Preface: a UPS is something a guy like me plugs his servers into. Picture a big heavy battery combined with a short power strip. If the lights flicker, stuff plugged into the UPS stays on.
Admittedly, I bought my last UPS in a rush. I don't actually remember doing so, but I must have picked it up somewhere last-resort-y since it has emblazoned upon it the logo of a certain squad of geeks who shall remain unmentioned. So it was definitely not the best ...purchase, I could have made.
But let us ponder a simple question not even of electrical engineering, but of common sense.
When the device eventually fails, should it become:
a) a heavy, non-battery-backed-up power strip
b) a brick through which no electricity passes whatsoever
I'll give you all a few minutes to think about that, a few more if you work for a blue-and-yellow price-gouging store or their branded-Volkswagen-driving subsidiary.
Did you get it? Do you think that a device, whose entire purpose in existing is to provide uninterrupted power, should be designed to fail in such a way that power will still be supplied? If so, good for you! You have the intelligence of a human being. Have a cookie!
If you got it wrong, then no, I don't wish I'd bought your damn extended warranty, so stop asking! The last thing I want at this point is another identical UPS with aspirations of one day growing up to be a brick.
Showing posts with label incompetence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label incompetence. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Cinematic Word Abuse
Hollywood, we've talked about this. Stop it. Just make up your own words when you need some hocus-pocus to happen. Don't steal our real words and abuse them.
It's bad enough in police mystery shows. "Encrypted pixels" and stuff. Don't use or combine words that you don't understand. It's bad writing, and the resulting scenes are bad. But now, there's a film whose very title is wrong.
"The Source Code", the generic deep voice says, after the entire plot is shown in a 30-second TV spot.
I've glimpsed plenty of ads for this movie, which only means it could be anywhere from six months before the theatrical release to sitting in the DVD bargain bin at the grocery store. But "The Source Code", which is English for human-readable instructions for a computer, written in C or Python or Java or whatnot, here means "some magical means of time travel". Do me a favor, while you're in your web browser. Hit "View"->"Page Source" to open the source code for this page; there's some JavaScript near the bottom. See if you go hurtling back in time. Did it work? No? Hm.
See, instead of "modern day vampires = $$$", the lesson that should have been learned from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is this: Set the show up on a hellmouth, or some other place where magic and demons and impossible-but-fun nonsense is real. Don't say the computer is magic. It's not. While we're at it, no more loser-in-a-tree vampires either, 'kay?
But back to my point, don't hijack real words and phrases! Source code is very important and useful for many reasons, but time travel is not among them! I'll even go one step further and try to be constructive. Call it the Ghost Minutes Spell, or the Past Injection Curse. If you really want to have computers involved, stick it in a Matrix-like setting and call it the Crisis Backtrace or the ... actually, I can't come up with any computer words other than "backtrace" that even vaguely could have something to do with time travel.
But who am I to tell Hollywood producers anything, huh? I've only been writing source code since I was six. ...And, come to think of it, I also wrote two terrible movies, complete with crappy (though not outright lying) titles. At least I had the decency to not be able to finish shooting the second one. ;^)
It's bad enough in police mystery shows. "Encrypted pixels" and stuff. Don't use or combine words that you don't understand. It's bad writing, and the resulting scenes are bad. But now, there's a film whose very title is wrong.
"The Source Code", the generic deep voice says, after the entire plot is shown in a 30-second TV spot.
I've glimpsed plenty of ads for this movie, which only means it could be anywhere from six months before the theatrical release to sitting in the DVD bargain bin at the grocery store. But "The Source Code", which is English for human-readable instructions for a computer, written in C or Python or Java or whatnot, here means "some magical means of time travel". Do me a favor, while you're in your web browser. Hit "View"->"Page Source" to open the source code for this page; there's some JavaScript near the bottom. See if you go hurtling back in time. Did it work? No? Hm.
See, instead of "modern day vampires = $$$", the lesson that should have been learned from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is this: Set the show up on a hellmouth, or some other place where magic and demons and impossible-but-fun nonsense is real. Don't say the computer is magic. It's not. While we're at it, no more loser-in-a-tree vampires either, 'kay?
