Andy's Blog

A couple months ago I sold some stuff on e-Bay and I got an invoice from them for my seller fees. I logged into my account and verified that it is setup with automatic payment via PayPal and I ignored that invoice. Yesterday, I got the same exact invoice. So it would appear that the "automatic" part isn't so "automatic" and I decided that I needed to contact their customer service.

Like all customer service these days (even for good companies) you have to wade through a mine-field of options that are structured to stop you from asking a question to a real human being. So rather that hunting longer for a phone number (or just finding it on wikipedia which I'm sure has it) I just tried out their "Live Help" functionality which is simply instant messaging.

Either they've got a few superheroes handling dozens of simultaneous conversations by multi-plexing them or they've got a bunch of two-fingered typers because it's SLOW. Every question that you ask takes a couple minutes to get a response. Even still, that's not the main thing that I noticed...

And that is, that when it takes so a long time to respond, typical courtesies that CS reps use are actually annoying. For example:

"Hello, Andrew, I'll be happy to assist you"

"Just a minute while I look that up."

"Hold on while I transfer you to the Billing Department." (the "rep" that I'm talking to should be virtual and they may transfer under the covers, but don't let me know that)

It seems to me that answers in an IM/chat-based customer service system need to be FAST (why would I go through the hassle of using it if it's more of a pain that talking to a REAL person) and they need to prize word economy (cut the pleasantries and just get me the answer... I'm not chatting you up because I saw your latest change on Facebook).

I worked "near" Steve while he was Amazon. We were on interview loops together and occasionally sat in meetings together etc. I also started reading his blog when it was just an internal company blog.... I never had the chance to work on his team, but every time he says something publicly I regret that.

In his most recent rant he tackles the "problem" of code-base size. I've done my fair share of refactoring in Amazon's massive code base, and after having been working in Ruby for the past couple years it's crystal clear how VALUABLE concision is. It's really amusing all of the commenters on the post who say "the number of lines isn't a problem when you have nicely modularized code...." They have a point when they argue that Steve doesn't count the number of lines of code in the kernel's of our OSes, etc. but generally I think they miss the general point that he's making which I would characterize as "your language and the expressiveness of that language affects how much code you'll be responsible for" and "the more code you have the less possible it is to keep it in your head" (reconsider his point about 1M lines of code with 50 lines per "page" being equivalent to a 20,000 page manual. He seems to echo some of what Paul Graham has said.

Either way, if you're into software. Steve is well worth reading and thinking his thoughts.

A couple of weeks ago I bought Amazon.com's latest product offering, the Kindle. I got it primarily to experiment with a new technology but secretly my hope would be to consolidate all of my reading into one little device. I'm typically reading 3 or 4 books , several magazines, the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and a dozen PDF papers at any given time (obviously not all at once). The prospect of having them all available simultaneously in a little form factor was pretty cool. If my experiment didn't work then I was planning to sell it on Ebay and take a loss if necessary. I haven't sold it and I'm not sure that I plan to however it's far from perfect. Here's what I like:

1. I love the fact that I can e-mail myself documents and they appear in the device (e.g. send something to aharbick@kindle.com). It takes PDF, DOC, HTML, and a bunch of other formats. Many people complained about apparent lack of support for PDF, but it's just not true.
2. Shopping on the Kindle is pretty flawless though selection isn't amazing (particularly in periodicals).
3. The screen provides a great reading experience.
4. I love the fact that it's about the size of a paperback.
5. The search, clipping, and highlighting functionality are great.

Here's what I don't like:

1. There is no way to match a page in a physical book with a "Kindle location" If you have a friend reading the same thing and they say "could you believe page 25!!" you're out of luck unless you respond "can you tell me a phrase from that page" and then you search for the phrase.
2. Similarly it's incredibly hard to tell where you are in a book. There's the little meter at the bottom of the page that records general progress through the book, but there are no indicators for chapter, etc. This is particularly hard in reading something like the Bible. You turn to Genesis chapter 8 and start reading... The only clue that you've moved into chapter 9 is a tiny little "9" and the fact that the verse numbers have recycled back to 1,2,3...
3. Also related is navigation... Again, this is mostly related to reading something like the Bible where you jump around a lot. If you're lucky the thing you're reading has a Table of Contents. So from any given page you click the scroll wheel and choose the "Table of Contents" navigate through a couple of pages of ToC, choose one of the chapters and navigate to it. It's about 6 clicks and scrolls to jump around and as far as I can tell there are no "Next Chapter", "Previous Chapter" functions.
4. The display is pretty weak for anything but text. It's grayscale which would be OK, but in a PDF (that you mailed to yourself) graphics are often stripped presumably because they're vector-based and the Kindle can only do pixel-based images.
5. The digital edition of Time has absolutely NO GRAPHICS. It's all text. This makes reading the magine pretty hard when the text refers to a chart, etc. It's a pretty poor experience. That said, reading it made me in the "know" for my other Time-addicted friends.
6. There's a bunch of lame hardware things. a. The battery life isn't amazing. You get at most 7 days if you never turn it off. b. There is no "lock" feature to disable buttons (big pain if you leave it on while it's in a bag). c. the power button is awkwardly located on the back of the unit which makes it very difficult to shut off it it's in the supplied carrying case. d. the previous button should be the entire left-side so that right click is next and left click is previous. Instead the previous button us only the top left and there is duplicate next functionality at the lower left side. e. It's WAY to easy to click the paging buttons while handling the device. f. the navigation wheel is hard to use... too easy to scroll and too hard to push (makes it incredibly hard to click precisely). g. the menuing system is pretty lame. h. The iPhone is a game changer and not having a touch screen feels the same psychologically as using a 28k modem to get on the Internet now.
7. The selection of materials isn't that great. Of the books I'm currently reading I could only get about 25% on the Kindle. I read a bunch of "theology" books, but even books like "Emergence" or "Cub's Nation" or "The World Is Flat" can't be found. The periodical selection is really poor. There are only 10 papers and not a whole lot more magazines. Basically, I'll have to carry a Kindle and a book for the foreseeable future.
8. It's proprietary... Once there's a better device than the Kindle how do I port my content? This problem isn't possible with physical books.

