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For the Sci-Fi Geek in Your Life

Via Cheerfully Demented, details of auctions in which winners get the right to be “Tuckerized” in novels by Cory Doctorow, Charlie Stross, Nalo Hopkinson, David Brin, Elizabeth Bear, Julie Czerneda and Mary Robinette Kowal.

Tuckerizing is the inclusion of a real person's name in a fictional piece (according to boingboing). Apparently the norm is to get a minor character who dies a horrible gruesome death.

The auctions benefit charity, which is nice, although the particular charity, The Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund (TAFF) — which funds a delegate(s) from North America to Europe or from Europe to N. America, to attend a science fiction convention — would probably not be in my personal top 100 choices for charitable giving, even though it is certainly appropriate for this auction.

Trouble at the Borders

Borders is having a bad time in the US - $39M Loss in Q3 - and seems to be going broke in the UK.

Which is a shame, as I find their book stores a lot nicer than Barnes & Noble, which always seem cloned and unfriendly. But I can't say I'm surprised: we used to go to the local Borders on US 1 in Kendall a couple times a month. Oddly, no matter what we bought, the bill was just about the same — and fairly high. (Then we looked to run out of wall space for bookcases.) In time, we started making aggressive use of the excellent Miami library system, filling in the gaps with Amazon. And Borders lost a lot of business.

So it's probably our fault.

Read the Product Reviews

The Houseguest points me to the customer reviews at Amazon for the Laptop Steering Wheel Desk: Electronics.

Many creative uses.

Amazon Charges a Premium for Packages You Can Actually Open

I was buying a Kingston 4 GB microSDHC Class 4 Flash Memory Card SDC4/4GB from amazon.com, which seemed a good deal at $8.99 with zero-marginal-cost-shipping (Amazon prime, cough), when I noticed something pretty funny.

It seems Amazon also offers the same product in “Amazon Frustration-Free™ Packaging,” for just $10.56 — only $1.57 extra.

Pay more, get less packaging — something you can actually open. I guess it's a business model.

Laptop Search -- A Hot Late Contender

Marcello, who knows his away around this stuff, put me on to this $800 notebook, Acer Aspire Timeline AS3810T-6775 NoteBook Intel Core 2 Duo SU9400 13.3” 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 80GB SSD HDD Intel GMA 4500MHD.

Half the price of the Samsung. 0.7 lbs heavier, but still only 3.5 lbs. A little slower — PC Mark Vantage of 2678, compared to the Samsung's 3158 and X301's 3157. But the Acer's battery life is even better than the Samsung's.

Three caveats (nothing's ever perfect):

1. Windows Vista Home Ultimate Premium 64-bit, no XP downgrade, and no word on whether there's an upgrade to Windows 7. I'm sure I have something incompatible with WVHU64 WVHP64. [Update: According to the Acer website, the 3801T is eligible for upgrade. Acer says Vista Home Premium goes to Windows 7 Home Premium. Which, if I understand this, is bad — XP Mode requires at least Win 7 Pro, which is one level up.]
2. The review at LaptopMag.com says,

   While the temperatures ranged from cool to warm toward the beginning of this test, they rose from warm to hot by its end. The keyboard, touchpad, and bottom of the notebook were all 88 degrees to start (the bottom of the notebook got as cool as 82 degrees). Any temperature below 90 degrees is fine. But as time went on, the temperature in these three places rose to between 92 and 93 degrees (the bottom of the notebook even got as hot as 100 degrees). Despite these temperatures, though, both the keyboard and bottom felt more warm than hot.

3. Many users have complained about the mouse buttons; LaptomMag says,

   Hands down, our least favorite feature is the 3810T’s stiff single mouse button. We would have preferred two separate buttons.

Even so, it looks like a steal.

Update: One other small disadvantage of the Acer: Max screen resolution 1366 × 768 of compared to the Samsung's 1280 × 800 and the X301's awesome 1440×900. (On the whole, for document work, the vertical is the key statistic.)

Laptop Search Nearing Conclusion?

I'm leaning currently to biting the bullet and ordering a new Samsung X360 34P (see The Hunt for A New Laptop Continues).

It's slightly cheaper than the comparable new Lenovos, but a little more expensive than some versions of their referbs. I have faith in the Lenovo referb, but not the third parties offering referbed Samsungs, so it would have to be a new one.

The reasoning behind this decision is that the Samsung wins on weight and battery life, has a 128G SSD, and at least ties on almost everything else I care about, except processing power where it lags a bit but still seems adequate. The reviews suggest the build is good; not as good as the tank-like Lenovos, but good enough.

There are just three things I need to get over:

1. The Samsung isn't as Ubuntu-friendly as the Lenovos (which are champs in this department) and won't have anywhere near the installed base if issues come up. (I'm thinking of dual-booting.)

2. The Samsung doesn't offer an XP downgrade, and the do-it-yourself version sounds like real work. So I may be using Vista Business pending Windows 7, which itself sounds like no great prize for a laptop. I have not used Vista yet and had hoped to avoid it.

3. This latest trip made it clear to me how crippled my Dell 300m has become; it's barely usable. I really can't afford to wait much longer to do something. Trouble is, it seems that Samsung was dumping the X360s with huge rebates a few months ago, so that they ended costing about half the current stratospheric price. Not only does it gall me to pay so much more than the old price, but I can't help thinking that maybe if I wait a bit the price will come down again?

Update: Then again J&R has the Lenovo 301 on sale for less than the Samsung. Good config except for the battery. Light weight — almost as light as the Samsung with the 301's three-cell battery. Solid. Three year warranty of some sort. Horrible battery life, especially with the tiny 3-cell battery, but even with the six cell (which I'd have to buy extra).

