I like bike riding, and I wish I was in better shape to do it regularly, which means I need to bike regularly to get into shape. But if I get tired on the way out, getting home's a bitch. Maybe an indoor bike is a good compromise, especially one that lets me dip into imaginary curves. Although for two grand, I'd better use it every day. (Via Uncrate <http://www.uncrate.com/men/body/health-fitness/realryder-abf8/>.) Visit the link....

"I love photography, especially printed, and want to provide a place for people to find and buy great quality work on the Internet." Awesome stuff, I aspire to any one of my photos to be sold here. Visit the link....

Photographer Chino Otsuka visits places she's been photographed before, takes new pictures of herself, and then digitally combines them to make surreal combinations of then and now. The table-top book, called "Imagine Finding Me", is £14 with shipping. Visit the link....

I love Kettle brand chips because of the unique flavor combos ("Island Jerk" anyone?). Now I can try building my own tasty treats with their Create-A-Chip Kit. For $15 you get

seven all natural seasoning blends and four bags of unseasoned chips

plus three full-size bags of popular flavors (Spicy Thai™, Buffalo Bleu™ and Tuscan Three Cheese were listed when I last visited).

It's offers like these that make it really bad to be on a diet. Visit the link....

These are my links for May 12th from 01:06 to 01:06:

• The Netflix Challege: $1 Million Recommendation Engine - If you can suggest which movies I'll like based on which movies I've already watched, you might win $1 million from Netflix. Just improve their movie ranking software enough. Be careful though: There are a few gotchas in the list, like Napoleon Dynamite, which seems to defy love-it-or-hate-it predictions.

I'm currently involved in a project at work that involves a lot of hurry up and wait. One minute I'm running around putting out a dozen fires, the next I'm stashed in my office waiting for the next Most Important Thing In The Worldâ„¢.

During one of my “wait” moments, I found myself going through some old project notes I'd kept in MacJournal. Since I use Journler now, I looked at exporting from the former and importing to the latter.

Unfortunately, MacJournal doesn't set the the date created and date modifed on the exported files (it puts the info into the content of the file instead). So I looked at scripting it, and came up with a brain-dead AppleScript to do the deed. This is one of those scripts you write for one-time use, just because you can:

tell application "MacJournal" set theJournal to the journal named "_Archived" repeat with entryNumber from 1 to (count of journal entries of theJournal) set theEntry to journal entry entryNumber of theJournal set {entryName, entryCreatedDate, entryModifiedDate, entryContent} to {name, date, modification date, plain text content} of theEntry if entryContent is missing value then set entryContent to " " end if tell application "Journler" make new entry with properties {name:entryName, date created:entryCreatedDate, date modified:entryModifiedDate, contents:entryContent, category:"Imported From MacJournal"} end tell end repeat end tell

Pretty straightforward. The only curiosity was I had was that an empty MacJournal entry (that is, one without any content) would be reported either as contents:missing value or contents:"", but it wasn't clear to me when each happened, nor the actual difference. Journler doesn't apparently know what “contents:missing value” means, so I had to turn it into something Journler did understand, thus this code:

if entryContent is missing value then set entryContent to " " end if

In early testing, I replaced contents:missing value with contents:" " (a space) because using an empty string (contents:"") generated an error. Later testing (with different content) didn't have this error. I didn't spend the time to  figure it out. After all, this was a one-off script to solve a one-time problem. In fact, I've probably spent more time writing about the script than I did writing the script itself.

Sigh. Looks like I've managed to confuse the folks over at Fidelity. They responded to Tuesday's email, saying

When a bill is paid with a check (which your bill for $223.85 was), the amount will not be deducted from your account history until the check is paid, so that is why you see it in the billpay "Recent Payments" and not the "Recent History" in your mySmart Cash account.

If you take your current available to withdraw balance ($322.98) and subtract the uncleared check $223.85, you get $99.13, which is $.03 off from your expected total of $99.10. The extra $.03 is from your interest payment on January 30, 2009.

Totally reasonable, makes perfect sense.

Except....

It doesn't quite match with what the Bill Pay system says:

<Vendor> received your payment electronically on 02/24/2009. Your payment was posted to your <vendor> account on 02/24/2009

Additionally, when I check my <Vendor> Â statement online, it says:

$223.85 - paid on 2/24/2009

Clearly there is a disconnect here. So I called up Fidelity, explained the situation, and got transfered to a very nice Bill Pay specialist named Amber. After going through my account, and putting me on hold a few times, Amber came back and basically said

I'm sorry, I don't know why it's not showing up.

Awesome.

It appears that one Fidelity system shows the bill was “paid electronically”; another system shows it was “paid by check”, which won't show up as a debit on my account until that check is “cashed”.

I logged into my vendor's website, which, of course, shows the account as “paid on 2/24/2009”

Amber asked me to check again tomorrow or Friday, as it may take time as “it's making its way through the system” (even though another bill, paid on the same day, shows up correctly).

The saga continues. Ain't technology grand?

And that's not cash purchases....

It's been a bad couple of weeks.

Original idea:Â http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/

I opened a Fidelity mySmartCash account in December to consolidate my bill pay and other activities. The e-bill feature they have is much better than what E*Trade currently offers, and the mySmartCash has the possibility of easing my cash flow between multiple savings accounts.

But I'm having a hard time using Fidelity because the website doesn't do a very good job of showing me how much money I have in there at any one time. Tonight I wrote them to complain:

My "Recent Payments" box in my Bill Pay section does not match my "Recent History" in my smartcash account.  My "Recent Payments" shows three payments:

2/20: $242.64

2/24: $223.85

2/24: $39

My "Recent History" shows only two payments:

2/20: $242.64

2/24: $39

Yet the bill for $223.85 is shown as "paid on 2/24/2009". The bill for $39 also shows "paid on 2/24/2009" so I'm not sure why two bills paid on the same day don't both show up.

Additionally, even if this is just a case of the bill not yet registering in one part of your system, the balance total would be wrong. The current "total" balance shown is $361.98; if and when the $223.85 bill registers, the "total" should show $138.13. Yet the "available balance" shows $222.98.  I've deposited $966.52 since recently opening this account. My history says I've withdrawn $643.57; add in the expected withdrawal of $223.85, that would be $867.42 withdrawn; that should show an "available balance" of $99.10. It's not clear where the additional $39.03 is coming from.

My experience with the Fidelity website in the less than 90 days I've had them gives me tremendous pause, and I'm extremely hesitant to continue using this service, as I don't have great comfort that the website is showing me complete and accurate information at all times.  Please help me understand the situation and provide me with some level of comfort that might convince me to move the rest of my banking and brokerage from E*Trade to Fidelity.

Thanks,

Yeah, I should probably keep my mouth shut about the $39 (and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that a third part of their system hasn't picked up the $39 payment and $0.03 in interest, for example).

A bank site should be up-to-the-minute. There's no technical reason it can't be. If this puny website can show you the absolute latest information, they can too.

Let's see if things resolve themselves, and what Fidelity has to say about it.

Well, that didn't last long.

Thirteen days after I predicted we've seen the stock market bottom of 7,949.09, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dips under it at 7,936.75.

Sigh.

Only 12 points lower, but lower still. It's the new low for 2009. Dare I suggest it won't close lower the rest of this year? I do think we've seen (something close to) the bottom this year. I maintain we'll be higher on January 1, 2010 than we were on January 1, 2009. (That would be anything above 8,776.39, or 839 points to the upside. Whew.)

Of course, it just might be easier to test the 52-week low of 7,867.37.

But ya gots to be optimistic about something in this world.

Customer service can make or break a a business relationship. Offer good service, and I'll stick with you. Do me wrong, and I'll dump you like a bad stock.

I've been using Mint.com since December when K. expressed her love for it. It's been a long time since I tried for a comprehensive view of my finances, and it's been a fascinating learning experience.

Mint.com has a few tremendous features, chief among them its attractive and generally usable interface. When that interface fails though, it does so spectacularly, and getting help from their customer support team is a study is poor reading comprehension.

The Problem

The big interface issue causing me to consider deleting my account revolves around their "rules". Mint.com tries to smartly categorize your various transactions, automatically converting a semi-cryptic credit card entry from "Lucky #757 000000000SAN JOSE" to "Lucky" and placing it in the "Grocery" category.

Extremely handy when it works.

Extremely frustrating when it doesn't, and it often doesn't. The problems start when Mint.com gives two distinct transactions the same "smart" name, for example, turning both "AMAZON DIGITAL SVCS 866-216-107" and  "AMAZON.COM AMZN.COM/BI" into simply "Amazon" and putting them into "Shopping".

Well, I'd actually like to have the former renamed to "Amazon MP3 Store" and categorize it as "Music". Mint.com lets me do that... kinda: I can rename their displayed name ("Amazon") to anything I want.

