The Bloviater

Redistricting–There Has to be a Better Way

2011-09-22T16:14:00.001-04:00

Florida’s decennial parody of “fairly” redrawing Congressional districts continues. I’ve written about this before, wondering if this time, with a state constitutional amendment to try and control it, we’d see something other than this:

Because that’s clearly not a sleazy, political ploy to keep Corrine Brown in office.

Aside from the nonsense of the end result, there’s also the expense. Millions of dollars, taxpayer dollars, your dollars, will be spent on this redistricting process. There will be studies and proposals and counter-proposals and negotiations … all designed for one political party to gain advantage over the other – or, at least, to not lose any seats.

How about this for a simple, fair, non-political process:

Divide the population of Florida by the number of Congressional seats. This is the population each district should have.

Now start with the lowest numbered zipcode in Florida. Add sequential, surrounding, contiguous zipcodes until the selected population meets or exceeds the desired population of a district. This is Congressional District 1 for the State of Florida.

Move on to the next zipcode and repeat for the remaining zipcodes. Representation by geography – it will take about an hour and maybe $1.57 for a pencil and sheet of paper to keep track of things.

That’s Option 1.

Option 2:

Forget about geography and make all of Florida’s Representatives statewide races. Given that Corrine Brown currently “represents” a strip of land from Jacksonville to Orlando, would statewide representation be such a hardship? We are not, after all, reliant on horses for travel anymore.

The races are statewide and whichever candidates get the most votes go to Congress.

Option 3:

Forget about any semblance of impartiality or that Congressional Representatives aren’t elected for race and economic status.

Still hold that delusion? Take a look at the demographics of each district and it’ll cure you.

Make the races statewide, but divide people by class, race and religion. The Catholics can choose a representative for themselves, the blacks can choose theirs, etc.

Thoughts?

“I can watch American Idol and child porn at the same time while giving the dog a reach-around”

2011-03-21T19:32:00.001-04:00

http://www.popehat.com/2011/03/21/so-apparently-theft-snivelling-and-nutjobbery-are-patriotic-now

Not me! Not me! No, the title of this post is not mine and not about me, but it made me laugh too damn much not to use it. The full story’s at the link above, but the gist is this:

One of the blogs I read had a post about what to do if you’re awakened in the night by the Feds asking questions – essentially, shut the fuck up so you don’t accidently say something incorrect (because no one can avoid that at three AM) and get tagged for misleading law enforcement. With the number of incidents where someone is never charged for a crime other than misleading law enforcement, it’s good advice – or not, if you’re able to perfectly recall every meeting and conversation you’ve had for the last ten years.

So PopeHat makes this excellent post and bullshit, aggregator-boy copies it whole-cloth onto his site. PopeHat makes a polite comment about fair-use and copyright violations, to which dumbass-who-can’t-format-a-decent-post-twice-in-a-row responds with a bullshit rant. The quote above is from PopeHat’s response post, which is well worth a read and addition to your RSS feeds.

And there’s a certain temptation to add canine-reach-arounds to my tag cloud, but I’ll resist.

In any case, the reason I was bringing this up was to start a post on copyright and fair-use for blog content, but as I type this, I realize that it’s pointless. It’s really, really useless to even make the argument …

Because either you get that it’s not okay to copy someone else’s work in its entirety to your blog, even if you “give attribution” – or you don’t.

Either you get that even something as simple as a blog post was created by someone and they have the right to determine its use – or you don’t.

There’s no real way to change the “content should be free”-mentality, because people that think that way simply cannot understand ownership of an intangible.

People who create content deserve to control that content’s distribution. Period. They’ve traded a portion of their lives to create something that, hopefully, others find useful or entertaining.

Even this simple post, short as it is, represents a portion of my life that I traded to create it. It represents time I could have spent doing other things …. like playing Halo: Reach with my girlfriend and listening to her yell “eat it old man!” after shooting me in the back of the head …

Okay … yeah … it’s a fair trade …

Libya: I Agree with Michael Moore? OMG! WTF?!

2011-03-20T11:01:00.001-04:00

Maybe it was last night’s Supermoon or maybe the coming Rapture on May 21 effecting my brain, but Michael Moore and I are close to almost being in agreement on United Nations intervention in Libya. Sort of. Maybe. For different reasons.

Okay, so I can retain my self respect a bit after reading his tweets and reasoning on the subject, since I don’t agree with his 9/11 and WMD and Daddy lunatic comments, but in general I have to add my voice to his in questioning why and under what possible justification we’re involved in attacking Libya.

More like the 1991 Gulf War than the more recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the action against Libya has real international participation and support from the United Nations … but why?

Libya has not attacked a neighboring country in any way. Yes, there is an internal uprising. Yes, I support the Libyan people’s right to demand change. Yes, Qaddafi [or however the hell the media is spelling his name this week] is a ~~comical~~ brutal, ~~laughing-stock~~ tyrant (despite his awesome taste in bodyguards).

But none of this changes that it is purely an internal matter for Libya. (Unless the bodyguards need liberating, in which case I’m signing up for the ~~insertion~~ extraction mission.)

The 1991 Gulf War involved Iraq invading neighboring countries.

9/11 was backed by the Taliban which, in my opinion, justifies giving that group something else to think about, such as a platoon of Marines lobbing grenades into their cave.

The 1991 Gulf War never actually ended (a cease-fire is not a peace treaty) and Hussein did not comply with the terms of that cease-fire, so 9/11, WMDs and Daddy aside, kicking his ass out in 2003 was simply the final consequence of 1991.

But none of this applies to Libya – and so, partisan politics aside, I simply don’t understand why we (the US) and the International Community feel justified in attacking Libya at this time.

There was no “no-fly zone” over Beijing after Tiananmen Square -- does the International Community only support popular uprisings in countries that don’t sit on the UN Security Council?

Oh … yeah …

But what about, say, ~~Miami~~ Cuba? There’s strong support for an uprising against Castro in South Florida, which is almost in Cuba, so do we only support the overthrow of dictators who don’t have strong ties to a country that sits on the UN Security Council?

Oh … yeah …

Okay, so maybe the conflict in Libya has escalated to the use of military weapons, which didn’t happen in 1989 at Tiananmen Square (well, at least for one of the sides).

And Cuba is fairly low-key as far as tyranny and oppression go … not a lot of air assaults going on there, after all.

So maybe it’s just the fact that the uprising and Qaddafi have escalated things to the point where truly large numbers of people are going to die, sort of like Rwanda in 1994 when the United Nations Security Council …

Oh … yeah …

So … why the fuck are we bombing Libya?

A Real Race Card?

2010-06-11T18:22:00.001-04:00

What do picky-eaters, astronomers and Hallmark Cards have in common?

They’re all racist bastards.

At least according to the Los Angeles NAACP, Hallmark has released a racist card and, apparently, joins those two others as a racist hate-group.

The astronomy-themed, audio card for congratulating graduates has the audio:

“And you black holes, you’re so ominous.”

Well, Hallmark should’ve learned from the Dallas County Commission that “black hole” was a racist term – I thought that was fully established years ago.

In the NAACP’s defense, they say that the card’s audio does not use the term “black holes”, but instead says “black whores”. I don’t hear that myself, but apparently the NAACP has better ears than I do. And, just as clearly from their statement, they’re sure it was intentional:

"That was very demeaning to African American women. When it made reference to African American women as whores and at the end, it says 'watch your back,'" said Leon Jenkins of the Los Angeles NAACP.

So they allow no room, according to this statement, for the possibility that they’ve misheard the audio or that it’s distorted by the squeaky, cartoonish voice. It would be one thing if their statement was something along the lines of “it kind of sounds like ‘black whores’, so we’d like them to clean it up a bit”, but they instead jump right to the intentionally-demeaning, racism accusation.

And let’s keep in mind that this isn’t like one guy causing a fuss about puppy posters and the media blowing it out of proportion … this is the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP calling a freakin’ press conference to complain.

And I have a question for Mr. Jenkins: If the card did say “black whores”, why is that only demeaning to “African American women” and not black women all over the world?

“BP is Manipulating Search Results”? I Don’t Think So

2010-06-09T15:02:00.001-04:00

Today’s UK TimesOnline has an article titled “BP 'manipulating search results' on Google following oil spill” – this is another example of sloppy, lazy journalism.

Just for a moment, put aside your feelings about the oil spill, BP, big oil, big business, whatever … put those aside and view this story with some intellectual honesty, not through the oh-so-prevalent lens of BP-is-Satan.

I live in Florida and as an avid kayaker and sailor, what’s going on in the Gulf has me livid. I have more than enough pissed-off for everyone involved, including BP. But I also dislike it when a “journalist” misrepresents the facts.

This whole story is about what happens when you Google something like “oil spill”:

“The company is purchasing terms such as “oil spill”, “Deepwater Horizon” and “Gulf of Mexico”, so that when a user types these words into the search engines, the results prominently feature a “sponsored link” to BP’s official page on its response to the spill.”

So BP is paying for Google Adwords on searches like “oil spill” to have their link displayed as one of the advertisements. What’s wrong with that? Virtually every search on Google has some kind of advertising in that area as a sponsored link.

“Critics have described BP’s move as unethical. Maureen Mackey, a writer on the Fiscal Times, an online news site, said: “What it effectively does is that it bumps down other legitimate news and opinion pieces that are addressing the spill... and \[BP are\] paying big money for that.”"”

Maureen Mackey seems to have a fundamental lack of understanding of Google’s search page and engine. Google sells advertising – some of those ads appear at the top of the page. Google reserves that space specifically for their advertising, and users of Google know it. But they don’t alter the search results in any way – the results aren’t “manipulated” at all, there’s simply a clearly-marked ad there. A format, by the way, that users see all the time.