So... Now that I look at it, I should probably sell mine ;)

I think that Apple could totally clean Amazon's clock at least hardware-wise. If they launched an iTablet computer similar in functionality but larger in size than an iPod touch it would be vastly superior from a hardware standpoint. Perhaps this is the whole end-game of Amazon? Amazon could be jump-starting a market. Get people talking about the "future of reading"... Get people passionate about it... Apple swoops in a builds a GREAT device and Amazon is there to sell content because they already have the relationships with the publishers.... Hmmm

Mark pointed this out to me:

Awesome!

Jeremy just pointed out that I never wrote about what the engineer had to say. On the whole it was great news! The holes through the foot of the scissor trusses (in the great room) don't need to be repaired, nor do the holes in the diagonal beam of the bonus room trusses, nor do the holes in the porch trusses. Basically the only holes that need to be fixes are the ones in the 2×10" bottom beam of the bonus room trusses which totally makes sense since they form the joists for the loft floor. The fix is easy too (though time consuming). Basically I have to pull out the wire and re-route it (which means that I'll have to replace some of it) then I need to cut 4' "scabs" out of 2×10" boards and center then over the holes nailing it in place with 10d nails 3" "on center" (OC). I'm trying to find a time when I can get down again to do the work. Hopefully sometime during the middle of next week, but if not then I'm thinking that the Friday after Thanksgiving, I might make it down with my Dad and Brother-in-law.

Don't know if I mentioned it, but the roof is done. However, the siding is pending. The guy I'm having do that work broke his foot and is out of commission for a bit. No worries really since it's not blocking anything else.

The septic system is supposed to be installed any day, but contractors have a bad habit of saying they'll do something on a given day/week and not doing it. I need to call them.

Also, now that the leaves have fallen the view is great (though pictures don't do it justice)... I'm definitely going to have to have a chainsaw party to clear out some of those little trees that block the view other parts of the year.

I installed Leopard yesterday with an "Acrhive and Install" installation (it basically moves everything over to a /Previous System folder and then does a clean install). Everything went pretty smoothly and I'm more or less up and running as before except with the new features.

Here's my first big beef... There is a new feature to the dotmac integration that synchronizes system settings/preferences. That new feature adds a little "rotating arrows" icon to the menu bar and periodically trys to sync with your dotmac account. I don't have a dotmac account and I didn't particularly want one. HOWEVER there doesn't appear to be a way to get to the configuration options for dotmac without first entering in account information. So I ended up having to get a dotmac trial account so that I could get to the "Sync" tab in the dotmac configuration which allowed me to make synchronization only manual and to remove the icon from the menu bar. Now I'm stuck with this bogus dotmac account that I'm sure I'll be pestered to upgrade.

As I wrote this, I've uncovered a second big beef... I used a "PC keyboard" hooked in through USB to my MacBook. It appears that Apple apps like Mail, iCal, etc. no longer recognize the Backspace key as "delete on character backwards" and the "Delete" key does what it traditionally does on a PC ("delete one character forwards"). I'm gonna have to fix this (or get an Apple keyboard)...

Today I met Nelson Ailer, an Augusta County inspector, for my first inspections of the cabin. We didn't pass but I think we did pretty well. Here's what needs to happen:

• Install a second grounding rod
• Move the grounding wire into the panel (and not the meter base)
• Install a heater in the kitchen and bathroom
• Install ducting for the bathroom vent
• Prep a couple of wires (cut them back, strip housing and prep the grounds)
• Prepare the plumbing for a pressure test (100lbs on supply lines, and 5lbs on the drain line) and demonstrate
• Fasten trusses to walls with "hurricane clips"
• Talk to the engineer and do what he says regarding the holes that were put in the trusses (apparently that's a no no)
• Shim the center beam on top of the footers

All in all, doesn't sound like tons of work and I mostly know what to do. Another nice bit of news is that I can setup permanent service once I fix the grounding issues.

I went to Costco for lunch and to pick up some office supplies. As I was checking out one of the "cashier assistants" came up to me and said "do you want a box?" I had to ask her to repeat herself because I didn't understand what she was asking. As she did I noticed that her name was PANDORA. I just about lost it laughing but managed to squeak out a "no thank you!"

Heck no Pandora, I don't want your box

The Cubs had a disasterous finish to the season. The only thing good was that they never teased the faithful into believing that "this was the year" so the wound will heal much quicker.

There's always next year right? It'll be 100 years since we last won and Mark Cuban may buy the Cubs I don't know why I find that exciting. Perhaps it's the fact that he's so passionate about his teams, he's willing to spend money, and he's been successful with the Mavs. I hope it works out.