Conspiracies: August 2005 Archives

Yesterday I was flipping through the computer books section at my local Barnes and Noble. I found a book on J2ME that looked interesting,⁽¹⁾ picked up a technical magazine and headed to the counter. The sales clerk rang up my order and I walked away.

Something was troubling me, however. The final price just seemed a little too high. Maybe the magazine was one of those absurdly expensive magazines, but I didn't think so. So I compared the price on the book to the price I was charged and so that there was a $5 discrepancy.⁽²⁾ It took a few minutes but they finally cleared things up and issued me a refund.

This wasn't the first time I have been overcharged recently. On my way home from work on Friday, I picked up some poster frames⁽³⁾ and a CD from Sam Goody. The cash register overcharged each item by $2. At least in this case there were big red stickers with the correct price on them, so the cashier immediately noticed the problem and corrected it on the spot.

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⁽¹⁾Enterprise J2ME: Developing Mobile Java Applications. I'm hoping this book will give me some insights on using J2ME in some more social network type situations. I have another two J2ME game programming books, which aren't of much help for learning how to deal with XML parsing of RSS feeds, for example. My first impressions remain good. It presents a number of design patterns based solutions but also cautions users to consider simpler alternatives that are less taxing on limited CPU devices.

⁽²⁾Actually, now that I check Amazon, they list the higher list price as well. Maybe I picked up an older edition of the book, before the price was raised. Or maybe the data feed from the vendor was in error. In any event, I'm keeping my $5.

⁽³⁾Watch for more details on the poster frames in an upcoming post. To find out what I was framing, you can check the comments buried deep in an entry on the forthcoming sister site to 43 Things and 43 Places. Sorry, it's not open to the public yet. I hope you will forget to look for it when the site is finally opened up to a wider audience.

Yay, I was just able to successfully log into my Yahoo account. I don't think I've logged into the account in the past six or seven years. I tried a couple of months ago to log in when I got an invitation to the preview of Yahoo 360, but I couldn't remember my password and the remind me of my user name and password features didn't seem to work.

I thought I would give it another try, now that Flickr is slowly getting absorbed into Yahoo. I think I read somewhere that within the next year you will be required to use a Yahoo account to log into Flickr.

So after punching in half a dozen or more variations of my commonly used passwords, I suddenly struck gold. Chalk one up for easily guessed passwords.

Once logged in, I updated the account's email address which was still set to an account that I cancelled some seven years ago. Hopefully this will make it easier to retrieve my account information the next time I forget.

I was on my way to the movie theater to check out the latest movie⁽¹⁾ that Robot Daniel promises wasn't that bad even though it looks like it would be. Leaning against a telephone pole as I waited for the light to change, I see an attractive woman walking toward the corner with a group of friends.

I recognize her face, although I'm not really sure from where. She recognizes me as well, and begins somewhat awkwardly, "I'm sorry but I forgot your name."

"Hi, I'm Bob," I reply.

"I'm M.⁽²⁾", she answers. "How have you been?"

"Oh, pretty good," I say. "Things are pretty much the same. And you?"

"Yeah, the same," she replies. "So do you still work there?"

My mind races. I really need to remember who this person is and when we last spoke. "Uh, which place was that?" I clumsily respond. I've had five jobs and earned two degrees since I moved to Seattle.

"You know, 'there'," was her strained follow up.

I could tell that this conversation was going nowhere fast. I quick diversion was necessary. "No, I was working at A.⁽³⁾ for a few years but I recently left to join a start up⁽⁴⁾ with some friends I met there."

"Oh, that's really great," she exclaims, noticeably relieved to find an opening as the light stubbornly continued to refuse to change. "It must be great being able to work on things with a small group of friends."

"It really is," I answer. "It's great to be able to decide what you want to work on and then to actually be able to work on it."

With that the light finally changed and we began crossing the street. I suddenly decided that the movie theater was not, in fact, just down the street as one might think if strictly looking at a map, but would in fact require turning down a different street now.

"Well, it was great seeing you again."

"Yeah, see you later."

I still can't remember who she was. I suspect she was probably someone from business school or law school, although I never purchased any of the yearbooks so I don't have any way of verifying this. It just seems that the intense experience of working with someone through graduate school could burn the image of a face into the memory long after any remnants of recognition have been ripped away by the passing years.

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⁽¹⁾It is with some discomfort that I realize that the events described in this post would have fit in nicely as a scene in the movie.

