Baumblog EST 1968 - A blog for the Baumbachs who originated in Syracuse, NY

Onstar, you suck!
posted by GJ on September 21, 2011 @ 6:15AM

Oh, Onstar...you bogus knight in shining armor, you.

You know the service--pay them a fairly outrageouly monthly or yearly fee for something they like to call "peace of mind," that will do the following:

notify them if the airbags go off so they can call emergency responders.
send you monthly emails about the health of your car...well, some parts of it anyhow.
turn by turn directions in an age when smartphones and TomToms are everywhere.
expensive hands-free calling in the age of bluetooth.
unlock service if you lock the keys in your car

Of course, should you decide that even the cheap level of service (safe & sound) is too much money, cancelling the service is painful. The rep goes overboard in explaining how dangerous it is for you and especially your loved ones if they crash in an area where there are no observers to call 9-11--a pretty rare occurrence when you look at the whole picture of typical crashes, but whatever. In any case, they are using emotional blackmail, which is Sleazy. See what I did there? :)

Now comes this little gem: they track you whether or not you are a subscriber. You may not be on the front lines of the privacy war (hint: still use facebook?) but this change is a deep push into your rights. What they're saying is, they reserve the right to sell your position and speed data to anyone. The government? Your insurer (both car and health)? Your employer? Do you see the potential for abuse? How about private investigators? I can promise you that divorce attornies will love this right away.

Anyhow, if you are a former subscriber, you'd be wise to watch for the email from Onstar and take the time to call them to demand they drop this surveillance that you get no compensation for.

8 comments | Tags: scam

Marc said about 3 hours later

This seems illegal. If you cancel your contract with OnStar, that should unbind you from any of their privacy policies, terms of service, etc. That means you no longer give them permissions to do all the crazy things those documents usually contain. It's one thing if you don't read it and find out a company can track you without telling you due to the contract, but the way this article phrased it, it sounds like they can continue to track you unless you let them know otherwise after canceling a contract.

I assume this is only the case for if you sign a contract with them and then cancel, but most vehicles that come with OnStar give you a free 6-12 months, so that enters you into it right away anyway...

I'm still waiting for the privacy revolution to happen. So far it hasn't been greatly obvious the damages of having your information so accessible to companies. In fact, with all the crazy smart phones and apps that use your location and information, people are likely seeing only benefits at the moment. It won't last long though... someone will screw up big time and people will get very protective over what companies know about them.
GJ said about 3 hours later

The email going out to customers is an updated terms of service. I find it funny they can send this to former customers and think it has any legal binding. I imagine lawsuits on this in 3...2...1...
Marc said about 8 hours later

They could pull an Apple and just say it was a bug and release an update to "correct the issue" like they did with the location logging. Unfortunately for OnStar, they kinda put it into their policies and it wasn't found by some rogue person tinkering with their hardware. :)

Apple still got sued for that though, so OnStar is screwed either way.
Geoff said about 13 hours later

They must love my speed reports :)

I've used their service a number of times to diagnose check engine lights, report a number of accidents (including one of my own), and they do have some good service in areas where a cell-phone is unusable....I actually used the service to carry a phone conference for work which worked out well.

All in all, if you don't like the big eye in the sky, just unplug the unit. It's in your trunk. I hit the damn thing every time I pull my hockey equipment out.
GJ said 1 day later

The whole "OnStar is better than my cell" is kinda bs. Onstar uses a much higher power antenna, which is why they seem to have better coverage. That said, guess what? If you're in a dead zone, you're in a dead zone for OnStar too. I'll grant that around cities this isn't a problem, but get a bit out of the cities and things can get interesting.

I don't have a problem with it if you believe there is value for me and I pay or subscribe to the service. But...when I cancel the service, the company must sever their connection to me. How would you like it if your alarm company continued monitoring your house system after you shut down the account? Even if they don't use the data for anything, the fact is, the data exists and can be stolen and used for nefarious purposes--or sold "legitimately."
Geoff said 2 days later

I don't disagree with you. Would be nice if I could *select* which things they monitor with an active account. Ah well.
GJ said 2 days later

Oh, and I plan to plug the plug as soon as my three month trial is up. I'm still toying with paying for Sirius, but no way am I paying for Onstar.
GJ said 6 days later

Onstar caves to common sense: http://media.gm.com/content/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2011/Sep/0927_onstar

Meanwhile, enjoy these workplace notes
posted by GJ on September 13, 2011 @ 12:01PM

You know, I think there's a theme here.

1 comment | Tags: funny

Mechanic Sob Story, but a good read
posted by Geoff on September 13, 2011 @ 9:57AM

Read the commentary here

10 comments | Tags: auto

GJ said about 1 hour later

What this doesn't address is the ridiculous number of bad shops in the area. I appreciate good work, and this isn't the guy I'd call a cheat. But I sure as blazes can find lots of shops, dealerships all the way down to itty bitty places, that are rip off artists...and they are far from uncommon.
Marc said about 23 hours later

My issue with mechanics (and the reason I pay the bigger price to go to a dealership) has been the quality of work. I've had several "fixes" done on a car which were bandaids at best. Going back to them to re-fix the issue is rarely a pleasurable thing. It likely boils down to GJ's comment, but it's hard to find a good and trustworthy mechanic. At least with a dealership, I can escalate issues until my problem is solved, but I think because that ability to audit them freely is always on the table, you generally get better service. It might be because they cost a little more, but when I compare the prices, I have rarely found a time where the mechanic was significantly cheaper and every time I've gone with the mechanic because they are significantly cheaper, I get the crappy quality of work I end up having to get fixed at a dealership.
GJ said 2 days later

LOL..I avoid dealerships for the same reason you avoid little shops. A good mechanic will not do shoddy work. :)
GJ said 2 days later

Oh, and good mechanics are rarely much cheaper than dealerships. I know mine isn't. But I've only had to get fixes "re-fixed" twice in four years there. Of the two dealers I used--every single damn fix had to be readdresses at least once, sometimes two or three times. I do have a third dealer who I'll be servicing my new G8 at--they're at least competent, but my independent shop gets all non-warranty work and a third shop any performance work.
Geoff said 2 days later

I run the same way. I've got a good mechanic by my house who does a good job. Dealerships are hit or miss, and even the mechanics in them. My neighbor is a mechanic at Bob Johnson Chevrolet so I could trust him to do a good job on my car...I did have a dealer service my engine and besides the fact that the mechanic couldn't figure out how to put my engine back together properly, all is well lol!

