Category: Rants & Raves

Mild Insanity + Rage + Slight Technical Know-How = Hilarity

Below is an email I received a little over a month ago. I blurred out the name of the person who sent it to me to avoid his further embarrassment, but this was just too funny not to share. Read it and weep tears of laughter…

After reading this email, I started to reply back with basically a “What on EARTH are you talking about?” but I decided since he gave me his phone number, I might as well get to the bottom of this immediately- I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. Right from the beginning of the conversation, I couldn’t get a word in – he was spewing forth a non-stop barrage of anger and frustration. I tried to explain right from the start that Windows Phone Thoughts was a news and reviews site, that we didn’t sell anything directly, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He told me some story about how he bought his son two mobile recharging units for his son’s iPad, and his son was leaving on a trip to China, and how the “damn Boxwave chargers were defective”.

Aha, Boxwave! Once I heard that, the story started to make sense – I tried to break in on his ranting to say that I didn’t work for Boxwave, and wasn’t affiliated with them in any way, and he literally screamed at me “THEN WHY DON’T YOU HANG UP ON ME?”. I replied back that my mother raised me to be a polite person and that I wasn’t going to hang on up him – but that I could appreciate it if he would stop yelling. “I’M NOT YELLING!” he yelled at me. This hilarity went on for another minute or two, and finally he calmed down. I calmly explained yet again that I had no affiliation with Boxwave, though I had reviewed their products in the past.

In a nutshell, this guy used a search engine to find an old Pocket PC Thoughts post mentioning Boxwave and used our contact form to send me the above email, thinking he was contacting the company. He had made several attempts, but they ignored him. He was adamant that he used the Boxwave contact form and that their contact form must be routing all contact email to me. Yeah, right. After some further discussions he calmed down a little more, and I wished him all the best in getting in touch with Boxwave.

Another day, another crazy person. I love being online!

Tiny Apartment Transforms into 24 Rooms

You’ve got to admire the innovation here – with my North American mentality, I find it almost impossible to conceive of living in such a tiny amount of space, but I really admire the clever way in which this guys has re-imagined his living environment. Slick!

The Story of Bottled Water

“The Story of Bottled Water, released on March 22, 2010 (World Water Day) employs the Story of Stuff style to tell the story of manufactured demand—how you get Americans to buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week when it already flows from the tap. Over five minutes, the film explores the bottled water industry’s attacks on tap water and its use of seductive, environmental-themed advertising to cover up the mountains of plastic waste it produces. The film concludes with a call to take back the tap, not only by making a personal commitment to avoid bottled water, but by supporting investments in clean, available tap water for all.”

People who know me understand that I’m not a hyper-environmentalist, but I do believe that we are stewards of this planet and need to honour the gifts that it gives us. This video is extremely well done and cements what I’ve thought for a long time about bottled water: except in rare circumstances, it’s something best avoided. Well worth watching the video!

If You’re a Parent of a Young Child, or Plan to be Someday, Read This

“The current trend of over-parenting began in the early 1980’s when baby boomers – who ended up having fewer children, later in life – started having kids, and it has continued down the line. At first, Baby on Board signs in car windows proudly announced “precious cargo” inside. Today, however, it is not enough to wait until the baby is born. While pregnant, parents start their single-minded search for ways to create an über child – and there is no shortage of products to help them, including ‘prenatal education systems’ that claim to give Junior an intellectual, social, creative and emotional advantage. Once the baby is born, the race to keep him or her ahead of the pack intensifies – with baby videos, baby ballet, gymnastics before they can walk, and parents’ near-fanatic devotion to finding the right pre-school.”

I really like documentaries – though I don’t watch as many as them as I’d like – and when I find one that impacts me, I feel compelled to share it with others. This is one such documentary – it’s called Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids. Years before we had Logan, I’d feel a sense of bafflement watching the extremes that some parents would go to in order to get the very best for their kids. Sure, you love your kids, but does it really make sense to financially strain yourself to the point of breaking in order to get your kid a marginally better education or a vocal coach for what amounts to a hobby? Or how about spending $4000 on a birthday party for a one year old, as shown in the photo above? And thinking that turning one is, in the words of the mother, a “milestone achievement”? Talk about a warped perception of reality – making it to one year old isn’t an achievement in our modern world, it’s an inevitability. Aging is a biological certainty, not an accomplishment worthy of lavish praise. Celebration, yes. Praise for something that happened without effort or sacrifice? No. There’s a big difference between the two.

