I don’t drive on freeways much anymore, but are there still trucks that have signs on the back that state something like “This truck pays $4,362 per year in taxes.”
Shouldn’t there also be a sign that says the government provides $x,xxx per year in services to this truck”?
What is the pro-rata cost of highways for each truck? Snow-plowing? Police investigation of crashes? Police protection of auto drivers harassed by tailgating truckers?
It seems more that someone benefits from taxes the more they complain about taxes. Corporations want well-educated employees, but they don’t want to pay the taxes to educate future employees. They want to sue those they claim have wronged them, but they don’t want to pay the taxes for courts. They want laws to protect their interests, but don’t want to pay the costs of enforcement.
Corporations and others want a military that costs more than then next two or three next largest militaries, but they don’t want to pay the taxes to support that military.
Showing posts with label crash. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crash. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 07, 2017
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Technology: A Big Bother We Can’t Do Without
Technology: A Big Bother We Can’t Do Without
Life is so much easier with technology,
but it's care and feeding can be time consuming at the wrong time.
but it's care and feeding can be time consuming at the wrong time.
Harvey Mackay, author of Swim with the Sharks without Being Eaten Alive, recently wrote a paean to technology (Star Tribune, 3 Feb 2000). In the main I agree with him that technology has given us lots of freedom: freedom to travel, freedom to communicate, freedom to enjoy art, and on and on.
Many of us have traveled far and wide thanks to technology. Even in our local travels technology has given us more and more freedom. I remember when tires lasted 10,000 miles and oil was changed every 1,000 miles. Now many tires are guaranteed for 50,000 miles and oil can be changed every 6,000 miles. And I’m glad “they don’t build them like they used to.” My current vehicle has nearly 60,000 miles and has never broken down (not including a flat tire); it’s the first of over a dozen vehicles to give such reliable service.
Many of us no longer write letters and articles with pen. I have moved from pen to mechanical typewriters whose keys stuck to electric typewriters and carbon paper for copies to computers from which I can send as many copies as I want anywhere in the world.
Unfortunately, computer technology has not become as reliable as the modern automobile. In fact, the reliability of computer technology seems to be inversely proportional to the complexity of the technology.
In a speech given in 1998 Gary Bachula, then Acting Undersecretary for Technology in the Department of Commerces, tells a good anecdote about the computer/auto comparison. Bill Gates said that if autos were like computers they would weigh 30 pounds, get a 1,000 miles per gallon of gas, and cost less than $500. Bachula responds that if autos were like computers they would crash twice a day, stop and fail to restart, and have to have the engine reinstalled periodically.
Bachula's speech contains several other items where computer technology fails to meet our needs.
Ten years ago, some software crashed but online connections seemed rather stable. We could send email without problem though only to people on the same network. We could download kilobytes of software but it seemed to take forever, or at least all evening.
Now email packages contain a great array of editing and formatting features, a number of user defined mailboxes to organize messages, and more features than most people can use. We can send email to almost anyone with a computer anywhere in the world. But the email software might crash when organizing the mailboxes and lose all the mail we just sent.
Now we can download megabytes of software and it still seems like forever, but it takes only an hour or so. But, the browser may crash or decide that it has received everything even though it has a few megabytes to go.
Now we can print pages that look like they came out of a book and with multiple colors. But then when we have a deadline, the system may say that it can’t find the printer or the cartridge starts smearing or the system crashes every time we try to print more than a few pages.
To make matters worse, we have to maintain our computers a lot more. In the simpler days we only had to dust the computer once in a while, change the printer ribbon occasionally, and clean the disk reader head periodically.
Now there seems to be lots of care and feeding of the operating system and many programs. We have to make sure all the programs are compatible with our settings of the system. We may have to track down some weird setting that is not even mentioned in the manuals to make something work. Every so often we have to do a “clean install” of the system or a program to get rid of an accretion of stuff whose purpose we know not. We have to defragment our hard drives periodically to make our software run more efficiently.
