Do we want them to know?

[BobA]

Another intrusion into our lives.

[hypernova]

Holy crap!  They know when I'm sleeping?!? 

Pretty sure I have one outside my house.  Don't really care it's there, either.  Brokaw seems to have forgotten his tin hat for that video.

I live in Ohio, and have had heard of people getting busted for the marijuana growing in their house.  I'm pretty sure they could've been nailed whether it was a smart meter or not, because growing marijuana indoors requires a TON of energy.  They'll notice that uncommon amount of juice you suck away for no apparent reason at some point.

[Donkbaca]

They also bust indoor weed growers because of their water bills, and they also use infrared cameras on helicopters to find hot houses

[Howard_Casto]

Wow that guy lives in crazy town. 

Apparently he doesn't seem to understand that while the meter is brand new, the outlets and wiring in your house is the same old stuff.  You can't detect ANYTHING except power usage. 

And guess what, they could do that before.  The only real difference is that now instead of physically inspecting a meter, which already collected stuff like average consumption per day, peak hours ect... they can do it without leaving their truck, which is awesome because now they don't block you in your driveway by showing up at just the "right" time. 

I mean sure they can get a little more data in terms of specific usage hours, but I don't see how that's invasive or terribly illegal. If anything it's quite useful as the power company can predict brown outs or peak usage days and compensate for it. 

Also the stuff about detecting drug houses and helping solve crimes seems like a GOOD thing to me.  Why?  Because I'm not a criminal. 


To be honest I'm more interested in the protocol they use... it would be fun to have such statistics available to me abotu my own power habits. 

[Xiaou2]

The problem is that its just one more thing that monitors and tracks your life.  Used in conjunction with every other device... it paints a picture of clarity thats shockingly clear.

 While it may seem harmless today...   Imagine if someone like Hitler managed to snake their ways into power.  Using tracking technology, it would make it nearly impossible to stop them... because any small variance in behavior would be immediately noticed.

 For all the good it might do, it contains the possibility to forever damn the entire world.

[yotsuya]

That's the most dramatic 'slippery slope' argument I've ever heard!

[SavannahLion]

Wow that guy lives in crazy town.  

Apparently he doesn't seem to understand that while the meter is brand new, the outlets and wiring in your house is the same old stuff.  You can't detect ANYTHING except power usage.  

And guess what, they could do that before.  The only real difference is that now instead of physically inspecting a meter, which already collected stuff like average consumption per day, peak hours ect... they can do it without leaving their truck, which is awesome because now they don't block you in your driveway by showing up at just the "right" time.  

I mean sure they can get a little more data in terms of specific usage hours, but I don't see how that's invasive or terribly illegal. If anything it's quite useful as the power company can predict brown outs or peak usage days and compensate for it.  

Also the stuff about detecting drug houses and helping solve crimes seems like a GOOD thing to me.  Why?  Because I'm not a criminal.  


To be honest I'm more interested in the protocol they use... it would be fun to have such statistics available to me abotu my own power habits.  

You're right. Criminals don't give a rats ass about the meter, "smart" or not. About... er.... fifteen years ago I believe, a pot house was busted because the morons decided to rewire the meter. The part that was actually "metered" went direct to the house. The part not metered went to their pot growing house under ground. The meter reader noticed the weird wiring and contacted authorities. The authorities noticed the huge patch of green grass growing in the back yard... surrounded by fifteen feet of snow in the dead of winter. Yeah... you can figure the rest out. If the guy never leaves his truck to physically inspect the meter, you can bet your bacon that more than a few people will hack the meter and tweak it to their desire*.

I kind of like it actually, it keeps their ---smurfing--- meter reader guy out of my backyard (three neighbor's readers are within sight of my yard so the guy likes to jump my fence since it saves him a trip around the block). I don't like what it implies, but let the power company spend the money and man power to figure out all the juice I'm draining off their grid is for my cabinets.


*Nevermind that utility company also has a "neighborhood meter" for this express purpose. Not sure if that's true everywhere though.

[Howard_Casto]

The TSA is frisking on boat ferries, btw.

Now the TSA IS invasive and they must be stopped at all cost.  I'm pretty sure it's just an organization of perverts seeing as how frisking would only catch the stupidest of criminals.  And what's the deal with no shampoo?  Seriously I'm going to store my toxic bomb chemicals in a thin bottle of pert plus?  Like I said their "safety measures" only catch the stupid ones. 


