Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Double Standard

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I could not help but share this video when I found it. It is SUPERB. Kudos to the gentleman who made it.

Johnny is my guy:

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Welcome To Hell, AKA New Baltimore New York

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So I pulled these pictures of of Google Street View, after receiving a tip from somebody else. Clearly, the google Street-cam was malfunctioning, but I still think it makes for some great Street View photography nonetheless. What do you think? Most of these are photos of a stretch of NY 144 and/or Old Hwy 61 in New Baltimore, NY, near where the two roads intersect. A GOOGLE MAPS Address which drops you dead center into the middle of Hell to explore this terrain for yourself is: 

Baltimore NY, Google Street View of Hell Itself. Or what hell might look like if it existed. 

 

Here are the photos I pulled using screen prints.

 










  

Thursday, September 12, 2013

I just subscribed to the home delivery print and web versions of the NEW SCIENTIST magazine. I then wrote a letter to customer service documenting my experience. Read that letter HERE:

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Hello! I was in the middle of reading an article. I finally decided that I should subscribe, as I've been meaning to anyway, as I badly wanted to finish reading the article, and this was finally enough to tip the scales in favor. So I go through the process to subscribe, I whip out my credit card, I cover a quarter of a year's worth of print and web "subscriptionship" and then tried to go back and finish reading the article. I also wanted badly to comment on a different article that I had read, and this issue I'm having holds identically true for both situations: It is demanding my subscription number everywhere to link my online and paid accounts. Naturally after I wait 15 minutes, only to receive the cruddy, useless web-access subscription confirmation number which doesn't actually benefit a person to receive in any way, as it was made crystal clear that this useless number you send out is NOT the vaunted subscription ID number that I so desperately need. After discovering that this cruddy number was not going to work, I called your customer service department. Keeping in mind that I'm speaking with the PREMIER and number ONE OVERALL science magazine the entire world over, I expected you to already know what I wanted before my call was answered. I expected my number was already on the screen of every computer in your company, and that my first print issue may already be on my doorstep, despite it being less than half an hour after I subscribed. I must say, I was not in for the shock to the system that I got when reality came crushing down on me. I would never have dreamed that your technology behind the scenes is clearly as shoddy of an interface as your absolutely terrible website GUI is for readers and users--at least users of firefox. It regularly misremembers cookies, requires relogging in, seems to have certain frames on the screen aware that you are logged in while others are encouraging you to do so. All very quirky. Which I can forgive. Some scientists are quirky. So, its despite this crappy interface that I decide to subscribe because I just plain, flat out love the content of your magazine. So, anyway, back to my customer service call. I explain to her (the lady that answered) that I need my subscriber number so I can log back in and resume the reading of my article. She asks if I just signed up on the web, which I affirmed was indeed correct. She proceeds to tell me, as if this is still 1996 or something, that it will take 24-48 hours for her system to be populated with my account subscription information. I am in disbelief at this point, and sort of frustratingly ask in a tone to match my mood, after I'd made her repeat herself several times, because I was SURE I was not understanding what she was telling me..... "So you mean to tell me, in a world where I can make a Paypal transfer to China and have the money arrive in real time, and be made available for withdraw from a Chinese person's ATM Card, currency conversion per-market rates and all, 30 seconds after I hit "send" from a telephone while I'm driving down the freeway.....moving, no less!.....and in a world where my bank information is updated in front of my very eyes online if stay logged in to my online banking account by smartphone as I make a cash deposit at the brick and mortar bank....And in a world where stock buy and sell transactions are literally flawlessly executed between anonymous buyers and sellers via a centralized trading platform operated by a discount broker who charges $8 dollars for the service, and upon doing so, ticker symbol readouts the WORLD over will update in real time, and the stock sale execution will be finalized in a matter of 5 seconds, and that money is removed from my account, or placed into it also in real time....In a world where EVERYTHING is updated immediately, and waiting for anything is a thing of the past, I have just clicked on a link, on a website owned by the New Scientist, which had the MISLEADING TITLE of "SUBSCRIBE NOW TO FINISH READING ARTICLE", and this article and my subscription are now paid and I am supposed to have FULL web access, that I BOUGHT from your company.....Which, I remind you redundantly, publishes the periodical that is the industry's best, and the standard for quality science journalism, which is exclusively focused on the world's most ADVANCED SCIENCE and SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES and BREAKTRHOUGHS? And yet, the simple issue of providing me with the ability to comment on, or to finish reading the rest of the article that I just PAID for a quarter of a year's worth of your magazine in order to finish reading is simply not within the capacity of your company's ability or technology to be able to provide to me, in anything shorter then 1-2 entirely full days? Which, remember, puts us into the weekend, which means I then have another 2 days to wait? Am I understanding you correctly." She said, a bit uppity with me now, like I was being unreasonable to expect more than this--- "Yes sir. Thats correct" And so I replied that their customer service department must be DELUGED with people bitching about this very situation. What did she tell me? "No. Not ever can I remember somebody calling and having an issue with this" she said. I think my point was driven home quite effectively, but the customer service agent, while she remained reasonably polite, didn't seem to share in understanding what an absurdity this is in this day and age. Thus when I told her that as far as problems, this issue had enough problems to be diagnosed as clinically insane. Then she reminded me that your home office is in the UK, and THEN IT MADE PERFECT SENSE, BECAUSE INTERNET PACKET DATA TAKES DAYS AND DAYS TO REACH SERVERS WAY OVER THERE. THE DATA PACKETS DON'T ALL OWN THEIR OWN LEARJET YOU KNOW. Despite her technically keeping her cool, I didnt think it seemed as if she felt much sympathy to my frustration, because she just kept repeating "I'm sorry sir, but its not something I can POSSIBLY help with. Its just the way things are." So at this point, I can only assume she was sitting there with her piece of slate and chalk, and an abacus, along with a fully equipped stagecoach ready to head wherever it was asked to go, staffed by a team of sharp shooters to keep even the haughtiest of stage coach robbers subdued should they try to steal any New Scientist booty from the StageCoachs' lockbox, lest a person's customer number be delayed beyond the mere 48 hours it now takes to digitally deliver that single string of numbers to a fixed, internet connected workstation at this point.. I asked her to imagine a world where we could use a card to immediately and instantaneously make a payment anywhere in the globe to digitally order access to an online magazine, and how it would revolutionize the magazine industry and enhance the customer experience, because if they invented such a thing as an instant transaction, then it would open the door to real time account and subscription access. Then I realized, puzzled, that I had JUST DONE EXACTLY THAT, AND YOUR COMPANY HAD NO PROBLEMS EXTRACTING THE MONEY FROM MY ACCOUNT IN REAL TIME. That was immediate. In a nutshell, (despite the fact that there is clearly a whole pile of crushed up stomped on nuts already messing up the floor here, and thus the time for keeping things concise is long past) I would summarize my problem with Digital/Online access as the peculiar situation where we have to figure out which of the two root causes is the actual one creating these issues, out of the only two I can imagine that would have this effect. Here they are, as I'm hoping you can figure out which it is, and correct it for future customers lest they go through the same experience. 1) You either have a clueless, totally insane customer service person working who is in full belief that she will not know what Y2K is for another 6 or 7 more years.....That nothing happens in real time quite yet... and that an Internet is some sort of fishing apparatus. After all, Kurt Cobain is alive and well, and working on Nirvana's third studio album.... And no doubt, this customer service agent has spent all morning trying to figure out if Terminator 2 came out LAST SUMMER, or was that 2 SUMMERS AGO?------ And this would certainly explain how she made such an egregious mistake as to think it would take multiple DAYS before you guys might be able to get me that web access I was promised when I paid for a subscription. or else its 2) That the magazine that reports on the foremost scientific discovers the world over is running a horrific business model that includes never updating their website to be compatible NOR friendly to use with any browsers beyond IE5, still uses the carbon-copy credit card ink plates for keeping their books, and who naturally has only a cash register and a rotary dial phone at your care centers, because, despite probably reporting on all the technological advancements to come out for the last 20 years, you guys haven't upgraded ANY of your equpiment to any of the stuff you've been reporting on for at least that long. I'd love to know my subscription number, and which of the two issues up top is causing such a bizarre problem to have in the year 2013.(I noticed the Chat icon on the website, which says LIVE AGENTS ARE AVAILABLE but when you click it, it becomes apparent that the icon is just for looks, as there are in fact no agents available.)
Please feel free to contact me for any reason you'd like, or email me at my subscription email address, and also please CC me at DockEllisDee@Gmail.com as the [erased for my own privacy].com address my account is registered through is a work-provided email. Now, this is all Assuming you guys do have a machine that gets emails, and you are able to send them out, as well, of course. AFter the chat situation turned out to be window dressing, I am fairly convinced that your Windows 95 PC simply doesn't "Do email" but I can understand the need to appear like you can. Hell, everyone knows Windows 95 can be wonky..... and I get that, so I wouldn't hold it against you if calling was the only means to communicate with customers you guys have. Besides, its just good business sense to assume some dayu you will acquire a machine that CAN send, receive and even keep track of emails for you. I can only assume that your need for an email address is simply because some day you guys are confident that you'll stumble into a machine that can do this for you.....But who knows? AFter all, your business isn't rocket science. Its just reporting on it. Sincerely, Dock Ellis Dee

