Crumpled

Wildblue Survey Opens Old Wounds

2009-12-04T14:39:00.000-08:00

So, I got this survey in my email:

At WildBlue, we constantly strive to provide the highest quality Internet service and support to you, our valued customer. To help us continually improve your service, we have partnered with CFI Group, a leading customer satisfaction research company, to gather feedback on our customers? experiences with WildBlue?s service and support.

So I get to vent. I filled it out, and because just thinking back on it all, my blood began to reheat, I thought I'd share my opinions with everyone here, as well.

Don't worry I won't share the whole tedious survey.

Q: Was the installation done right the first time?

No.

Q: What was the nature of the issue?

The installer lied about the installation requirements to increase the installation cost. The installer explained that when he dug the hole for a pole mount, he digs them 1 foot more shallow than standard and pounds it down an extra foot in order to let the earth hold it in the last foot instead of the concrete. The installer's girlfriend assembled the dish, and was seen throwing the parts onto the ground while unpacking it. The installer didn't pick up ant of the garbage that was created by the installation process. His name is David M***** [Not redacted in the actual survey], and he worked for LC Communications of Rocklin, CA. They were contracted by DSI Systems in W. Sacramento. I wanted to get him in trouble but was concerned about the installer retaliating, knowing where I live.

Q: If WildBlue could improve upon one thing, other than price, what would that be?

A more reasonable bandwidth limit, given today's demand for the internet, perhaps even offering peak and off peak bandwidth limitations for each beam. More professional standards for installer certification. Better ways to hold installers accountable.

People use WildBlue because they have to, not because they want to. If you can make it feel less like an anti-consumer company, you'll probably be able to retain customers beyond the point when their contacts expire or other services become available to them. If you can't do that, people might opt for less reliable technologies, like cellular, just to avoid you.

Personally I hope WiMax or another technology comes in and changes the game and ruins the business model of all satellite internet companies and cell phone companies. Unfortunately for me, I'll still be in your 2 year contract when that time comes.

Hey, I won a short essay contest

2009-10-28T16:53:00.001-07:00

Google Books ran a contest for ten days, which generated tens of thousands of entries. I'm proud to say that my essay was one of thirty winners.

Check it out:
http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2009/10/announcing-winners-for-10-days-in.html

It's a poem!

MCITP FWIW

2009-10-16T21:25:00.001-07:00

Here's me:

Where am I now?

2009-07-27T12:51:00.000-07:00

Well I'm not posting so much these days, but you can see where I am if you want.

My phone updates my location to a widget at the bottom of the page to show you approximately what city I am in in real-time. (unless I disable it or misdirect you.)

So if you are feeling like you need to know whats up, just scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Or you can revisit this post.

I found a fail!

2009-07-16T09:13:00.000-07:00

2009-06-05T16:37:00.001-07:00

Senators
Member District Number and Office Capitol Office

Cogdill, Dave 14 4974 E. Clinton Way State Capitol
Fresno, CA 93727 Sacramento, CA
(559) 253-7122 94248-0001
(916) 651-4014
1308 W. Main Street
Suite C
Ripon, CA 95366
(209) 599-8540

Assembly Members
Member District Number and Office Capitol Office

Berryhill, Tom 25 1912 Staniford Ave State Capitol
Suite 4 Room 3141
Modesto, CA 95350 Sacramento, CA
(209)576-6425 94249-0025
(916) 319-2025

State Park Closures

2009-06-05T16:34:00.000-07:00

Dear Senator Cogdill,

Columbia State Historic Park is not only a Historic Park, it's also the living center of Columbia, the community to which I proudly belong. If that park were to close, the state would be paying unemployment for possibly hundreds of people in our town, devastate the economy of the town, and lower the standard of living for everyone in the area. It's ridiculous to think that the state can save money by ruining local economies and discouraging tourism overall. This is not a line-item. It's people's livelihoods, and it's our states cultural identity.

Sincerely,
Richard Call

Business Plan #2

2009-03-18T13:19:00.000-07:00

Dear ********,

My name is Richard Call and I work at an office that can have about 50 people in it depending on the economy. I'm their IT Technician.

Every time I visit our vending machine, I have a new problem with the vending company. First of all, the soda machine is a Gatorade branded machine, that has no Gatorade in it. There aren't prices on most items, and the machine displays nothing until you insert money. Sometimes the machine vends and sometimes it doesn't. I'm so fed up that I'd like to start my own vending company, and service this building exclusively for a while.

Unfortunately, I don't have any capital or credit. But when I came to your website, I got an idea.

