Its a distributed off-site backup scheme. Its very simple and so far as I can tell (IANAL and this is all with tongue firmly implanted in cheek) perfectly legit, except maybe for the intent.
It goes like this: Mary rips all her cd's that she legally owns onto her computer system, for whatever reason. She has spent countless hours doing this and figures its more efficient to backup these rips than to go through the entire process of reripping in the event of a disk failure. Being a cautious person, she realizes that off site backups are a vital part of any backup scenario. So she calls her friend Bob and says: "I've got xGB of data that I need to backup offsite, can I borrow some storage space?" Bob says "sure!" (note the enthusiasm there). So Bob partitions off enough space for Mary and sets up a way for her to transfer her material to his storage. Being good little users, they work out the details to automate this so that Mary can get copies back from her archive easily over the web. Finally, Mary says to Bob, "As part of this, can you do me a favor and routinely review some of the material in this archive to confirm that it is in good shape? If you find any that isn't, please let me know so I can keep my archive in good condition." Bob agrees to this and occasionally selects a few tracks from her archive and "reviews" them to confirm they are not corrupted.
Time passes. Bob has amassed a collection of cd's and realises that he really likes the security that Mary has with her offsite backups. Bob calls up Mary and says, "Hey, I'm giving you all this storage space, how about if you let me use some in return?" Mary, realizing she always loved Bob anyway, readily agrees to this. So she carves out a section of her storage and sets up a similar system for Bob to use. She also agrees to review his archive on occasion to ensure its validity. So now they both have nice secure offsite backups of their music data and are both ensuring the validity of the archive by selecting random tracks for "review" on a sort of ad-hoc basis and the world is good. Incidentally, they are now dating pretty regularly and Bob has left an extra toothbrush at her house.
Time passes. Bob has added some storage to his array because there was a great sale at Fry's. He has also noticed Julie three cubes over at work and they've been chatting it up at the water cooler. He discovers that she has a vast collection of now out of print music that she has archived on her machine at home. Bob, seeing his in with her, suggests that they swap storage space for offsite backup purposes. Julie, knowing the dangers of relying on single failure point data storage techniques, readily agrees to the arrangement. So now Bob has redundant offsite backups because both Mary and Julie have copies of his archive and they are both verifying its validity.
Cut to Bob at dinner with Mary. There is a tense moment when she realises that Bob is seeing Julie on the side. But she is flexible and willing. So, we'll leave the romance out now, cause it gets ugly. But, soon all three of them, Bob, Mary and Julie have redundant offsite backup archives with reciprocal validity checking. Its beautiful. THey go live with it and soon have amassed a large circle of friends all recieving the benefits of this redundant, and distributed offsite backup archive containing some 2 TB of music that they all verify with some regularity.
I really don't see the problem with it.
So, I've got some storage, wanna swap? You have to promise not to distribute the archive, though you can certainly make additional backups of the archive to help secure it. And also, if you find others to trade backups with, I'll be happy to mirror them as well so that we all get the benefit of redundancy. I'm sure we can easily automate this too...
Still, it's good to know you're no longer falling for it. Hope that makes you less likely to click on other dubious links as well. I'm not really that likely to click on dubious links, though we all do it on occasion I'm sure. The couple times I've fallen for your little trick, I was deeply interested in the thread I was reading (not sure what that says about my taste, but that's another issue) and your post was interesting enough that it made sense that it would generate a lot of replies. It was totally natural and automatic to click your link. The sad thing is I don't think the "Too Many Replies" thing even really happens anymore with the whizbang new slash2.0. Ah well. At least it's fun!
If you program in Erlang you will look like these guys. wow. substitute some absurdity about spam shortages and you've got a perfect python skit. amazing. thanks for the informative laugh.
No doubt that beer can spoil. But I usually find it only spoils in the bottle if there was some defect in the sealing or was left open (probably allowing the alcohol to evaporate). Also, good beer with live yeast and "stuff" in it generally gets better with age, much like wine. This is especially true of the unfiltered and higher alcohol beers.
