There's another reason that people seem to be ignoring: something that is "past due" will change out of that status, one way or another, after a short time. Something "in collection", not so much. One has to consider why it went into collection in the first place.

Another factor that is rather passed over in OP is that despite a few changes that were made for the better some years ago, they were actually pretty weak changes and credit reporting is still egregiously one-sided today.

Most companies of any size have whole departments that regularly report "past due" debt to collection agencies. But a consumer has many time-consuming and often expensive hoops to jump through to get that back off their record. In many ways it's still guilty-until-proven-innocent.

The fact that over generations people have become used to this travesty of justice just makes it all the more insidious.

You are simply proving you don't know what you're talking about.

Almost Latour's entire thesis is that S-B law says net heat transfer is either 0 or in one direction, from the hotter area to the colder. If the roles are reversed, and the colder item becomes the hotter, then the sign changes and the net heat transfer is still only in one direction... from hotter to colder.

And you don't know this because you didn't actually do any actual research about it.You claim "his blog post is still live" but link to an web archive. You haven't researched the topic.

You ignored due diligence, and because of that your "refutation" is nothing but a straw-man, which you continue to deny, either because you know it's a straw-man, and are just doubling down, or because you still refuse to perform the due diligence necessary to make an intelligent argument. The rest of this nonsense falls down because it's all house-of-cards based on your initial misunderstanding of Latour's actual thesis.

Just to be clear: shortly after Latour published that blog post, it became clear that the language he used implied that no radiation at all was absorbed by the warmer body. So a reader could not reasonably be blamed for inferring that. But Latour quickly apologized for the unfortunate wording and corrected himself to make it very clear he was referring to net, not absolute, heat transfer.

As such, just what part of the S-B law do you find controversial?

I don't blame you for inferring -- from that one blog post, which you like to in archive -- that what he meant was any heat transfer, rather than net. But again: he corrected that right away and anybody who knows jack shit about the subject knows that. But you, on the other hand, apparently refused to be bothered with due diligence. Imagine that.

I wouldn't say it's the "cheapest" option. If you want to go strictly software, you can use something like BitTorent Sync.

Before anybody jumps on me: I wrote "something like". No, it's not open source. But using iCloud or Azure are proprietary solutions too!

I don't "trust" BitTorrent Sync's security. But odds are it's fine for this kind of use. You can also control access to files by simply putting them in different folders, and giving different people access to them, or give out temporary authorization codes.

So don't misunderstand: I would not endorse its security unless BitTorrent agreed to an open security audit. But it's also a "free" solution. And it's available for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. I think Linux too but I don't remember for sure.

I hope you realize that you just gave us more evidence, consisting of yet another astounding "coincidence" on top of all the others.

I hope you realize just how remarkably similar your writing is to that of khayman80, and how the timings of your replies so neatly coincide and cooperate.

Regulations? Licenses? Hmm. As it happens, we already have pertinent "regulations".

U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 10:

You did nothing of the sort. You made the (quite incorrect) claim that Latour wasn't accounting for the fact that the subject at hand is net heat transfer. But that claim is simply incorrect. I repeat that Latour has written about this extensively, which you would know if you bothered to actually read more of what he has written than one blog post.

You took a badly-worded sentence or two and jumped on them as though Latour made a mistake. But his only mistake was wording a couple of sentences badly. He does in fact NOT suggest that warmer objects absorb no radiation, and he has written as much many times. (Which apparently you did not know. Why?) So you were tilting at windmills again... or should I say straw-men?

You have refuted NOTHING but a couple of unfortunately-worded sentences, which Latour himself publicly corrected shortly after that post appeared.

You failed. If you could actually prove his actual argument wrong, as opposed to the argument you mistakenly thought he made, you'd do it to his face or publish your results or both. Because, after all, it would be important to this cause you so avidly defend. But you haven't. Is that because you knew you were making straw-man arguments, or because you simply didn't bother to research the subject you were attempting to refute? Either one represents failure.

You have not been able to actually refute Latour. The only place a genuine "refutation" occurred is in your own mind.

Now get lost. Your totally unjustified arrogance is irritating as hell.

Since I have neither, I wouldn't know.

I would also like to point out here the absolutely amazing fact that "Layzej" stopped replying the moment you popped up. What a "coincidence".

Well, this has been an interesting evening. Not only did I catch you in an outright lie, you accomplished exactly nothing but spreading more ad-hominem and attempted "character besmirching" based on that lie.

NO, I did not. That is NOT what I wrote in the comment. That isn't even a distortion, it's just a plain old lie.

What I wrote was that I thought for a time I was being paranoid, but that the situation turned out to not be paranoia at all; it was real.

Stop lying about me. Period. Take your distortions and you lies and go crawl in a hole somewhere.