It is ironic that as the computers become easier to use, they require more work to use.
This is but a part of a trend of a larger issue: pushing costs off to the end user. Costs may be monetary or may be of time. ATMs can be a great convenience but banks push the costs to the user with transaction fees. Public Radio’s 75Music closed its 800 number and opened a web site. It saved on personnel costs but it takes more customer time to gain information online than it did to talk to a live person.
This trend was brought up over 25 years ago in a computer publication that few even in computer professions read, which is too bad. The article was “Guidelines for Humanizing Computerized Information Systems: A Report from Stanley House” by Theodor D. Sterling; it was published in Communications of the ACM, November 1974. The portion that has stuck in my mind is “One of the most common methods of increasing the efficiency of a system is to employ the recipients of the service as unpaid components whose time, effort, and use of intelligence do not appear in the cost accounting.”
I missed my calling. Instead of being a pseudo-retired programmer, I should have been a successful envelope salesman like Harvey Mackay. Then instead of spending so much of my time in the care and feeding of my computer, I could have passed the problems on to my IT department and forgotten about it.
Addendum: 2014-09-18
Our use of technology has changed greatly in the ten years since I wrote the above. And the change will probably be even greater in the next ten years. In the ten years since the above, the number of problems has probably increased even more than the benefits. I sometimes I think I spend more time searching for solutions to things that don’t work right than I do actually doing something with the technology.
For example, I have a more powerful computer with software that can do much more than ten years ago. But it seems like it takes ten times as long for a program to load now than then. Supposedly, I can take some steps to improve this. However, I think it will take me two or more weeks of full time effort to back everything up, weed out unnecessary files, and do a “clean install”. When do the two minute waits for a program to load accumulate to be more than the two weeks of new installation? I think I might just hold out until the next time I upgrade, possibly two to four years from now.
©2000, 2004, 2007, 2014 Melvyn D. Magree
keywords: Harvey Mackay, technology, computers, software, problems, cost benefit, end user, crash, slow response, clean install, Theodore D. Stirling, Gary Bachula, ACM, Association for Computing Machinery
Tuesday, September 02, 2014
Insurance: good claim service, roundabout technical support
When I hit the bear in June (http://magree.blogspot.com/2014/06/bear-with-me-as-i-am-mad-and-sad.html) I received prompt and courteous service from the online representative to the adjuster to the auto body shop.
When I tried to find where the iPhone App to access my information, I had to go through a cycle of three messages. On the envelope from some recent documents, there was an ad to have insurance ID cards on my phone. “Download it today in the Apple App Store or Google Play.” I could not find it in the Apple App Store no matter what search words I used.
I sent email to the insurance company. The first reply was to supply my insurance ID and phone number. I supplied those and received the reply “available in… the Apple store…”
Surely she couldn’t mean a physical Apple Store. I tried iTunes and bingo! I sent that news back and received no reply, not even a thank-you for the clarification.
In 2013 there were some rave reviews for the App but the only 2014 reviewer claimed it would not accept his ID and password. I downloaded it anyway.
None of the screens showed me my insurance ID card, no matter how many promising links I tried. Then I figured I had to click the lock in the upper right had corner. Then I had a screen asking for my username and password. Now I could navigate to copies of the IDs for both cars. But, oh, it was so easy to misinterpret where the navigation triangles would take me. Often I wound up back at the log-in screen.
All-in-all I would say that the app was more inconvenient than digging around in the glove compartment for the ID card. When I hit the bear, I think I found our insurance papers in less time that it would take me to log on to the app. Also, I don’t need an app to call in a claim; I have the claim number in my contact list. I can find that phone number in about the same time as I could find the app icon on the right screen.
When I tried to find where the iPhone App to access my information, I had to go through a cycle of three messages. On the envelope from some recent documents, there was an ad to have insurance ID cards on my phone. “Download it today in the Apple App Store or Google Play.” I could not find it in the Apple App Store no matter what search words I used.