But back to my point, don't hijack real words and phrases! Source code is very important and useful for many reasons, but time travel is not among them! I'll even go one step further and try to be constructive. Call it the Ghost Minutes Spell, or the Past Injection Curse. If you really want to have computers involved, stick it in a Matrix-like setting and call it the Crisis Backtrace or the ... actually, I can't come up with any computer words other than "backtrace" that even vaguely could have something to do with time travel.
But who am I to tell Hollywood producers anything, huh? I've only been writing source code since I was six. ...And, come to think of it, I also wrote two terrible movies, complete with crappy (though not outright lying) titles. At least I had the decency to not be able to finish shooting the second one. ;^)
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Incompetence Profile: Dish Network
Oh Dish Network, how I loathe thee. Let me count the ways...
Advertising: incompetent
Lies, damned lies, and Dish Network promises. Free installation, they say! "Setup fee" though, that's different. And not mentioned until you've signed up. Up to 4 receivers free, they say! "Free" apparently means "extra $5 a month" in certain contexts. Only $30 a month, they say! Well, $40. Same thing right? $45 if you'd like local channels. No hidden fees, they say! Well, except for a $10 per month "programming access fee" if the phone line isn't hooked up. Even if the installation techs promised that's not the case. Which brings us to...
Installation technicians: incompetent
New house, no TV sets there where they will be yet. Not a problem, says the phone rep. Different story in person. They only have a big utility van full of equipment; it would be silly for them to include a little TV for testing. So my wife, already wasting her day waiting for these jokers, had to drive back to the apartment, grab our small TV, and drive it back, while these guys poked around on the roof and in the utility room, where they knocked out our DSL just to be cute. "One dual receiver in the bedroom, another in the basement" was the order. But my earning-her-3rd-college-degree wife probably didn't know what she was talking about, so they called me at work. Yes, I built a DVR so we want a dual tuner downstairs. As for the other, we might add a TV somewhere else at some point, and the dual tuner costs the same as a single anyway. Bedroom, basement. You install, I'll take it from there. So, naturally, they installed one in the bedroom, and the other ...in the office, two floors away from the basement. My wife was understandably sick of dealing with them by then, so I sorted things out when I got home, no thanks to their unmarked cables. Well, to be fair, a few cords had labels on one end. Not correct labels, but still.
Phone maze design: incompetent
I don't even need to go into details here. All phone mazes are defective by design. Any organization that installs such an abomination is incompetent. No exceptions, no excuses. We'd all honestly rather be on hold listening to muzak if the alternative is trying to appease some robot telling us to punch numbers and speak and roll over.
Customer service: incompetent
Beyond the phone maze await more robots, this time in the form of human beings in India reading from a flow-chart script. The phrase "I do apologize for the inconvenience sir" is used as punctuation, and to fill the silence when calling up the next part of the script. I'm not looking for an apology. Just take this fee, which you promised wouldn't be here, off my bill.
Hardware engineering: incompetent
Ahh, a nice compact dual tuner. What's this? S-Video output? Cool beans! Oh wait, it only works on the RF-remote tuner, which would by definition be elsewhere in the house, tuned to a UHF channel. Well, whatever. Composite's not so bad. No home automation control port, huh? That sucks, but I guess I can get an infrared blaster for my MythTV box. Oh, lovely. The tuner's IR sensor is fickle and ignores digits when it feels like it. Great job guys, wouldn't want to build a sensor that's a few % forgiving, 'cause surely your $3 made-in-Taiwan remote control powered by two AA batteries has more accurate signal timings than a friggin' PC motherboard.
Software engineering: incompetent
Finally, everything's set up and mostly working. Wait, what? We recorded a friggin' screensaver with a bouncing Dish logo instead of our shows? Every night in the wee hours, program guide updates are downloaded and the tuner reboots and comes up not with the last-tuned channel, but with this ridiculous "press select to continue" mode. This also happens if you don't press any buttons for 4 hours or so. Augh! There's an inelegant workaround I can and do use, but would it really be that hard to just boot up into the last tuned channel? Or update channel listings without a reboot? (What is this, Windows 95?) Or allow numbers to be punched in instead of ignoring all but a "select" signal? Or not have that useless screensaver mode in the first place?