Of course, since Mint.com considers both "AMAZON DIGITAL SVCS 866-216-107" and "AMAZON.COM AMZN.COM/BI" to be simply "Amazon",changing the former also changes the latter!Â

They're basically offering me only the opportunity to rename their already modified names! I have no ability to use the original name as the basis of my edits!

Beyond lame.

Poor Reading Comprehension

This gets beyond annoying interface behavior and into the realm of poor customer service when I decided to write them and ask about this behavior.

[Credit Card] calls this MUSIC DWNLDS
[Credit Card] calls this AMAZON DIGITAL SVCS
[Credit Card] calls this AMAZON.COM AMZN.COM/BI

The Rules system for all three say

"You have a rule that renames Amazon..."

But why is it called "Amazon" in your system, rather than "MUSIC DWNLDS", as it's reported on my credit card? The current system makes it impossible to correctly assign transactions to the most appropriate categories. For example, while "AMAZON.COM AMZN.COM/BI" might be "Shopping", "MUSIC DWNLDS" should be "Music".

Why aren't I able to have rules based on what the entry is actually called, rather than an arbitrary name Mint has assigned it?

And where can I change those arbitrary names?

About a week or so later, they respond:

Thank you for contacting Mint.com.

If you would like to edit your existing rules, please do the following:

Hm. I don't recall asking how to change my existing rules. The closest I came was asking how to change Mint.com's arbitrary names.

I would have put this off as one bad rep, too busy with real problems to do more than read my last line incorrectly... except I'd received similar bad responses before. When I wrote:

Why is E*Trade suddenly not working and telling me my password is wrong?

They responded after a couple of weeks:

https://wwws.mint.com/contact.event

Um... I didn't write saying I couldn't add my E*Trade account! I said your system thinks the password it has is wrong!

I'm in a customer service position. I know how difficult it can be to satisfy a customer, especially if you don't have enough information, or have no good answers. However, in these cases, it's always best to probe for more data or admit to the lack of a solution.Â

In the case of the rules problem, searching the forums reveals dozens, perhaps hundreds of similar complaints: it's a well-known problem. If Mint.com had provided even a non-answer of "we're aware of some of the weaknesses in the rules system and we're working on improving its functionality" I'd completely understand and wait for eventual updates.

Instead I'm left frustrated by a non-answer that reads like it came from an automated response generator with poor pattern matching behavior.

Which might explain the bad rules functionality.

I am far from a stock market expert. Barely a dabbler. I understand how the market works from a intellectual perspective, and have some skin in the game. Despite that, I generally consider it a canonical example of the Greater Fool Theory. I understand that the market—over time—"always goes up" but the last few years have shown that even fundamentally sound companies (like Apple or Amazon) will fall simply because "investors" don't believe they can sell their shares to someone else at a higher price than they bought them.

The market sometimes moves more for psychological reasons than fundamental ones, and people are operating under fear conditions.

Which brings me to my point:

On January 20, 2009, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed on at 7,949.09.Â

I'm predicting that will be the lowest we'll see the market the rest of this year.

I have a terrible track record of stock picks, so take my prediction with a big himalayan pink salt brick. But I believe that the wave of optimism accompanying President Obama into office will buoy the markets, and that his fiscal and economic policies will further shore them up.

Now, I'm not predicting a return to the stratospheric heights of 2007; heck, even a return to 10,000, a number we first topped some ten years ago—and last saw in October 2008—would require a greater than 25% increase over the Inauguration Day close (although at least one person is).

Today we saw a 3.5% increase over yesterday's close. Tomorrow we'll probably see a 3.5% drop. But I'm now on the record: we've seen the bottom. It's all upside now.

January 20. Inauguration Day. A new President of the United States of America.

Another election, another inauguration, another president. Every four years, the same old thing.

January 20, 2009. Inauguration Day. A new President of the United States of America.

Another election, another inauguration, another president. But definitely not the same old thing.

I find it impossible to express the enormity of the moment for me. I awoke at 7am. I recorded three TV channels across two TiVos. I watched it live at work on a massive screen. I continued watching later events on my office computer. I came home and watched MSNBC's continued coverage. I instant messaged. I tweeted. I texted. I teared up. I called my mother.

Yeah, it's kind of a big deal.

From my earliest exposure to now-President Obama at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, to his appearance on NPR's Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me, I've always said that this man could be president, I just never expected him to actually become president. I didn't think this country was ready to elect a black man, that my dream would remain just that.

Then, after a hard-fought primary, America chose him to be the nominee of the Democratic party. An historic night itself, surpassed mere months later by his actual election. And now, today, it's official. For the first time in our history, a black man, with his black wife, and his black daughters, will be the face of this country.

This is monumental. Everything that he and his family do from now on will have an additional, dare-I-say, tint of history to it. There are lot of "firsts" to come in the next four years, and I welcome every one of them.

Welcome to the club, Mr. President.

Oh no.

Oh god no.

It's finally happened. Microsoft has embraced me. Or at least my culture and demographic.

They have a new commercial out for their Zune 3.0 software, and it's based around Common's Universal Mind Control, and his "inspiration" from Afrika Bambaataa.

In 1982, when I was in the 8th grade, my school (Mahalia Jackson I.S. 391) had a talent competition. I believe I sang as part of the school choir, even though I had no singing talent to speak of.

But while in rehearsals, I was privileged to see the dancers.

Oh the dancers. Tall, leggy, and defying you to believe they were only 14 or 15 years old.

They performed to Bambaataa's Planet Rock. I had no idea what I was listening to. I can clearly remember the dancers bending and twisting on stage as they were "shot" by the lead dancer. And the soaring, high-pitched "NAH nah NAH-naaah, nah-NAAAH NAH-naaah, NAH nah NAH-nah nah-NAAAH" electronic refrain emanating from the auditorium speakers.

I didn't know what rap was, what electronica was, or who the hell Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force were. I had just moved to the U.S. a couple years earlier. I still had my strong foreign accent, and was just discovering American music.

It was very different from what I was used to.

That song (and the image of those dancers) has stuck with me for a quarter century. It's the earliest musical memory I have since moving to the U.S.¹Â  And now Microsoft, in the service of their new Zune software, has referenced it, embraced it. Embraced me.

I'm not completely sure how I should feel. Is my demographic now a desirable target?

Crap.

At least I now have an excuse to rock, rock to the the planet rock.

1. I don't remember when I first heard Rapper's Delight, even though it came out in 1979. I might have heard when I came up the summer of '80, and  clearly it's stuck with me just as long, but—and here's my point—the first time didn't make an impression. ↩

Dec. 21 update below.
Dec. 22 update below.

My Comcast cable internet connection died last night.

Well, maybe not died so much as slowed to such a crawl as to simply look dead.Â

I noticed it as I was about to go to bed, so of course I stayed up for 45 minutes trying to fix it, to no avail. Eventually I simply hooked up my AT&T DSL to my Airport Express and called it a night. I figured it would either resolve itself by the time I awoke, or at least by the time I got home from work.

Ever the optimist, I am.

Instead I was lucky enough to have a need to contact Comcast customer support. I chose to use the chat system, because that's always fun. I really do think they're the closest thing to a successful Turing test yet. Here's the transcript of my conversation:

Problem : My internet connection is slow to the point of not working. I've restarted the computer, modem, etc. Slow for last 24 hours.
Christopher > Hello Jasonian, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Christopher. Please give me one moment to review your information.
Christopher > How are you?
Jasonian > I'm great thanks, and I hope you are too.
Christopher > Good to know that.
Christopher > Good to know that.
Christopher > Your concern is regarding your internet connection, right?
Jasonian > yes.
Christopher > Let me check it out if there is a maintenance ongoing as of the moment.
Christopher > I will give you the details if there is any.
Christopher > I have check it out, there is a outage detected in your area. Our Engineers are still working on some maintenance as of the moment. It will be back with in 24 hours.
Jasonian > Can you tell me about when it went out and if it's a complete or partial outage?
Christopher > It is just a partial outage. It will be back after 5 hours.
Jasonian > I see. OK. Is this information available online where I can check status?
Christopher > It also pops up in your webmail.
Christopher > Have i resolved your issue by giving you the information of the outage affecting your location?
Jasonian > Thanks. I will check my "webmail", if I can find that on the site. Thanks four your help.
Christopher > Have i resolved your issue by giving you the information of the outage affecting your location?
Jasonian > I suppose so.
Christopher > Have i resolved your issue by giving you the information of the outage affecting your location?
Christopher > That is the only way I can resolve you issue to give the information of the outage.
Christopher > Have i resolve it by giving the information of the outage?
Jasonian > Thanks for the information.
Christopher > So did I resolve it by giving that information?
Jasonian > my connection is still down, so the reason i contacted you is not resolved. i now have more information than before. i thank you for that.
Christopher > Alright.
Christopher > Any other concerns for tonight?
Jasonian > no more at the moment.
Christopher > Okay.
Christopher > Thank you for choosing Comcast. I have great time chatting with you today. Have a good one!
Christopher > Happy Holidays!
Christopher > Take Care.
Christopher > Bye.
Jasonian > and to you.
Christopher > Analyst has closed chat and left the room

Dec. 21 update: Four days later, and the connection is now completely down, rather than just really slow. The modem won't even connect: it shows as disconnected on the Comcast network. A technician is scheduled to show up Monday. Let's hope s/he's on time.