Compare beer to a non-fermented wet grain product though and the beer will definitely last longer. Of course, in an environment with wild yeast the other will turn into beer or sourdough pretty much on its own. This is part of what makes beer/bread such vital staples -- it occurs pretty much naturally and automatically and the resulting product is good, has decent nutritional value, and generally last longer than some of the alternatives.
As to conserved foods, plenty of indigenous cultures have "beer" (some of it looks pretty gross, frankly) that looks to have developed right alongside whatever food preservation techniques are used. I think its perfectly reasonable to assume that "beer" was "invented" pretty dang early.
purely hearsay, but I've been told no known human pathogen can survive in beer. So, okay, that's surely a stretch, but how about this: A good strain of yeast, properly pitched in a well boiled wort (pre-beer) will rapidly multiply and be so successful that it will complete pollute its environment in just a couple days. And by pollute, I mean convert all the readily available food, sugar, into alcohol. The yeast just flat-out out competes anything else that might settle into the beer. So, is the beer pathogen free? probably not, but whatever pathogens may be in there are at such low levels as to not be a concern. but IANAB(iologist).
you know that's pretty insightful, IMO. I didn't really realize this was how I felt until you just said it. When I was a windows only guy, I blamed the hardware, or worse, just assumed it couldn't be done (despite knowing better). I never was at the point where a _blamed_ linux, just understood that it hadn't caught up with the hardware yet. Now that linux has caught up with all my hardware and almost all the hardware I've encountered out in the world, I more and more blame the hardware for failures on my linux machines. I've come to trust the code to work.
I use dovecot on my server over imaps and connect with mutt in a screen session on my main machine. i get mail anywhere in the world that has terminal emulator w/ ssh. And it rocks. The only one dovecot chokes on is my debian-user archive which typically has about 20k messages in it. (don't ask, I'm an addict). but even that only takes a little bit (maybe 20 seconds) to sync up and sort.
ISTM there are two kinds of computer users: those who've learned how to use one system and those who've learned how to use computers in general. (no comment intended here as to which type the parent is)
The first can apply to any OS: the user has learned the specific, repetitive motions that get done for them what they need to have done on their specific system (usually this would be windows, but could be any OS). Their "skills" are easily translated to another system of the same type and maybe to a similar but not too distantly related system. An XP user could probably move down to win98 or up to say vista without too much difficulty, though they'd find certain things don't work the way they'd expect. An XFCE user could move fairly easily to gnome, not so much to KDE, but still okay. But if you ask this user to move to a completely different system (from any win to any linux, or from XFCE to say fluxbox or even worse to wmii (I love wmii, BTW)) then there's trouble. They don't actually have "skills", they have a set of rote responses that look like "skills" but aren't.
The second set have not necessarily learned any particular set of actions to get desired results. Instead they have learned about how computers work in general and have developed a set of "skills" for _determining_ which actions get desired results. The difference is subtle but important. Someone in this set can sit down at a computer they've never seen or even heard of before and figure out how to get something done in relatively short order. They will likely never be as productive on any one particular machine as the folks from the other set, but they will be proficient at _any_ machine in short order.
To determine which set you belong to, try something radically different from what you normally use for a good period of time and see what happens. If you give up within hours, then you're probably from the first set. If you find that you've forgotten exactly when you changed, then you're like from the second set and are probably already looking for something even more different to try.
So, after "Preview" (see what a good boy I am!), I have to add that there is probably a third set: those who probably belong in the second set, but have never fully developed that set of skills choosing instead to dive deep into the particular system of their choosing and learning it intimately. These folks can do _anything_ on their machine, but have given up their potential to learn breadth in exchange for depth.
Therefore, a far more useful article would be "How to survive driving off a seaside cliff into the ocean."
Install wings on your car? and then climb to the back seat on the way down...
I also try to avoid doing business with companies who do this kind of direct marketing. I certainly make it a point to *never* do business with them as a direct reply to these mailers. What gets me is the amount of snail mail spam i get from people I already do business with. Mortgage company and a couple of my credit cards send me stuff almost daily between the three. I hate it. I suppose I should drop them and tell them why... but one is Amex. For some reason I love Amex... I don't really know why. Anyway I get at least three things a week from them...
