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

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

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: 

1. Sprint sucks.
2. T-Mobile sucks.
3. Cingular/AT&T sucks.
4. Verizon has the best coverage.

I've found that most opinions include the word "suck", and even the best one doesn't necessarily "not suck", it just has the best coverage so you can get the same "sucky" service in more places. 

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,

1. Sprint sucks.
2. I don't know about T-Mobile.
3. Cingular is pretty good.
4. Verizon is ok.

Again, I don't recommend Sprint to anyone that doesn't want to deal with a problem that takes more than 6 weeks to get resolved.  If that's your thing, go for it.  I personally would rather avoid it. #technology

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

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

When browsing online newspaper sites like OregonLive and NJ.com, users are presented with the following nag screen that requires a zip code, a birth year, and a gender: 
As far as nag screens go, this one's not all that bad.  It doesn't ask for your name or email address.  And I've heard they use the information for targeted advertising, which isn't altogether evil.  But either way, it's annoying, and I hate it with a passion.  When I try to read this simple story, I have no problem accessing the site.  But when I click to go to the next page, I get the nag screen.  The issue is caused by the web browser sending an http referer, which tell the website where I'm coming from.  It's not an inherently bad thing, and many websites use the referer to perform valuable services (not just stupid advertising).  Digg said to just disable all referers, which can be accomplished with a simple about:config hack.  But several Digg comments pointed to the fact that disabling all referers is unfair (boo hoo, poor web admins) and can degrade or disable the performance of certain websites (del.icio.us for example). 

To get around that, there's a Firefox extension called RefControl.  It allows you to block referers for specific websites.  As long as you're morally ok with causing some sort of harm to a website's advertising demographics (I am!), this plugin is the way to go. 

Update (2007-07-06 1:10pm):  Advance Internet is the parent company to the sites that have this annoying "feature", including NJ.com, cleveland.com, MassLive.com, MLive.com, al.com, NOLA.com, OregonLive.com, PennLive.com, SILive.com, Syracuse.com, gulflive.com, and MardiGras.com. #technology

It's been a while since I tried using Adblock for Firefox, and I can't remember why I stopped.  In the past day, this plugin has made my life about 35% better (figure based on estimates).  Pop-up blocking used to be all the rage, but most newer browsers have that built-in.  Yet for some reason, certain pop-ups still find their way through, and it really gets to me.  Sites like Snopes still employ this archaic and annoying method of advertising, and I got to the point where I was looking for alternative sites that didn't get on my nerves.  But with Adblock, you can just block all the junk you don't want to see.  No more pop-ups from casalemedia.com or tribalfusion.com.  No more ads, period.  Man I love geeks and their ability to hack things. #technology

I think it's at least slightly funny* how customer service phone mazes work.  Here's a typical example: 

1. Press 1 for billing.  Press 2 for tech support.  Press 3 for all other inquiries.  You press 2.
2. Enter your shipping number or product code.  You enter your 29-digit number.
3. Enter your zip code.  You enter your zip code.
4. Say your first and last name.  You say your first and last name.

Here's what happens when a person picks up: 

1. "Hi, this is Rajuswami Ricky from India Texas.  How can I help you today?
2. You say, "I'm calling for tech support."
3. They say, "Let me transfer you to tech support."
4. Tech support says, "Can I have your 29-digit product code, your zip code, and your first and last name?"
5. You hang up with murderous thoughts on your mind.

An obvious question arises:  Why did I do all that stuff and press all those buttons when I first called?  The not-so-obvious answer:  These systems exist for the purpose of stalling.  They don't actually provide any type of benefit.  They're like Kramer on Seinfeld:  "Why don't you just tell me the name of the movie you've selected?"  All those buttons you press are like the buttons on a child's toy phone:  They don't do anything; they just have an appearance of doing something. 

And I have it on good authority that the main purpose of customer support is to get you off the phone.  The less time they spend with each person, the more people they can not help. 

*Funny obviously isn't the right word, but I couldn't think of a better one that wasn't preceded by several 4-letter words. 

Update:  This Dilbert comic says it all. #technology

I think at this point in the technological revolution, we should no longer be using keys.  When was the last time a key was actually beneficial?  "Gosh, I'm glad I'm carrying this pointy metal object in my pocket where it can cause mortal damage and possible death!"  It's more like, "Whoops, I locked my keys in my car!" or "I locked myself out of my house ... again!" 

My building at work has a pretty simple yet effective system:  An electronic keypad.  I know these were available on vehicles about 10 years ago, but the fad never really caught on.  For some reason, people feel more comfortable carrying a pointy metal object and/or a bulky rectangular plastic thing.  And this same device is available on garage door openers, but for whatever reason, it never spread to the front door.  I can really only think of 3 reasons it didn't become popular: 

1. Security.  People think it's easy to guess a numerical code.  The keypad at work has 10 digits, and each entry code is 5 digits long.  That means there are 10⁵ = 100,000 possible codes.  And while that's not an astronomically large number, if a person was willing to try 100,000 different codes to break into your house, I'd say let 'em; they deserve to get in.
2. Reliability.  What happens if your power goes out and you need to get into your house?  This is an excellent point, but I have an excellent counterpoint:  When was the last time you tried to get into your house when the power was out?  I can think of exactly zero times this has ever happened in the history of mankind.
3. Convenience.  This is really the only good argument.  It's more convenient to push a button on your key chain as you're walking to your car than to wait until you get to your car to type in a code.  I don't have a counterpoint to this, except maybe to use a fingerprint scanner on the door handle.

And that brings me to my next point.  My laptop has a pretty cool security feature:  Logging in with a fingerprint reader.  I don't have to carry anything around (except ... ya know ... my fingers) and I don't have to memorize a code.  There's literally no way this device can fail or mess up, as long as its scanning ability is up to par.  One argument is that all a thief would need to do is kidnap you, knock you out, and use your finger against your will.  To that I say this:  (a) A thief could do that with a key just as easily, and (b) most theft is non-violent these days.  There isn't much money to be gained in stealing 5-year-old cars and laptops.  Theft these days is more about identity and credit.  But anyway, it amazes me that the simple technology used to logon to my computer hasn't also been utilized to unlock my car and my house.  C'mon Bill Gates and Steve Jobs!  Where's Windows Vista Door Edition or the iKey? #technology

I think it's at least mildly funny that I pay exactly zero dollars and zero cents ($0.00) for my web-based email and I get something close to 100% uptime and reliability, while my employer pays a ton of money to buy expensive equipment and employ countless people to monitor and upgrade it, thus causing constant downtime and pitiful reliability.  This is not to mention the utter inaccessibility of my work email in the name of security and the almost laughable amount of storage space (50MB).  It ain't quite right. #technology