ISP Rage

The absence of the internet for two days left me a quivering pile of childish rage.  Not my best moment.  I really wanted to play on the interwebs and, thanks to AT&T, I couldn’t.  I wanted to surf and play computer games.  Not earth shattering.  I also wanted to write for this blog which is a bit more important than simple hand eye coordination silliness.  Without the connection I felt it worthless to spend a few hours writing (It wasn’t but I was angry).  So I plugged and replugged.  I reset the modem.  I begged the web gods.  I called (well Adi called) and talked with tech support.  I hate tech support.  It isn’t the support people’s fault; I’ve run a support desk and the ingenuity of people’s stupidity simply astounds me.  One of the problems with tech support is they have a process to go through.  The plugging and replugging the simple checks.  Why, you might ask,  because it works a lot.  The replugging is often because of a snag on their end.  Your router was on when there was a hard reset somewhere down the line.

Is this such a big problem though?  Am I making too much out of it… not really.  Here is why.  We need the internet.  I’m not joking in the slightest.  It isn’t an inalienable right but it’s almost as important as the rest of utilities along with power and water.  It’s frightening to think that but imagine no more internet.  How do most people apply for jobs, find, respond and get jobs.  Through email.  Don’t think social media is important?  Social media drives marketing, data mining, gaming and tons of other industries on the rise.  It’s part of our social culture as well.  It’s like banning writing letters.  The internet is not a joke as much as it tries to act that way.  But moving along…

Comcast, my least favorite provider, was awesome at never alerting me to outages.  I lived in Philadelphia, the city where Comcast was spawned.  I spent hours on the phone haggling with them.  Often the signal was bad.  And they wouldn’t tell me until I went through the twenty minutes of waiting and then more twenty minutes of the normal bullshit process to eliminate those who A.) don’t have time, B.) have short fuses and C.) are idiots who don’t know what to do otherwise.  Then they’d try to hang up as soon as possible close out the ticket and tell me it will be fixed eventually.  This is why people hate cable and internet service providers.  The customer service sucks and outages are awful.  Outages are constant and never explained.  Worse they don’t refund your time.  I pay for a month of uninterrupted and unlimited service why should I pay full price when they don’t hold up their end.  I pay on time.  I guarantee if I don’t pay they’ll be calling and demanding their money.  They would be correct.  But I said I was experiencing technical difficulties and would get back to them in two days or so they wouldn’t laugh.  They lack humor.

Do these Internet Service Providers need to be held accountable for proper service?  How bad are they?  Well read this about Comcast and yes it’s from wiki so take it with a grain of salt.

“In 2004 and 2007, the American Customer Satisfaction Index survey found that Comcast had the worst customer satisfaction rating of any company or government agency in the country, including the Internal Revenue Service. However, the ACSI indicates that almost half of all cable customers (regardless of company) have registered complaints, and that cable is the only industry to score below 60 in the ACSI.”

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comcast#section_5

So, that’s not so good.  Comcast is less liked than the IRS.  Think about that for a minutes, the only job of the IRS is to take your money.  And people like the IRS more than Comcast.  Thank god they are not running the prison system.  But don’t worry private business is gobbling up all the prison systems in an attempt to create a nice little relationship with the government which has been likened to the military industrial complex.  Which is bad in that it means these for profit companies want there to be people in jail and want to make it profitable and for the government to need to rely on them  Yay!