It smells a bit of conspiracy theory, but Dish offers their own, reportedly-awful DVR (for a monthly fee, of course) which could explain the hardware and software issues that make it such a pain in the ass to set up a Dish receiver with an external recorder. Who knows if DirecTV would have been any better; their pricing lies were even more infuriating than Dish's. Don't you just love the "freedom" of choosing between two corporate overlords?
Dish Network. We put the F.U. in T.V.
Advertising: incompetent
Lies, damned lies, and Dish Network promises. Free installation, they say! "Setup fee" though, that's different. And not mentioned until you've signed up. Up to 4 receivers free, they say! "Free" apparently means "extra $5 a month" in certain contexts. Only $30 a month, they say! Well, $40. Same thing right? $45 if you'd like local channels. No hidden fees, they say! Well, except for a $10 per month "programming access fee" if the phone line isn't hooked up. Even if the installation techs promised that's not the case. Which brings us to...
Installation technicians: incompetent
New house, no TV sets there where they will be yet. Not a problem, says the phone rep. Different story in person. They only have a big utility van full of equipment; it would be silly for them to include a little TV for testing. So my wife, already wasting her day waiting for these jokers, had to drive back to the apartment, grab our small TV, and drive it back, while these guys poked around on the roof and in the utility room, where they knocked out our DSL just to be cute. "One dual receiver in the bedroom, another in the basement" was the order. But my earning-her-3rd-college-degree wife probably didn't know what she was talking about, so they called me at work. Yes, I built a DVR so we want a dual tuner downstairs. As for the other, we might add a TV somewhere else at some point, and the dual tuner costs the same as a single anyway. Bedroom, basement. You install, I'll take it from there. So, naturally, they installed one in the bedroom, and the other ...in the office, two floors away from the basement. My wife was understandably sick of dealing with them by then, so I sorted things out when I got home, no thanks to their unmarked cables. Well, to be fair, a few cords had labels on one end. Not correct labels, but still.
Phone maze design: incompetent
I don't even need to go into details here. All phone mazes are defective by design. Any organization that installs such an abomination is incompetent. No exceptions, no excuses. We'd all honestly rather be on hold listening to muzak if the alternative is trying to appease some robot telling us to punch numbers and speak and roll over.
Customer service: incompetent
Beyond the phone maze await more robots, this time in the form of human beings in India reading from a flow-chart script. The phrase "I do apologize for the inconvenience sir" is used as punctuation, and to fill the silence when calling up the next part of the script. I'm not looking for an apology. Just take this fee, which you promised wouldn't be here, off my bill.
Hardware engineering: incompetent
Ahh, a nice compact dual tuner. What's this? S-Video output? Cool beans! Oh wait, it only works on the RF-remote tuner, which would by definition be elsewhere in the house, tuned to a UHF channel. Well, whatever. Composite's not so bad. No home automation control port, huh? That sucks, but I guess I can get an infrared blaster for my MythTV box. Oh, lovely. The tuner's IR sensor is fickle and ignores digits when it feels like it. Great job guys, wouldn't want to build a sensor that's a few % forgiving, 'cause surely your $3 made-in-Taiwan remote control powered by two AA batteries has more accurate signal timings than a friggin' PC motherboard.
Software engineering: incompetent
Finally, everything's set up and mostly working. Wait, what? We recorded a friggin' screensaver with a bouncing Dish logo instead of our shows? Every night in the wee hours, program guide updates are downloaded and the tuner reboots and comes up not with the last-tuned channel, but with this ridiculous "press select to continue" mode. This also happens if you don't press any buttons for 4 hours or so. Augh! There's an inelegant workaround I can and do use, but would it really be that hard to just boot up into the last tuned channel? Or update channel listings without a reboot? (What is this, Windows 95?) Or allow numbers to be punched in instead of ignoring all but a "select" signal? Or not have that useless screensaver mode in the first place?
It smells a bit of conspiracy theory, but Dish offers their own, reportedly-awful DVR (for a monthly fee, of course) which could explain the hardware and software issues that make it such a pain in the ass to set up a Dish receiver with an external recorder. Who knows if DirecTV would have been any better; their pricing lies were even more infuriating than Dish's. Don't you just love the "freedom" of choosing between two corporate overlords?
Dish Network. We put the F.U. in T.V.
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