Actually all security is like that.  The lock on your door doesn't keep robbers out, it lets you sleep at night.  Unless you are me....  I don't sleep, go ahead and try to steal something from my house.   

[AtomSmasher]

To be honest I'm more interested in the protocol they use... it would be fun to have such statistics available to me abotu my own power habits. 

A coworker recently had one of these meters installed and he said that he got a login for the electric companies website so he could see his hourly usage.  Sounded kind of cool to me.

Now the TSA IS invasive and they must be stopped at all cost.

Ah yes, the TSA.  What better way to stop crime then by hiring unqualified, low paid employees.  I recently heard that something like 85% of all smuggling in airports is now done by TSA employees.  I'm sure the other 15% occurs because TSA agents aren't paid enough to give a crap.

[SavannahLion]

TSA right....

Ha anyone here ever looked at the TSA list of banned items? It's an interesting read really. The list doesn't really prevent someone who really wants to get into it. Is it fair to mention the myriad of materials that can be used as weapons in some fashion or another that is allowed according to the TSA?

One of these days I should gather up the George Carlin list and compare it to the TSA list and see how true it holds today. I'm too lazy to do it right now though. Maybe I'll do it while I'm at work. 

[Howard_Casto]

One of these days I should gather up the George Carlin list and compare it to the TSA list and see how true it holds today. I'm too lazy to do it right now though. Maybe I'll do it while I'm at work. 

Now that was a wise man.  There are very few people on this planet I've ever been able to agree with 99% of the time.  I miss him. 

You know what he would say: 

"Freedom, we don't have any Freedom.  What we have is the ILLUSION of Freedom and they are very smart to give us that.  It makes all us sheep complacent."

[Vigo]

The thing is, this sort of thing does get abused. Agencies will scrape whatever information they can get and use it against you if it serves their purposes.

A few years back, my house was condemned on me while I was inside it watching tv. Apparently some branch of the city gov't forgot to file some random form with the county gov't which caused my property tax information to not be uploaded to some city database. Therefore since the house I bought was a foreclosure, they had in their records an unoccupied house that went uninspected for a lapse of 6 months, violating requirements. So an inspecor came over and rather that wondering why an "unoccupied" house had lights on and cars parked in the driveway, he just went up to the door and posted the condemnation signs up. I noticed them as he was driving away.

Needless to say, I had to provide a ton of very private information to them in order to get my house uncondemned. Tax information, pay stubs, electric bills, birth certificates, you name it. Balls to the wall, i grumbled and just did what they asked. Big mistake.

A few months later, some other city department was inspecting our bill and determined that we had too high of an electric bill, this prompted a city investigator to go to our property and check to see if I was running a commercial business (or weed, I guess) out of my home. At least this is what the city inspector told me when I called her up after getting a nasty letter from her saying I was to be under inspection for property tax evasion. The inspector found an old sign lying out on my garage that said "tenant parking only" The house I bought was a rental before it was foreclosed, and when I bought it, I just never threw the sign out because people would try to park in my driveway.

Well, we tried to fight that one, and thankfully we avoided depositing another lump of private information on the city's lap, but they still demanded an inspection to prove I was not renting out my property without paying rental taxes on it. I tried to fight that as well, but then it got to the point where the city threatened to report that we were harboring illegal immigrants. The city jumped to the conclusion that the only reason why I didn't want an inspector in my house was because I was hiding illegals in my attic.   Well, since my wife was working on getting her citizenship at the time, my balls were now in a blender, so I just agreed to the inspection.

The inspection was pretty much as I thought it would end up, the inspector said that I had too many power tools, so clearly I was building without a permit, and I had an old mailbox sitting inside my locked porch, so that must be the second mailbox for the illegal family in my attic. Oh, and she didn't believe me when I told her that my guest bedroom was a guest bedroom. I just got pissed and laid it out flat the whole stupid story for her of everything that happened since day 1. Well, I guess she sort of got the point of how idiotic the whole thing was and finally backed off. Of course she threw out a number of smarmy comments about how I may have won this time, but they will be watching me.

Well, long story short, don't give any form of gov't even an inch when it comes to your private information. When they need to, they will take a mile.

[Kevin Mullins]

A coworker recently had one of these meters installed and he said that he got a login for the electric companies website so he could see his hourly usage.  Sounded kind of cool to me.

I'll have to ask about that..... we've had a smart meter for some time now.
We had a water well pipe crack on us before and it went un-noticed until we got that month's bill. (not cracked enough to lose water, but enough to keep the pump running 24/7) Would be nice to monitor stuff like that once in a while to be able to catch abnormalities of electricity use.  Ya know... wtf is using so much power when everyone is sleeping type thing.
 