So how bad is Comcast?  Is it just constant outages, and garbage support?  Nope. Let me give you a small personal example of annoyance followed by a not so small but not personal example.  When we moved to Groton for about a year it was my turn to set up cable.  The wonderful complex – by wonderful I really mean monstrously bad people who suck the happiness directly out of their inhabitants like happiness succubi ­– told us in no uncertain terms get Comcast.  I’m rather sure this isn’t fair and perhaps even illegal but it isn’t worth calling Alaska to find out; my brother the lawyer is currently in Alaska being cold and doing various lawyery things.  So I set up Comcast.  I pull full Comcast prices but don’t get full services.  I get the bargain basement cable company they swallowed from the area.  So I get crap service for expensive prices with no ability to haggle.  Meanwhile the other cable company nearby is fair better and cheaper.  But Comcast doesn’t care.  They don’t have to care.  They have so much of the market share they can afford to upset most of the customers because they won’t leave.  Also some manner of apathy plays in.  It’s  a pain in the ass to switch so dealing with it seems a better prospect.  My Groton service included an outdated box, bad service, crappy signal, and full price.  So my internet speeds were less than advertised but still at the rate I should pay for full speed.  Sweet.

But that’s just annoyances.  What about profiteering during a natural disaster.  That sounds heartwarming and uplifting.  It’s like an uplifting Disney movie playing in reverse.  Things go from ok to awful to worse.  And then don’t get better.  Again this is from wiki so it could be incorrect, overstated or totally true.  Knowing Comcast I’m leaning towards factual.  During hurricane Ike Comcast charged for damaged and lost equipment.  Warms the cockles of your heart.  Plus they didn’t compensate the bill for interrupted service.  Even warmer cockles!

So, in short, fuck you Comcast, you’re bad people and should feel bad.  And AT&T, you suck too.

Ben

Science in Advertising

Commercials make claims, it’s what they do.  “Make your hair shinier.”  “Make your hair less shiny.”  “Lose the weight.”   “Gain the weight.”  “Sleep better.”  And on and on.  But with all the noise does it mean anything anymore?  Do we care if four of five doctors say anything?  What if the four doctors got C’s through school and slept through half their residency and the last one is House?  I’m sticking with House.  But there are laws that deal with truth in advertising.  Laws meant to prevent purely false claims from misleading you for profit.  There are some loopholes and idiosyncrasies that allow some bad advertising get through.  But the intent is to get rid of purely spurious claims.  Spurious means apocryphal if you didn’t know.  Apocryphal means I’m being a word whore instead of just saying deceitful  or dubious in regards to authenticity.  The point I’m eventually grasping towards is there is line, albeit a hazy and wide one, which one side is acceptable behavior to boast about your product and then the other side is filled with very bad marketing people who don’t like to tell the truth. 

This leads me to online dating sites.  I’ve never used one but I know a lot of people who have.  Dating sites are the bane of eager nosy matchmakers everywhere stealing your ‘gossipy let’s introduce everybody to everybody’ friend’s thunder.  They represent, I think and kindly don’t quote me, about one fifth of all new relationships.  That’s a whole lot of people.  There are ton of sites out there.  There a religious oriented ones like Christian Mingle or J Date and a whole bunch of not so specific ones.  I don’t really need to utilize this service so I’m not sure how far down the rabbit hole it goes with specificity but this the internet I’m sure there is a geek site, various sexuality sites, and something’s that are probably illegal in several states/countries dating sites.

There are quite a few problems with online dating sites like a few actively screen out homosexuals.  I know a person who tested this by answering all questions truthfully save for orientation and was rejected with no reason given.  Obviously this requires further investigation to claim as true but it isn’t the best of indicators.  The newest trouble facing dating sites is this.  They’re full of shit.  That’s the scientific version in a nut shell.  No really.

So you’d think these sites employee social scientists.  Well they do.  But you’d think these guys might agree on proper metrics.  Not so much.  You’d think they might agree on process a wee bit.  Not even close.

“ “If you're gonna make scientific claims, act like a scientist. Or don't make scientific claims," UCLA social psychology professor Benjamin Karney says.”

http://blogs.laweekly.com/arts/2012/04/eharmony_research_bullshit.php

And yes the link even has the word bullshit in it.  This make me happy.

