Two questions
 

On 9/22/2015 9:57 AM, Alan Browne wrote:
On 2015-09-21 20:15, nospam wrote:

apple is anti-drm and fought the record companies to have drm-free
music.

They certainly are hard core DRM where video is concerned.



Also their propitiatory code.

--
PeterN

Two questions
 

On 2015-09-22 17:10, PeterN wrote:
On 9/22/2015 10:49 AM, Alan Browne wrote:
On 2015-09-22 02:17, Tony Cooper wrote:

The issue is a requirement made by a doctor, hospital, or insurance
provider. If you refuse, they can refuse to take you on.

To me that would be both a violation of legal use of the SSN as well
refusing service based on an illegal demand for information.

(It's more or less the same here - SIN cannot be used for non goverment
purposes and some specific things such as bank accounts). The ins. co's
use it in spades, of course.



Here it can be, which was my reason for bringing up the subject.
Notwithstanding legal or not, when someone is feeling sick, or in pain,
most people I know will sign anything and give any requested information.

I sincerely hope that no one here is in that situation.

So why isn't it addressed after the fact?

Why don't people write to the ins. co. and challenge their use of the SSN?

Why don't people file a complaint with (insert appropriate US /
state agency here) ?

Two questions
 

On 2015-09-22 17:30, Tony Cooper wrote:
On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 16:26:02 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , PeterN
wrote:


Not long ago I made a small purchase and charged it to my AMEX card. The
clerk wanted to see my driver's license. I showed it to him, but would
not let it leave my hand. He insisted he wanted to copy it, and that his
manager required it. I refused and threatened to report the incident to
the FBI, as an attempted identity theft. The clerk quickly backed down.

be careful or tony will accuse you of something or other.

Nah. That's just a case of Peter being better at bluffing than the
clerk. There are two most-expected outcomes to that scenario:

1. The clerk says to go ahead and call the FBI and refuses to ring up
the purchase. Peter storms out and buys the product somewhere else
thus wasting his time and gas. Even retired, Peter has better things
to do than wait around for a Fibbie to appear. Clerk wins.

Store lost.


2. The clerk caves and rings up the purchase using the AMEX card but
without copying Peter's driver's license. Peter exits smugly. Peter
wins.

Win-win.


There are some other scenarios possible including two large tattooed
people, one of them male, threatening to stomp both Peter and the
clerk if they don't work this out and let the rest of the people in
line get checked out.

Management 101.


Another might be that the manager of the store is brought in to
mediate. This could branch off into two separate paths. One being
the manager telling Peter to take his business elsewhere and the other

Store loses. Manager didn't take M 101.

being the manager telling the clerk to take a hike. This may depend
on whether not the clerk knows that the manager is boning a female
cashier at the store and might tell the manager's wife.

This leads to accounting 333. (Introduction to Forensic Accounting)


One last scenario: They both agree to call nospam because nospam
knows all about everything. nospam will rule for Peter unless it's a
transaction in an Apple Store and Apple people are never wrong.

Fantasy writing 109.

Two questions
 

On 9/22/2015 11:11 AM, PAS wrote:
"Mayayana" wrote in message
...
| I'm going to have to disagree here, based on experience. I used to
| always build my own, and I've gone back to it, but I don't see any
| significant cost savings at all. It's even worse if you have to buy
| the OS.
|

I find it's a lot like other things, where the cheaper
it is, the more of a bargain. In other words, you
can't save anything over a cheap PC. They get parts
very cheap and have low profit margins. But you can
build a very good machine for less than higher end
PC costs.

Similarly with something like a bookshelf. If you just
need melamine on particle board, you can't buy the
materials for what it costs to buy the whole shelf. But
if you want a nice hardwood shelf and you can make
it, you might save significant money. Assmebly line junk
is cheap. Labor is expensive.

One thing I'd add: Never go to Microcenter if you don't
have to. They're a discount store. Packages are often
dented. Many years ago I bought parts there. Something
went wrong. I narrowed it down to either the board or
the CPU. I couldn't tell which was faulty. So I brought
back both. They refused to allow an exchange or refund!
I never bought parts from them again. I don't think their
refusal was even legal, but I wasn't going to go to court
over it. On the other hand, nor was I going to buy from
them if they wouldn't back up the products. There are too
many faulty electronics to not be able to return an item.

I bought a few components at Micro Center for my recent build and I have
no issues with any of them. I bought a case, CPU, power supply, and
liquid cooler. Nothing was damaged, including the packaging. Everything
is fine. Where Peter and I live, Micro Center is about the only place
we can get this stuff and it's quite a drive for me. I don't consider
them a "discount store" but they do have good deals.