BP’s not the only one buying those terms either. A lawyer’s gotten on the bandwagon and bought the same terms for his class-action lawsuit:

That’ll sure be helpful, as the lawyer will get millions of dollars and each person impacted by the spill will likely get a coupon for $0.10 off a cup of coffee at what few BP stations will be left – that’s usually how class action turns out. But I digress.

Even if BP were “manipulating” the results, why is that a problem? In fact, I’m sure they are – there are probably some people at BP whose job it is to make sure that those pages have the right keywords, metatags, titles, etc. to be indexed the way BP wants them to be. Just like the news agencies do the same thing with their pages and stories and the bloggers do with their articles. Search engines are the way of contacting the public these days and, just like with any media, those who want to get their message out are going to use the means available to them.

Is Maureen Mackey going to criticize the lawyer for buying those terms and “bump”ing other results down the page? Probably not.

And what, exactly, is a “legitimate news and opinion piece … addressing the spill”? Is Mackey saying that BP’s position on the issue isn’t “legitimate”? They should just shut up and not make their information available to the public?

There’s a lot of misinformation out there and it comes from “legitimate” news organizations as well as blogs. The search engines are not always, in fact seldom are, fair or balanced in their presentation of results on a given issue. And they’re not supposed to be – they have their own algorithms for determining what’s relevant and it’s up to the individual to decide which one meets their needs. But this does mean that a company like BP, in order to get their message (their side of the story, so to speak) out, relying on the organic search isn’t going to be enough. Because there’s so much else out there, indexed and cross-linked, that the company’s website is unlikely to organically be anywhere near the top. This creates a skewed and unbalanced vision of reality for those who rely solely on the first page of search results.

I ran into this while researching the Texas textbook controversy. Google that and you get almost half a million results. News articles and blogs, referencing each other, quoting each other, but very few going back to the source material. In fact, it took me a long time to find the source material for my post on that issue … the actual, real list of changes to the textbook standards. I wish the Texas Department of Education had bought some keywords, it would have saved me a lot of time.

Is It Possible to Stop Gerrymandering?

2010-06-08T19:10:00.001-04:00

I am not a fan of ballot-initiatives, those petition-driven amendments to state constitutions. I think it should be harder than that to amend a constitution, because as it is these are driven by majority-rule. Majority-rule, or pure Democracy, as you know is when seven wolves and a sheep decide what’s for lunch.

So, in general, I think these things are bad, usually resulting in unfunded mandates, like the Florida Class Size Amendment, or cluttering up the constitution with things like pregnant-pigs.

Just to be clear, I’m not opposed to legislation about pregnant pigs, I just don’t think constitutional rights are the answer.

But there’s a ballot-initiative this year that I can get behind, because it corrects something ridiculous: gerrymandering.

This is my Congressional district, district 8:

This is where I live and am <sarcasm>ably represented by Alan Grayson</sarcasm>. I guess I’ll have to wait for HTML 6 for those tags to work properly …

Anyway, as you can see the district doesn’t cover all of the Orlando Metro area, but does cover much of the Ocala National Forest up North.

Some of the rest of the area is represented by John Mica in district 7:

Except for the northwest corner, represented by Suzanne Kosmas in district 24; who, presumably, navigates the itty-bitty pathway from the rest of her district on the far East Coast:

And with the notable exception of the middle bit that’s represented by Corrine Brown as part of district 3:

When she can spare time from representing Jacksonville and the 140 linear miles in between.

All in all, the area looks like a jigsaw puzzle:

This lunacy comes about because politicians are responsible for creating the districts and they have traditionally done so in such a way as to protect incumbents and political parties.

Now along comes FairDistrictsFlorida.org with an initiative to try correcting that:

“Congressional districts or districting plans may not be drawn to favor or disfavor an incumbent or political party. Districts shall not be drawn to deny racial or language minorities the equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect representatives of their choice. Districts must be contiguous. Unless otherwise required, districts must be compact, as equal in population as feasible, and where feasible must make use of existing city, county and geographical boundaries.”

The question is: With the included mandate of taking “racial or language” minorities into account, will it ultimately make any difference? Corrine Brown’s absurd district is clearly drawn to combine primarily black areas of Jacksonville, Orlando and Gainesville. By passing this amendment, would we just be trading one bit of gerrymandering for a new one?

Why include that language to begin with? Shouldn’t our representatives represent the interests of a community as a whole? One made up of many different types of individuals?

Rather than representing communities are we on our way to having representatives of minorities and languages? Instead of districts based on total population, will we be allocating seats in Congress based on a Census of race and language? Is it beneficial to divide ourselves that way, rather than trying to come together as a diverse community?

I’ll probably vote for this amendment. It’s worth a try to see if it changes anything for the better, but I’d rather it simply required the districts to be drawn by geographic community, rather than allowing for race to be taken into account.

The Texas Textbook Tempest

2010-06-06T20:01:00.001-04:00

For months now, I’ve been hearing about Texas textbooks and how those damned, right-wing, partisan busy-bodies in the Lone Star State were going to make public schools all over the country worse (than they already are) by dumbing-down history and …. well, you’ve probably read the same news stories I have, so you know all about it, right?

No, not if you’ve only read the news articles. Because “journalists” are lazy and don’t bother to find out the facts. And the academics they consult with are even lazier, so they comment on what the journalists tell them third-hand. I’m giving those who write these articles the benefit of the doubt here … that they’re simply stupid and not deliberately malicious.

Why do I feel this way about them? Because it seems they haven’t actually read the standards.

A Google search of “texas textbook controversy” finds a plethora of articles on the subject.

Let’s start with this one from the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/17/AR2010031700560.html

But first, and here’s a controversial and novel idea, instead of relying on the reporter from the Washington Post, let’s go actually read the facts: http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2.aspx?id=3643

That’s the link to the Texas Education Department’s page for these standards. You’ll find there three PDFs listing the current state of the standards for elementary, middle and high school. In case that page or those links break, I’ve grabbed copies of the standards, as of this date, for posterity: elementary, middle, high.

So what does the Washington Post have to say about the curriculum proposal:

“The curriculum plays down the role of Thomas Jefferson among the founding fathers, questions the separation of church and state, and claims that the U.S. government was infiltrated by Communists during the Cold War.”

OH MY GOD! Texas hates Thomas Jefferson, wants a Theocracy and thinks the US Government’s full of commies!

The reality is this:

There were no changes made to the inclusion of Thomas Jefferson in the elementary or middle school standards. In high school, section 20(c) Government:

It is in that 20(c) section that the name of Thomas Jefferson is crossed out … that’s bad, right? But, wait … what do all those colors mean?

Thomas Jefferson’s name is in blue underscore and strikethrough, meaning that his name was added by the TEKS review committee and removed by the SBOE amendment. In fact, the entire (c) section is new – so nothing’s been removed by this change. The devilish deletion must be elsewhere, let’s keep looking.

There are only two other references to Jefferson:

That’s one left as-is (plain text) and one addition (green underline).

So, these new standards actually require more information about Jefferson than the old standards? How is that “plays down the role”? Sounds like playing it up, to me.

Maybe it’s the same as how a smaller increase in a government program is a cut?

I’m a big fan of Thomas Jefferson, but this doesn’t give me any heartburn … and, keep in mind, that these are guidelines. There’s nothing prohibiting a textbook from including more information in that section, the standards merely state what must be included.

What about that whole separation of Church and State thing?

Well, if you’ll notice, that change didn’t actually make it into the proposed standards. But what was it really?

The proposal was to have students read the Constitution, specifically the First Amendment, and then discuss the actual wording of the Constitution vs. the phrase “separation of Church and State”. Without getting into my opinion on the two, is it really so bad to have students read the Constitution and, possibly, think? Or should we just go on letting most people in the country believe that the words “separation of Church and State” actually appear in the Constitution?

And what about those commies all over D.C.? This is about the Venona Papers:

From my reading, the criticism of the Venona Papers boils down to the inability to prove that all of the names contained in them were actually spies for the Soviets. It’s a valid criticism, but there’s also the collorary: the papers themselves are authentic and, therefore, some, or most, of the names were, in fact, spies. Read about the documents yourself and decide if they shouldn’t be taught.

There’s also hubbub about including Jefferson Davis’ inaugural address along with Abraham Lincoln’s:

They say history’s written by the winner, but didn’t the country as a whole win that one? Doesn’t an understanding of that dark, bloody time in America’s history require knowledge about what both sides were fighting for and the values they truly represented?

The Civil War was not as simple as two sides shouting: “Slavery good!” “No, slavery bad!” at each other. The issues were more complex than that, no matter what gets taught today.

Decide for yourself, read Davis’ address along with Lincoln’s (first, second, Gettysburg). Is there something so wrong about what Davis said that we should hide it from students?

So when you read the next article or see the next CNN story about those Texas yahoos, take a few minutes of your busy day and go check the facts. Take a look at what the state of Texas is actually doing.

It’s really pretty easy, just open up the PDF and search for the words. And when you find that the Post or Times or NBC or CNN didn’t do a very good job of fact-checking themselves, ask yourself: Were they malicious or stupid?

Then ask yourself: Either way, should I trust them?

Memorial Day

2010-05-31T17:07:00.001-04:00

I took my kids to the Florida National Cemetery this morning.

It’s the first time we’ve really done anything on Memorial Day – until now, I’ve felt the kids were too young to reasonably expect them to behave and understand.

Well, the boy-child is now eleven, so he’s old enough to understand that he has to behave well and respectfully at some places.

There wasn’t an announcement of anything formal on the cemetery’s website, so I figured there wasn’t anything planned there. My thought was to just walk through with the kids and talk to them a little bit about what this day really means – as opposed to the opportunity for a day at the beach that it’s become for so many Americans.

In fact, I didn’t expect there to be anyone there at all, save family and friends paying their respects.

