The [Devil] Rays played the Angels last night. The Rays came into the game 75-48, tied with the Cubs for the second best record in the Majors. They were behind only the Angels at 76-46. This is a 1.5 game differential. So why on earth is the headline on the front page of ESPN.com for this article Rays top MLB-best Angels? If the Rays were their normal selves, sitting 25 games out, then sure, this is significant. But do you know what they call it when the second best team in the league beats the best team in the league? They call that baseball. Or normal. I probably wouldn’t have mentioned it, but I’m already annoyed with ESPN for their full page splash screen ads that have been popping up recently. Of course, now I’m possibly sending a little bit of traffic their way, so this is probably a pretty stupid response to my annoyance. But never mind.
Tag: complaint
Once again, I’m reminded why I hate Microsoft
I just spent about three hours this morning trying to debug something at work. It turns out the issue shows up in Excel 2003, which our customer is using, but not Excel 2007, which I have on my laptop. This just goes to show you how important it is to mimic the customer’s environment as closely as possible. Anyway, I figured that part out, so now I had to decipher the error message when I tried to open the file in Excel. XML Spreadsheet warning in Table Reason: Bad Value Okay, sounds simple enough. I just have to find the bad value, and fix it. Excel didn’t offer me any advice, so I figured I’d try MSDN, Microsoft’s developer reference. You’d think that, since I was using a Microsoft product on a Microsoft operating system, maybe Microsoft might have some idea what the error message meant. As an aside, can I tell you how frustrating it is to have Excel tell me that the error has been printed to a log file hidden deep inside some Windows hidden temporary directory? Not only does it fail to provide me with a link to the file, but because it’s hidden, I can’t navigate through Windows Explorer, and I have to actually type the file address in manually. I can’t even copy the text from the error window! It’s like someone intentionally made it as hard as possible to look at the log. Anyway, there were ZERO results on MSDN. Zero. I’m forced to conclude that I am the only person who has ever had this problem. There isn’t any other explanation. It’s inconceivable that Microsoft could possibly have just ignored this error message, never once mentioning it anywhere that their vaunted search engine was able to look. It turns out the error was reasonably simple – Excel 2003 only allows 30 values in a sum. It will handle more if you use the range (A1:A40), but you can’t list the cells individually (A1, A2, A3 . . .). Excel 2007 doesn’t have a problem. Interestingly, if you use plus signs instead of the sum function, the limit of 30 goes away. Which is probably how I’m going to work around this. But couldn’t that have been in the error message? “We’re sorry, you can only have 30 cells in a formula”. Look, that was really easy. So, I hope the next person who has trouble deciphering an Excel error message find this post and saves some time. And I hope the people responsible for the idiocy on which I wasted the last three hours are all hit by a bus. Well, not really. Not a real bus. A three hour bus of mental anguish. That sound perfect.
The little brother is off to law school
My baby brother is leaving today for law school on the other side of the country. It’s a pretty mixed feeling for me. On one hand, I’m obviously happy and excited for him. Law school is a great opportunity, and it should be a great experience, and I’m glad he’s figuring out what he wants to do with his life. On the other hand, I’d kind of gotten used to him being close by, playing on the flag football team, and all that. Plus, he’ll be in Arizona when his first niece or nephew is born next month. Luckily, I’ll be at happy hour when his plane leaves today, so I can have a drink for him. I think he’ll appreciate that.
Can the Sarfate-as-starter experiment please end?
I know the Orioles are looking for another starter after sending Brian Burres to wherever they sent him (Is he on the ML roster? I don’t even care). But it seems pretty clear that the starter they are looking for is not Dennis Sarfate. He has now started three games. I honestly can’t decide which is his worst performance. He hasn’t gotten through the fifth inning. His ERA is 11.45. His WHIP is 2.18. That’s 13 hits and 11 walks in 11 innings. And the 13 hits I can even forgive. You can give up a hit even when you make a perfect pitch. It happens. But walking a batter per inning is just inexcusable. As Satchel Paige (supposedly) said, “Throw strikes. Home plate don’t move”. I have no idea if he actually said that – it’s often attributed to him, but it’s never been entirely clear if he really said the things they say he said. But it’s good advice nonetheless. At least if you throw the ball over the plate, you have a chance to succeed. I’m not interested in seeing him pitch any more. He wasn’t a great reliever, and he’s a miserable starter. It’s really too bad Jeremy Guthrie can’t pitch every night.
We need more science
So I’ve been watching the Olympics, as I gather most people are doing. I’m not a huge fan, although it’s hard not to get caught up in the excitement. I mean, the swimmers are breaking a world record every few hours, and there’s apparently a ton of drama in the women’s gymnastics (because, I think, all the athletes are 12 years old, and you know how girls are at that age). But I was reading this article and thinking that, not only does the media ignore some pretty easy science in the relative radioactivity of granite countertops, as mentioned there, but also that a few numbers could really make the Olympics more interesting to me. First, swimming. We keep breaking records. It would be nice to know how long a record stood, how much it was broken by, and things like that. We even had a swimmer break the split record and they not only didn’t mention his time, but they didn’t mention the time he had beaten. How hard is it to flash a number on the screen? Maybe instead of 37 shots of Michael Phelps screaming, we could have gotten some background on the numbers. And then the gymnastics. They’ve changed the scoring system so that you get a score based on difficulty, which they seem to know before anything happens, and then a score based on performance/accuracy/whatever. Why in the world can’t I know what the difficulty score is going to be while it’s happening? If it’s going to be a really tough routine, that would make it more interesting. Or I could at least compare something that’s rated 6.5 with something that’s 5.5 and see how much harder one appears to be than the other. They don’t even tell you what the score range is. I assume the accuracy score is out of 10, because most people were between 8.5 and 9.5. But I don’t really know. Is there some reason they can’t show these numbers? The commentators frequently ramble on about absolutely nothing. Maybe instead they could talk about the science behind why the swimmers break records every race this year. Apparently wider, deeper pools, combined with better suit technology and new stroke rules are all combining to make the swimmers faster. But I haven’t heard anyone on tv talk about that. The American public is not afraid of science and numbers. And some of us actually find that they enhance the experience. So can we maybe get some? It’s not that hard. On a sort-of-related note, congratulations to the blogger linked above – his wife just had their first baby last week.