As for their refusal to accept a return or exchange, I find that
disturbing and I'd be really ticked off too. You may not have had any
legal recourse even if you decided to pursue it. Local laws vary, but
in some places a retailer has no obligation to accept a return/exchange.
You did have the manufacturer warranty to avail yourself of which is no
consolation when the stuff is new.

Here is a link to their return policy. In my experience they have
honored it to the letter. If you are one day late you are SOL.


--
PeterN

Two questions
 

On 9/22/2015 11:11 AM, PAS wrote:
"Mayayana" wrote in message
...
| I'm going to have to disagree here, based on experience. I used to
| always build my own, and I've gone back to it, but I don't see any
| significant cost savings at all. It's even worse if you have to buy
| the OS.
|

I find it's a lot like other things, where the cheaper
it is, the more of a bargain. In other words, you
can't save anything over a cheap PC. They get parts
very cheap and have low profit margins. But you can
build a very good machine for less than higher end
PC costs.

Similarly with something like a bookshelf. If you just
need melamine on particle board, you can't buy the
materials for what it costs to buy the whole shelf. But
if you want a nice hardwood shelf and you can make
it, you might save significant money. Assmebly line junk
is cheap. Labor is expensive.

One thing I'd add: Never go to Microcenter if you don't
have to. They're a discount store. Packages are often
dented. Many years ago I bought parts there. Something
went wrong. I narrowed it down to either the board or
the CPU. I couldn't tell which was faulty. So I brought
back both. They refused to allow an exchange or refund!
I never bought parts from them again. I don't think their
refusal was even legal, but I wasn't going to go to court
over it. On the other hand, nor was I going to buy from
them if they wouldn't back up the products. There are too
many faulty electronics to not be able to return an item.

I bought a few components at Micro Center for my recent build and I have
no issues with any of them. I bought a case, CPU, power supply, and
liquid cooler. Nothing was damaged, including the packaging. Everything
is fine. Where Peter and I live, Micro Center is about the only place
we can get this stuff and it's quite a drive for me. I don't consider
them a "discount store" but they do have good deals.

As for their refusal to accept a return or exchange, I find that
disturbing and I'd be really ticked off too. You may not have had any
legal recourse even if you decided to pursue it. Local laws vary, but
in some places a retailer has no obligation to accept a return/exchange.
You did have the manufacturer warranty to avail yourself of which is no
consolation when the stuff is new.

Oops left off the link.
http://www.microcenter.com/site/customer-support/return-policy.aspx

--
PeterN

Two questions
 

On 9/22/2015 12:21 PM, Alan Browne wrote:
On 2015-09-21 16:57, PeterN wrote:
On 9/21/2015 4:30 PM, Bill W wrote:
On Mon, 21 Sep 2015 16:02:21 -0400, "PAS"
wrote:

"PeterN" wrote in message
I am almost tempted to buy the parts and build my on machine.

Building your own sounds like a good plan. You can get pretty decent
deals from Micro Center and, of course, there's New Egg you can order
from online.

I'm going to have to disagree here, based on experience. I used to
always build my own, and I've gone back to it, but I don't see any
significant cost savings at all. It's even worse if you have to buy
the OS.

There are significant DIY cost savings from adding things to that
store bought PC, and that's why I stressed that you must make sure
that there are enough open memory and card slots, and I should add
open drive bays & mobo connectors to that list. The difference between
8GB & 16GB of memory in retail PC's is absurd, but if you have open
slots, you can add 8GB for about $50, and 16GB for about $80 now, and
save a lot of money over ordering the PC that way. SSD's are about 40
cents per GB now, but they are pricey in new PC's.

If you start from scratch, you will save very little. The only thing
you get is total flexibility, and exactly the PC you want, but that's
not necessarily worth much. And if this is a first time project, it
ain't fun, and will probably not be worth the time to anyone doing it.
I've been doing it for the last 20 years, and it still gives me
headaches. And again for first timers, if something goes wrong, like
it won't boot - a rather important step, what then?


You are right. There is little, if any dollar savings in a basic DIY PC.
The only advantage is that when I add the extras to get exactly what I
want, I may save several hundred. Actually a friend of mine offered to
help.

You won't save several hundred. You'll just get what you want with
lesser warranty coverage as I pointed out elsewhere.

Many stores that cater to DIY builds also offer build to spec services.
So depending on your friend's real skill v. their skill, that can be
considered too. Indeed one such shop near here builds its own PC's and
offers them for off-the-shelf sale with a 1 year support and guarantee
plan.

My friend has extensive programming and hardware experience, though most
not with PC's. Before he retired he designed programs for missile
guidance systems, as well as GPS systems.
--
PeterN

Two questions
 

On 9/22/2015 12:52 PM, nospam wrote:
In article , Alan Browne
wrote:

apple is anti-drm and fought the record companies to have drm-free
music.