So we hit the road and I gave the kids an article about the true meaning of Memorial Day to read, along with the citations for the two Medal of Honor recipients buried at Florida National: Sergeant Major Franklin D. Miller and Master Sergeant James R. Hendrix.

I was quite surprised, and pleasantly so, to pull off the Interstate into a mile and a half backup of cars in line to enter the cemetery.

I think this is the only time in my life that arriving somewhere to a huge crowd and line to get in has made me happy. I actually got a stupid grin on my face that prompted my daughter to ask why I was smiling. Because it restored my faith in Americans.

We parked far to the back of the cemetery and walked back up to the center, arriving late, but in time for the end of the service: gun salute, taps, Amazing Grace on the bagpipes, followed by the retiring of the colors and benediction.

That seemed long enough for the attention-span of an eleven- and a fifteen-year old, so we started back to the car – the boy-child leading, because he remembered the way.

As we walked, he said: “I’m not going to play my DSi [Nintendo video game] until we’re out of the cemetery.”

I was surprised by this, because the DSi is his latest obsession and only a month old. It’s tough to get it out of his hands. So I asked why.

“To show respect.”

I had to smile again … that wasn’t something I’d expected.

After leaving the cemetery, we stopped at the nearby Dade Battlefield State Park. Site of the battle in 1835 that started the Second Seminole War.

It’s a small park with a museum and information about the battle, picnic pavilions and a short nature trail.

Free Trade

2010-05-30T20:46:00.001-04:00

I just finished watching the 4/29 episode of Stossel on Hulu:

As a libertarian (mostly) myself, I usually agree with Stossel on most things. In this show he takes on the issue of Free Trade, though, and I have to disagree with his conclusion. Or, at least, with a fundamental basis of his conclusion.

Stossel contends that Free Trade is good:

It’s not “exploitive” to pay workers in other countries, say, $2 an hour if the typical wage there is $0.50 an hour or something like that.
Child labor in developing countries is not, necessarily, an evil. It’s representative of that country’s level of economic development, similar to times in the West when children worked in factories.
Jobs “lost” to overseas are easy to track, but the jobs gained from people getting lower priced goods and having more money to spend on other things or invest are harder to track.
Free Trade results in lower priced goods for the US and jobs and economic development in developing nations.

All of this I agree with. Where we disagree is on the definition of Free Trade.

Lou Dobbs was a guest on the show and took the “opposing” view. Like me, his position is not anti-Free Trade, it’s a difference of opinion about what Free Trade is.

Unfortunately, aside from affirming that he had once called Stossel a “self-important ass” and calling one of the other guests on the show an “idiot”, Dobbs had trouble articulating his position in a way others could understand it. I think the problem is that Dobbs is too intelligent and lacks the ability to make analogies others can understand.

I believe I understood and agree with him. Dobbs’ position is not that Free Trade is bad, but that what passes for “Free Trade” today isn’t Free Trade.

China was a major example of both sides of the argument and our massive trade deficit with that country. Stossel and other guests maintained that this was not a problem, while Dobbs’ opinion was that it was, because the “Free Trade” wasn’t reciprocal – that the trade barriers put up by China to our goods and services make the trading relationship uneven and detrimental to the US.

I agree.

Stossel made the argument with analogies from daily life. He buys coffee at a coffee stand, groceries at a market, gets a shoeshine on the street and buys a pretzel from a vendor. He claims that these are examples of Free Trade and that he runs a trade deficit with all of these vendors, because they don’t buy anything back from him.

He’s half-right.

These are examples of Free Trade, but he has no way of knowing whether or not they buy anything from him, because his product is a television show. For all he knows, everyone working in that market could watch his show – effectively buying his product – see the advertisements that pay for his show and possibly buy those products.

This is an example of Free Trade, and he’s right that it benefits all concerned, but it’s not an example of our trading relationship with China.

A better analogy would be if he bought an apple from the market, but the owners of the market [Chinese government] forbade any of the employees [citizens] from watching Stossel or buying his advertised products. Or if the owners [government] charged a premium for him to air his show to the employees [citizens] or tacked an extra 50% tariff onto his advertisers’ products.

That’s not Free Trade and neither is what we have with China and some other countries.

Corporate “Customer Service”: The Fucking Stupid

2009-06-30T17:22:00.001-04:00

So after posting my little trio of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of customer service experiences I’ve had over the last couple months, I realized that there’s a fourth: The Fucking Stupid.

This is an example of a company so greedy and intent on screwing their customer that they simply don’t deserve to be in business – so, of course, it must be a cell-phone provider.

Back in May I upgraded to a Crackberry on my Verizon wireless service and I was quite happy with it for a few days … until I tried to download a GPS application from Blackberry AppWorld. Curiously, it couldn’t connect to the 8310’s GPS.

So I downloaded another GPS app … can’t connect.

So I tried something mainstream, like Google Maps … can’t connect to the GPS.

So I tried the built-in Blackberry Maps application … can’t connect to the GPS.

Maybe my new Crackberry is broken. :( But it can’t be, because, hey, the Verizon Navigator application that costs $9.99 a month works fine with the GPS. What could be going on?

That’s right … Verizon had Blackberry cripple the GPS on the 8310 so that it only works with Verizon “approved” applications. Meaning the ones that have paid Verizon some cash or that the Verizon customer is paying Verizon some cash for – not the free ones that everybody else with a Blackberry can download and use fine.

It’s not the first time Verizon’s done something like this, of course, they did it with Bluetooth years ago. And I suppose we shouldn’t expect much from a company that can’t do simple math.

As a result, for the first time in years I’m seriously looking at other providers. AT&T offers comparable coverage at a lower price and has “rollover minutes” – and doesn’t cripple the Blackberry’s GPS.

Corporate “Customer Service”: The Ugly

2009-06-30T16:51:00.001-04:00

In May, TGI Friday’s ran a $5 sandwich and salad promotion. Being ~~a cheap bastard~~ frugal, I took advantage of the deal and found, possibly, my favorite sandwich at a chain like this: the Jack Daniel’s Chicken Sandwich. It’s a grilled chicken breast with cheese, bacon and the Friday’s Jack Daniel’s sauce. Very, very tasty.

The problem occurs because I don’t like a bunch of crap on my sandwich, so I order it without lettuce, tomato, etc. Now keep in mind that I’m not asking them to add anything, I’m asking them keep these items – which, ultimately, saves the restaurant money on the product. So imagine my surprise when I’m told I can’t “hold the lettuce”, because it might confuse the cooks …

John Neitzel
President
TGI Friday’s, Inc.
4201 Marsh Ln.
Carrollton, TX 75007-1720

Re: Corporate policy regarding customer changes to new items

Mr. Neitzel,

I am writing to you to relate my recent experience at a TGI Friday’s in Orlando, Florida.

I visited the restaurant in response to your current promotion of $5 sandwiches and salads. On this visit, I ordered the Jack Daniels Chicken Sandwich, which, by the way, is a very good product and I will be returning to Friday’s often for it.

I am a customer who does not typically like everything that comes on a sandwich in a restaurant, so I almost always ask to have things left off. In this case, I asked the server to hold the lettuce, tomato, pickle and mayo. I was completely shocked when the server replied:

“I’m sorry, we’re not supposed to do that. It’s a new item and the cooks aren’t used to it yet.”

I was, frankly, aghast and this showed as I answered that she had to be kidding. She then offered to check with the head of the kitchen and returned to tell me that I would be getting my sandwich as ordered.

I assumed that this was a misunderstanding on her part, so I asked to speak to the manager while leaving – thinking that the manager would coach the server to ensure another guest wasn’t told this. Unfortunately I was to become even more shocked when the manager told me that this was a corporate policy and that changes to “new” items are discouraged during the first two weeks except in cases “of allergy or if the guest is adamant.”

She did suggest that the server would be coached in a “better” way to tell guests this, to which I replied that there is absolutely no way you could tell me this as a customer that wouldn’t piss me off.

This policy is, to be frank, the most absurd thing I have ever heard of from a customer-service perspective. I can understand denying unreasonable requests to alter a menu item, for instance if I asked for the Jack Daniel’s Chicken Sandwich with steak instead of chicken. Or requests that can’t be accommodated, such as removing ingredients from a pre-made entrée. But to tell a customer “no” to leaving things off a sandwich?

Yes, apparently you have a policy of allowing it if the guest is adamant, but I ask you: Should I, as a paying customer in your restaurant, have to start my visit by having to fight to get the pickle and mayo left off a sandwich?

The only thing that kept this incident from making my visit distasteful was that the absolute absurdity of it made me laugh. This policy was obviously put in place by a corporate manager who has never had experience with the customer-facing aspect of the business – either that or someone who’s a plant from one of your competitors and hopes to drive your customers away with ridiculous idiocy.

I found it funny the first time, but when it happens again it will be irritating and will eventually cause me to eat elsewhere when I am no longer amused. I suggest, in the strongest possible terms, that you ask your employees who actually work with customers what they think of this policy and make changes accordingly.

The courtesy of a reply is requested – I may be contacted at the above address, phone number and email address.

So why is this The Ugly of customer Service? Because, to date, I haven’t received a reply from Friday’s. Aside from the pure ugliness of the original issue, not replying to a customer complaint is scraping the bottom of the customer service barrel. Friday’s is down their with the DMV, in my opinion.

Does this mean I won’t go to Friday’s again? No, I’ll go back – especially when they have a new menu item that I might like to modify in some way. I intend to try all their new items and be “adamant” in my demands to customize it – maybe if they get enough complaints from the store level they’ll rethink this absurd policy.

In the meantime, if you want to try the sandwich without the bullshit, you can make one at home. Head over to Top Secret Recipes and get the free clone recipe of the Friday’s Jack Daniel’s sauce.

The sauce is super-easy to make and for a couple dollars you can have it around for anything you want. It’s actually better than at Friday’s, because you can customize the sauce – I like a bit more cayenne for a little extra kick.