You're probably right to a point. I find it a strangely satisfying way to weed out people who actually want to do business with me. Those who put up with a little flack at the front end end up with a long term relationship. Probably 90% of my vendors have been with me for 5+ years and have become good friends at the same time (at least in the business sense). Too bad for the others...
i have to say, though, if you'd seen the crap they wanted me to agree to for a COD account, you'd have balked too... It was literally astounding: if we received bad product we had to either note it on the invoice at the time of delivery and adjust the payment, or send them a written notice by mail certified return-receipt within 3 days or they would not honor it. In the food industry, many times you will get a product that was bad on receipt, but you have no way of knowing until you crack into it later and sometimes more than 3 days will pass. This is normal stuff, but I'll be damned if I'm going to do more than call my sales rep and discuss the issue for a credit or exchange. Certified return receipt mail? give me a break.
That's why it has to be a concerted effort by many many plaintiffs simultaneously. Really more of a mass protest I guess than any real remedy. The idea, in my mind, is to swamp them with a situation they can't ignore such that these arbitration clauses become counter-productive for them.
Imagine the splash when many thousands of certified letters requesting arbitration arrive in the legal dept all at the same time. A little press action thrown in would make for an interesting day. The point is to make the corps recognize that if they ask for something like no class action lawsuits, that they should be prepared to face the consequences. A well organized mass effort would certainly make an impact. meh.
The better thing to remember is: It's a contract, and you can negotiate it before you sign it. I had an interesting adventure with a major corp recently. I was being courted by a major food service vendor who has recently moved into this area. I'm a pretty small fish -- maybe $1,000 a week in wholesale grocery supplies, but their sales rep has a couple major accounts on either side of me and it was easy for him to stop in. So we went through the whole deal of pricing everything out and determined that we could save a reasonable amount by using this company.
So out comes the "application". I've been in the restaurant business for a few years now and have some idea of what standard practice is... anyway, I decided I didn't want credit. I wanted to just purchase COD. It's really easier in the long run in many ways -- less book-keeping, easier to budget money, instant credit, no messing with chargebacks or mystery invoices etc etc etc. So I start reading through the various agreements they expect me to sign. I looked at the salesman and said "you know I want COD only?" He agreed it was ridiculous. So I told him I'd mark it up over the next few days and then he could pick it up.
So there were three agreements. One was a personal guarantee, which I never sign, ever. So a big line through that one. The second was a statement about my legal right to purchase wholesale in the state (no biggie, standard stuff and a tax id number). The third was essentially a credit app with some extra stuff thrown in relating to how to deal with bad product and so forth. So I start lining through stuff that doesn't apply to COD, stuff that puts all of my company's assets on the line for groceries. I rewrite a couple of other bits to make them more palatable to me, like fixing the court of jurisdiction to be my state, not theirs; changing the part about 3 days written notice by certified return receipt if we get bad product; etc etc. When it was all done, I'd probably struck a good 60% of the contract and rewritten another 20%, and then I signed it.
About two weeks go by and we hear from the salesman (you should have seen the look on his face when he picked the thing up). The credit department (I don't want credit) had denied my application, not because of all the stuff in the contract that I'd marked up, but because I hadn't signed the personal guarantee. go figure. So all I can assume is they know their contract is onerous and were willing to let it go so long as I put all my personal crap on the line for a COD account. needless to say, I'm still using my old provider who loves me and gets paid every week for seven years...
I think I'll write a "service provider agreement" and make anyone who wants to provide me a service sign it.... hmmm... that might be fun;)
On the one hand, class actions give the consumers the opportunity to build up enough clout to get noticed and possibly get the corp to change its behavior. Plaintiffs get added to the suit more or less automatically (you've seen those mailers that notify you that you're involved...). But the consumer rarely (in my experience) gets any real remuneration as a result. In this particular Cingular case, the plaintiffs could have added just about anybody who used their service during the specified period resulting in many thousands of plaintiffs in the class action. Cingular would probably have to pay out a few dollars per plaintiff in the form of future credits or something like that, plus legal fees. Of course, it may also allow them to weasel their way out of paying those who are no longer customers and various other bits of chicanery. But, by the nature of the class action, the handful of initial plaintiffs are able to leverage themselves into a position of reasonably significant power and actually get something done. (note that I haven't read the Cingular case, and my inferences above are based on my past experiences with class actions).
