technical quest update

As I posted a few weeks back, I'm on a technical quest to simplify the HT setup here at home. Here's the status so far:

• Signed up for HD programming and an HD DVR from DirecTV. The install was seamless, if a bit late in the day (service window: 1-5pm, after a courtesy call to say they were running late, installers showed up at 5:45pm). Rave: The HD programming is amazing and, in my mind, justifies the cost of this whole setup. Rant: the DirecTV HR20 receiver/DVR is by no means a TiVo. Still getting used to the setup (and is plenty of fodder for a post unto itself). From the reviews, it looks like I'm not alone in my dissatisfaction. Hopefully with enough software updates they'll squash enough of the bugs so that I can actually watch the shows I've asked it to record. Amazing to see how all these years of time-shifting have spoiled me. grade: B-
• Plasma as Mac Mini monitor. The DVI-HDMI cable works like a charm. Since I only had room to run a single HDMI cable up the wall to the TV, I've got a manual HDMI switcher to go back and forth between the Mac and the DirecTV feed. The signal was perfectly clear with the Mac Mini feeding into switcher port 1. When I moved the Mini's HDMI to switcher port 2 (and put DirecTV on port 1), the Mac's image output got pixelated. I'm still working to figure that out, but I need to get a wireless keyboard/mouse for the Mini to do any serious diagnostics. The borrowed keyboard/mouse from our Tangerine iMac is just too frustrating to use in the new setup. grade: incomplete
• Mac Mini as music source. I tried using my Belkin optical audio to connect the Mac Mini to the AV Receiver, but it didn't work. I took the RCA out instead, and it works sufficiently (but nowhere near as good as the optical, I'm told). I've got a new (Harman Kardon) AV receiver on the way, and will post again once it's here and hooked up. grade: incomplete
• Mac Mini as DVD player. To test the DVD capabilities of the Mac Mini, we popped in Ice Age. Our jaws dropped at the detail and 75 minutes later the test was over to much satisfaction. grade: A+

Overall, it's a nice clean setup with just the three pieces (AV/DirecTV/Mac) in the entertainment center. In retrospect, I'm very glad we mounted the TV on the wall. In addition to cleaning up the look of the whole thing (no dangling wires), I don't worry about anxious little hands accidentally knocking the Plasma set over.

where do you click?

Ingenious design on this remembrance home page that really drives the message home and transports us back to what things used to be like. Given the options, which link will you choose first? (assuming you're like me and can't help but look into both of them)

fries with that?

Old news: McDonald's gave out over 40 million toy Hummers (think: match-box size toy cars) with Happy Meals.

Today I learned of a very inspired response from the environmental movement that can be found at ronaldmchummer.com. It's a play on the church sign widget that allows folks to put their own message on a MickeyD's sign.

On the site, you can even vote on your favorite among the 132,000 signs already created. Really cool demonstration of turning over the power of crafting the message to the folks who aren't professional PR folks.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, they're allowed to use these images and marks thanks to their being satire.

UPDATE: and to pile it on to the Hummer brand, this (profanely titled) FUH2.com site allows folks submit their pics giving the one-finger salute to Hummer H2 vehicles. Interesting to see the site go sustainable via selling the montage poster they've created using the photos submitted by users.

comcastic solution

And a conclusion (I hope) to the previous comcastic, indeed! post:

I decided to pay the $18.38 owed to Comcast and be done with it. The collections group offered to take payment online (instead of via a check mailed to them), but when I got to the part of their online payment form that asked for credit card info, I saw I'd be billed an additional $5 service fee for using my credit card.

I instead closed the browser window and paid $0.37 for a stamp to send in the check and use up at least $5 of their resources opening my mail, endorsing the check, crediting my account and depositing my check.

It continues to amaze me how bass-ackwards the fee system for conducting business online is at some places. Shouldn't the cost savings for the automated process be passed on to those of us who are not taking up the time of some accounts receivable clerk to process paper-based payments?

Perhaps in another life time.

In any case, good bye, Comcast. And good riddance.

unacceptable behavior on a sliding scale

Watching the fallout over Rep. Mark Foley's follies over the weekend, I wonder why I'm not so surprised to find out Foley's checked himself into a rehabilitation program over the weekend, after his sudden resignation from the House.

