Didn't notice I wasn't logged in when I posted that... so here is my post on the Chattanooga area geek's mailing list spawned by this ridiculous law's passage:
I've been trying to bite my tongue as well (and obviously failed).
My daughter had to deal with mandatory prayer in her elementary school until
that principal retired. I ended up having to avoid the campus because of
my "blasphemous nature" (his words)... funny how I got along exceedingly
well with the new (non-bible-thumping) principal that replaced him. Thing is,
the prayer itself wasn't my problem. I'd had it myself back when I was in
school (you could get suspended for "sacrilegious behavior" then too). But he
shouldn't have punished those that chose not to participate nor risk wasting
my tax dollars on a lawsuit should someone have pushed it to that.
Even now my son has to be careful in his high school since there are both
students and faculty whom actively persecute anyone that's a "non believer".
Back when my daughter was there, she was refused permission to leave for an
appointment to the health department. The school's attendance officer
actually called me and gave me an earful, screaming in front of everyone
there, about my daughter getting birth control (as if it was any of her
business in the first place). She said my daughter wouldn't be doing it if I
had her in church and that I was responsible for her going to hell. If she
had been the youngest, I might have actually pressed charges on that one.
So, yes, it's a problem throughout the state and I don't see that changing any
time soon. Especially given the widespread indoctrination still prevalent in
many school systems.
<sacrilege>
My favorite bait for ID folks is to get them to state that we are the way we
are since "God designed us" (usually doesn't take long). Then, since "God" is
supposed to be infallible, I ask why we have a blind spot in our vision. The
reply, if there is one, is usually something along the lines of "because it
was the best way to do it" (having the optic nerve connected on the retinal
front). I counter with the fact that an octopus doesn't have a blind spot
since their optic nerve is connected to the rear. And at this point they
usually get angry, call me a heathen and tell me I'm going to hell.
</sacrilege>
Amazon is already leaving Texas. Or, at least, they are closing their distribution center there. See this article (or just google it). They are presently building new facilities in Tennessee near Charleston (about 10 miles away from me at the moment) and Chattanooga. There is already talk in the Tennessee state legislature about passing a new law expressly to renege on the sales tax exemption granted as a condition to building the distribution centers here. Just goes to show that all state representatives are clueless -- it's not limited to California.
As some have already mentioned, collecting sales taxes cross-state is a significant burden since, in some states, the rates may differ even from one side of a street to another. Using ZIP codes does not provide enough granularity to determine the proper rate. With this in mind, several states started the "streamlined sales tax project" which aims to provide the data for determining the proper rate, a single point of reporting and indemnifying businesses from errors in the rates supplied. If every state which imposed a sales tax adopted this system, it would practically eliminate the burden facing Internet (and traditional mail-order) businesses today.
That said, enforcing the use of this system would require Federal legislation and, even then, there will still be the issue of purchases from other countries. I'm not so sure that it's a good idea to get the Federal government involved anyway since they might be too tempted to add a Federal sales tax as well.
Ultimately, there ought to be some law requiring that companies that claim to support a particular spec or standard actually fulfill that obligation or at least have a good faith effort to implement it.
There already are Truth in Advertising laws.
It's been my experience that, when you think "there ought to be a law...", there already is one. The problem is the law being either selectively enforced or not enforced at all. And, typically, the more a law favors the public over corporations, the less likely it will be enforced.
Have you actually read what you have to sign to get your Sudafed? The one in Tennessee states that you agree to search of your home, car, etc. by any law-enforcement officer without warrant in perpetuity (forever). I can only presume that purchasing sinus medication by someone that has a chronic history of allergies must be probable cause to these yahoos.
I consider myself a pretty decent programmer and the only thing I can play is the radio. Now my 13yo son plays piano, clarinet and sax and my daughter is a music major at a private university on a voice scholarship (soprano with a 3+ octave range, prefers to sing opera though) -- does progeny count?;) Anyway, the mention of music as a requirement is not new to me. A programmer many years my senior told me IBM used to seek out music majors for programmers before most colleges had a computer-science program. He said it was believed that avid music enthusiasts tend to think in ways conducive to writing code. Whether this is true or not, music as a job criteria is certainly not the strangest I've seen. Not even in the running.