Laptop Search (cont): Dell E4200?

So, with the help of a colleague's email, I figured out which Dells I should be looking at: the E4200 and E4300. The reviews of the E4300 don't make it look that good; the E4200 gets a better press, although most of it in more general circulation magazines than in the sort of fanatic's web page I tend to trust.

The E4200 with most of the trimmings — said to have many internal components in common with the Lenovo X200 (not X200s), although a somewhat inferior casing — is a 12” laptop with decent battery life, a 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo ULV SU9400. Despite the low-power chip, the Dell has a better benchmark (PCMark Vantage 3582) than the Lenovo X301 (1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, PCMark Vantage is 3157) although I worry the test may have been affected by using a new SSD. The Dell apparently weighs under 3lbs even with a six-cell battery (2.2 lbs with the 4-cell; Dell is annoyingly coy about about the weight with the six-cell version.) There are fewer ports than the Lenovos, but probably enough for my needs.

Prices for new ones are outrageous — I just configured one for $2335 which is more than the better, if heavier, Lenovo. A similar E4200 is available refurbed for just over $1300 with external DVD, which is notably less than the Lenovos.

This is probably the closest thing to a modernized Inspiron 300m. Is that what I want? The refurbs are mostly black, but there's also a red one.

Correction

I wrote “previously” that my laptop search is now in the decision phase.

Make that “the indecision phase.”

I will certainly delay until I get home next week.

The Hunt for A New Laptop Continues

My laptop search is now in the decision phase. It's fairly clear that I've not only passed the point of diminishing returns on the scouring of the online reviews and benchmarks, but that it is fast becoming a distant memory.

I've more or less narrowed the choices to the Lenovo X301 (refurb) or the Samsung X360 34P (do they do refurbs?), with the Lenovo T400s (refurb) an outside contender — although it has a bit more weight, its processor benchmarks are about double the other two.

As between the X301 and X360, the Samsung weighs less and seems to have a much better battery life; despite a slower clock speed the Lenovo may be a little faster (although the T400s blows them both out of the water). The other benchmarks I can find are broadly comparable. The Lenovo has an unparalleled reputation for standing up to mistreatment; it is hard to get a sense for how sturdy the Samsung is, other than it's not flimsy.

The Lenovo X301 has a slightly smaller screen than the Samsung (and the T400s has the biggest); the Samsung comes with a bigger SSD for the money (not that I really need it). The Lenovos have optical drives; the Samsung doesn't. The X301 lacks the media card reader and Express Card slot found on the Samsung. (The absence of a docking bay for the Lenovo is not something I care about, as I don't use those.)

Here's a table with more details:

Now how do I decide? Not to mention that given the existence of substantially cheaper and adequate — but not as light or as powerful — alternatives it seems a lot of money, even for something I'll probably use frequently over the next several years.

I wish I could see them before buying…

The Hunt for a New Laptop Begins

I have spent a chunk of the past few days looking at what I call “laptop porn” — enthusiast reviews and critiques of new laptops. Because I can't put off buying a new one much longer.

My trusty nearly five year old Dell 300m is in its death throes — not only is the body a bit damaged, and the battery good for only about 20 minutes, but the machine's 1.4 Ghz Pentium M chip will no longer go over 599 Mhz. I've turned off speedstep in the BIOS, put the power settings to their most greedy, I've downloaded various utilities to make sure the fan cools it (it's getting hot under there), and the chip is asked to give its all. To no avail. It's a slug. It's slooow. And I worry it may decide one day to slow itself further. So it's got to go.

I use my laptop a great deal, both on the road and in meetings at work, so for a combined birthday and 20th anniversary gift, I'm going to get a good one. But what is that exactly?

I thought hard about getting an ultralight Atom-powered machine. My wife's MSI Wind is a wonder of portability. It doesn't feel as slow as the specs suggest it should given the Atom chip and the 2GB RAM limit imposed by Microsoft. I hate the MSI keyboard because the “.” key is in the wrong place, but some competitors don't have that problem. But the deal-breaker, I've decided, is the screen just isn't deep enough — you just don't get enough lines of text on the screen to work well with a footnoted legal document.

So I'm going up a size for a bigger screen and a speedier computing experience. I still want as light a machine as I can afford, because airports are not getting any more convenient (have you seen what they did to MIA??? but I digress). That said, I don't want one that is flimsy and won't stand up to the abuse I seem to subject laptops to. I need a fullsize or very-close-to-fullsize keyboard so I can touch type. I figure, might as well get a core2 duo, so it will take everything I throw at it, but I don't have to have the very fastest clock speed. I won't play games on the machine, so I don't need a superfancy graphics chip. I will need an optical drive, but not every day, so it can be external, although a very light bulit-in would be nice. I want lots of ports, but don't need HDMI output.

It turns out that most of the brick and mortar shops that stocked the kind of laptop I am looking for either don't exist any more, or don't stock them any more. So I'm going to be even more dependent on reviews than for previous purchases. Being risk-averse, that tends to push me to established brands like Dell or, to my surprise, Lenovo — an idea planted by a commentator on my earlier post on this self-indulgent subject, It May Be Time for a New Laptop.

There doesn't seem to be a Dell available right now that meets my specs and gets good reviews, although I find their site hard to use and may have missed one. The closest might be the Adamo, but it seems to be glitz over performance and weighs 4lbs without an optical drive. (And before you ask, I'm a PC, not a Mac. I run wordperfect.)