It would seem there's a bet being placed from someone in his camp that the capital-P Public will be less revulsed by an alcoholic pedaphile than we will a sober predator of young boys.

In a statement released by his attorney, Foley says:

"I strongly believe that I am an alcoholic and have accepted the need for immediate treatment for alcoholism and other behavioral problems... I deeply regret and accept full responsibility for the harm I have caused."

Given Foley's very public stance and authority against the very private behavior that was his own undoing, I wonder if seeking help for his suddenly public alcoholism problem isn't a prelude to a forthcoming "I was drunk at the time and didn't know what I was doing."

Let it be known I'll call bullshit on the so-drunk-I-didn't-know excuse the moment it comes out.

And if folks knew what he was doing for months before ABC news got wind of it, why didn't they urge rehab for his drinking problems earlier if they knew he seemed to get over-friendly with the kids after a few sips?

cut, bundled, bagged, delivered

Transferrable skills, my friend.

Our 2006-2007 season tickets for the San Jose Sharks arrived in the mail early this week.

They came in a pretty nicely designed book that had the tickets grouped into four tickets per page, perforated to hold them together. The designer used a curious alternating orange and blue color scheme to the tickets, but they were printed on a nice card stock (weight of paper... kinda like the thickness of a paperback novel cover).

Now, I share the season tickets with a couple other folks, so it keeps the cost of the season low. To divide up the games, we've used a spreadsheet in the past. This year, I created a wiki for us to use (thanks, PBWiki!) and boy did it work wonders.

After taking turns in a wicked fast wiki session over the course of a business day, we had dibs on all 44 games distributed between us.

I spent the next morning carefully separating the tickets from each other by the perf lines, then bundled them up according to the wiki results and bagged them in little ziploc sandwich bags. The plastic bags were then stuff inside business envelopes for transfer.

The next morning , when I handed the engorged business envelopes to the recipients and got money in return, it all felt so very black market. I couldn't tell if the rush was from the fantasized illicit nature of the exchange or from my realizing the first game of the season is mere weeks away. I think I'll just enjoy the rush and not dissect its source.

Go Sharks!

my technical quest

As I begin this quest, I have:

• Toshiba 42HP66 42" plasma HDTV
• Toshiba SDK-850 HDMI DVD player
• Sony SAT-T60 DirecTV TiVo receiver (no HD programming)
  
• Yamaha AV 5.1 receiver, model HTR-5140
• Harman Kardon HKTS 14 6-Piece Loudspeaker System
• Apple Mac Mini 1.66 Core Duo
• Sony CDP-C350Z 5-disc CD player (old as the hills)
• Apple AirPort Express

When I come out the other side of this quest, here's what I'll be looking at (and listening to) in our living room:

• Hi Definition TV programming
  
• HD DVR (TiVo, preferred)
• Plasma TV as monitor for the Mac Mini
• iTunes collection (40Gb) through the AV Receiver
• HD DVD from Mac Mini to TV and 5.1 sound through AV Receiver

I'll remove from the stack of equipment the DVD and CD players (thanks to the Mac Mini).

To start things off, I've got the DVI-HDMI cable on order from monoprice.com to handle the Plasma-as-monitor bit.

If I'm lucky I can use my Belkin optical audio cable to run sound to the AV Receiver and remove the Toshiba DVD player from the stack right quick.

Details to be blogged mid-next week. Wish me luck.

comcastic! indeed

I'm now into my third month of feeling Comcastic! but I don't think this is the feeling the marketers had in mind when designing the latest advertising campaign.

On July 12, I called Comcast to cancel our high-speed internet account, as we were moving to our new home in Redwood City, and I 'd tired of paying $58 a month for cable modem service and was going to try AT&T Yahoo! DSL for $20 a month at the new place (FWIW, I haven't noticed much of a difference between the two services, except the extra money in my pocket). Our scheduled cutoff date was (note the past-tense foreshadowing employed here) supposed to be July 21.

Movers packed the old house (including the cable modem) on July 19 and cleared the boxes out on July 20. The house was empty when the cable modem access was cut (again, supposedly).

