The Darker Side of the News

[Tyndmyr]

Probably a best-case outcome. Hard for them to blame those mean folks for their failure when they can't be bothered to show up/got chased off by rain.

Conflict can generate a sympathetic feeling of wanting to join in among aligned folks, but a blatant failure mostly just gets mockery, etc. Cheers.

[SuicideJunkie]

The Nazis also had problems with the weather back in the 40s.

[Zohar]

So on the day only 20 Nazis turned up, none of them were allowed firearms, hundreds of counter protesters drowned them out, and after a couple of hours it started raining so hard everyone went home.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45165656

This is the best news, I don't know why it's specifically in this thread, really.

[Mutex]

I only posted it here because this is where the march had been discussed up till now.

[Zohar]

Fair enough!

[gd1]

This can't be right, can it? Movie pass not allowing previously cancelled users to cancel again after re-enrolling them automatically.

EDIT: Fixed post to be more accurate.

[Quercus]

This can't be right, can it? Movie pass not allowing previously cancelled users to cancel again after re-enrolling them automatically.

EDIT: Fixed post to be more accurate.

That's when you give your credit card company a call and ask them to bar payments to MoviePass.

[Tyndmyr]

This can't be right, can it? Movie pass not allowing previously cancelled users to cancel again after re-enrolling them automatically.

EDIT: Fixed post to be more accurate.

Can confirm. Their phone number on the card itself tells you to cancel through the app. Sometimes the app doesn't allow cancellation, as in my case. It is also, at present, not allowing watching of movies! This makes it particularly useless. Anyways, if you manage to get a message to support through the app, they will close your ticket, informing you they only provide support for ongoing movie ticket purchases. I'm unsure how this works, given the eighteen hour delay before a response, but perhaps some moviegoers are patient sorts, sitting at the theater endlessly.

Anyways, emails/support tickets through website are also ignored.

The rational thing is to have your credit card company do a chargeback. At this point, it's fraud.

Some customers are reporting have their accounts reactivated if they have successfully cancelled, despite not even having the app on their phones.

[CorruptUser]

So that's what the CEO meant by having a new business model that'll work for them...

[idonno]

“If you had previously requested cancellation prior to opting-in, your opt-in to the new plan will take priority and your account will not be canceled,” reads a portion of an email sent to customers.

You cannot opt someone who has already severed ties with you into your new plan and charge their credit card for it and the notice specifically stating that they were going to do this is proof that it wasn't just an accident. It is straight up credit card fraud and they should be prosecuted for it even if their cancellation policy was working.

[Tyndmyr]

Yeah. You have to opt-in to the new plan to see any movies on your current subscription*, so if anyone *is* clicking the opt-in button, it's for that reason, not because they want to resubscribe. That assumption seems highly questionable on their part.

The fact that it's *also* happening to a wide range of people who have uninstalled the app is even more unjustifiable, though. No agreement can possibly have taken place.

*Assuming that it works, which is highly dubious at present.

[sardia]

Look, if you weren't smart enough to realize you signed your rights away with terms of service agreement at the beginning, it's your own fault. Said every Republican judge in his dreams.

It's funny because there's a more legal version where you just make it difficult to quit, and have automated monthly bills. By the time the customer figures out they want out, they already payed for another month.

[Chen]

“If you had previously requested cancellation prior to opting-in, your opt-in to the new plan will take priority and your account will not be canceled,” reads a portion of an email sent to customers.

You cannot opt someone who has already severed ties with you into your new plan and charge their credit card for it and the notice specifically stating that they were going to do this is proof that it wasn't just an accident. It is straight up credit card fraud and they should be prosecuted for it even if their cancellation policy was working.

But this seems to say if you cancelled, then opted in, we’re counting the latter. Which really does make sense since the last action is the opting-in one. But that doesnt appear to be what people are complaining about. They’re saying they cancelled and didnt do anything and were resubscribed.

[Tyndmyr]

It's funny because there's a more legal version where you just make it difficult to quit, and have automated monthly bills. By the time the customer figures out they want out, they already payed for another month.

