Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/03/14/tmobile-makes-good/
Last week, there were serious troubles with the Sidekick data service. It was mostly down for about two days, and seriously flaky for two more. That really sucked.
At the end of the outage, T-Mobile sent everyone an e-mail noting that there would be a $20 credit due to the troubles. Basically, a refund for one month of Sidekick data service. They’ve also promised more free goodies in the downloads section for their loyal customers.
I feel better. And I think T-Mobile deserves some credit for trying to do well by their customers. Sh!t does happen, especially with bleeding-edge technology. It makes a difference when a company is pretty good with answering the phone, as T-Mobile has always done for me, and when they take proactive steps to apologise when things break fantastically, as they did last week.
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/03/12/devastation-beauty/
When we moved in, we noted a large collection of long-abandoned small houses and shacks and sheds and an apartment complex next door. And lots of beautiful trees. This area had been condemned, I’m told, for the past two years. Well, they finally got around to doing something with the condemned buildings, which is to tear them down to make room to build hundreds of condos. I can not blame them for building hundreds of condos so close to the BART station, but we were hoping that they would keep some of the trees around.
Wednesday when I got home, the buildings had been razed, except for a masonry structure down on the corner. About half the trees, mostly the taller ones, were still standing. On Thursday evening, I note that miniature forest that stood throughout the lot was completely gone. There are a few trees yet along the fence line, but the devastation is sad.
Those had better be some awesome condos.
On the other hand, one neat thing about Walnut Creek is that there is a lot of unspoilt land that we can walk to and hike around. This weekend we wandered around some of the foothills of Mount Diablo. We walked through a muddy area where Yayoi learned that there is nothing to fear about free-ranging cows. The views were awesome. I understand that things aren’t normally this green, but the current flora blows the mind.
All in all, I can’t complain so much. We will likely lose our view of Mount Diablo in the distance as the condos are built, but we still won’t have far to go for natural splendor.
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/03/11/hooray-for-rojo/
Two years ago I started work and eventually gave up on toldme.com. The main reason is that it was a little too ambitious for my project management and database skills, not to mention my interest level relative to free time. (Getting a paying job can really destroy your ability to work on personal development projects.) (more…)
5 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/03/09/jilted-by-google/
Back in late 2001, after I lost my job with Tellme, I looked for work at, among other places, Google. I had long been impressed with Google, which by all accounts offers a great working environment. And like me, they were also in Mountain View. I submitted my resumé and a recruiter contacted me and said they had a Junior position available, and the salary would be about 2/3 what I had been making at Tellme, where I had worked as an underpaid technical lead. I explained that I was more interested in and better qualified for some of the more senior job postings they had open on their web site. “Well, this is the position we have available,” was the ultimatum offered by the recruiter. I politely declined.
Two months later and it was very clear to me that the job market was terrible, and that if Google was willing to talk to me about a junior position, that was far better than the stresses of being broke and idle. I contacted the recruiter and she set up a phone screen, which was followed by an on-site interview. (more…)
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/03/04/like-programming-a-vcr/
I am trying to install some software that isn’t working. So, I’m trading messages with the company’s technical support, who suggested I add an argument to a wrapper script, which I tried, but nada, so they clarified:
Hmmm, when you add the -nosetjmp make sure you go through custom install using ___setup and select 2 for run setup utilites then select 2 again Perform ___ configuration then select each step except number 3…this will override your changes that you made to the script. Once that is all done you can add -nosetjmp to the ___v9.cfg file and let’s see what happens.
All this while walking back and forth to the machine room to swap through a series of three CDROMs. Ah, the glorious work of being a SysAdmin!
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/03/01/microsoft-new-yorker/
I’m flipping through the latest New Yorker, which this week has page after page of old New Yorker covers. This seems like a cheap ploy at generating the week’s content except that every New Yorker cover is, literally, a piece of art. Some are from way back, and so I have never seen them before. Others are familiar to me because I have been a subscriber for about two years. I turn from a full-page ad for Microsoft and see an old acquiantance. (more…)
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/02/26/enemy-combatant/
This past week I read an article in the New Yorker magazine about the policy of my government to secretly kidnap terrorism suspects, without any due process, and to hand them over to foreign governments to be “rendered,” which is a euphemism for “tortured.” There are many in law enforcement who have grave doubts about the efficacy of torture. If you torture a man, he will pretty much tell you anything you want to hear. And, you can not use testimony from, or evidence that leads back to torture in a legal trial. Anyway, the article, found in the Feb 14 & 21, 2005 issue, is very long, very engaging, and left me feeling very disgusted and frustrated and just plain old upset. What follows is the last section of the article, that briefly puts a human story to the situation. It is with a heavy heart that I type this out, but the story bears being re-told. (more…)
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/02/24/dell-inept-customer-service/
So, a user has a laptop whose batteries are shot, and he needs a working battery before travelling next week. (more…)
3 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/02/21/remembering-malcolm-x/
On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, you might enjoy some audio and video of a speech and an interview with Malcolm X, at the University of California at Berkeley in 1963. That being over fifty years ago, it is a nice time to pause and reflect on the evolution of race relations in America over the past forty years.
