Showing posts with label intarweb. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intarweb. Show all posts
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Neat Surprises Just Before You Go To Bed
I would just like to say that the new theme feature in Google's Gmail (if you don't have a themes tab under your settings, you soon will get one as they roll out the new feature) ROCKS. That is all.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Why I'll Be Buying Some Presents from Amazon.Com This Year
The end of last year, frankly, was a mess. We were getting the house ready to sell, we were getting ready to do some holiday traveling, and some horrible things had recently happened in our family. We weren't putting up a Christmas tree for several reasons, some due to the stock advice not to put up anything personal in a house you're trying to sell, but also partially because we weren't in a frame of mind to celebrate.
Everything I did around then just seemed more difficult. The last of the weights that were pushing down on us just fell at the end of last month, in fact, when the house finally sold. Things just weren't going well, and I just kind of knew that things would be a struggle for us for awhile. The last thing I needed was a new problem, the sort of random thing that can happen to anyone.
I bought a digital photo frame for my parents for Christmas, loaded it with pictures of our daughter, me, and the mister, wrapped it up, and sent it. I reused a shipping box that had held something I purchased from Amazon.com, a lovely boxed hardcover set of Calvin and Hobbes that was the mister's present last Christmas, bought at such a steep discount on their Friday sale that I doubt they made that much profit on the sale. I carefully covered over the shipping info from Amazon to send the box to my parents, taping a piece of heavy construction paper with their address on it over the top of the box.
What happened to cause the random problem that I needed like a hole in my head was this: somewhere between Missouri and Virginia, the piece of paper ripped somehow and the address information was separated from the box. It still apparently had the sticker that was printed by the shipping machine I used at the post office that directed it to the right zip code, but the street address was gone.
When too much time went by before the package reached my mom and dad, I dug out the receipt with the tracking number on it and set about trying to find the package. It had a weird status when I checked it online, and I ended up making phone calls that ended with the postmaster of the post office where the package had apparently been at one time, but no one seemed to be able to put their hands on it.
I was so upset over this package being missing. Part of it was the money, because it was a kind of expensive present. Part of it was the work I'd put into choosing the pictures and putting them on the memory card, pre-programming it so it would be easy for my parents to use. But part of it was that it was one more damn thing that wasn't going well.
I made, at the postmaster's suggestion, about three more calls to him while that post office tried to figure out what had happened to this package. I was losing faith that anyone I knew would ever see it again. I even began to wonder if someone had opened the package, unwrapped the present, saw it was a larger-ticket item, and decided to keep it.
Then one day, my doorbell rang. I went to the door and found a package UPS had left on my doorstep that had shipping labels from Amazon, along with a neon yellow sticker on the outside saying something about an item that was being returned to me because Amazon didn't know why it had been sent to them.
I opened that box and found MY box inside. That box had clearly been through a LOT, dinged and ripped and dented, but inside THAT box was the digital photo frame. It wasn't wrapped (I imagine Amazon had to take off the gift wrap to figure out what it was) but all of the pieces were safely inside the box.
There was a note inside the box saying that they had sent me back my item because they couldn't locate an RMA involving that item. I thought it through for a few minutes and then figured out what must have happened.
The USPS must have seen the old shipping label on the box, the original one from Amazon when they sent me the books I'd ordered. Having no other solid info to go on (I'd ripped off the part with our address), they sent the box to Amazon in the hopes that the puzzle would untangle somehow.
Amazon then got a box with an item that I don't even think they sell, but they looked up the shipping information from my original order, probably the UPS tracking number that I'd sharpied over but was probably still readable from the barcode. When they got the shipping info, they sent the box to me at their cost, along with their note about not having a matching RMA request.
I felt horrible that Amazon had incurred a cost in helping to get this box back to me. I went on a mission to find someone in their customer service to explain the whole debacle to, finding someone in the right department after a few stops and starts. I explained what had happened, how they'd come to be in possession of a product I hadn't even purchased from them, and that I wanted to reimburse them for the shipping costs.
The lady sent me an email back in our little chain of replies back and forth that basically said, "Don't worry about it. Just think of us in the future when you're shopping online. Happy Holidays."
