Deathsquad Production Assistant
If you guys would legitimately like to lighten the load in regards to the production responsibilities of the podcasts…
Firstly, I would dare to assume that a big part of the frustrations we saw today (JRE#211) stems from the amount of hours and energy that Brian has to invest across all of the Deathsquad podcasts. Not only the live broadcasts, but all the work required in maintaining the studio, working with the hosts in terms of scheduling and coming up with content as well as the post-production duties required to get the content distributed through multiple platforms and channels as you graciously do.
I think adding a technically versatile production assistant would have an immediate and positive effect on the quality of all the shows. Someone to help maintain the studio equipment, assist in pre/post, video segments, (top five) managing of the web portals and content delivery, handling mail… Whatever needs to be done over the course of the week’s schedule.
I think with the right head / set of hands, helping in the background, you guys could easily increase output of the podcasts by 30-50% without Redban working himself to death as he’s been doing. Based upon each shows typical running times, I think you could easily pump out a minimum of 10 podcasts each week within a 40 hour work schedule, similar to what’s shown below;
JRE x2
BoneZone x1
Naughty Show x1
Callen Show x1
Icehouse x1
Whats Good x1
Misc / Pilots x3
I don’t want to get too lengthy here… It’d be a good time to expand a little bit 
@gnice3d
How to fight AT&T in small claims court and win.
The thought of “going to court” with a big company like AT&T, with their stable of expensive lawyers, can intimidate even the most stalwart of consumers. But when the court in question is small claims court, where lawyers aren’t allowed and court procedures are much more informal, handling your own case can be a relatively easy and painless way to get satisfaction. This guide will cover the highlights of what you need to represent yourself and have your voice heard.
Before you begin
The most important document you’ll need is the contract you signed with AT&T. You’ll need this to prove certain aspects of your case.
File in your state’s small claims court
Find your state in this list and follow the links to see how and where to file. In most states, filing is a matter of filling out a form and paying the filing fee, which typically ranges from $40-80. Most small claims courts adhere to the loser-pays philosophy, so you may be able to get that filing fee back if you’re successful in court. Most states will let you download the forms and fill them out at home, but if you have questions, take the form to the court clerk and have them help you. Its important to get this step right, so ask questions if you have them and have the clerk check your form before you file!
Notification and subpoena
Once you’ve filed in your jurisdiction, you have to notify the defendant (AT&T) of the filing. This is also the step that allows you to require AT&T to provide information as well. In Matt’s case, he subpoenaed the records for the tower closest to his home along with the average speed of users in his area.
Proving your case
Your day in court has finally arrived—now what? Unfortunately, its not quite as simple as showing up and telling the judge you want your $850 too. You’ll need to prove your case, but here are the points to make in your argument:
- You were promised unlimited data by the contract you signed with AT&T. Have your a copy of your contract handy, and highlight the sections that support your case, in particular the portions promising you unlimited data.
- AT&T did in fact limit your service: this is a well-documented practice of AT&T’s, but you can prove it in your own case using tools like Speedtest or Glasnost, which can check for different kinds of throttling. Check your bandwidth frequently, even before suspected throttling, and log your findings, because its important to show your normal rate of download versus your throttled rate. In Matt’s case, he was seeing a throttled rate of 0.13Mbps, versus a normal rate of 3.46Mbps, a 20x slowdown of his normal rate. The best evidence of this would be to check and log your bandwidth several times a day, for several days both before and after the throttling kicks in.
- The throttling of your bandwidth by AT&T caused you some kind of economic damage, which is the basis for the monetary amount you specify in your lawsuit. In Matt’s case, the damage was an inability to use Netflix, a service which he paid for and had a reasonable expectation to be able to use. Your damages may be based on something like that, an inability to do your work, or anything that has demonstrable economic value. In general you can ask for your state’s maximum award, but the judge is going to use this part of your argument in setting damages if you successfully plead your case.
- AT&T claims to have the fastest network. Under the doctrine of “justifiable reliance“, that a reasonable person of similar education and background would accept their claim on its face and make an economic decision based on the content of their claim, they are obligated to make a reasonable attempt at providing such service.