I sent email to the insurance company. The first reply was to supply my insurance ID and phone number. I supplied those and received the reply “available in… the Apple store…”
Surely she couldn’t mean a physical Apple Store. I tried iTunes and bingo! I sent that news back and received no reply, not even a thank-you for the clarification.
In 2013 there were some rave reviews for the App but the only 2014 reviewer claimed it would not accept his ID and password. I downloaded it anyway.
None of the screens showed me my insurance ID card, no matter how many promising links I tried. Then I figured I had to click the lock in the upper right had corner. Then I had a screen asking for my username and password. Now I could navigate to copies of the IDs for both cars. But, oh, it was so easy to misinterpret where the navigation triangles would take me. Often I wound up back at the log-in screen.
All-in-all I would say that the app was more inconvenient than digging around in the glove compartment for the ID card. When I hit the bear, I think I found our insurance papers in less time that it would take me to log on to the app. Also, I don’t need an app to call in a claim; I have the claim number in my contact list. I can find that phone number in about the same time as I could find the app icon on the right screen.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Bear with me as I am mad and sad
I went to our cabin last Thursday intending to stay through Sunday, trying to catch up on all kinds of undone tasks, including lots of un-mowed trails. Although thunderstorms were predicted, I followed my old habits of weather prediction interpretation. If good weather is predicted for the day, then the weather will be good. If bad weather is predicted, then the weather may not be as bad as predicted.
My assumptions proved warranted. I had gray weather but very little rain. The grass was too wet to mow mostly because of dew, but I did set to on many other tasks.
No, I don’t make our cabin a sweat farm as a DNR forester warned us years ago. My preferred rhythm is an hour of some wood cutting, brush clearing, or whatever and then an hour of reading, playing SuDoKu, or browsing the web.
My wife didn’t join me partly because she wasn’t so optimistic about the weather and partly because she had a long list of activities she wanted to do in Duluth. Also we did have a guest but we often let the guest take care of himself.
Well, it was a good thing my wife stayed behind. The guest managed to clog the toilet and left for his planned activity. My wife tried the hot water treatment, the plunger treatment, and the snake treatment. Nothing worked to unblock the toilet.
When she called me to report this, I decided I should come back to Duluth to help her. One hour later I was home.
I tried the snake and could not get it in as far as I knew it should go. Then I pushed the snake while my wife turned the handle. Success! We cleared it!
My feeling that I had to come back to Duluth was my first “mad” of the day.
I headed back to Brimson. I declined making coffee at home and opted to get some at Bixby’s. I had to wait a bit, chatted with the barista, and was on my way.
As had been true most of the last part of the week, Duluth was foggy, but from Glenwood and north it was clear. I turned off Jean Duluth Road and proceeded east on Hwy 44. I passed the marsh and drove among the trees where it was darker.
Then a black shape came from the right. It was a black bear that walked right into my car which slammed into its head. I stopped as quickly as I could. Looking behind me, I saw the bear lying of the side of the road, its head over the solid white line.
I called 911 with a non-emergency call. I reported the incident and was transferred to the state highway patrol. The state dispatcher said the DNR would be notified.
Several people stopped to ask if I was OK. I said I was fine and that authorities had been be notified. Some said the bear was still alive and that I should stay away from it. One man said he could get his gun and shoot the bear.
Finally I inspected the damage. There was a small triangular break in the front bumper and a piece of trim was hanging down to the road on one side. Later I found that the wheel well plastic was loose and the right side of the bumper was loose.
I walked back to the bear, probably about two hundred pounds and three to four years old. It was breathing with great quick heaves.
I walked back to my car and picked up lots of pieces of auto debris. These can’t all be mine! Many were in shapes I didn’t recognize. There must have been previous crashes here.
A sheriff’s deputy pulled up by the bear and I walked back. He checked my auto license on his computer and asked for other details. He gave me a case number for insurance purposes.
