On 6/19/2010 8:50 AM, mm wrote:
On Fri, 18 Jun 2010 23:57:36 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 6/18/2010 8:05 PM, HeyBub wrote:
Power company came out today and replaced the old mechanical meter with the
new fancy-schmancy one.

Chatting up the meter-man, I learned:

1. The old meters are going to be junked. Not sold to Mexico or Lithuania
like the 'phone company did with their mechanical central office stuff.
We're talking, oh, one million meters in a city of 5.5 million. That's a
pretty big pile.

2. His quota is 60-100 meters swapped out per day.

3. One purpose is to allow the meter to be read from the street.

4. It is alleged I can check my meter on the 'net. We'll see.

You can just walk outside and check your meter.

I view Smart Meters with the same suspicion that I have for
OnStar. Perhaps I'm just paranoid? Aluminum foil hats don't
work, it's already been tried.

Remember when the drunk guy hit a tree with his car; then he went to
another bar to relax, and On-star called the police.

http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/

TDD


Imagine some government busybody decides you're using too much
electricity and gets a warrant to search your home for anything
incriminating. It already goes on. You fail to pay a parking
ticket and the city contacts the power company to switch off
your power. The perils of too much control made too easy is a
slippery slope. There are those in government who want to make
all money electronic. Imagine, "Do what we say or we will turn
off your money." Technology can be either incredibly wonderful
or devastatingly evil.

TDD