The Toshiba Portege R500 & R600 have very impressive specs and low weight, but the reviews have scary words like “flex” and “loud fan”. The review of the Fujistu Lifebook P8020 didn't make it sound attractive at all. T

I need to learn about Sony's offerings, although at first glance the high-end Sonys Vaio seem expensive.

Lenovo has a trio of high-priced attractive machines offering a different mix of features and compromises. The list prices are mostly too steep, but there seem to be good prices sometimes on refurb jobs and I've had good experiences with those: both my laptop and my desktop are refurbs from Dell.

So I'm looking at the X200s, the X301, and the T400s.

The X200s is the lightest, in part due to the external optical drive. It's 2.47 lbs (!!!) with the 4-cell battery and a very attractive 3.0lbs even with the six cell I'd likely get. The problem is that there is no trackpad, and I've gotten pretty used to them. My experiences with that little red stick on the Lenovos hasn't been great — they seem hard use to make small adjustments as one often needs to do in documents.

The X301 might be perfect, at 3.3 lbs with a 6 cell and internal DVD, but it is expensive even refurbed, even with the smaller SSD drive — which I think will be enough for my needs. It seems to come mostly with various flavors of Vista, which is a bit of a problem as I'm still in XP land, and plan to stay there until I graduate to Ubuntu or am forced into Win7 or maybe Win8. I could get a regular drive, but I think I would very much benefit from the increased disk speed from solid state (and the modest weight savings) whatever model I get. My only worry there is that a future windows operating system, if I have to use one, might be so bloated as to fill the smaller SSDs….

The T400s refurbed isn't quite as expensive, although it's still up there, but the weight is getting up to 4lbs. I like its looks, although online X partisans sneer at its T-ness. But it weighs 4lbs, which is more than my current machine. Shouldn't progress mean things get lighter? (Although to be fair the T400s has a full 14” screen, and I'm used to the 12.x” variety.)

I'm thinking this isn't going to be easy. Or cheap.

Firms Prefer Suckers

Source: Office Depot Associates Routinely Lie about Notebook Stock reports that if you don't want the overpriced add-ons and warranties, that notebook is suddenly going to be out of stock.

What I'm wondering is whether (1) this stuff has always been going on; or (2) it's a result of improved information technology, which makes micro-monitoring of sales and profits easy; or (3) it's due to the recession.

If it is an information technology thing, then presumably consumers should be able to fight back with counter-information, but that seems like a terribly wasteful pair of transactions, a real Prisoner's Dilemma result as regards efficiency.

Ed Hasbrouck Takes on Amex Over its New Robocall Policy

Ed Hasbrouck, aka The Practical Nomad, blogs an Urgent warning to American Express cardholders:

If you have an American Express card, you need to take action now: Unless you cancel your card and close your account, or unless AmEx is persuaded to withdraw changes it has announced (effective 2 April 2009) to the terms of its agreement with cardholders, you will be deemed to have given your consent to receive calls including robocalls, and SMS text messages, from AmEx, in perpetuity, at any number you ever use to contact AmEx, including cell phones. That could be costly, damaging to your relationships with friends, family, and business associates whose phones you might need to use to call AmEx in an emergency, and put you in severe danger of having your information broadcast to strangers (if, for example, a robocall plays a recorded message to the receptionist at a hotel where you've already checked out, or another guest at the direct-dial number for the the room that you had once stayed in).

Before ATM's were so widespread, I used to recommend carrying an American Express card as a check-cashing card when travelling abroad. More recently, although their practices have prompted me to threaten to cancel my card, I've kept it as an emergency backup. This latest proposal, however, will definitely be the last straw for me if AmEx doesn't back down.

He also includes the full text of a great letter he sent Amex. I especially like this part:

I have an American Express card to use while travelling, primarily while travelling internationally. Of necessity, I use a variety of telephones and numbers to contact American Express while travelling, including telephones at the homes of friends and in the offices of business associates, friends’ mobile phones, hotel phones, and public phones. When I use my own mobile phone abroad, it is typically at an extremely high “international roaming” tariff.

Even if I were willing to agree to terms like these for myself, I have no authority to consent to have the friends, business associates, and others whose phones I use to contact you receive calls (including robocalls) and text messages – in perpetuity! — from you. Consent for such calls and text messages could come only from them. Were I to purport to consent on their behalf, as you have proposed, I would subject myself to potentially severe liability to them.

Because the phones I use while travelling typically are not my own, but are shared with and primarily used by other people, automated calls or text messages from you to those numbers are likely to be received by someone other than myself. As a result, such calls or messages are likely to result in the broadcasting of my personal information to third parties, and thus to facilitate invasion of privacy and identity theft. I cannot afford to take such a risk.

Return calls or text messages from you to the phone numbers I use while travelling could be prohibitively expensive to me (or to the third parties whose phones I have used). International roaming on a mobile phone often costs US$5/minute, sometimes more.

As we know from the DNS wars, Ed is tenacious.

Annals of Procrastination

So it turns out that I forgot to buy a wall calendar this year, and there's now a blank spot on my office wall where it belongs.

So I figured I'd go to Amazon and get the cheapest non-disgusting calendar I could find. This turns out to be a somewhat harder project than I had initially imagined.

Searching for “2009 calendar” and sorting by price gave me the following choices.

The cheapest, at just 28 cents. But I don't want to advertise any products.

The following were all just under $1:

Throwing another quarter in the kitty (and ignoring Kindle calendars, fridge magnet calendars, and travel-sized calendars) raised me to:

It would take almost $2 to achieve these dizzying heights of style:

I can sort of see the Beaches thing, maybe, except we have those here, so why do I need it on my calendar?