So, just in case the meaning of my comment above was not clear to you:

If there is any vestige of "paranoia" in my personality, then I think it's pretty fair to say that it was probably caused by you. Because nobody else has been doing these strange and outside-normal things.

Did the word "stalker" never come to mind when you were researching my life?

Are you claiming I am paranoid? Just trying to clarify.

It's amazing how you seem to have this entire collection of Slashdot comments I made years ago right at hand. I've mentioned this before. What is the basis of your (apparently unhealthy, and definitely creepy) obsession with me?

Researching (and apparently indexing) years of other peoples' Slashdot comments is not something your average normal person does.

Since I've received exactly no education from there, how would I know? Do you really need me to repeat that again before you get it through your head?

Let's be specific. Explain to us what Venus vs. Mercury have to do with Pierre Latour's thermodynamic argument in regard to greenhouse warming? Stop prevaricating, and say what you mean. Do you have an actual argument to make?

And yet, you have failed for 2 years to refute Latour. Gee, that's interesting. What isn't holding water again? Are you sure you have that straight?

Yet again, trying to inflate your ego at the expense of others. It won't wash. You know you can't refute Latour, so you are piling straw-man on top of straw-man to try to make yourself look good. Again, I say: if you have a specific argument to make, then make it. Other than, that is, just rehashing the failed arguments you made 2 years ago. Quoting yourself complimenting yourself doesn't prove anything.

I am going to ask you again: why have you made it a habit of taking certain peoples' comments out of context, and then arguing with those comments when those other people aren't present, about things they did NOT say?

Stop dancing and beating around the bush. You're being utterly and disgustingly transparent. You've made not a single valid argument, but only implications. You've also thrown quotes of yourself about, plus more of the same old ad-hominem, out-of-context, straw-man arguments you've been making all along. But there isn't any meat anywhere.

And I think it's doubly hilarious that you're trying to argue with me about something I told you in plain English I wasn't even arguing. Only you.

Well, folks, how about a vote: is it just strange coincidence that he answered a reply to "Layzej", or is it worthy of note?

As you very well know, the part I was referencing was the part about Venus. If you have any problems with anything else on the page -- for that matter, if you have any problems with ANYTHING on the page, I suggest you take it up with the author as I originally told you.

I already told you: that isn't my argument. It is someone else. I just did you a favor and looked up something you asked for on Google. His arguments are not my own and I did not even read them carefully. I merely looked them up for you because you seemed to wanted to argue about yet another straw-man that had next to nothing to do with anything I had said.

I have no desire (or any motivation, for that matter) to engage you in some ridiculous argument about whether Venus is proof of "greenhouse warming", as compared to Mercury or the Earth.

There are many reasons why even if it were true, it is hardly relevant: Mercury has an extremely long day, almost no atmosphere, and a very eccentric orbit. Venus has a surface atmospheric pressure 92 times (give or take) Earth's, it's atmosphere is MOSTLY CO2 (around 96% or so), versus Earth's 0.04% or less, again give or take a bit. Not to mention the vast clouds of sulfuric acid.

You seem to want to ignore all these other variables and argue about just CO2, when the degree to which CO2 in particular affects Venus' surface temperature is speculative, to say the least. I'm not going to get into an argument that pointless. There are papers on both sides of that argument, and I am happy to let their authors fight it out in the journals. It is none of my affair.

Why did you "try to tell me" this? I haven't intentionally disputed this. Not for many years, anyway. I suppose I might have, 4-5 years ago, when I knew next to nothing about the subject. So who are you arguing with? I went to that page, and you have this to say:

Once again, not only arguing with yourself (since I was not present), but also (again as usual) arguing about something I didn't even say. I wasn't arguing with you about those things. So why did you try to make it appear I did? Why were you trying to give the impression I said something I did not in fact say? I will ask anyone who reads this to ask themselves that question. You must have a motivation, so what is it?

You are simply continuing your ridiculous straw-man and out-of-context arguments with yourself. I've said it before: from where I sit, it just makes you look like a fool.

And as for "charming": you seem to forget that you have given me MANY reasons to not be polite to you at all. To say that some of your actions have been uncivil is an understatement. I owe you no charm, nor civility of my own.

I already told you I don't have any theories -- or opinion, for that matter -- about who manipulated the White House website "copy" of Obama's birth certificate.

By the way, dear readers: does anyone else happen to notice just how remarkably similar this "Laysej" person's comments are to those of Khayman80? In fact both the nature of the comments and their timing very strongly suggest that "Laysej" is nothing but a sock-puppet account for Khayman80.

Reminder: folks here at Slashdot have a very low opinion of people who sock-puppet.

Go enlighten yourself, and stop bothering people who are better educated about the subject. There's a thing called Google. Use it.

Here. I'll provide a link to get you started.