All seemed fine (except for a challenge with AT&T that was quickly resolved) as we awaited the disconnection notice and final bill from Comcast.

On August 3, our final bill arrived informing us we owed a balance for the High Speed Internet (w/o Cable, own modem) service through Sept 10 (a whopping $113.90) PLUS a $99 charge for Unreturned equipment.

Beg pardon?

I called in to Comcast to dispute the bill thinking I had logic and reason on my side. Remember, per my 7/12 request, service was supposed to end July 21 and if they wanted the Comcast install disk back (the unreturned equipment in question?) I'd gladly send it back.

In speaking with the customer service rep, he was quick to admit fault for billing us after the cutoff date and agreed to reverse off the charges. However, the unreturned equipment was another matter. Evidently someone at Comcast thought I had leased one of their cable modems and had absconded with it even though I'd been paying the rate charged to those providing their own equipment for the last 35 months straight.

When I pointed this out to him, he agreed it seemed strange and referred the account to the Billing & Account Research team to resolve. I gave him my cell number to call to follow up since we'd disconnected (without forwarding) our old number, the one listed on the account, when we moved out.

The following Monday, (August 7 for those of you following along) I got a call from someone at Comcast asking if I had a copy of the receipt for the modem I "bought" and had used for three years to access the internet via Comcast. I stifled a laugh (so I thought) while denying I'd been so thorough as to keep a receipt for this legacy equipment purchased so long ago. "OK. We'll have to keep researching and get back to you," was the dismissal on that call and I thought things might resolve themselves shortly.

No word from Comcast for 10 days, until...

I arrived home from work on August 17 to find a PAST DUE - PLEASE PAY notice from Comcast forwarded from our old address. The good: they'd reversed off the charge for unused internet access, but the $99 unreturned equipment charge was still there.

I called up Comcast Customer Service (1-800-945-2288) and spoke with Marquita who looked over the notes from the previous calls, saw that the Accounts Research team had found in my favor (the modem was mine, by golly!) and they'd just failed to reverse off the $99 charge. I asked that she please send me a clean bill (showing all I owed was the pro-rated $18.38 access fee), and she assured me it would get sent out in the next billing cycle. At the end of the call, I took the automated survey and gave Marquita high marks for satisfying my needs and delivering outstanding customer service.

I should have waited.

Flash forward to my mailbox on September 16 wherein I find a notice from a Collection Agency that they have now been given the task by Comcast to collect a seriously past due amount of $18.38, and won't I please remit payment as soon as I am able.

What the fuck?

I call Comcast and work my way up the supervisor chain (on a Saturday evening) until I reach supervisor "Faye" and explain my concern: I've been a model customer to Comcast for three years, paying on time (and sometimes early but never late) my cable bill to the tune of $1800 over those three years. Now that I'm no longer a customer, I've been sent to a collections agency for an $18.38 charge that is thanks to an accounting/paperwork problem already determined to be their fault. I refuse to let my good credit get dinged by Comcast's ineptitude. Faye tells me they tried to contact me several times but the number was disconnected. I remind her they have my cell number on file (remember the call back in early August?) as well as my email address (remember where all the electronic notices of my electronic bill being due were sent?) and they couldn't get a hold of me to tell me they were sending me to collections? And by the way, where was that clean bill that Marquita promised? If she'd told me it'd come via collections, I'd have politely declined.

After 35 minutes of hold music peppered by Faye reporting back the status of her conferring with the others working a Saturday night in Comcast Customer Service (in Concord, CA), I conclude the call smiling now that Faye has taken down two phone numbers I know work PLUS my email address. She's even recommended that the balance be adjusted off given the challenge I've had resolving the issue. I ask when I'll hear back from the Accounts Research Team that the bill is resolved and she assures me they'll call in the next few days. I take Comcast's "short survey on customer satisfaction" at the conclusion of the call and when asked if Customer Service had taken care of my needs, I reply with a premature YES.

Silly man I am.

Wednesday night comes, and I've yet to hear from anyone at Comcast. I decide not to wait for them this time and call in to customer service again. This time I speak with Miguel. After briefly explaining why I'm calling (I was expecting to hear from you by now!), he asks for a moment to read the notes on my account.

"It appears you owe us $18.38, sir." Ah, thanks, Faye.