Stupid IT department
First webmail, now Del.icio.us. Actually, Delicious went first. The webmail ban isn’t supposed to go in for another week. Why is this annoying? Because I bookmark work-related sites through Delicious. Sure, that’s not all I use it for. But a big chunk of my bookmarks there are reference for work. And now I can’t get to them. And I’m not saying they don’t have the right to block what they want, because it’s their network, and they can block all IP addresses divisible by 17 if they want. I’m just saying it’s stupid, it makes me less effective, and it annoys me to no end.
From the mouth of Jobs himself
Steve Jobs has reiterated that you’re renting all $30 million worth of iPhone apps you’ve purchased. Engagdet says,
[he] confirmed the controversial iPhone application kill switch in the event that Apple inadvertently approves a malicious program for distribution. Jobs said, “hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull.”
He went on to say, “We know you all love to buy anything with our name on it, though, so you should be happy to repurchase anything we decide we don’t want you to have anymore”.
I love to hate the iPhone
I know my opinion on Apple and the iPhone differs from many of my readers, but this is worrisome if you’ve bought an iPhone and mistakenly think you’ve bought an app from the App Store. Engadget | iPhone hacker says the device ‘calls home’ to Apple, allows apps to be remotely disabled
the suggestion that a process of the OS would actively monitor, report on, and possibly deactivate your device’s software is unreasonable, and clearly presents an issue that the company will have to deal with sooner or later.
If you buy something, and the seller can take it back at any time for any reason and not give back your money, you are renting, not buying. Because of the closed and proprietary nature of Apple’s world, if you buy into it, you’re stuck with whatever they want to do to you. Updated to add: Engadget says that the iPhone probably isn’t calling home to disable your apps after all. I still don’t like Apple, and I still don’t trust them any more than I trust Microsoft. But it doesn’t seem like they’re doing anything objectionable here.
Didn’t mean to censor the TSA propaganda
Someone (Or, more likely, some script) claiming to be Bob from TSA Blog left a comment on this post. It was a totally useless press release talking about the ineffective things TSA is planning to do about the lost (now found) laptop. Despite the fact that it fits my definition of spam (It wasn’t a response to the post, which “Bob” clearly didn’t read, it was a monologue on the same subject with a link to the author’s blog), I published it. But due to a little snafu with the back button and not paying attention, I accidentally deleted it. So, sorry to censor your spam, TSA Bob. If you post again, I’ll publish it again. But note well that spamming blogs that call out your stupidity and/or incompetence is not going to do a bit of good, and you might be better off finding something more useful to do with your time. Edit to add: Here is the text of the propaganda, stolen from the original Boing Boing post’s comments.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) continues to investigate the circumstances surrounding the loss of a Clear®- owned laptop computer on July 26 that contained unencrypted data of approximately 33,000 customers. TSA has verified that a laptop was discovered by Clear® officials yesterday at San Francisco International Airport (SFO). It was voluntarily surrendered to TSA officials for forensic examination. TSA’s regulatory role in this matter is as follows: Every commercial airport is required to have an approved airport security plan. So Register Traveler is part of that comprehensive plan at the airports where it operates. Under the airport security plan, the sponsoring entity, (SFO in this case) is required to assure its vendors have an approved information security program. Because the computer at SFO was not encrypted it is in violation of the airport’s security plan. TSA also has the ability to go directly to vendors when the plan is not being adhered to so TSA is conducting a broad review of all Registered Traveler providers’ information systems and data security processes to ensure compliance with security regulations. Clear® needs to meet the information security requirements that they agreed to as part of the Register Traveler program before their enrollment privileges will be reinstated. Encryption is the wider issue as opposed to one incident with one laptop. So for now, Clear® enrollments remain curtailed. Current customers will not experience any disruption when using Registered Traveler. Bob TSA EoS Blog Team
The worst part about this is that TSA’s response to this seems to be a stern wag of the finger at the contractor. I feel safer already.
Speaking of IT security and idiots
It seems a TSA contractor has misplaced an unencrypted laptop full of people’s personal information
The Transportation Security Administration suspended Verified Identity Pass Inc., the company that operates the registered traveler program under the brand name Clear, from enrolling new applicants due to the alleged theft of the unencrypted laptop.
Link from Boing Boing, but they kind of dropped the ball by not mentioning the unencrypted status of the missing laptop. Luckily one of the comments mentioned it. Keep in mind this is entirely against TSA regulations (I worked there for 9 months). TSA is colossally stupid sometimes, like when they made me take my unencrypted (before the regulation went into effect) laptop home on the Metro every day for a week rather than leaving it in the secure facility where I worked. But I’m almost inclined to not blame them for the actions of a contractor.
TSA officials said the suspension will protect consumers waiting to enroll in the Clear program and allow the company to bring its procedures into compliance.
How about making them give back all the money due to breach of contract? There’s no accountability in government contracting.