On the other hand (bet you forgot about that first hand up there!) according the TFA, Cingular is willing to pay out the state's defined small-claims amount _or more_ in individual arbitration. That's $4,000 in Washington state. But they're banking on the idea that only a handful of individuals would bother. However, if the customers were actually pro-active about it and all those who were eligible for the class action took the initiative and entered arbitration for something that was provably wrong on the part of the corp, then the individual plaintiffs stand to gain significantly more on an individual basis while the corpp stand to lose significantly more.
I would like to see some consumer advocacy group take a different approach in cases like these. I'd like to see them run a couple test arbitrations from their pool of original plaintiffs. If they are successful, use the information gathered as a result of this to assist additional plaintiffs in pursuing the same arbitration. They could put together packages of "how-to arbitrate the cingular over-charging thing" and send them to anyone who would have been eligible for the class action in the first place. Then you'd possibly see (provided the rewards were high enough) a significant number of well-armed plaintiffs entering arbitration at the same time. THat would likely have a real affect on a large corp. Nothing like having the legal dept suddenly swamped with massive number of arbitrations and then finding lots of well informed and prepared plaintiffs across the table from them. They may find themselves in a situation where they are _asking_ for a class action in violation of their own contract. That would be nice.
Yeah, we were moving some stuff from the garage to the attic, and ole Rusty got into the Christmas stuff. Why do dogs love to eat those shiny reflective "icicles" anyway? damn cat ate that stuff and ended up with glittering bits off icicle holding a trail of turds that rattled along behind him. A chain of dingle-berry beads strung on a ribbon of silver tinsel. it was lovely.
unfortunately, poor guy, the stuff cut him all up inside and he's never been the same since. luckily for me, the litter box is the wife's duty, not mine...
Why, because she's going to memorize your driver's license number, address, birthdate, issue date and expiry date and create a fake ID from memory when she gets home? I actually know two people who can do this and they've both worked as doormen at my bar. That means they could pick out any id-card from the stream coming through the door each night and use it to make a fake id whenever they wanted. Thankfully, they're both decent guys.
You should see how the cops react when they encounter that. We had a cop chatting with the doorman one night (there was some altercation on the street and they were yucking it up about drunk people). The doorman checked an id while continuing the conversation, and waved the girl in. The cop stopped her and asked for her id again and proceeded to quiz the doorman about it. He got every fact right. The cop was just shaking his head in disbelief.
So yeah, people can do it.
not saying its likely, but knowing two of them is pretty freaky.
No, linux is not on every desktop since it is harder to use and cannot run most windows-only programs. (flame-mode) Gosh. That's just what I said about windows the other day. Its harder to use and you cannot run any linux-only programs. That makes it a deal breaker for me.(/flame-mode)
just had to say it. you may now return to your regularly scheduled RIAA sludge fest.
Slashdot Mirror
I've discussed this before with someone on here.
Its a distributed off-site backup scheme. Its very simple and so far as I can tell (IANAL and this is all with tongue firmly implanted in cheek) perfectly legit, except maybe for the intent.
It goes like this: Mary rips all her cd's that she legally owns onto her computer system, for whatever reason. She has spent countless hours doing this and figures its more efficient to backup these rips than to go through the entire process of reripping in the event of a disk failure. Being a cautious person, she realizes that off site backups are a vital part of any backup scenario. So she calls her friend Bob and says: "I've got xGB of data that I need to backup offsite, can I borrow some storage space?" Bob says "sure!" (note the enthusiasm there). So Bob partitions off enough space for Mary and sets up a way for her to transfer her material to his storage. Being good little users, they work out the details to automate this so that Mary can get copies back from her archive easily over the web. Finally, Mary says to Bob, "As part of this, can you do me a favor and routinely review some of the material in this archive to confirm that it is in good shape? If you find any that isn't, please let me know so I can keep my archive in good condition." Bob agrees to this and occasionally selects a few tracks from her archive and "reviews" them to confirm they are not corrupted.