I'm not a member of Amazon Prime, and while I've bought my share of things from them in the past, I doubt I'm even in the top 70% of sales for private individuals. There was nothing in my account that could have persuaded this woman or Amazon in specific to give me special treatment. This was just how the company treated me when I approached them to tell them how they'd helped me. They did me one last favor and told me to forget the shipping cost, which was extremely generous, considering that they were the last step in a chain that helped me find this gift that went astray and get it back to my parents.
That, both the effort they took to ship the box back to me and the kindness of their customer service agents, means that I am now going out of my way to find the presents I'd like to buy on their site. That's how you turn a customer into a devoted repeat customer. I'm happy to thank them with my purchases and my loyalty. Thanks again, Amazon, for making a really difficult holiday season that we had last year just a little less stressful.
Everything I did around then just seemed more difficult. The last of the weights that were pushing down on us just fell at the end of last month, in fact, when the house finally sold. Things just weren't going well, and I just kind of knew that things would be a struggle for us for awhile. The last thing I needed was a new problem, the sort of random thing that can happen to anyone.
I bought a digital photo frame for my parents for Christmas, loaded it with pictures of our daughter, me, and the mister, wrapped it up, and sent it. I reused a shipping box that had held something I purchased from Amazon.com, a lovely boxed hardcover set of Calvin and Hobbes that was the mister's present last Christmas, bought at such a steep discount on their Friday sale that I doubt they made that much profit on the sale. I carefully covered over the shipping info from Amazon to send the box to my parents, taping a piece of heavy construction paper with their address on it over the top of the box.
What happened to cause the random problem that I needed like a hole in my head was this: somewhere between Missouri and Virginia, the piece of paper ripped somehow and the address information was separated from the box. It still apparently had the sticker that was printed by the shipping machine I used at the post office that directed it to the right zip code, but the street address was gone.
When too much time went by before the package reached my mom and dad, I dug out the receipt with the tracking number on it and set about trying to find the package. It had a weird status when I checked it online, and I ended up making phone calls that ended with the postmaster of the post office where the package had apparently been at one time, but no one seemed to be able to put their hands on it.
I was so upset over this package being missing. Part of it was the money, because it was a kind of expensive present. Part of it was the work I'd put into choosing the pictures and putting them on the memory card, pre-programming it so it would be easy for my parents to use. But part of it was that it was one more damn thing that wasn't going well.
I made, at the postmaster's suggestion, about three more calls to him while that post office tried to figure out what had happened to this package. I was losing faith that anyone I knew would ever see it again. I even began to wonder if someone had opened the package, unwrapped the present, saw it was a larger-ticket item, and decided to keep it.
Then one day, my doorbell rang. I went to the door and found a package UPS had left on my doorstep that had shipping labels from Amazon, along with a neon yellow sticker on the outside saying something about an item that was being returned to me because Amazon didn't know why it had been sent to them.
I opened that box and found MY box inside. That box had clearly been through a LOT, dinged and ripped and dented, but inside THAT box was the digital photo frame. It wasn't wrapped (I imagine Amazon had to take off the gift wrap to figure out what it was) but all of the pieces were safely inside the box.
There was a note inside the box saying that they had sent me back my item because they couldn't locate an RMA involving that item. I thought it through for a few minutes and then figured out what must have happened.
The USPS must have seen the old shipping label on the box, the original one from Amazon when they sent me the books I'd ordered. Having no other solid info to go on (I'd ripped off the part with our address), they sent the box to Amazon in the hopes that the puzzle would untangle somehow.
Amazon then got a box with an item that I don't even think they sell, but they looked up the shipping information from my original order, probably the UPS tracking number that I'd sharpied over but was probably still readable from the barcode. When they got the shipping info, they sent the box to me at their cost, along with their note about not having a matching RMA request.
I felt horrible that Amazon had incurred a cost in helping to get this box back to me. I went on a mission to find someone in their customer service to explain the whole debacle to, finding someone in the right department after a few stops and starts. I explained what had happened, how they'd come to be in possession of a product I hadn't even purchased from them, and that I wanted to reimburse them for the shipping costs.