We live fairly rural, so it only makes sense for them to look for ways to not have to go meter to meter.
But honestly I could give a rat's ass what all it can do as long as they quit jacking the rates up due to their "innovated technology ideas". (saves them man-power costs, but ends up costing us for the new equipment)

[Vigo]

You can check how much power you are using, just pop on out to your meter and watch the dial. You can also get those watt usage meters.

[Malenko]

If you agree with the guy in the video, you're ---smurfing--- stupid. Whether or not you were home of the night of the murder? I can wrap a rubber band around a drill and go kill someone, and the smart meter is my alibi? They can see how many watts my electric tooth brush pulls? Who the hell has a corded toothbrush? Sounds dangerous. 

I'm all about privacy, and my right to it.I just cant understand why this is a big deal. My electric company uses smart meters, they provide us with power usage statistics like when we use the most power and how to better conserve energy.

[Vigo]

If you agree with the guy in the video, you're ---smurfing--- stupid. Whether or not you were home of the night of the murder? I can wrap a rubber band around a drill and go kill someone, and the smart meter is my alibi? They can see how many watts my electric tooth brush pulls? Who the hell has a corded toothbrush? Sounds dangerous. 

I'm all about privacy, and my right to it.I just cant understand why this is a big deal. My electric company uses smart meters, they provide us with power usage statistics like when we use the most power and how to better conserve energy.

Yeah, he is being overdramatic. A lot more private statistics are given off by your cell phone. There is a matter of principal to it though. We have no choice in our power company, and it's yet another chip of our private lives out there for grabs, but I'm more worried about the green police than the real police in this case. 

I already get my monthly lecture letter telling me that I am using too much electricity because I am above the neighborhood average (even though my neighborhood is littered with foreclosures and they don't ever take that into account).

[Kevin Mullins]

You can check how much power you are using, just pop on out to your meter and watch the dial. You can also get those watt usage meters.

No more dials... it's all digital. 
But I know what you mean, we check it from time to time now, more so to make sure it matches the usage on the bill. Before the new meters we use to get an "estimated" bill every now and again and that would piss me off. Of course they would adjust it the next time they actually read the meter, but it can still spank ya from one month to the next.

I have one of those Kill A Watt meters for checking all the small appliances and whatnot, but it does no good for anything 220v. (ie furnace, stove, water well pump, air conditioner etc)
But I have been known to shut the entire house down and turn each of those on one at a time and use the electric meter to monitor usage. 

[lilshawn]

But I have been known to shut the entire house down and turn each of those on one at a time and use the electric meter to monitor usage. 

except then your usage goes to zero for a short time... and the company thinks you pulled the meter to do some shenanigans inside to get free power and people show up at your house.

i was in the middle of replacing our all our old outlets and  light switches to new ones... to keep from killing myself and playing guess the circuit with the breaker box, I hit the main breaker and shut off the while place. a couple of hours later, i'm almost done and i get a knock at the door. dude in blue overalls doesn't say hey i'm from the power company or nothin', he says "why's your power off?" im totally thrown off. i should have been WTF it to ya.

[hypernova]

Vigo's long story, and I don't want to take up a bunch of space...

Well, long story short, don't give any form of gov't even an inch when it comes to your private information. When they need to, they will take a mile.

You have to admit, alot of those circumstances you talked about would seem a bit suspicious to someone from the outside.  But it is a bit shameful that they came in with the "guilty" mentality from the outset.

Oh, and careful Tom Brokaw!  They might know when you were at work, too!  (And so does anyone else with a television!)

[Vigo]

Vigo's long story, and I don't want to take up a bunch of space...

Well, long story short, don't give any form of gov't even an inch when it comes to your private information. When they need to, they will take a mile.

You have to admit, alot of those circumstances you talked about would seem a bit suspicious to someone from the outside.  But it is a bit shameful that they came in with the "guilty" mentality from the outset.

Well, the only thing I can understand them questioning is the the tenant sign, but investigating me for tax fraud over it was outrageous. They could have just asked. Yeah, the rest is shameful.

Investigating my electric bill size, which I only submitted as a proof of residency? Accusing me of harboring illegal immigrants because I have a guest bedroom and a broken mailbox on the floor of my junk-filled porch? Suggesting that I am building without a permit because I have a medium-sized tool collection? I just can't wrap my mind around those.