Now that I’m a parent, I understand more keenly the desire to provide the best options for your child, but I still think there are limits to how far parents should go…and when it comes to letting your kids go through the bumps and bruises of life to learn independence, I’m in complete agreement. As a parent, I want to make a big deal when Logan accomplishes something – but making it to age one isn’t one of those things. I love my son unconditionally, and will tell him so every day, but I won’t lie to him and puff up his ego to the point where he feels like he’s the Chosen One every day of his life.

Anyway, if you’re a parent of a young child, or one day plan on being a parent, I’d highly encourage you to set aside 45 minutes to watch this documentary. It’s truly fascinating because it shows the impact that this style of parenting has on the kids as they grow into stressed out, needy, dysfunctional young adults who can’t cope with life on their own after being conditioned for decades that they’re special, wonderful, and great at everything they try. If you like the documentary, or this post, share it with others.

CES 2010: The Worst CES Experience I’ve Ever Had

CES: it’s the geek Mecca. This year, for me, it was a train-wrecka (har har!). Join me on my journey of unpacking the frustrations and tribulations of a CES I’d rather forget. I need some catharsis from the five days I spent in Vegas, so this is more for me than you, but perhaps you’ll find it entertaining in a “driving past a car wreck” sort of way.

When I went to CES 2009, I posted quite a few videos of what I saw there. Producing those videos in 1080p h.264 on my Dell XPS M1330 took a long time, so on December 9th I placed an order for a pimped-out Core i7-based Dell Studio 17. Plenty of time before CES, right? Wrong. Despite calling in a favour with a contact I have in Dell’s CTO office, as of December 30th I still didn’t have the laptop – the estimated ship date was January 8th, three days after I left for CES. Switching to plan “B”, I went out and purchased an HP dv7, a $2000 Core i7-based laptop with a 17.3″ screen and a weight of seven pounds. I was planning on bringing this beast of a laptop with me to CES to leave in my hotel room for video production, and I’d carry a netbook me me for day to day CES reporting. Then I started to hear about the security restrictions after the December 25th “underwear bomber” was foiled, and my already rocky start to CES prep got worse. Continue reading CES 2010: The Worst CES Experience I’ve Ever Had

The Circus Should Be People-Only

circus-animals

I’m not a big fan of PETA or the extremes that they sometimes go to – though this breaks my heart and I’m glad PETA is shining a light on it – but I truly love animals and hate to see any animal of any shape or size mistreated. I’m not an extreme animal rights activist – I eat meat and wear leather – but the idea of going to a circus makes me feel very uncomfortable. The idea of an animal being trained purely for entertainment doesn’t sit well with me.

I’m OK with zoos though because I think zoos are a vital part of creating a bond between people and animals, and when people care about something, they’ll try to protect it. If someone has never seen a bear up close in a zoo, they might not care about protecting the bear’s natural habitat. In some ways, the animals in a zoo are “taking one for the team” – they’re sacrificing their freedom in order to serve as a bridge between humans and animals in order for that bond to be created. I’m excited about taking Logan to the Calgary Zoo someday, because I want to instill in him the wonder and beauty of the animal world. But a circus? Nope, I won’t be taking Logan to a circus – unless it’s a Cirque-type show where people are the ones doing all the tricks. Animals don’t belong in a circus.

Isn’t Canada Part of North America?

NVIDIA-NO-CANADA

I don’t tend to have an inferiority complex when it comes to being Canadian, but I do find it amusing the way Canada is so often simply not listed when companies list their localized versions. The above screen-shot is from the NVIDIA site – notice how only Mexico and USA are listed as being part of North America? Where did Canada go? It seems pretty silly that Canada isn’t listed, or at least USA/Canada. Would that really be so hard?

The Canadian National Do Not Call List: A Farce

Like many Canadians, when the National Do Not Call List was implemented, I went and registered my two home phone numbers, my one fax number, and both cell phone numbers in my family. I think I saw a drop in the number of telemarketers calling me, but it’s hard to say. This morning I as informed, by my mother of all people (I’m usually the one informing her of things like this), that this list isn’t quite what it appears to be. I’ll quote from the Wikipedia entry:

“In November 2008, it was reported that the CRTC had received thousands of complaints from Canadians about the implementation of the Do Not Call List. People reported that they had actually experienced a notable increase in the number of calls since registering for the list, and were starting to get calls at cellular phone numbers that had never received telemarketing calls before. In January 2009, numerous media and consumer advocacy organizations reported that anyone can use false information pretending to be a telemarketer and download the list for a $50 fee. It only took their reporter ten minutes to do so. The list is likely being downloaded and used as a telemarketing list overseas, where there’s little that can be done as the CRTC has no jurisdiction outside of Canada. On February 2, 2009, A Toronto Star headline labelled the CRTC’s do-not-call list a “disaster”, and the article recommended Parliament return to the original version of Bill C-37 by eliminating all exemptions. It further recommended cross-border cooperation to resolve jurisdictional issues and immediate tough enforcement to send a strong signal to violators.”