I ask if there's record of Faye's submitting the account for review. Yes, he's looking at the form in front of him on the screen. Is there record of her requesting the outstanding balance be adjusted off? Nothing of the sort is anywhere on the form. She'd lied to me, and I'd been dumb enough to give her high remarks on her performance (= ability to deceive).

I'm at wits end and I ask Miguel to tell it to me straight:

• "Has my account gone to collections?" Yes
• "Has this action been reported to the credit bureaus yet so that it'd impact my credit score?" No
• "If I simply pay the outstanding balance, will this all go away?" It should, but keep a record of your payment.

I'm ready to throw in the towel and just pay the collections notice to get it all overwith. I thank Miguel for his time and hang up, avoiding the offer to take the customer service satisfaction survey.

Instead of calling the collections group, I try to pay my balance online. When I try to sign in, the error message informs me my account has been uncoupled from my user ID on file. When I try to recouple them (by supplying the account number and phone number of our old place), I'm informed I need to call 1-800-COMCAST to do so.

I close the browser window and fight the urge to kick the dog.

Now, I've taken on these big companies before and won. I have a refund check for $0.02 from Chevy Chase Bank still waiting to be framed. Simply paying off the Comcast account feels like a loss at this point... as it won't provide any record of the hours I've now spent trying to get them to fix the damn problem THEY started.

What to do, what to do.

how does your wikipedia grow?

Great to see the research being done to show how content is added to Wikipedia. Contrary to popular belief (based on analyzing the edits logs to gauge content creation), it's the outsider/one-timers who add the new content and the editors who make it encyclopedia-worthy (via lots and lots of edits).

When you put it all together, the story become clear: an outsider makes one edit to add a chunk of information, then insiders make several edits tweaking and reformatting it. In addition, insiders rack up thousands of edits doing things like changing the name of a category across the entire site -- the kind of thing only insiders deeply care about. As a result, insiders account for the vast majority of the edits. But it's the outsiders who provide nearly all of the content.

And when you think about it, this makes perfect sense. Writing an encyclopedia is hard. To do anywhere near a decent job, you have to know a great deal of information about an incredibly wide variety of subjects. Writing so much text is difficult, but doing all the background research seems impossible.

On the other hand, everyone has a bunch of obscure things that, for one reason or another, they've come to know well. So they share them, clicking the edit link and adding a paragraph or two to Wikipedia. At the same time, a small number of people have become particularly involved in Wikipedia itself, learning its policies and special syntax, and spending their time tweaking the contributions of everybody else.

Other encyclopedias work similarly, just on a much smaller scale: a large group of people write articles on topics they know well, while a small staff formats them into a single work. This second group is clearly very important -- it's thanks to them encyclopedias have a consistent look and tone -- but it's a severe exaggeration to say that they wrote the encyclopedia. One imagines the people running Britannica worry more about their contributors than their formatters.

One-Handed Rubik's Cube solve (20.09 seconds solve)

my fastest ever solve (back in the day) was right around 30 seconds, but that was using both hands. Mad props to this guy.

creationism's innovative tactics

Interesting to see this discovery reported in the NYTimes today. Ironic to see how the Creationist's insidious tactics are evolving:

Evolutionary biology has vanished from the list of acceptable fields of study for recipients of a federal education grant for low-income college students....

The program provides $4,000 grants to third- or fourth-year, low-income students majoring in physical, life or computer sciences; mathematics; technology; engineering; or foreign languages deemed “critical” to national security.

The list of eligible majors (which is online at ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/attachments/GEN0606A.pdf) is drawn from the Education Department’s “Classification of Instructional Programs,” or CIP (pronounced “sip”), a voluminous and detailed classification of courses of study, arranged in a numbered system of sections and subsections.

As the article details, it's no small task for a major to be removed from the list, and the current pleas of "clerical error" strain what little credibility I have for folks in the department.

It's disturbing to see a tactic so brazen as to impose creationist religious beliefs through omission in a program like this. If this goes unchecked, I hate to see what's next.

How Crayons Are Made

Can you tell me how to get here?

desert soundtrack

On the flight from SFO to Salt Lake City, we spent a lot of time flying over the deserts of northern Nevada and western Utah.