So it seems academia is divided here.  By academia I mean some Professors at UCLA are having a hissy fit over eharmony (one of them works there you see).  One of them states, and I am generalizing here, that eharmony doesn’t really have proper methodology for matching people.  It’s smoke and mirrors.  So you aren’t getting matched on compatibility you’re getting matched by chance.  Chance may be romantic but chance isn’t what those commercials say.  They act like there is this magical formula for human interaction they’ve cracked.  The love masters poured their thoughts  into cyberspace, man I hope that’s what they were pouring, to help your love life.  Awfully nice of them.  Except for the, you know, bullshit part it seems.

So while meeting someone on the internet might be a great way to find people don’t expect it be the way to match yourself mathematically.  But if they don’t have a proper system or even at least a reall good attempt at one is still fair for them to advertise saying you’ll find your soul mate.  Is that now in the realm of illegal claims with no backup.

My website claims to increase its members sex life exponentially though a specific algorithm of carefully matching, well not really carefully matching just throwing a dart at bunch of loose women who want free dinner. … That might actually work.   It wouldn’t be false advertising but it could very well be illegal for different reason.

Being serious for a moment I do have severe problem with dating sites making claims like this.  It’s one thing for McDonalds to say they have  delicious salad, fuck you, but it’s different to toss around people’s emotions.  These are people looking for a connection and they aren’t being treated with the respect they deserve.  You aren’t a number and you aren’t a payment.  You’re a person.  And yes I see the irony that this is coming from an analyst.

What does surprise me is if these dating sites aren’t using a formula why are they so behind.  Target know when girls are pregnant before their parents do.  No, I’m serious.  They look at your purchases and can link certain increases or habits to pregnancy.  Just from what you buy.  And not the obvious thing like a pregnancy test and baby clothes.  I’m talking about a shift in cosmetics and extra cotton balls.  Yeah, they haven analysts there that slick.  And then they tailor the ads to the individuals but not so much where it’s obvious you are getting the baby package.  You get ads similar but not the same as your neighbor possibly.  That’s form joining a club and having your purchases tracked.  Imagine what MasterCard and Visa could do and how much data they have on you.  But don’t worry I’m sure our government is really good at protecting our privacy rights especially against large corporations…

Ben

Ode to the Socially Awkward Male

I found myself looking through Netflix instant keenly aware of the amount of garbage clogging up the categories that I have to filter through in order to find one or two movies that won’t simultaneously make my eyes bleed and hurt my logic center.  The logic center is just past the caramel center in men and the scented bath soap center in women.  I still can’t decided if it would be a funny to redact the women part implying females have no logic but I know this be false (take that humorous but outdated stereotypes).  There is just so much junk.  The same for so much media.  There is all this nonsense to filter through as if someone said more is better.  I could wish for a filter but that might mean I’d lose the one or two pleasant surprises I’ve found by digging through.  I’ve found my share of crapfests that I regret having witnessed but I chalk those up to a learning experience.  Learning never to let those people be allowed near a camera again; I’m building a list when I eventually have the resources to follow through.

But it’s not just Netflix or media but knowledge in general.  There is no good filter.  No ratings for news or instruction just your ability to figure out if this is garbage or not.  We are constantly bombarded that it is sensory overload.  There really is only so much we can pay attention to.  It’s why we generally attribute city people, especially big cities like new York, qualities like rushed and asinine whereas small town people we associate charm and garrulousness.  This can be explained by the amount of stimuli in each area.  If you paid attention to every little thing in New York you would tire yourself out before reaching work.  It’s not callous it’s your brain compensating for the environment.  That isn’t  to say that there doesn’t exist  callous jerks who wouldn’t glance in your direction or get off the phone with their ‘besty’ as you have a heart attack in front of them, because there are plenty of people like that.  With all the overstimulation it is no wonder a lot of people retreat from social interaction or at least no offline social interaction.  Enter the socially awkward male.