Time passes. Bob has amassed a collection of cd's and realises that he really likes the security that Mary has with her offsite backups. Bob calls up Mary and says, "Hey, I'm giving you all this storage space, how about if you let me use some in return?" Mary, realizing she always loved Bob anyway, readily agrees to this. So she carves out a section of her storage and sets up a similar system for Bob to use. She also agrees to review his archive on occasion to ensure its validity. So now they both have nice secure offsite backups of their music data and are both ensuring the validity of the archive by selecting random tracks for "review" on a sort of ad-hoc basis and the world is good. Incidentally, they are now dating pretty regularly and Bob has left an extra toothbrush at her house.
Time passes. Bob has added some storage to his array because there was a great sale at Fry's. He has also noticed Julie three cubes over at work and they've been chatting it up at the water cooler. He discovers that she has a vast collection of now out of print music that she has archived on her machine at home. Bob, seeing his in with her, suggests that they swap storage space for offsite backup purposes. Julie, knowing the dangers of relying on single failure point data storage techniques, readily agrees to the arrangement. So now Bob has redundant offsite backups because both Mary and Julie have copies of his archive and they are both verifying its validity.
Cut to Bob at dinner with Mary. There is a tense moment when she realises that Bob is seeing Julie on the side. But she is flexible and willing. So, we'll leave the romance out now, cause it gets ugly. But, soon all three of them, Bob, Mary and Julie have redundant offsite backup archives with reciprocal validity checking. Its beautiful. THey go live with it and soon have amassed a large circle of friends all recieving the benefits of this redundant, and distributed offsite backup archive containing some 2 TB of music that they all verify with some regularity.
I really don't see the problem with it.
So, I've got some storage, wanna swap? You have to promise not to distribute the archive, though you can certainly make additional backups of the archive to help secure it. And also, if you find others to trade backups with, I'll be happy to mirror them as well so that we all get the benefit of redundancy. I'm sure we can easily automate this too...
AH HA! Today, I actually didn't fall for your .sig!! ;-P I'm embarrassed to admit that it's caught me more than once...
No doubt that beer can spoil. But I usually find it only spoils in the bottle if there was some defect in the sealing or was left open (probably allowing the alcohol to evaporate). Also, good beer with live yeast and "stuff" in it generally gets better with age, much like wine. This is especially true of the unfiltered and higher alcohol beers.
Compare beer to a non-fermented wet grain product though and the beer will definitely last longer. Of course, in an environment with wild yeast the other will turn into beer or sourdough pretty much on its own. This is part of what makes beer/bread such vital staples -- it occurs pretty much naturally and automatically and the resulting product is good, has decent nutritional value, and generally last longer than some of the alternatives.
As to conserved foods, plenty of indigenous cultures have "beer" (some of it looks pretty gross, frankly) that looks to have developed right alongside whatever food preservation techniques are used. I think its perfectly reasonable to assume that "beer" was "invented" pretty dang early.
purely hearsay, but I've been told no known human pathogen can survive in beer. So, okay, that's surely a stretch, but how about this: A good strain of yeast, properly pitched in a well boiled wort (pre-beer) will rapidly multiply and be so successful that it will complete pollute its environment in just a couple days. And by pollute, I mean convert all the readily available food, sugar, into alcohol. The yeast just flat-out out competes anything else that might settle into the beer. So, is the beer pathogen free? probably not, but whatever pathogens may be in there are at such low levels as to not be a concern. but IANAB(iologist).
you must be new here.
you know that's pretty insightful, IMO. I didn't really realize this was how I felt until you just said it. When I was a windows only guy, I blamed the hardware, or worse, just assumed it couldn't be done (despite knowing better). I never was at the point where a _blamed_ linux, just understood that it hadn't caught up with the hardware yet. Now that linux has caught up with all my hardware and almost all the hardware I've encountered out in the world, I more and more blame the hardware for failures on my linux machines. I've come to trust the code to work.
none of them are as famous as me: Results 1 - 10 of about 2,230,000,000 for me. (0.09 seconds)
*rimshot*
doubleplusgood
posting to undo my slip of a moderation click... meant to mod interesting and at the last second slipped to redundant. sorry.
second that!
