Electricity.

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 9:13 pm

pinback wrote:Somebody fucking POST something.

My electricity bill last month was $524 last month.

Discuss.

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 9:19 pm

Also, "last month."

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 9:20 pm

Also, according to grammar Nazis, the word "realtor" should always be capitalized -- as in, Realtor is a proper noun. Now that's some elitist bullshit right there.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 11:23 pm

Flack wrote:Also, according to grammar Nazis, the word "realtor" should always be capitalized -- as in, Realtor is a proper noun. Now that's some elitist bullshit right there.

The real reason is that "Realtor" is a registered trademark of the National Association of Realtors, and is issued to real estate agents who pay the fee to use it.

Just like "Big Mac" or "Whopper" are supposed to be capitalized because they're registered trademarks.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 11:34 pm

Flack wrote:Also, "last month."

Did you expect them to bill you for next month? :0

We had a trick meter at the last place I was at. A six-room house with all electric including central air, routinely ran $8 a month. I didn't do anything, I just took over the bill when the property was foreclosed, and I just paid it each month. I was amazed that as cheap as the place was to run the landlord couldn't keep it.

Oh, and to make sure I wasn't personally liable, the bill was in my corporation's name. When I changed the bill over I was afraid the bill was going to be in the neighborhood of $200 a month or more and I didn't want to be responsible if I couldn't pay it.

That it was what it was, under $10 monthly, I knew the meter wasn't working correctly, but since I didn't do anything to it I didn't commit any crime, and it's not my responsibility to tell the electric company their meter is not registering correctly.

This is why utilities have tariff requirements to replace meters every so often. One time - about 15 years ago - the guy came to read the gas meter in the basement, and he said it was over 30 years old and it had to be replaced, someone would come out at no charge and replace it with a brand new meter. After they get too old they tend to read too much in favor of the customer, so the gas company is allowed to replace the meter every 30 years.

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 7:07 am

Tdarcos wrote:
Flack wrote:Also, according to grammar Nazis, the word "realtor" should always be capitalized -- as in, Realtor is a proper noun. Now that's some elitist bullshit right there.
The real reason is that "Realtor" is a registered trademark of the National Association of Realtors, and is issued to real estate agents who pay the fee to use it.

Just like "Big Mac" or "Whopper" are supposed to be capitalized because they're registered trademarks.

Yeah, I Googlied it too, but I still don't agree with it. If people want to use Realtor (capitalized) to mean "someone who is a licensed member of the NAR," then that's fine. But "realtor," lowercase, should (I think) be used when referring, in general, to one who sells houses. I guess we always have "real estate agent," but in today's world of Twitter, SpongeBob and cell phones, I'm afraid attention spans are so short that by using three words instead of one, people will get distracted and lose interest. Who has time these days to use three words, where one will do?

I realize it's not uncommon for companies to get their panties in a wad when we, the unintelligent general public, misuse trademarked words. Coca-Cola hates it when people use the word "cokes" to represent "a selection of carbonated sodas." If you really want to attract the ire of grammar Nazis, try pluralizing the word Lego! Lego has gone so far as to address it on their website. Lego is the brand; individual Lego pieces are called bricks, so the correct plural term is "Lego bricks," not "Legos." And actually, that's not even right; the correct term is LEGO bricks. So if you ever use the terms "lego," "Lego," or "Legos" on their forums, you will be corrected. It's "LEGO" and "LEGO bricks." Sheesh.

Here's a list of genericizied trademarks from Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ge ... trademarks

God, I'm going to start correcting people who type "zipper" and tell them to capitalize it. Or "bubble wrap." Who capitalizes bubble wrap? Or "dumpster." Sorry, it's "Dumpster."

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 9:54 am

It's not such a bad thing. People have been using stuff like crescent wrenches and allen wrenches for years without knowing that the're trade names. It's all part of the evolution of Teh Language.