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

If Drugs Were Legal....

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Let me start out by saying that the initial purpose of this post was make people aware of this superb little doucmentary from, I think, 2006, made by the BBC as part of their If..... Series of op/editorial infused speculative documentaries that mix dramatic fiction and real world experts of differing opinions on controversial topics. Their goal with these If.... Films are to try and best discern the reality behind the endless political posturing around hot button topics to try and fairly represent how people should really be looking at the topic in question. 




A little bit of interesting backgound...I first discovered this right around the very nadir of my slow descent into madness brought on by drinking Gamma Butyrolactone (GBL) several times daily for an extended period that stretched a few years... Right when I first discovered it, everybody that came to my house was subjected to it. I have to say, its only like 10% cheesy, and 90% really damn well done, even now years later, and alone lays out a better argument in favor of legalizing all drugs, than any 100 hours spent watching anything else or listening or reading to anyone or anything else trying to convince the skeptically inclined, but legitimately open minded folks out there who would actually care to spend time thinking about it.Ironically, even as we used this movie to make the case that legalizing all drugs was a good idea,  a very good argument to the opposite side of things was busy playing itself out in real time.
 Anybody who was around, simply by observing my wife's and my own increasingly bizarre behavior and chaotic psychological descent that was a direct result of having a near limitless supply (at the time, we thought) of GBL, and really nothing stopping us from almost constantly being in a stupor from it. 

Anyways, you WILL be hooked within the first 5 minutes. Just give it a chance, and if you don't have the time to finish the whole thing now, just remember your place and come back later to finish it!