Happy President’s Day.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/02/16/skype/
Skype is an Instant Messenger client with a twist — if you hook up a microphone you can CALL each other. Like a telephone, only you can see if your buddy is online before you interrupt them. The audio quality is very good, and clients are available for Windows, OS X, and Linux. The Linux client works on FreeBSD.
Even nicer, you can dial out on Skype, for exceedingly low rates. It costs us about 3c a minute to call Japan, though we’re going to get Noriko-san on Skype soon enough, and then the calls will be free.
If anyone wants to try it out, you can ring me at dannymanTM.
To answer a question you may have on your mind, Skype is not a telephone, so it is different from a VOIP service, where they send you a telephone that you hook up to your broadband. Instead, Skype is a way of making telephone calls from your computer. Unfortunately, people can not yet dial in to someone using Skype.
For me, though, it is as if the Internet has come full-circle: we used to have to find a cheap local number to dial in to the Internet on our existing telephone. Now, we are finding cheap services to make telephone calls on our existing Internet connection. Yow!
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/02/16/pizza-in-redmond/
Hehe, this is good, it appears that Microsoft has physical banner ads around Redmond bragging of MSN search. It says “pizza in redmond” … suggesting, of course, that if you go to msn.com, and type “pizza in redmond” you should be able to find pizza.
MSN’s competitors get it right, but MSN search ends up with . . . janitorial supplies!
The repeated search attempt made by seattlepi.com kind of remind me of some of the early early experiences with Tellme. I wrote a Caltrain schedule app way back in the day before the advent of VXML. “Mountain View,” I’d say, with my midwestern accent. “Millbrae?” “Moun-TEN View …” I would shout back. “San Francisco Fourth and King.” “No, you f_cker, I said Mountain View!!”
But, at least Tellme didn’t go advertizing their speech recognition features without first making sure they worked.
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/02/16/happy-kyoto-day/
Well, although my nation isn’t participating in the Kyoto protocol, I still take the bus to work, which is really nice because in bad traffic I get more time to read.
The Japanese national I live with observed that we were somewhat lacking in hot water last night. We are still lacking this morning. One might think the hot water heater is busted and the building people will repair it soon, but in the mean time, today is a good day to skip the hot water and pretend, for just a moment, that we are a bit greener.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/02/13/choosing-morality/
It was the vision of the founding fathers to have a nation of independent, land-owning farmers. Each farm run by a man who was the equal of his peers in freedom and opportunity. Wealth may be inherited but much of it was to be determined by personal enterprise, not to mention the ambitions of the creator …
It is a common belief that a complex entity derives much of its character from the characteristics of its component parts. In a remote colony aspiring for independence, the nation, as a republic, was to be formed in turn by independent states, composed of democratically-run communities, comprised of independent, self-determined farmers, each man his own lord over his private fiefdom. E pluribus unum — from many, one. The strength of independent men makes the strength of the communities makes the strength of the states makes the strength of the Republic, the sum of our national strength, to stand in defiance of the awesome might of the British Empire.
The conservative philosophy is that the moral failings of our government and power structures are the result of moral failures among the constituents that represent society as a whole. Their solution is too often a reaction — we will impose morality. Abortion will be illegal, as will self-serving homosexual relationships. We will seek to weave the notion of Godliness through the public discourse, for it is only through Jesus Christ, our savior, that redemption, and thus morality, is to be found.
But morality is not something you can get from the law, or from uttering some profession of faith. Morality comes from honest dialog with the self and those around the self. Morality comes from looking at the other as a different version of the self, and accepting that as a point from which to work with others. In short, morality comes from personal initiative, and requires independence and responsibility. Morality comes from the need to choose morality. (more…)
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/02/04/seatguru/
Dave is flying to China for two weeks for business.
Another Dave suggested SeatGuru.com for advice on selecting seats for his sixteen-hour flight.
I will have to remember this, for I will have to fly to Japan in May.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/02/04/my-sister-kicks-butt/
Well, it started as a gigantic screw-up. Getting pregnant, right? Well, these things happen, even to responsible people.
And, there are a number of ways to handle such a screw up. My sister has come a long way, I think, nine months is one way to put it, but I think she has come farther than that.
Though she is not prepared to be a Mom, she decided to have the baby anyway, and place it with an adoption agency. Well, on February 2, with the help of our Mom and my sister’s awesome boyfriend, (who is not the father,) my sister gave birth to Evan.
Being pregnant, and giving birth, and then giving the baby away . . . of all the tough things you can do in life, that is up there on the list. I’m proud of my sister, and I am very happy that things seem to be working out great.
(And I’m a little frustrated that I can’t be around, but this is nothing new.)
1 Comment
« Newer Stuff . . . Older Stuff »
Site Archive