The lady sent me an email back in our little chain of replies back and forth that basically said, "Don't worry about it. Just think of us in the future when you're shopping online. Happy Holidays."
I'm not a member of Amazon Prime, and while I've bought my share of things from them in the past, I doubt I'm even in the top 70% of sales for private individuals. There was nothing in my account that could have persuaded this woman or Amazon in specific to give me special treatment. This was just how the company treated me when I approached them to tell them how they'd helped me. They did me one last favor and told me to forget the shipping cost, which was extremely generous, considering that they were the last step in a chain that helped me find this gift that went astray and get it back to my parents.
That, both the effort they took to ship the box back to me and the kindness of their customer service agents, means that I am now going out of my way to find the presents I'd like to buy on their site. That's how you turn a customer into a devoted repeat customer. I'm happy to thank them with my purchases and my loyalty. Thanks again, Amazon, for making a really difficult holiday season that we had last year just a little less stressful.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Let Me Help You Out
I have two suggestions for a couple of websites. I see no better way to voice them than my sparsely-visited blog, because surely word will get back to them somehow, right?
1. Alton Brown. Your personal website and the Food Network website offer no way to contact you. You seem like a personable guy, so I can only assume this is because you feel you would get too many comments to respond to personally, so you've left off a contact link to keep people from being disappointed.
That's too bad, though, because I have a really good show idea. I define "really good" as "I need the hell out of this information, and I think he's the right guy to present it." I mean, yes, it's full of self-interest, but...well, it's really just full of self-interest.
I (somewhat) recently moved to a location that is considered "high-altitude". All my life I've vaguely noted the high-altitude directions on the recipes that include them, but it never occurred to me that one day, I would be the one needing them. Baking here is a mess. Pretty much anything with a mixture of wet and dry ingredients seems to be affected, and nothing seems to come out quite right, even when you have high-altitude instructions. Cookies are flat. Brownies too. I haven't even attempted a cake or bread or something a little more complex, but I can only assume that they would also be affected by the curse of the mountains.
Yes, there are other sources that lay out the concepts behind high-altitude cooking, and I've tried to get into several of them enough for the information to sink in. It's either my usual state of sleep deprivation or the fact that they're as boring as plain white rice, but I can't stick with any of them long enough to learn anything.
What I figure I require are puppets and skits and some sort of illustrative use of styrofoam balls and yarn. Surely, if Alton Brown can't teach me how to make good cookies at altitude, it is a lost cause.
But I can't ask him to do this show, because there is no known way on the internets to get a message to him. If I had a homing pigeon, I would use its services. If anyone reading this post can find a link I couldn't find, I will bow to your superior internet kung-fu if you take pity on me and leave it in the comments.
2. Very simply, to all brick and mortar store websites: you are not allowed to have a website unless I can go there and find out when your store is open. If you have a store locator and there are no store hours on each location's individual page, you fail and you have to start again. In this information age, I shouldn't have to pick up a phone and derail one of your employees just so they can tell me that they'll close tonight at 7:00. That is 20th century thinking, which would be great if that was the century we're living in, BUT IT'S NOT.
Let me know when your outsourced website vendor figures their shit out and puts ALL the basic info on your website, because that's when I'll bother to go there again. When I make a wasted trip to your site, all you do is teach me not to waste my time in the future. In this economy, I don't think you can afford to do that. Just some love from me to you.
1. Alton Brown. Your personal website and the Food Network website offer no way to contact you. You seem like a personable guy, so I can only assume this is because you feel you would get too many comments to respond to personally, so you've left off a contact link to keep people from being disappointed.
That's too bad, though, because I have a really good show idea. I define "really good" as "I need the hell out of this information, and I think he's the right guy to present it." I mean, yes, it's full of self-interest, but...well, it's really just full of self-interest.
I (somewhat) recently moved to a location that is considered "high-altitude". All my life I've vaguely noted the high-altitude directions on the recipes that include them, but it never occurred to me that one day, I would be the one needing them. Baking here is a mess. Pretty much anything with a mixture of wet and dry ingredients seems to be affected, and nothing seems to come out quite right, even when you have high-altitude instructions. Cookies are flat. Brownies too. I haven't even attempted a cake or bread or something a little more complex, but I can only assume that they would also be affected by the curse of the mountains.