The weather today....puuurrrrfect for some heavy foot driving. Vroooooooom! GJ now knows what's up!
GJ said 2 days later

Dude, it's raining out here. You go have fun while I get to explore the finer points of driving with a light foot today.
Marc said 2 days later

You got a G8?! Nice! Anybody good at fixing window motors on a '05 Chevy Cavalier? :)
GJ said 2 days later

I would just replace it. Go get a working one from a junkyard. It's not that hard to do.
Get a Haynes manual for the car first, though--so you can figure out exactly how to do it. :)
Geoff said 3 days later

Plastic and some duct tape. Works wonders for the local gangsters. Who...by the way, asked for a burnout yesterday on my way back home from work. I'm telling you, the brotha's love the color of my car. All about the neutral gang colors, they all love orange.
Steve said 3 days later

There's always the mechanic's files on the car talk website http://www.cartalk.com/content/mechx/

Afraid of flying?
posted by GJ on September 7, 2011 @ 1:09PM

Maybe you should be.

12 comments | Tags: info

Marc said 15 minutes later

Wow, I was shocked by the minutes of manual flying per flight, I thought they didn't jump into autopilot until they had at least hit the cruising altitude. As with anything, when you don't practice it, you lose it... so I'm not surprised pilots can't handle situations veteran pilots used to be able to.

I've actually had more concern over these aircraft that have been in use for 20-30 years. I know they maintain them, but I suspect that process has its issues too and I would expect more safety concerns in that area than in pilot error.
GJ said about 1 hour later

Did you see the news about the Russian hockey team killed in a crash today? Some big names--coach was Brad McCrimmon, a Flyer from the 1980s. Pavol Demitra was also on board, as well as Ruslan Salei and Josef Vasicek. Plane was a 1980 Yak-42.
GJ said about 1 hour later

Although some report say the plane was built in 1993. I'm betting on 1980 myself.
Marc said 1 day later

I heard about that. I can't seem to find any reliable information on why it crashed though.
GJ said 1 day later

I've heard it was bad fuel--which would be consistent with descriptions of the crash. Of course, this is pure conjecture...I feel like a truther. Ewwwww.
Steve said 2 days later

Funny, I read the first couple of paragraphs, and immediately flashed back to Top Gun, where they talk about how in the Vietnam war, pilots became reliant on missiles, and their kill ratio dropped from 10:1 down to 3:1, and that's why top gun was formed. Darn computers making everyone too lazy.
Geoff said 2 days later

Interesting, I didn't realize there was such automation. Well, I'm not too worried if the pilot drops dead, I'm pretty sure I can flip a couple switches, drink coffee and land the bitch.
Steve said 3 days later

I agree Geoff, I've logged a couple hours of flying a 737 on Microsoft flight simulator, how much harder could the real thing be?

The one thing missed by this article is that most pilots of commercial passenger planes are either ex-military pilots, or pilots with huge experience and enthusiasm for flight. IE, they have their own planes they fly too, not just the big jets. We went to a local winery run out of a guys house. He flies 747s, and his daily commute to work involves pulling out of his garage in his Cessna, taxiing down the driveway and street to the grass runway in his neighborhood just north of Jackson, MI, and flying in to Detroit Metro, where he changes from the cute little Cessna to a 747.
GJ said 4 days later

I think Geoff and Steve both haven't seen the cockpit of a real plane. There are more switches and control in there than transistors in an 8008 processor...and I'm only slightly exaggerating.
GJ said 4 days later

In other news, Minecraft 1.8 leaked over the weekend. Game mechanics changed just a wee bit.
Geoff said 5 days later

Bah, those switches are there to scare ya. You just push the big red button. I'll check out minecraft.
Steve said 5 days later

Or perhaps you haven't seen them GJ. Most switches and gauges are there in triplicate. One for the pilot, one for co-pilot, and one for the navigator/radio man (on planes that still have one...). I'm not saying it's easy, but it's not impossible either.

The military makes anyone in the cockpit of a plane be able to identify not only a switch, but what position it is in, anywhere in the cockpit, while being blindfolded. I don't know if that's part of a test for commercial pilots, but it probably should be.

However, like cars, you must have a basic understanding of how the vehicle operates in order to stand a chance to maintain control when things go wrong. Some things will be unable to be fixed and you go down. Other things, if you understand the mechanics of what is going wrong, and able to think quickly, you can get the plane down safely. Captain Sulley is the extreme example. Every day planes make emergency landings, few of them crash, even fewer people are killed.

So we were building our patio...
posted by GJ on September 4, 2011 @ 7:42PM

..and along comes this tornado.

Check out this video--this tornado formed right by the Thurway, about six miles south-west of our house. Guess which direction it went from here?

Yep, we did some basement time--but it apparently visited the other side of Glenville. Anyhow, enjoy the "oh my gods" below...and the real (though not very big) tornado on film.

3 comments | Tags: video

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