Under $3:

Oh heck, maybe I should get one like last year.

Your Favorite Word Could Win You an OED

Powell's Books is having a fun contest, with the prize being the 20-Volume Oxford English Dictionary.

What's your favorite word? And why? What, in your opinion, is the strangest, or most useful, or ridiculously specific word in all of the English language?

Don't be shy — tell us the word you can't stop obsessing over, the one you make sure to use at least once in every party conversation, the word that gets stuck in your head like the song lyric you can't quite place but can't stop humming.

My first thought, I'm almost embarrassed to admit, was “justice”, but I think they want something more offbeat.

Deadline for submissions is Jan. 5, 2009.

What's your favorite word?

For the Paranoid in Your Life

A USB Flash Drive disguised as broken cable. 2GB of extra security at least until the TSA puts it on the watch list.

(Via Schneier)

Or consider the (likely more useful) RFID Blocking Wallet and the RFID Blocking Passport Billfold.

Did you know that there are people out there who specially target paranoids?

Update: pointers to interesting techno-toys welcomed.

Globalization Has Some Work Left to Do

Tom's Hardware finds that computer hardware prices vary enormously around the world. Globalization — and even the European single market — still has a long way to go:

Meanwhile, the price differences between different PC products are remarkable. Basic consumer electronics accessories such as a 2-GB SD memory card vary in price around the world by up to 100%, while prices for premium PC components vary by 10-30%. Cost for a Core 2 Duo E6850 processor or a GeForce 8800 GTS graphics card was very much balanced, while the Coolermaster power supply or the Zalman CPU cooler showed large pricing differences. We selected products that are available almost everywhere, and we took the average price of the four cheapest etailers to get a solid number.

We found that France is rather expensive, especially if compared to Germany, which is next door. The United States is at the other end of the pricing spectrum, as most products are less expensive there.

It does not make sense to order hardware in a foreign country, or to buy large amounts of hardware when you travel. One the one hand, shipping cost will eat up all cost advantages. On the other hand, you'll have to pay custom duties or an import turnover tax for many products. The only exception is the purchase of inexpensive products, as consumers in different countries can often buy goods abroad that remain below a certain price level without having to pay duty charges.

Catalog Choice Scares Marketers

I've used Catalog Choice to attempt to stop 19 catalogs so far. I'm not sure any of them have actually stopped yet, but the site says it can take three months, and dates range from one to 45 days ago, so I guess I have to be patient.

Interesting to read, though, that rather than write me off as a waste of marketing money, the catalog industry wants to ignore my preferences and keep sending them. According to Business Week, a Direct Marketing Association honcho e-mailed all members to pull up the drawbridge:

How did they respond? Some—mostly outdoorsy brands like L.L. Bean and Lands' End (SHLD)—made soothing noises. Others blew off the Web site (and subsequently, the people declining their catalogs), and have done nothing with the names. Still, despite being less than three months old, Catalog Choice has managed to spook an industry. Consider the Nov. 29 e-mail from the Direct Marketing Assn. Bearing the subject line “JUST SAY NO,” it warned retailers that Catalog Choice's “priority is to eliminate catalogs as a marketing medium. It is not in your interest to further their efforts!”

Charming, isn't it. More at the Catalog Choice Blog. If you want the view from the (relatively) enlightened wing of the marketers, check out MineThatData Blog.

CompUSA to Close

CompUSA will close at the end of the year.

Their prices were not that good compared to newegg.com, four out of five of their staff were unhelpful or ignorant (but the fifth was usually great), and in fact for the past several years I only bought stuff there in emergencies.

But emergencies happen, and it was nice to know there was a place you could go if you had to. It was also nice to test stuff like keyboards and mice which are hard to buy sight unseen. And the remaindered software bin wasn't bad. I'll miss it.

Yes, in NY or on the west coast there are lots of other alternatives, but here not so much. We do have a Tiger Direct outlet, but its selection is quirky, and it's a much longer drive from here.

Dream On

I Heart Zappos

Wouldn't you like to live in a world in which this sort of customer experience wasn't amazingly excepitonal?

Firms That Lie to You

There is only one company I deal with regularly that has lied to me more often than my DSL provider, and that is my bank. I am gradually writing about my latest bank saga, but that's for another day.

The new modem was promised for Saturday. They swore up and down that they do Saturday delivery. Since the last time a modem died it also died on a Thursday and I had to wait until Monday, I didn't believe them, except I sort of did, because I wanted to.

But it was a lie.

The modem arrived today, not Saturday (and I only just got home and haven't the energy to try to install it). But that's not all. The nice phone person promised — promised! — that it would be the same Westell brand model I had before, assuring me that of their modems it was the best. The box has a Netopia modem in it.

To round out the story, the old modem has decided it liked its rest and is working again.

The warranty replacement requires me to send back my old modem, so I can't just keep the new one as a spare.

Spot What's Missing

This info-graphic of Coffee Drinks Illustrated strikes me as sadly deficient. Have a look, see if you can figure it out what's missing, then click below for my attempt to fill the gaps.

First, there's my basic drink:

Or, there's the Miami version, the Cuban coffee:

Useful 'Mattress Comparison Index'

Being one who justifies his fanatical comparison shopping by the public good side-effect of keeping markets efficient, I am particularly irked by the tactics of mattress sellers.

As is well known, most mattresses sold in the US are made in a small number of factories. In order to make comparison shopping hard, the mattress provide “unique” product lines to each major retailer. By making minor adjustments to the fabric or something and changing the (almost inevitably ridiculous) model names they sell under, Sealy and the like make price comparison shopping impossible. And they allow each possessor of a 'unique' line to make price-matching guarantees that they know are meaningless since no one else carries goods with the same name.