You probably know that your website has problems. What you don't know is to what extent these problems are preventing potential customers from becoming actual customers.

I happen to be an excellent web designer, and have already identified the cause of your web site's problems and know how to fix them.

What I propose is that I take on a complete redesign of your site, and in exchange, you furnish me with a GF-19 Snack Vendor & CB300 Satellite Cold Drink Vendor Combination.

You get more customers, and I get to eliminate the frustration of my vending company. If you would like a recent example of my work, check out ******* . that site is perfectly functional, and has more going on behind the scenes to open communication, and prevent spam, as well as being easy to maintain, and to collect lots of visitor usage statistics.

I give you a functional site. You give me a functional machine. How does that sound?

Sincerely,
Richard Call

How to prepare for a life of solitude in a barren wasteland.

2009-03-09T14:11:00.001-07:00

Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?

At work.

2008-11-11T12:31:00.000-08:00

I've coded a new web site for the company I work for. If you happen to know where I work, you should check it out.

When I'm Not Blogging I'm Working

2008-10-27T11:56:00.000-07:00

And, when we're not working...
http://atworknotworking.blogspot.com/

This is a collective blog, created to share with the world some of the glorious links that would otherwise fade into inbox obscurity. Right now, the authors are myself and two of my coworkers.

These are the links I would have forgotten to share with you.

Halloween is Coming Up.

2008-10-26T15:53:00.001-07:00

What's everybody doing?

12 Fillings

2008-10-26T15:50:00.000-07:00

On Friday I got 12 Fillings. I was in the chair for almost 4 hours. It wasn't so bad. I like chewing stuff. I just have to pay for all of it.

It's not dead.

2008-10-26T15:36:00.001-07:00

I'm still working on The Project. I've just decided to approach it differently. What this means is more planning leading into less work, and a better environment. The teaser page may not come out for a while, so you get teaser text.
I just nearly posted my map of ideas but I think I'll save that for until development has gone a bit further. I'm a paranoid person. More to come...

This Week in Fashion

2008-09-28T01:37:00.000-07:00

Sacha Baron Cohen unveils an outfit made from slamming into several racks of clothing while wearing a Velcro suit. Pictured here on the runway during a Milan fashion week event. (note the smiling security guard tugging on him)

Also, the world's shortest man, 20 year old He Ping Ping, met with the woman with the world's longest legs*, Svetlana Pankrtova in London. Ping Ping is about 29 and a half inches tall, while Svetlana's legs are nearly 52 inches long. So, obviously, they must be photographed together like this:

Take note of these fashion previews. I can't wait to see how it translates into our retail selection next spring! I can already predict what my hair's going to look like.

*The longest legs for a female

You were planning on eating sometime today anyway.

2008-09-26T11:21:00.000-07:00

Why not stuff your face full of Indian food? No, I'm not talking about the Indian restaurant. This is a new player. The Peppermill, the little restaurant next to the R/L Mini Mart in Columbia, is trying something new tonight and tomorrow night; an Indian dinner. The owners of the restaurant are Indian, but they aren't normally the cooks at the restaurant. Tonight, though, they are. I highly encourage everyone to come out to the Peppermill tonight or tomorrow, and enjoy an Indian feast. I'll be there, with as many people as I can get, tonight at 7pm. The owners promise chicken, naan, rice, and a few different curries; "All you can eat".

Come support diversity in eating. Vote with your wallet, and your belly will thank you, hopefully several times over.

Keep Away From Children

2008-09-23T22:51:00.000-07:00

The Taleesh chuckled as she noticed how diverse our "Saved DVDs" Nexflix queue is.

The Saved queue shows movies you've requested be sent to you, but they don't currently have in their inventory.

I pondered the list for a moment after she pointed it out. "Yeah... Kinda twisted, I guess." Then we quietly high-fived.

Smell It!

2008-09-22T23:05:00.000-07:00

Today I read a post from Heels. ( a few days late, sry.)

The main question was:

What's a better scent combination, lavender and sage or lavender and rosemary?

I encourage everyone who read that to really think about it for a moment. How often are you prompted to remember or imagine a smell, and smells that you'd want alternate imagining to decide which you prefer? To conjure these smells in my head, I was imagining them in a frying pan on low, with just the right amount of olive oil.

Someone broke into our car!

2008-09-21T01:09:00.000-07:00

Sensationalist title alert!