Oh yeah. If they'd been scummy, but smarter, they could have gotten away with a ton more.

But then, if they were smarter, they might have not had an insane business plan to begin with. Moviepass was profitable, once upon a time, before they went crazy with it.

[LaserGuy]

Pennsylvania Grand Jury releases report identifying over 300 priests of sexually assaulting at least 1000 children over a 70 year period, with the Church supporting the coverup. The report notes that most of the incidents it is reporting on are well past the statute of limitations in the state, and its only recourse is to name and shame every single one of those 300 offenders and what they did in excruciating detail.

Washington Post has the story here. Full report is here. Not recommended reading if you're already having a bad day.

[addams]

“If you had previously requested cancellation prior to opting-in, your opt-in to the new plan will take priority and your account will not be canceled,” reads a portion of an email sent to customers.

You cannot opt someone who has already severed ties with you into your new plan and charge their credit card for it and the notice specifically stating that they were going to do this is proof that it wasn't just an accident. It is straight up credit card fraud and they should be prosecuted for it even if their cancellation policy was working.

But this seems to say if you cancelled, then opted in, we’re counting the latter. Which really does make sense since the last action is the opting-in one. But that doesnt appear to be what people are complaining about. They’re saying they cancelled and didnt do anything and were resubscribed.

GoDaddy was so hard to get out of, I closed the Bank Account to Stop them.
This may be a common way of making Big Bucks.

Wells Fargo made Millions by opening accounts and charging small but profitable fees without customer permission.

[sardia]

https://www.marketplace.org/2018/08/14/ ... ss-slavery

Slavery in the United States was a business. A morally reprehensible — and very profitable business. Much of the research around the business history of slavery focuses on the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the business interests that fueled it. The common narrative is that today's modern management techniques were developed in the factories in England and the industrialized North of the United States, not the plantations of the Caribbean and the American South.
According to a new book by historian Caitlin Rosenthal, that narrative is wrong.

Thanks white plantation slave owners for coming up with the foundation of our businesses. This relentless pursuit of profit did not reverberate through time, not at all...
One tidbit I noticed was the incentives program. "“They paired this data with incentives — both rewards and punishment — to increase output.” Punishments could be severe whipping or other forms of torture. There was even a case where those working in fields might receive a lash of the whip for every pound of cotton they came up short. Rewards might be extra food or clothing. Rosenthal also found records showing that slaveholders ran contests among groups of the enslaved. Often slaves would secretly rebel against such efforts by coordinating to lower overall output".

[CorruptUser]

That sets off my bullshit alarm for the simple reason that the British and Northern factory owners made far, far more profit from black slave labor than the Southern plantation owners could've ever dreamed of.

[Tyndmyr]

That sets off my bullshit alarm for the simple reason that the British and Northern factory owners made far, far more profit from black slave labor than the Southern plantation owners could've ever dreamed of.

Factories were an awful lot better in the long run, sure.

But people do dumb shit in pursuit of greed all the time. The idea of punishments scaling to provide better incentives doesn't seem unrealistic to me. Sometimes folks get stuck in a rut, and pursue the local maxima without really reconsidering things from the ground up.

[Dauric]

That sets off my bullshit alarm for the simple reason that the British and Northern factory owners made far, far more profit from black slave labor than the Southern plantation owners could've ever dreamed of.

Factories were an awful lot better in the long run, sure.

But people do dumb shit in pursuit of greed all the time. The idea of punishments scaling to provide better incentives doesn't seem unrealistic to me. Sometimes folks get stuck in a rut, and pursue the local maxima without really reconsidering things from the ground up.

I think the important part of the narrative isn't on whether northern factories or southern plantations were more or less profitable or better or worse to labor in, but rather that the modern employer/employee relationship has it's roots in industrialized slavery rather than something more egalitarian.

[sardia]

That sets off my bullshit alarm for the simple reason that the British and Northern factory owners made far, far more profit from black slave labor than the Southern plantation owners could've ever dreamed of.