- AT&T’s methodology for choosing a cap was unpredictable and vague. The top 5% of users in an area found themselves throttled,
- AT&T has defended their throttling in the past by saying that the top 5% of users is responsible for network congestion. But a closer look disproves this theory:
- Is the premise true? Uncapped users on average utilize an average of 3.97GB data transfer per billing cycle, versus 3.19 for capped plans, according to a study by Validas, which amounts to an average of an additional 25% bandwidth. AT&T routinely provides data plans up to 5GB per month, which leads one to believe that the average uncapped user is well within their ability to provide service.
- Is it necessary? AT&T, until March 1, began throttling unlimited customers who had utilized between 1.5GB and 2.0GB in a given billing cycle. AT&T has had a 3GB billing plan for over a year at a similar price point to their old unlimited plan. Clearly they had the ability to deliver the promised service at least up to that point, and declined to do so as a matter of policy. (As of March 1, their stated policy is to throttle unlimited customers starting at 3GB of data transfer, which stil flies in the face of an unlimited plan.)
Based on the above arguments you have a good chance of a similar outcome in your own case. However, small claims decisions are not precedent-setting, so your mileage my vary depending on the jurisdiction you file in. AT&T has stated an intent to appeal the decision in Matt’s case, and if they do so in yours, do not expect the money to come right away as any judgment will be held up while the appeal is processed.
This is important.
The reason we started PublikDemand was to help consumers take back the power from corporations who treat their customers capriciously, depending on the difficulty of getting resolution to complaints through a bureaucracy designed to thwart consumers. For far too long the balance of power has been in their favor. It would be a lovely world if we didn’t have to go through these methods to get resolution, but if everyone who has a case takes it to small claims court, we can send a message as consumers that making it painful to resolve complaints isn’t going to work anymore.
AT&Thieve
I received the following text message at 7:30am notifying me that my unlimited data connection will be throttled at the 3GB mark… when I am already at 2.9GB.
“ATT Free Msg: Your data usage is near 3GB this month. Exceeding 3GB during this or future billing cycles will result in reduced data speeds, though you’ll still be able to email & surf the web. Wi-Fi helps you avoid reduced speeds. Visit www.att.com/datainfo or call 866-344-7584 for more info.”
Reply to Doug Benson re: SOPA
Firstly, let me give you a little background on myself. I’m a veteran Windows / Unix administrator that has been working professionally in IT since graduating high school in 1990 but have been ear deep in the world of computers since grammar school. I’ve worked in all-kinds of roles through my career, everything from video game development to most recently, a 6 year stint as a technology director for a large private investigation firm. Having worked in such positions and being and enormous film buff, I am acutely aware how Internet policy affects intellectual property.
My initial tweet to you stemmed from the discussion between yourself and Redban during the last IceHouse podcast. Both of you made some valid points but I felt the discussion did not touch upon the real problems with the proposed legislation which I feel is nothing more than a mechanism to censor free speech on the Internet.
Glaring problems with SOPA
SOPA is a piece of legislation that if passed, will allow the US government and a handful of private sector ‘entities’ to halt traffic to any given Internet domain by blocking the DNS record that resolves the website name to the specific address of the hosting server… without any form of due process or legal procedure. The most obvious problem with policing the Internet in this fashion is that it can be instantly negated by simply using a non-US DNS server to resolve the sites address. In fact, there is already a Firefox plug-in that will toggle the ability for you.
Once you realize the system is inherently flawed, you have to ask yourself why the government would continue to push such a bill forward?
With the Homeland Security Act of 2002, the US government placed the issue of Internet piracy under the jurisdiction of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of Homeland Security which we all know provides zero transparency to the public and consistently hides all of it’s activities behind the curtain of “national security”. If the TRUE goal of SOPA was indeed to protect intellectual property, why would it’s regulation not be placed under the Department of Commerce?
Another interesting note is that if you look at the list of supposed SOPA supporters, you will find that it has nearly no backing from software or technology companies that were in reality, the first industries affected by piracy and have the most experience dealing with the issue. Furthermore, there have been several companies on that list that have now stated they have never endorsed the policy and are demanding they be removed from the list.
