Category Archives: About Me - Page 24

How Cute.

Posted by on November 7, 2016 No comments

In my random browsing about CD collecting and storing, I came across a website for “CD collectors”.  Some people were posting pictures of their collections and some would post pictures of their finds at stores.  It was kind of cute, and I mean that in a patronizing way.

Post titles like “Started 2 weeks ago, full collection so far” and “After 6 months, this is my collection”.  And then there’s a picture of a dozen CDs, or maybe two dozen.  And when I think about my 800+ collection, I snicker a little inside.  And when I see that the CDs are mostly new releases, I snicker a little more.

And boy, isn’t that pompous of me?  It is, I admit it, and I accept that.  I mean, I could make a post saying, “After 30 years – my collection” and there would be people snickering at me.  “30 years and only 800?  I bought that much in the last 2 years!  My collection of 3,000 laughs at you.”

Despite the holier-than-thou ranking and hierarchy of collectors in which I probably place in the 70th percentile (The curve is exponential.  Once you break a certain level, you are in rare company), at the same time, I am encouraged.  These are people just discovering the joy of collecting physical media.  Judging by their selections, they are young, which means there is still life in physical media.  It’s not dead.

There is another reason for encouragement as well.  I’m not going to pretend that piracy doesn’t exist, whether software or music or video.  I can admit that I used to be a pirate.  In the old, old days, we used to have dual cassette decks that would copy tapes.  There’s really no legitimate need for a dual-deck unit otherwise.  So, I had plenty of copied tapes.  Why?  Because I was young and poor.  I also had lots of pirated software.  Why?  Exact same reason.  I couldn’t afford $500 for Photoshop.  As I grew older and started making money in my career, I didn’t need to resort to piracy anymore.  I didn’t need to “settle” for a copy.  I could get an original.  And I started valuing having that original in my collection.

If these budding collectors are anything like I was back then, that means they are beginning to advance in their life, making a living wage, where they can afford the luxury of not stealing.  That means the world is getting better.  Also, they take pride in their collection.  Consider the pride between showing someone 200 gigs of downloaded albums (which may elicit some praise from some people) vs. showing someone a collection of 100 CDs.  “They’re all real.  They’re permanent.” 

You can copy off that 200GB of music to your friend and not feel a ounce of pain.  But, giving up a CD from your collection, you’re actually losing something.  It’s the same psychological trick pundits use when they encourage you to live a cash lifestyle.  By handing over physical cash when you buy things, you feel a loss, more so than when you just swipe a credit card.

So even as these beginners are showing off their tiny collections, it’s still something to encourage and cheer on.  They have many years ahead of them and decades and decades of music to discover and collect.

Yay, Someone Did It!

Posted by on November 3, 2016 No comments

Check out my post from March, 2008.  Yes, 2008.  Someone finally implemented this.

BackerKit, after filling in your information, allows you generate a post bragging about what you just did.  and they offer selectable values for key elements.

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This allows someone to be themselves and also capture some data about the experience.

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You’re welcome, BackerKit.  Believe it or not, I have an entire document somewhere discussing the entire business case for doing this and how the results can be calculated and analyzed.  There’s even a prototype website with an entire functional database structure.  Ah, if I only had a lot more free time and even more motivation.

Never Let Your Guard Down

Posted by on October 6, 2016 No comments

Today, I learned I had been “hacked”.  I say “hacked” in a figurative sense because there wasn’t really a whole lot of hacking involved.  I somewhat left the door open and someone just fiddled around and got in.

I have my own email server that manages a few domains.  I have one domain I don’t do anything with, and on that one, I had created a couple of test accounts for, well, testing.  The problem is, I never disabled them when I was done.  It’s been a while since I did that, so either I didn’t think about the consequences or assumed that since I was working on an inactive domain, no one would try accessing it.  You can’t assume that.