That's why I'm glad there is a Mattress Comparison Index which (says it) tells you which silly name is comparable to which other silly name.

Even armed with this information there is still a lot of product out there and field testing these things is both ridiculous and not particularly informative. It's easy to dismiss many mattresses as too soft or too hard, but that leaves a large range of choices, about none of which I feel confident about how they will feel in a year.

I wanted to illustrate this with a picture of Li'l Abner in his role a professional mattress tester, but while I could find some of him, there were none of him at work, which somehow seems fitting.

Incidentally, I was surprised to learn that professional mattress testers really exist!

For the Annals of Market Failure

You can't (or can no longer) get Amora Dijon Mustard in the United States.

The Real Problem with USB Flash Drives

Someone should write about the REAL problem with flash drives: they break too easily at the connection between the usb male plug and the body of the drive. The otherwise wonderful Flash Voyager is by far the most vulnerable I've encountered, but many others share the same Achilles Heel too.

Reviewers always seem to write about running a car over the drive. That mean putting pressure on the case. This isn't, in my experience, a common real-life scenario. In contrast, the real-life damage case is torque when your laptop bumps into something with that drive sticking out. It snaps easily. And no one ever talks about that.

The best drives I've had for performance (I want to be able to copy lots of small files quickly; reported tests usually concentrate on large file transfer, so my preferences may not be your preferences) were also the most delicate at that critical point: the Corsair Flash Voyagers. I've broken two. Second-fastest, the OCZ Rally2, were not as fragile, but were not exactly tough either. I bent one. It still works, but I don't trust it.

I've currently moved to a Cruzer Titanium, which not only looks a bit stronger, but has a nice retractable head so I don't have to worry about losing the little cap. The performance is good, although I don't think it is quite as good as the other two.

Unfortunately, the Cruzer came with the dreaded U3 software. I used the control panel to disable it, but haven't had the heart to delete it on the theory that this might be irrevocable (online opinions vary), and anyway it didn't take much space. But I may delete it soon, as it seems my Asus motherboard absolutely won't boot up with the drive plugged in, even though the BIOS is set to boot from the hard drive first.

Annals of Appalling Customer Service

Ever since UM switched employees to Humana, I've tried, when we needed some sort of medicine, to use the online pharmacy for mail-order delivery. Cranking up mail-order delivery is a pain as you have to fill out a form and mail (not fax) them the actual prescription. It's supposed to be cheaper. And, once you have it in their system, refills should be easy, just use the web form.

Not.

I've gotten the same error message Every. Single. Time. Over a six-month period.

This feature is currently unavailable. Please check back with us again shortly.

You may also contact our Customer Service Representatives at the number listed on the back of your ID Card.

So yeserday when I got the emailed reminder to go to the web site to order a refill and AGAIN it didn't work, I called customer service not just to order my refill by phone but to find out why their pharmacy is always down at any time of day or night. I had to speak to three people, the last of whom said a fourth would call me back. (Humana's online presence may be appalling but their telephone customer service people are actually unusually nice and even at times very helpful. They're certainly better than most computer companies.)

And indeed, someone did call me back in less than half an hour. But she couldn't reproduce the error. Yet, I could. “What version of IE are you using?” she asked. “I'm not,” I explained. And that, it seems is The Problem. And there's no work-around except to use IE. And they've known this for a long time.

I think in this day and age, with Firefox having a significant market share, and IE so notoriously insecure, it's pretty bad not to support Firefox. But why I'm blogging this complaint is that nowhere on the web site, no not even in the error message do they explain what the problem is. It would not be hard to detect the browser and say, sorry, our site only works with IE. It would have saved me and no doubt countless others a lot of time and frustration.

"Mouse Print" Does Ham

I have just discovered the Mouse Print blog [link fixed], which is dedicated to 'exposing the strings and catches in advertising fine print.' In short, catnip for obsessively rational consumers such as I.

I particularly like the attempt to figure out how much ham you get when you buy one in the store. Who knew that there are such major distinctions between ”cooked ham”, “cooked ham with natural juices”, “cooked ham, water added”, not to mention the suspiciously labeled “cooked ham and water product — x% of weight is added ingredients” which apparently can be as little as 17% meat, plus fat and water.

Nature or Nurture?

Consumerist blog: Southwest Nearly Lets Liver Transplant Patient Die Because He Wouldn't Buy 2nd Ticket.

Yes, you read that right.

Richard Brown nearly died on Sunday, January 21st, thanks to reckless indifference by a Southwest Airlines ticket agent.

A dying hep-C patient, Richard, secured an appointment at the Mayo Clinic. After getting turned down, he was referred to the University of San Francisco.

When he went to board in Scottsdale for California, the ticket agent refused to let Richard fly unless he bought another ticket, due to his weight.

The weight gain is due to water retention because of his failing liver. Richard lives on California Disability Pay and had no funds to pay for the extra ticket. The flight was not sold out.

The ticket agent didn't care when shown Richard's medical papers, saying, “each airport has their own rules and these are ours, no extra seat, no boarding.”

…

Richard, not having access to readily available funds, could not afford to purchase another seat. Indeed, various family members contributed the only spare change they had to give Richard a mere $300 for meals and incidentals. Again, the plea for help fell on deaf Southwest ears.

Richard contacted his mother via a collect call, who in turn immediately called Southwest's customer service, which turned out to be a myriad of transfers and wrong numbers. Customer service agent after customer service agent, each Southwest agent transferred Mrs. Diffey to a wrong number and refused to help, even once to the baggage department in Texas.