To pop the stack, I personally have no idea whether my code meets "best practices" or not. Since I'm totally in control of the software development where I work, there's no one I need satisfy with code statistics nor any reports to write -- but what I do must be accomplished on a timely basis, deployed to end users in a guarded but reasonable pace and not cause clients' displeasure towards the company in the process. This may sound easy, but it's anything but. For one thing, you cannot maintain a large codebase (current main project is about 1/4 million lines) without it being appropriately documented. Or, at least, not with any speed you can't. Though I don't follow any set guidelines per se, I learned very early on that it was much easier to come back to something months later if you left yourself enough breadcrumbs to recapture the thought path that led you to the code in the first place. Some functions have reams of notes, others have almost none. Yet, when I can look over lines written ten (or even 20) years ago and work with it rapidly, that tells me it was documented well enough. Sure, I've seen policies of "comments every N lines" and such, but most of those are a matter of someone opinion (well informed or not) and it's the results that really count. And in the case of user interface design, I use the tried-and-true method of watching end users actually using the system and take note of anything that seems to slow them down or add to their confusion. As a result, there is very little training required as the system just fits the way they need to do things. But, I digress from the point.
To my own observations, those people that proclaim themselves "great programmers" the loudest are the ones least likely to be so. Those that I consider "decent" may not proclaim their virtues, but they are quick to be personally offended when their code is challenged. This shows to me that they are passionate about their work and care enough about it to back it up with their reputation. And that's the kind of person that I want working for me.
How about a 17 table join including multiple joins with COALESCE to the same table (3 times)? MySQL seems to handle it just fine using the InnoDB with full transaction concurrency. It's also beaten out PostgreSQL time and again on production data. Prior to MySQL finally getting their stored procedures to work without crashing, I tried migrating a production database to PostgreSQL on a client system and, within two weeks, the posting procedures had gone from 45 seconds per batch to 2.5 hours due to the [lack of] speed of inserts (MySQL has never exceeded 30 seconds on the same data load). Needless to say, it was a disaster and had MySQL not managed to get the stored procedure bugs fixed in time we would have lost a client over the issue.
Sure, MySQL's stored procedure support is laughable but, at the end of the day, a client just wants to get their work done. MySQL accomplishes this and we've never had any issues regarding slowdown of the inserts or transactional problems either -- and this is with updates and inserts into about 10 different tables within batch transactions.
Maybe I'll try PostgreSQL again someday but I've already tried to do so 5 times and each and every one has always ended up being a disaster.
There was a similar "incident" in Chattanooga (Tennessee) many years ago. An attendee of a science fiction convention lost his homemade drinking vessel in a parking garage while stumbling around drunk looking for his car to sleep it off. One of the parties he went to was serving what they called "nuclear waste" and placed a radioactive sticker on his drinking vessel. Now, admittedly, the drinking vessel was a bit unique -- a length of PVC pipe with a screw-cap to limit spillage, but the emergency response teams went overboard with a crane and a bomb-disposal vehicle. You'd think that having a science-fiction convention next door would have given them a clue but the authorities wouldn't listen to anyone at the convention and spent a lot of taxpayers money to safely destroy a small quantity of vodka and orange juice.
If that wasn't enough, to cover their embarrassment they searched the convention for the fellow responsible (who, fortunately, had long since left town) to arrest him on federal charges of felonious mislabeling of nuclear material. We (the convention) are now required to list "mislabeling a nuclear container is a felony" in our official rules. And this occurred before 9/11!
For the curious, the convention where this happened is Chattacon (http://www.chattacon.org/) which was last held a couple of weekends ago.
Don't forget the packages sitting in the middle of the aisle on a pallet labeled "Pasteurized Process Imitation Artificial Cheese Food." It looks like yellow plastic but I never felt suicidal enough to check the taste.
I stopped a few people from picking up any but the store management's arrival prompted a hasty return to my shopping. Still, it amazes me that it wasn't even real "Cheese Food" (which in itself doesn't bear much in common with actual Cheese).
Until a recent merger, my wife was the collection manager for a local bank. At least once a month she'd have a story of a teller allowing a withdrawal on an account flagged with a security note. Seems they couldn't read (or understand) the flashing red message stating "FRAUD WARNING - PASSPHRASE REQUIRED." There were also many cases of obviously phony deposits not having the required holds placed on them and stupid actions like blocking the security cameras. In one of these later cases, she was trying to get a photo of someone's use of a stolen card and all she could see was a stuffed bunny sitting on top of a monitor... fortunately the thief was bold enough to do it again at another branch (he's now in jail).
Sounds like you've got the kind of envrionment that precipitates Bozon Cloud formation...
Bozon: A quantum unit of stupidity.
