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| Anonymous comments (2) | Sep 4, 2007 |
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Sometimes people read my website and later tell me, "I'd like to leave comments, but [insert rationale here]." I personally usually don't leave comments on other peoples' websites because I'm not very sociable and don't really like to share my opinion with people who might not care. If you, the reader, are the type of person who sometimes thinks about leaving a comment but doesn't, I encourage you to leave an anonymous comment. Just enter any old name and email you'd like and inject some sort of witty comment or cutting remark. I'll probably know who you are because your IP address is tracked and usually shows what area of the country (or world) you're from. But it's not always completely accurate, and there's a good chance I won't know who you are. But the important thing is that no one else will know who you are. Thus, relative anonymity. For example, if you'd like to comment on this post, enter something like the following. Just make sure you enter some name (any name) and a valid email address (something@something.something). ![[Image: anoncomment.png]](http://ddhr.org/img/anoncomment.png) |
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| GPS sucks | Aug 30, 2007 |
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Despite the booming industry created by the newly utilized global positioning system satellites, I have one thing to say: GPS devices suck. For one, they're phenomenally expensive. Even the most basic device costs around $200, and that's only because it's using outdated technology and competing with hundreds of knockoffs. I think it's safe to assume the plastic casing of a GPS device doesn't cost much, and I would assume neither does the software. So basically, you're paying for a little radio transmitter/receiver chip. Why hasn't demand for these things driven down prices? It's not like it's a new technology. It's been around since the 1970s and operational since the early 90s. Second, GPS devices are incredibly unintuitive and extremely user unfriendly. Why are there functions to name marked points and input data if there's no keyboard? And why is the onscreen keyboard like those Nintendo games from 1987, organized in alphabetical order? Keyboards haven't been organized in alphabetical order since the invention of the typewriter! A touchscreen would be a vast improvement, as would a bigger display and a move intuitive menu system. Honestly, for $200 you'd think I could get a device with a screen larger than a 10-year-old cell phone. And full-color! Third, battery power for handheld devices is generally laughable. Twelve hours between charges? That won't even last a moderate weekend hike! The last thing I need when I'm lost in the middle of the woods is an expensive chunk of plastic and silicon with a dead battery. Finally, although I'm impressed by vehicle navigation models that give turn-by-turn directions and tell you where the closest McDonald's is, I don't really need turn-by-turn directions or the location of the closest McDonald's. I'm pretty good at finding my way around places, even if I've never been there before. And to find the nearest McDonald's, I can probably just turn in a circle and find two or three. P.S. - "Recalculating route" shouldn't take 60 seconds to complete. Even MapQuest loads faster than that. #technology |
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| Minus search operator | Aug 23, 2007 |
| Most search engines employ a few different options, or search operators, to make searching easier and more relevant. Google has a bunch, the most useful of which are site:, which searches for results only from a specific site, and cache:, which shows Google's cached snapshot of the page. The other search operator I use all the time is one that's a little more universal: The minus symbol. This simple character removes certain entries from search results. For example, if I search for hikes in new jersey, some of the results point to a site called trails.com, which is essentially a useless landing site that charges money for any type of relevant information. To remove those results, I repeat the search as hikes in new jersey -trails.com. I'm also not a fan of Amazon links in my results sometimes because I'm not looking to buy anything, so I can search for hikes in new jersey -trails.com -amazon.com. This simple operator makes search results incredibly more relevant. #technology | |
| Portable audio woes | Aug 22, 2007 |
| Oh, the sad state of portable audio devices. Why is it so difficult to listen to music from my mp3-capable Treo while in my car? Sure, I can use an FM transmitter, but they have shoddy reception and are prone to interference. (Perhaps there'd be less interference if the transmitter was closer to the car's antenna, but my 2004 Camry is mysteriously missing a protruding metal antenna. I'm sure it has one; I just don't know where it is.) Sure, I can use a tape player adapter (yes, my car has a tape player), but the audio quality and subsequent noise of spinning tape wheels turns me off to the idea altogether. Why doesn't my car audio system have an audio input jack? Why wouldn't that be a standard feature? Why are there wires involved? Haven't we reached a point in our technological revolution where we can do everything without wires? Hasn't Bluetooth use become so widespread and simple that it permeates all areas of our lives? Why does my Treo's built-in music player (Windows Media Player Mobile) not have a function that remembers the place in the song where I left off? Who wouldn't want that feature by default? Why does my Treo use a non-standard audio output jack, requiring me to buy an adapter? #technology | |
| Spam comments while away | Aug 6, 2007 |