Until finally, an agent in Dallas named Becky offered to pay for the ticket herself.

United Finally Does the Right Thing

United Airlines has caved in and done the right thing at last.

Earlier post: Millions of dollars of bad publicity for United Airlines.

Millions of Dollars of Bad Publicity for United Airlines

Don't fly United Airlines until they do something about this: United Airlines takes advantage of helpless elderly couple, extorting nearly $3000.

What I am NOT Getting My Wife for Xmas

Fortunately, my wife would not enjoy having a diamond-encrusted USB drive, which is just as well as she is not getting one from me. (Or, I should hope, from anyone else.)

Suggestions as to more sensible presents always welcomed.

There is a Bacon of the Month Club. Yes, Really.

Very funny post at Emergent Chaos inspired by the Bacon of the Month Club. And the Club of the Month Club. And so on...

Disposable

Every so often, I toy with the idea of getting an iPod. Then I read another article about how iPods only last a year...

Tales From Support Hell

We've all been there, and if we haven't been there, it's only a matter of time:

The Trademark Blog: True Story Re My Phone Service:

Me: This is the fourth day my firm hasn't had dial tone.

Customer Service: Yes sir, because of the urgency we've elevated it to Business Class Support.

Me: What does that mean?

Customer Service: The Business Class Support tech will handle your trouble ticket. Unfortunately, he's out today, however he'll get to it first thing tomorrow morning.

Me: Wait, because you've elevated it, you can't get to it today?

Customer Service: No sir.

Me: Can you lower its urgency, so you can get to it sooner?

Customer Service: Sir?

Me: Never mind.

Today's Pre-Breakfast Serving of Unlikely Things

Which of the two following facts is more unlikely?

1. The following strange Dell tech support story recounted by a law student blogger:

I think the best part about all this is the time I was waiting on hold for one of the tech support people to transfer me. I heard music. Suddenly, I was listening to a phone sex line! I am not making this up. Let me repeat this: While I was on hold with Dell, I was somehow transfered to a phone sex line. Seriously. This really happened.

2. Or is it this: the law student blogger didn't even speculate as to the various ways in which such conduct could give rise to major-league liability. Update (2/5/06): Ok, now he did, and the universe is back to its normal balance...

A Cell Phone With An Unusual Feature

My sporadic search for a new cell phone took me to an ad for the highly overpriced Motorola Ultimate U6 Quadband Bluetooth. The ad includes the usual marketdroitspeak ("Quadband operation and an integrated digital video camera makes the Motorola Ultimate U6 the perfect phone for your active lifestyle."). But it also touts a feature I've never seen before in an ad for a phone:

Fungus resistant coated mini jet black clamshell design

The mind boggles. Is this a common problem with cell phones? With Motorola phones particularly? Are buyers of overpriced phones especially fungus-phobic, making this a selling point?

I would have thought it was a turn-off, myself...

Still Waiting for the Right Phone

If only this Duo-mode GSM WIFI Phone -- quad band no less! -- was a flip phone form factor, I'd buy one just for the coolness of it all.

As it is, even though my old phone is gradually getting electronic Alzheimer's, I can't find a flip phone that does what it did when it worked right. Certainly, neither of these seems like the ticket.

Are Non-Refundable Air Tickets Actually Refundable?

In the course of a very interesting and serious rumination about proposed air travel regulations ostensibly designed to allow the Center for Disease Control to react to epidemics -- but which conveniently enact the surveillance regime on air travelers that this administration has been seeking for some time, Ed Hasbrouck throws out this great aside,

If you are ever denied transportation by an airline, ask them for a copy of their conditions of carriage, which they are required to have available at every check-in counter. Ask them to tell you under which specific clause of the conditions of carriage you are being denied transportation. Try to get them to put that in writing, preferably either on airline letterhead over the signature and legibly printed name of the station manager for the airline at that airport, or as part of a complete printout of your passenger name record , in which the reason you were denied transportation, citing the specific clause of the conditions of carriage, has been entered. (If you made your reservations from Canada, the European Union, or certain other countries, you are entitles to see what's in your PNR. But not, unfortunately, if you made your reservations in the USA.) If the airline balks at giving you reasons, point out that your eligibility (or not) for a refund of your ticket is dependent on the reasons and the clause of the conditions of carriage under which you were denied transportation. So you need documentation of the reasons for their denial, in order to establish your refund claim. (If the airline refuses to transport you because you refuse to consent to being searched, you are entitled to a full and unconditional refund, even if your ticket would otherwise have been an entirely nonrefundable. Presenting yourself at the airport, and refusing to consent to search, is perhaps the most foolproof way to obtain a refund of an otherwise nonrefundable ticket.) The airline cannot refuse to transport you, except as provided by specific terms of their published conditions of carriage, without grave liability under the common carrier clause of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978.

Unsolicited Endorsement

If you are looking for wood furniture in Miami, I recommend WoodWorks Home Furnishings. There are days when it feels like we got half our furniture there. Possibly because we just about did. Nice, honest people who know their stuff, stand behind it, and charge reasonable prices given it's solid wood.

Hard-to-Find Internet Retailer Phone Numbers

Another reason I love the Internet: finding this list of Hard To Find Internet Retailer Phone Numbers took about six seconds.

My Cell Phone Needs Replacing

My NEC 515 cell phone has started to exhibit random erratic behavior. Sometimes when it's on, it fails to connect to a network; people call me and I don't get a call or a message or even a "missed call" notice. Sometimes when I want to make a call the phone book is unavailable - it's "sorting" endlessly. Sometimes it starts beeping at me that the SIM card is unavailable. None of this is good.

