get my hands on one of these 300-foot-range scanners, and go driving through the suburbs looking for the house with the most stuff to rob... And yes, I did read the article, and yes, they are battery powered, but so what? Creating a very small battery to go along with the RFID chip is a technical problem that's very easily overcome, just like the 18 inches limitation was easily overcome when many here declared vociferously that said limitation would make RFID all cuddly and innocuous.
The point is that everybody who said that RFID will never have a range longer thatn 18 inches have already been proven wrong, even before RFID has even begun to be implemented. You pro-RFID folks care for some salt with that crow?
The real point of the matter is that NOBODY has a right to see what possessions I have in my house. Not a stranger/burglar on the street, not the government, NOBODY.
bumper stickers, or stuffed animals in the window...
Hell, I've still got floppies for AOL 1.0...
Which is why when, not if, this happens, you'll see another two lines of very fine print appear in your service agreement. This seems to me to be the obvious (and easy for ISP's) way out.
The fan noise from a serious computer has long been the single bigegst noise problem in the modern digital recording studio. It used to be the most popular solution was putting your tower in a closet somewhere with long extension cords for the keyboard, mouse, and whatever else. I've seen this used in several studios.
I think I speak for audio engineers everywhere when I say HALLELUJAH! This is a seriously practical and useful invention, hopefully it will be affordable!
Point taken, but you can't deny that when 95 came out it looked a LOT like X...
Offtopic but... I just upgraded a computer for a friend's father who is a lawyer.
Prior to the upgrade it was a 386SX running windows 3.1, and he was still using it daily.
Hmm. Seems to me that instead of trying solely to piss off the 8 million pound gorilla, the name "lindows" is a clever amalgam of "windows" and "linux". So "lindows" is a "purposeful ripoff" but "x-windows" (fine, "x-window system") is not? How can you tell?
Well since we're on the subject, I remember my Commodore 16 had some sort of graphical mode where the manual talked a lot about how you could draw and manipulate "windows" - I never used it so I don't know if Commodore's windows were similar in functionality to Microsoft's. This was 1984.
I remember thinking, "that's stupid, who'd ever want to do that?" while skipping that section of the manual entirely in favor of juicy BASIC programming tidbits... is my face red...
OK, this is a pricier solution, but can't you get "business class" cable or DSL from most providers? It seems obvious to me that "business class" means that you can resell it. Or at least sell services to other people using it. Sure you'll wind up paying through the ass, but you'll get around the TOS agreement completely.
Eh?
OK, but what about somebody who was genuinely ignorant of encryption? Some Joe Schmoe who just went to Best Buy, bought a wireless router, subscribed to some broadband service, turned it on and never thought about it again? How can you tell the difference between intentionally and unintentionally unsecured networks?
Amen to that. Just think how nice it would be to see the US AG going after people who robbed billions of dollars from thousands of people who trusted them, instead of spending all his time worrying about covering up boobs on statues.
I seem to remember from back in the mists of pre-history, a BASIC program you could write on a commodore 64 that would make the monitor catch fire or something...
irc.uchicago.edu was good too
"It responds to outside stimulation." ...which includes the energy which powers the device, which enables it to transmit. If data is leaving the device it is being transmitted, whether you choose to define it as such or not.
"Tranceivers are powered. Passive RFID tags are not powered."
but I thought
"They respond to radio stimulation."
OK, so it's "stimulation" that's entering the device, entering into electronic circuitry, and causing it to function... but it's not power...
The sympathic vibration you use as an example, take it to the extreme. A very loud jet plane, or opera singer, or whatever... can and have caused glasses like the ones you mention to shatter.
But according to you, there is no energy entering the glass, just sound. So the glass loses its physical integrity with net energy input of zero.
If I were you, I'd give that one some rethinkin'.
"what about something as simple as the practical service life of an AA battery? That hasn't changed significantly in decades."
Do you have a source for this? I can remember batteries running out more quickly when I was younger, and needing more of them. Although it could just be technology getting better.
"...fundamental breakthrough in the "power-to-range" wall that we've been up against since the very birth of radio. That breakthrough isn't coming any time soon, my friend."
Point taken. But I think you're giving human inginuity short shrift. And who says they have to stick to radio? The concept of a device that exists for the sole reason of monitoring my purchase, that I cannot remove once I have purchased it, and which continues to perform a monitoring function once within my home is abhorrant and unacceptable.
"You're either lying, or a teenager who still lives with his parents."
Now you're just being rude. But that either was the case... My parents live in Florida and I live and work in Milwaukee, so that'd be a hell of a commute. Not that my parents would mind.
I am a senior master console operator and production services analyst (MVS/JES2, AIX, OS/390, and yes, W2K/2003), for a very succesful internaional retailer. If you shop for clothes in malls, there's a distinct chance that you are at this moment wearing something from my company, or a subsidiary. I turn 30 this year, and am losing my hair before losing my teenage-like complexion. I wish I could give you a webcam or something, but, due to an illegal eviction, I'm currently couch-surfing and therefore without reliable net access. Believe it or don't, I don't really care, but I have nothing to hide.
"It is quite simply impossible to live in today's society without a bank account."
Well, I'll be the first to admit it's not easy, and it does make some things more complicated, but I'm living proof that it's not "simply impossible" (don't they teach anybody about not trying to prove universal negatives anymore?)
I have (well, had) rent and bills. If not being a homeowner makes me "not a normal member of society" then, with all due respect, fuck you.
I get paid in checks from ADP, and cash them at my local Community Financial Service Center. And yes, they do charge an exorbitant fee for doing so, and I look forward to the day when you can accuse me of having a bank account and be correct.
"Some of these bills require a bank account to be paid. Yes, that's right. Some of my bills cannot be paid with cash. They will only accept check, credit card, or automatic debit."
Sucks to be you. I pay (well, paid) SBC, WE energies, and Time Warner with cash, at an authorized payment location - my local Community Financial Service Center ("The Check Cashing Place!"). And yes, they did charge me an additional fee for doing so. But I paid cash.
"You have to pay with a check or debit."
Except that you don't. Go find your company's datacenter, mail room, or physical plant and hang out with us peons, you'll find a few p