This term I picked up from Headcrash (Roadkill on the Information Superhighway) by Bruce Bethke. A very entertaining read, I might add. Bruce himself is a great guy too, as I discovered while he was our Special Guest at the last Chattacon (a Science-Fiction convention in Chattanooga). I could say something about the ProctoProd(tm), but I don't want to ruin the book.
A company I used to work for was being harassed by the Department of Revenue from another state demanding we collect sales taxes on mail order items shipped into their state. The advice of our lawyer was to hang up on them whenever they called and just throw away all correspondence without opening it. I was suprised, but they quickly got the hint and left us alone. I was told that if we had actually talked to them, it would be construed as "entering negotiations" and we'd be forced to comply. Our lawyer evidently thought this was what they were trying to do.
As always, IANAL, this is not legal advice and YMMV.
But... the FDCPA applies only to third-party collectors. That said, most reputable banks and other financial institutions try to follow the FDCPA because they're afraid it will be made to apply to them completely if they don't.
About 10 years ago my wife was asked to sign an NDA/Non-compete contract by her employer after managing their call center for over a month. Since it had many items left blank, she drew lines through the blanks and made herself a copy. Several days later, their HR VP threatened to fire her for drawing lines through these blank areas. After informing him that she never signed anything with items left blank, he told her that this was how they "did" things and she needed to be "a team player."
Nothing else was said about the issue until a couple of months later when she was given a pink-slip and replaced by a cousin of one the VPs. Along with the termination notice was "her copy" of the NDA/NC which had been altered with white-out and very draconian additions. She, of course, produced the copy she had made when it was signed and their CFO made threats of lawsuits and even went so far as to state she was facing criminal charges for making an unauthorized copy of the agreement. All it took was one phone call to the owner informing him of the situation (and that she was at her lawyer's office) for the CFO to back down and recant.
Shortly after she left, the company was sold and they have since lost over 98% of their business, closed all but one of their offices, and we've not been bothered by them since. Someone we know who still works for the company recently told us all of the people responsible for her woes were terminated long ago. Fortunately the old agage "what comes around, goes around" still occasionally holds true. Still, it goes to show that some people know no limits and I shudder to think what might have been had she not made that copy.
I hate to tell you this, but as far as PD/DWI is concerned, this is quite common. I served on the Grand Jury in Tennessee some number of years ago and we had a case where an officer arrested an individual for DWI. In our case, the officer was off duty and the citizen arrested was moving a car in his driveway and was partially blocking a road in the process. There was no tests given of any kind. I forget the exact particulars (the number of years is > 10) but the point was, in the absence of contrary evidence, the opinion of the officer stands -- if he thinks you're drunk, you are. The assistant DA told us that his advice to anyone in that position was to demand a blood test once you arrived at the station (unless, of course, you are drunk and/or have other substances in your bloodstream).
Remember though, this was Grand Jury testimony. For those unfamiliar with the way the system works, we hear ONLY the prosecution's side since we're not supposed to determine guilt or innocence, just whether or not it's worth the state's time to take it to trial. If we decide it's not, it never goes to trial at all. In this particular case, we returned a bill (so he went to trial) but I have no idea whether he was convicted or not. From what we heard though, the fellow probably deserved to be.
Fortunately, in my area the officers are, by and large, quite honest. One of the advantages of a small town, I suppose.
As someone who was a party to one of those class-action suits, I agree completely. In my case it was Sears Credit which had jacked up interest rates like crazy even though the contract said the rates were fixed (went from 18% to 37% APR -- apparently usary laws are no longer enforced).
Anyway, the end result was I received a card in the mail which could be used in the store to compensate me for the exessive interest and, in return, Sears was allowed to continue gouging me (and everyone else) forever without further penalty. The only problems with this were:
The card expired three weeks before the postmark date.
It was only valid if I bought something new with a cost exceeding $300 (specifically prohibited by the settlement).
I read later that the filers of the suit cried foul over the strings attached to the credit but the judge said it was settled and that was that. Call me cynical, but I'll be surprised if this case ends up much different.
Some years ago, Tennessee had a referendum for a temporary 1% sales tax hike that was guaranteed to be spent on schools and to expire in one year. It passed quite easily (think of the children!) At the end of the next year, the legislature decided to make the tax permanent and redirected the funds elsewhere, even though this was in direct conflict with the popular vote. It was also rumored that the representatives voted themselves a corresponding pay increase though I've never attempted to research such a claim. So the Tennessee sales tax is now 9.75% in most places and the schools are still underfunded.
Needless to say, I now look at any tax proposals "for the schools" (or those proclaimed "temporary") with a jaundiced eye...