I'm somewhat locked into Cingular as a carrier, because most others don't seem to have a signal that can be received inside my house, and we have a family plan too.

So all of a sudden I need a new GSM phone. Here's the wish list:

• I'm pretty used to flip phones, and like the idea of a phone that won't accidentally call someone in my pocket.
• I have a preference for quadband 'world phones' that can work anywhere. Failing that, I'd at least like one that works in Europe too.
• I need an unlocked phone
• And here's the tough one: I'd like a phone that speaks to my PC, one that would let me upload and download numbers, ringtones and maybe even photos without having to pay the insane rates charged by Cingular

• I don't care if it plays electronic games; I don't
• I don't use my phone for Internet access.
• I don't particularly need much in the way of additional features like calendars and the like
• All other things being equal, a camera might be fun, but it is not essential

If any readers have advice or pointers, especially about the connecting-to-the-PC part, I'd be most grateful.

Anti-Gitmo T-Shirt

Is this Gitmo Law School T-shirt clever protest, or just too disgusting?

It could be both. Even so, I don't think I could wear one.

The Size of Temptation

Despite my ordinary allergy to refurbished goods, the idea of getting a 21" monitor for a little over $100 (including shipping) is strangely tempting.

But do I go with the Nokia 445Xiplus (Dot Pitch: 0.28 mm) or the Mystery Model NEC (0.24 mm horizontal pitch (0.28 mm diagonal trio dot pitch)?

Flag Desecration In Every Day Life

We got new credit cards in the mail. Unlike the old ones, which were very neutral, a sort of bluish with some lines on it — and noted a tie-in to a frequent flier program — the new ones instead sport a loud rendition of a portion of a rippling American flag. It is not a nice picture. It looks like a cheap political mailing (and the absence of the tie-in raises the specter that the bank is contemplating ending its role as generator of volume frequent flier miles).

I want to call to complain. My spouse, who is not a US citizen and thus more in fear of Big Brother, argues that it is not wise to call anyone to complain about an American flag.

Thus, today's consumer — financial services provider interaction

Recorded voice: Welcome to {mega card}. To utilize our automated sevices press or say one….please touchtone or say your sixteen digit account number NOW.

[Lots of beeps] Thank you. Press one for…

[Frantic repeated pressing of the “0” key]

Female voice: Welcome to {mega card}. May I have the name on the card please? Thank you. What is your middle initial? What is your code word? No, that's not it. Yes, that's it, thank you. How can I help you?

Me: We received our new credit cards today. They have a picture of the American flag on them. I don't think this is an appropriate use of the American flag. The card will get dirty, it will have stuff run over it, this will amount to flag desecration. It's not right.

Female voice (afer slight delay) : would you like to speak to a supervisor and see what he can do for you?

[minute wait, listening to hold muzak]

Female voice: I have an account executive ready to speak to you.

Male voice: Hello, this is John, what is the problem?

Me: We received our new credit cards today. They have a picture of the American flag on them. I don't think this is an appropriate use of the American flag. The card will get dirty, it will have stuff run over it, it's a form of flag desecration. Can I have one that wouldn't be so offensive?

John: Let me put you on hold.

[Delay of under a minute]

John: We'll address that for you.

Me: What does that mean?

John: We'll get you a new card without the flag picture on it.

Me: Thank you. [Sudden inspiration.] One other thing. How do I dispose of this card? Normally I'd cut it up, but I don't want to do that.

John: (after minuscule pause) You could put it in a safe or other secure location.

Me: If I had a safe. Right. Thank you.

John: Goodbye.

Unfortunately, I forgot to ask about the frequent-flier miles. Do I call back?

But Is It Dishwasher Safe?

Where does Ann Bartow find all this stuff?

The Disappearing Civil Liberties Mug is covered with the complete text of The Bill of Rights, but when filled with hot liquids, select rights vanish before your very eyes!

(via If the Coffee Alone Doesn't Make you Irritable…)

Delocator, Shmelocator

So I tried the Starbucks Delocator that everyone is talking about (except of course one organization that got sat on by Starbucks.)

So, yah, it's great everyone is googlebombing the site so it's the top hit for Starbucks Delocator.

But have you tried USING the Starbucks Delocator? I found the initial results to be somewhat depressing.

$9 Beer?

They are selling Dogfish Head: 120 Minute IPA beer in my local for, get this, $8.99 (plus tax) for a single 12oz bottle.

Although curious as to what could possibly justify that price, I did not buy one. First, I didn't want to encourage them. Second, how can you buy just one, when your spouse sent you out you volunteered to go out and buy some nice beer. Third, I could see little chance of a good outcome. Either it would be awful and I'd feel cheated, or it would be great, but I'd still never spend that much for a bottle of beer again and might regret it.

Actually, can something 42 proof really be called beer?

My. Goodness.

One of my pronounced character traits, some might call them obsessions but what do they know, is a certain devotion to comparison shopping. It started with computer equipment, even involving a two-year subscription to Computer Shopper in its big fat heyday, but now extends to quality and price comparisons when buying pretty much anything other than dinner for two that costs more than about $50. One of my wife's few imperfections is making fun of this noble devotion to social wealth maximization in which I do my bit to ensure that we have the toughest most competitive market for everyone's enjoyment.