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Having a website/blog means there will be spam comments, just like having an email address means getting spam email. I could very easily disable the ability to leave comments, but I sometimes like to hear what people have to say. Currently, I have a very simple yet effective method of preventing spam involving basic arithmetic. It works great at filtering out (a) people with math disabilities and (b) robots who leave spam comments. Every once in a while, a spam comment gets through, either because it was left by a real human (which I find surprising, seeing that most spam is done by automated means) or because the robot happened to guess the correct number to type into the box. But what I find most surprising is how much spam I get while I'm away from my computer. I spend a good 9 hours per day at a computer, so I can quickly delete spam comments that get through. I might get one or two spam comments per week normally, if any at all. But as soon as the weekend rolls around, I suddenly get three or four. And if I'm on vacation like I was last week, I suddenly get all kinds of comment spam. It's like the robots know when I'm not around, so they all gang up and abuse my website. Be careful robots, I might disable commenting altogether. Don't ruin it for everyone. #technology |
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| Sprint fiasco | Jul 27, 2007 |
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I referred to this earlier, but I think I'm ready to spill my guts and tell all. Apparently it helped solve this guy's problems. This is the story of my ongoing fiasco with Sprint. I used to have a contract with Cingular, but right as it was about to end, I decided to switch to Sprint because of their faster data network and their lower prices. I ordered a phone from Wirefly and filled out a form to port my number. A few days later I got my phone and called to have it activated. They gave me a temporary number at first because the porting takes a few days, and that was no problem. However, after a day or two, I was told my number couldn't be ported to Sprint's network. Since I've had the same number for the past 4 years, I didn't feel like going through the process of telling everyone I know I have a new number, mainly because I can't remember who has my old number (and I'm extremely important; I get multitudes of phone calls per day; yes, multitudes). Plus, the problem sounded like a technical glitch, not an actual legitimate problem. ("Our system says your number won't port." Well, fix your stupid system.) After talking to several different customer service people, I was told there was nothing they could do, so I was all set to give up and hold a lifelong grudge. As a last ditch effort, I went to a local Sprint store to see if they could help, and the guy at the store said he had the same exact problem with his personal number, and he would just need to send an email to a person he knew. Several days later he changed his story and said he didn't know what the problem was, but he escalated my case to a group in Sprint called "Employees Helping Customers" (Who exactly was I dealing with before this? Employees not helping customers?). After several weeks, my case was put into the hands of the local Sprint store's manager, who was still "waiting to hear back from EHC". It has been exactly 6 weeks and 3 days since this Sprint fiasco started, and I still have no solution as to where exactly my old number is and why I'm not able to use it. So Sprint CEO Gary Forsee, fix my &*$%ing problem. As of this point in my sure-to-be-wonderful 2-year contract with your company, I've had nothing but problems. Your customer service is pitiful. Your technical support is a joke. Your whole company seems to be a winding maze of "let me transfer you to that department" and "I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do about that". I would've been better off sticking with Cingular or switching to Verizon. Now for an extremely detailed chronological breakdown of events: June 12: Received my phone in the mail. Called and had it activated with a temporary number. June 13: Called customer service several times to start using my old number instead of the temporary number. June 14: Called customer service several times to start using my old number instead of the temporary number. June 15: Called customer service several times to start using my old number instead of the temporary number. Went to the Sprint store and was told my problem would be solved. ... June 22: Emailed Sprint store guy who said he'd get back to me by 4pm. At 7:38pm, he said a network ticket had been logged and that he should hear a final answer by June 26 at 5pm. ... June 27: Emailed Sprint store guy. No answer. ... June 28: Sprint store guy handed me over to Employees Helping Customers and told me I'd hear from them by June 29 or July 2 at the latest. ... July 5: No word from anyone. I emailed the Sprint store guy to see what the problem was. No answer. ... July 10: I'd had enough, so I was willing to just sign up for a new number. Emailed the Sprint store guy and said I was coming in. He said calls to my old number would be magically forwarded to my new number for the time being. That never happened. The Sprint store guy said I'd be dealing with the Sprint store manager from now on. Progress was made by giving me a new number. ... July 12: New number stopped working. Went to the Sprint store, and progress was made by fixing it. I was told I'd be contacted by EHC to get my issues sorted out. I never heard from them. ... July 24: Emailed Sprint store manager asking about any updates to my 6-week long saga. No response. July 25: Emailed Sprint store manager asking about any updates to my 6-week long saga. Response: "Still waiting to hear." ... August 7: Emailed Sprint store manager asking about any updates to my 8-week long saga. Response: "There's nothing we can do." I emailed again later asking for a refund for the early termination fee for my old number. Progress was made by refunding the money I didn't owe in the first place. I'll continue to update this with "waiting to hear", "sorry we can't do anything", and "we're the worst company ever in the history of the universe; here's all your money back; oh and here's the past 6 weeks of your life back" and things of that nature. Final update: By mid-August, the results were in. I lost my old number for unexplainable reasons. I got a new number. I got a refund for all the money I didn't owe (such as double billing and incorrect early termination charges). My old number is now in the hands of a teenager with Verizon service. Not sure how that happened. All in all, my switch from Cingular to Sprint was as painful and inconvenient as it possibly could've been, correctly representing Sprint's deplorable reputation and abysmal customer service. #technology |
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| Sony | Jul 26, 2007 |