I had assumed there was some sort of “blind protocol” set in place here where the telemarketers would be required to do a database comparison with the Do Not Call List database, and numbers on that list would be purged from the telemarketers database. That’s the only system that would make any sense – yet it seems the system the government implemented was to bundle up all our phone numbers, hand it to the telemarketers, and say “Hey, don’t call these people, m’kay?”. Talk about naive! These telemarketers can then take that list of phone numbers and sell it on the international markets, or even pass it to their US branches to use as a calling list. Worst of all, they’ll get access to phone numbers that have never been put into the hands of telemarketers, such as cell phone numbers. What a mess.

Stoney Trail Mazda Search Results

stoney-trail-mazda-scam

There are a lot of things I don’t like about Google, but I’ve got to hand it to them: they do search really well. Not even five hours after I did my blog post, it’s already the 6th search result in Google for the terms Stony Trail Mazda. Gotta’ love that!

Did Stoney Trail Mazda Scam Me?

I don’t know much about cars. I’m one of those guys that, if something goes wrong with my car, I’ll call the AMA and let someone smarter than me figure it out. The most complicated thing I’ve done on my own cars is replace a headlight. So there’s the context for this story.

On Friday I took my 2003 Mazda Protege 5 to Stoney Trail Mazda in Calgary for an oil change, and after 30 minutes a woman came back to tell me that they were suggesting the following procedures for my car beyond the oil change:

  • Replace air filter ($30)
  • Injector flush ($170)
  • Power steering flush ($90)
  • Replace broken fog light ($270)

I was expecting to walk out spending under $50, and they were suggesting I spend more than 10 times that much! I felt a bit overwhelmed at first, but I started asking questions because it seemed curious that so much needed to happen at once. The broken fog light, she said, wasn’t just a simple blown bulb – the entire assembly needed to be replaced. The car has 61K KM on it, and had never had any of the fluids replaced/flushed beyond the oil and wind shield wiper fluid, but did that mean that both the power steering and injector systems needed to be flushed? I ended up saying yes to the air filter and power steering flush, but said I’d decide later on the injetor flush and fog light.

After she walked away I started searching online for articles related to the topic, and found a good one on injector flushing. I also found a bunch of forum threads where people were discussing the same topic, and the general consensus I found was that unless there’s a suspected problem with the injectors, there’s no need to flush them. It seems that telling customers that their vehicle’s injectors need flushing is an easy money-maker for the auto shop. I’m glad I said no to that. As for the power steering flush, that seems to be more of a mixed bag – some people say it’s good to have it changed every five years or so – which means my car is due – but in general unless you’re having problems with your power steering, the fluids don’t need to be touched. As someone who does computer consulting, it looks like most fluid flushing is right up there with me telling someone the SATA ports on their computer need defragmenting, or their WiFi signal needs cleaning because it’s dirty.

Here’s what ticks me off about this: I took my Mazda back to a Mazda dealership rather than taking it to Mr. Lube or another quick-change shop because I wanted, and expected, by-the-book Mazda maintenance. Meaning that unless Mazda themselves recommended a certain procedure in the owners manual, the Mazda dealership wouldn’t recommend anything different. When I went up to pay for the procedures, I told the woman at the desk I wasn’t sure I’d ever come back to this dealership again for servicing. I wasn’t rude or angry when I said it. She asked me why, and I explained that after some research I didn’t believe that they were giving me sound advice about what really needed to be done on my car. She replied that merely relays what the technicians tell her.

The kicker? When I drove home and pulled into the garage I turned all my lights off and on, including the fog lights, and they all work just fine. I find it hard to believe that Stoney Trail Mazda would be so bold as to tell a customer a light isn’t working if it is, but on the other hand I’m baffled as to why they thought it wasn’t working.

So, any car experts out there care to weigh in on this?