While I had my nose buried in a book, I did glance out the window rather frequently, and I realized the perfect soundtrack for flying over the desert was playing on my iPod: Arvo Part's Alina.

Sparse notes across a barren landscape studded with craggy hills. And the land below looked a lot like that, too.

proportionality is a slippery thing

From Le Monde Diplomatique:

Attacks targeting towns, villages and civilian infrastructure have forced some 600,000 people out of their homes. Under international law such actions count as war crimes. The 1977 Additional Protocol to the Geneva Convention clearly defines the principle of proportionality: “An attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated”. Who could ever imagine that the stated objective, to rescue two soldiers, justifies the death and destruction caused by the Israeli bombardment? Is a Lebanese life is worth less than an Israeli life?

This lack of (objective) proportionality reminds me of the conclusion of the recent NYT op-ed by Daniel Gilbert, He Who Cast the First Stone Probably Didn’t:

Neither [party in the experiment to deliver retaliatory, yet equal blows] realized that the escalation was the natural byproduct of a neurological quirk that causes the pain we receive to seem more painful than the pain we produce, so we usually give more pain than we have received.

Research teaches us that our reasons and our pains are more palpable, more obvious and real, than are the reasons and pains of others. This leads to the escalation of mutual harm, to the illusion that others are solely responsible for it and to the belief that our actions are justifiable responses to theirs.

None of this is to deny the roles that hatred, intolerance, avarice and deceit play in human conflict. It is simply to say that basic principles of human psychology are important ingredients in this miserable stew. Until we learn to stop trusting everything our brains tell us about others — and to start trusting others themselves — there will continue to be tears and recriminations in the wayback.

make way for the living

This music video shows an 8000 flag installation on Salt Spring Island which represents the humans that die each day due to HIV/AIDS. The African reality is from Lesotho. The song is by Harry Manx (I'm a huge fan of his work).

Friends of mine from the omidyar.net community are behind the broader project of creating these flag installations across Canada. I couldn't be prouder of them and their work.

states i've been

Thanks to Christine, I found these "been-there" widgets from those durn Google folks:



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Evidently, I've had no reason to traipse along the northern border of the contiguous states (yet).

And the global view shows I'm really a Northwest quadrant kinda guy, even though my aspirations are much further afield. Better go unpack that passport of mine.



create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

Day of the Longtail

Day of the Longtail

Sweet little video parody of the power of all of us to change the status quo. Will you watch? or will you participate?

DSL Success!

As evidenced by my previous post, today's tech time with AT&T could have gone to either extreme (really good or really bad).

Thanks to a very customer-service-oriented technician named Chris, things went extremely well. He was at our house for about 30 minutes testing this and testing that.

Being the inquisitive sort that I am, he didn't mind explaining what he was doing as he was doing it. I could really tell he was passionate about his work, and maybe the fact I was so interested made our time fly by.

In direct contrast to his brethren at the call center(s), Chris seemed focused on making my experience with AT&T start off on a good foot. As he put it, "it makes sense to me that if you can start the relationship off in a good way, the relationship will last a lot longer." Maybe the pleasant interaction is thanks to the fact Chris has to look the customer in the eye, or that the customers don't have to navigate voicemail hell before interacting with him. I enjoyed uor time together so much that I wasn't feeling as bent about paying the $60 service call.

To top it all off, Chris stipulated there was to be no charge for his visit. AT&T has (blessedly) been smart in their management approach and put the power of determining when to charge in his hands. Maybe that is intended to let the customer dictate the terms of the relationship, too. If I was an ass, I'd get charged. If I was nice, the charge could be waved, and Chris was the arbiter of my disposition. (maybe I'm reading too much into that)

When I get home tonight, I'm going to use my brand new DSL connection to send a direct thank you to Chris's boss. Let this post suffice as a very public show of my gratitude.

Looking forward to being an AT&T customer for a good long time, especially as they roll out fiber that'll carry voice, data and video all in one to my doorstep.

DSL roulette

Having just changed residences, I decide it's time to ween myself from the high-bandwidth Comcast internet and plug into ATT Yahoo! DSL instead. Should be easy enough, right?