Dec. 22 update: The technician arrived about 4:45, spent about five minutes looking at my system and logs, and promptly diagnosed "a bad modem". He swapped in a new one, and my speeds were suddenly much, much faster. The sad part? The "dead" modem was itself only two months old.

A friend of Y's is getting married in Tokyo, so Y and I decided this was a perfect excuse to visit Japan. Since I also had a place on Maui I wanted to use before the end of the year, we decided to make this into a two-week break. Today is the first day, and it's been a long, long day.Â

We woke up just before 7 AM to the chirping of my iPhone. No, not the alarm, the SMS notification that AAPL had dropped to a new 52-week low. That's one way to get you out of bed the morning you start an expensive vacation.

The morning was spent in gentle paranoia mode: worrying that we're forgetting some critical item, like, say,  a hotel reservation. Shudder. We checked, double-checked and in a couple of cases triple-checked everything before we piled our luggage into TT's SUV for the ride to the airport. Thanks TT for waking up early and driving us all the way up there!

Once at the airport, I tried to get us an upgrade; I aimed first for Economy Plus, then for an exit row, finally for just center/aisle instead of center/window seats; at least I was able to travel with at least one leg extended for most of the trip. Next time I do a long-haul, I'm bypassing the really cheap fares and splurging on Economy Plus or Business Class. My back and legs will thank me, no doubt.

Fortunately the twelve-hour flight passed more quickly than I imagined it would. I watched Hancock, X-Files, a couple episodes of Countdown with Keith Olberman and The Rachel Maddow Show, and started reading The Back of the Napkin, a (so far) interesting look at improving our “visual thinking” (that is, sharing information via hand-drawn pictures).

We only slept for an hour or two, so by the time we reached the hotel (the Westin Tokyo) about 8 PM local time, we were exhausted. After unpacking and preparing for the next day (including an awfully expensive and—for me, inedible—snack), we collapsed into the well-named Heavenly bed. (The Westin Tokyo is awesomely beautiful. The lobby is amazing, and the rooms have marble columns. And to think we got it for essentially free via my Starwood membership!)

I'll eventually have photos and video (thanks to the Flip MinoHD I bought for the trip) soon.

Two years ago a nail embedded itself in my car's tire. I went to the tire shop around the corner from my house, because they advertised and were close by. They told me I needed to buy two new tires.

I left and went to America's Tire Company to compare tire prices. They fixed it for free.

Guess which one I went to when I actually needed new tires?

I went back to ATC today to fix another puncture, because it's their policy to try repairing the hole first, and they'll do it for free.

This isn't for customers only. It's not a first-time-free. It's pure customer service.

And they have my business for life.

The culture of fear, uncertainty and doubt in American politics was dealt a staggering—though not fatal—blow yesterday when the country overwhelmingly chose to ignore the negative campaigning of Senator McCain, Governor Palin and the GOP and instead focus on hope and the future.

In electing Barack Obama to President, Americans showed they are smarter and more thoughtful than they’re often portrayed in the media and blogs (including my own). This time, they chose to vote in their own best self-interest, for someone who they believe will make their lives better, regardless of cultural, racial or even political differences.

I’m not naive enough to believe fear, uncertainty and doubt have gone the way of 300 baud modems: Too many people still chose to believe the lies or their own prejudices, and FUD remains effective for depressing the turnout. But today, Americas rejected the old-style political tactics in favor of hope and ideas.

I hope it lasts.

[I expect I'll have a more coherent response to this at some point but for now I just need to get this out.]

Every day we live through history. Every day we see things  which haven't happened before and which may never happen again. Things which simply haven't  happened for a long time. And we've never been alive as long as we have right now.

But that history is fleeting. Local. Personal. While some of it may end up in a drab textbook our grandkids must read , most of it will disappear into the vast maw of the mundane.

Not tonight.

This moment will live on for generations. It will affect how we see the world, and how the world sees us. We will remember it like we do the Challenger explosion; or the way our parents remember the Kennedy and King assassinations; the way we now remember the September 11 attacks: We lived through it together, and it immediately became part of our collective history. All of us recognized the moments as important. A few saw them as historical.  Either way, we knew those moments would be talked about forever as cultural touchstones: “Where were you when...?”

But this moment has one huge difference: As I recognize the impact of it, I realize that for the first time in my life, I'm experiencing history that is positive. History I'll recall with joy, not sorrow. History that makes me swell with pride, not cringe in sadness.

President Obama.

In just eleven weeks, I will be saying those words.

One day, my great grandkids will be reading those words, as part of this country's new history.

They won't recognize the meaning of it. He will be just another president—and this will be just another moment—they have to learn about, along with Washington and Lincoln; King and September 11. And they won't understand why it meant so much to this country.

But I will.

Thank you, America.

I wish the members of tonight's town hall debate audience had asked Senator McCain some of the following questions. They didn't:

• Is Governor Palin ready to be president if something happens to you?

<li>Is Governor Palin more qualified to be Vice President than Senator Biden?</li>

<li>Is Senator Obama less of an American than you?</li>

<li>Does your tax plan reduce taxes for 95% of Americans?</li>

<li>How does your POW status qualify you to be president?</li>

<li>Are your ties to Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac greater or lesser than those of Senator Obama?</li>

<li>What would you say to people who think Senator Obama is a muslim?</li>

<li>If you could only choose one, would you cut taxes for people making under $250K a year or over?</li>

<li>Do you belief Senator Obama is a traitor to America?</li>

<li>Does your friendship with G. Gordon Liddy reflect poorly on your judgement?</li>

<li>How can you be both a "maverick" and a "voice of reason"?</li>

<li>Does your part in the Keating Five make you a good candidate to manage a financial "rescue plan"?</li>

<li>Should people vote for you because Senator Obama is black?</li>

Instead we got a bunch of boring questions that I doubt anyone actually wanted answers to. Maybe next debate.

Bill Kristol, on Fox News, suggests that McCain should ask voters concerned about the economy to "judge the character, the judgement, the background of the person you're putting in charge".

Hm.

Does Kristol not recall The Keating Five, where McCain intervened in an investigation of his political patron, which, eventually, resulted in over 20,000 Americans losing their savings? John McCain's involvement in protecting Charles Keating calls into direct question McCain's character, judgement and background. McCain thought it was more important to protect his political pals over the public.

Kristol also says McCain should tie Obama to "some pretty unsavory characters". Think Kristol remembers that John McCain is great friends with G. Gordon Liddy, who helped plan the Watergate break-in (and went to jail for four years because of it) and advocated killing Federal officials?

Is that the character, judgement and background you want in your president?

Watch Krisol blather (thanks Talking Point Memo):

The California Aademy of Sciences reopened today in their brand new facility in Golden Gate Park. Thinking "hey! It'd be cool to go see the new digs!" we prepared to stroll over.

Turns out all of San Francisco had the same thought.

The radio host said free entry tickets "sold out" in an hour. Lines are hundreds of people long, looking like they might stretch a couple of miles. Without tickets, you don't get in.

Fortunately, there are dozens of booths for food and entertainment, including the predictably bad live cover bands. There's even a Ben & Jerry's.

Whether people are here for the spectacle or the science I don't know. I insist it's the latter. Y suggests it's the former. Either way, if it gets people thinking about science, that can only be a good thing.

Fifteen years ago I got my ass kicked by four guys from New York's Upper East Side. The scar from the stitches I needed above my right eye is still visible, if you look closely enough.

Back then I kept a sporadically updated journal, a habit I acquired thanks to my college english teacher. In it I scribbled a brief and slightly incoherent transcript of that attack:

Home, Bayonne. Can't really sleep. Got jumped & beat up early Sunday (yesterday) morning (2:30-3am).

4 white guys thinking Tim & I were gay, jumped & beat the shit out of us.

We pulled up along side them, red light. They: making kissing motions, licking lips, etc. Us: returning same. One guy gets out motioning us to “come on,” picking a fight type thing. Before I know it, another guy pops out of the car, & smashes into Tim's passenger side windshield, slightly shattering it.

Tim pulls off, smashing into their car. We're flying, making a couple of turns to try & escape them. We turn into a hospital emergency room drivein type thing, & Tim stops to check his car.

As we stop, their car comes screaming through the entrance, & crashes into Tim's car.

Again Tim takes off, I'm screaming “find a fucking precinct,” Tim is freaked & we come to a red light. Tim automatically takes  right, leading us right into a dead-end.

Just like a bad fucking movie.

So we're stuck in this cul-de-sac, & they again come flying down, again smashing into the car. I yell “unbuckle your seatbelt” to Tim, which we both do.