I walked back to my car and got out some tools to get the hanging trim off. While I was doing this, I heard “crack”. The deputy shot the bear.
This was both a mad and sad event. I was mad that it had even occurred and I was sad for the bear.
Finally, I called my insurance company while all the details were fresh in my memory.
As I drove off, I got mad again. The sun was out and I had missed some good working and loafing time at the cabin.
Sunday the prediction for Brimson was more thunderstorms. Fortunately, that didn’t deter my wife from joining me. The weather was a mix of clear and cloudy with only a brief bit of pitter-patter when I was reading in the screen tent. I got lots of grass mowed and she picked rhubarb for next week’s Rhubarb Festival.
On the way back I noticed how dark the area of the incident was compared to the marsh area to the west.
I also had another mad. Three drivers behind me didn’t want to go the speed limit and were bunched up behind me, the first car being three or four car-lengths behind me. If this same group had been behind me when I had stopped for the bear, I would have had rear-end damage as well as front-end damage.
Mel's first Reader article was "Bear Stories", published in the September 30, 1999 Northland Reader..
The current article was also published in the Reader Weekly, June 26, 2014 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/06/26/3622_bear_with_me_as_i_am_mad_and_sad.
My assumptions proved warranted. I had gray weather but very little rain. The grass was too wet to mow mostly because of dew, but I did set to on many other tasks.
No, I don’t make our cabin a sweat farm as a DNR forester warned us years ago. My preferred rhythm is an hour of some wood cutting, brush clearing, or whatever and then an hour of reading, playing SuDoKu, or browsing the web.
My wife didn’t join me partly because she wasn’t so optimistic about the weather and partly because she had a long list of activities she wanted to do in Duluth. Also we did have a guest but we often let the guest take care of himself.
Well, it was a good thing my wife stayed behind. The guest managed to clog the toilet and left for his planned activity. My wife tried the hot water treatment, the plunger treatment, and the snake treatment. Nothing worked to unblock the toilet.
When she called me to report this, I decided I should come back to Duluth to help her. One hour later I was home.
I tried the snake and could not get it in as far as I knew it should go. Then I pushed the snake while my wife turned the handle. Success! We cleared it!
My feeling that I had to come back to Duluth was my first “mad” of the day.
I headed back to Brimson. I declined making coffee at home and opted to get some at Bixby’s. I had to wait a bit, chatted with the barista, and was on my way.
As had been true most of the last part of the week, Duluth was foggy, but from Glenwood and north it was clear. I turned off Jean Duluth Road and proceeded east on Hwy 44. I passed the marsh and drove among the trees where it was darker.
Then a black shape came from the right. It was a black bear that walked right into my car which slammed into its head. I stopped as quickly as I could. Looking behind me, I saw the bear lying of the side of the road, its head over the solid white line.
I called 911 with a non-emergency call. I reported the incident and was transferred to the state highway patrol. The state dispatcher said the DNR would be notified.
Several people stopped to ask if I was OK. I said I was fine and that authorities had been be notified. Some said the bear was still alive and that I should stay away from it. One man said he could get his gun and shoot the bear.
Finally I inspected the damage. There was a small triangular break in the front bumper and a piece of trim was hanging down to the road on one side. Later I found that the wheel well plastic was loose and the right side of the bumper was loose.
I walked back to the bear, probably about two hundred pounds and three to four years old. It was breathing with great quick heaves.
I walked back to my car and picked up lots of pieces of auto debris. These can’t all be mine! Many were in shapes I didn’t recognize. There must have been previous crashes here.
A sheriff’s deputy pulled up by the bear and I walked back. He checked my auto license on his computer and asked for other details. He gave me a case number for insurance purposes.
I walked back to my car and got out some tools to get the hanging trim off. While I was doing this, I heard “crack”. The deputy shot the bear.
This was both a mad and sad event. I was mad that it had even occurred and I was sad for the bear.
Finally, I called my insurance company while all the details were fresh in my memory.
As I drove off, I got mad again. The sun was out and I had missed some good working and loafing time at the cabin.