Since “hackers” just use a bunch of scripts to automate “hacking”, they can just let the scripts run and go eat some more pizza.  And that’s what happened to me, probably.  A script found my domain, then immediately went to work trying out different common username/password combos.  And although I have security features that will temporarily blacklist an IP address after so many failures, that had no effect.  The script will just wait until the ban is lifted then continue on.  Time is not a concern.

So, once they got some working credentials, then it was time to deliver the spam.  And boy did they ever.  I had gigabytes of log files and 22k email messages queued for delivery.  How I learned I was hacked was by chance.  I happened to try sending an email during one of the spamfests and got the email returned with the message:

DED : You’ve reached your daily relay quota

At the time I got that message, I thought it was being returned by the domain I was sending to.  Later, on a whim, I decided to check my own server and was shocked at what I saw.  I immediately shut down the email service and started clearing out all the trash.  Then I changed all the account passwords and disabled all the unused accounts and restarted the server.  The log files showed someone trying to log in using test2@mydomain.com and failing.  Bastards.

It’s my own fault, for sure.  But it’s terrible that you can’t stop being paranoid for a second on the Internet.  They’re always out to get you.

In Memoriam, In Advance

Posted by on July 26, 2016 No comments

I stopped by my local pool place last weekend for some chlorine.  At the checkout they had a sign stating that as of August 1st, they will no long accept credit cards – cash or check only.  I asked for more clarification, no debit cards either.  So, I give them about 2 months to live.  Definitely won’t see 2017.

This business had recently tried implementing a “cash discount” and that didn’t seem to work, because I don’t see those signs anymore.  I’m very confused as to what their logic is.  Accepting a check is probably more risky than accepting a credit card.  No one carries $500 around with them to buy a chlorine generator.  It’s unlikely businesses would set up accounts with them unless they can do monthly invoicing and hold out the net 30 terms.

I thought this would make their online sales unworkable, but a quick check shows that their website cart uses PayPal.  This raises even more questions.  Why not get a PayPal mobile card reader and use the same account for store sales and online sales?

I mean, if they are getting hammered with CC swipe fees and TX charges, they need to renegotiate.  Or they need to look at their margins.  I’ve always known that the ones paying cash were getting shafted because a store’s prices had to assume that CC fees would be included.  I’m puzzled by this in the same way I’m puzzled that gas stations can survive with Cash/Credit pricing.

But in the end, my guess is they won’t be sticking around much longer.  Here’s the important thing.  They’ve made a decision they can’t easily take back.  They may get one more transaction out of each customer (they already got mine).  But after that, customers like me aren’t going to return.  If they realize their decision has now brought the business into a death spiral and they want to start accepting credit cards again, who’s going to know?  All the former customers have written the business off.  They could put a banner out front saying “We fucked up and we accept credit cards again!” but that’s some serious crow to eat.  Maybe the banner will be “Under New Ownership!” which might invite old customers back to see if the payment options have returned.

It’s sounds like another case of small-business America dying, but sometimes that death is caused by a self-inflicted injury.

Music In The Valley

Posted by on March 21, 2016 No comments

Last weekend, I had a pretty productive CD run.  I think I picked up a dozen new ones.  One of the “why not” buys was a disc called “The Best of Starship”.  It was a cheap-looking CD.  Really cheap.  Like one of those compilation CDs that companies make just for some quick bucks.  It turned out to be something really different, though.

I don’t own any Starship albums, but I do know the songs pretty well from the radio.  When I put the CD in and played it, I didn’t immediately recognize the music.  After the song played a little longer, I recognized it, but something was still off.  The singer’s voice was familiar and all the notes were right, but the production of the track was different.

I looked at the album cover for clues.  In small type at the bottom was “New Recordings by the Original Artist.”  How strange.  What I was experiencing was the Uncanny Valley effect.  That effect is typically associated with robots, how people’s perception of them rises as their realism improves, then suddenly drops off as people get really creeped out by the tiny inconsistencies.  I’ve also had the same thing with software, where if the replication of an application isn’t exact, the little differences drive you crazy.  You notice all the little things.  At that point it’s better to create something entirely different.