A bit of background.  The socially awkward male is usually what you would term nerd, geek, spazoid, dweeb or various other high school insults.  This does not confer upon them the distinctly intelligence necessarily.  This does not include man boys either.  They act like grown children but they tend to have bit more social understanding.  Manboys lack things like social grace, and tact but not the true fundamentals.  The true socially awkward never quite integrated into school society.  They usually felt ostracized or driven out.  This is part true and in part not so much true.  A lot of this isolation was self inflicted.  The actually act of socializing and being around others causes stress or anxiety.  Little things become monstrously blown out of proportion.  Decisions are made not to increase happiness but to make as little social impact as possible: “I’ll wear this hat to school because they other one might get me noticed.”

The internet society is in no way causing this but I can say it is certainly elevating the chances of proper socialization.  This influx of stuff drives people indoors and away from others.  They communicate through mouse clicks not talking. Very core and basic building blocks of interaction are stripped away.  And the internet is helping this proliferation of the socially awkward.

How you carry yourself is immediately picked up on in very primal manner.  This is something I wish I had known when younger and I was picked on.  I had/have some learning disabilities and that led to bit of the tendencies above.  I was, at various points in my life, rather socially awkward.  Significantly less so now because being alone all day, or constantly worrying about how people will react or treat you,  isn’t particularly fun.  The way predators in the animal kingdom pick out the weak and sick in the herd so do bullies.  They don’t go just by size or by glasses they go by posture and how you carry yourself.  Averted eye contact, slumped shoulder and shuffled feet are big indicators.  It’s easy to notice if you look for it.  Seriously stand in front of mirror with bad posture and worrisome attitude.  Then stand with good posture and a positive but take no shit attitude.  These are two very different people looking back at you.  One of them will not get picked on.

Shows like The Big Bang Theory tend to oversimplify social awkward males.  It’s acceptable to be  dick and a weirdo if you’re a genius.  Same thing with House.  If the guy wasn’t right a;; the time he’d just be an asshole not a savant.  There are people who simple shun social niceties not because of anxiety but simply because they aren’t rather nice.  The social awkward male is a person who thinks long and hard about wearing a new shirt to work even if someone else said it looked nice other said it looked nice because there a chance someone may poke fun of them.  Then think about it all day.  In the shower, during the drive over, at work and they breathe a sigh of relief when they get home with crisis averted.  Even though there was confrontation they played through it in their mind countless time and spent emotional energy during with anxiety.  They could walk in like it was a normal day or even strut in like they were fabulous (probably not).  But socially awkward males have this specter of bullying hanging over them like Damocles’ sword.  They never know when it will cut they simply ‘know’ it will happen.

The worst part of this problem is that the very thing that gives them the most stress and anxiety is the very thing they need to get better.  Being social.  It can be terrifying to a young guy who spends too much time playing video game or behind the computer.  And especially harmful are all the people telling him to just do it like walking out the door into the world will magically cure what ails him (although in a sense it kinda will).  But they don’t know that.  They think the whole world is watching and critiquing them.  Watching for that moment to strike and upset them.  So they shy away and find other people who are awkward and hang out with them.  They discuss with vehement internet rage that the New George Lucas was the evil alternate universe version of the old George Lucas who made movie people enjoyed.  They would recount good Lucas’ fall and subsequent imprisonment and they would plot to free him.

Don’t pity these men but certainly don’t mock them.  But remember if you do they probably won’t do anything about.  Except bitch on the internet.  But they’ll get bored of that and then focus back on EA or BioWare.  Because obviously Origin is awful and only built to torment them.  But it kind of is so they aren’t totally wrong.

