Thursday, August 14, 2014

My Reading List 8/14/2014 - ANOTHER Comcast Horror Story and The Great American Dystopian Blues

Ars Technica - Here’s another Comcast cancellation horror story, with video evidence -
Chicago resident Aaron Spain explained in the video Monday that he was on hold for more than three hours, showing the time of the call on his phone as proof. He was calling to cancel Comcast "after a month of trying to get them to fix my service," he said. Spain was transferred to the retention department, but didn't actually get to talk to anyone. After using a different phone to call back the same number, Comcast's automated assistant told Spain, "I'm sorry, but our offices are now closed."
Customer service at it's finest.

The Verge - Is this how a dystopia starts? Ferguson, Missouri, is a stark reminder of the risks of the increasing militarization of American police
Is Ferguson the moment we as a people look at this situation of escalating force and say "enough is enough?" And even if we do, what's the right way to solve the problem? No American police department seems ready to voluntarily disarm to a more restrained level, including the one active in Ferguson. Few American citizens who have spent money and time collecting their own weapons would join them. And fewer still are the violent criminals who would willing cede their tools of destruction. Politicians concerned about electability also seem disinclined to challenge American's gun lobby, or to be the ones who cut police resources only to see crime rise. Can the President alone do anything? Would he, distracted as he is by global conflicts that few Americans support, committing more American firepower overseas? The larger question, where do we go from here as a people?, is even more worrisome. Because from the events in Ferguson alone — filled as they are with racial mistrust and a stark power imbalance, the police at least temporarily with the upper hand— it appears that things are going to get worse before they get better.
I am just going to throw this out there without comment or context.

Quartz - The euro zone is stuck in neutral as its German engine sputters -
in the latest quarter the German economy actually shrank slightly, by 0.2%, a sign of trouble in the euro’s engine room. We already knew that Italy has slipped into a triple-dip recession, and the news that French GDP was flat in the second quarter didn’t come as a big surprise.
Oh goody, another recession is just what we need.

Medium - The Grease Gun Was For Killing Nazis -

it spewed .45-caliber ACP bullets at 450 rounds per minute, was simple to operate, compact because the butt-stock collapsed and it was disposable.
Yes, disposable. Until 1944, soldiers and Marines whose M-3s got damaged in battle simply threw them away and drew a new weapon from the armory because no one who made supply decisions thought it was worthwhile to manufacture spare parts for the gun.

I don't know why a liberal rag like Medium wrote this article, but it's a fun read.

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