Suddenly the windows are being smashed, we're being punched & kicked around the head, them yelling “get the gay; get the nigger”.

They break away, doormen come down, cops appear, ambulance appears.

I'm not sure why I ended it there. We were taken to a hospital for evaluation and treatment. I suffered a gash above my right eye which required several stitches to close. I lost one of my eye contacts, so I was half-blind for the rest of the evening. My favorite part is the cop who took my statement; in response to the “get the gay get the nigger” comment, he queried “so are you?” I presume my skin tone wasn't in question, so he must have been asking about my sexual orientation. I have always wondered: would my answer make the attack more or less excusable?

Tim was my roommate in 1992, when he, Anton and I lived in a house in “butt-fuck Bayonne” New Jersey. We'd gone to a club of some type in lower Manhattan, and had just dropped his girlfriend off on the Upper East Side.

To this day I'm not sure why those guys engaged us in the first place. It was only after we glanced over at them and saw what they were doing in our direction did we respond in kind. I'm not sure why they did it, and I'm not sure why we did it back.

I'm also not sure why we didn't dash into the emergency room we'd driven through. But clearly we weren't thinking very well that evening.

Every few years this incident comes up for some reason. I was chatting with my buddy MichaelL about it, I don't even remember why, and then a few days later found my old journal.

I've read a few of the entries in the journal, and while most of them are pure navel gazing, some rise to a level of passing interest to people who aren't me. I plan to transcribe a few of those entries here.

Meanwhile, don't go throwing kisses at strangers. Even if they're doing it to you, you might not appreciate the end results.

Although I've been following the 2008 presidential cycle closely, I haven't written anything here since May of 2007. The Democratic National Convention and the Republican selection of a Vice President candidate, though, threw me back into the mix with a vengeance. I've added a couple of entries from the last few days, and I suspect I'l have a bit more to say in the coming days and weeks.

I find myself unable to completely fathom Senator McCain's choice of Sara Palin for Vice President. Earlier I suggested that McCain was supremely confident in his chances to win in November. After thinking this through, having the initial shock subside, and reading more about Governor Palin, I'm changing my mind.

I can't imagine that McCain honestly believes selecting a running mate with less than two years' experience as Governor of a state with the third lowest population in the country is the way to get elected. Palin would be a heartbeat away from the highest office in the land—and a 72-year-old heartbeat at that; is Palin really ready to be President should the unfortunate happen?

Maybe McCain is scared witless, or throwing the election.

Perhaps he feels he can't possibly win. The Electoral College map is breaking in Obama's favor, and the Democratic party finally seems to have united behind their candidate. If he can't win, he wants to at least go down in history as the presidential candidate who put the first woman on a Republican ticket.

Or perhaps McCain realizes that, at 72, he doesn't really want to be President. He can't just quit, so he choses someone so woefully under-qualified that no one could legitimately vote for them. After all, the very charges McCain has been leveling at Obama are can now be brought against Palin. If you shouldn't vote for Obama because he's "dangerously unprepared", how do you vote for Palin?

There's one more possibility. Palin is completely untested on the national stage. We don't know how she'll handle the pressure, or what skeletons might be in her closet. Could this be a total red herring? A political flea-flicker? Could they be planning to enjoy the media bounce from choosing Palin, only to have her step down just before the elections "for personal reasons", and then bring in their "real" choice?

Of course, perhaps I give too much credit to McCain; perhaps he truly believes this selection is the way to victory. Nothing surprises me anymore.

I find myself unable to completely fathom Senator McCain's choice of Sara Palin for Vice President. Earlier I suggested that McCain was supremely confident in his chances to win in November. After thinking this through, having the initial shock subside, and reading more about Governor Palin, I'm changing my mind.

I can't imagine that McCain honestly believes selecting a running mate with less than two years' experience as Governor of a state with the third lowest population in the country is the way to get elected. Palin would be a heartbeat away from the highest office in the land—and a 72-year-old heartbeat at that; is Palin really ready to be President should the unfortunate happen?Â

Maybe McCain is scared witless, or throwing the election.

Perhaps he feels he can't possibly win. The Electoral College map is breaking in Obama's favor, and the Democratic party finally seems to have united behind their candidate. If he can't win, he wants to at least go down in history as the presidential candidate who put the first woman on a Republican ticket.

Or perhaps McCain realizes that, at 72, he doesn't really want to be President. He can't just quit, so he choses someone so woefully under-qualified that no one could legitimately vote for them. After all, the very charges McCain has been leveling at Obama are can now be brought against Palin. If you shouldn't vote for Obama because he's "dangerously unprepared", how do you vote for Palin?

There's one more possibility. Palin is completely untested on the national stage. We don't know how she'll handle the pressure, or what skeletons might be in her closet. Could this be a total red herring? A political flea-flicker? Could they be planning to enjoy the media bounce from choosing Palin, only to have her step down just before the elections "for personal reasons", and then bring in their "real" choice?

Of course, perhaps I give too much credit to McCain; perhaps he truly believes this selection is the way to victory. Nothing surprises me anymore.

Just a day after Barack Obama accepted his historic nomination for President of the United States, John McCain shocked the world by selecting Sara Palin as his running mate.

By now, if you care you've already read all about her, and if you're like me, you're left with dueling impressions: one the one hand, wow, what a bold, out-of-the-box, dare I say maverick choice. And yet, on the other, seriously? After leveling charges of inexperience against your opponent, you select someone who has less experience on the world stage?

What this tells me is McCain is supremely confident in his chances to win the presidency. He's basically saying that even with a complete unknown as his running mate, he can defeat Obama and Biden in November.

Either McCain believes the American people really can't bring themselves to vote in large enough numbers for Obama, or there's some kind of October Surprise planned that will completely derail Obama's candidacy. Palin is certainly not the most prudent pick.

Whatever the reason (including the possibility that Palin is one of the best political minds in the country), McCain has successfully retaken the news cycle. People have already forgotten about yesterday's historical event.

Well played Senator McCain.

What will be fascinating is to see how the Democrats choose to answer this challenge. Accusations of sexism were already leveled by the Clinton camp as one reason for her loss. Will the public, media and Democrats go easy on Palin because she's a women, fearing such continued charges? Will Biden attack her as viciously as you would expect him to do against an established male Washington insider? Heck, does she have the experience and knowledge to effectively debate Biden on the issues?

The elections just became a bit more interesting.

Just a day after Barack Obama accepted his historic nomination for President of the United States, John McCain shocked the world by selecting Sara Palin as his running mate.

By now, if you care you've already read all about her, and if you're like me, you're left with dueling impressions: on the one hand, wow, what a bold, out-of-the-box, dare I say maverick choice. And yet, on the other, seriously? After leveling charges of inexperience against your opponent, you select someone who has less experience on the world stage?

What this tells me is McCain is supremely confident in his chances to win the presidency. He's basically saying that even with a complete unknown as his running mate, he can defeat Obama and Biden in November.

Either McCain believes the American people really can't bring themselves to vote in large enough numbers for Obama, or there's some kind of October Surprise planned that will completely derail Obama's candidacy. Palin is certainly not the most prudent pick.

Whatever the reason (including the possibility that Palin is one of the best political minds in the country), McCain has successfully retaken the news cycle. People have already forgotten about yesterday's historical event.

Well played Senator McCain.

What will be fascinating is to see how the Democrats choose to answer this challenge. Accusations of sexism were already leveled by the Clinton camp as one reason for her loss. Will the public, media and Democrats go easy on Palin because she's a women, fearing such continued charges? Will Biden attack her as viciously as you would expect him to do against an established male Washington insider? Heck, does she have the experience and knowledge to effectively debate Biden on the issues?

The elections just became a bit more interesting.

Tonight, for the first time in the history of this country, a Black man accepted the nomination of a major political party for the presidency of the United States of America.

I don't have anything insightful to say, I just marvel at the achievement, one hundred and forty-five years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and forty-three years after the Voting Rights Act.

I regret that eighteen months ago, when Barack Obama first decided to run for President, I didn't become a citizen, because I didn't think he would even get this far. I once said

I would love to see Obama run, and be elected, President of the United States. I’m just not sure the country’s ready to agree with me.

Regardless of what happens on Election Day,  it's clear that today, a large number of Americans are willing to put aside issues of race and vote for a man who inspires hope and appeals to our best nature.

Congratulations to Barack Obama.

Tonight, for the first time in the history of this country, a Black man accepted the nomination of a major political party for the presidency of the United States of America.

I don't have anything insightful to say, I just marvel at the achievement, one hundred and forty-five years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and forty-three years after the Voting Rights Act.

I regret that eighteen months ago, when Barack Obama first decided to run for President, I didn't become a citizen, because I didn't think he would even get this far. I once said

I would love to see Obama run, and be elected, President of the United States. I'm just not sure the country's ready to agree with me.