I can sort of understand how this predilection might have seemed mildly annoying in days of yore: trooping to stores to look for models that were randomly in stock, perusing out-of-date Consumer Reports for reports that proved to be on models no longer sold, well, it took time, and sometimes we needed it now. Here as elsewhere, however, the Internet changes everything. Comparison shopping online is much efficient, although no faster since if the ease of information acquisition increases geometrically, the amount of information (and mis-information) increases exponentially. So it still takes a little while. But it's more fun. And I can do it late at night.

All of which is prompted by the observation that the vacuum cleaner is dying.

So as I'm starting up another round of happy hunting, I find this description of a vacuum cleaner, yes a vacuum cleaner, that kinda makes you want to run out and try one, and kinda makes you want to hide under the bed:

My. Goodness.

I am not the world's best housekeeper. My roommate graciously lent me his Eureka so that I could deal with a few trouble spots in my part of the house, the most significant of which was a green area rug that had never been vacuumed. I have a cat that likes to spend a lot of time on that rug, so I had forgotten that it was originally green and not a muddy greyish color.

I plugged in the vacuum, puzzled over it for a bit, mashed the handle release, and turned it on.

The monster surged to life and immediately began pulling me across the rug. I should probably mention that I had unwisely opted to put this rug on a hardwood floor with no backing, so it wasn't long before the vacuum was dragging me and the rug around the floor. Don't ask me how it did it; maybe it was using The Force ™. All I know is that this thing wouldn't stop. I finally managed to pin the rug in a corner and drag the cleaner across it. The vacuum growled in what I can only hope was anticipation, and with each pass of its mighty brushes the color and majesty of the original rug (purchased for $20 from a guy selling them out of the back of a van four years ago) came to light.

When the vacuum stopped dragging me over the rug and I finally managed to shut the beast down, I was aquiver with awe (or maybe it was fatigue - the monster's a heavy one). I could look down and see, for the first time in years, the rich emerald tones of my cheap geometric carpet, long hidden under a protective layer of cat hair and tracked-in leaves from my front yard.

My roommate had not lent me a mere vacuum cleaner. He had given me Excalibur.

Problem is, the darn thing weighs 21 lbs, and we're used to a much lighter canister model. And with the addition to the house, we now have stairs. Plus we have wood floors, tile, and area rugs. This monster sounds as if it might swallow the lighter rugs whole…

I Think I See A Pattern Here

Purchasers of “Dr. Strangelove” also bought these.

Adventures in Consuming: BellSouth DSL

This past week my DSL service degraded to the point that it felt like dialup. This happens from time to time, but never this bad, and it usually fixes itself. But this time it didn't.

So I called tech support. This led to a nasty two hours during which I had conversations with three clueless people, and one with a bit of a clue who still couldn't help me. The first guy seemed to be in an Indian call center, and read from scripts. While he purportedly ran various tests I spent a total of about an hour on hold, although never more than 10 minutes at a time (and even those were interrupted every 3 minutes by reassurances that they were working on it — ie. no way to concentrate on anything else). Over the course of this delightful interlude I was told at least three things that were patently false (including the suggestion that the reason my download speeds were measurably rotten must be due to my using “unsupported software” ie Firefox!).

The call center guy eventually got rid of me by transferring me to sales — maybe I should order faster service? The sales droid said my account was locked and they couldn't alter it, let me transfer you to customer service.

Customer service said that my records showed I had “Lite” service even though I was paying for “Ultra” (i.e. regular). For a minute I thought we had identified the problem, but no, after further investigation it seems Bell South believed it was delivering the “Ultra” service I was paying for … although the download speed was below what they advertise for “Lite”. And no, there's no way to guarantee that if I paid the Danegeld to upgrade to “Xtreme” it would solve my problem.

So it was back to tech support. This time I got a friendly and sensible fellow named Brent based in Shreveport. Brent also had his scripts, but had the sense to know which steps to skip in light of what I'd told him. So we spent 30 minutes trying things and nothing worked. But he was real nice about it.

Bottom line: after the ordeal, all I had to show for it was an appointment to talk with Level 2 tech support this morning.

The level 2 guy fixed it in ten minutes by resetting a port.

Nice T-Shirts, But Where Are the Bow Ties?

Orin Kerr, who should have his own blog, points us to these t-shirts for law students. Orrin says his favorite shirt is this one. I suppose I liked this one. I'll bet, though, they sell a lot of these.

Overall, though, I think I'll stick with thinkgeek and DespairWear™. But this was the best.

Only Read This If You Are a Parent of School Age Children

The Gadflyer explains Why Sally Foster is evil.

(The dread name “Sally Foster” won't mean much to you if you don't have school-age kids, or if you live in a country that adequately funds its schools, so just skip it.)

I mean, I knew Sally Foster was evil: it's overpriced gift wrap, albeit of good quality. Their MLM-style marketing campaign promises kids “rewards” like TVs if they sell several hundred dollars of Sally Foster junk to their parents' friends. From which I conclude that there's lots of money not going to the school but into Sally's pocket.

But. But. Lately of The Carlyle Group???

Another Number Space Running Low

Over the years, I've developed an interest in naming and numbering. And, as it happens, I'm in the market for a new car (station wagon or the like) since the lease on my current one expires soon. So it's interesting to read that the US's supply of VIN numbers is running out.

Useful Info on How to Choose Supermarket Fruit

Jill Hunter Pellettieri of Slate offers up timely advice in Eat a Peach - How do you choose the sweetest, ripest summer fruit?. Of course all the fruit at our local Publix which is larger than a grape tomato is also rock hard, so this article is more useful for daydreaming than actual shopping, but still…

Best Buy Quite Probably the Worst Store in the USA

It seems I am not the only person around who thinks that Best Buy is Evil.