Protesting a plant != fear of nuclear power
on
"H-Prize" Announced
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· Score: 2, Interesting
When I heard that my university academic advisor had been arrested for protesting at a nuclear power plant, I just had to ask him why? He was, IMHO, a very savvy fellow and I was frankly surprised he would be against nuclear power. When asked, however, he replied: "I have nothing against nuclear power at all... I have something against the idiots at TVA running a nuclear power plant."
This was <cough> some years ago. Chernobyl and Three-mile Island have since demonstrated his point.
Bellsouth just started blocking all port 25 connections from Residential DSL (as of last week). Although there's nothing whatsoever about this in their on-line documentation, a call to Tech Support reveals that you can get it unblocked by "upgrading" to "business service". Said "business service," of course, differs only by the lack of blocking and a 1000% increase in the service cost (over $300 for the same bandwidth they charge $39.00 to residential customers).
Although this is a Good Idea(TM) for compromised Windows machines running SPAMbots, I'm running a secure mail server on my Linux machine and, not only is it secured from open relay, I've also blocked incoming port 25 connections. Why should I have to pay through the nose just to have status emails sent to me at work twice a day?
Needless to say, everyone I know in the area is busy finding an alternate provider.
I can't agree more. I've made the same argument many times, pretty much to anyone who would listen.
If you really look at what's happened since 9/11, it's quite clear that the terrorists have won. I say this because we've allowed our fear to override all other considerations and the powers-that-be have gleefully run with this to the point that we're well on our way to a totalitarian police state (issues like TFA make that rather clear).
The proper reaction would have been to immediately hunt down and destroy everyone who participated in the 9/11 attack, regardless of who they were and where they were. If some collateral damage happened, so be it. Yes, there would have been some that condemned that action but I'm certain the majority of the world would have respected us for having the balls to do it and it would send a clear message to other would-be attackers: Attack us and we'll kill you and everyone who knows you. Nothing else should have changed at all -- we certainly don't need the increased airport security since passengers now understand they have nothing to lose so they won't sit meekly obeying the hijackers, they'll take them out.
But we didn't do that. Instead we cower frightened in our houses and tell the government it's OK to do whatever they want so long as we're safe. Makes me sick. It's getting so hard to override the impulse to strangle those idiots who spout "if you're not doing anything wrong..."
Sorry for the rant (but it felt good).
-- Politics: The art of pushing people just short of revolt.
I've been having intense pain, numbness and muscle lock-up in both arms for several years. After several Orthopedists, Neurologists, CT scans, MRI scans, EMG's and pain management, an old acquaintance mentioned Thoracic Outlet Syndrome to me. So, I asked my Primary Care Physician about it and was told "there's no such thing." Not to be dissuaded, I finally located a specialist at the UT Medical Center in Knoxville (TN). After some tests, guess what? TOS was confirmed. I'm still waiting to have the surgery next month but, finally, an end is in sight. Interestingly enough, I was told by the specialist that over half of the patients he sees had already had Carpal Tunnel surgery unnecessarily.
On a side note, when the Pain Management doctor prescribed "MS Contin," I asked the pharmacist when Microsoft had entered the pharmacutical business. He laughed and explained that it was Morphine Sulfate. Naturally, I was relieved...
Although I've seen the store-front photos of some of the vendors referenced in TFA and would not consider purchasing anything from them due to reputation alone, I want to point out that doing business under several names is not necessarily the "smoking gun" being intimated in this discussion.
I have a several clients (Pest Control companies) which operate under more than one name. Most times everything is run from the same office using the same personnel but, in at least one case, there are two separate offices and, with the exception of occasional "borrowing" of service technicians, distinct personnel. It's humorous to hear a technician relate comments by customers "I don't like those XXX guys -- you do such a better job!" when, in fact, he normally works for "XXX" and is just filling in that day. Although it sounds fishy on the surface, I have personally been in each of the offices with complete access to their databases and never have I seen anything to indicate any dishonest or disreputable business practices.
This is not to say I don't have any clients which seem a little shady, but the ones I have had access to with multiple names are not among them. So, just because two sites might be traced back to the same operator, this does not, in and of itself, automatically make them dishonest (though I'd certainly be digging a little deeper).
If you want to see something that will really make your blood boil, try reading the IRS code. I was researching some obscure rules WRT depreciation and ran across a huge listing of various properties. When you scroll to the top of this list, you'll discover that every time our "representatives" pass a bill dealing with the IRS, they tack on their property holdings and, presumably, those of their buddies making them exempt from all taxes forever.