Yes, there are other sources that lay out the concepts behind high-altitude cooking, and I've tried to get into several of them enough for the information to sink in. It's either my usual state of sleep deprivation or the fact that they're as boring as plain white rice, but I can't stick with any of them long enough to learn anything.
What I figure I require are puppets and skits and some sort of illustrative use of styrofoam balls and yarn. Surely, if Alton Brown can't teach me how to make good cookies at altitude, it is a lost cause.
But I can't ask him to do this show, because there is no known way on the internets to get a message to him. If I had a homing pigeon, I would use its services. If anyone reading this post can find a link I couldn't find, I will bow to your superior internet kung-fu if you take pity on me and leave it in the comments.
2. Very simply, to all brick and mortar store websites: you are not allowed to have a website unless I can go there and find out when your store is open. If you have a store locator and there are no store hours on each location's individual page, you fail and you have to start again. In this information age, I shouldn't have to pick up a phone and derail one of your employees just so they can tell me that they'll close tonight at 7:00. That is 20th century thinking, which would be great if that was the century we're living in, BUT IT'S NOT.
Let me know when your outsourced website vendor figures their shit out and puts ALL the basic info on your website, because that's when I'll bother to go there again. When I make a wasted trip to your site, all you do is teach me not to waste my time in the future. In this economy, I don't think you can afford to do that. Just some love from me to you.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Want
I'm boring those of you who read Boing Boing, but I want one of these bookshelves REALLY BAD. Enough that I'm starting to wonder how much a scroll saw would cost so I could make the brackets and parens myself.Oh my god the math geek in me is screaming out for justice. I need to own this, and the flash site for the original designer doesn't say anything about options to purchase one, which either means I can't buy one or it would cost much more than I can reasonably set aside for a purchase like this.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Let Science Win
If you give a rat's ass about scientific principles, and about keeping the planet habitable for humans for upcoming generations, for cryin' in the sink, go here and vote for the Bad Astronomy blog.
The blog currently in the lead is a shill operation for political pandering to big corporations who are putting their fingers in their ears and yelling, "La la la! Humans have zero effect on the ecosystem, because that would be financially inconvenient! La la la!" A lot of people from that part of the political spectrum (ahem, that's as nicely as I can put that) are being sent to the awards site to vote for the pseudo-science site, and now it's winning.
I realize in all irony that I'm essentially doing the same thing, and telling you to go and vote blindly in a contest you didn't even know about a few minutes ago. Listen. I'd tell you to check all of them out and vote for the one you like, but in this case, Bad Astronomy has the best chance of winning AND representing the true, unbiased scientific process.
So if you give a crap, go and click. Thanks.
The blog currently in the lead is a shill operation for political pandering to big corporations who are putting their fingers in their ears and yelling, "La la la! Humans have zero effect on the ecosystem, because that would be financially inconvenient! La la la!" A lot of people from that part of the political spectrum (ahem, that's as nicely as I can put that) are being sent to the awards site to vote for the pseudo-science site, and now it's winning.
I realize in all irony that I'm essentially doing the same thing, and telling you to go and vote blindly in a contest you didn't even know about a few minutes ago. Listen. I'd tell you to check all of them out and vote for the one you like, but in this case, Bad Astronomy has the best chance of winning AND representing the true, unbiased scientific process.
So if you give a crap, go and click. Thanks.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Aggravation
So, when a big famous website where people auction stuff sends you an alert telling you that you have to update information in your account, and you actually go to their website (to make sure it's legit), find the alert message, and then click the link in it to update, shouldn't that fix the problem?
No! Apparently, it shouldn't. You see, the link in the alert message only updates half of the info you need to update. The other half is, of course, not even listed as steps or as a link in the alert message.
To some of us who are easily annoyed by an alert message (that you can't delete, by the way, even though you followed all the instructions in it, because you, of course, didn't follow the secret instructions that aren't there) this is enough to drive you nuts. Nuts enough to contact the customer service of the site and ask for the stupid thing to get nuked I don't have to look at it anymore.