Today we helped a friend move her furniture and effects from storage in Columbia to her apartment in Modesto. Here is the operation as planned: Logistically, this would be a two car down, one car back operation. We would drive our car and her's to the place where she rented a truck, take her car and the loaded truck to Mo-Town, while leaving our car at the place where the truck would return. We would drive back to Tuo Cou with the empty truck and return to our house from the truck's home in our own car. Our friend would stay in Modesto with her car because, as I've mentioned, she lives there.

That was a great plan. There were three events that, when combined, ended up causing some difficulty later in the evening.

Upon bringing our car to the truck rental place, I said, "Darling, could you please lock up the car in case we get back later [than closing time].
Removing everything from my pockets upon arrival at the apartment. (It's much easier to carry lots of heavy things without concern as to how the heavy things will press the contents of your pockets into the contents of your trousers.)
Replacing the contents of my pockets, except the car keys! I think this malfunction was due to me having multiple sets of keys originally in my pockets (three), and two of them had red key chains. The most important one of those two was obscured by something that we must have carried up from the moving truck. (this is speculation or else there would be four events listed here)

As you might have guessed, the problem was that once we returned to the rental place, where our car was waiting, we didn't have a key to open the doors. We suddenly had plummeted into the contingency planning phase of the evening.

Status: We verified that I had indeed left our keys right where I suspected I had. We took inventory of readily available transportation from our current location: One moving-truck, too expensive to drive back to Modesto considering fuel and mileage charges, but it could take us home. I could then drive my motorcycle down to Modesto and collect the keys; then I would ride home, and we would drive the bike and truck back to the rental place; then we would drive the bike and the car back home. In the center console of the car was probably my own set of keys, securely locked within. If we were to execute the contingency retrieval plan from two sentences back, we would have the most complete solution to all our problems. Thalisha could open her store tomorrow, because she would have her own keys (I forgot to tell you that detail).

As you can imagine, just thinking this idea was fatiguing. No. Plan B: Get into the car, use the keys inside the car to drive home, kiss the truck goodbye, open the store using other keys TBD.

Obviously there is an obstacle here, "Get into the car." It's really easy to say, "Get into the car." It SOUNDS easy if you say that. But, it's really the crux of the whole deal, as you know from everything written here so far.

Now, I'm not about to shell out 40+ (50?, 60?) bucks for Vic's Towing to come down and poke the car with a slim-jim for four seconds. No bloody way. That's extortion. While they might find it conscionable, I won't help them to help themselves to me. I find it unconscionable. (Gotta get AAA! Vic's and them can extort each other instead. Everyone wins!)

It was time to call in a friend. I'm always surprised and delighted by how responsive my friends are in my times of need. Glenn was on site in less than 20 minutes with some, newly-purchased, heavy-duty, wire coat hangers. I called the right guy. By his account, he's broken into several people's cars, but never to perpetrate a crime; always to help people into their own cars. Like me, he has the critical mind of a criminal without any unsavory criminal intent.

To cut to the chase, we did get into the car and drive home within an hour of finding ourselves in this predicament. Without exposing the security vulnerabilities of the car, I can say that we opened it with an oak twig. (*Gasp!* Outlaw trees!)

My favorite part of this story is that we spent a good part of the hour attempting to gain access to our car through very suspicious means. During this time, lots of cars drove by, including two police cars, and nobody seemed to notice, with one exception. At one point two minivans pulled into the parking area where we were fully underway breaking into our own car. They drove around until they were both illuminating us as fully as possible. The way they were driving, and the particular area where we were, made it clear that they had only one intention. They wanted us to know that they were on to our crime. Thalisha glared at them, I smiled once, but the three of us never stopped what we were doing, nor did we try and engage the vigilantes in conversation. We disregarded them almost immediately, and fairly completely. After staring at us with their headlights for a couple more minutes, they finally drove off without ever saying a word. Without the glare of the lights I was able to see the faces of the people in the minivans; at least one couple per van; all occupants were Japanese. For some reason, that made the whole situation really amusing to me. I still smile to think about these Japanese guardians, and wonder what they were thinking when we kept at our task upon being so passively confronted. Did they correctly conclude that we weren't actually up to no good? Or, was the combination of Thalisha's glare and our determination to continue enough to intimidate them into not meddling with us. Could they speak English? Would they have asked us questions if only they could? If they were visiting from Japan, would they have even known how to contact the proper authorities? I probably wouldn't if I were visiting a new place.

Clearly, I don't know for sure what regional or cultural knowledge they had. They might have been Japanese-Americans for all I know. But I strongly suspect that they were visiting from Japan. I like to think that they heroically put themselves in a situation without any plan beyond scare off the bad guys. And, I love to speculate about how their simple plan quickly got as complicated as our own simple plan had. I'd love to read their blogs, but I don't know how to read what I've presumed would be Japanese. Maybe I can read about us somewhere soon though. It will possibly be the news of record.