Oh, and in a later occasion, I received a nastygram from the city because I had six patio pavers on my driveway. I was going to put down some pavers to put my grill on. The notice from the city was because they suspected me of illegally building a parking space in my yard without proper zoning approval. I guess they suspected I needed a parking spot for a clown car from the 2' x 3' spot I was building.

In the end, they sent out an inspector to make sure the pavers were under my grill like I told them. Maybe they are the ones who violated my grill? It all makes sense now! This was all a gov't conspiracy all along!  Where's the lone gunmen when you need them?

[lilshawn]

What a bunch of flippin Nazis vigo. I feel for you man. I have some friends that live next door to a --cream-filled twinkie-- former city counselor. If it looks like they might be doing something he's all over them like a dirty shirt (even though he really has no right (or jurisdiction) to do so) 

[Vigo]

Thanks man! I think anyone who has read my previous rants knows that I really hate my neighborhood. I wouldn't be surprised that someone who works for the city lives in my neighborhood and is trying to make hell for me. All the neighbors seem to like me though, with the exception of the one right next to my house. Hmm, maybe that guy does work for the city...It would explain a lot.

[danny_galaga]

Holy crap!  They know when I'm sleeping?!? 

Pretty sure I have one outside my house.  Don't really care it's there, either.  Brokaw seems to have forgotten his tin hat for that video.

I live in Ohio, and have had heard of people getting busted for the marijuana growing in their house.  I'm pretty sure they could've been nailed whether it was a smart meter or not, because growing marijuana indoors requires a TON of energy.  They'll notice that uncommon amount of juice you suck away for no apparent reason at some point.

Dutch cops have been looking for crazy meter readings for decades to detect marijuana growers. Yes, they have liberal laws in Holland, but even the Dutch frown upon mysterious shipping containers that use kilowatts of electricity!

[Dartful Dodger]

My parents go away for the winter.
Last winter my brother spent a night at their house. When he flushed the toilet it got stuck and he didn't notice. The water company contacted me the next day. The man said the water hasn't been used in months and all of a sudden it spiked. He figured the owners left for the winter and a pipe cracked or started leaking. He offered to send someone to turn the water if I couldn't fix the problem.

For those of us nt breaking the law, 99.99% of the time an inconsistency means something is really wrong. I don't mind a minor inconvenience, if it’s protecting me from a major problem.

I mind the major inconveniences that protect us from imaginary problems.

[hypernova]

Well, the only thing I can understand them questioning is the the tenant sign, but investigating me for tax fraud over it was outrageous. They could have just asked. Yeah, the rest is shameful.

Investigating my electric bill size, which I only submitted as a proof of residency? Accusing me of harboring illegal immigrants because I have a guest bedroom and a broken mailbox on the floor of my junk-filled porch? Suggesting that I am building without a permit because I have a medium-sized tool collection? I just can't wrap my mind around those.

Oh, and in a later occasion, I received a nastygram from the city because I had six patio pavers on my driveway. I was going to put down some pavers to put my grill on. The notice from the city was because they suspected me of illegally building a parking space in my yard without proper zoning approval. I guess they suspected I needed a parking spot for a clown car from the 2' x 3' spot I was building.

In the end, they sent out an inspector to make sure the pavers were under my grill like I told them. Maybe they are the ones who violated my grill? It all makes sense now! This was all a gov't conspiracy all along!  Where's the lone gunmen when you need them?

Yup.  Problem was they tried to make the crime fit the evidence.  Or the evidence fit the crime.  Whichever sounds better.

[BobA]

Have you ever analyzed your electrical bill?   Most of the charges are for distribution and other administrative charges cloaked to prevent you from telling what they are. Our electrical utility still charges for years they figure they got short changed.   I looked at my electrical bill in detail since I have a so called smart meter and if I cut the consumption by 30 percent I would have save about 10 dollars.  The rest of the charges would still have caused the bill to be $80.

[garwil]

I love how every post by X2 has some reference to Hitler coming back from the dead and taking over the world! 

[Howard_Casto]

Hey undead Hitler is no laughing matter! 

Legend has it you can only kill him with a star of david to the heart dipped in virgin Jew blood.  And you know how hard that is to find.

[hypernova]

I've got one in my basement for just such an occasion.

You know, the ole' rainy day thing.

[RayB]

Hey undead Hitler is no laughing matter! 

Legend has it you can only kill him with a star of david to the heart dipped in virgin Jew blood.  And you know how hard that is to find.

HEYOOOOO!