THE
TAKE ME A KODAK
AARDVARK

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 10:37 am

$524! My god! That's enough energy to shoot down the Mir!

Lemme go check what mine was.

Ok. $112. I got lucky this summer. We had a string of 90 degree days, but I've adjusted myself to be perfectly happy with the thermostat set to 81. The downstairs cools naturally because of, I don't know, magnets I guess, and I was able to "chill" out there rorlflolfolforl

RealityCheck · Post by **RealityCheck** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 11:02 am

Tdarcos wrote:Did you expect them to bill you for next month? :0

Why not? Thats what Comcast and some cell phone companies do already.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 11:11 am

RealityCheck wrote:
Tdarcos wrote:Did you expect them to bill you for next month? :0
Why not? Thats what Comcast and some cell phone companies do already.

That's because you have a fixed bill with a minimum charge. The Electric company doesn't know what you'll use next month so they can't figure it in advance, but they can use your history - if you have one with them - to develop flex pay where you pay the same every month. it's an average, then once a year they credit you if you overpaid, or bill you for the difference if you underpaid.

It's good for people who get really big bills in summer (for A/C) and winter (for heat) which allows those highs to be folded into the other months when the bills are lower.

RealityCheck · Post by **RealityCheck** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 12:09 pm

Tdarcos wrote:That's because you have a fixed bill with a minimum charge. The Electric company doesn't know what you'll use next month so they can't figure it in advance, but they can use your history - if you have one with them

They already go 2 - 3 months between actually reading the damn meters and so half of the bills are "estimated" already. They don't even need history of a person, rather history of the place receiving electricity which they have in every case unless the building is brand new. I'm not advocating pre-billing of the next month like other utilities but again, what's stopping them from getting theirs? This isn't a "tdarcos is wrong" question but rather an intellectual exercise about how else consumers can get fucked.

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 12:46 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:$524! My god! That's enough energy to shoot down the Mir!

Lemme go check what mine was.

Ok. $112. I got lucky this summer. We had a string of 90 degree days, but I've adjusted myself to be perfectly happy with the thermostat set to 81. The downstairs cools naturally because of, I don't know, magnets I guess, and I was able to "chill" out there rorlflolfolforl

I have said all along that there is something wrong with our air conditioner. I mean, we didn't even open our pool this year, so it wasn't the pool filter and it wasn't the arcade games. Yeah, I have two or three computers, big whoop. For $500, most people should be able to buy a new laptop once a month from TigerDirect and power it up all month!

I bought one of those Kill-A-Watt (hee hee) devices that you can plug in to the wall and then plug a device into it and see how much electricity any given device is using, but of course work with the A/C or dryer or shit like that.

Watch it turn out to be something small like my iPad charger having a short in it or something else small that I end up taking to the next house. Christ.

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 3:18 pm

I understand that a lot of appliances that once had an off mode are now power vampires because of standby mode.

Or would that be power lampreys for the unbelievers.

THE
SILENT SUCKER
AARDVARK

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:30 pm

AArdvark wrote:I understand that a lot of appliances that once had an off mode are now power vampires because of standby mode.

Pretty much all modern computers and gaming consoles still "sip juice" when powered down. And the computers use less than the consoles. Most modern PCs will respond to a "wake on LAN" command (we use that at work for machine patching, or are at least trying to). Consoles are on all the time; both my PS3 and my Wii, when off, are warm to the touch and have lights on. So's my TV. If I could remember to use it, I'd plug them all into one power strip that could be turned off and really cut power to them.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 5:19 pm

Flack wrote:
Tdarcos wrote:
Flack wrote:Also, according to grammar Nazis, the word "realtor" should always be capitalized -- as in, Realtor is a proper noun. Now that's some elitist bullshit right there.
The real reason is that "Realtor" is a registered trademark of the National Association of Realtors, and is issued to real estate agents who pay the fee to use it.