And that was the case with this album.  It wasn’t a live album.  You know you’re getting a different sound when buying a live album.  It was a studio album, but it wasn’t like studio outtakes or demos or alternate takes.  It was just doing it again.  And it wasn’t like redoing it with the intent to improve on it, it was trying to remain faithful to the original.  But it wasn’t.  The production was much more sparse – less overdubs, less polish.  It almost sounded like a MIDI sequence plus guitars, plus the original vocalists.  It was good enough to be recognizable.

I have to say, it’s the strangest CD I’ve ever come across.  I’m torn between throwing it away because of (to borrow the uncanny valley’s terminology) the revulsion at what I was hearing or keeping it because it’s such an oddball recording.

You Don’t Get What You Don’t Pay For

Posted by on February 23, 2016 No comments

Applying the concept of the tradeoff triangle – Good/Fast/Cheap; pick two, I recently had the opportunity to choose zero.  Or maybe I got them all, just in a crappy way.  I’m talking about visiting an urgent care clinic.

As you may have seen in past posts, I’m not a fan of health.  Luckily, I don’t get sick.  Until I do, that is.  And when I do, I usually stick it out until I’m better, or in some future instance, I die.  Well, this was a case where I wasn’t getting better, but I wasn’t dying quickly enough to get over the annoyance of being sick.  And since I don’t really have a primary care doctor, I went to a clinic.

Since I don’t really have a doctor, I’m not sure what is routine and what isn’t.  But I’m pretty sure if they cared, they wouldn’t weigh me with my pockets full of stuff.  And they would probably check my temperature to see if I had a fever.  Maybe check my heart rate while they are checking my blood pressure.  Maybe they would show a little bit of interest in me.  But, maybe not.  It’s just a walk-in clinic.

Maybe they would actually protect their customers’ personal information.  Posted throughout the clinic were signs that stated there were scammers calling their patients and asking questions similar to a satisfaction survey.  The problem is that through some phone trickery, the call would cost you $3/min.  My question is, how are these scammers getting your patient’s contact info?

To sum up the entire visit, I recited the primary symptoms I had: trouble swallowing, swollen tongue and tonsils as well as secondary symptoms I suspected were relevant.  All this was entered in some cloud-based web application. (I initially thought he was searching WebMD for the answer.)  Then the doctor came in, looked in my mouth (not even using a tongue depressor) and said, “yup” and entered an antibiotic prescription in the web app that was sent to my Walgreens.  That was it – he said the medicine should work in 7 days, but if not, there were 3 more days on the prescription.  He walked out and I walked out of the building.  But not before forcing him to make physical contact with me by shaking his hand.

I left with a prescription that should fix what ails me, but I didn’t leave with any encouragement that I was going to get better.  That is depressing as hell.  But, I guess I did expect a bare-bones experience.  In my tradeoff, Good was not chosen, Fast was fast in the wrong part of the experience, and Cheap was pretty much the entire experience.  This does little to promote any desire for longevity in me.

More Phones!

Posted by on February 22, 2016 No comments

A while ago, I had the idea to take a cheap Windows phone and turn it into a dedicated portable media player.  The prime motivator of that idea was cost.  $30 for an electronic device, especially one with a good touchscreen, is pretty unbeatable.  That experience has been pretty much ok.  There’s a few issues that will hopefully be worked out in the future.  But another opportunity came up and I moved on it.  More phones!

The media player phone is a Lumia 435.  The new deal is a Lumia 640, again for $30.  I bought two.  And I still would be getting back the $60 Lumia 640 from the GF when she gets her Sony fixed.  So that’s three phones of the same make and model.  What could I do with them?