Cut to the response from customer service, snarkily telling me what I should have done. I even opened the alert message up again to see if I just missed this part, but I didn't. It's not there. When I inquired why this part of the procedure (which does not follow naturally from the instructions provided, by the way) isn't listed in the message that was designed to get you to accomplish both tasks, I got a non-response, a boilerplate restating the instructions I got originally, as though I was too dumb to follow the first one.
No, no. You don't realize that I'm trying to help you by pointing out all the time of yours and ours you're wasting when you don't tell us what you actually want us to do. I bet they wonder why no one updates their information, too.
Real head-scratcher, that one.
Oh, and I updated the info. The alert's still there, and I still can't delete it, even though they said I'd be able to once I finished the sooper seekrit part of the process. For heaven's sake.
No! Apparently, it shouldn't. You see, the link in the alert message only updates half of the info you need to update. The other half is, of course, not even listed as steps or as a link in the alert message.
To some of us who are easily annoyed by an alert message (that you can't delete, by the way, even though you followed all the instructions in it, because you, of course, didn't follow the secret instructions that aren't there) this is enough to drive you nuts. Nuts enough to contact the customer service of the site and ask for the stupid thing to get nuked I don't have to look at it anymore.
Cut to the response from customer service, snarkily telling me what I should have done. I even opened the alert message up again to see if I just missed this part, but I didn't. It's not there. When I inquired why this part of the procedure (which does not follow naturally from the instructions provided, by the way) isn't listed in the message that was designed to get you to accomplish both tasks, I got a non-response, a boilerplate restating the instructions I got originally, as though I was too dumb to follow the first one.
No, no. You don't realize that I'm trying to help you by pointing out all the time of yours and ours you're wasting when you don't tell us what you actually want us to do. I bet they wonder why no one updates their information, too.
Real head-scratcher, that one.
Oh, and I updated the info. The alert's still there, and I still can't delete it, even though they said I'd be able to once I finished the sooper seekrit part of the process. For heaven's sake.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Spam, How Do You Know Me So Well?
I just got a spam message that was sandwiched between two excerpts from Jane Austen's "Emma". How do you know, internets, about my recent obsession with Jane Austen's books?
That's just creepy.
That's just creepy.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
The Code and Digg
I like Digg. It's a trifle less misogynistic than Fark, and it's easy to peek at for a stolen moment or two when the B is playing on her own. (She's taken to pushing my hands off her toys when she wants some alone playing time.)
Yesterday, they received a takedown message from MPAA over several users posting stories including the key that will decrypt HD-DVDs. Digg was faced with a lawsuit that has the power to suck enough money out of their venture that winning or losing any lawsuit against the MPAA has the same potential effect: the financial ruin and the death of the site itself.
The more the Digg admins tried to remove the key from stories and comments, the more the users insisted on posting it. It's now there, pervasive enough that removing it would consist of nuking the site as a whole.
Though anyone with a need to know this key likely has it memorized by now, they're still faced with a likely lawsuit. Is it really worth it to fight for "free speech" on a site you like, just to possibly kill the site due to the huge amount of money a lawsuit will suck away from the site? Why Digg? Because it's a user submission site? I don't get it.
I mean, I think all the copy protection, when it blocks uses that are covered under Fair Use laws, is ridiculous. Is it worth taking someone's very successful venture and possibly throwing it down the toilet just because, one night, that's where the battleground was?
(And in classic I-have-a-baby mode, this all happened last night and I only learned of it this morning.)
Yesterday, they received a takedown message from MPAA over several users posting stories including the key that will decrypt HD-DVDs. Digg was faced with a lawsuit that has the power to suck enough money out of their venture that winning or losing any lawsuit against the MPAA has the same potential effect: the financial ruin and the death of the site itself.
The more the Digg admins tried to remove the key from stories and comments, the more the users insisted on posting it. It's now there, pervasive enough that removing it would consist of nuking the site as a whole.
Though anyone with a need to know this key likely has it memorized by now, they're still faced with a likely lawsuit. Is it really worth it to fight for "free speech" on a site you like, just to possibly kill the site due to the huge amount of money a lawsuit will suck away from the site? Why Digg? Because it's a user submission site? I don't get it.
