A photo I took of Chicago’s Union Station two Decemberweens ago was included in the latest edition of Schmap, an interactive city guide. They asked if I would let them consider it for submission in the guide, and since I really had no reason not to, I said sure, and they ended up using it.
Here’s the picture on their site.
Not in Dot, that’s for sure. But soon, FiOS will be available in some place in Massachusetts called “Monroe” which has a population of 93. Ninety fucking three.
I bet a lot of them sign up! Whoooooo doggie!
Other WMass metropolises where Verizon will be deploying include New Ashford (pop. 247), Rowe (351), Florida (676), and Hancock (721). I have not heard of any of these towns (except Florida, and that’s mainly because there being a town with the name of a state makes for nice trivia knowlegdge), and they are all smaller than the tiny hamlet (La Farge, pop. 775) in southwestern Wisconsin where my parents now live.
Meanwhile, here in Civilizationland, Verizon “does not have any immediate plans” to deploy the service to all of Boston. Do they not want customers? Because hey, Verizon, Boston is where people live!
Verizon has “experimented with FiOS deployments in parts of Dorchester,” which according to this handy dslreports/gmaps mashup consists of three residences in 02125. There may be a few more as I’m sure that not everyone is familiar with dslreports.com, but I bet it’s less than ten. What’s the most excruciating is that those three deployments are SO CLOOOSE to me – two juuuust on the other side of Columbia Road, and one literally right across the SE Expressway on Columbia Point.
But hey, those people out in the Berkshires with no running water or electricity probably need that broadband, huh?
In a not horribly surprising move, the subsidized health care plan that is supposed to be the cheap way into health insurance for the less fortunate is about to get a hell of a lot more expensive just months after the date passed by which everyone in Massachusetts was forced to have health insurance or get massively assraped by the taxman. Premiums are to go up 14% and copays are to shoot up by 25-100%. What this means is that no one will go to receive preventative health care and only go in case of emergencies because they can’t afford to go for preventative visits, which I think was part of what having this sucktastic compulsory system was “supposed” to solve.
For fuck’s sake, this health care tax penalty “motivational tool” we have here in Massachusetts is the worst idea that any politicitans have been bribed by private industries to pass into law since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913. Not only that, it’s getting worse. Nice of them to pass this bill with a “low” taster rate, then get you hooked on the crack and jack up the rates so no one can afford it. This state is an embarrassment to itself.
Over the weekend, I moved Ataxia and some other sites off of my Linux box sitting on my home Comcast connection to a shiny new VPS host at Linode. Linode is a rocking hosting company. I had a host from them a couple of years ago and am glad to go back.
The major benefit of this move (besides what should be improved speed) is that you out there in Internetland should be able to register for comments and actually receive your confirmation email! I know, something functioning as intended, what a concept!
So go ahead, comment away!
A little meta note regarding comments. I noticed the other day that my little computer hosting the website isn’t able to send email to anything that isn’t itself, meaning that no one receives the required confirmation email needed to be able to comment. Looks like good ol’ Comcast took the initiative of blocking email servers for the first time in the 10 or so years I’ve been using them/AT&T/MediaOne. I’m going to try to figure out if I can devise a workaround. For the time being, I’ve disabled this requirement — hopefully not too many spam comments come in.
Dear Mr. Lynch,
I read this morning that the Senate passed S. 2248, which among other things would grant immunity to telecommunications companies that were complicit in illegal surveillance activity against Americans.
I can honestly say that I’ve never been more ashamed to be an American.
Please, Mr. Lynch, I beg of you to do everything you can to ensure that when this bill reaches the House chambers that it does not pass. It must not pass. The companies that engaged in this blatant, illegal, unconstitutional and frankly un-American surveillance should have their fates decided in the appropriate branch of government – Judicial – and not be the beneficiary of the Executive’s wishes to sweep their transgressions under the rug to be forgotten about with the Legislature’s help.
The right of the people to freedom of speech is ingrained in our minds, our souls and our Constitution, and if any bill granting this immunity passes, then everyone responsible for its passing and enforcement are guilty of violating their sacred oath to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution and should consider themselves guilty of treason.
Please do not let this bill pass.
With grave sincerity,
Matthew Mittelstadt
Dorchester, MA
A couple of weeks ago, I posted about the stupidity of the Massachusetts Department of Revenue listing web sites on their Free File Alliance page that state in plain English that they charge for the filing of a Massachusetts income tax return. Some anonymous peon at the DOR responded to me with a useless non-answer and that seemed to be that on their end of things, for I never again received a response from them.
Today, I finally received the 1099 that I needed to file my taxes, so I again browsed over to the Free File Alliance page, and the DOR has added a two new companies. In a manner completely unsurprising to at least me, both of these web sites charge for filing a Massachusetts tax return.The first of these is pretty clever in hiding its fees for filing. See thusly:
TaxEngine.com would like to offer free state tax preparation to ALL taxpayers who e-file a Massachusetts state tax return.
Free state tax preparation when you e-file. Sounds good, right? Not so fast. Click on to their website and behold, it’s going to set you back $29.95 to actually file those freely-prepared returns.
The second is more obvious: the description for Tax$imple says you can file your Federal return for free if your AGI is under $54k, but then says “prepare, print and E-File your state return in just $7.95.” Not only is it not free, it’s grammatically incorrect to boot.
I wrote another note calling them out on this through their stupid web “contact us!” form, but I’m sure no one will read it and actually understand what is going on. This is Massachusetts, after all.
Update (2008-02-07): This morning I received an email from the DOR that was almost a verbatim copy of the email they sent me before. Check it:
Dear Taxpayer,
Thank you for your recent inquiry.
The Massachusetts Free Alliance states the following:
A number of independent software companies have agreed to provide free services to Massachusetts taxpayers who meet certain eligibility requirements. Please review the list of offerings below to see if you qualify.Thank you for visiting our website,
The Massachusetts Department of Revenue
I can’t help but snark this kind of bullshit. They obviously don’t care that they’re engaging in false advertising for private companies, which is quite maddening. My reply:
Dear Department of Revenue,
It seems you have once against missed the fact that these companies are not actually providing free services. Please review the list of offerings to see which ones clearly and in plain English make no claim to provide free services, and remove them from the list.
Thank you for once again ignoring the entire point of my comment and sending me an email that says absolutely nothing of value and only proves to me that you do not actually read anyone’s comments,
Matthew Mittelstadt
Update (again): shortly after I wrote that, I got another reply from some serf at the DOR. This time, they took it upon themselves to cut and paste the text of the Free File Alliance page… and email it to me. DUDES. I ALREADY READ THAT, AND I HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT IT SAYS THAN YOU.
I can’t bring myself to write back again. As funny as it is, it’s even more profoundly sad, and it’s actually damaging my soul a little to keep at it with these people.
In an oh-so-timely coincidence, I wandered over to Universal Hub to learn that WBZ is reporting that the state is owed some $2.2 billion (with a B) in back taxes. Let’s hear it for the Department of Revenue!
It’s primary day here in Massachusetts. As many of you know, I fully support Ron Paul in this presidential election cycle, and I encourage you to vote for him in today’s primary. Vote vote vote!
If you’re in Massachusetts and don’t know where to vote, the state Elections Division has set up a handy polling place finder.