Almost Flamous

2008-09-18T19:59:00.000-07:00

Above you see a frame from the most recent episode of the Discovery Channel show Mythbusters. In this episode, the main bear[citation needed] hosts test something called a water stun gun. The younger, hostlets, travel between blowing up fire extinguishers and walking on fire. It's the latter that I got to participate in, along with a couple dozen of my closest friends. You see, a few of my friends are firewalking instructors. If I weren't so humble, I might boast that I got them hooked up with that gig (not the Mythbusters, but the Firewalking) I guess I just had a lapse in humbleness.

In the frame above, you get to see Myself, The Taleesh, and Jaylyn. If your eyes are keen, you'll see Greg skulking in the background. That's just one frame of 21 that make up the entire cut! (Digital video typically has about 30 frames per second.) Other friends that appear in the episode include the aformentioned Kevin, Brandi and Tom (whom I refered to as a few of my friends). Also, you could see Krystal and Sabrina. I guess the rest of them weren't my "closest friends" but they all seemed nice, and I've probably seen them around. Anyway, there were at least a couple more cuts than that that featured these nice people. We probably had seconds of screen time!

A good time was had by us couple dozen, Mythbusters got thier few seconds, and we got to help them bust the myths around firewalking. (is that considered a spoiler?). Plus, bonus, they said "Sonora, California" on national television without using the words "Ellie Nestler" or "Carrie Stainer."

Woot!

This is Important. TLAP!

2008-09-16T22:53:00.000-07:00

Listen up! You missed it last year, and you kicked yourself, because you'd already missed it the year before. Friday, September 19th is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. You need to be ready. Don't worry, it isn't hard. The web is full of resources and you have plenty of time. A quick Google search for "How to talk like a pirate." will suffice. That's, after all, how you learned to do that thing with your *******. Google is great. The only thing I would emphasize is: Don't. Hold. Back. This holiday is as much for the people who don't celebrate as it is for those that do. Let it be one for all to remember.

Wired Became Too "Nasty"

2008-09-16T12:27:00.000-07:00

This month's Wired Magazine is the saddest ever. There is an article that explains sub atomic particles like they are reality show stars, because this is what you are supposed to relate to. There is a chart comparing the drying times of unrelated substances, how edufuckingcational. Another chart accompanies an article about one of my favorite authors, showing you the number of pages each of his books are, to point out that they are really long. (because reading is hard?). One article celebrates the emotional design (read: "fashion") qualities of something called a Chumby, while barely addressing it's potential usefulness (read: "none").

It's Condé Nast! They chewed up this once innovative magazine and infused it with the leavings of their other publications. Leave it the hell alone! I didn't fall in love with a fashion magazine. Don't get me wrong, I think fashion has its place; I don't think celebrity worship necessarily does, but it exists. Regardless, Wired isn't the place for any of that. Wired was born from the cyberpunk spirit, and now it's starting to look like just another magazine.

My subscription will probably lapse.

I want to be a web designer when I grow up.

2008-09-15T11:24:00.000-07:00

That's what I really love, building web sites. Freelance is where it's at. I'm lacking three important things: Clients, Discipline, The Internet.

I worked on The Project this weekend, and made some great progress. But, I'm not as far along as I would have liked. I feel like I'm about 5 days behind where I wanted to be. I'd like to point my finger at dial-up internet as one of the culprits of delay. It takes about 10 times longer to upload and test any changes, especially when some of the page elements are managed by software on the server (Movable Type). It's somewhat excruciating. When you have to wait in-between operations, it's really easy to get sidetracked. As much as I've practiced passively staring at progress bars, it sometimes gets a bit tedious, and my mind wanders. Fortunately, due to the bandwidth limitations, my mind can't wander to another place on the internet.

Over the past few weeks I've observed AT&T doing "things" to the phone lines along the road that intersects the road I live on. They have big trucks with spools, and dudes in cherry pickers patiently teasing out a tangle of wire. One could easily speculate that the lines are getting improved and that DSL might soon be available. I'm trying not to be too optimistic. When we first moved to this house, I asked AT&T when DSL would be available. They practically laughed. They told us that there probably wouldn't ever be enough population density in the small area where they neglected to offer it to justify the cost of the infrastructure improvement nessesary to offer it to us (paraphrased). About a year later, my landlords/neighbors were called by AT&T. They were informed that the lines had been improved and DSL would be available. They responded joyously, asking, "Really!?" AT&T replied, "Oh, sorry, no. Wrong neigborhood." Bastards.

