xinit

Originally published at bankrupt artist v.3. You can comment here or there.

I love getting comments on 3 year old posts, especially when the person leaving the comments can’t be bothered to read the post before bitching and moaning, blaming the customer.

They tried to blame us when they dropped that server so hard that it not only bent the steel frame so we couldn’t rack it, but also completely unseated cards and damaged the shipping box markedly on two separate corners. There were footprints on the box, and a hole about two inches square all the way through the double carton. This was obviously our fault.

That’s a whole other story, and I was only mocking their useless web form for tracking your packages. I posted about one of the multitude of reasons I try to avoid Purolator; this one was about the uselessness of their system in accessing shipping information from a Linux system running Firefox. This sort of thing was something of a problem, as we had very few Windows PCs to access in the office, and most of those had been “upgraded” to completely remove the IE functionality from the systems. What can I say, we were an office of jerks and we did that because we could.

Looking at the reverse lookup on the full IP address that the commenter was coming in from, it appears that he works for Purolator, either directly or as an employee of CGI. CGI provides a number of services for Purolator, so that wouldn’t be a huge surprise.

http://outbound.purolator.com

Someone is working for Purolator at the least, and maybe for CGI, in the call centre perhaps? They had nothing better to do, it would seem, than search Google for purolator complaints. It is a bit surprising that this post of mine from three years ago still pops right up on the front page.

Search Engine: google.ca
Search Words: purolator complaints

I think that I’ll have to contact Purolator about how their employees spend their time online; I am assuming of course that the first commenter today used his real, personal gmail address when he posted.

It brings to mind the winner who commented on my blog in her capacity as an employee of Budget.

Edit: I received a conciliatory email response from the commenter, so I won’t likely bug Purolator customer service about it…

bitter_crimson

[	Tags	|	capslock, polls, t.u.s.	]
[	mood	|	weird	]

SERIFS, MOTHERFUCKERS!!!

loki128

• 09:48 Decent sleep pattern resumed! All it took was staying up for 27 hours again... AGD exam today! No idea what to revise! #
• 09:56 @Pyroka Oh, shit, yeah, all that stuff from the slides that we paid no attention to... Awesome. #
• 10:17 I won't miss Eurovision because of London Expo! Hoorah! #
• 11:28 Photos from the AGD lockin are now on Facebook: snurl.com/28mcl #
• 12:57 According to iTunes, I've never played 184 of my high-rated songs... O_o #
• 19:50 Currently trying to break an Internet connection. #
• 19:53 @Pryoka Yeah, it beats Twhirl too - it only query the API occasionally, whereas Twitter does texts instantly #

thelovebug

• 00:13 Yep, so the exhaust fell off - needs welding back on, so I'm working from home tomorrow... and looking for a welder. What joy! #
• 00:17 Time for bed, methinks. #
• 00:18 @moosical this should work now. #
• 18:49 So, is it possible for me to tone down my driving style? Could I bring the economy of my little Pug 206 up to 500 miles from a full tank? #
• 18:52 @broomster That be foightin' talk, matey! #
• 18:54 @broomster Having said that, I have thus far been unable to bring our Vectra above 350 miles per tank, and that has 10 more litres in it! #
• 19:58 @broomster A mile a litre?!? Are you serious?! Blimey! #

docjeff

[	Tags	|	privacy	]
[	Current Location	|	Thirty Seven Oh Eight, Double Penny Lane	]
[	mood	|	pissed off	]
[	music	|	Robbie Robb - In Time	]

You may not have heard of the American Community Survey, but you will. The national census, which historically is taken every ten years, has expanded to quench the federal bureaucracy’s ever-growing thirst to govern every aspect of American life. The new survey, unlike the traditional census, is taken each and every year at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. And it’s not brief. It contains 24 pages of intrusive questions concerning matters that simply are none of the government’s business, including your job, your income, your physical and emotional heath, your family status, your dwelling, and your intimate personal habits.

The questions are both ludicrous and insulting. The survey asks, for instance, how many bathrooms you have in your house, how many miles you drive to work, how many days you were sick last year, and whether you have trouble getting up stairs. It goes on and on, mixing inane questions with highly detailed inquiries about your financial affairs. One can only imagine the countless malevolent ways our federal bureaucrats could use this information. At the very least the survey will be used to dole out pork, which is reason enough to oppose it.

Keep in mind the survey is not voluntary, nor is the Census Bureau asking politely. Americans are legally obligated to answer, and can be fined up to $1,000 per question if they refuse!

be4u

The census also represents a form of corporate welfare, since the personal data collected on hundred of millions of Americans can be sold to private businesses. Surely business enjoys having such extensive information available from one source, but it’s hardly the duty of taxpayers to subsidize the cost of market research.

xinit

Originally published at bankrupt artist v.3. You can comment here or there.

I hate my cell phone, but for reasons that are easily fixed. The talk time on my battery has dropped off pretty sharply, and I’m lucky to get 20 minutes of talk. I have a charger at work and a charger at home, and sometimes the standby to get from one to the other AND talk for 10 minutes is just too much for it to handle.

It’s so bad that the warning chirp that the battery is going to die doesn’t even complete its short little chirp before the phone has shut down. Chir

To be fair, this battery and phone are over two years old. Sure, I could look to upgrade in another six months when my contract is up, but Telus just doesn’t have anything interesting to replace it with. This one has a decent sized keyboard that doesn’t take up real estate from the screen. I don’t like the Blackberry offerings and their itty bitty keys.

So, after a bit of digging online, ignoring the $60 standard replacement batteries from the cellphone vendors, I’ve found an off-brand extended (2.5 times the capacity) battery for $10. That should extend the life of this phone out a couple more years anyhow. Now if only DealExtreme.com had a $5 bluetooth headset that sucked less than my phone’s built-in mic does.