Now if this isn't a gross misuse of their power, I don't know what is.
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Didn't notice I wasn't logged in when I posted that ... so here is my post on the Chattanooga area geek's mailing list spawned by this ridiculous law's passage:
... funny how I got along exceedingly
well with the new (non-bible-thumping) principal that replaced him. Thing is,
the prayer itself wasn't my problem. I'd had it myself back when I was in
school (you could get suspended for "sacrilegious behavior" then too). But he
shouldn't have punished those that chose not to participate nor risk wasting
my tax dollars on a lawsuit should someone have pushed it to that.
I've been trying to bite my tongue as well (and obviously failed).
My daughter had to deal with mandatory prayer in her elementary school until that principal retired. I ended up having to avoid the campus because of my "blasphemous nature" (his words)
Even now my son has to be careful in his high school since there are both students and faculty whom actively persecute anyone that's a "non believer". Back when my daughter was there, she was refused permission to leave for an appointment to the health department. The school's attendance officer actually called me and gave me an earful, screaming in front of everyone there, about my daughter getting birth control (as if it was any of her business in the first place). She said my daughter wouldn't be doing it if I had her in church and that I was responsible for her going to hell. If she had been the youngest, I might have actually pressed charges on that one.
So, yes, it's a problem throughout the state and I don't see that changing any time soon. Especially given the widespread indoctrination still prevalent in many school systems.
<sacrilege>
My favorite bait for ID folks is to get them to state that we are the way we are since "God designed us" (usually doesn't take long). Then, since "God" is supposed to be infallible, I ask why we have a blind spot in our vision. The reply, if there is one, is usually something along the lines of "because it was the best way to do it" (having the optic nerve connected on the retinal front). I counter with the fact that an octopus doesn't have a blind spot since their optic nerve is connected to the rear. And at this point they usually get angry, call me a heathen and tell me I'm going to hell.
</sacrilege>
Amazon is already leaving Texas. Or, at least, they are closing their distribution center there. See this article (or just google it). They are presently building new facilities in Tennessee near Charleston (about 10 miles away from me at the moment) and Chattanooga. There is already talk in the Tennessee state legislature about passing a new law expressly to renege on the sales tax exemption granted as a condition to building the distribution centers here. Just goes to show that all state representatives are clueless -- it's not limited to California.
As some have already mentioned, collecting sales taxes cross-state is a significant burden since, in some states, the rates may differ even from one side of a street to another. Using ZIP codes does not provide enough granularity to determine the proper rate. With this in mind, several states started the "streamlined sales tax project" which aims to provide the data for determining the proper rate, a single point of reporting and indemnifying businesses from errors in the rates supplied. If every state which imposed a sales tax adopted this system, it would practically eliminate the burden facing Internet (and traditional mail-order) businesses today.
That said, enforcing the use of this system would require Federal legislation and, even then, there will still be the issue of purchases from other countries. I'm not so sure that it's a good idea to get the Federal government involved anyway since they might be too tempted to add a Federal sales tax as well.
Ultimately, there ought to be some law requiring that companies that claim to support a particular spec or standard actually fulfill that obligation or at least have a good faith effort to implement it.
There already are Truth in Advertising laws.
It's been my experience that, when you think "there ought to be a law ...", there already is one. The problem is the law being either selectively enforced or not enforced at all. And, typically, the more a law favors the public over corporations, the less likely it will be enforced.
But ... IANAL (so what do I know?)
Have you actually read what you have to sign to get your Sudafed? The one in Tennessee states that you agree to search of your home, car, etc. by any law-enforcement officer without warrant in perpetuity (forever). I can only presume that purchasing sinus medication by someone that has a chronic history of allergies must be probable cause to these yahoos.
I consider myself a pretty decent programmer and the only thing I can play is the radio. Now my 13yo son plays piano, clarinet and sax and my daughter is a music major at a private university on a voice scholarship (soprano with a 3+ octave range, prefers to sing opera though) -- does progeny count? ;) Anyway, the mention of music as a requirement is not new to me. A programmer many years my senior told me IBM used to seek out music majors for programmers before most colleges had a computer-science program. He said it was believed that avid music enthusiasts tend to think in ways conducive to writing code. Whether this is true or not, music as a job criteria is certainly not the strangest I've seen. Not even in the running.