The first thing I thought of was home security cameras, but the first idea I could take action on was a car dashcam.  I looked in the app store and found a few free candidates and a few paid candidates.  So I got the free ones and set out to see what it would do.

I purchased a windshield mount and put the phone up under my mirror.  With that and my GPS on the windshield, it looks a little ridiculous.  But it’s not too distracting (at least not doing the day because the polarized screen just looks black with my sunglasses on.  At night, it’s a little more glance-worthy).  The way the dashcam app works is, the camera is constantly recording and discarding video.  It keeps a certain time period in memory at all times.  When you touch the screen to indicate an incident has occurred, the app saves that piece of video to the phone.

In two days of use, I already captured my first incident.  It was a rabbit.  Now I can replay the horrible thumping sounds as many times as I want!  Viva technology!

It Wasn’t Me This Time

Posted by on February 11, 2016 No comments

Today, I got an answer to something that I’ve always wondered.  What would I do if an accident happened right in front of me?  Well, it was actually right behind me.  I drive that road every day after work and I know how it can get. 

The road is a two-lane off-ramp connecting two interstates.  At that time of day, the right-most lane gets backed up.  There have been times that I couldn’t merge in and I couldn’t very well stop and hold up traffic in the left lane, so I was forced to take an alternate route home.  Because the right lane backs up and the left doesn’t, I think that people driving in the right lane (and this has happened to me) misread the speed of their lane, because they are keeping pace with people in the faster left lane.  Then all of a sudden, your lane grinds to a halt.

If you’re lucky, you’ll see it happen a couple of cars ahead, if you’re not lucky, the car in front of you will suddenly slow down.  If you’re really unlucky, the car in front of you will swerve onto the shoulder and the car in front of them will be stopped.  All of that happened today.

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I actually was not lucky, I was surprised by the car in front of me.  The cars behind me were less lucky.  I escaped unscathed.  But not being involved in the accident, what was I to do?  This is the question I had been wondering about.

See, I hate the world.  I really hate people.  I blog about it; it’s not a secret.  But I hate that the world is that way.  And so what did I do in this moment of truth?  I pulled over and jogged back to see if there was anything I could do to help.

Everyone was as fine as you could hope for.  One guy who had his airbags go off seemed a little stunned and I had to roll his windows down to get some fresh air in there (Airbags really stink.  That’s the second time I’ve smelled it.)  Another Samaritan was checking on drivers too and said he would call 911, but he disappeared quickly after.

I hung around until the police and paramedics arrived and gave everyone my contact info in case their insurance company wanted it, but I’m not sure I’ll be of much help.  The people behind would have been better witnesses, but everyone’s got somewhere to go…

So, why didn’t I take off like everyone else?  It’s not my problem – I was lucky.  I suspect that I don’t care about “people” because I can’t.  I can’t care about them because I can’t do anything about it.  People trapped in a cave in Argentina?  What the fuck can I do about that?  People right behind me getting in an accident?  I can try to help there.  It’s a proximity thing.  I might have said before that help begins locally and this just reinforces it.

You’re Welcome

Posted by on February 8, 2016 No comments

Every time I read something from Ayn Rand, I get really irritated.  Yet at the same time, whenever I try to do something just for the benefit of others, I also find myself irritated.  It seems you can’t do anything for anyone without hitting some issue.

I like writing software.  It’s a great profession and it gives me plenty of opportunity to experiment, create, and solve problems.  It’s not always work for me.  So there are plenty of times I will create a small utility to fix something or make a task easier for me and I think maybe someone else would find some use from it.  So, I put it out on the Internet.  The idea is nothing new and is pretty well known as open-source software.

I’d been hesitant to do any promotion of my latest creation because I feared a backlash of people that are, in modern vernacular, “haters”.  They contribute nothing but criticism and have no intention of ever offering help.  You know, “I’d love to contribute to your project, but your coding style sucks.”  “Too bad it’s in VB.NET, I could really add some features.” “If I helped out, I’d end up rewriting all of it.”  None of these statements have happened, but they are very likely coming from the elitists out there.