Regardless of what happens on Election Day, it's clear that today, a large number of Americans are willing to put aside issues of race and vote for a man who inspires hope and appeals to our best nature.

Congratulations to Barack Obama.

OK, I'm a dork.

I'm a dork who loves musicals.

And I'm a dork who loves Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly).

So, how in the world do I resist Whedon's latest work, an internet-only musical called Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog?

To make it even more inevitable, it stars Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and, of course, Doogie Howser, M.D.). And yes, I love NPH.

Dr. Horrible's... is a wonderfully cheesy musical sendup of a wannabe super-villain and his arch-nemesis, with a beautiful woman and accompanying love story for good measure. If you've seen the Buffy musical episode Once More, With Feeling, you'll have a good idea of the musical style (clever lyrics, hummable tunes).

Plus, it's funny and sweet, and NPH is just about perfect.

Whedon, who's currently preparing the very expensive-looking Dollhouse for FOX (will he ever learn?) explains the concept behind an internet-only show:

The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first.Â

The first two Acts are available for free on the Dr. Horrible website. The third Act goes online July 19. If, like me, you find yourself humming the songs after just a single viewing (or you just want to support the idea of original, internet-only content), you may want to buy all three acts of Dr. Horrible... on iTunes; it's just $4.00 for the season. Amazon.com Widgets

Heading to dinner tonight with Torrey, he mentioned how much he's been enjoying the MotionX Poker (dice) game for his iPhone. It was also getting favorable reviews on the App Store (4 1/2 stars) so when I got home I went online and bought a copy.

Go buy this game!

I found myself saying "just one more roll!" more times than I'd like to count. The animation is fantastic, with dice bouncing around the table and colliding with each other; the sound of the dice hitting the table and the sound track are cool; shaking the iPhone to roll the dice is fun; and the overall game play and style is just darn neat.Â

What really got me though were the little flourishes the developer added. Sometimes the dice come to rest sort of on their edges against each other. If you shake gently or violently, the dice get thrown the same way, and if you shake and keep shaking, the dice keep bouncing around until you stop.

But my favorite touch is the shadows beneath the dice: they shift as you move your iPhone, as if lit from an actual light source. This was so cool that at first I thought I was imagining it, but no, here are screenshots proving it (the first one is straight up vertical; the second rotated 90º counter-clockwise; the third is upside down; click on each to see it full-sized):

With 39 dice designs, 14 collectable gems, and five table designs, all of which require you to achieve certain goals and milestones to unlock, I don't see this game getting dull anytime soon. And at just $5, it's priced right.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll just give it one more roll....

Tonight I had a problem with MobileMe's iDisk: I kept getting an "Error -35" while trying to access it, with a dialog that my "member name or password may be invalid". If I went to System Preferences > MobileMe, I was in fact logged in, so my credentials were indeed valid.

I searched Apple's Support site and found an article (appropriately titled "Error code -35" when accessing your iDisk) explaining the issue and how to solve it. Unfortunately, they made a cardinal sin in providing a resolution: they started with a sledgehammer.

There are three specific things you're asked to try:

1. Log out and log back in.

2. Restart your computer

3. Sign out of MobileMe, then sign back in

And yes, that's the order they presented them. In fact, the third option is prefaced by something of a caveat: "if the issue persists, follow these additional steps".

Why is the least destructive solution, one that you expect to work, given last? That should have been the very first option provided, followed by the log out/log in, then the restart.

Lest destructive to most destructive. This is basic troubleshooting. You don't reinstall the OS until you've moved aside a preference file, and you don't force me to tear down my environment if a simple option toggle might solve the problem.

A few weeks after getting a new computer, I still haven't set it up: I continue to use a MacBook Pro borrowed from work. It hasn't been a significant issue since a lot of what I do is in The Cloudâ„¢ and the rest is original creations. (If the stock market ever recovers, I'll recover the previous original creations.)

One oddity though was iTunes. Since this is a new machine, it's not authorized to play any of my DRM'd audio. This wasn't a big deal because I don't play much music from my laptop.

That is, until I went to lunch with my friend/realtor/recruiter Emily.

Over Panang Curry Chicken and Tofu, we talked about her love of All Things Ska. (So much does she love it that her soon-to-arrive BMW Mini will be white with black stripes, with a ska-themed license plate.) I love The Specials, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, No Doubt and many others so I asked Em to send me her Ska playlist, which she did, along with a cool video on the history of Ska.Â

Watching the video made me want to listen to more Ska, so I fired up iTunes, headed to the iTunes Store, sought out The Specials, clicked Add Album and prepared to spend $9.99 to relieve my youth.

D'oh! I'd already authorized my limit of computers. I could buy the album, but I'd have to de-authorize a computer to play it. Since one of my computers was no longer in my hands, I'd have to deauth them all. What to do?

Duh. Go to Amazon.com, of course.

Five minutes and an application download later, and I was happily buying The Specials and More Specials. Higher quality, DRM-free, and I saved a $1.50.

What's not to love? (Well, a lot, but that's for another entry.)

I'm going to slowly make my way through my iTunes Shopping Cart, where I keep the albums and songs I want to buy (c'mon Apple, add a "save for later" option already!) and see if they're available on Amazon. Other than The Specials, I've picked up Whipped Cream and Other Delights (Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass) and Etta James' At Last.

iTunes continues to have the (considerable) advantage over Amazon of a broader selection (in things they share, like music, videos and TV shows, and things they don't, like, podcasts, games and iTunes U. I'll be buying Zero 7's Simple Things through iTunes eventually, for example). But Amazon has earned, if not the first thought in my music searches, a second-look-before-buying position, and that's damn impressive.

So iTunes, a message to you:

Stop your messin' around
Better think of your future
Time you straightened right out

— Your friend, Rudy.

If you live in California, you've been slammed over the head with ad after ad reminding you that July 1 starts the new "hands-free cell-phones while driving" law. And if you're like many Californians, you're running out to Radio Shack or Best Buy to pick up your Bluetooth headset today, instead of sometime in the last six months since you first heard it was coming.

Will I be joining the mad rush? In a word, no.

I already have more Bluetooth headsets than I could possibly need, and none of them are perfect. You can see three my five headsets below (clockwise from left): the Aliph Jawbone, Plantronics Voyager 510 and the Motorola H700. Not shown are the Apple iPhone headset and Cardo Scala 700.

Each of these has neat features and fatal flaws. The Jawbone has solid audio quality. I was easily heard on the other end while driving on the freeway with my windows down. It didn't fit my ear very well, though, despite coming with a couple of different ear-hooks and in-ear pieces, and was hard to get on quickly (an important feature if you rather not look like a dork—ok, dorkier—all day). It's also chunkier in person than I expected. Perhaps the new Jawbone II, which is half as thick, is better.

I like almost everything about the Plantronics Voyager 510: it fits well, I can get it on and off easily, and the sound quality was decent. Unfortunately, more than any other device, when wearing it I feel like I've been assimilated.Â

The best thing about the H700 is its size. I just couldn't get the darn thing to stay in place, though: it felt loose on my ear.

I love just about everything about the Apple headset: it's thin, it fits in my ear well, it syncs with iPhone automatically (well, it's supposed to; mine failed to do that and needed to be returned), and it doesn't have a flashing light on it. The bad part: the sound quality was poor and the reception was weak: holding the phone in my left hand instead of my right was enough to lose the connection to the headset. "Up to 33 feet" really hinges on the "up to" part.

Finally, the Cardo Scala. As I wrote about the Scala before:

The best of the (many) Bluetooth headsets I've tried. Fits comfortably, is lightweight and, best feature of all, it can switch between two [bluetooth devices] with a button press. It'll probably continue being my primary headset when I get my iPhone.

It also has a buzzer built in so you can locate it when it's been misplaced. I'd still be using the Scala today, if it hadn't broken apart on me. Just split in half, shamelessly exposing its circuit board to the world. I don't remember sitting on it or anything.

I may pick up another Scala, I liked it so much (maybe it's a bit sturdier now). I may also pick up a Cardo S-640, which is not your typical bluetooth headset. It's a semi-wired headset, with a clip-on microphone wired to an earpiece. It looks more like a lavalier microphone. I like the idea of this because the headset will be easy to get in my ear and the microphone easily clipped to my shirt.

In the mean time though, I'll be using the headset that came with my iPhone: those white buds with the integrated microphone. It works, it fits, and it doesn't require recharging.

Oh yeah, and it's free.

K's story about her run-in with the law reminded me of my own.

About two years ago, my buddy Ron and I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity. Ron had gotten our company to sponsor a bunch of us from work, and bought several boxes of pizza for all the volunteers. By the end of the day, there were a lot of half-empty boxes, so Ron decided to take them home.

So we plop into the car for the drive home, me with my baseball cap turned backwards, Ron, many boxes of pizza on his lap. As we're approaching our exit on the freeway, I notice a cop car behind us. My immediate thought was "I bet you he's going to exit with us" and, sure enough, he does.