To pop the stack, I personally have no idea whether my code meets "best practices" or not. Since I'm totally in control of the software development where I work, there's no one I need satisfy with code statistics nor any reports to write -- but what I do must be accomplished on a timely basis, deployed to end users in a guarded but reasonable pace and not cause clients' displeasure towards the company in the process. This may sound easy, but it's anything but. For one thing, you cannot maintain a large codebase (current main project is about 1/4 million lines) without it being appropriately documented. Or, at least, not with any speed you can't. Though I don't follow any set guidelines per se, I learned very early on that it was much easier to come back to something months later if you left yourself enough breadcrumbs to recapture the thought path that led you to the code in the first place. Some functions have reams of notes, others have almost none. Yet, when I can look over lines written ten (or even 20) years ago and work with it rapidly, that tells me it was documented well enough. Sure, I've seen policies of "comments every N lines" and such, but most of those are a matter of someone opinion (well informed or not) and it's the results that really count. And in the case of user interface design, I use the tried-and-true method of watching end users actually using the system and take note of anything that seems to slow them down or add to their confusion. As a result, there is very little training required as the system just fits the way they need to do things. But, I digress from the point.
To my own observations, those people that proclaim themselves "great programmers" the loudest are the ones least likely to be so. Those that I consider "decent" may not proclaim their virtues, but they are quick to be personally offended when their code is challenged. This shows to me that they are passionate about their work and care enough about it to back it up with their reputation. And that's the kind of person that I want working for me.
So, just what can you say about Chocolate Covered Manhole Covers?
How about a 17 table join including multiple joins with COALESCE to the same table (3 times)? MySQL seems to handle it just fine using the InnoDB with full transaction concurrency. It's also beaten out PostgreSQL time and again on production data. Prior to MySQL finally getting their stored procedures to work without crashing, I tried migrating a production database to PostgreSQL on a client system and, within two weeks, the posting procedures had gone from 45 seconds per batch to 2.5 hours due to the [lack of] speed of inserts (MySQL has never exceeded 30 seconds on the same data load). Needless to say, it was a disaster and had MySQL not managed to get the stored procedure bugs fixed in time we would have lost a client over the issue.
Sure, MySQL's stored procedure support is laughable but, at the end of the day, a client just wants to get their work done. MySQL accomplishes this and we've never had any issues regarding slowdown of the inserts or transactional problems either -- and this is with updates and inserts into about 10 different tables within batch transactions.
Maybe I'll try PostgreSQL again someday but I've already tried to do so 5 times and each and every one has always ended up being a disaster.
There was a similar "incident" in Chattanooga (Tennessee) many years ago. An attendee of a science fiction convention lost his homemade drinking vessel in a parking garage while stumbling around drunk looking for his car to sleep it off. One of the parties he went to was serving what they called "nuclear waste" and placed a radioactive sticker on his drinking vessel. Now, admittedly, the drinking vessel was a bit unique -- a length of PVC pipe with a screw-cap to limit spillage, but the emergency response teams went overboard with a crane and a bomb-disposal vehicle. You'd think that having a science-fiction convention next door would have given them a clue but the authorities wouldn't listen to anyone at the convention and spent a lot of taxpayers money to safely destroy a small quantity of vodka and orange juice.
If that wasn't enough, to cover their embarrassment they searched the convention for the fellow responsible (who, fortunately, had long since left town) to arrest him on federal charges of felonious mislabeling of nuclear material. We (the convention) are now required to list "mislabeling a nuclear container is a felony" in our official rules. And this occurred before 9/11!
For the curious, the convention where this happened is Chattacon (http://www.chattacon.org/) which was last held a couple of weekends ago.
Don't forget the packages sitting in the middle of the aisle on a pallet labeled "Pasteurized Process Imitation Artificial Cheese Food." It looks like yellow plastic but I never felt suicidal enough to check the taste.
I stopped a few people from picking up any but the store management's arrival prompted a hasty return to my shopping. Still, it amazes me that it wasn't even real "Cheese Food" (which in itself doesn't bear much in common with actual Cheese).
Until a recent merger, my wife was the collection manager for a local bank. At least once a month she'd have a story of a teller allowing a withdrawal on an account flagged with a security note. Seems they couldn't read (or understand) the flashing red message stating "FRAUD WARNING - PASSPHRASE REQUIRED." There were also many cases of obviously phony deposits not having the required holds placed on them and stupid actions like blocking the security cameras. In one of these later cases, she was trying to get a photo of someone's use of a stolen card and all she could see was a stuffed bunny sitting on top of a monitor ... fortunately the thief was bold enough to do it again at another branch (he's now in jail).
Like always, the weakest link is the people.
