Keyboards and the internet are magic, I can type any old shit, and in the typing, make it real, and make my fantasies real.
Inherently there is no difference between me typing and clicking away in Fallout 4 and the Lagarde wench typing and clicking in some financial / economic planning software, we are both playing in a sandbox limited in unknown ways to us by the actual program code, and we are both playing in a virtual realm.
Until and unless reality checks in, it’s as good as reality on many levels too… let me explain, fiat currency is several steps removed from money, but I can use bits of linen printed with £ sterling and trade them for goods in the shops, better still, I can use a piece of plastic with a few circuits on it to trade balances held in a computer memory somewhere with goods in the shops.
There is no inherent difference between the balance in Pounds Sterling NatBarcLoid Bank says I have to my name and the balance in caps Fallout 4 says I have to my name.
I like technology, I use technology, but I am an engineer at heart, an empiricist, a scientist… so when my one year old ,comes with a contract, all you can eat data and voice, Samsung Note 4 started playing up with the home button becoming intermittent, I contacted the mobile company for repair, who said send it to Samsung UK in wales, so I did.
A week later the phone comes back with a letter, not only is it not fixed, the letter says, and I quote *exactly* including grammatical errors here… however bold emphasis and colours are mine…
“Ewa, one of our engineers at our approved service centre, has tested your device and they have found that it is not working because it has been subjected to severe physical damage internally. The extent of this damage means that the cost of repair will exceed the cost the handset. Physical damage is not covered by the manufacturer’s warranty.”
At which point I started to shit myself, oh noes, they have got my phone mixed up with someone else’s, or something… I look at the returned phone and it is mine, apart from the iffy home button it is perfect, and I mean like new perfect, I am anal about looking after my kit..
A few days pass and I eventually manage to find out from Samsung Electronics UK that this severe internal physical damage that they are talking about is in fact not severe or physical or even damage, I have rooted my phone, at which point the warranty, they say, is over.
I tell Samsung UK (and my mobile provider, who shrug and point at Samsung UK) that EU Directive 1999/44/CE states explicitly that rooting a device by itself cannot void a warranty.
Samsung UK shrug, not interested.
So me being me I am like fuck it, and go online to the court system and issue a writ, against my mobile provider, after all, it is they who I have my 2 year phone contract with and they who provided the phone.
At this point, despite showing them printouts of the law, despite explaining patiently and clearly to all concerned that I root my device so that I can run Titanium Backup, and as an aside this also allows me to run Adblock, everyone from my mobile provider to friends and associates and loved ones patiently tell me I cannot win.
I’m like, WTF, I have a history of doing this shit (issuing a court writ) and my success rate is over 95%, and like it costs me 35 quid to file it electronically.
So three months have passed (court paperwork takes ages) and my mobile provider has decided that rather than going to court, they will give me absolutely free and brand new Samsung Note 4 (and I get to keep the old one, which works fine apart from the sometimes iffy home button) and three months credit on my contract and they will pay me the 35 quid I spent to file the claim.
BTW I can also keep the brand new Note 4 they loaned me a week after I filed the court case.
Cynical old me knew they would do this, the last thing they or Samsung UK want is UK case law showing them losing to EU Directive 1999/44/CE and not being able to void warranties for rooted devices.
However, all those aforementioned friends and associates and loved ones react with shock, my god, they say, you are soooo lucky…
WTF, since when has enforcing your legal rights counted as luck.
This household now boasts 3 Samsung Note4’s, 1 Samsung Note 3 and one Samsung Galaxy S3, and apart from the slightly iffy home button on one of the Note4’s they are all like new and 100% working.
Sell them, say the naysayers who previously said I would not win…. well, I dunno… it’s not like two of the Note4’s cost me anything, so I’m not out money I need to get back, and it’s always nice to have a spare, or two, and one of them makes a very nice Christmas present, and even if I do not put a sim card in them, they make quite useful portable computing devices and cameras (the Note4 can shoot fairly respectable 4k video)
So we see are fairly practical demonstration of how reality (the law and a court case impending) trumps virtuality (Samsung UK and my mobile providers policy as stated in writing and on websites) and basically the old “that and a buck will buy you a coffee” doesn’t even come close to the virtual side of things.
Two brand new Note4’s and 3 months contract is a thousand pounds, at 30 quid a month that is equivalent to 33 months mobile contract, call it 3 years, I have only been with this provider about 6 years, and the contract itself costs them money to fulfil in terms of mobile voice and data provision, so when you include 5 high end Samsung phones, they have lost money, a lot of money, on me.
Virtual realms versus reality checking in.
Everyone was at pains to tell me I was an edge case, as almost nobody rooted their phones… oreallyoriley… so if I was an edge case why not tell me to go fuck myself and go to court, even if you lose, it’s still only an edge case… right…
Here is another little true story, you’ll see more and more of this shit too as things fall apart.
The mobile phone writ wasn’t the only one I issued.
I live in rented accoms, and in addition to paying the rent by standing order every month, I also paid the light and heat etc bills by ebanking… keeps a record see, now that cheques are passe.
So I *know* I have paid my bills, but the utility companies think I owe them £2,000, so after trying to sort it out with terminally clueless assholes at the letting agency and mindless script following drones at the utility company, I said fuck it, and spent another 35 quid on another writ, this time naming the letting agency (which has since been fired by the landlord) and the utility companies.