The Good

The Bad

Corporate “Customer Service”: The Bad

2009-06-30T16:50:00.001-04:00

The “bad” experience with customer service has more to do with the initial contact than the follow-up action, but I think the details of the situation warrant the label because a good company would never have let it happen in the first place.

The context of this issue is simple: I purchased a laptop from Alienware in January 2009 and some time in late April the motherboard shorted out. Despite my “on-site” warranty that I paid extra for, they had me ship it to them – which is okay, though irritating, because a motherboard replacement is more difficult than other repairs. But when I call to check on it after two weeks and they first can’t find it, then haven’t started on the repair work …

Arthur Lewis
Alienware Corporate Headquarters
14591 SW 120 ST
Miami, FL 33186-8638

Mr. Lewis,

I am writing to you to express my dissatisfaction with the technical support and warranty service I have received for an m17 laptop I purchased in January 2009.

From receipt of the laptop until late April I was quite pleased with the product. I found it to be a highly performant system and I was quite satisfied that the $3000 it cost had been well spent. Furthermore, I found the level of communication provided by the Alienware site throughout the build and delivery process to be far above anything I had experienced or expected in purchasing a PC. Unfortunately, all of that changed in late April.

On April 22nd, there was a loud pop and beep followed by the system powering off and it would not power back up. I contacted Alienware support and was pleased to get a representative after only a short wait. The representative worked with me to diagnose the problem and informed me that I would have to ship the laptop back to Alienware for repair. I was a bit unhappy about this, because of the “onsite” warranty, but I understand that a significant repair, such as motherboard replacement, which this was, should be done under more controlled conditions.

I boxed the laptop up and delivered it to Federal Express that afternoon. The shipment was received by Alienware on April 24th. I only know that it was delivered on the 24th because I checked the FedEx website – there was no communication from Alienware that the shipment had arrived. In fact, I received no communication from Alienware at all until I contacted support myself on May 11th – fully two weeks after your receipt of the laptop.

On May 11th, the person I spoke to informed me that they had no information whatsoever about the status of the laptop or its repair. He indicated that he would email the “department” to find out and I should call back the next day.

On May 12th I called back and was informed that the system was not currently being worked due to a lack of parts. I questioned both the issue of it having been two weeks since the laptop had arrived with no work being done and that there had been no communication of its status. I was informed that for warranty work “we don’t have to contact you.”

It was at this point that I asked to speak to a supervisor, but the operator continued to talk about warranty work. I again asked to speak to a supervisor and the operator told me: “I let you finish now I get to” and continued to talk about a lack of parts. I explained the operator had an unhappy customer on the phone and that I wanted to speak to a supervisor and that her continuing to say the same thing over and over was only making the situation worse.

I was finally put in touch with a supervisor who reiterated the problem with the motherboard being out of stock and promised to check on things and get back to me within the next day or two (May 13th or 14th). As of this writing, I have received no further communication.

At this point, I am extremely dissatisfied with the level of support I have received from Alienware after the sale. The measure of a company’s commitment to customer service is not how well they treat the customer when trying to get their money, but when there’s a problem after they have it. Alienware makes the following statement on their website:

“Alienware® is known for outstanding customer service and technical support. Alienware® takes pride in providing the best service and support in the industry and strives to continually go beyond what is expected.”

I do not feel that your company has met this goal with regard to my issue.

First, I feel that two weeks of no contact on a warranty repair is unacceptable. I would expect to receive the same level of communication that I did before the sale. In fact, being told early on that there was a parts issue would have gone a long way toward setting my expectations and would probably have left me far less unhappy with the situation.

Second, the m17 seems to be a new product and for there to be no replacement motherboards in your repair depot seems indicative of one of two problems: either there was a planning failure that resulted in not allocating enough replacement parts vs. those for new systems or the product itself is inherently defective, resulting in a higher than expected number of repairs being necessary. Neither of these possibilities speaks well of Alienware.

Third, the response to a customer asking to speak to a supervisor should be nothing other than “right away, sir.” Telling an irate customer “you got to finish so now I do” is, frankly, unacceptable and that person should not be working in a support call center.

Fourth, I was specifically told that I would receive a call to update me on the situation and status – I have not. To tell a customer you’ll call and then not do so is extremely poor customer service.

I understand that warranty work is not of the highest priority. I also understand that parts shortages happen. I do not understand the lack of communication or, frankly, rude treatment of a customer.

This laptop is critical to me at this time. I purchased it specifically for its quadcore processor because I give technical presentations on parallel processing to programming users’ groups and code camps. The multiple cores are critical to these presentations and I don’t have another laptop with its capabilities.

Due to this issue, I have already had to cancel one appearance and decline another. I will likely have to cancel my presentations at a code camp in early June due to not having an adequate system.

I also need this system functioning in order to begin work on a book on parallel computing which I was due to start next week. I have since had to inform my publisher that there will be delays in the code samples and screenshots due to this issue.

At each of the presentations I’ve done since receiving this laptop, Alienware has gotten quite a bit of exposure. Each presentation consists of thirty to fifty attendees and the glowing Alienware logo is visible to the entire audience for over an hour each time. At every talk I have had questions about the specifications of the laptop, because part of my demo includes showing Task Manager and the quadcore is impressive. Invariably I have spoken about how pleased I am with the system.

My hope is that this will not change. I hope that my experience with warranty support so far has been an aberration and is not consistent with Alienware’s commitment to “outstanding customer service and technical support”. I would like to think that you will find this situation as unacceptable as I do and work to correct it, so that Alienware truly will “provid[e] the best service and support in the industry”.

I am not asking for special treatment or to be jumped to the head of the line for repair when motherboards do become available. I simply wish to make you aware of my experience in the hopes that you will find some way to correct the problem, both for me and for any other customers currently waiting unreasonable amounts of time for warranty work and being ill-treated by Alienware’s support personnel.

The courtesy of a reply is appreciated – I can be reached at the above address, telephone number and email address.

I sent that letter on May 15th, after I’d not received the promised return call from the supervisor I’d spoken to. On May 19th I received my repaired system and on May 20th I received an email from Alienware’s CEO’s office in response to my letter – I’m happy I got my system back, but the issue shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Alienware has wonderful communication during their build process – you can go to their website and see exactly what stage of the process your new system is in and a constantly updated estimate of the ship date. After the sale, not so much – and that’s when they really need it.

I’m pretty sure I got special treatment as a result of my conversation with the supervisor, because I made him aware of my presentations as well. The image of the glowing, Alienware logo facing a few dozen computer programmers with an “Ask Me Why Alienware Sucks” sticker underneath it is something I’m sure they’d rather avoid. The “bad” part of this, even though I got my system back so quickly after contacting them, is that the average customer wouldn’t have. And that’s wrong.

My comment about not having the parts still holds – either they can’t calculate how many parts they need or the system’s are breaking faster than anticipated. Neither answer gives me a warm fuzzy about the company and this might impact my decision on where to buy next time – maybe not, we’ll see.

I should have been a little wary when I found out that Alienware was now owned by Dell – since Dell sucks – but they’re a separate division. Unfortunately, I think the support and repair is shared, which means you get the Dell-treatment after the sale.

The Good

and The Ugly

Corporate “Customer Service”: The Good

2009-06-30T16:49:00.003-04:00

An example of good customer service comes from the Friendly’s ice cream chain. My family and I ate there some time ago and it seemed like there was a perfect storm of things going wrong with the evening and I sent the following letter to their CEO, copying the store manager:

George M. Condos
Friendly Ice Cream Corporation
1855 Boston Road
Wilbraham MA 01095

Mr. Condos:

I am writing to you to relate an unpleasant dining experience my family had this evening, April 8th, at the Friendly’s Restaurant at <location redacted>.

First, please let me assure you that this single experience will not keep us from dining at this or any other Friendly’s in the future. My family enjoys Friendly’s very much and this experience was not what we’ve come to expect in any way, so we assume it was an aberration and either the server or the restaurant as a whole was simply having an off-night. Had it been only one or two of the issues below, I would probably not be writing you, however everything that occurred combined to make the experience very unpleasant.

To start with, the service was, overall, very slow. An example of this is that we arrived at the restaurant shortly before 6:00 – 5:55, to be exact – and were seated. Our drink order was taken and arrived some time later, however it was incorrect. It was not until 6:24, almost thirty full minutes from our arrival time, that everyone at the table (four patrons) had received the correct drink – this on a Wednesday evening, not the busiest time.

Placing our orders also became an issue, as we had two requests that could not be accommodated. We asked if other “melts” could perhaps be substituted for the BBQ chicken melt currently on special – we were told this was not allowed and that, as a matter of policy, was fine with us. The second request had to do with our nine-year old son’s meal. He has a number of food allergies, wheat and dairy among them, so ordering in a restaurant is always difficult for us. All Friendly’s that we’ve been to have been very accommodating in substituting a grilled chicken option for the breaded items on the children’s menu – tonight was no exception and we truly appreciate that. However we also asked to substitute a second child’s side item instead of ice cream. We were told that this couldn’t be accommodated because of the computer.

It seems to me that substituting a small serving of apples for the ice cream option is a reasonable request. Moreover, as a computer programmer and an employee of a company whose motto is “Customer Service Excellence”, I cannot imagine using a computer limitation to deny such a simple customer request.

Drinks proved to be a continuing issue. My son had ordered a blue, bubblegum drink and after taking a few sips we noticed something on the inside of the glass. It appeared to be a bug of some kind. After waiting for the server to return, we pointed this out and she brought a replacement. Upon inspection, however, this too proved to have something foreign in it, a black object approximately 1/8” square. At this point, the server offered to bring the drink in a kid’s cup so “we wouldn’t have to worry about it”.