They certainly are hard core DRM where video is concerned.

only because it's forced upon them. they'd rather not and were able to
not do that with music.


Again inside information is stated as fact. You must really know what
goes on inside that boardroom.

Psst! Have I got a proposition for you.

--
PeterN

Two questions
 

On 9/22/2015 12:52 PM, nospam wrote:
In article , David Taylor
wrote:

But he's correct. Over concern over excessive SSD writes is only a
concern for some (not all) server farms that use flash based SSD.

It needs to be considered - in my case with a data turnover of well over
100 GB per day (weather satellite data), putting all that onto an SSD
may not be the wisest choice!

first of all, that's well beyond a normal use case scenario.

second of all, it still does not matter all that much.

a recent endurance test showed that some ssds can last into the
petabyte range of writes.

Which ones? The high end ones that you denied were longer lasting?

Old saying: When you tell the truth you don't have to remember what you
said.




a petabyte is a *lot*. at 100 gig/day, it would take 10000 days for 1
petabyte, or over 27 years. even at 1/10th that (not all ssds last that
long) it's still nearly 3 years.

furthermore, a hard drive in the same scenario would likely have failed
long before any ssd would.



--
PeterN
Sitting back to watch the twisting.

Two questions
 

On 2015-09-22 21:22:17 +0000, PeterN said:

On 9/22/2015 12:24 PM, Alan Browne wrote:
On 2015-09-22 12:15, David Taylor wrote:
On 22/09/2015 17:04, Alan Browne wrote:
[]
But he's correct. Over concern over excessive SSD writes is only a
concern for some (not all) server farms that use flash based SSD.

It needs to be considered - in my case with a data turnover of well over
100 GB per day (weather satellite data), putting all that onto an SSD
may not be the wisest choice!

1,000 writes is 2.8 years if you used the entire disk. If you write it
over 3x the area, you're well over 5 years. In reality, you'll get well
in excess of 1000 writes, of course.

Is 1,000 writes a mean, median, or average.

That depends on how you skew it.

--
Regards,

Savageduck

Two questions
 

On 2015-09-22 21:37:57 +0000, Tony Cooper said:

On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 16:47:40 -0400, PeterN
wrote:
On 9/22/2015 12:02 PM, Tony Cooper wrote:
On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 11:20:20 -0400, "PAS"
wrote:
"Tony Cooper" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 21 Sep 2015 18:41:10 -0400, PeterN
wrote:
On 9/21/2015 5:02 PM, Eric Stevens wrote:

snip

Some businesses use your DOB as a personal identifier if there is
any
doubt about your identity.


Actually the business that makes most of us vulnerable is the health
care professional.

Absolutely! Every doctor I've ever been a patient of has required my
social security number to be filled in on patient forms. They are
notoriously careless in discarding old patient records. Not the
doctor, but the staff, but the doctor doesn't exercise any control
over what the staff does with paperwork. That's beneath him.

Each doctor I have has asked for my SS number and each time I only
provide the last four digits, never the entire number. Our health
insurance carrier used to use the primary insured's SS number as the
policy number but they no longer do that.

That's fine. Each of us can deal with our individual situations as
they are presented. If your doctor's office accepts last four, then
that's what you should do.

What I object to is the blanket response of "don't supply it" that is
not applicable to everyone as a practical course.

Several years ago I had a security conversation with one of my docs, who
is also a friend. With his consent I did a white hat hack, that took
under ten minutes, from outside his office. We then implemented some
strong security measures, and I recommended a different IT professional.
Today with the required electronic records accessibility, I cannot say
how strong PW protection is, but my guess is that with so many health
care professionals at all levels having access, my guess is that there
are flaws in the system.

Most medical facilities are completely computerized now, but it's not
unknown for some doctor's office to toss all of the paperwork
accumulated over the years in the dumpster after the information has
been entered in the computer instead of having the paper forms
shredded.

These days with HIPPA breathing down their necks there is no dumpster
out back. There is a new business model, mobile secure document
shreading service. I know we have several working in our area and I
believe they are to be found all over the country these days. Few
medical providers can afford the liability of exposing patients with
sloppy disposal of paper. Their insurance demands that they demonstrate
they have made an efford to securely dispose of all forms filled in by
patients. These days that is the only physical paper in a
practitioner's rooms, once it has been transcribed to the computer and
the computerized chart.
http://www.shredit.com/en-us/mobile-shredding-services
http://www.securshred.com

....and there are plenty more. They service doctors, dentists, labs, law
offices, banks, realtors, etc.

My doctor used to walk into the exam room with a fat folder of
paperwork of my records. Now he walks in carrying a laptop. That fat
folder went somewhere, and I hope it went in a shredder.

It did, or your doctor is gambling.


--
Regards,

Savageduck