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"Falling Down"
Was my ISP slowing down my computer to convince me to upgrade?
Date: 10/20/2008 5:02:03 PM ( 16 y ) ... viewed 1917 times Excuse me for this, but I am going to use this blog to do a bit of a personal rant. I am pretty sure that nobody reads this blog much anyhow, and maybe if you are reading it, this could be enjoyable. It ends well!!
"Falling Down" is a movie about a guy who is just fed up with the endless annyonaces and abuses that go on in our world. He goes a bit nuts, and crosses the line when he seems intent on hurting his ex-wife and child, but up until then it was a meaningfull movie. I can relate to the early parts of that movie!!
I have been having trouble with my internet service for several months, which is why my postings here have been a bit sporadic. My "ISP" [Internet Service Provider] has a technical support hotline and I had called them many times to get help with my slow-or-crashing internet connection. They allways concluded that the problem was with my computer, and that I should take it to a repairman, contact the manufacturer of my computer, or upgrade to their High Speed package.
Huh? Upgrading to their best service won't help my computer... but it was a red flag for my paranoid way of thinking!!
What might be happening is that they were messing up my internet speed, and even making my computer CRASH, in order to convince me to upgrade. I think that most people would just go ahead and upgrade, but to me that is purely arm-twisting and unfair practise.
More proof that Telus was in fact using this tactic came this week when they offered a special "two-week trial period" for their High-Speed service. Guess what? - my computer seems to suddenly be working just fine, I am getting internet speeds of 1300 Kb/sec [as measured at this test site:
http://www.speedtest.net/
].
And so thats that, but I would like to add that when I finally became convinced that my computer would not work online anymore, I called to cancel my internet service. At that point, the Telus workers informed me that I was on a one-year contract and that cancelling would cost me $120 in cancellation fees. They offered to lower the price of my internet service for the remaining 9 months of my contract, and that way I would be paying less to pay for internet that I could not use that for the cancellation fee. So I didn't cancel. And then this "special two-week trial period" came along and now I am going great guns online!!
As for that contract, it was apparently something I agreed to when I accepted their offer to go on a "bundle deal" where my phone service, my long distance, and my internet connection were all in one simple payment as long as I didn't use more than 200 long distance minutes on the phone. Neither the contract, nor the cancellation fee, were mentioned when I was on the phone agreeing to that "bundle" deal.
I did not sign anything to do with that contract, and so it probably would not stand up in court... as if I would ever be able to have such a case heard!! There is no recourse for those kinds of things, and so corporations can just get away with it as much as they want to. They know that most people will just follow along anyhow, and never think twice about how they are being led down the garden path.
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Thats just the phone rant... Falling Down requires many similiar abuses to trigger the kind of rage that we saw in the movie. I have a few more...
My landlady was doing repairs outside my apartment on Sunday, and so I took the opportunity to tell her than there was a lot of NAILS in my parking spot, which is covered with gravel. This parking spot is covered with a common roof for the whole building, but is open to the front - a "carport". These are old rusty nails that are difficult to see in the gravel. I have had several flat tires over the past year, and now I know why. Her overly-protective dad was with her, and he stands up and tells me that I just have to pick the nails out, and that "THEY DON'T GROW THERE YOU KNOW".
I found that to be a bit insulting, and it seemed that neither of them could see my dilema - if I cannot see the nails very well in the gravel, I will never know if I have them all picked up, and it only takes ONE nail to flatten a tire.
Also, it is the responsiblity of the landlord to pick the nails up, unless I was the one responsible for them being there, but these ones are all old roofing nails and so on from previous construction jobs.
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Shall I go on? You must be bored by now - everybody has 100s of these kinds of stories where "people just don't care", and "corporations abuse you". The victims might respond by not paying their bills, but then they just get collection agencies [and have to pay those costs] and bigger late fees, reconnection fees, etc. ; the victims of uncaring landlords might take it out on the property [flatten THEIR tires and see how THEY like it?], but then the get police involved or the victims end up paying for repairs or losing their damage deposits.
When the victims get really fed up and decide to take some action, it is because they do not care about the consequences, because they intend to be gone, to die, probably to take their own life. I bet half of those cases end up with injuries that are not life-threatenting, and the victims have to eventually face up to it anyhow.
There is a real effect on the overall soceity though, on the community and the neghborhood. We end up with people walking around scowling, distrustfull of everyone, angry at everyone. Stressed to the breaking point but never quite breaking. Health suffers.
We have, right now, in ever neighborhood, people who would rather be dead but either failed at suicide, or just don't want to cause their family member the grief that suicide brings. Dead in their souls.
A better world is not only possible, it is begging to be let in. Our lives and our communities, and all our relations with other people, would be so much better if only we stopped being so uncaring and if corporations stopped using abusive tactics. That day might come - it is up to each one of us to start caring, to put in the effort to help others with their problems. We have to turn our negative energy into positive energy, and try to turn other people's negative energy into positive energy. This is not mere fluff, this is a very real thing, and it happens every day where we can make a choice to make a better world or to cause someone to get closer to "Falling Down".
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