I mean, I think all the copy protection, when it blocks uses that are covered under Fair Use laws, is ridiculous. Is it worth taking someone's very successful venture and possibly throwing it down the toilet just because, one night, that's where the battleground was?
(And in classic I-have-a-baby mode, this all happened last night and I only learned of it this morning.)
Monday, April 23, 2007
I don't think so
You know what, Inez? I don't think I will "confirm my mortgage G5N7" with you, even though you've been kind enough to contact me at my personal email address to ask me about it.
Is there really someone sending out their mortgage information after an unsolicited email from someone they've never heard of? Isn't the odd letter/number combo in the subject line enough to warn them off?
Honestly, I hover between wondering how spam possibly suckers anyone in anymore, to wondering why we don't get more of it, when I realize that the sheer amount of spam we all currently get is an indication that there are plenty of sheep out there waiting to be shorn.
And hey, it's not every day that you get to use the word "shorn", so I'll cut there.
Is there really someone sending out their mortgage information after an unsolicited email from someone they've never heard of? Isn't the odd letter/number combo in the subject line enough to warn them off?
Honestly, I hover between wondering how spam possibly suckers anyone in anymore, to wondering why we don't get more of it, when I realize that the sheer amount of spam we all currently get is an indication that there are plenty of sheep out there waiting to be shorn.
And hey, it's not every day that you get to use the word "shorn", so I'll cut there.
Friday, April 20, 2007
A Basic, Modern Doorknob
I swear, this is an un-retouched screenshot of the doorknob article at Wikipedia, at least how it is right now.ETA: I am not the one who edited the Wikipedia page.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Ruminations on Employment
I have not been employed outside the home since July of 2005, first in anticipation of having the baby, and then continuing as a stay-at-home mom (the infamous SAHM!) after she arrived.
I've thought a lot about what I'll do when she reaches an age where she's in school enough for me to go back to working either full or part time, and what I'll do. My resume is so full of different jobs and jobs for which I will no longer be qualified (because of changes in the field I wasn't there to adjust to) that I'll almost certainly have to go in a different direction.
After "running the house" for a little while, I've also wondered off and on how I'll react to being an employee again, assuming I go back to working for someone instead of doing something on my own, like re-starting my voice studio or singing at weddings and stuff like that.
I really questioned how I would react to literally being "bossed", and how any mom who stayed at home for a bit could do it. I'm used to being in charge at this point, at least of the baby and the things that are my domain, like paying the bills and that sort of stuff. The idea of someone looking over my shoulder and checking up on me irks me to no end.
However, since I started doing those transcripts I've written about, I've discovered a thing about working for someone else, even for the little micropayments I receive for that work, that I didn't realize I missed. As much as I hate to admit it, I really miss the pat on the head when I do something well.
The thing about staying home is that the person who is most effected by it sees you as completely transparent. You are literally just that lady that will always be there. Kids at this age hold out things for you to take and drop them, believing that you will OF COURSE get there in time to take it before it falls to the floor. You are the default, the expected, the unwavering and unerring.
That's great, of course, to be counted on and to be important, even if the person who needs you is completely unaware of the need. Sometimes, though, you know you did something well and you really want at least that glimmer of satisfaction in someone else's eye when they become aware of the job you did.
The transcriptions are really sort of becoming that for me. The last four I did, I got the best grade possible on them, and I really felt they deserved it. It doesn't equal a colossal amount of money, but it does equal the most amount of money that was possible to make from those little jobs.
That's nice, but somehow, seeing that top score when my grade comes through seemed a little cooler that the money that was deposited into my account. It's the satisfaction of being noticed. Maybe it's mostly people who were the youngest in their families who need this stuff, but I don't care. It's nice to have an outlet for that.
I've thought a lot about what I'll do when she reaches an age where she's in school enough for me to go back to working either full or part time, and what I'll do. My resume is so full of different jobs and jobs for which I will no longer be qualified (because of changes in the field I wasn't there to adjust to) that I'll almost certainly have to go in a different direction.
After "running the house" for a little while, I've also wondered off and on how I'll react to being an employee again, assuming I go back to working for someone instead of doing something on my own, like re-starting my voice studio or singing at weddings and stuff like that.