But then, he pulls ahead of us several cars and I think, hey, it was just a coincidence, no ulterior motives.

We turn onto Ron's block and park, Ron is getting out and I notice, hey, there are flashing lights behind us. Ron looks back, his hands filled with pizza boxes and asks, somewhat incredulously, "did he just pull us over?"

Yep. He sure did.

The cop gets out of his car, strolls over to us and asks for license and registration, which I hand over. A well-trained question crosses my lips.

"What seems to be the problem, Officer?"

His explanation will go down in the annals of justification: "I noticed your front license plate was missing."

"I know. Is that a problem?"

"There are people who steal the front license plates from cars, and put them onto similar vehicles. If you do a plate check, it seems to match."

"So you wanted to warn me that my front plate was missing, in case it had been stolen and used on another stolen car?"

"That's correct."

"Well, I only have the one,"Â I lied with a smile, knowing full well the second one was on the back.

"Sometimes they come stuck together from the DMV, and you end up with both on the back."

"Oh. I didn't know that. I'll have to check that when I get home!"

At some point during this conversation, I'd gotten out the car and was standing with Ron. I don't remember why, but somewhere in here I felt compelled to explain to the cop, in my best "I'm your worst nightmare: an educated black man" voice, that we'd just come from volunteering at Habitat for Humanity, that we'd bought a dozen pizzas for the crew and were taking the rest home.

I thanked him for his concern and assured him that my front license plate hadn't been stolen, and that I'd be sure to check my rear plate for a second one stuck to the first. I asked if there's anything else we can do for him, and bade him farewell, and watched as he returned to his vehicle and pulled away.

There we were, two intelligent, well-paid, well-spoken black men, in somewhat shabby clothes and several boxes of pizza, pulled over by a cop because my front license plate was missing.

If only we didn't have those pizzas.

George Carlin died this weekend.

If you know me, it probably doesn't surprise you to learn that George Carlin was a major influence on me. His acerbic and well-crafted wit, faculty with words and staunch outsider stance proved irresistible to a reserved, introverted foreigner just finding his way in the world.

One of my favorite bits is "Euphemisms". It's Carlin at his verbal, thoughtful and politically (in-) correct best. He describes the "softening" of the American english language, going from "shell shock" to "battle fatigue" to "operational exhaustion" to "post-traumatic stress disorder", all describing the same condition.

This language softening is still going on today. "Used cars" became, as Carlin noted, "previously owned transportation" and are now "certified pre-owned vehicles" ("one less syllable, but we gained a hyphen!" he might proclaim). And our soldiers in Iraq aren't being killed by "bombs" set by "terrorists", they're being killed by "improvised explosive devices" used by "insurgents".Â

You owe it to yourself to watch the YouTube video of "Euphemisms".

This bit also contains some of his best-known observations, things I've heard myself repeat many times, like

Contra killers are called "freedom fighters". Well if "crime fighters" fight crime and "firefighters" fight fires, what do "freedom fighters" fight?

or, the one that springs to mind every single time I fly:

Like on the airlines they say they want to "pre-board"? Well what the hell does "pre-board"... what does that mean? To get on before you get on?

"Euphemisms" comes at the end of Carlin's "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics". It's totally worth the $10 at iTunes or Amazon.com. (I currently have five of his albums¹, and they're all worth it.)

Of course, not everything Carlin did was beautifully offensive, some of it was just well-crafted humor where the punch line is never obvious, but always satisfying, like his "Good ideas" piece, where he suggests, among other things, "a diet salad dressing called 500 islands". As he says about himself in that bit, "I'm a visionary, I'm ahead of my time. Trouble is I'm only about an hour and a half ahead."

Jerry Seinfeld wrote an article for the New York Times about Carlin's death (he didn't "pass away, or expire, like a magazine subscription"), and gave a perfect description of why I love Carlin:

As a kid it seemed like the whole world was funny because of George Carlin. His performing voice, even laced with profanity, always sounded as if he were trying to amuse a child. It was like the naughtiest, most fun grown-up you ever met was reading you a bedtime story.

Thank you George Carlin, for making me laugh and think, and aspire to precision, originality and naughtiness.

Â

1. Back in Town; The Little David Years: 1971-1977 (a 7 disc retrospective including his classic albums FM & AM, Class Clown, Occupation: Foole, Toledo, An Evening with Wally Londo, On the Road, and a bonus disc; Napalm And Silly Putty (his audiobook); A Place For My Stuff; and of course Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics. I suppose that's technically eleven albums.  ↩

You know, we seldom write about our good experiences with companies, only the shitty ones. Whether it's stupid "security" questions or being unwillingly opted-in to a mailing list, we read and write about the bad things a company does.

I'd like to switch things up today.

I had two great customer service experiences, with Apple and Amazon:

AppleI lost a hard drive in my MacBook, as I wrote about recently. But I've also been having trouble with the MacBook itself. Â I bought it just a month or so after it was released because my previous PowerBook 12" died suddenly one day and I desperately needed a replacement.

The MacBook's had just about every problem that has been reported: the screen flickered incessantly, the left side of the case was loose and the front right edge broke off, the battery stopped holding a charge leading to sudden shutdowns, and, of course, the drive died. Since I had the extended AppleCare warranty, it was all fixed at no charge, only to have the screen start flickering again and a second drive die.

I took it into a Genius Bar one evening recently to complain bitterly. I described my issues while the Genius listened patiently. When I finished, and I asked my options, the Genius did something remarkable:

He agreed things sucked and offered a brand-new MacBook.

So shocked was I by this offer, that I could only stand there, slack-jawed, and mutter "uh, OK". Although I was secretly hoping to get a new MacBook after all those things went wrong, I expected I'd have to fight for it. I never even got the chance.

To top it off, the replacement is significantly better than the original:

I should have gone in sooner, before I lost eight weeks of data. (And, with 802.11n on-board, I can finally buy a Time Capsule.)

Amazon

In May I bought Sex and The City (The Complete Series) for The Girl's birthday. By some strange quirk, she never got around to watching any of the DVDs until this weekend, when she plucked a disc at random from the set and started watching through. After the third (or fourth, or was it fifth?) episode, the disc started to skip.

It was scratched, and pretty badly too.

We looked through the entire set, and of the 20 discs, 14 had scratches, ranging from minor to significant. Plus, two of the five discs in Season 6 were a completely different shade of pink from the other three.

I immediately emailed Amazon.

Ten hours later, they responded back:

I've placed a new order for the item at no charge.Â

And then they topped it by sending it out via one-day shipping. I sent the email on a Saturday night about 10 pm, and on Monday evening I had a new set, no questions asked, no "you already opened it", no "how scratched are they". Just "we're sorry, here's a new one".

(I do need to ship the damaged ones back, of course.)

Amazon and Apple aren't perfect, but they make up for their imperfections by providing the best customer service in their industries. An article in the New York Times earlier this year reflected on Amazon's devotion to customer service. The author closed with a quote:

[Amazon CEO] Jeff [Bezos] used to say that if you did something good for one customer, they would tell 100 customers.

Customer service works again.

Six years ago, I didn't have a driver's license. Today, I hit 100,000 miles on my Nissan Altima.

My friends in New York are probably thinking "you drove 100,000 miles? Where the hell did you go?!"

My friends in California are probably thinking "you didn't have a license six years ago? How the hell did you get around?!"

What I find interesting about this milestone is how quickly it came. I bought my Altima in November, 2002. Two years later, I'd put on 30,000 miles (I complained about the cost of maintenance at the time). A linear progression should have me around 80K today.

Where do those additional 300-miles-a-month-on-average come from? Probably from my habit of weekend driving, where I hop in the car with Ying, and drive somewhere "interesting" (which might mean Danville as easily as Napa).

And considering I lived a dozen miles or less from work for 4 1/2 of those 5 1/2 years, that means I drove about a thousand miles a month that aren't work related.

Six years ago, I could never have imagined driving that much. Now I can't imagine not driving.

Sigh. I've become a suburbanite.

(In case you're wondering how I managed to snap a photo at 100,000 miles, I went out with about 50 miles remaining, and drove 25 miles, and turned around. No way was I missing this milestone.)

Â

Losing data from your hard drive is easier than you think. You can delete it, run a magnet over it, drop it from great heights or just have a bad drive from a manufacturer that won't admit a problem.

Here's how I lost eight weeks of un-backed up data in about 20 minutes:

Start a MacBook, with a Seagate drive with firmware 7.01

Ensure  your MacBook's sleep indicator light is busted, so you can't tell when your system is safely asleep

3. Work late one night, and be in a hurry to get home

4. Close your MacBook, wait about 15, 20 seconds, and slip it into your bag.

5. Toss it into your car's trunk

6. Drive home, about twenty minutes away

7. Open MacBook, notice it's not sleeping, in fact it's shut down

8. Power it up, get flashing question mark folder, and a whining drive.

Sigh. Dead drive, lost data.