Just like "Big Mac" or "Whopper" are supposed to be capitalized because they're registered trademarks.
Yeah, I Googlied it too, but I still don't agree with it. If people want to use Realtor (capitalized) to mean "someone who is a licensed member of the NAR," then that's fine. But "realtor," lowercase, should (I think) be used when referring, in general, to one who sells houses.

Sounds like someone running a restaurant who thinks "Big Mac" should be capitalized to indicate a licensed franchisee of McDonalds but "big mac" should be allowed for someone selling the identical sandwich at a non-McDonalds restaurant.

Or let's let sellers of Coca-Cola products use "Coke" and those selling Pepsi to use "coke".

Let's let Cadillac dealers sell Cadillac cars, but sellers of Hyundai cars can call theirs a cadillac. Mercedes Benz at a licensed dealer, mercedes benz for any other used (or new) car lot selling anything whether or not it came from Daimler.

Flack wrote:I guess we always have "real estate agent," but in today's world of Twitter, SpongeBob and cell phones, I'm afraid attention spans are so short that by using three words instead of one, people will get distracted and lose interest. Who has time these days to use three words, where one will do?

So create some new word and spend several million dollars advertising it, then you can decide if you want to throw that away and let anyone use it, or only the people who pay you. You could have said the same thing about a fast-paced world when TV came out and overshadowed radio and newspapers.

Flack wrote:I realize it's not uncommon for companies to get their panties in a wad when we, the unintelligent general public, misuse trademarked words. Coca-Cola hates it when people use the word "cokes" to represent "a selection of carbonated sodas." If you really want to attract the ire of grammar Nazis, try pluralizing the word Lego! Lego has gone so far as to address it on their website. Lego is the brand; individual Lego pieces are called bricks, so the correct plural term is "Lego bricks," not "Legos." And actually, that's not even right; the correct term is LEGO bricks. So if you ever use the terms "lego," "Lego," or "Legos" on their forums, you will be corrected. It's "LEGO" and "LEGO bricks." Sheesh.

Trademark rules are not the same as copyrights and patents. You can ignore any infringement of your copyright or patent and it provides no defense to a third party that you didn't enforce it on someone else, or that you didn't go after them until they were much larger. But failing to vigorously enforce a trademark can result in a court deciding you didn't police the mark adequately and thus it is a generic term because you allowed it.

Flack wrote:Here's a list of genericizied trademarks from Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ge ... trademarks

God, I'm going to start correcting people who type "zipper" and tell them to capitalize it. Or "bubble wrap." Who capitalizes bubble wrap? Or "dumpster." Sorry, it's "Dumpster."

No, once a mark becomes generic it is no longer capitalized except as the first word of a sentence. We don't write Escalator, Cellophane, or Aspirin because the marks have lost trademark status, they're just ordinary nouns and not trademarks. The exception is that in the U.K. and some other countries, Bayer is still the owner of the trademarked Aspirin brand of acetylsalicylic acid. In those countries it would still be capitalized as a proper noun.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 5:30 pm

About fifteen years ago I was visiting the Trademarks Division of the U.S. Patent and Trademarks Office when it was in Crystal City (Arlington) Virginia. (It has since moved to Alexandria.)

I got into a discussion with a trademark lawyer about defending trademarks, and he gave me an example of a very aggressive company, Toro, the lawnmower company. If you file any mark that is the same as or close to "Toro" - even in other classes than things they make - the company will vigorously fight the application and try very hard to have your mark cancelled. Toro has won some, and lost some, but they are known as a very aggressive defender of their mark, so, as a result, if you are developing a mark similar to theirs in any class - not just lawnmowers - you will have to include funds to defend the mark with the Trademark Appeals Board and possibly in court.

This aggressive strategy on the part of Toro means they don't have to do it a lot because most companies realize there's a whole lot of other marks they can create that aren't even close, that won't be like waiving a red flag at a bull! (Pun intentional.)

Electricity.

Electricity.

Ay, Toro!