I would truly hope, Mr. Condos, that patrons of Friendly’s don’t have to resort to disposable glasses in order to avoid worry about unknown material in their beverages. I would also like to note that there was, at no time, an apology offered for being served two drinks with foreign matter in them.

While waiting for the check we overheard another table also ask to substitute a different melt on the special. These patrons insisted that they had previously been allowed to do this and the server checked with the manager, who agreed. A substitution policy should be consistent, either yes or no, and the staff should be aware of it, so that one patron isn’t told no and then see another told yes.

At the end of our meal, as we left the table at 7:22, an hour and twenty-seven minutes after arriving at the restaurant, it was amusing to note that in the time from ordering our ice cream until paying the check, the table behind us had been seated, ordered, been served, eaten an entire steak dinner, received their check, paid and was ready to leave as well.

Again, I wish to point out that we have had many other, very pleasant, dining experiences at Friendly’s over the years and that any issue or two I would typically ignore, but the totality of this evening’s dining experience left me quite frustrated.

The courtesy of a reply would be appreciated – I may be reached at the above address, phone number or email address.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter,

So what was the result of this?

Well, I received a letter of apology from the corporate offices, along with a $25 gift card, which was very nice of them, but even more impressive was that I received a call from the store’s manager, as well.

The manager and I had a nice chat and what impressed me the most was that she detailed for me the steps she’d taken to ensure things like we’d experienced didn’t happen again. Most importantly, she instituted a policy for her store where the servers were not to refuse a customer request without taking it to a manger first. I think this is a good policy because having the manager responsible is a big step towards consistency and it removes the server from the line of fire with the customer. Telling a customer “no” shouldn’t be their responsibility, that should be management.

She also invited us back for dinner on the house, which really wasn’t necessary but was greatly appreciated.

In my opinion, Friendly’s went beyond what a customer could reasonably expect to make the issue right and they deserve kudos for their excellent customer service at both the corporate and local levels.

The Bad

and The Ugly

Corporate “Customer Service”

2009-06-30T16:49:00.001-04:00

Or, as talk-show host Clark Howard calls it, Customer No-Service, as the case may be.

Over the last month or so, I’ve had cause to contact the customer service departments of three different companies, Friendly’s Restaurants, TGI Friday’s and Alienware, with dramatically different results.

As a customer, I have certain expectations in my dealings with companies. One of them is that I expect things to go well – that should, after all, be the norm, not the exception. So when things go wrong or badly, I let the company know about it – and it’s the company’s response when things go wrong that’s the measure of that their commitment to their customers (you know, the people with the money). A good company will try to make things right with a customer, within reason, and a bad company won’t.

In case there’s any doubt, I think company’s should be treated like dogs – when they behave well, they should be rewarded and when they don’t …

Bad company! No dollars for you!

Why should I, or you, give your hard-earned dollars to someone who doesn’t treat you well?

So, as a public service, I will now present my experiences with different levels of customer service over the last month or so as …

The Good

The Bad

and The Ugly

The Blogger Next Door - Update

2009-05-01T17:52:00.001-04:00

It’s been about a month since I made my post about The Blogger Next Door, referring to Bil Simser’s The Girl Next Door post – well, Bil has now posted an update, including pictures of Natalie receiving her new laptop with Dragon Naturally Speaking at her birthday party this week. On top of the laptop and software, Bil’s post raised $2100 to help Natalie’s family with the medical expenses.

A Bit About Nuance Communications and Dragon Naturally Speaking

One of the things I find most impressive about the result is the actions of Nuance Communications, makers of Dragon Naturally Speaking.

After reading Bil’s original post and making my own, I gave in to a bit of a whim and faxed a letter to the CEO of Nuance, referencing Bil’s blog and briefly describing the situation. I faxed that letter after close of business on a Friday afternoon.

Before 10:00 AM Monday morning, I had received an email from the Dragon Naturally Speaking Product Manager telling me that they had emailed Bil to offer a free copy of the software.

They really didn’t have to respond at all and certainly not that quickly, but they did – and it wasn’t because of any great amount of publicity they’d get for the deed. There were no national news vans hovering around this story – they did it because they were able to help and wanted to. That’s the best reason.

So, for what it’s worth coming from my little blog, the folks at Nuance are a stand-up group and I know I’ll be looking to them on any project I work on that might benefit from their products.

Torture is Effective -- So Stop Saying It Isn't and Argue That It's Simply Wrong

2009-04-26T17:26:00.001-04:00

Let’s talk about torture … after all, everybody is today. It’s all over the news.

We won’t talk about what torture is or if what’s being discussed in the news today qualifies, there’s too much difference of opinion on that – instead we’re going to talk about whether torture is an effective tactic to begin with. And, please, keep in mind that I haven’t told you what my opinion is on that – it might surprise you.

It’s become very popular today for those who do think the tactics used by US interrogator’s at Guantanamo to make a blanket statement that “torture is not effective”.

My problem with this statement is that it’s only situationally correct – meaning that it’s true sometimes and others not, but it’s being used in reference to a situation where it’s not true.

Now, the people saying it should know better, so they’re either stupid or being deliberately deceptive and that makes me distrust everything they say.

Torture, at its most basic, is designed to get the victim to do what you want him to. Whatever you’re asking for, eventually, he will give it to you just to make the pain stop.

The catch here is that if he knows the answer you’re looking for, he’ll give it to you even if it isn’t true.

This is why torture is not an effective tactic for gaining confessions – eventually, anyone will confess to anything, just to make the pain stop.

However, if you’re asking for information, information that only the victim has and you’re asking a general question, not giving him the answer you want, then torture is very effective. Here are examples:

“You’re a terrorist, aren’t you?” Bad question – the subject knows you want him to say “yes” and will eventually do so, no matter what the truth is.

“Where’s the bomb?” Good question – eventually, once the subject has been absolutely reduced to nothing, you’ll get the truth, because he wants the pain to stop and you’re not giving him an answer to parrot back. Sure, he’ll lie at first or refuse to answer, but eventually he’ll give you the same answer over and over again and you’ll know it’s the truth.

Now this post isn’t about whether torture is right or wrong – it isn’t about whether the US techniques qualify as torture – and it isn’t about whether torture is a fundamental violation of the principles this country was founded on … it’s only about whether it’s effective or not. Which it is.

These idiotic statements that it isn’t in these situations are demonstrably false … we know that we’ve gotten information, good information, truthful information, that stopped pending attacks on the US and other nations by using these techniques. So saying they’re “not effective” is a lie.

And if you’ll like about that, why should I listen to your opinion about whether or not it’s wrong?

If you want to convince people to oppose the practice, then you need to tell the truth and convince them of the position, not lie about its effectiveness.

The $100,000,000 Cup of Coffee

2009-04-21T19:16:00.001-04:00

What do $100,000,000, a Venti Latte and a pack of gum have in common? Well, they all have about the same significance … depending on your perspective.

Recently President Obama announced that he had instructed his Cabinet to cut $100,000,000 from the Federal Budget … and True Believers fell in line to praise this display of fiscal responsibility. But what, exactly, does a hundred million dollars really mean in the grand scheme of things?

The 2010 Federal Budget is a little over $3.5 trillion (tens of billions of dollars is “a little”, in this case), that’s $3,500,000,000,000 – which, in technical terms understood only by high-level money-managers, is sometimes referred to as “a shitload of money”.

Unfortunately, the 2010 federal income is projected to be only $2.4 trillion, leaving a deficit of a little over $1 trillion (“a little” is a hundred billion or so, in this case).

Not to mention the federal debt, money we already owe, of over $11 trillion. Keep in mind, as you listen to the talking heads, the difference between debt and deficit. The debt is what we already owe, the deficit is how much more we’ll owe for that year.

Now a bit of perspective …

How much is $1,000,000,000,000? You would have to spend $1,000 an hour, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year for … wait for it … 126,000 years in order to spend a single trillion.

How about some perspective on the whole mess? Let’s put it in terms everyone can understand by making the comparison to a family, say a family of four where both the mom and dad work modest jobs and earn a total of $120,000 a year. That’s not rich, that’s a firefighter and teacher raising a family.

So this family earns $120,000 a year, but they spend $177,500 a year … or almost $60,000 more than they make. Every year. Plus, they already owe $560,000, or almost five times their annual salary.

What would you think of such a family? Would you think they were fiscally responsible, or complete morons who have no concept of money management?

Let’s go further in our example and say that this family sits down and goes over their finances and decides that they may be spending too much money, so they ponder and come up with a plan that cuts their spending by … wait for it … $5. For the year.

That’s it … they owe half a million dollars, spend tens of thousands more than they earn each year, but they’re happy because they saved five bucks.

That $100,000,000 in spending cuts is the equivalent of the family’s $5 (do the math). It’s meaningless … Obama, essentially, ordered the Executive Branch to skip a stop at Starbucks for one day.

Was $120,000 a year too much income for you to relate to? Let’s give an example right at the poverty line, a family of four earning only $21,600 a year. That’s not a lot of money to raise a family on, in fact, it’d be almost impossible … but what would you think of that family if they actually spent $32,000 a year and already owed over $100,000?

And then they got excited and bragged because they’d cut their spending by ninety cents for the year? Can you even buy a pack of gum for ninety cents?

Those two examples are simply taking the 2010 budget, deficit and the current national debt and dividing them enough to get the income down to understandable levels – by 20,000,000 and 110,000,000, respectively.

You should be disgusted with those two hypothetical families and you should be disgusted with the crew in Washington, because, unlike those families, Congress and the President are spending your money. They’ve taken the American family and its income, which comes from all of us in taxes, and they’ve been as stupid and profligate as these examples.

