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From: Jeff Liebermann on 12 Feb 2010 13:23 On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:16:23 -0800, JC Dill <jcdill.lists(a)gmail.com> wrote: >Jeff Liebermann wrote: > >> However, apparently there is now a law in California making it illegal >> to use GPS tracking devices for imposing extra charges: >> >> "Can Car Rental Companies Use Technology to Monitor Our Driving?" >> <http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20050823.html> >> In California, for instance, car rental companies may no longer >> use GPS information to impose surcharges, fines or penalties >> relating to the renter's use of a leased vehicle. > >I bet that they store this info with your name and license number, and >will refuse to rent to you in the future if you previously violated your >rental contract - e.g. took a rental into Mexico or drove it off-road, >in violation of the contract terms. Yep. For example: <http://www.elliott.org/blog/national-blacklists-customer-after-credit-card-dispute/> <http://www.elliott.org/the-troubleshooter/blacklisted-by-national/> Just about every business I work with (fixing computahs) has some kind of customer blacklist. The way I read the law, the rental company cannot use GPS data to tack on added charges, but seems to be allowed to use it for many other things, including running a blacklist. Break the rules, and we can't legally soak you. Just don't come back. Yep, that works. Incidentally, I think I may have violated the off-road part. The road to my house would have probably qualified as off-road or 4wd accessible. It might also have triggered an accelerometer limit. I didn't drive it off-road. Them were speed bumps. Also, GPS doesn't work very well in the hills and tall trees. -- Jeff Liebermann jeffl(a)cruzio.com 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
From: Char Jackson on 12 Feb 2010 13:26 On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 07:14:15 -0800, John Navas <spamfilter1(a)navasgroup.com> wrote: >On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:02:06 -0600, Char Jackson <none(a)none.invalid> >wrote in <icd9n55qpl61v3eau8ds7t6mg7uicupuqh(a)4ax.com>: > >>On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:44:24 GMT, sfdavidkaye2(a)yahoo.com (David Kaye) >>wrote: >> >>>Kurt Ullman <kurtullman(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >>> >>>> This is already being piloted. Some states are trying to decide if >>>>GPS reporting back to the State can be used for road taxes, since we are >>>>driving more miles with more efficiency and the old way isn't making >>>>enough money. >>> >>>Okay, you run a state. Your state is $20 billion in debt. Where do you cut? >> >>Radical, perhaps, but I'd put marijuana in the same category as >>alcohol. Make it available everywhere and tax it. Turn the $20b debt >>into a surplus. > >Unfortunately that would come at the expense of more productive economic >activity -- TANSTAAFL. Much the same logic is behind state-sponsored >gambling, which is mostly a tax on the poor, and thus beloved of more >well-to-do conservatives. Total hogwash, but I know better than to engage in a discussion with you, so go ahead by yourself.
From: JC Dill on 12 Feb 2010 13:59 Jeff Liebermann wrote: > Incidentally, I think I may have violated the off-road part. The road > to my house would have probably qualified as off-road or 4wd > accessible. It might also have triggered an accelerometer limit. I > didn't drive it off-road. Them were speed bumps. Also, GPS doesn't > work very well in the hills and tall trees. I'm pretty sure that dirt driveways aren't an issue. They would be much more inclined to blacklist someone for doing something like going miles on logging roads in the mountains, miles off-road into the desert on a road-trip to Vegas, or driving off-road into Black Rock City. Back-in-the-day you could rent an RV and say you were going camping near Tahoe but today you need to disclose that you *are* taking it to Burning Man and pay a surcharge for cleaning after you return it. jc
From: DanS on 12 Feb 2010 14:15 John Navas <spamfilter1(a)navasgroup.com> wrote in news:7v3bn5t7fthb9ckdthtog0lf2080lb979f(a)4ax.com: > On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:35:04 -0500, Kurt Ullman <kurtullman(a)yahoo.com> > wrote in <GJSdnYbfnaqlHujWnZ2dnUVZ_tRi4p2d(a)earthlink.com>: > >>In article <hlvan5tjr7b6eb7natg3st3213tf8nkj1q(a)4ax.com>, >> John Navas <spamfilter1(a)navasgroup.com> wrote: >> >>> >There is little or no correlation between money spent and >>> >educational outcomes. >>> >>> Patently not true. It's trivial to show that more money spent does >>> improve outcomes. >> >> Then do it for the first time ever. > > I've already proved the point. As I wrote, it's patently true. > You can (and probably will) argue about bang for the buck, but there's > simply no real question that there's a direct and strong correlation > between spending and educational outcomes. > > And in fact there have been many such studies; e.g., "Examining the > Relationship between Educational Outcomes and Gaps in Funding: An > Extension of the New York Adequacy Study" [Peabody Journal of Education, > v81 n2 p1-32 2006]: > > We find that for a majority of districts significantly higher levels > of spending are required if the state wishes to provide a sound basic > education to all public school students. FURTHERMORE, THE RESULTS > SHOW A CLEAR NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE DISTRICT-LEVEL > SHORTFALL IN SPENDING