Rants and Raves

Comcast consistently ranks in the top ten (almost always the top five) of companies with pathetic customer service in virtually every poll I’ve seen (they probably even do poorly in polls they sponsor LOL).

I received a unsolicited commercial email from a Comcast business customer; and I did exactly what I should do — report it to the abuse contact published in the ARIN database, and send them a plain text copy of the entire email message — including full headers (adding the word SPAM to the subject).

I got back an automated message that said I needed to provide them the headers of the email message and a link to a page that really didn’t have any useful information.

I resent the message; including all the tags that were mentioned on the page (including the one for harassment, since that was the closest thing that fit)… and I got back a message from “Fred CSAtech55″ referencing case ID NA0000014230535; who tells me if I want to follow up as “Harrassment” (that’s his spelling, not mine) that I should “call Comcast Security Assurance (CSA) at 888-565-4329″; but if I want to follow it up as spam I should “then choose the opt out option that the email provides”.

I guess, poor Fred not only can’t spell, but doesn’t understand that the LAST thing you do from an unsolicited email from a company that you’ve never dealt with (and have no reason to trust) is click on one of their links.

Maybe if Comcast hired people who could spell they might get out of the top ten worst companies for customer service.  Even better, if they hired people with a clue, they might actually be able to provide reasonable customer support and be no where near the top ten worst.

Oh, and if you’re thinking that they only provide poor service when you’re not a customer — WRONG, I can tell you story after story about how pathetic their service was in San Francisco; and how much better AT&T’s service was (that should truly be scary, when a company with service as poor as AT&T can have far superior service).

Tags: Communications, Email, Shit List, Technology by roger
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Fort Pickens, located on Santa Rosa Island, Florida was built after the War of 1812 along with Fort Barrancas, Fort McRee, and Navy Yard to fortify Pensacola Harbor.

On 8 January 1861 guards at Fort Barrancas repelled an attack by a group of local men (some historians consider these as the first shots fired in the American Civil War) causing Lt Adam J Slemmer to destroy 20,000 pounds of gun powerd at Fort McRee, spike the guns at Fort Barrancas, and evacuate his troops to Fort Pickens (which had not been occupied since the Mexican-American War) because he consider that to be a much more defensible location.  History proved Slemmer to have made a wise move, since Fort Pickens was the only fort in the South that the Union forces held throughout the war.

In 1960 Fort Pickens was designated a national historic site and opened to the public in 1976.

In 1960 Fort (San Carlos de) Barrancas was designated a national historic site and opened to the public in 1980.

I have some very old film shots of Fort Pickens that I will likely eventually digitize and post to my gallery; though this summer I’ll get some digital stills of both Fort Pickens and Fort Barrancas and the remnant foundations and views from Fort McRee (a nice hike, but nothing much is left).

All three forts (along with Fort Massachusetts, MS) are part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore which stretches along the coast of Mississippi, Alabama, and Northwest Florida.

Other notable forts along the coast in the Southeast:

Fort Pike Wikipeda and Fort Macomb Wikipedia are in Louisiana.

Fort Massachusetts NPS, Wikipedia (off the Mississippi coast) is closed this year for major renovations.

Fort Morgan Wikipedia and Fort Gaines Wikipedia are in Alabama.

Fort Jefferson (Dry Tortugas National Park) NPS, Wikipedia and Fort Marion/Castillo de San Marcos (St Augustine) NPS, Wikipedia are in Florida.

Fort Frederica NPS, Wikipedia and Fort Pulaski NPS, Wikipedia are in Georgia.

Fort Sumter NPS, Wikipedia is in South Carolina.

Tags: History by roger
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Gates is the ultimate programming machine. He believes everything can be defined, examined, reduced to essentials, and rearranged into a logical sequence that will achieve a particular goal.

· Stewart Alsop

Tags: Axiom by roger
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As of 1 March 2010 all of my domains should have both SPF and DKIM support in order to help receiving servers verify that the email is not SPAM.

If you are having problem receiving my email, or my email is ending up in your junk folder, please contact your email provider and query them about this.