I use dovecot on my server over imaps and connect with mutt in a screen session on my main machine. i get mail anywhere in the world that has terminal emulator w/ ssh. And it rocks. The only one dovecot chokes on is my debian-user archive which typically has about 20k messages in it. (don't ask, I'm an addict). but even that only takes a little bit (maybe 20 seconds) to sync up and sort.
ISTM there are two kinds of computer users: those who've learned how to use one system and those who've learned how to use computers in general. (no comment intended here as to which type the parent is)
The first can apply to any OS: the user has learned the specific, repetitive motions that get done for them what they need to have done on their specific system (usually this would be windows, but could be any OS). Their "skills" are easily translated to another system of the same type and maybe to a similar but not too distantly related system. An XP user could probably move down to win98 or up to say vista without too much difficulty, though they'd find certain things don't work the way they'd expect. An XFCE user could move fairly easily to gnome, not so much to KDE, but still okay. But if you ask this user to move to a completely different system (from any win to any linux, or from XFCE to say fluxbox or even worse to wmii (I love wmii, BTW)) then there's trouble. They don't actually have "skills", they have a set of rote responses that look like "skills" but aren't.
The second set have not necessarily learned any particular set of actions to get desired results. Instead they have learned about how computers work in general and have developed a set of "skills" for _determining_ which actions get desired results. The difference is subtle but important. Someone in this set can sit down at a computer they've never seen or even heard of before and figure out how to get something done in relatively short order. They will likely never be as productive on any one particular machine as the folks from the other set, but they will be proficient at _any_ machine in short order.
To determine which set you belong to, try something radically different from what you normally use for a good period of time and see what happens. If you give up within hours, then you're probably from the first set. If you find that you've forgotten exactly when you changed, then you're like from the second set and are probably already looking for something even more different to try.
So, after "Preview" (see what a good boy I am!), I have to add that there is probably a third set: those who probably belong in the second set, but have never fully developed that set of skills choosing instead to dive deep into the particular system of their choosing and learning it intimately. These folks can do _anything_ on their machine, but have given up their potential to learn breadth in exchange for depth.
and now they'll be slashdotted and you'll be able to get a tour, but you can only take one step every 30 seconds. or maybe there's a coral cache?
To assume makes an ass out of Uma Thurmond --Al Franken
I for one welcome our humor-impaired, meme-denying overlords.
sorry so long in replying...
You're probably right to a point. I find it a strangely satisfying way to weed out people who actually want to do business with me. Those who put up with a little flack at the front end end up with a long term relationship. Probably 90% of my vendors have been with me for 5+ years and have become good friends at the same time (at least in the business sense). Too bad for the others...
i have to say, though, if you'd seen the crap they wanted me to agree to for a COD account, you'd have balked too... It was literally astounding: if we received bad product we had to either note it on the invoice at the time of delivery and adjust the payment, or send them a written notice by mail certified return-receipt within 3 days or they would not honor it. In the food industry, many times you will get a product that was bad on receipt, but you have no way of knowing until you crack into it later and sometimes more than 3 days will pass. This is normal stuff, but I'll be damned if I'm going to do more than call my sales rep and discuss the issue for a credit or exchange. Certified return receipt mail? give me a break.
meh.
That's why it has to be a concerted effort by many many plaintiffs simultaneously. Really more of a mass protest I guess than any real remedy. The idea, in my mind, is to swamp them with a situation they can't ignore such that these arbitration clauses become counter-productive for them.
Imagine the splash when many thousands of certified letters requesting arbitration arrive in the legal dept all at the same time. A little press action thrown in would make for an interesting day. The point is to make the corps recognize that if they ask for something like no class action lawsuits, that they should be prepared to face the consequences. A well organized mass effort would certainly make an impact. meh.
So out comes the "application". I've been in the restaurant business for a few years now and have some idea of what standard practice is... anyway, I decided I didn't want credit. I wanted to just purchase COD. It's really easier in the long run in many ways -- less book-keeping, easier to budget money, instant credit, no messing with chargebacks or mystery invoices etc etc etc. So I start reading through the various agreements they expect me to sign. I looked at the salesman and said "you know I want COD only?" He agreed it was ridiculous. So I told him I'd mark it up over the next few days and then he could pick it up.