⁽²⁾Not her real name, interestingly enough. But it might be her real first initial. I could kick myself now, but this would have been a great time to use one of Daniel's name-remembering tricks. How hard would it have been to add a "Hi, M., it's good to see you again. I'm sorry, but I can't seem to remember, what was your last name again?

⁽³⁾Not the company's real name. However, you could probably Google my previous blog to find a mention if you don't already know.

⁽⁴⁾The controversy surrounding the history of my current company can currently be found documented on Wikipedia.

There's a game I like to play when I walk around downtown. It's called "Crazy guy of cell phone user" and it goes something like this. Let's say you're waiting at the bus stop and you hear someone talking out loud with no one in sight, making wild hand gestures. Is this a crazy person or is it just someone making a telephone call?

It isn't as easy as you might think. Bluetooth earpieces can slip unnoticed around an ear and disappear completely if the person has anything but a very short hair style. And you can't always judge by clothing because even successful professionals can dress down quite a bit.

Here's a hint for the rest of you. If you see me walking down the street, I can almost guarantee that you should put me in the "crazy person" category. I know that this is the Mobile Duo site, but really I only carry my phone part of the time and even then there's a good chance the batteries are dead.

I will, howver, often walk down the streets singing out random pieces of the current song stuck in my head. Usually I'll look around a bit to see if there is anyone within half a block or so around me. But even if there are people nearby I might just keep singing anyway, only at a lower volume and without moving my mouth as much.

One of the fun things about Bloglines is exploring the links between subscribers, seeing what other feeds people are reading and how they organize their feeds. I think I am going to have to raid Jana's subscritpion list for the feeds of a number of former co-workers that I have lost touch with.

I have just been spending some time reading Nick's blog with stories and pictures of Edinburgh and his travel through Scotland and Ireland. I have been making mental maps in my head of some of the places that I still recognize from the pictures.

Edinburgh is an amazing city and I wonder if I made a mistake not pushing harder for a job there when the potential of an opportunity presented itself.

Matt, if you are reading this, I think I made a terrible mistake. If there are any openings now or in the future, please, please, please, won't you hire me and take me away from all of this.

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NOTE TO CURRENT EMPLOYER: publicly begging for a new job should in no way be taken as an indication that I am unhappy with my current position or that I am looking to change positions.

NOTE TO FUTURE EMPLOYER: previous disclaimer to current employer should in no way be taken as an indication that I am not eager to move on to better and more interesting things.

Robot Josh is always looking for the secret sauce, that special combination of ideas or implementation that makes one site successful where others might fail.

One secret sauce is chocolate and peanut butter, the two great tastes that go great together. That is, two ideas that on their own may be fairly common but that when blended together form something unique. I think 43 Things demonstrates this process remarkably well, combining blogging functionality with social and community features. The result is a site that lets regular people, in effect, create a blog without even realize they are blogging.

We are currently looking for that secret sauce for our latest project. In one of our discussions, Robot Daniel wondered which of the ideas we were taking about was the chocolate and which was peanut. After all, he reasoned, the chocolate always has to be on the outside, or your fingers will get quite sticky.

This afternoon I was in the local Bartell's to get my afternoon bottle of water (why don't I just buy in bulk and keep some water in the refrigerator?), when I noticed a bag of limited edition Reese's Peanut Butter Cups--inside out. Yes, they had the peanut butter on the outside.

I would have preferred to just get an individual packet to prove the point, but all they had were the larger bags. And so I return to the office with a bag of inside out peanut butter cups. Fortunately, the other robots were around to help make short work of the candy, and thereby sparing me a rather nasty sugar rush.

About a month ago, I went down to the local Macy's to upscale my wardrobe a bit. I needed a few pieces of "resort casual" clothing to enter the restaurants for dinner on the Alaska cruise I was about to take.

A salesperson asked, as they always do, whether I had a Macy's card that I would like to use. I mentioned that I did have an account but that I didn't have my card with me. No problem, he responds, then can just look up the account. Ten minutes later I get handed the telephone and asked to answer a few multiple choice questions about my life. At the conclusion of this whole mess, the salesperson remarks that, oh, well it looks like you had an account after all. Well, duh.

I return home from the cruise, expecting the bill to be waiting for me. It isn't. I wait some more. Still nothing. I call up the customer service number on the back of my credit card. The automated system tells me that my account does in fact have a zero balance. This is weird.