So the origins of modern business tactics described in the article came from elsewhere? Do you have a link?

[CorruptUser]

Depreciation had its major origin in the railroad and early corporations.

While in the same time frame as the plantations, it wasnt invented for said plantations. The slave owners kids were sent to the best colleges, so it really wouldnt be all that unusual that they would try to apply what they learned.

[ucim]

This TED talk (The freakonomics of McDonalds vs. drugs | Steven Levitt) might be of relevance. It compares franchised fast food to the drug trade, in terms of business methods. Business is business.

Jose

[CorruptUser]

I mean, I too could pull some story out my ass to try and claim statistics was invented for slave owners, but everyone in statistics already knows the real origin of statistics; eugenics, nuclear weapons, and beer.

[CorruptUser]

CNN publishes story about a teen 'escaping' from Mayo Clinic, but leaves out the incredibly relevant details that the sisters had already been removed from the family and the mother had been found using meth and other drugs. Reading between the lines of the original story, the family seems like one of the most awful people to deal with as a doctor, constantly arguing and switching doctors, interrupting private conversations between doctors and nurses, etc. Also of note is that the mother had fought doctors recommendations that the daughter be taken off of opioids; if I was treating a patient whose mom was a drug addict that demanded the daughter be given opioids, what do you think my assumption is going to be?

EDIT: Better link for rebuttal

Really, bang-up job there, CNN. The problem with never letting facts get in the way of a good story, is that you destroy the credibility of the media as a whole. And when the MSM gets a reputation of being barely more than fake news, actual fake news like RT or Alex Jones is able to swoop in and undermine the country as a whole...

[sardia]

CNN publishes story about a teen 'escaping' from Mayo Clinic, but leaves out the incredibly relevant details that the sisters had already been removed from the family and the mother had been found using meth and other drugs. Reading between the lines of the original story, the family seems like one of the most awful people to deal with as a doctor, constantly arguing and switching doctors, interrupting private conversations between doctors and nurses, etc. Also of note is that the mother had fought doctors recommendations that the daughter be taken off of opioids; if I was treating a patient whose mom was a drug addict that demanded the daughter be given opioids, what do you think my assumption is going to be?

EDIT: Better link for rebuttal

Really, bang-up job there, CNN. The problem with never letting facts get in the way of a good story, is that you destroy the credibility of the media as a whole. And when the MSM gets a reputation of being barely more than fake news, actual fake news like RT or Alex Jones is able to swoop in and undermine the country as a whole...

So like, how is the patient doing? And are the cops still looking for her? Or did everyone just give up?

[Zamfir]

Depreciation had its major origin in the railroad and early corporations.

While in the same time frame as the plantations, it wasnt invented for said plantations. The slave owners kids were sent to the best colleges, so it really wouldnt be all that unusual that they would try to apply what they learned.

Caitlin explicitly claims that this is wrong, for example:

Give me an example of this more scientific approach on plantations.

Many plantations used a standard accounting system described in Thomas Affleck’s Plantation Record and Account Books. These books contained several advanced techniques, including instructions on how to calculate depreciation. Some scholars think depreciation took off with the railroads in the late 19th century. But by the 1840s planters were depreciating their slaves. They appraised their inventory at market value, compared that with its past market value to assess appreciation or depreciation, calculated an allowance for interest, and used this to determine their capital costs. In a sense they were marking slaves to market. It’s really as sophisticated as what most firms do today.

From https://hbr.org/2013/09/plantations-pra ... management

I can't judge her claim, but she didn't just forget about the railroads.

[CorruptUser]

If she wanted to claim that plantations were run with much more finesse than previously thought, that's one thing. Even in ancient times, business practices were much more sophisticated than people realize. Your derivatives markets with futures contracts? They've been around in various forms for thousands of years. The problem is she appears to be attempting to shoehorn this narrative that modern business was invented by the plantations, with the unspoken but clearly implied message that capitalism is the heir to racist slavery.