So there were three agreements. One was a personal guarantee, which I never sign, ever. So a big line through that one. The second was a statement about my legal right to purchase wholesale in the state (no biggie, standard stuff and a tax id number). The third was essentially a credit app with some extra stuff thrown in relating to how to deal with bad product and so forth. So I start lining through stuff that doesn't apply to COD, stuff that puts all of my company's assets on the line for groceries. I rewrite a couple of other bits to make them more palatable to me, like fixing the court of jurisdiction to be my state, not theirs; changing the part about 3 days written notice by certified return receipt if we get bad product; etc etc. When it was all done, I'd probably struck a good 60% of the contract and rewritten another 20%, and then I signed it.
About two weeks go by and we hear from the salesman (you should have seen the look on his face when he picked the thing up). The credit department (I don't want credit) had denied my application, not because of all the stuff in the contract that I'd marked up, but because I hadn't signed the personal guarantee. go figure. So all I can assume is they know their contract is onerous and were willing to let it go so long as I put all my personal crap on the line for a COD account. needless to say, I'm still using my old provider who loves me and gets paid every week for seven years...
I think I'll write a "service provider agreement" and make anyone who wants to provide me a service sign it.... hmmm... that might be fun
On the one hand, class actions give the consumers the opportunity to build up enough clout to get noticed and possibly get the corp to change its behavior. Plaintiffs get added to the suit more or less automatically (you've seen those mailers that notify you that you're involved...). But the consumer rarely (in my experience) gets any real remuneration as a result. In this particular Cingular case, the plaintiffs could have added just about anybody who used their service during the specified period resulting in many thousands of plaintiffs in the class action. Cingular would probably have to pay out a few dollars per plaintiff in the form of future credits or something like that, plus legal fees. Of course, it may also allow them to weasel their way out of paying those who are no longer customers and various other bits of chicanery. But, by the nature of the class action, the handful of initial plaintiffs are able to leverage themselves into a position of reasonably significant power and actually get something done. (note that I haven't read the Cingular case, and my inferences above are based on my past experiences with class actions).
On the other hand (bet you forgot about that first hand up there!) according the TFA, Cingular is willing to pay out the state's defined small-claims amount _or more_ in individual arbitration. That's $4,000 in Washington state. But they're banking on the idea that only a handful of individuals would bother. However, if the customers were actually pro-active about it and all those who were eligible for the class action took the initiative and entered arbitration for something that was provably wrong on the part of the corp, then the individual plaintiffs stand to gain significantly more on an individual basis while the corpp stand to lose significantly more.
I would like to see some consumer advocacy group take a different approach in cases like these. I'd like to see them run a couple test arbitrations from their pool of original plaintiffs. If they are successful, use the information gathered as a result of this to assist additional plaintiffs in pursuing the same arbitration. They could put together packages of "how-to arbitrate the cingular over-charging thing" and send them to anyone who would have been eligible for the class action in the first place. Then you'd possibly see (provided the rewards were high enough) a significant number of well-armed plaintiffs entering arbitration at the same time. THat would likely have a real affect on a large corp. Nothing like having the legal dept suddenly swamped with massive number of arbitrations and then finding lots of well informed and prepared plaintiffs across the table from them. They may find themselves in a situation where they are _asking_ for a class action in violation of their own contract. That would be nice.
unfortunately, poor guy, the stuff cut him all up inside and he's never been the same since. luckily for me, the litter box is the wife's duty, not mine...
heh heh... duty
You should see how the cops react when they encounter that. We had a cop chatting with the doorman one night (there was some altercation on the street and they were yucking it up about drunk people). The doorman checked an id while continuing the conversation, and waved the girl in. The cop stopped her and asked for her id again and proceeded to quiz the doorman about it. He got every fact right. The cop was just shaking his head in disbelief.
So yeah, people can do it.
not saying its likely, but knowing two of them is pretty freaky.
just had to say it. you may now return to your regularly scheduled RIAA sludge fest.