When you close the MacBook, it writes out its memory to the drive. After it does that, it goes to sleep and flashes the sleep indicator. At this point, and not before, it's safe to move the MacBook. What I think happened:

Since my sleep indicator was busted, I learned to either squeeze the case to try activating the light or, when that stopped working, waiting until the fans went quiet (about 30 to 45 seconds on average). That fateful evening, I must have not waited long enough, and the system was still awake when I slipped it into my bag, tossed it into my car, and drove home with it bouncing around in my trunk.

Add to that the apparent problems the Seagate firmware 7.01 drives seem to have and, well, dead drive.

Oh, I got a price quotes from two data recovery services. DriveSavers offered $500-$2,700, with an expected price closer to $2,000. Burgess Forensics offered $700-$1,750. I'll be getting a quote from Seagate also. (I think it's ironic that the drive manufacturer offers drive recovery services.)

This is the second Seagate firmware 7.01 drive I've lost. The first one was several months ago, when I first heard about these problems with this firmware. Being the paranoid type, I started backing up regularly, and sure enough, just a few days after a complete drive backup, the drive died.

Apple disclaims responsibility for data loss, and Seagate hasn't shared its policy yet (their response to my inquiry was "we can try to recover your data" not "we know this is an issue and we'll try to recover your data for free").

I'm still deciding if I should go into debt to recover the data. While there is no single set of data that's worth $1,800, I lost eight weeks of iChats, blog drafts, OmniFocus entries, music, photos, and, worst of all, the data I don't even remember I had and lost.

If I knew what I lost, it would be easier. Not knowing makes it much, much harder.

I regret not paying better attention to my backup regime. Six years ago I wrote

[Y]ou might pay as much as $8,000 to get your data back. Far cheaper is a reliable backup. Start by deciding how much work you're willing to re-create after a data loss, and back up at least that often (I backup twice a day). You don't have to get elaborate; even copying to a CD-ROM or another hard drive manually will suffice in a pinch.

I take responsibility for not backing up as regularly as I used to. I plan to rectify that by adding a Time Capsule

to my network. How protected is your valuable data?  Â

Among other places, I host some of my domains with Hostcentric. I've been with them for, oh, six or seven years, and have had almost no problems (and those I have get resolved quickly). I wrote in for a technical incident for the first time in years and in responding to it, the support agent wrote:

[...]

Once you have set the security question for your account, you need to answer the question, when the question is asked by the Support Agents. If the answer provided by you is matches with records on the file, you will be authenticated as the owner of the account.

Here we go again.

I consider these security questions to be an invasion of privacy, open me up to identity theft, and aren't worthwhile for providing security, so I've generally chosen not to answer them. At the very least, it would be much better if I could choose my question and my answer rather than be limited to a set of questions that may lead to problems (or be unanswerable).

In particular, "mother's maiden name" and "city you were born in" can be used outside Hostcentric for identity theft, while the "name of my high school" is a well-known piece of information for many who know me and therefore not really "secure".

And of course, "pet's name" is worthless if you don't have a pet or have more than one. Beyond that, it's only useful for security if no one ever hears you call out to your cat.

Likewise, "favorite food" is pretty damn worthless as the answer can change over time. Right now, I'm a big fan of Kettle brand Death Valley Chipotle chips.

I appreciate the desire to improve security, even though these questions are merely an illusion of security: they make everyone feel like "something's being done".

In case you're thinking I'm nuts, I've lodged this complaint against all online services that ask for these answers, including Washington Mutual, Bank of America, INGDirect, and several others. Hostcentric is just one of many companies trying to be more secure without actually being more secure.

On the MovieTickets.com "Link to Us" page, where they set the terms for who can link to them (seriously), among the terms is the following:

(iv) abortion clinics(Emphasis mine.)

Most of those limitations make sense: they want to associate themselves with family-friendly sites. But including abortion clinics takes the definition of "family-friendly" to an unhealthy extreme, don't you think?

An email is on its way to the PR folks over at MovieTickets.com. I'd like to see their reasons for including abortion clinics.

Of course, this brings up the whole idea of trying to control how and who can link to your site (they allow you to link only to one specific page of their site). It's against the very nature—and shows a fundamental misunderstanding—of the Internet. Anyone should be able to link to any page of a website without worry and trying to prevent that is fruitless.

And since MovieTickets.com doesn't appear to do anything technically (like using http rewrites) to enforce these terms, and it's mentioned only on one page that's linked from the bottom of their site in small type, they certainly can't be that serious.

Let's see what they say.

Less than a year ago iTunes announced iTunes Plus, higher quality songs for $1.29 instead of the regular $0.99. I loved the idea of better sounding music, but I was ticked off that I couldn't upgrade individual songs for the incremental cost ($0.30 per song). Instead I'd have to upgrade my entire library at once: not an inexpensive proposition.

Now iTunes is selling those iTunes Plus songs at the same price as regular songs. It's great: I'd much rather buy DRM-free songs, and I'd certainly rather not pay a premium to do so. Now, there's no reason not to buy a DRM-free song if it's available, and one less reason to search Amazon's MP3 store for a song (although Amazon does still sell many songs for $0.89 each, also DRM-free).

Alas, I still can't upgrade individual songs to DRM-free versions. I don't mind paying something for the benefit of owning a DRM-free copy, but the additional $0.30 isn't an understandable price. Before, it was the incremental cost: a regular song cost $0.99, the DRM-free version cost $1.29, you pay the difference.

Now there is no difference, yet I still have to pay $0.30 per song, and I have to do it on all of my songs. I might really like Here I Am (Come and Take Me) by UB40, but not enough to pay a third of the price again.

iTunes, please let me upgrade individual songs to DRM-free!

My 2008-2009 assessed value notice for my property tax arrived recently. Each year for the last two years my home's assessed value was increased 2% to keep up with inflation, even though my home's actual value hasn't increased the last couple of years (and in fact may have decreased a bit).

The new assessed value is about 9.5% less than my purchase price. This is a "temporarily reduced" value, about 13% less than what it "should" be. That should translate to a decent savings in my property tax bill this year.

This reduction was automatic. I didn't have to do anything to get it; many California counties are reassessing tens of thousands of homes, for free.

So imagine my surprise when I got an official-looking brown envelope from "Property Tax Adjusters, Inc." guaranteeing a reduction in my property tax, for a mere $125.

Besides the official-looking envelope, the letter itself has lots of jargon explaining why I got this letter and what they'll do, along with my "Assessor Parcel Number"; this number is public information, but not everyone knows that, thus lending an air of authenticity.

The Santa Clara Office of the County Assessor, the folks who decide how much property taxes I pay, put out an "Assessor Consumer Alert" for a similar service by Aim Best Appraisals. The Assessor, Larry Stone, said in that alert:

It's disgraceful, there's simply no reason at all for a property owner to pay a fee to a private company for a service taxpayers receive from the Assessor's Office without charge.

He went on to call ABA "bottom dwellers who are feeding upon the increased fears of homeowners." Ouch.

The website for Property Tax Adjusters (I won't link to them; search for their name; they use "prop" in their URL) is nothing more than a series of questions and answers, with no information on costs or the company. The address they give is in Oceanside, CA; Google Maps places them in a seemingly undeveloped-part of Southern California. Searching for their telephone number brings up a Better Business Bureau entry that shows the company started in August 2007 and joined the BBB in May 2008. You'll also find a different address for them, in Carlsbad, CA, about a 15 minute drive from Oceanside.

Property Tax Adjusters is reportedly under investigation by the Alameda County District Attorney's Office:

Deputy District Attorney David Lim said services like those offered by Connection Plus Inc. of Foster City and San Diego County-based Property Tax Adjusters Inc. could be illegal. "At first blush, it looks like it may not be illegal, but we need to investigate if there's a crime there. We don't know what they're doing once they meet with people."

Lim was also quoted as saying:

You should definitely be wary of this, especially when you realize the county is doing it for free. They are not going to provide you with anything you already get, so why pay them?

I couldn't have said it better myself.

I love Netflix. I've been a subscriber for about two years (on the three-at-a-time, unlimited plan). I list the movies I currently have at home on this site, along with an ad for them (if you sign up from the ad I get a small commission). I even own a bit of Netflix (NFLX) stock (which has gone up about 37% since I purchased it a few months ago).

My biggest complaint with Netflix has been my inability to use their service to stream video to my computer, because they don't support Macs. That may all be moot now, since they've announced a new device that handles the streaming, directly to my TV.

Called The Netflix Player by Roku, it's a tiny rectangular box you connect to your high-speed internet connection, and to your TV via HDMI, composite or component cables. In some ways it's a competitor to Apple TV, TiVo & Amazon's Unbox partnership and Vudu.

It's biggest advantage though is its price: a mere $100. If, like me, you're already a fan of Netflix and joined at least the $8.99 a month plan, there is no other cost. (If you're not yet a Netflix subscriber, join up and try it for two weeks for free.)

