What about using the same technology phone spammers/scammers use, and turn it against them? The results can be quite entertaining.
Roger Anderson is a tinkerer, podcaster, and founder of the Jolly Roger Telephone Company, which works to disrupt the unsolicited telemarketing
The Jolly Roger service is $6.00 a year. Which seems like a bargain to some extent to keep telemarketers and robocallers from bothering us while wasting their time.
Way back on May 17, 2017, the Cocoa Beach Board of Adjustment met to discuss a special exemption for the Cocoa Beach Tattoo Company to open a tattoo parlor / retail operation in Cocoa Beach.
After some horrific advice from the then City Attorney Marsha Segal George as well as faulty reasoning from some Board members, the Board voted to deny the special exemption. We wrote about the denial and what we expected to happen here. We noted at the time that this was a case ripe for an appeal as the City had no legal leg to stand upon and sure enough, the case was appealed.
Unfortunately for the Cocoa Beach Tattoo Company, the appeals and trying to address the issue was caught in the middle of the City trying to find new legal counsel or retain the old counsel. Eventually, the matter was scheduled to be heard by a magistrate but the new City attorney’s looked at the issue and said the legal equivalent of “whoops!” and agreed that the Board of Adjustment never should have denied the special exemption.
Thus, the lawyers agreed to revisit the issue to the Board of Adjustment again where the Board will have to vote to pass the exemption.
That “revisiting” happens tonight at 5:15 PM when the Board of Adjustment meets. You can see the agenda for the meeting here, and the item packethere (as well as an addendum found here.)
This is a win for those of us who value both freedom of expression and economic freedoms. Sadly, it took far too long to get to this point, but we can’t go back in time to change that.
We do want to make sure that people understand that one thing this case does highlight is the need for good legal representation. In 2009 the Cocoa Beach City Commission passed what they felt was a legal ordinance on tattoo parlors within the City. At they time, one of the reasons given was that they City was against the “proliferation” of tattoo parlors opening up. Many of those shops have closed which goes to show that the market is a better decider of what type of shops may survive in a city rather than people on a City Commission. The rule at the time was unnecessary but the Commission did nothing wrong in passing the ordinance. (more…)
Just a quick notice to let people know that we are back.
Our staff either lost power or internet access and so we remained “dark” for longer than we would have liked.
We guess the main thing is that we are back up and running and will have a “real” post up tomorrow on the Cocoa Beach Board of Adjustment meeting.
We do want to thank Florida Power and Light for their efforts in working to restore power. More importantly, FPL did their level best to keep customers informed of expected restoration dates.
The same cannot be said of Spectrum. For an alleged communication company, Spectrum basically told customers to go away, stop bothering them and to stop asking when service would be restored. We called several times only to be met with a message of “we’re busy” and an immediate hang up of the phone. Apparently the powers that be at Spectrum didn’t understand that they were busy because they told their agents not to tell people anything.
Spectrum wins the award this year for lousy customer service.
Of course, we never would have thought one person to give a talk on misdirection would be a pickpocket.
Hailed as the greatest pickpocket in the world, Apollo Robbins studies the quirks of human behavior as he steals your watch. In a hilarious demonstration, Robbins samples the buffet of the TEDGlobal 2013 audience, showing how the flaws in our perception make it possible to swipe a wallet and leave it on its owner’s shoulder while they remain clueless.
We were going to post this earlier, but put it off.
Tim Urban knows that procrastination doesn’t make sense, but he’s never been able to shake his habit of waiting until the last minute to get things done. In this hilarious and insightful talk, Urban takes us on a journey through YouTube binges, Wikipedia rabbit holes and bouts of staring out the window — and encourages us to think harder about what we’re really procrastinating on, before we run out of time.
Live by the auto responder, die by the autoresponder.
It happens to all of us: you unsubscribe from an unwanted marketing email, and a few days later another message from the same company pops up in your inbox. Comedian James Veitch turned this frustration into whimsy when a local supermarket refused to take no for an answer. Hijinks ensued.
The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.
