Yes, I was completely serious. I've been composting my shredder material for about 5 years now. I kept running out of "brown" material for my compost pile and decided to start putting the shredder material in it.
The folks at the local nursery didn't think that there was any significant harm from the inks. By now the amount of shredder material is small compared to the rest of the compost material, so it's pretty dilute. The plants sure dont' seem to mind it either.:)
Fireplaces produce too much air pollution. The ecologically correct way to dispose of these sensitive documents is to first shred them. Then mix the paper shredding into your backyard compost bin or worm bin and let nature dispose of it cleanly.
I doubt that many id theives would want to rummage through your compost bin, if they even thought to look there in the first place.
For added security, add a couple of large dogs to your backyard. They will help deter personal property thieves in addition to compost-diving identity thieves!
Another common practice that consumers are exercising is automatic payments of services, directly from their bank account. This can lead to an even larger headache.
Nevermind the fact that you may get charged more than the cost of a postage stamp for this "convenience". This is also a great way for them to keep your mischarged money for longer than necessary.
When I get a credit card or cell phone bill, and I am lucky enough to notice an error on it, I can always refuse payment on the account (or at least the contested amount) until the problem is fixed. They don't get their money until they have fixed the problem.
However, if you use automatic payment for a service, and they misbill you, they already have your money. Good luck trying to get it back. They don't have much incentive to give you a refund on the mischarge until you've become an extremely large thorn in their side (threatening lawsuits, etc.).
As an example, I had my DirecTV service billed to my credit card automatically every month. One month, I noticed that they charged me twice for my service for the same 30 day period. It took 4 months for me to get the error fixed and get my money refunded. Every time I spoke to them they claimed "We can't refund your credit card, but we can give you a service credit on next month's bill". By saying this, they basically got to keep my money for another month. Then I noticed on the next month's bill that the credit never showed up. Repeat ad nauseum.
I finally had them stop billing my credit card and now send them a check every month.
This is not always true. With GSM phones, you just need to put in a new sim chip. My Handspring VisorPhone can get service from any GSM provider, even if the provider isn't familiar with the phone.
As a test, I took my wife's sim chip out of her Nokia phone and put it into my VisorPhone. Voila, her address book and stored SMS messages all showed up on my phone, and my phone would receive the calls made to her number.
Unfortunately, election rules, including voting machine standards, are governed by the state, not the federal government. States are free to follow California's lead or not and the feds can't do crap about it.
What's the difference between a paid advertisement in a magazine and an article that boasts the benefits of some particular product? The big example that comes to mind are game reviews. Nowhere does it say "paid advertisement", even though the magazines often get free copies of the games to review, and the reviews are often much to kind to the much too crappy games.
Is this the end of the story?
on
Disconnecting
·
· Score: 1
How can you be sure that this is the end of the story? I cancelled my AT&T @Home cable service in the middle of February when I got DSL installed. I used their online customer chat service to cancel the service. They said that I still had to return the cable modem before the billing would stop. I didn't argue. I returned the modem in person to the drop off center 2 days later and got a return receipt.
The next month I notice that AT&T was still charging me for service. When I called them they claimed that I never returned the equipment. When I mentioned that I had the return receipt, they said that I should just fax it to them and they would send me a refund check.
In the end I ended up paying for an extra 2 months of service, then waiting 2 weeks to get a refund check.
The moral of the story is that you shouldn't assume that they've really cancelled your service until you don't see any more charges on your credit card. You should be proactive about it and let your credit card company know that they should refuse charges from the ISP. Have the ISP send you a paper bill for any remaining charges at the time that you cancel your service.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, I was completely serious. I've been composting my shredder material for about 5 years now. I kept running out of "brown" material for my compost pile and decided to start putting the shredder material in it.
:)
The folks at the local nursery didn't think that there was any significant harm from the inks. By now the amount of shredder material is small compared to the rest of the compost material, so it's pretty dilute. The plants sure dont' seem to mind it either.
Fireplaces produce too much air pollution. The ecologically correct way to dispose of these sensitive documents is to first shred them. Then mix the paper shredding into your backyard compost bin or worm bin and let nature dispose of it cleanly.
I doubt that many id theives would want to rummage through your compost bin, if they even thought to look there in the first place.
For added security, add a couple of large dogs to your backyard. They will help deter personal property thieves in addition to compost-diving identity thieves!
Another common practice that consumers are exercising is automatic payments of services, directly from their bank account. This can lead to an even larger headache.
Nevermind the fact that you may get charged more than the cost of a postage stamp for this "convenience". This is also a great way for them to keep your mischarged money for longer than necessary.
When I get a credit card or cell phone bill, and I am lucky enough to notice an error on it, I can always refuse payment on the account (or at least the contested amount) until the problem is fixed. They don't get their money until they have fixed the problem.
However, if you use automatic payment for a service, and they misbill you, they already have your money. Good luck trying to get it back. They don't have much incentive to give you a refund on the mischarge until you've become an extremely large thorn in their side (threatening lawsuits, etc.).
As an example, I had my DirecTV service billed to my credit card automatically every month. One month, I noticed that they charged me twice for my service for the same 30 day period. It took 4 months for me to get the error fixed and get my money refunded. Every time I spoke to them they claimed "We can't refund your credit card, but we can give you a service credit on next month's bill". By saying this, they basically got to keep my money for another month. Then I noticed on the next month's bill that the credit never showed up. Repeat ad nauseum.
I finally had them stop billing my credit card and now send them a check every month.
This is not always true. With GSM phones, you just need to put in a new sim chip. My Handspring VisorPhone can get service from any GSM provider, even if the provider isn't familiar with the phone.
As a test, I took my wife's sim chip out of her Nokia phone and put it into my VisorPhone. Voila, her address book and stored SMS messages all showed up on my phone, and my phone would receive the calls made to her number.
Unfortunately, election rules, including voting machine standards, are governed by the state, not the federal government. States are free to follow California's lead or not and the feds can't do crap about it.
This and this should give you an idea of the future applications that will require this amount of bandwidth.
The new record was for TCP, not some new internet protocol.
I find the TiVo product placements the most amusing (Sex and the City, many celebrities on talk shows)
It's product placement for a product that increases the need for more product placement!
What's the difference between a paid advertisement in a magazine and an article that boasts the benefits of some particular product? The big example that comes to mind are game reviews. Nowhere does it say "paid advertisement", even though the magazines often get free copies of the games to review, and the reviews are often much to kind to the much too crappy games.
How can you be sure that this is the end of the story? I cancelled my AT&T @Home cable service in the middle of February when I got DSL installed. I used their online customer chat service to cancel the service. They said that I still had to return the cable modem before the billing would stop. I didn't argue. I returned the modem in person to the drop off center 2 days later and got a return receipt.
The next month I notice that AT&T was still charging me for service. When I called them they claimed that I never returned the equipment. When I mentioned that I had the return receipt, they said that I should just fax it to them and they would send me a refund check.
In the end I ended up paying for an extra 2 months of service, then waiting 2 weeks to get a refund check.
The moral of the story is that you shouldn't assume that they've really cancelled your service until you don't see any more charges on your credit card. You should be proactive about it and let your credit card company know that they should refuse charges from the ISP. Have the ISP send you a paper bill for any remaining charges at the time that you cancel your service.