AND EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES ACROSS VIRTUALLY ALL > STUDENT SUBPOPULATIONS. [emphasis added] > >>Studies show that things like >>parental involvement, single parent households and socio-economic status >>have much bigger impact than money spent per pupil. > > They all have impact, which is why it's sweeping statements like yours > are no more than meaningless and misleading sound bites. > > "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics." Yep...and here's another one that counters your study.... http://www.heritage.org/research/Education/bg2179.cfm The final conclusions.... -American spending on public K�12 education is at an all-time high and is still rising. -Continuous spending increases have not cor�responded with equal improvement in Amer�ican educational performance. -Increasing federal funding on education has not been followed by similar gains in student achievement. -Education reform efforts should focus on improving resource allocation. Instead of sim�ply increasing funding, efforts to improve educa�tion should focus on improving resource allocation. There's even a chart entitled...Low Graduation Rates Common in Well- Funded City School Districts........ http://www.heritage.org/research/Education/images/b2179_chart5.gif
From: Brad Allen on 12 Feb 2010 14:26
" Don't think it will happen? Well, the automated traffic camera " system has about a 5-10% error rate, but continues to generate " revenue for its municipal customers. The FCC currently issues such " fines where the recipient is first presumed guilty. For example: " <http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2010/01/apple-gets-knuckles-rapped-with-fcc-fine.html> " Do you see any investigation? Nope. " " In my conspiratorial paranoia, this is not about law enforcement, " privacy violations, or constitutional rights. It's about revenue " enhancement by creating a law that is guaranteed to be broken, and " which has a fairly neat collection system available. A clue is that " Mueller does not want the ISP's to collect any content information, " which is exactly what one would need to defend oneself. Jeff, thank you for pointing out the dangerous directions this can go in. I am going to agree with parts of what you said and use your consideration of potentials as its own point of discussion. I think in both cases of red light camera and ISP tracking, a genuinely errored accusation can be properly fought in court. For instance, the right to question witnesses extends to all the programmers of the red light system. Money-grubbing governments the world over probaly bend over backwards to not pay for Australian programmers to testify in court for "traffic fine cases" as the government probably sees it, but as criminal accusations, either those cases must be thrown out, dismissed, charges unpressed, or the people presented to testify, even if the governments are so stupid as to hire someone so far away as Australia. Any step in the process of deciding to accuse that is errored needs to be able to be properly questioned with proper effect, and any portion of that decision making process that is created/designed/written/programmed must let the creation/design/writing/programming and creator/designer/writer/programmer be scrutinized. Furthermore, since creations/designs/writings/programs are often complex, just because other people have scrutinized it/them doesn't mean you don't get to scrutinize it yourself. Many errors/bugs are found by people who look for errors/bugs after others have already looked for errors/bugs and not found said errors/bugs. A judge can claim that the accused must suffer a greater bear of guilt because it is "difficult" for an Australian to show up to court or that programmers live in India or that a design is made by a high paid individual with a weird name, but that judge does not support the validity of the government and people which they serve, and one way or another, that judge's jurisdiction of such will be obviated. There is no need to farm out accusors to people so different from us that a judge cannot reconcile the differences, and especially no need to let a judge use that as an excuse to let the accusations go unverified in any way whatsoever. For all the cries from baby boomers that we our losing our freedoms and proper court challengability, they seem to skim quickly or skip over the truths of our still being able to assert our still existing rights. I don't doubt that there are horrendous signs of danger; I agree that there often are such signs. Nor do I say that because there is still the right of defense that everything is ok. But, to simply claim that at some point people are wholy giving up en masse because of a poor direction of governance, doesn't in itself state the absolute failure of all pieces. If nothing else, any sole individual who does not give up themselves has not failed, despite the cow-herd death-march mentality of the aging populations that led much of the sway in that direction. More importantly, before it becomes an occasional single person, I recommend people use their individualities and commonnesses to assert their rights when convenient AND when necessary even when not convenient. Perhaps you can take a false accusation in your stance, but suppose someone with a lot to loose from a conviction of a false charge does fight that charge: they ought to be able to, no matter how many others gave up, or even no matter how many times that particular individual gave up in the past. Brad Allen |