Incentivizing workers? EVERY business has done that, and yes slave owning ones did too, all the way back to ancient Greece and probably before. Overseers as the first salaried middle managers? Shes ignoring the entire history of the Roman empire and its economy (where do you think the term "salary" comes from?), not to mention China and Japan which also had salaried administrators and such, in order to force the narrative that it was invented specifically for the trans Atlantic slave trade.

[LaserGuy]

New study reports that water usage in hydraulic fracking has increased almost 800% in just five years, and that the process is starting to put major stress on local watersheds as much of the water used in fracking is either lost in the shale and essentially permanently inaccessible, or comes out so polluted that it is functionally useless. The study estimates that the water usage from fracking will increase by a factor of 50 by 2030.

This is maybe a dumb question, but why are we using freshwater for this? Is it just an accessibility thing?

[Sableagle]

Maybe seawater would rust their precious pipes.

[sardia]

Maybe seawater would rust their precious pipes.

Water is very heavy. The salt thing doesn't help either. Most shale formations aren't by the ocean either. My question is, why not just pump the water back out?

[bbluewi]

Maybe seawater would rust their precious pipes.

Water is very heavy. The salt thing doesn't help either. Most shale formations aren't by the ocean either. My question is, why not just pump the water back out?

That would cost money, and as we all know, profits are greater than people. Why work to maintain a livable environment for other people when you can squeeze every penny from it and then say "I've got mine, fuck you"?

[sardia]

Well, lack of regulations or no, it brings up another quirk of water use laws. The price of water is dirt cheap, which makes no sense. The reason they aren't pumping the water back to reuset because it's cheaper to buy more water. They really should have a progressive price structure to water. First gallon is free, the last cost a buttload , and have it curve up rapidly from there. You want to power wash your boat and car in a drought?, pay up.

[addams]

My question is, why not just pump the water back out?

Earthquakes, my darling.
People of the inland States were frightened of California Earthquakes.
Now, they have more Earthquakes per day than San Andreas does.
https://earthquakes.ok.gov/what-we-know/

[speising]

I remember the times when earthquake machines were doomsday devices of mad supervillains in goofy comics...

[CorruptUser]

Water is a renewable resource. Sort of. As long as the water is being taken from the rivers and lakes, but importantly, NOT aquifers, there's an effectively infinite amount of it... as long as you aren't using so much more of it than comes back through rainfall.

In terms of global warming and rising oceans, stuffing the water underground sequesters the water and both lowers the ocean level by an imperceptibly small amount and reduces water vapor in the atmosphere by an also imperceptibly small amount (which is a worse greenhouse gas than CO2; the slight increase in temperature from CO2 causes more vapor to be in the atmosphere and causes an even higher increase in temperature). But I doubt this offsets the extra CO2 from burning all the gas.

[addams]

This young woman haunts me.

Death of Sandra Bland. Sandra Bland was a 28-year-old black woman who was found hanged in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas, on July 13, 2015, three days after being arrested during a traffic stop.

She was a University Graduate.
She was driving home from getting her first Dream Job.

If she does not haunt you...
Don't worry. I'll make sure she does.

When I was, just, a bit younger than Sandy,
My best friend was murdered.

They even killed her Dog.
Sandy's all mixed up with Patty for me.

Those were lives that were taken too soon.

[Sableagle]

Well, it's a very haunted world. Part of the process of growing up is abandoning 99% of the idealism that your parents hoped would shape the world into a better place for you and your children than it was for them.

[sardia]

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/22/64081507 ... chief-says
As fire fighters desperately battle blaze, Verizon refuses to limit data caps until the fire department paid to "upgrade" the data plan. Apparently Verizon says the customer service rep made a 'mistake' as fires were raging.
I like the final sentence from Verizon, "please don't blame on net neutrality".

Is this a good example of why net neutrality needs to exist?

[EdgarJPublius]

It had nothing to do with Net Neutrality, if anything, it illustrates that Net Neutrality doesn't do anything to address many of the most predatory aspects of the telecom oligopolies and that perhaps a different approach is needed.