do-not-call registry: useless.

20 years ago
You've probably heard about the new National Do-Not-Call Registry. The idea is that you add your phone number to a list -- which will then be distributed to each and every phone spammer in the country -- and they all sincerely promise not to call you.

Well, even if you buy that story, it's still useless, because the law exempts:

  • long-distance phone companies;
  • airlines;
  • banks and credit unions;
  • insurance companies;
  • all political organizations;
  • all charities;
  • anyone conducting a survey.

All those people are allowed to cold-call you even if you're on the list. Oh, and also anyone you've done business with in the last 18 months. (FAQ.)

I almost never get telemarketing calls, and my technique was:

  • pay for anonymous call rejection;
  • pay for an unlisted phone number;
  • pay extra for an unpublished phone number;
  • wait a year for it to propagate.

"Unlisted" just means "take me out of the paper book." "Unpublished" is what you need to get out of the databases they sell to spammers.

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20 years ago
Photos of the Naughty Nursies event are up. This was a fundraiser for the St. James Infirmary, a free clinic for sex workers. It was a good turnout, and a lot of fun! There were, I think, thirteen separate acts on the main stage, six of which were real bands. I was impressed at how well orchestrated the whole thing was: each band only did a short set, but there was very little down-time between acts. When I saw how many folks they had booked, I thought there wasn't any way they'd make that work, but they did... Oh, there was also at least one band playing upstairs in the lounge, but I missed them.

We were having some lighting trouble, though: the dimmers kept flaking out, making the stage lighting go dark for a few seconds every few minutes. This is possibly due to the recent high temperatures, but it's possible something else is wrong too (since this didn't happen last summer.) Jeremy is still investigating...

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