Then they have the audacity to proudly proclaim that they cut their ridiculous budget by $100,000,000? They skipped Starbucks for a day … they didn’t buy a pack of gum. You should be pissed and you should write your Congressman and Senators and the President to tell them that you’re pissed:

http://www.house.gov
http://www.senate.gov
http://www.whitehouse.gov

In addition to being pissed, you should be offended that anyone is suggesting those $100,000,000 in cuts are, in any way, significant … they’re trying to make you think skipping a day’s coffee is real change, and it isn’t. Real change would be skipping Starbucks every day, not just once.

For real change, we need a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution and leaders in Washington who are willing to make the hard decisions necessary to stop the profligate waste and demand fiscal responsibility with their votes.

Use the links above to send Washington a message about spending or sign The Bloviater’s free RallyCongress petition to send your Senators and Representative this message:

I am writing to you as a concerned citizen, taxpayer and voter.

The 2010 Federal Budget projects a deficit of over $1 trillion, an unsustainable level of spending and accumulation of debt. While it took the United States until the 1980s, over two hundred years, to accumulate $1 trillion dollars in debt, we are now adding that amount every year. Our children and grandchildren will not be able to pay the interest on this debt, much less the principle.

I urge you to take a stand and vote against deficit spending and against any proposed budget with a deficit. In addition I urge you to support and encourage amending the Constitution to require that the Federal Budget be balanced and not allow the incursion of debt, except in time of national emergency.

If a family or company were in the same debt and spending pattern as the United States, it would have no choice but bankruptcy. The time for fiscal responsibility is now, and we, the people, depend on our elected representatives to show leadership and make the hard, necessary decisions in these troubled times. The necessary decision now is to stop spending money that the United States does not have and never will.

Sign the petition now and tell Washington that the American Family, like any other, must live within its means.

Two Years Without Television – Windows Media Center and Streaming Alternatives to Cable

2009-04-13T17:50:00.001-04:00

March marked two years since I stopped paying for cable or satellite television. No, I didn’t string a cable from the neighbor’s box, neither did I give up watching movies and television shows altogether – I simply stopped paying cable and satellite providers for content that was already being paid for via advertising.

At the time I made the decision to do this I’d noticed that most of the programs I watched were made available on DVD at some point, and that I’d almost always rent the DVDs to catch up on missed episodes; also, online alternatives were becoming more prevalent, so what was the point in paying exorbitant cable or satellite fees?

So I set about building a Windows Media Center PC and, since I’m lazy, ripping all my DVDs so I wouldn’t have to get off the couch to watch one. Actually, Media Center wasn’t my first choice – I was originally going to simply build a file server and get a media extender device, like those from DLink. In fact, my first purchase toward this goal was a DLink DSM-320RD.

The 320 worked wonderfully for streaming music, but I soon found problems with video, especially DVD-quality video and the device’s interface. The way these devices typically work is that video is streamed from a PC to the device, so the server software is important. After trying the software that came with the 320, the compatible software from Nero and the free TVersity, I finally gave up on the dedicated-device solution and decided to hook a PC directly to the television.

Base Hardware

One nice thing about building a Media Center PC these days is that you don’t need to get the latest, fastest hardware in order to make it work. Ultimately all it’s doing is playing video, so there’s not a lot of horsepower required.

Intel Dual-Core 1.6GHz
2 GB
On-board 256 MB Video with DVI connector
300 GB Main Drive
SoundBlaster Live! 24-bit External
Media Center Remote
Wireless Keyboard and Mouse

This has proven to be plenty of power, even with some other things I run on the system, which we’ll get to in a bit.

Television

I started with a 42” Mitusbishi real-projection television that we already had. In fact, this is the reason I chose a motherboard that had DVI out for the video, instead of HDMI. Though HDMI was newer and better, the existing television, that was already a few years old, didn’t support it, so I went with DVI.

After connecting the television and the PC, I ran into the problem of overscan, or the fact that tube and projection televisions project outside the border of the television itself. This is somewhat incompatible with computer video, so some of the desktop was cut off along the four sides. Media Center adjusts for this phenomena, but the Windows desktop doesn’t, making the experience fine in Media Center, but rather awkward using the browser.

Last year I replaced the television with an LCD – since LCD’s don’t have an overscan problem, I now have a true 1080p desktop.

Software

Everything you really need is included in Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate. There are a lot of people out there who still use XP Media Center Edition, but I’ve been running Vista for two years now and haven’t had a single problem that was Vista’s fault. That being said, I’ll still be switching to Windows 7 Media Center, because of the new features.

A nice thing about Media Center, though, is that it’s extensible and there are two plugins that are essential.

First, is the MyNetflix plugin, written by Anthony Park. Obviously, since my goal was to replace cable and satellite with online and DVD, Netflix was a critical component to my solution, but beyond the mailed DVDs is the Watch Now feature of Netflix. The MyNetflix plugin provides a Media Center interface to Watch Now, allowing you to browse, search and view Watch Now offerings from within Media Center.

You can also browse your mail queue and search for movies, adding them to your mail or Watch Now queues with a Media Center remote.

MyNetflix is free, but donations are accepted.

The second essential plugin is My Movies from Binnerup Consulting. My Movies is important to me because it helps organize my DVD collection and plays them from the hard drive.

My Movies has tons of features, including a comprehensive database of DVD information – front and back cover art, cast and crew, categories, and descriptions. All of this is searchable and browsable through the Media Center interface, so you can, for instance, find all the movies you have that star a particular actor.

My Movies manages a DVD collection whether you rip them to hard drive or not and supports several DVD carousels. Even without having the DVD online, it’s nice to have a database of your collection and My Movies also allows you to export your collection data to a website provided by Binnerup – here’s mine.

Getting movies into My Movies is easy, the software can recognize a DVD when it’s inserted into the drive by its Disc ID. Alternatively you can enter its barcode or scan the barcode with a webcam, search the main My Movies database by title, or enter the data manually. That last option is useful for entering your own videos – for instance I have all of my family’s Christmas and birthday videos, as well as my daughter’s dance recitals, as part of the collection, so when someone visits I can just browse to these with the remote and show hours of family videos …

There’s also a My Movies client, written by a third-party, that can access the My Movies database from any Windows client, even without Media Center. I put this on my son’s XP system so he can watch movies in his room. With My Movies and this client, my original DVD discs remain safely stored away, no matter how many times he wants to watch Star Wars.

My Movies is also free, with donations accepted.

One change I’ve made to my Vista configuration is to enable multiple Remote Desktop Sessions – this is a hack that lets me access the Media Center PC remotely while it’s also running a session on the television. This allows me to use the Media Center PC to perform other tasks even while I’m watching something. What tasks? Well, I’ve used it to capture and process video from old VHS tapes, download large files, even to rip a new DVD while watching a different movie – the CPU isn’t really struggling to play video, either streaming or from a file, so there’s plenty of processing power available for me to use.

Ripping DVDs

I use two programs from Slysoft for ripping DVDs: AnyDVD and CloneDVD. This combination allows me to rip just the title and audio tracks I want, leaving behind the trailers, menus, special features and other languages. Doing this reduces the amount of space necessary to store the main title, which is what I typically watch anyway – if I want to watch a special feature, I can always dig the original disc out of storage.

This space savings is important to me – a typical DVD, with all features and sound, runs upwards of 7GB, but stripped of non-essentials, they average between three and six. One or two gigs may not seem like a lot to save, but added up over four hundred titles, it becomes significant.

Storage

I went ‘round-and-‘round on the storage issue at the beginning, debating between internal storage and external. Remember my original intent was to build a file server and stream to a media device, so internal storage made sense, but when I changed my mind on that it also changed the storage solution.

With a streaming solution, I could put the file server in a back room or closet, which would solve two problems: dirt and noise. See there are three dogs and nine cats in my house … yeah, I know … so dust and hair are issues. A lot of internal drives would mean a case with a lot of fans, and a lot of fans add up to two things: noise and openings in the case. Having that amount of fan and drive noise in my living room when I’m trying to enjoy a movie wasn’t optimal – neither was having a case with so many infiltration points for dust and hair.

I could have built two systems, and may take that route one day, but I also wanted to keep startup costs low and build up drive space over time as I expanded my library, so I went with external drives. The current storage solution is made up of:

Western Digital My Book World Edition 1 TB Network Attached Storage (quantity 2)
Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 1 TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive
Iomega Prestige 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive

The World Books attach directly to the network and the USB drives hang off of them, giving me 4TB of storage on the network. All the drives were acquired over the last two years by carefully scouring sales, closeouts and store-closings, so I was able to pick them up for much less than the normal price, making it a pretty cheap 4TB.

On a separate note, I think it’s utterly amazing that we live in a world where I can have 4TB of data storage in my house. To put it in perspective, when I bought my first hard drive, a 20MB drive for my Apple IIgs, it cost around $600 – today, for less than that, I have 4TB just for digital media. I can’t imagine what will be available in another twenty years or what we’ll use it for … it’s amazing.

Network

I quickly found that wireless simply wasn’t fast or reliable enough to serve video in my environment, so I had to string some cable. My house has steel studs and wireless has always been a challenge here. I took the opportunity, while up in the attic, to drop cables into the kids’ rooms as well, so now the only computers not wired are the laptops. Since they’re usually in the same place all the time, I may break down and string some cable for them, too, leaving the wireless solely for visitors. From a security-standpoint, I like this idea, too.

Streaming

In addition to DVDs, the Internet a source for me to find video content, with Hulu and FanCast being my favorites. Although there isn’t an official Media Center plugin available for either site, there is a third-party option in beta. The SecondRun.tv plugin doesn’t only work with Hulu and Fancast, but other providers as well.

SecondRun has an advantage in that it’s network- and show-based, so content from multiple sources is aggregated based on the program or network, not the streaming provider. A disadvantage is that, since it’s not provider-based, you have to browse for shows, rather than setting up your Hulu queue and playing that.

I like SecondRun for browsing shows … a lot … but I still want a Hulu plugin for Media Center so that my subscriptions will just show up in my queue.