I fancy myself tech-savvy. There was a time in my life when I managed a network of Macs at an ad agency where I pulled double-duty as a graphic designer. I'm pretty handy at diagnosing (and fixing!) computer-related problems. Thus my consternation with the DSL line and AT&T's taking advantage of a bad situation and making it worse.

Before we moved, I went online (using Comcast internet, the irony!) to AT&T's site to set up service. Our new phone (and DSL) was to be hooked up on July 20. The DSL modem and filters for our phones all arrived on the 19th. The transition was looking easy.

Then I tried to fire the thing up. No dice. The DSL modem light flashed red (a bad thing) instead of shining a solid green, and I couldn't get any internet connection on the line.

I rebooted my computer and rebooted the modem. I rebooted the modem on its own. I unplugged all the cords (power, ethernet, phone) and replugged them into the appropriate jacks. Still the flashing red light.

So I called AT&T at 6pm on a Sunday night. Matthew was good enough to spend 15 minutes on the phone with me walking through his script. Actually, I spent a good 10 minutes of the call on hold while Matthew click-clacked away in the background and apologized for how long it took to file a trouble ticket. Final result: AT&T would call me back within 24 hours to follow up. Keep the modem on so they can diagnose it from the Central Office (the "CO" to the tech folks).

At 6:15p Monday night, I called up AT&T and got patched through to Robert. I asked if he could update me on the ticket and he informed me no ticket had been filed. Would I like to file one? GRRRRR. 15 minutes later I had my first (according to them)/yet another (according to me) trouble ticket filed. Final result: AT&T would call me back within 24 hours to follow up.

AT&T left a voice mail indicating I needed to call back and schedule a technician to come out and check our equipment. I called and spoke to Ellen and was all set to pull the trigger until I heard there might be a $60 charge involved.

Excuse me? Can you tell me what "might" means?

If the technician comes out and finds out it's a problem with the external box (outside the house), there's no charge.

If the technician comes out and finds out it's a problem with the DSL modem, there's no charge.

If the technican comes out and finds out it's a problem with our internal wiring, there's a $60 charge to fix it.

If the technician comes out and finds out it's a problem with our internal wiring, and I tell him thankyouverymuch I'm going to go back to cable, there's a $60 charge for his diagnosing the problem.

Ellen informs me that it could be my computer that's bad (uh, no, am using it now to post this blog item) or that my phones aren't working (uh, how have I been calling you my dear?) or there's no dial tone (answered that one already), so we'd need to pay the technician for his/her time to come inform us of that problem.

So, by scheduling the service tech to come out, I'm playing roulette with $60 on the table. I'm pretty sure there'll be no charge, but I'm completely powerless to hedge my bets because AT&T won't tell me how to self-diagnose where the problem is.

Oh, and the kicker is that I'm paying for DSL service all this time it doesn't even work.

Great way to start off our relationship with AT&T, no?

A quick Google of ATT DSL sucks should have warned me to stay with Comcast. But then a quick Google of Comcast cable internet sucks says pretty much the same thing.

mr grier, we meet again

Hip Hip Hooray!

Today I learned that Mike Grier is now a San Jose Shark, signing a three year contract to come play for los Tiburones.

I can hardly begin to explain how happy I am at this news. When I was a Washington Capitals season ticket holder, Grier came to play for the Caps in 2002, and week-in week-out he was the guy who played his heart out, grinding it out on the boards, blocking shots and killing penalties. Even when the rest of the Caps had seemed to fall asleep around him, he kept going going going until the final whistle sounded.

During those dismal Jagr-infested years, Grier was my star, my honorary captain, playing the game with his whole heart and soul, luring me to the MCI Center game after game and making each televised game worth watching.

My wife gave me a Grier Caps jersey for Christmas in 2002, and he was traded to Buffalo the following spring. While I continued to wear my Grier jersey to all the Caps games, we moved out to San Jose in the fall of 2003, and the jersey was regulated to the back of my closet. When the Caps came to play the Sharks here last December, I wore my Grier jersey even though he was already with the Sabres.

Now, I get to wear my Grier jersey again as I watch him devote his heart and soul to the Sharks. Maybe I'll even get Grier 25 in teal for Christmas.

It's good to see you again, Mike.