Left In Lowell

C. Rita Mercier is rethinking her previous support for the increase in late fees for delinquent taxpayers. That increase took the fee from $5 to $30.

As someone who frequently pays late fees (being chronically disorganized), I do not think $30 is an inordinate fee for paying late. As the article states, collections on delinquent accounts is expensive. It costs us, the city, more than $5 to chase someone down. Therefore, the late person is costing us money, and should be charged accordingly. (And really, it’s not like your credit card or bank doesn’t charge you that much or more for being late.)

Now, I would be all for a rules change that allowed someone in true hardship to contact the city and get an extension on paying their taxes, but come on. At some point you have to take responsibility for yourself, and if you’re late, you pay. I should know, I do it all the time, and some of that time has been because I didn’t have the money to pay it before its deadline.

And let’s face it, if you’re that broke, you aren’t buying the sorts of cars or whatever that costs that much in excise taxes to begin with. Despite occasional (relatively minor, but still painful) hardship in the last six years, my excise tax for the PoS (piece of sh*t) car (please don’t tell her I called her that!) we’ve been driving was like, the cost of two decent lunches downtown. If you own a house, you should be putting money into escrow. If you own a house and can’t afford the water/sewer/trash bill, well, as I said, I wouldn’t be adverse to giving people extensions, but the ball has to be in their court to contact the city and let them know their situation and to keep them up to date as to when they can pay.

I might swear like a drunk sailor every time I have to pay some late fee, even one I didn’t expect, usually at the poor person behind the counter, but if I can’t keep track of my own life, that’s my fault, and I should be angriest at myself. Just because Mercier was in line at the tax office behind someone who felt that way, doesn’t mean we stop being fair to the people who pay on time, whose just-as-hard-earned tax dollars were going to chase down people who weren’t, before the fee was raised.

Reporting in the Lowell Sun, Gunther tells us the first quarter numbers for recycling and trash savings are up significantly.

Compared to the first three months of 2008, bottles and cans recycling is up by 5.2 percent, paper recycling is up by 12.1 percent and trash (citywide) is down 14.2 percent.

The data reflects a savings of $96,000 at the incinerator.

Given that we only had one actual month in the previous quarter of having our new trash bins, this is great news.

Also, Gunther tells us some good news about Hazardous Waste Day, scheduled for Saturday, May 2, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the parking lot at Cawley Stadium.

For the first time, the Health Department will be on-site to collect medical sharps and unused/expired medications. Simply remove your name and medication name from containers. Better yet, place pills in unmarked zipper-type snack/sandwich bags. Bring your sharps (syringes and lancets) in a puncture proof, leak-proof container (such as a bleach bottle) with screw-top lid.

Also new this year is that the city’s waste contractor, Allied Waste, will be on hand to collect TVs, monitors, passenger tires and propane tanks. These items are on the city’s fee schedule and payment will be required at the time of drop-off. Visit www.lowellrecycle.org for more details and pricing.

I know I have some pills that I have wondered what to do with, since pouring them into the wastestream either by wastewater or by solid waste seems rather anti-environmental, especially given how drugs are being found in our drinking water.

I assume that tires must be removed from any rims…so I still haven’t been able to get rid of what the previous owner(s) left under my porch. *sigh*

But congrats to the city for the largely successful rollout of the new waste system, and for expanding HazWasteDay to be even more useful for residents. Let’s hope for even better recycling numbers this quarter now that we’re all settled into the routine!

It was less than 3 years ago, that the Lowell Plan, the private/public agency, embarked on a feasibility study that evaluated moving the high school out of downtown. Now, I read in the Sun’s Sunday Column, that the same group, working with the University, is “preparing a request for proposals for firms interested in performing ‘a comprehensive analysis’ on the potential economic impact of an expanded university presence in the downtown.”

So the first study was to determine if we if we should move the high school kids out of downtown and the second study is to determine if we should move the college kids into downtown. I want LHS to stay where it is and I welcome more college kids downtown. Of course all this depends on the definition of “expanded university presence.”

Today’s NY Times has a fascinating article about “hyperlocal” news web site. Is this the future of “journalism?”

Currently, the more successful sites (such as EveryBlock) have had a financial backer, to launch the venture. But if this model succeeds, then with a little bit of tweaking, maybe others can copy the format requiring limited financial investment.

Of course, the new journalism faces the same problem as the old journalism, bringing in ad revenue. But with such a limited staff, a few computers and a couple smart phones, your overhead should be manageable.

According to the Times’ article the other obstacle is “the need for reliable, quality content.” I am optimistic that this emerging media will attract the same quality of journalists as print newspapers, radio and television did and still do.

UPDATE: Some commenters on AMERICAblog report the guy admitting to doing this as a troll himself. But the probability that this was a script exploitation of the report adult content feature of Amazon was still to blame, and the discussion point still stands. Also, how fragile reporting in general in, on, and about the internet still is.

UPDATE II: Link to the guy who thinks the guy admitting this is a liar. This starts to get into the realm of meta-ing the meta…

UPDATE III: More interesting exploration of “scalability problems,” and another blog post noting Amazon’s “highly distributed” structure.

A fascinating picture is emerging of the Amazon-deranking-GLBT books debacle. If you don’t know what I am talking about, AMERICAblog posted about it this morning, then posted about what Amazon had to say about it this afternoon (calling it a “glitch” - which it apparently is, but not just a glitch).

In comments Robin posted this link to a guy calling himself brutal_honesty who seems to confess to rigging the “report this as an adult item” reporting system that Amazon has on its pages for books and other goods. He used a script, some friends with high traffic sites, and some brute force to do it, he says. This delisted those books he targeted (using a script, not direct targeting) from the rankings, which GLBT authors began to notice, then complain, then activists online angered at what seemed to be an Amazon policy run amok started to write about it.

“brutal_honesty” links to someone who was “the only person to figure it out,” someone called “dely,” writing at another livejournal blog (why does anyone use livejournal? God I hate that format).

Basically, #amazonfail is the name for a brewing Internet shitstorm that started some time on Easter Sunday regarding Amazon.com’s sudden decision to blacklist any books with LGBT(QQI) content from appearing in best-seller lists or search results. The blacklist also apparently extends to books with feminist themes, books about dealing with rape, etc. Initial complaints to Amazon resulted in the following stock response, which just angered people more:

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

He describes some previous examples of this tactic by ultra-trolls, including one against Six Apart, who dely worked for (they do Movable Type/Typepad , the blogging software/community). He then goes on (bold mine):

Amazon will spend weeks cleaning up this PR mess. Trust will be destroyed for many, and may not ever be repaired for some. People have already mentioned canceling orders and canceling accounts, and by this time the controversy has found its way to MSM blogs and newspapers. […]

This whole event also brings to mind an ongoing debate I’ve had about the merits of trolling, which I define in its simplest form as “exploiting and demonstrating the weaknesses of online trust relationships“. In this case, it is Amazon’s trust relationship with its users, upon whom they rely to flag objectionable content.

In other words, on the internet, where no one knows you’re a dog, trust is built up by using such things as repeating names/nicknames, by the strength of your argument, but also, by tools that various platforms use to allow feedback, ratings and other user-generated content and data. But online trust is fragile and prone to quick breakdown.

To my mind, this really isn’t that far from actual in person human relationships, but it is an interesting discussion none the less.