In the meantime, I’ll simply use a browser. With Vista set to a large font and a wireless keyboard/mouse, the browser has a decent ten-foot experience. I can live with it until someone (or me) gets fed up and writes a plugin that accesses the queue.

Done

So that’s it … two years with no cable or satellite bill, I figure that’s saved me close to a couple thousand dollars, more than paying for the hardware. The Netflix subscription has a fee, but I’d have been paying that anyway to get new movies to watch, so it’s a wash.

It’s a little different – with some shows there’s a delay before they’re available online, so I’m not always “up-to-date” when talking to others about the show, and I’m a year behind if I wait for the DVDs; but even that has advantages, because I can sit down with the full set of DVDs and watch an entire season without having to wait a week between episodes. I like that.

I really think streaming is the future and sites like Hulu and FanCast have it right – on-demand content supported by advertising. I’m okay with the ads because they pay for the show and they’re shorter and fewer than in broadcast television. In fact, I’m looking forward to the day when one of those sites ties the viewer’s profile to the ad-server, so the ads can be targeted better. Like Google Adwords, being able to target specific markets, instead of just everyone who watches a show, will make the ads more valuable – which translates into fewer ads being necessary and better content … and maybe seeing ads that the viewer’s actually interested in.

As more content moves online, and more viewers realize they have options other than the traditional cable and satellite companies, it’ll be interesting to see how those companies react to the changing market.

Without Regard for Law

2009-04-07T12:10:00.001-04:00

In a nation supposedly ruled by law, not men, those are four words with a chilling effect, but that’s exactly the language introduced into our 111th Congress by Senator John Rockafeller (D –WV), cosponsored by Senators Snow (R – ME), Bayh (D – IN) and Nelson (D – FL), via Senate Bill 778 (S.778).

This bill deals with “cybersecurity” and the creation of multiple government programs to address the security and stability of critical networks. It is described as: “A bill to establish, within the Executive Office of the President, the Office of National Cybersecurity Advisor.”

This seems a worthy goal, after all the vulnerability of networks critical to the national security of the United States is pretty much a given, but way down on page forty of the bill is this language, stating that the Secretary of Commerce:

Oppose This Bill

14(B)(1) shall have access to all relevant data concerning such networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access; [emphasis added]

Obviously they’re only talking about government networks, right? Think again:

14(a) DESIGNATION.—The Department of Commerce
shall serve as the clearinghouse of cybersecurity threat
and vulnerability information to Federal government and
private sector owned critical infrastructure information
systems and networks. [emphasis added]

This bill gives the Executive Branch the power to designate any network as “critical infrastructure” and then access all data about it “without regard to any provision of law”. What is “relevant data”? Who decides what’s relevant? The Executive Branch, of course.

So we will have a branch of the Federal Government empowered to decide what data they want, what network they want it from and may demand access to that information “without regard [for] law”.

Oppose This Bill

Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, if you care about your rights, the Constitution and civil liberties, you should care about this legislation. The language above goes too far, giving unprecedented powers for the Federal Government to spy, at will, on virtually all network activity in the United States. Not just spy, but to demand access and records and data from the private owners of those networks.

We can do something about this. We can create a public upswell of opposition to this language that will have it removed from the bill – and don’t get me wrong, there are some decent things in this bill, overall, but this language and this new government power must be opposed.

I urge you to contact your Senators through Senate.gov or through The Bloviater’s petition and ask them to oppose the inclusion of these powers in S.778 – following is a sample email:

I am writing to you to express my opposition to provisions in S.778 ("A bill to establish, within the Executive Office of the President, the Office of National Cybersecurity Advisor.")

Section 14(B)(1) of this bill would empower the Secretary of Commerce to access information and data regarding any network or system deemed "critical" to national security interests:

"without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting
such access"

The United States is a nation founded on the Rule of Law, protected by inviolable rights guaranteed by the Constitution. S.778 is violation of those rights, allowing the Executive Branch to arbitrarily access systems, data and historical records without regard for existing laws and in direct opposition to the founding principles of this country.

I urge you to oppose this bill as written and to oppose any future version which includes this or similar language granting powers to the Executive Branch "without regard [for] law".

Using The Bloviater’s petition on this issue you can email the above letter to both your Senators just by entering your zipcode and address.

Full Text of S.778

Library of Congress status of S.778

GovTrack tracking of S.778

Book Recommendation: One Second After

2009-04-04T21:20:00.001-04:00

One of my favorite types of fiction is the displaced-person genre, stories where a person or group are dramatically displaced from their normal environment, especially where technology is involved. Whether it’s about someone with technical knowledge displaced to where that knowledge doesn’t exist yet (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Island in the Sea of Time and 1632) or apocalyptic tales of people reliant on technology when that technology or the society fails (Dies the Fire and The Stand), there’s something about these stories that appeals to me.

One Second After, by William R. Forstchen, is different than other books I’ve read in the genre because most of those others rely on a certain amount of fantasy or, at least, willing suspension of disbelief in order to achieve the displacement. One Second After doesn’t need to, its premise is all too real, believable and possible.

The premise of One Second After is: What would happen to a society if an EMP eliminated most technology?

A generally accepted fact is that an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) caused by a nuclear explosion at high-altitude would damage or destroy most unshielded electronics – so imagine the impact on your life if most electronics stopped working.

Not just our convenience and entertainment, but our very survival relies on electronics. The average city needs power to pump water to its citizens and trucks (modern trucks and cars need their electronics to run) to bring in more food. Modern medicine is based around technologically-sophisticated diagnostic equipment and drugs have to be shipped on a regular basis. Our entire financial system is dependent on electronics – it doesn’t matter how much money you have in the bank if the bank records are inaccessible and no one can take a debit card for payment.

One Second After does an excellent job of examining the consequences of all these things and more. It also explores the societal changes and how people and groups would behave in such a situation – not always pleasantly or likable, but very realistically.

There is one technical flaw in One Second After that drives me nuts … the author (or some dumb-ass editor) doesn’t understand the concept of contractions like “could have” and “could’ve”. He thinks people are saying “could of” … or “should of”, “would of”, etc. … which mean nothing in the English language, damn it! It’s “could’ve”, “should’ve”, “would’ve”!

But I’m picky and demanding and that sort of thing bugs me.

The story itself is well-written and believable … disturbing because of its very possibility.

Stupid People, Doing Stupid Things

2009-04-04T18:27:00.001-04:00

Bored rednecks, a 9MM automatic and a bulletproof vest … there’s no way this ends well …

Bulletproof Vest Test Goes Wrong - Watch more Funny Videos

Living With These Bastards in the House

2009-03-31T19:57:00.001-04:00

Charge 'em for the lice, extra for the mice
Two percent for looking in the mirror twice
Here a little slice, there a little cut
Three percent for sleeping with the window shut
When it comes to fixing prices
There are lots of tricks he knows
How it all increases, all them bits and pieces
Jesus! It's amazing how it grows!

Those who’ve seen Les Miserables will recognize this little ditty as Master of the House, sung by the innkeeper Thenardier about his ability to nickel-and-dime his customers on their charges.

These days, I think we’re living in a world where the Thenardiers have take over our State and Federal Houses – and they certainly know a lot of tricks:

$51 monthly tax to fund streetlights in Washington
6% tax on alcohol in Kentucky
3% extra on hotel beds in Nevada
Gas taxes being raised around the country
$0.62 a pack on cigarettes nationwide

These are in addition to the taxes that are already in place on these items, and it’s not the end:

States around the country are considering emulating Texas’ revolutionary tax on strip club admissions – despite a judge’s decision that stripping is Constitutionally protected speech and can’t be taxed
Nevada’s tacking on $5 to each transaction in legal brothels – no word if this is in addition to the 3% bed tax, maybe that’s only if you sleep in the bed
California’s considering a $50/ounce tax on legal marijuana sales – if it’s legal because it’s “medicinal”, isn’t this taxing health care?

Governments have historically gone for bizarre little taxes to raise money.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, there was a tax on windows – seriously, the taxman would count your windows and you’d have to pay based on the number. Think this is absurd and could never happen again? Nonsense, of course it could – there are suggestions to tax on windows today in order to make houses more “energy efficient”.

In Egypt, there was a tax on cooking oil – and a bureaucracy to check people’s consumption and make sure they weren’t cheating by cooking with other things. Couldn’t happen again? Some municipalities tax oils with trans-fats – sure, they’re not good for you, but shouldn’t that be your decision?

We’re not quite at the point of taxing urine (Nero) or our very souls (Peter the Great), but, for God’s sake be quiet about it so the politicians don’t get any ideas!

Why do they do this, though – don’t all these little taxes complicate things, make it harder, and even more expensive, to calculate and collect the taxes?

Well, yes, but it also makes it harder for the electorate, us, to get a handle on how much they’re rooking us for.

It’s April 1 tomorrow and we’re all the fools, because we’re letting them get away with it – and that’s because we don’t pay attention and we don’t take action.

Ask most Americans how much they make and they’ll start the sentence: “I take home…”

It’s not about what you take home, it’s about what gets taken from you.

Start with your paycheck – look at the line marked “gross pay” and add up everything that gets taken for taxes:

Federal Withholding
Social Security (FICA)
Medicare

Then remember that your employer pays another 6% in Social Security on your behalf – that’s a 6% cost of employing you, but you never see it.

You drive your car to work and home, but you paid taxes when you bought it, taxes when you registered it, and taxes every time you fill up that gas tank. Gas taxes, I might add, that amount to five times the profit an oil company makes on a gallon – who’s the evil gouger?

Everything you buy is taxed to some extent. Live in a state that doesn’t charge sales tax on food and think there’s really no tax there? Wrong, the grower, wholesaler and seller all pay taxes that get passed along to you in the price of the product.