Sounds like you've got the kind of envrionment that precipitates Bozon Cloud formation ...
Bozon: A quantum unit of stupidity.
This term I picked up from Headcrash (Roadkill on the Information Superhighway) by Bruce Bethke. A very entertaining read, I might add. Bruce himself is a great guy too, as I discovered while he was our Special Guest at the last Chattacon (a Science-Fiction convention in Chattanooga). I could say something about the ProctoProd(tm), but I don't want to ruin the book.
A company I used to work for was being harassed by the Department of Revenue from another state demanding we collect sales taxes on mail order items shipped into their state. The advice of our lawyer was to hang up on them whenever they called and just throw away all correspondence without opening it. I was suprised, but they quickly got the hint and left us alone. I was told that if we had actually talked to them, it would be construed as "entering negotiations" and we'd be forced to comply. Our lawyer evidently thought this was what they were trying to do.
As always, IANAL, this is not legal advice and YMMV.
But ... the FDCPA applies only to third-party collectors. That said, most reputable banks and other financial institutions try to follow the FDCPA because they're afraid it will be made to apply to them completely if they don't.
... but my wife is.
No, I'm not a collector
This isn't quite on-topic, but ...
About 10 years ago my wife was asked to sign an NDA/Non-compete contract by her employer after managing their call center for over a month. Since it had many items left blank, she drew lines through the blanks and made herself a copy. Several days later, their HR VP threatened to fire her for drawing lines through these blank areas. After informing him that she never signed anything with items left blank, he told her that this was how they "did" things and she needed to be "a team player."
Nothing else was said about the issue until a couple of months later when she was given a pink-slip and replaced by a cousin of one the VPs. Along with the termination notice was "her copy" of the NDA/NC which had been altered with white-out and very draconian additions. She, of course, produced the copy she had made when it was signed and their CFO made threats of lawsuits and even went so far as to state she was facing criminal charges for making an unauthorized copy of the agreement. All it took was one phone call to the owner informing him of the situation (and that she was at her lawyer's office) for the CFO to back down and recant.
Shortly after she left, the company was sold and they have since lost over 98% of their business, closed all but one of their offices, and we've not been bothered by them since. Someone we know who still works for the company recently told us all of the people responsible for her woes were terminated long ago. Fortunately the old agage "what comes around, goes around" still occasionally holds true. Still, it goes to show that some people know no limits and I shudder to think what might have been had she not made that copy.
I hate to tell you this, but as far as PD/DWI is concerned, this is quite common. I served on the Grand Jury in Tennessee some number of years ago and we had a case where an officer arrested an individual for DWI. In our case, the officer was off duty and the citizen arrested was moving a car in his driveway and was partially blocking a road in the process. There was no tests given of any kind. I forget the exact particulars (the number of years is > 10) but the point was, in the absence of contrary evidence, the opinion of the officer stands -- if he thinks you're drunk, you are. The assistant DA told us that his advice to anyone in that position was to demand a blood test once you arrived at the station (unless, of course, you are drunk and/or have other substances in your bloodstream).
Remember though, this was Grand Jury testimony. For those unfamiliar with the way the system works, we hear ONLY the prosecution's side since we're not supposed to determine guilt or innocence, just whether or not it's worth the state's time to take it to trial. If we decide it's not, it never goes to trial at all. In this particular case, we returned a bill (so he went to trial) but I have no idea whether he was convicted or not. From what we heard though, the fellow probably deserved to be.
Fortunately, in my area the officers are, by and large, quite honest. One of the advantages of a small town, I suppose.
It makes me wonder if anyone has considered using spam to generate entropy for cryptography.
Anyway, the end result was I received a card in the mail which could be used in the store to compensate me for the exessive interest and, in return, Sears was allowed to continue gouging me (and everyone else) forever without further penalty. The only problems with this were:
I read later that the filers of the suit cried foul over the strings attached to the credit but the judge said it was settled and that was that. Call me cynical, but I'll be surprised if this case ends up much different.
Some years ago, Tennessee had a referendum for a temporary 1% sales tax hike that was guaranteed to be spent on schools and to expire in one year. It passed quite easily (think of the children!) At the end of the next year, the legislature decided to make the tax permanent and redirected the funds elsewhere, even though this was in direct conflict with the popular vote. It was also rumored that the representatives voted themselves a corresponding pay increase though I've never attempted to research such a claim. So the Tennessee sales tax is now 9.75% in most places and the schools are still underfunded.
Needless to say, I now look at any tax proposals "for the schools" (or those proclaimed "temporary") with a jaundiced eye...