Ben

The Evolution of the Asshole

I don’t think people truly understand how amazing the internet is and how much it has changed our society.  I think that’s the way it is with new paradigms a lot of the time.  You don’t notice incremental change.  It’s the same with gaining or losing weight.  You don’t notice an ounce here or there but when you compare how your pants fit you can see the difference.  Fuck you pants for not changing with me.  You know how I said its me not you, well it is you.  Stupid pants.  Anyway, the internet has changed everything -  how we communicate, how we shop, how we learn, how we socialize, how we act like total assholes.  The internet has given new and unique tools to be jerks to other people.  When was the last time someone prank called you?  I got one a few years back waking me from a deep sleep about someone towing my car.  By the time the sleep had faded from my brain the little bastard on the other end must have been stifling laughter from coming out all of his orifices.  He called me for a few more days afterwards pretty regularly until he tired of harassing me.  I would usually pick up and immediately hang up so he didn’t get my voicemail.  But phone pranks are essentially a thing of the past.  Kids my age used to do it all the time.  Remember those idiots the Jerky Boys.  Now phone pranks are so stupid it resides only on radio.  Radio, now there’s an emerging market where they value culture and innovation.  (sarcasm).  Maybe it works better with italics and parentheses.  The old pranks are out now.  Just like phone pranks replaced whatever stupid nonsense annoying kids did before to terrorize other people.  If you are one of those delusional people who think children are angels you obviously don’t remember middle school or being a kid in general.  Kids are just like adults in their capacity for generosity and/or cruelty.  They are just a lot more stupid and they lack the experience to stop themselves from bad ideas.  I know playing with fire is bad not just because fire hurts but because I’m old enough to have seen people do really stupid shit with fire.  Like, you know, burn themselves.  I have some knowledge and experience backing me up to make a decision to not play with fire.  The internet however enables everyone an opportunity to act like an idiot.  And not simply for those times where we can act anonymously.  Being an asshole due to the power of anonymity of nothing new.  Let me share a few new trends of asshatery with you.  Asshatery is Latin for “he who is sartorially dyslexic.”

I read the term vague booking and I immediately thought of several people who clog up Facebook with vapid attention seeking posts.  And these are often lovely not at all obnoxious people but who, for reasons unknown, when in front of a computer have to post the most inane bullshit imaginable on Facebook.  I think it may be one of the more obnoxious trends in Facebook and that is saying a lot.  I think I might prefer being forced to slowly flip though a bad photo album of ugly overweight preteens posing on front of the mirror taking downward jaunty angled photos in black and white.  Angles can only do so much, you horrifying manatee.  Go away from my Facebook lurking I’m busy spying on my friends posts without actually communicating with them.  *Note* I have nothing against ugly or fat people but please either stop photographing yourself in a way that tries to hide reality or at least try not to the same fucking photo as every other oversensitive girl.  Skinny bitches are even more annoying on Facebook.  With duckfaces and crappy gang signs and commenting that 'you look terrible' in a picture where you have carefully distressed your hair and spent ten minutes setting up the lighting and the shot.  I want to reach through the internet and slap you.  But that would be wrong.  Mindblowingly awesome but wrong.  Also a poor use for the best new superpower not yet made into a comic book.  The Web Slapper: justice is anonymous.  You’re welcome Marvel.

Let me explain vague booking as I realized I went into full mini rant.  I can’t quite remember where I grabbed this quote, it could be from Cracked or Reddit or off any number of internet sites I frequent. 

“Vague-booking. Otherwise known as the “comment-seekers,” these Facebook friends post purposefully vague/sad updates for the sole purpose of eliciting a response. It’s usually something along the lines of “OMG. This is the WORST thing that could possibly happen.” Then within minutes there are twenty comments. “What’s wrong?” “Are you okay? “Call me.” And the Vague-booker strikes again.”

If you have more than few Facebook friends you now this new kind of asshole.  You could do the same kind of thing with the old instant messenger away message but people only seem to use instant messenger if you’re at work and they don’t block it.  These jerks never explain what’s wrong.  Even when they get seventeen comments.  They want you to call them.  You know what I do when I need someone to call me because I’m having an issue?  If you say 'pick up the phone' congratulations you are not a vague booker.  If you are a vague booker and you knew the answer that makes you even more awful as you understand how petty this shit it is.  The first few times I saw vague booking I showed legitimate concern because I wasn’t yet jaded and my empathy dictated an emotional response.  However, I shortly found out about this phenomenon and my empathy has since been replaced with fine layer of cynicism and lean muscle.  Yes, a layer of fat would be funnier but its altogether untrue.