Of the 268 titles in my Netflix queue, only 22 are available for streaming, including Funny Girl, Supersize Me, MI-5 Volume 1, and Superfly. Among the complete collection (about 10,000 titles of the 100,000 in Netflix) are the likes of 30 Rock (NBC), Passenger 57, and a bunch of old TV shows like The Incredible Hulk, Gimme a Break and Charles in Charge.

Not exactly a vast and exciting selection, and you won't find many recent releases here like you would on Apple TV or TiVo/Amazon Unbox, but, like The New York Times suggests, The Netflix Player is the "first shot of the revolution". It's a one-point-oh product which can only improve as content selection and internet speed improves.

Apple TV is a better product in many ways, from the higher quality (720p HD with Dolby Digital 5.1) to new movies released the same day as the DVD. If you mostly watch new movies, don't have Netflix, and own an HDTV, Apple TV is a better choice.

I'm a huge TiVo fan (I own three, one now decommissioned but operational), and can use the Amazon Unbox service with it, and yet I've never bought or rented a download through their service. I think it's because I don't like the idea of paying $3.99 to rent a movie for 24 hours, or $9.99 to own a movie when I could get the physical DVD for the same price. (Which is odd, as I have no problems buying music through Amazon and iTunes.)

If you already pay for Netflix, though, and like (or would like to see) classic or little-known movies and TV shows, or, like me, don't yet have an HDTV (horrors!), The Netflix Player, at just $100, might make a nifty addition to your home theatre setup. I expect it'll soon have a place in my home.

Several sites have already done reviews. Take a look at CrunchGear's review (pictures, including approximate video quality), CNET's video review, or engadget's first impressions.

I bring you proof that a geek can't change his spots. I came across some old blog entries from 2000, 2001 and 2002, back when I was experimenting with the concept (and Movable Type). Even then I loved the idea of self-publishing and content management systems. I didn't write too many entries, but I thought I thought I'd add them to Jasonian.

Of course, the topic of interest was the same as what it is now: technology and how people react to it. And they're written with what I like to think of as my trademark snarkiness.

• The Mac's strength is its usability
• Ultimate Re-cap: MacWorld Expo, San Francisco 2001
• Apple releases new machines
• One Airport deserves another
  
• Reasons to hate Microsoft (today)
  
• (Re-) Covering your Assests
  
• Media delays facts about Apple
  
• Love me, love my virus
  
• This Is Not Mac OS 9
  
• Pick a card, any card
  

What I find funny about some of these entries is how they feel like I could have written them yesterday. In Ultimate Re-cap, I wrote:

oohahh

The new MacBook Air? Nope, the original PowerBook G4 titanium, which measured up at a mere 1" thick.

Or in One Airport Deserves Another, written just two years after Apple released their first Airport-enabled Macs:

Although it hasn't become

ubiquitous, there are fewer and fewer places where you can't find a wireless hotspot.

There's the obligatory Microsoft bashing (Reasons to hate Microsoft (today)), the expected Apple defending (Media delays facts about Apple) and a rant or two (This Is Not Mac OS 9). There's even an early "Mac OS X sucks!" style entry (The Mac's strength is its usability):

... using Mac OS X feels like we've stepped into the Way-Back Machine, to a time before many of the problems of previous Mac OS incarnations were not fixed.... The interface's consistency has gone down the drain.

(This was written about the Mac OS X Public Beta; fortunately, the later versions of Mac OS X regularly improved on the interface consistency.)

Overall, these older entries show that the more things change, the more they stay the same. I hope you enjoy them.

I've long been frustrated by San Francisco Chronicle's "computer guy" column by David Einstein. He regularly ignores Macs in his columns, either willfully, through ignorance, or because he believes that his audience doesn't care about Macs.

In his most recent set of questions and answers, from May 5, 2008 included a question about setting limits on computer usage for middle schoolers. In his response, he said:

If you don't have Vista, don't despair, because you still have options.

How disappointing that those "options" didn't include anything other than Windows. The latest version of Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" has great parental controls, including the ability to limit total computer time (say, 3 hours a day), with separate limits for weekends, and prevent use during specified times ("bedtimes").

You can also limit who your child emails and chats, allowing only certain email and chat addresses, and restrict which websites can be viewed. You can even limit which applications can be used.

Beyond what's provided by Leopard itself, other applications include their own parental controls. For example, iTunes lets you restrict movies and TV shows by rating (G, PG, etc.) and to prevent purchase of "explicit"-tagged content. You can even prevent access to iTunes Store completely.

For parents, Leopard provides a significant control over how a child uses their computer. I don't understand how Mr. Einstein could fail to acknowledge the Mac at all in his response, and it bugs me every time he does it.

If you don't believe your life can change twenty-four hours from now, you're deluding yourself. Twice in the last three weeks I was reminded in the most graphic way possible that you can be out of a job tomorrow.

It doesn't matter how long you've been with your company, or how invaluable you think you are. If you violate corporate policy, or your role is no longer important, or you just piss off the wrong person, you might find yourself job hunting, perhaps for the first time in 20 years.

So, what are you going to do about it?

I have a few suggestions.

• Accept that your company has very little loyalty to you. You provide a service, and if you're lucky, maybe even directly affect their bottom line, but if money's tight, or they decide to go in a "different direction," or maybe they get acquired by another, bigger entity, what little loyalty they did have will be replaced by cold, hard logic.

• Get rid of anything personal residing on your work computer. If you're unemployed tomorrow, you probably won't have time to delete it, and who knows who'll go through that stuff. Have a computer at home. A Mac mini is cheap.

• Don't keep your only copy of your baby's first steps on your work computer. Really. If you understand the previous suggestion, this one follows logically. Your office machine should never be the only copy of important personal files. Grab an external drive, move your personal data onto it, and take it home.

• Don't be stupid. If you love watching naked jello wrestling, or think music ought to be free, pursue your predilections in the privacy of your own home. Don't download copyrighted or objectionable material at work. That's just dumb.

• Keep notes on your successful projects. Key dates, accomplishments and other details are valuable reminders of the great job you did, should you find yourself putting together a new résumé. Keep in mind that some of that is company confidential, so making copies of your address book, email, project files, and other documents that belong to the company is probably a bad idea.

• Prepare financially. Losing your only income is, to understate it, a bad thing. So, save some of it. Take a few dollars every paycheck and stick it in a savings account, or, if you're a risk taker, the stock market. If you don't have a few months of ready cash already, start building that up, now. Figure out how much you need to pay your monthly expenses, and get one month in the bank, then try for two months. Eventually three to six months would be ideal. Cut out those daily lattes for a few weeks.

• Diversify your income. If your only source of income is your nine-to-five, brainstorm other ways you might generate some free cash flow. Buy growth or dividend producing stocks. Sell stuff on eBay or Craig's List. Start a business online. Have some other way of bringing in money so losing your main gig isn't a major setback.

• Think about the future. Do you want to work for this company forever? Do you even want to work forever? If you want to retire eventually (or sooner), envision how you'd spend your tomorrows, and start planning for that today. Want to travel when you retire? Buy a condo somewhere else. Or get a credit card that gives you miles toward free tickets. Or join a hotel rewards program that offers free nights. Or star writing about travel so you can get paid to do it when you "retire".

• Realize you're employable. You have this job, don't you? You can always find another one.

I consider myself lucky. I learned these lessons over twenty years ago. Now, I'm not afraid to lose my job. I'm eminently employable, with a broad set of highly marketable skills and, putting aside salary, job satisfaction, and the vagaries of the job market, I could get a job almost anywhere. Not to mention all these business ideas rattling around in my brain.

I'm also lucky enough to have the financial wherewithal to withstand a sudden loss of income. I'll still be able to pay my mortgage, put food on the table and even enjoy a brief vacation without worry. At least for a little while.

And most importantly, I know that I can count on my family and friends in a time of crisis. I know that, should the need arise, I could stay with The Girl for a few months. Or, as I joked to her recently, all it takes is a $500 JetBlue ticket back to the East Coast to stay with my parents.

I used to think I would never lose my job. I found out the hard way how wrong I was. I was reminded how true it remains. Now I'm prepared, without being paranoid.

Are you ready?

Amazon.com Widgets

In case it ever comes up, this is not what a functioning garage door chain should look like. In fact, I would say that's a really good example of the exact opposite of a working garage door chain.

My garage door has been threatening to quit working for almost as long as I've been in this house, and today that threat was carried out. Proving that all things are connected, it was just three days ago that I repaired my front door (which I had to force open a couple of weeks back). I'm not certain if I should consider myself trapped in my home, protected from external forces, or prevented from experiencing the world.

I now await the arrival of a repair guy. I hope I make it into the office in time for today's kickoff meeting for my annual conference.

Update: This is what the new hotness looks like. Notice, no chain.

I hope this one lasts a while. A few hundred dollars here, and a few hundred dollars there, and pretty soon we're talking real money.