I really questioned how I would react to literally being "bossed", and how any mom who stayed at home for a bit could do it. I'm used to being in charge at this point, at least of the baby and the things that are my domain, like paying the bills and that sort of stuff. The idea of someone looking over my shoulder and checking up on me irks me to no end.
However, since I started doing those transcripts I've written about, I've discovered a thing about working for someone else, even for the little micropayments I receive for that work, that I didn't realize I missed. As much as I hate to admit it, I really miss the pat on the head when I do something well.
The thing about staying home is that the person who is most effected by it sees you as completely transparent. You are literally just that lady that will always be there. Kids at this age hold out things for you to take and drop them, believing that you will OF COURSE get there in time to take it before it falls to the floor. You are the default, the expected, the unwavering and unerring.
That's great, of course, to be counted on and to be important, even if the person who needs you is completely unaware of the need. Sometimes, though, you know you did something well and you really want at least that glimmer of satisfaction in someone else's eye when they become aware of the job you did.
The transcriptions are really sort of becoming that for me. The last four I did, I got the best grade possible on them, and I really felt they deserved it. It doesn't equal a colossal amount of money, but it does equal the most amount of money that was possible to make from those little jobs.
That's nice, but somehow, seeing that top score when my grade comes through seemed a little cooler that the money that was deposited into my account. It's the satisfaction of being noticed. Maybe it's mostly people who were the youngest in their families who need this stuff, but I don't care. It's nice to have an outlet for that.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Pet Peeve: Log In/Log On
Repeat after me, people on television talking about websites. (I think this whole thing may be the fault of the Today Show, because I heard this horrifying thing there a long time before it became as pervasive as it is now.)If you enter a URL in your location bar and your browser loads up the website, which you can then use to view the information the talking head on the television was sending you to without entering a username and password, then you do NOT "log in" or "log on" to that site. A URL is not a login. (sigh) If you need a verb, which I suppose you do, I suggest "navigate to". Although that's scary to the people who fear multi-syllable words. Maybe "point your browser to..." if you must.
If you don't know what either of those means, you should either get someone hip to 'splain it to you or just sell the computer and go back to reading books, which is probably what most of us should be doing anyway.
And, if by some chance, television people, the website you are directing people to does require a login and password in order to view the content that you are sending them to, by all means tell them to "log in" or "log on". Because that's what they're doing.
Navigating your browser to a site via a URL does not equal log on.
It's not just non-tech people who do this, either. Back when TechTV still was around, the people on their shows used to say this all the time. Nails on a blackboard, I tell you. Chinese water torture. If Jack Bauer thought I had information about the "nukuler bombs", he could skip cutting off my finger and just proceed to screaming, "Log on! Log on!" in my ear and I'd spill.
Now you may go about your business. Thank you for reading. Not that this will do any good, other than making me feel 0.000001% better about the whole thing.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Do You Listen to Many Podcasts?
Hoo, boy. If you don't, I can save you a lot of time looking.I can tell you from experience that most of them are excruciating! They are either pseudo-intellectual claptrap, or they appear to be actively inciting people to either blindly give over their money (to "change their lives!") or encouraging them to do stupid, reckless, irresponsible, or extremely selfish things.
They instruct people on how to game search engine results (which I know many people do, but not quite as disingenuously as this). They talk about how to "get yours" and how to "not let other people get in your way". They ramble on about art in that way that makes my teeth grind, because they don't even have a clue what they mean and are much more interested in how to scoot through life doing very little work than they are in actually creating anything interesting.
Ugh. It's every stupid conversation you've ever overheard, only broadcast as though it's really, really, good advice.
And if you're wondering how I suddenly know this, I've found a way to make a little tiny bit of extra money while the B is sleeping by transcribing sections of podcasts. It really only works out if you can retain bits of text in your head while typing the bit you just heard a second ago, and if you type rather quickly and with few mistakes.
And no, I'm not telling you where. Most of you have "real jobs" for one, and don't need these micropayments, and for those of you for whom that's not true, I don't fancy the extra competition! The postings disappear quickly enough as it is.