A few days ago, I tentatively responded to a couple of forum messages suggesting they try my utility to solve their problems.  On one forum, someone replied and said they got an error message.  So, I responded with some troubleshooting suggestions and gave a link to my blog for more information.  When I submitted the message, the forum told me my message was marked for review.

Later that night, I got a private message from a forum moderator saying that I was receiving a warning for posting a link to my own blog.  This was not allowed because it was considered “self-promotion”.  Then the message gave an excerpt of the community rules and a message that I was expected to follow them.  As a final insult, the moderator requested a “Read Receipt”, which basically says, “I want you to tell me you’ve seen this so you can’t argue this in the future.”

That completely spoiled my day.  Here I made something to help people, and I have information to share, but I’m not allowed to post it.  The moderator took the time to verify my link when to my personal website, but didn’t seem to notice there was no spam, advertisements, or solicitations on it.  If I had replied as a different person and posted the same link, it would have been fine, because it wasn’t “self-promotion.”  Posting information about another person is fine; posting information about yourself is bad.

I don’t even know where to go from here.  The urge to be extremely childish is really, really strong right now.  But how do you even talk sense into people with a viewpoint like that?  The best course of action is to just walk away, and the assholes win again.  As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

Maybe This Is A Problem

Posted by on January 22, 2016 No comments

It’s probably an indication of a problem that I have more phones than hands to hold them.  No, it’s not as bad as it sounds, but it might be becoming a trend.  I had been really good about not buying things I didn’t need and that’s morphing into buying things that would be useful, then into buying things that might be useful.  It’s only a couple steps from buying things that I have no use for.  So, I’m putting myself on notice.

I have five Windows phones in my house.  The first is my ancient Windows 7 phone, the Dell Venue Pro.  It’s a beefy phone and served me well over the years, but it always suffered from a ridiculously poor camera.  The physical keyboard and vertical slider form factor was something I didn’t think I could live without.  Alas, physical keyboards are all but gone anymore (Hi, Blackberry!).  It’s just being kept for nostalgic reasons.

I still have the replacement for the Venue Pro, the Lumia 810 with the shattered screen.  I really don’t need it as a last resort backup anymore, so it will probably be trashed.  It served me very well over the years I had it.

My current phone and the replacement for the 810 is the Lumia 925.  This is an unlocked AT&T phone that I’m using on TMo’s network without any issue.  It’s a nice aluminum phone with a wireless charging shell.  It’s great and all, but looking forward, it’s not on the official Windows 10 Mobile upgrade list, so it would have to be unofficially upgraded with Windows Insider.  It also doesn’t have the specs to run Continuum, which is going to be a big deal in the future.

On a whim, I bought a Lumia 435 for $30 over the holidays.  This is a TMo prepaid phone that I am using exclusively as a music player.  It’s upgraded to Windows 10 Mobile and has a 128GB SD card in it.  it’s tiny and it could be a backup phone if I ever need it to be.  You see, now we’re at the point of “would be useful”.

Then, the step into “might be useful” got me to purchase a Lumia 640 for $60.  This is an AT&T prepaid phone, so I paid an extra $30 for an unlock code so it could be used on any network.  Do I have a need for it?  No.  But I did buy it for the GF to use while her phone (a Sony Z3) was being sent in for repair.  But when I get it back, what will I do with it?  It’s a nice phone – hardware-wise, it’s as good or maybe a little better than my 925.  It doesn’t have wireless charging, but does have an SD card slot.  It also can’t run Continuum.  I guess it’s just going to be a cold spare, waiting for me to drop and shatter my phone again.

With all these phones, I need to be cautious about falling into the gadget trap.  It’s been at least 20 years since I was into buying toys just to see what they would do.  It’s not yet time to get back into that.