I decide to head back to the store in person to straighten things out. The sign over the customer service desk says that payments can be made here. Perfect.

I ask the cashier for the balance so that I can pay off the bill. She scans the barcode on my receipt and the terminal brings up a mimum payment of $6. That's great, but how much do I owe to pay off the account? Well, that requires a call to customer service.

She calls customer service, gives the rep my account number and then hands the phone to me. I try to explain my situation, but the voice on the other side of the phone tells me that I need to be transfered to customer service.

So finally I get transfered to the person who ought to be able to help me. What's my account number, he asks. I scratch my head for a bit, as the only thing on this slip of paper I have is a barcode. So I get the cashier to scan the code again so I can give yet another person my account information.

After all of this, I finally get the amount I must pay off. I ask why I wasn't able to get this information from the automated system I called in the morning. Well, it turns out that this is a dual purpose card. The VISA part did have a zero balance while the Macy's part did have a balnance.

Whatever. So why hadn't I received a bill? He tells me that's strange because it was mailed two weeks ago. I asked the rep to confirm my address. As a started rolling off the street address, he stops me. That's not the address they have on file. Turns out the helpful salesperson must have "updated" my address to my previous address.

A few minutes later things finally look like they are starting to come together. I've got the payoff amount and my address is now updated. Then, there's an expression of concern on the other side. Looks like my payment is due in three days, which is not really enough time to mail a check.

No problem, I reply. I'm at a store now and I can make may payment directly. I'm just glad I caught it in time to avoid a late fee. I finish up the call going over everything we had done. So, I will recieve a statement at my correct address next month? Well, actually no, not if you pay off the balance. We don't send a statement if there's no balance. Not even to confirm receipt of payment, I asked surprised. No, he assures me, if you don't get a statement then that means you are paid in full. Well, I counter, I didn't get a statement this month and that's because you had the wrong address.

It's fifteen minutes later and I am finally ready to pay. Unfortunately, they only take cash or checks. Checks? Who takes checks? I can't even use checks at my friend's store, and I've known him for over ten years.

Luckily, I'm just across the street from an ATM. It takes me a few more minutes to run over and pull out some cash. And with that, the long saga is finally over.

Last week the blogosphere was alive with taking about who was going to Foocamp and who had been invited and who had not and who was entitled to go because they are oh so special and how could Tim O'Reilly just not see that.

The post that struck me most was Robert Scoble's post describing that while he was envious of those who got to go, he was glad that he had gotten to attend in previous years and wished the best for this year's attendees. This was a thoughtful, mature, and honest response. Subscribed!⁽¹⁾

Fear, not, Scoble. You are not alone. I, too, was not invited to Foocamp this year.

Now who am I and why should I be invited to Foocamp, my readership of none thinks. Ahem, that is, well, that's the problem. It's not like I don't do interesting things. I work for one of those hip⁽²⁾ Web 2.0 startups that build shiny little things on everyone's favorite Ruby on Rails framework, with oodles of tags, full of ajaxian love and goodness, brimming with more Web services and RSS feeds than you can shake a stick at.

What I haven't been as good at is becoming known outside of my little circle of coworkers, being involved with the community, giving back ideas and sharing experiences, helping others better themselves.

And so, although I haven't been Foocamp before and there's a good chance that I might never be invited (there are just so many talented people out there), I would like to try to spend the next year, as Scoble might say, "living the Foocamp life". That is, I would like to try to become the kind of person who would fit in well at a gathering like that.

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⁽¹⁾ "Subscribed!" is apparently what you are supposed to write when you want a blogger to know that you were so impressed by an entry that you added the blog to the ever growing list of blogs that you follow. Not yet being a big believer in RSS, however, I didn't have a good feed reader handy at the time. Yes, Firefox and Safari both have built in RSS support but the interface seems clumsy to me. Anyway, the point is I had to download a feed reader first and then subscribe. It's about time I got into RSS a little more seriously. After all, all the cool kids are doing it these days, so why shouldn't I?

⁽²⁾ Daniel would tell me that the correct term is "hep". Now, Daniel is a bona fide rock star and a much cooler cat than I could ever hope to be, so I guess I believe him. Still, it sounds more like some sort of social disease to me. Oh, and I don't usually refer to people as "cats", but this weekend VH1 Classic had Woodstock movies on constant rotation which left me in a bit of a mood.