This writ wasn’t about enforcing a warranty, this one is about enforcing my legal right to the peaceful and quiet enjoyment of my home and being free from harassment for debts that I do not owe.
I do not know if the utility company has been paid and are just terminally incompetent, or if the letting agent has an employee who simply pocketed the money, or a mixture of both.
I don’t care, six months ago I threatened the letting agency with a writ if they didn’t sort it, as I was sick of getting threatening letters from the utility company about unpaid bills and their right to enter my home etc.
Like my friends and associates and loved one with the Note4, they obviously either did not believe me, or did not understand what can happen when reality intrudes upon virtuality.
That one is ongoing, but again, I always paid my bills in full, I have bank records saying such, nobody at the letting agency has ever suggested that I have not paid any bills due, they have simply blamed the utility company and claimed to have paid them, the utility company say they have not been paid, there is a hold in my bucket dear lisa..
This one *will* go to court, because the letting agent and the utility company are named as joint defendants, so the utility company lawyers will go to court relying on *their* records, and the letting agent will go to court because they are incompetent and too stupid to do whatever it takes to stop it getting to court.
Me, I don’t give a fuck, I got records saying I paid every bill, and records and emails from the letting agent acknowledging that I have paid every bill and claiming that they have paid the utility company so it must be a clerical error by the utility company.
Some time in the new year we will end up in court and I will let god and the judge sort it out…. since I can prove I paid all my bills, I got nothing to lose.
Reality is never go to court if you have something to lose.
Virtuality is unhappy customers threatening to take you to court and is about as *real* as an NPC in Fallout 4 saying “come out and die punk”
If you’re not aware of the potential chilling reality hiding behind the “who gives a fuck it’s all just talk” virtuality, you can get in a world of hurt.
My mobile phone provider, I get it, they treated me with contempt until the point at which I filed a writ and that writ landed on the desk of their legal team, at which point all virtuality was forgotten and it was very real and some guy in HQ gets tasked with making this go away, give the cunt what he wants, but do NOT let it get to court, unless you can trick the cunt into making some statement or admission that will sink his case.
It’s a cynical attitude, but I get it.
The letting agents are just total assholes, unlike the mobile phone company, they do not have pet lawyers, nor do they think they need them… the manager bitch knows everything…
Reality is never go to court if you have something to lose.
On a bad day with a turned on and pissed of judge who has a mistress who just happens to have been shafted by a crap lettings agency, the tenant (me) getting his injunctive relief (with penal notice attached) is the least of your worries.
The judge could start handing out compo, to the tune of back rent for all those months (24) that the tenant tried to sort this with you and you just shrugged and blamed the utility company, EVEN IF IT WAS THE UTILITY companies error, the tenants contract was with the letting agency…. a contract that included peaceful enjoyment of their home.
The judge could go as far as deciding the case needs to go to a different part of the legal system, the one that disbars directors and companies from trading.
The judge could order that the police fraud squad investigate what is clearly in his opinion financial misappropriation by staff at the agency, which is a death blow for the business.
Courts are like street fights like that, you avoid one at all costs, unless you are holding the baseball bat and the heavies are holding the soon to be victim bound and gagged in a chair and saying go for it bro, you got three free strikes, then we will take ours out of what is left.
I was smart enough in my own secret family court debacle to realise that I was not going to win, it was going to be a 100% across the board loss, or I could not wake up and smell the coffee and make it a 1000% loss and totally fuck myself up.
Justice got nothing to do with it… justice is a virtual concept.
I got justice from the mobile phone company, but that is like getting a smile and a wink from the pretty waitress who brings you your coffee, it is not on the menu or what you paid for or ordered.
Provided you get the coffee, forget the justice.
Civil court and criminal court and admiralty court and military court are all the same, forget the justice / wink, it’s all about the coffee / reality, and if you can possibly avoid it do not go there.
Better to give the cunt free coffee for life than to be taken to court and ordered to stop selling coffee, or give the cunt free coffee and pay him 5 bucks for every free coffee he drinks, or get the fuck out of the coffee business yourself.
It’s the old one about ignoring the consequences of your actions but not being immune from the consequences of your actions.
You are immune, until someone doubles down on your virtuality with a dose of reality, at that point you better fold, or hold ALL the winning cards, and ignorance of the reality is no defence.
In the coming months and years, as money gets tighter, expect to see many many many more people discovering first hand what happens when reality clashes with virtuality.
It will be an even more unpleasant experience when the roles are reversed, and the ones issuing the writs are companies, and the ones left trying to defend then are individuals.
“Never go to court if you have something to lose.” will be especially poignant for those unfortunate individuals.
Because unlike Samsung UK or a major UK mobile provider or a major utility company, they simply sill not have the ability to pick up the phone and find some middle management guy in HQ and task him with making it all go away quietly, and if you have to give the cunt a grands worth of shit to make it go away no worries, we’ll just add it to the company expenses and get it back from the tax man.
They will be the ones bound and gagged in the chair, their hopes and wishes and dreams an irrelevance to those waiting with baseball bats, as indeed will be their very survival.
pour encourager les autres….