Another quick Facebook gripe.  You ever notice how the people who friend you a little too quickly on Facebook after meeting once and probably never again are always the ones who post way too much.  Fuck those people for trying to be social.

Plagiarism and lying is nothing new.  But the internet seems to increase people’s ability for both.  I’ve only met one compulsive liar.  The amount of damage this one asshole can do to a single social circle is amazing.  However the compulsive liar is always eventually caught and they have to move on to the new circle of friends.  People like that are why I am overcritical and careful with who I spend large quantities of time with.  Does this make me a curmudgeon?  Undoubtedly, that and the intentional use of the word curmudgeon.  They would hand out badges to the newly initiated but no one in the inner circle wants to meet new people or shake hands.  The issue with plagiarism on the internet is stealing comedic items mostly; taking a joke, a picture, or a story and claiming it as your own.  It is so easy to access such an unbelievable amount of stuff and pass off as your own.  I would call it knowledge not stuff but with 50% of the internet being porn and memes I just can’t in good conscious do so.  The problem here, besides pretending to be something you are not, is you are affecting someone else’s work.  It is so easy to copy a link.

The other bit that really aggravates me is the disappearances of spelling and sentence structure.  Grammar Nazi’s are annoying.  They pick apart things just for the sake of being jerks.  They don’t do it to educate or be helpful.  They do it because they time on their what with not being legally able to climb inside their own assholes as so many of us wish they would.  I have receive texts from a fifty year old that read like a collection of spilled alphabet soup.  I can understand kids not spelling; that isn’t acceptable but it’s understandable.  Why are older adults commiserating in this nonsense?  The letter 'u' is not a word.  I swear to various things I hold Holy if they come out with a scrabble for the internet generation with 733t speech and bad lol speak I will slap a kitten.  I won’t but I’ll be mad.  And all manner of curmudgeony.

This may seem foreign to you guys but people used to communicate exclusively through long eloquent letters.  The immediacy and instant gratification of interaction is in some respect raping our language.  I wonder if the great literary minds of the past would have fallen prey to this as well.

"2 B or not 2b.  That’s the ??? lol roflmao!!!!  I r grate writer dood!!!"

That physically hurt me to write.

While I’m still bitching here is a quick list of things I dislike on the internet:

• Stupid quiz results.  I don’t care how your scored on some bullshit internet quiz.
• Links that force me register or install an app before I can get to the content.  Fuck you I want to read your story.  You get ad revenue by me coming to you page don’t make it more annoying for me to get there.
• Pop ups and interactive ads, especially ones where it’s hard to click the x.  Fuck you for making an annoying ad that goes across the screen.  A fuck you site owners for allowing that shit on there.
• Internet Exploder in general.  This especially irks me with helping out at the support desk at work.  Nothing will force you to jaded cynicism faster than customer support.
• Really shitty site design.  Fuck that its 2012 you don’t have an excuse for this anymore.  If I have a bottle of scotch and a few hours to read up on it I could code a page that doesn’t make me want to remove my eyeballs and replace them with inert facsimiles so I never have to look upon your disaster again.
• People ragging on one set off users while proclaiming their own set as better.  (Digg, Reddit, 4chan, etc.)
• Not having a mobile site.  Again its 2012.
• People who say ‘the cloud’ without an inkling of understanding.  Conversely people who talk about the cloud and do understand but do so arrogantly and condescendingly.

That should cover a fraction of the new evolutionary forms of the modern asshole.  Sometimes I wish I could quit you internet.

Ben