While I do whole-heartedly support anything that helps protect intellectual property and provides income to those who create such content, I believe that the most effective way for this to happen is to allow the industry to evolve… Podcasts and other content that can be marketed directly from the creator to the viewer as Louis CK just demonstrated are a perfect example of this evolution and I feel that it will allow for the purest form of artistic expression.
List of Supporters: H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act
Let these corporations and organizations know that their profits should NOT be a priority over our freedom.
ABC
Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies (ASOP)
American Federation of Musicians (AFM)
American Federation of Television and RList of Supporters: H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Actadio Artists (AFTRA)
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)
Americans for Tax Reform
Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States
Association of American Publishers (AAP)
Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies
Association of Talent Agents (ATA)
Baker & Hostetler LLP
Beachbody, LLC
BMI
BMG Chrysalis
Building and Construction Trades Department
Capitol Records Nashville
CBS
Cengage Learning
Christian Music Trade Association
Church Music Publishers’ Association
Coalition Against Online Video Piracy (CAOVP)
Comcast/NBCUniversal
Concerned Women for America (CWA)
Congressional Fire Services Institute
Copyhype
Copyright Alliance
Coty, Inc.
Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB)
Council of State Governments
Country Music Association
Country Music Television
Covington & Burling LLP
Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard LLP
Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, P.C.
Creative America
Davis Wright Tremaine LLP
Deluxe
Directors Guild of America (DGA)
Disney Publishing Worldwide, Inc.
Elsevier
EMI Christian Music Group
EMI Music Publishing
ESPN
Estée Lauder Companies
Fraternal Order of Police (FOP)
Go Daddy
Gospel Music Association
Graphic Artists Guild
Hachette Book Group
HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, Inc.
Hyperion
Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA)
International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE)
International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC)
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW)
International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT)
International Trademark Association (INTA)
International Union of Police Associations
Irell & Manella LLP
Jenner & Block LLP
Kelley Drye & Warren LLP
Kendall Brill & Klieger LLP
Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert LLP
L’Oreal
Lathrop & Gage LLP
Loeb & Loeb LLP
Lost Highway Records
Macmillan
Major County Sheriffs
Major League Baseball
Majority City Chiefs
Marvel Entertainment, LLC
MasterCard Worldwide
MCA Records
McGraw-Hill Education
Mercury Nashville
Minor League Baseball (MiLB)
Minority Media & Telecom Council (MMTC)
Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP
Morrison & Foerster LLP
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
Moving Picture Technicians
MPA – The Association of Magazine Media
National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)
National Association of Prosecutor Coordinators
National Association of State Chief Information Officers
National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA)
National Center for Victims of Crime
National Crime Justice Association
National District Attorneys Association
National Domestic Preparedness Coalition
National Football League
National Governors Association, Economic Development and Commerce Committee
National League of Cities
National Narcotics Offers’ Associations’ Coalition
National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA)
National Songwriters Association
National Troopers Coalition
News Corporation
Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP
Pearson Education
Penguin Group (USA), Inc.
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA)
Phillips Nizer, LLP
Pfizer, Inc.
Proskauer Rose LLP
Provident Music Group
Random House
Raulet Property Partners
Republic Nashville
Revlon
Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi LLP
Scholastic, Inc.
Screen Actors Guild (SAG)
Shearman & Sterling LLP
Showdog Universal Music
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
Sony/ATV Music Publishing
Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Nashville
State International Development Organization (SIDO)
The National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO)
The Perseus Books Groups
The United States Conference of Mayors
Tiffany & Co.
Time Warner
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)
UMG Publishing Group Nashville
United States Chamber of Commerce
United States Tennis Association
Universal Music
Universal Music Publishing Group
Viacom
Visa, Inc.
W.W. Norton & Company
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Nashville
White & Case LLP
Wolters Kluewer Health
Word Entertainment
If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front – Official Theatrical Trailer
If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front – Official Theatrical Trailer
So I recently watched this documentary “If A Tree Falls” that has recently made it’s way to iTunes and thought it was great. What I found most interesting is that although the film deals with such polarizing issues as terrorism and the treatment of the environment, it did not adhere to any specific agenda. It was quite enjoyable experience being allowed to empathize equally with both the activists and the investigators dealing acts of “eco-terrorism” in a pre-9/11 world.
What the fruck?
I’ve had a brog for two years?