Every breath you take, every move you make, every step you take, they’re taxing you. (Yes, another musical reference today.)

This will not change, it will not stop, until we take action and speak loudly enough to be heard by Washington.

In these last two weeks before April 15th, when income taxes are due, you should be angry – not only is Tax Day April 15th, but April 13th is Tax Freedom Day this year. For the average American, every dime earned, every hour worked from January 1st to April 13th went to pay taxes.

That’s 28% of the year – 28% of the work-year, so 28% of the average American’s income that’s gone to pay taxes. Imagine if you didn’t get to keep any of your money for those 103-days, would you be pissed enough then to send an email?

Contact Congress and demand change.

When it’s all said and done, I feel more and more like Madame Thernardier and her lyrics to wind up the number:

Master of the house? Isn't worth me spit!
`Comforter, philosopher' and lifelong shit!
Cunning little brain, regular Voltaire
Thinks he's quite a lover but there's not much there
What a cruel trick of nature landed me with such a louse
God knows how I've lasted living with this bastard in the House!

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

2009-03-29T11:12:00.001-04:00

You know what is interesting to me? Statistics.

Not so much the numbers themselves, but how they’re generated and how they can be manipulated to achieve an unrelated end – and, also, how people will, unthinkingly or intentionally, let their own biases provide a conclusion that isn’t directly supported by the numbers.

This weekend I had to attend an event at a local community college and, in a spare moment, picked up a discarded copy of their student newspaper, The Scribe. Something curious about The Scribe is that it doesn’t seem to have a web-presence – no online edition for me to link to. Possibly I just couldn’t find it, but I saw no web address in the paper and a cursory Google search found nothing either.

I assume that the students working on The Scribe have some interest in journalism, but given the state of newspapers today, a student paper without a web presence, one that doesn’t prepare the students for publishing on the web, seems very antiquated and out-of-place. But I digress …

On the opinion page of the March 23 issue of The Scribe is an article by Steph Jurusz, Opinion Editor, entitled “Red states’ dirty little secret”, the first few paragraphs of which read:

“You know what is interesting to me? Hypocrisy.

“A study of online pornography purchases based on the state’s voting recode in recent political elections shows that the supposedly most conservative states have the most voracious appetites for adult entertainment.

“Utah, a haven of Mormonism, ranks the highest in online porn purchases according to Benjamin Edelman of Harvard Business School, who has studied anonymous credit card receipts for fraud. Each receipt includes a postal code and purchase date.

“Red states in the most recent election, which often claim to have “traditional family values,” frown upon pre-marital sexual relationships, and many which have made legislation to ban gay marriage, have the highest numbers of purchases of online pornography and subscriptions to pornographic websites.

…” – Steph Jurusz, Opinion Editor, The Scribe

Ms. Jurusz then goes on for several paragraphs discussing pornography and homosexual marriage. Jurusz should, perhaps, take some more math and logic courses, as there are some logical fallacies in her conclusions.

First, Jurusz seems to treat “red states” as cohesive, monolithic wholes, not taking into account that each state is made up of many, individual citizens and that the results of political elections are rarely unanimous (at least here in the US). So each of those “states” has a significant population, probably millions of people, who didn’t vote “red” and may purchase online porn to their heart’s (or some other part’s) content without fear of being labeled hypocrites.

Why might those non-red citizens up the online porn purchases in their states over that of others? Well, if the majority of people in those states truly are moral-conservatives, there might be laws and local ordinances driving adult purchases online by limiting access at the local, retail level. If I can’t pick up my skin-mags at the local 7-11, of course I’ll be ordering online.

Second, she again assumes that everyone who did vote “red” thinks exactly the same on every issue – that every voter who ticked the ballot for a Republican candidate subscribes to the “family values” line.

It is, Ms. Jurusz, possible to be conservative without being a Fundamentalist Christian, just as it is possible to be a liberal without being Socialist. Many people vote for Republican candidates for reasons such as having a strong military, fiscal conservatism (it’s funny ‘cause it’s sad, anymore, I know), or simply a desire for individual freedom (we can debate which Party truly represses the individual’s rights, if you like).

I, myself, don’t subscribe to the “family values” creed, and my opposition to “gay” marriage is that, by concentrating on it, we’re missing an opportunity to get government out of the “marriage” business altogether. Yet I have tended, the last few elections, to vote “red”, so there would be no hypocrisy in my making a pornography purchase.

Jurusz allows her personal bias to color her interpretation of the statistics, which is fine in an opinion piece, but she also fails to even acknowledge that she can’t actually prove what the numbers mean, which is intellectually dishonest.

Furthermore, later in the article she lists a couple examples of “hypocrisy” by specific Republicans – Ms. Jurusz, are there no Democrats who’ve lied about sex? Are there no members of that party who’ve committed acts contrary to their publically stated positions? Of course there are, but admitting that would dilute your piece.

Even in an opinion piece, it’s incumbent upon the writer to get their facts right, to understand the numbers and statistics they use to back up their position, to apply just a bit of intellectual honesty to their conclusions … Jurusz doesn’t do this, which makes the article nothing more than partisan blather couched as journalism (editorialists should still have a touch of journalistic integrity, after all). As a presumably intelligent college student, Jurusz should know better … and probably does, she just chose to ignore it.

You know what is interesting to me? Hypocrisy.

The Blogger Next Door

2009-03-27T18:20:00.001-04:00

Believe it or not, irritating people with this blog isn’t my full-time job – I’m a computer programmer by trade. As such, I spend a lot of time reading technology blogs, and today I ran across a post that wasn’t technology related, but made me sit up and take notice. It prompted me to write about it on my own technology blog, and will cross-post here:

The Internet, or at least portions of it, is often described as a community. A big one, spanning the globe and with a lot of those neighbors we’re just a bit concerned about … but a community none-the-less.

One of the cornerstones of community is the concept of banding together to help a neighbor in need. Whether it’s dropping off a casserole so someone doesn’t have to cook in a time of tragedy or an old-fashioned barn-raising, the act of a community reaching out to help an individual is one of the greatest goods humanity has ever created.

Part of the concept’s power is that many people can help one with very little effort – when the load is distributed across an entire community, it’s almost nothing for the individual contributors in the group, but a huge, positive impact on the receiver.

What does this have to do with .Net and programming? Nothing, really, it’s not another metaphor like my online dating post, but in the .Net blogging community, the bloggers and readers are sort of like neighbors – and one of our neighbors has a neighbor who needs some help. (Okay, that’s a bit convoluted, but you’ll get the point in a second.)

Over on the Fear and Loathing blog, Bil Simser has a post today, titled The Girl Next Door, about a neighbor and friend of his that needs a bit of help. The gist of it is that their daughter, Natalie, has been treated for a brain tumor and a result of the treatment is some physical limitations – difficulty holding a pencil, for instance.

In order to help Natalie start getting back to a typical life and start schooling again, they’d like to get her a laptop with Dragon Naturally Speaking – something that would allow her to use the computer with the physical limitations her treatment has placed on her. The family’s faced with some pretty hefty medical costs ($2400 / month), so this is not something they can readily afford … but the community can.

A large number of neighbors in our .Net community can each give a little bit and make a big difference in a little girl’s life.

It doesn’t have to be much from each member of the community and, even in these tight economic times, it doesn’t have to be that big a sacrifice. I spent $2 on a Venti black coffee this morning … I can give up my coffee tomorrow or the next few days in order to help someone, especially the friend of someone whose blog I get value from.

So read Bil’s post and see if our community can help a neighbor.

So I’ve duplicated the post here, because those who read my technology blog and those who read my political blog are mostly very different audiences … and would typically be bored by the other … but one thing universal is the urge to help others. Most people have that, to a certain extent, I hope.

Is the Term “African-American” Offensive to Blacks Worldwide?

2009-03-25T17:35:00.001-04:00

So I’m on a social-networking site the other day, which one isn’t important, and I come across a profile with this data:

I’ve blacked out some of the unimportant bits of the profile, but the problem should be obvious. This user’s from Nigeria, which is, I believe, still in Africa, but the ethnicity is listed as African-American.

Okay, I think to myself, maybe he’s from America, but he’s living and working in Nigeria.

No, a quick message exchange discovers, such is not the case. He’s born and raised in Nigeria, never been to the United States. So why, I ask, is his ethnicity listed as African-American?

Turns out, the site doesn’t have any other option for him:

I suppose he could pick “Other”, but that doesn’t seem right.

I emailed the site with the question: Is this by design or simply an oversight? But haven’t received a response as of this posting – though we’re past their published, promised response time now. Possibly they’ve chosen to ignore me (something many do).

This isn’t the first time I’ve run into this sort of thing. I once had a forum moderator criticize one of my posts because I used the term “black” instead of “African-American” – this was in a thread on racism, so race was applicable to the discussion – but the site has an international user-base, so why would I?

I understand the historical and societal factors that went into the coining of “African-American” as the politically correct term here in America, but what is it that makes us (Americans, both black and white) unthinkingly apply the term globally?

Is it simple ignorance and thoughtlessness, not taking into account that the “American” part doesn’t apply to a significant portion of the world’s population? Or is it an arrogance that ignores the rest of the world? Or have we become so afraid here of not being “politically correct” that we ignore the larger reality?

So all this begs the question:

Is the term “African-American” offensive to blacks not from the United States?

I know that if someone called me Swedish- (one of the countries my ancestors came from) Ukrainian (a country I’m not a citizen of), I’d think they were idiots, regardless of whether or not Swedes in the Ukraine demand to be called Swedish-Ukrainian (to my knowledge, they do not – this is an example).

What do you think?

<a href="http://www.buzzdash.com/polls/is-african-american-offensive-to-blacks-not-from-the-united-states-156430/">Is "African-American" offensive to blacks not from the United States?</a> | <a href="http://www.buzzdash.com">BuzzDash polls</a>