However, it is nice to earn a little bit of money again, even if the amount is really small. Transcriptions are a bit like playing a game, sort of, but getting paid to do it. It's a game to see how quickly I can do it, how many times I can avoid having to rewind, how many of the names I can research quickly on Google to spell correctly.
So, in case any of you were wondering how I fill my time when the B naps, that's how I've been doing it for the last few weeks. But honestly, save yourself the time and avoid 90% of the podcasts out there. Some of them make me feel like my brain is trying to liquefy and seep out of my ears, if only to escape the nattering on.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
This was going a different way, but...
I was going to post about how I couldn't make a top five villains post. I saw everyone else's posts and wanted to join in, so I looked at my list of top fifty movies. It turns out that I don't like movies that have villains. The only villains in the movies on my list were Darth, Sauron, Voldemort, the Alien Queen, and possibly the MCP from Tron.
I realize that's five, and I guess you could count that as my list if you wanted to, but none of those feel like they should be on my list. There's just no real bad guys on my list!
So that was what I was going to write about, but when I opened my blog publishing page, I was assaulted by this:
WARNING
This blog has been locked by Blogger's spam-prevention robots. You will not be able to publish your posts, but you will be able to save them as drafts. Save your post as a draft or (link removed) click here for more about what's going on and how to get your blog unlocked.
Which fucker out there reported my blog as a spam blog? I don't buy this robot BS. Now I have to wait for a human to OK my blog. Joy. I'm sure I'm in a 5000 person line for that to happen.
So thanks, you splogging assholes, for ruining it for the rest of us. You guys suck more than Hoover.
(And I can now finally publish this post now that I've been declared not spammy.)
I realize that's five, and I guess you could count that as my list if you wanted to, but none of those feel like they should be on my list. There's just no real bad guys on my list!
So that was what I was going to write about, but when I opened my blog publishing page, I was assaulted by this:
WARNING
This blog has been locked by Blogger's spam-prevention robots. You will not be able to publish your posts, but you will be able to save them as drafts. Save your post as a draft or (link removed) click here for more about what's going on and how to get your blog unlocked.
Which fucker out there reported my blog as a spam blog? I don't buy this robot BS. Now I have to wait for a human to OK my blog. Joy. I'm sure I'm in a 5000 person line for that to happen.
So thanks, you splogging assholes, for ruining it for the rest of us. You guys suck more than Hoover.
(And I can now finally publish this post now that I've been declared not spammy.)
Friday, February 23, 2007
Suck It, Switch-Offers
Apparently there's a move afoot for March 24, 2007 to be International Shutdown Day, a day in which all of us will sever our link from the intertubes and actually go out into the sunshine and do stuff.Well, I've never been for that sort of all or nothing kind of thing. I like to consult the tubes before I do certain things, say to get directions, or check the weather. I have no plans to unplug the Wii and tell it that it can't use the tubes to get updates and magical Wii-y things. I, similarly, have no plans to unplug the wireless doodad from the TiVo and keep it from getting updates and generally being on my home network and making me smile.
The internet, to a lot of us, and computers in general, are an appliance. A utility. This is like International For God's Sake Don't Use the Toaster Day. What did toast ever do to you?
So you can have my intertubes when you pry them from my cold, dead hands. My hands, the hands of my Wii, the hands of my laptop, and the hands of my TiVo. Distributed computing FTW.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Running From Camera
This blog of run like hell pictures is lots of things a photo blog should be. Coherent, simple, interesting, and oddly compelling.
I could never do this. Too many pictures of my ass.
I could never do this. Too many pictures of my ass.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Why I Like Digg.Com
I do like the sort of news that is aggregated there, but I really like another aspect of the site a lot more.
You see, when you are a registered user of the site, you can not only read the comments about the link to the story, but you can give them a thumbs up/thumbs down. You know when you hear someone say something really dumb in the line at the grocery store? This is just like that, only you can do something about it.
It gives me a grim, perverse sense of satisfaction. And I like it.
You see, when you are a registered user of the site, you can not only read the comments about the link to the story, but you can give them a thumbs up/thumbs down. You know when you hear someone say something really dumb in the line at the grocery store? This is just like that, only you can do something about it.
It gives me a grim, perverse sense of satisfaction. And I like it.
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