Alas, my delays aren't all due to the internet. As much as I'd like to blame AT&T, who are (is?) bastards. (If the eavesdropping thing isn't enough to convince you, carefully read your Service Agreement Update they sent you last month. If that isn't enough, I could name half a dozen Evil things they do, have done, or plan on doing. I digress...)

I really just wanted to let everyone know that The Project is coming along, and that I really get a lot of satisfaction out of web design. It's almost art. I don't consider most of it art. But it can be how I can contribute.

I'm currently in contact with the software developers for Movable Type trying to price out time/and money needed to complete The Project and have all the features I envisioned running on a fully legal, licensed, secure system. Once I get this information, I can think more concretely about revenue models.

Hopefully I can fund this project myself using sweat equity, and some minor cash expenditures. but it is complicated because the software I planned on using to drive the site has some licensing caveats that prevent me from using it the way I want to for free. There are also some gaps between what the software is good at and what I want it to do. I'm making inquiries to their design team to see if they can help me overcome these gaps. If I have to write all the functionality myself, you won't see me or the site for a very long time.

I'm sorry if I sound overly vague, if you don't know what The Project is, ask me. It's not fully public yet, but I'm happy to talk about it with anyone I know.

About those other two things...

Discipline: wish it for me.

Clients: I don't want more of those right now. I have a full-time job as it is. (but it's not web design) I am my own client. And, I'm an employee owned company. But, I don't pay me well. Then again, who does?

I'm going for it.

2008-09-08T21:32:00.000-07:00

My brain has a process constantly running in the background. Well, actually, it has several. At least 4 of them have to do with lust, with at least 2 of those running in a hidden memory space. A little of my mind time is dedicated to hate, while much more of it (thank goodness) is dedicated to love. One or more processes are dedicated to destruction, and several times those are dedicated to creation (I think?). A few of the creation ones leverage some libraries in my mind which are dedicated to web design, if not completely dedicated, the libraries apply themselves to web design most readily, despite what one might think about the base level of design on my own blog (read: none). The process I set out to tell you of is one of those latter processes.

There is a process constantly running in my mind that is dissatisfied with both the state of the local media, and the stagnation of this county's culture. I'm not saying that all local media is mediocre, and all local culture is stagnant, but I can observe some vacant opportunities for improvement.

Imagine, if you will, a large clear tank of water. All you see is the contents of the tank; clear, calm, yet uninteresting water. It's all there ever was. Then one day, a day the same as all the others, three drips of milk drip into the expanse. Drip. Drip. Drip. "How interesting," you say as the milk curls into smoke, and then haze, and then nothing. Someone has fed you, but for just a moment. Time passes. Three drops of blood drop into view. Drop. Drop. Drop. You watch as briefly turbulent rings expand out and down from the surface. "So captivating!" you think, daring not to voice your fascination with such a morbid beauty, as you watch the spheres fade from crimson to tangerine to nothing. Someone sacrificed for you, but soon that sacrifice is forgotten.

The local art scene is not stagnant, but it may be dismissible. With apologies to my artistic friends; I'm sorry, but after the splash, normalcy returns. Your work is soon pushed into the folds of this county's reality, which at its foundation is truly beautiful, but drearily uncreative. To inspire creativity, and by extension, "expand consciousness," art needs to become ubiquitous, and unquenchable by those folds. Art itself should become some of the folds of our reality to envelope and incubate the culture that would otherwise fade into oblivion.

I'm not trying to discourage anyone. On the contrary, I'm trying to show you the threshold which must be breached.

To improve we must: inform, promote, discuss, review, repeat. Artists give their time away, most often selflessly, to feed your minds. They receive very little feedback, and hardly any compensation. They are really doing this just for us, and we ought to be grateful.

The process running in my mind has overtaken all of the other web design related processes. And all of the other creation processes, in fact. Now at the forefront, is this drive to create a platform where the community can coalesce [thanks for the word Steve].

I want to achieve the following modest goals with this future site:
- encourage community discussions
- promote culture through endorsement
- motivate culture through criticism
- inform people of happenings
- inspire people with art

These really are modest steps, quite achievable. (Achievable is good.)

I have the space, I'm building the platform, and very soon, I will need help. I'll need you. This is about us, really. We're all in this together.

I just want each splash to have at least a few more ripples.

CBS bought CNET

2008-09-03T09:07:00.000-07:00

That was a few weeks ago.

Download.com sucks now.