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FidelCashflow's comments

FidelCashflow | 7 years ago | on: The Headlight of the Future Is a Laser

I'm in a rural area with literally zero street illumination. I cannot begin to describe my frustration with the blue tint, ultra bright lights, and off-road LED light bars. Install those on every other lifted truck (redneck's a plenty) and night time driving is hazardous.

I don't care who installed the lights, whether it was the factory, the current or previous driver/owner. If I can't see because of your lights, they're too damn bright.

FidelCashflow | 7 years ago | on: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online

I pay for recurring stuff with a CC for this very reason. I had an insurance company refuse to cancel my insurance unless I physically came into their office all the way across town (would have been about two hours of my time when it was all said and done) to show them proof that I had insurance through another agency. I declined that request and explained that they simply weren't getting paid any more. I called the number on my card and explained the situation to them and that I told them to stop billing me and they refused. The rep noted this issue on the account. Sure enough, they didn't stop billing me. I called the card company again to report that the insurance company had billed me again. They immediately reversed the charges and blocked all further charges from the company.

The insurance agent reported me to DMV (the relationship had soured pretty badly before this all happened) for not having insurance. It was a 2 minute call to my new insurance agent to let them to know to send proof of coverage to DMV. Problem solved in ~10 minutes of my time instead of 2 hours.

FidelCashflow | 7 years ago | on: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use

It seems less than coincidental that your second poll was in the late 80's when the crack epidemic was in full swing. Parallel that to the opiate of now, and I think the dramatic swing can be normalized quite a lot.

FidelCashflow | 7 years ago | on: Emergency room patients can face steep bills even when treatment is declined

That may be the case in an "emergency" that threatens your life. But if you come to the ER with something that doesn't fall into that category? Something life changing like a detached tendon in your hand that will* render your hand permanently useless for life if not fixed within a few days? No insurance? Fork over 50% of the cost of the surgery, upfront, before they'll do anything about it. (this happened to somebody I know)

FidelCashflow | 8 years ago | on: Apple Watch Adoption

And I, as an informed consumer, acknowledge that the my electronic devices are not going to last more than a few years due to either mechanical failure and/or processing limitations. To counter this, I don't buy the latest and greatest anything. My $60 (USD) Samsung J3 does everything that I ask of it and it feels light-years ahead of the HTC 626s that I bought ~2 years ago for $80. It finally died of mechanical failure and it didn't make me feel anything at all to drop sixty dollars and change on a new model.

I'll never understand the consumer dynamic that allows there to be a never-ending lineup of $800+ phones at every store that sells electronics. Congratulations, your [electronic device] was expensive and in about two years, you're going to need a new one, just the same.

FidelCashflow | 8 years ago | on: Cora – Kitty Hawk's prototype air taxi [video]

Am I the only one who finds it endlessly annoying to refer to anything that's primarily (or exclusively) powered by a battery as "green" or "emissions free" or "pollution free" or anything else?

What about the energy to manufacture, ship, assemble, design, test (or clean up when it fails), etc. That all takes energy and most of that energy probably comes from coal or some other environmental nightmare resource.

FidelCashflow | 8 years ago | on: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan

I'm not sorry to say that Candy Japan will never see any of my money for the simple fact that there's no way that I'll sign up for anything that expects a recurring charge. The whole "service" attitude is flawed in that this is not a service, software as a whole is not a "service" it's an end product. Good for everyone whose pulling money out of these schemes but not a single cent of it will come from me. And $29/mo * 12 = $348 per year. (forming assumptions about the contract i.e. predatory "cancel early" clause and similar) On candy? give me a break, I don't spend that on candy over 5 years even if you include other needless crap like soda and sports drinks I doubt I'd hit that number over 5 years.

I should also add that I'm the epitome of anti-advertisement. The more that I am forced to see (thinking of YT style of ads here) an ad, the more likely I am to NOT* use that product or service. In fact, the more likely I am to purposely avoid that product out of spite.

FidelCashflow | 8 years ago | on: New DHS policy on demands for passwords to travelers’ electronic devices

We should resist this by wasting as much time as humanly possible. How about carrying multiple data devices with brute force able encryption for meaningless data? Encrypted linux ISOs, 8051 datasheets, trivial C programs, etc. There's clearly a file structure in place, it's clearly not easily readable, the person who was carrying it will not (or maybe cannot because they genuinely don't know) divulge how to read it. All this just to waste their time and resources dealing with piles of this shit.

Anybody remember that USB stick that kills whatever it's plugged into? I could throw 2-3 of those into my luggage and forget about them.

FidelCashflow | 8 years ago | on: Hundreds ‘Rickrolled’ in Campus Prank at Cornell

I was in a very popular bar with a group of friends one rather busy Friday / Saturday night. They were playing all kinds of great music and the crowd was thoroughly enjoying it until somebody* played Wham - Careless Whisper. I have vivid memory of one drunk guy about to smash the jukebox and swearing while the mood in the bar was destroyed for almost 8 minutes.

FidelCashflow | 8 years ago | on: How We Bootstrapped Our SaaS Startup to Ramen Profitability

S!=aS. I can't think of many instances where I'd pay a recurring fee for the use of a piece of code. Code to me is an end-product, meaning, I buy it then I own it in perpetuity. I still have my copy of XP from the Paleozoic era but it's still mine and if I choose, I could spin it up. I can only think of two instances where I'd agree S[is]aS; signing up for a full class, and buying tickets. I thought both of these were clever ideas but I'd still be hard pressed to agree to pay anybody else for this "service."

That said, hat's off to those of you who make this work.

FidelCashflow | 8 years ago | on: U.S. House approves proposal to speed the deployment of self-driving cars

I make the argument that the majority of our interactions with law enforcement (for those of us who are otherwise generally well mannered) stem from some driving related instance. This is the true pathway for most of us to get tangled up in the [broken[ revolving door of the legal system. I am 100% all for self driving cars and look forward to owning one as soon as there are no controls for me to interact with at any time during travel. i.e. no steering wheel, no gas or brake pedals, nothing and therefore no reason to be pulled over. I want the car to be treated legally as an extension to my home; anything that I do / can do at home can also be done in the car. I want a cocktail? take it from the house into the car while it takes me to my destination.
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