Sunday the prediction for Brimson was more thunderstorms. Fortunately, that didn’t deter my wife from joining me. The weather was a mix of clear and cloudy with only a brief bit of pitter-patter when I was reading in the screen tent. I got lots of grass mowed and she picked rhubarb for next week’s Rhubarb Festival.
On the way back I noticed how dark the area of the incident was compared to the marsh area to the west.
I also had another mad. Three drivers behind me didn’t want to go the speed limit and were bunched up behind me, the first car being three or four car-lengths behind me. If this same group had been behind me when I had stopped for the bear, I would have had rear-end damage as well as front-end damage.
Mel's first Reader article was "Bear Stories", published in the September 30, 1999 Northland Reader..
The current article was also published in the Reader Weekly, June 26, 2014 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/06/26/3622_bear_with_me_as_i_am_mad_and_sad.
Monday, April 18, 2011
There oughta be a law?
This blog entry was triggered by the latest "Ask a Trooper" in the Duluth News Tribune, "Common sense, not law, rules against 'short cuts'", 2011-04-17.
A reader wrote about people who cut through gas stations and parking lots to avoid waiting at controlled intersections. The reader could not find any law or statute prohibiting it.
Minnesota State Patrol Sgt. Mark Baker, who writes the column, could not find any either. He wrote that reckless and careless driving laws could apply and that he too found this behavior irritating.
I found his conclusion irritating though: "we all know that this is not the proper way to maneuver vehicles on our roadways and through our cities. Do we really need a law to tell us this is not proper?"
His question can be taken one step further; do we really need any law to tell us what is not proper? The answer is that it depends.
My thought is that we have laws for three reasons.
First, laws guide us in getting along with each other. We have lines painted on roads to guide us. We have laws to remind us that it is improper to cross solid yellow lines. Many people can't be bothered by these laws. Just look at the faded yellow lines on curves that hundreds of drivers have crossed.
Second, laws guide law enforcement people in stopping offenders as a deterrent for others. Unfortunately, many offenders blame law enforcement rather than themselves.
Third, laws help establishment responsibility in crashes. The driver who crossed a solid yellow line may bear more responsibility for a crash than someone going five miles per hour over the limit.
Sgt. Baker, the writer, you, and I know that we do not "need a law to tell us this is not proper", but we certainly need laws to be enforced to remind all the drivers who speed, tailgate, text, talk on cell phones, and otherwise engage in other anti-social and unsafe behaviors that their behavior has an effect on the rest of us.
A reader wrote about people who cut through gas stations and parking lots to avoid waiting at controlled intersections. The reader could not find any law or statute prohibiting it.
Minnesota State Patrol Sgt. Mark Baker, who writes the column, could not find any either. He wrote that reckless and careless driving laws could apply and that he too found this behavior irritating.
I found his conclusion irritating though: "we all know that this is not the proper way to maneuver vehicles on our roadways and through our cities. Do we really need a law to tell us this is not proper?"
His question can be taken one step further; do we really need any law to tell us what is not proper? The answer is that it depends.
My thought is that we have laws for three reasons.
First, laws guide us in getting along with each other. We have lines painted on roads to guide us. We have laws to remind us that it is improper to cross solid yellow lines. Many people can't be bothered by these laws. Just look at the faded yellow lines on curves that hundreds of drivers have crossed.
Second, laws guide law enforcement people in stopping offenders as a deterrent for others. Unfortunately, many offenders blame law enforcement rather than themselves.
Third, laws help establishment responsibility in crashes. The driver who crossed a solid yellow line may bear more responsibility for a crash than someone going five miles per hour over the limit.
Sgt. Baker, the writer, you, and I know that we do not "need a law to tell us this is not proper", but we certainly need laws to be enforced to remind all the drivers who speed, tailgate, text, talk on cell phones, and otherwise engage in other anti-social and unsafe behaviors that their behavior has an effect on the rest of us.
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