When I heard that my university academic advisor had been arrested for protesting at a nuclear power plant, I just had to ask him why? He was, IMHO, a very savvy fellow and I was frankly surprised he would be against nuclear power. When asked, however, he replied: "I have nothing against nuclear power at all ... I have something against the idiots at TVA running a nuclear power plant."
This was <cough> some years ago. Chernobyl and Three-mile Island have since demonstrated his point.
Bellsouth just started blocking all port 25 connections from Residential DSL (as of last week). Although there's nothing whatsoever about this in their on-line documentation, a call to Tech Support reveals that you can get it unblocked by "upgrading" to "business service". Said "business service," of course, differs only by the lack of blocking and a 1000% increase in the service cost (over $300 for the same bandwidth they charge $39.00 to residential customers).
Although this is a Good Idea(TM) for compromised Windows machines running SPAMbots, I'm running a secure mail server on my Linux machine and, not only is it secured from open relay, I've also blocked incoming port 25 connections. Why should I have to pay through the nose just to have status emails sent to me at work twice a day?
Needless to say, everyone I know in the area is busy finding an alternate provider.
I can't agree more. I've made the same argument many times, pretty much to anyone who would listen.
If you really look at what's happened since 9/11, it's quite clear that the terrorists have won. I say this because we've allowed our fear to override all other considerations and the powers-that-be have gleefully run with this to the point that we're well on our way to a totalitarian police state (issues like TFA make that rather clear).
The proper reaction would have been to immediately hunt down and destroy everyone who participated in the 9/11 attack, regardless of who they were and where they were. If some collateral damage happened, so be it. Yes, there would have been some that condemned that action but I'm certain the majority of the world would have respected us for having the balls to do it and it would send a clear message to other would-be attackers: Attack us and we'll kill you and everyone who knows you. Nothing else should have changed at all -- we certainly don't need the increased airport security since passengers now understand they have nothing to lose so they won't sit meekly obeying the hijackers, they'll take them out.
But we didn't do that. Instead we cower frightened in our houses and tell the government it's OK to do whatever they want so long as we're safe. Makes me sick. It's getting so hard to override the impulse to strangle those idiots who spout "if you're not doing anything wrong..."
Sorry for the rant (but it felt good).
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Politics: The art of pushing people just short of revolt.
I've been having intense pain, numbness and muscle lock-up in both arms for several years. After several Orthopedists, Neurologists, CT scans, MRI scans, EMG's and pain management, an old acquaintance mentioned Thoracic Outlet Syndrome to me. So, I asked my Primary Care Physician about it and was told "there's no such thing." Not to be dissuaded, I finally located a specialist at the UT Medical Center in Knoxville (TN). After some tests, guess what? TOS was confirmed. I'm still waiting to have the surgery next month but, finally, an end is in sight. Interestingly enough, I was told by the specialist that over half of the patients he sees had already had Carpal Tunnel surgery unnecessarily.
On a side note, when the Pain Management doctor prescribed "MS Contin," I asked the pharmacist when Microsoft had entered the pharmacutical business. He laughed and explained that it was Morphine Sulfate. Naturally, I was relieved...
Although I've seen the store-front photos of some of the vendors referenced in TFA and would not consider purchasing anything from them due to reputation alone, I want to point out that doing business under several names is not necessarily the "smoking gun" being intimated in this discussion.
I have a several clients (Pest Control companies) which operate under more than one name. Most times everything is run from the same office using the same personnel but, in at least one case, there are two separate offices and, with the exception of occasional "borrowing" of service technicians, distinct personnel. It's humorous to hear a technician relate comments by customers "I don't like those XXX guys -- you do such a better job!" when, in fact, he normally works for "XXX" and is just filling in that day. Although it sounds fishy on the surface, I have personally been in each of the offices with complete access to their databases and never have I seen anything to indicate any dishonest or disreputable business practices.
This is not to say I don't have any clients which seem a little shady, but the ones I have had access to with multiple names are not among them. So, just because two sites might be traced back to the same operator, this does not, in and of itself, automatically make them dishonest (though I'd certainly be digging a little deeper).
If you want to see something that will really make your blood boil, try reading the IRS code. I was researching some obscure rules WRT depreciation and ran across a huge listing of various properties. When you scroll to the top of this list, you'll discover that every time our "representatives" pass a bill dealing with the IRS, they tack on their property holdings and, presumably, those of their buddies making them exempt from all taxes forever. Now if this isn't a gross misuse of their power, I don't know what is.