| I was looking at digital cameras at Best Buy today, and despite admiring a few of the Sony models, I almost certainly won't buy one. I've mentioned this before, and I'll say it again: It's really stupid for a company to create its own data storage specification, making it incompatible with any other device on earth. To use a Sony camera, I need a Sony MemoryStick. That MemoryStick won't fit in any other device I own, including my phone, my laptop, or my desktop. All those devices use Secure Digital cards, which really should be the de facto standard for portable media storage, in my opinion. Sony's choice probably has something to do with their overseas market or something like that, but to me it just looks like a way to make more money. #technology | |
| Cell phone carriers | Jul 25, 2007 |
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It's hard to get honest and useful opinions about cell phone carriers. What do we expect -- we're overcharged for an unreliable, poor-quality service. But it's a service most of us would rather die than be without. While that sounds like a stupid statement, it's at least partially true. I've been having some cell-phone-company-switching issues lately, and I concluded, "I'll just go without a cell phone for now." But the more I thought about it, the more I decided that if any life-threatening event were to happen to me, it would undoubtedly happen when I didn't have a cell phone. Damn those stupid little radiation-emitting gizmos! But anyway, it's hard to find out which carrier is the best. If I surveyed a few people and read a few things online, here's what I would discover:
A lot of these opinions are based on data and secondhand opinions from several years ago. These days, the major companies are all generally the same in terms of coverage because they share towers (Verizon/Sprint, Cingular/AT&T/T-Mobile). So if you can't complain about the service, complain about something else. The thing most people mention in their criticism of cell phone companies these days is that the customer service is terrible. I personally haven't had many good experiences with customer service; I thought that was the deal: You waste the company's money by calling customer service, you don't deserve good customer service. Actually, the one time I called Cingular customer service, I had a good experience. I think it was a fluke. Several years ago, I dealt with Verizon's customer service, and even though it was a hassle, they fixed my problem. My stance on customer service is that there's really no need for it as long as everything works the way it's supposed to. And most times it does. But the times your phone doesn't work and you have to subject some poor idiot to your angry tirade against "the man", it's a big deal. I'm currently going through this with Sprint. For that reason, I don't recommend Sprint. Maybe I'll change my stance if they finally fix my problem. So in terms of customer service,
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| Cryptic voicemail (1) | Jul 18, 2007 |
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I would say there are 3 types of voicemail: Nothing voicemail, something voicemail, and cryptic voicemail. Nothing voicemail sounds like this: "Hey, I was just calling to see what's up. Give me a call back sometime if you get a chance." With this kind of voicemail, the intentions are clear ("see what's up"), a response is optional ("if"), and the time frame is relaxed ("sometime"). Something voicemail sounds like this: "Hi, I have a question about XYZ. Give me a call back when you get a chance." In this case, the intentions are clear ("question about XYZ"), a response is recommended ("when"), and the time frame is somewhere between relaxed and urgent ("when you get a chance"). Cryptic voicemail sounds like this: "Hello, I have something important to talk to you about. Call me back sometime today. I'll be up till midnight." This time the intentions are quite unclear ("something important"), a response is critical, and the time frame is immediate ("today ... till midnight"). This is the kind of voicemail I got from my dad last week (sorry Dad, I couldn't let this go). When you hear a voicemail like this, thoughts go immediately downhill. Did someone die? Did someone's house burn down? Did an alien abduct my sister's baby? Any of these things are possibilities with a message like this. If it wasn't an important thing, I wouldn't need to call back in such a specific time frame. If it wasn't all that serious, you would've just said what you wanted to say. But since you left out major important details and basically gave me an ultimatum, I was forced to fill in the blanks, and that didn't go so well. The problem with cryptic voicemail is that Wendy and I get at least one per week from her mom. Every message goes something like this: "Hi, Wendy? It's mommy. I need to talk to you about something. Call me back as soon as you can." Wendy comes from an interesting family where bad stuff happens all the time. Somebody dies or loses their job or gets in a car accident all the time. So getting a cryptic message like that is a little unsettling. Wendy usually goes through a list of possibilities, all of which cause an unhealthy amount of stress, worry, and stomach pain. But when Wendy calls back, her mom usually says something about her cat throwing up on the couch or her senior citizen neighbor making advances towards her. While these are significant events, they don't warrant the use of a cryptic voicemail. #technology |
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| Internet and academia | Jul 2, 2007 |
| Despite the unending and ever-increasing amount of information and number of resources available on the internet, I've always found it to be utterly worthless when it comes to academia. Whenever I search for how to solve a certain type of engineering problem or what to do with a specific variable or quantity, I'm never able to find anything close to useful. I usually come across a few research papers or journal articles that have nothing to do with what I'm looking for, and even if they sound useful, they're behind a paywall. Occasionally I'll find some sort of amateur rocket enthusiast's homebrew calculations with quantities involving confusing amalgamations of English and metric units, or I'll stumble across a wine aficionado's recipe for the perfect sauvignon blanc. The internet is surprisingly lacking in terms of academic materials that are designed to teach or aid in typical problem solving. #technology | |
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