Tags: Communications, Email, Technology by roger
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I don’t think we can ignore the Modern Movement. But I wouldn’t have minded at all if it hadn’t happened. I think the world would be a much nicer place.

· Quinlan Terry, British architect

Tags: Axiom by roger
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No, not Rowe vs Wade (but I’m sure I’ll have a rant on that if the current court hears a case that could reverse that land mark decision)… but Result Only Work Environment; essentially a version of “Flex Time” that is focused on increasing productivity by avoiding “presenteeism” (where someone is physically in the office, but mentally somewhere else).

You can read about an article on NPR about the Human Services and Public Health Department of Hennepin County (Minneapolis, MN).

The End Of 9-To-5: When Work Time Is Anytime

Tags: Economy, History, Politics by roger
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One of the most annoying thing a Mac does when it connects to a Windows network share is leave a .DS_Store file (if the share is writable).  There’s no harm in deleting the files (to either Windows or OS-X), but finding and removing them can be tedious.

I made my life a little easier to clean those .DS_Store files off my disk by writing a batch file that you can downloads (in a 7z archive) via cleanup_afp.7z

Tags: Mac, Windows by roger
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The two most potent post-war orthodoxies–socialist politics and modernist art–have at least one feature in common: they are both forms of snobbery, the anti-bourgeois snobbery of people convinced of their right to dictate to the common man in the name of the common man.

· Roger Scruton, In Praise of Bourgeois

Tags: Axiom by roger
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I certainly don’t have a solution to the drug problem in the US; but clearly the US government doesn’t either.

History teaches us many lessons, and when we ignore those lessons we often find ourselves repeating the errors of the past.

Prohibition didn’t work.

We make arbitrary decisions about which drugs are acceptable are which ones are not (we have legalized alcohol, but not drug in social use for much longer).

The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation has some interesting views on US drug policy:

The United States is at a crossroads in its drug policy. In our effort to quell the drug trade, we have greatly increased patrol and inspection on our nation’s borders. We have increased arrests for violation of drug laws and lengthened sentences. We have stripped away the rights of drug offenders and introduced drug testing in our nation’s schools and workplaces. We have poured billions of dollars into overseas anti-drug paramilitary operations that commit violent human rights abuses. And in the process of trying to eradicate illicit coca crops, we have destroyed over a million acres of land in Colombia alone.

Since 1990, more than half of the federal prisoners in America are serving time for drug offenses. The availability and purity of drugs has steadily increased over the past twenty-five years. The violence in the drug trade remains excruciatingly high and surges from year to year and city to city. Meanwhile, there remain a myriad of social issues as a result of drug abuse.

The use of drugs, and the enforcement of the anti-drug laws, effects all subpopulations in the U.S., all sectors of the economy, and many aspects of the legal system. Whether we are talking about violence, poverty, race, health, education, community development, the environment, civil liberties or terrorism, the illegal drug market is an important factor in the conversation.

We have tried to use force, prohibition and incarceration to control the drug market, but our efforts have actually led to a more efficient drug trade and a hugely profitable drug market. It is time to rethink our strategy and redefine our goals.

This section holds articles and speeches given by CJPF that address drug policy in all of its forms and effects. In this, we strive to provide a comprehensive framework for rethinking the war on drugs.

You can read the complete statement and peruse their web site at

Criminal Justice Policy Foundation

And if you’re wondering, I found their site through an article from NPR on taxing cocaine rather than (or in addition to) marijuana.

NPR

Tags: Health, History, Legal, Politics, Science by roger
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The green, ghostly light seems suddenly to spring to life with rosy blushes. There is infinite suggestion in this phenomenon, and in that lies its charm – the suggestion of life, form, color and movement – never less than evanescent — mysterious — no reality. It is the language of mystic signs and portents — the inspiration of the gods — wholly spiritual — divine signaling – remindful of superstition – provocative of imagination. Might not the inhabitants of some other world – Mars? – controlling mighty forces, thus surround our globe with fiery symbols – a golden writing – which we have not the key to decipher?

· Robert Falcon Scott, 1911 journal, describing the aurora australis

Tags: Axiom by roger
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