Bored and Robosurveyed

[elfs]

The phone rang. I pressed the on button and a mechanical voice said, "This is a 45-second survey by the FEC Survey Group. Are you registered to vote? Please answer 'yes' or 'no'."

"Yes."

"Do you consider yourself to be pro-life?"

Uh-oh. I know where this is going. "No."

"Do you believe that marriage should only be between a man and a woman?"

I hung up. The very wording of the questions means that the only completed surveys they're going to get are evangelicals and fundamentalists; the rest of us are going to hang up on them in disgust.

And what the fuck does that mean, "pro-life." The alternative is, what? "Anti-life?" "Pro-death?" I'm neither, and I hate the way the term has been co-opted.

Anyway, I'm bored. I have both the girls over, but Omaha decided she wanted to go camping, alone, this weekend, so she's over at Dash Point, being anti-social. We've all been a little bummed recently so I can understand her wanting to get away from the kids and all, but I still worry about her, since she is epileptic. The girls are being good right now, but I'm really in the mood for adult companionship. My evening plans are pretty dull: make pizza, bathe the kids, maybe watch some tube or play a game. I haven't figured out how to get the 5/6 stutter out of my DVDs yet (the mkdvd script is meant to do NTSC to PAL; going the other way, it simply doubles the fifth frame to make six frames, giving a "stutter" effect to the video), much to my annoyance, but I do have the first six episodes of DearS to watch, as well as FLCL (Fooly Cooly), so I might sit through one DVD or the other.

Comments

[memegarden.livejournal.com]

I thnk I got that survey. I answered their questions, and told their machine that I thought they were pigs for asking them.

[cabrius.livejournal.com]

'transcode' (http://zebra.fh-weingarten.de/~transcode/) can probably do a better job of framerate conversion since it can blend frames and fields, but of course switching tools is sometimes more trouble than it's worth...

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I love transcode, I really do. And there are better tools than even transcode, the things transcode uses. It's really a swiss army knife kinda tool, with all the blades inserted as shared object libraries. The problem is that mkdvd has a really nifty subsystem that makes the menus for you and generates the dvdauthor script. I'd like to be able to do both: tune my transcoding, and have the menus autogenerated. I'd add a few more options than mkdvd supplies; I've hacked it a bit to move the menus on the X-axis, for example, so I can use nice wallpapers for backgrounds; they look quite professional. I just want it to be better.

[zonereyrie.livejournal.com]

You haven't seen Fooly Cooly? I thought you had for some reason...

Gainax on crack. Great stuff.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Only the first episode. I can't really watch such things in a house full of young'uns.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

So you're doing 25fps PAL conversion to 30fps NTSC?

24fps film is converted to NTSC by the extra frame method, I think. For film to PAL they just run it slightly fast.

Can't your DVD/TV setup handle an NTSC colour signal at 25fps? That's how my system handles NTSC -- output at NTSC frame rate with PAL colour coding.

FEC Survey calls

[(Anonymous)]

I've received a two calls from them recently. As soon as I hear the recording, my automatic reaction is to hang up -- so I don't know if these calls comply with the TCPA. It would be interesting to find out, though... if they call again I should tough it out and see if they're behaving.

According to JunkBusters (http://www.junkbusters.com/fcc.html#subpL), requirements are as follows: (edited for brevity)

"No person may...
Initiate any telephone call to any residential telephone line using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message without the prior express consent of the called party, unless the call is initiated for emergency purposes or is exempted by sec. 64.1200(c)."
(Section 64.1200(c) reads:)

"The term "telephone call" in sec. 64.1200(a)(2) shall not include a call or message by, or on behalf of, a caller:

1. that is not made for a commercial purpose,
2. that is made for a commercial purpose but does not include the transmission of any unsolicited advertisement,
3. to any person with whom the caller has an established business relationship at the time the call is made, or
4. which is a tax-exempt nonprofit organization."

Further...

"All artificial or prerecorded telephone messages delivered by an automatic telephone dialing system shall:

1. At the beginning of the message, state clearly the identity of the business, individual, or other entity initiating the call, and
2. During or after the message, state clearly the telephone number (other than that of the autodialer or prerecorded message player which placed the call) or address of such business, other entity, or individual."

It's that last part where I'm kind of hoping they weren't paying attention.

My usual reaction to telemarketers is "put me on your do-not-call list, thankyougoodbye." As a result, about the only calls I get are the prerecorded ones. I spent some time tracking one blatant violator down -- they were selling satellite TV service -- only to find their 'official' headquarters in Nassau, Bahamas... safely out of process-server range.

(And don't you just love how they ask such loaded questions... 'objective polling' my ass.)

Bryan.

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

I got one of these calls, too, which is not a surprise given that I live in NV, a "battleground" state. I wonder how confused they were by my responses (I answered all the way through). The question that amused me was: do I give contribute to political organizations, charities or churches (all lumped together)? I send money to the ACLU every month, so I said, "yes."

FLCL is cool and strange.

Be afraid... be very afraid

[(Anonymous)]

Elf, you might be interested in the following LJ post:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/twistedchick/1123439.html

That post details how some people in "key battleground states" are discovering that they've had a "change of address" form filed without their consent -- thereby robbing them of a vote come November (unless they had the forethought to check their filed address).

The next logical step in this sort of election-rigging is to tie together an automated system which a) polls the populace via phone calls, and b) files a "change of address" for anyone who doesn't answer in a particular fashion.

-someone who shall remain unnamed

[(Anonymous)]

Got to be anonymous. Don't blog ;)

This sounds suspiciously like the current trend in electioneering popping up. They aren't after survey results, they want a list of people that are NOT registered to vote, and seem likely to vote republican. Then they get back to people that are likely to be their voters and try to persuade them to register.

If you aren't of a republican attitude, they won't bother. It's a fascinating way of ballot stuffing - the new trend, make use of the apathy in voters. Rather than try to persuade voters to take your side, try to persuade those that already take your side to vote...