Ok, Ok, I get it. There is a big storm coming our way. Hurricane Irene. Perhaps the mother of all storms, landing thud right on my vegetable garden just when I've managed to pick a few decent home grown tomatoes.
What's that you say? It hasn't even hit the US mainland yet. It could fizzle. Nice try, Mr Calm. Take your skepticism down the hall. This time the sky IS falling!...this time it's gonna be a trillion dollar disaster! The New York City subways and Tunnels will be flooded because of an 8 foot tidal surge. Boston will be inundated with 5 or 10 inches of rain. Your basement will have at least 7 inches of water just like March of 2010. This will be the second "hundred-year" event in three years!
The forecasters and news readers have become gleeful fearmongers. They are running out of scary scenarios. In panic, property owners are rushing to batten-down hatches, or pulling their boats from the water, and vacationers are checking-out early so they will not be stuck when the big winds begin to blow. The supermarkets are doing a brisk business selling drinking water and batteries. Liquor stores are selling out of scotch and gin. People are scared. For once in my life, I do not feel envy for people with beachfront property and a nice cabin cruiser tied -up at the marina.
It's been a classic Man vs Nature month so far. A Richter 5.9 earthquake hit Virginia last week, and the tremors were apparently felt by some locals here in Boston metro west. Obviously not folks like us who live within a few blocks of the RR tracks. We get the equivalent of 5.9 temblors every time a freight train goes by -- and often accompanied by a piercing blast from their high decibel horns as a lagniappe.
President Obama has been vacationing on Martha's Vineyard, and was playing golf when the ground shook. Reportedly, he blamed the quake for a missed putt.
I have been fighting my own personal war against nature, in my losing effort to harvest ripe tomatoes. My foes, the chipmunks and squirrels have been winning, despite heavy losses ( at least 12 casualties verified) on their side, thanks to my knuckle-breaker rat traps. I bait them with pieces of tomato so the only rodents I have slain were tomato eaters. The squirrels have been repelled by shiny CD's hung on fishing line. They catch the light and turn in the slightest breeze, which spooks the squirrels, and i have not seen one near the vines. In recent weeks, the traps have begun to loosen the chipmunks' stronghold on my garden. I have managed to pick a few ripe ones -- and our salads are to die for. I have offered amnesty to all non tomato eating chipmunks. Victory will soon be ours! (That is, unless Irene wrecks everything.)
Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Aug 28th
Irene where is thy sting?
Looks like I am not the only one to think the hype was overdone
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/28/hurricane-irene-hype-how-the-media-went-overboard.html
8/26/2011
8/19/2011
Verizon is Not Totally Dysfunctional
I acknowledge that most most of my previous posts about Verizon have been to complain. In the interests of fairness I need to mention that there is one thing Verizon does that is pretty good. If you need to upgrade your FIOS set top box, they are amazing. A few months ago, we decided to upgrade our hi-def box to a DVR. I went online, and despite their clunky website, I was able to order a DVR box. They said it might take two weeks for the new unit to arrive.
Surprise, it came two days later. I followed the simple instructions to hook it up and voila it worked! It took less than ten minutes. Smooth, like butter! The old unit goes into the same shipping box for return. They give you a return shipping label. You take it down to the UPS store, ans as you place the box on the counter you wonder if it is going to be hassle, but the guy says "Ok you're done. I do a hundred of these a week. Have a nice day."
Kudos to the person(s) who designed that process. The DVR works very well too, especially now that we can fast-forward through all the comercials. Now, we can record a half hour show and watch it later in 15 minutes. I like that. The DVR interface is a bit clunky, but like using your GPS or Cell Phone messaging, you eventually get the hang of it.
Last week I replaced the 15 year old GE 25" TV with a new Panasonic 32" flat screen. (Costco, $319 tax free). It was time to replace the old Low-Def set top box. I went online, muddled my way through their clunky interface, and finally managed to order the upgrade. Two days later the new box arrived. This time the set-up took twenty minutes because I had to use what they call manual activation, meaning I entered a code that they had sent me and then waited twenty minutes while the main office programmed the box remotely. No hassle on my part. Today I will take the old box back to the UPS store. Mission Accomplished!
So there you have it. Verizon is not Totally dysfunctional after all. So never let it be said that I am not fair and balanced, (even though I think their website is clunky :-)
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| Installs like butter |
Kudos to the person(s) who designed that process. The DVR works very well too, especially now that we can fast-forward through all the comercials. Now, we can record a half hour show and watch it later in 15 minutes. I like that. The DVR interface is a bit clunky, but like using your GPS or Cell Phone messaging, you eventually get the hang of it.
Last week I replaced the 15 year old GE 25" TV with a new Panasonic 32" flat screen. (Costco, $319 tax free). It was time to replace the old Low-Def set top box. I went online, muddled my way through their clunky interface, and finally managed to order the upgrade. Two days later the new box arrived. This time the set-up took twenty minutes because I had to use what they call manual activation, meaning I entered a code that they had sent me and then waited twenty minutes while the main office programmed the box remotely. No hassle on my part. Today I will take the old box back to the UPS store. Mission Accomplished!
So there you have it. Verizon is not Totally dysfunctional after all. So never let it be said that I am not fair and balanced, (even though I think their website is clunky :-)
8/17/2011
Unpopular Verdicts: Bad Juries or Bad Evidence?
Normally, the news story that captures our attention is the case of the innocent defendent who was wrongly convicted of crimes because of bad evidence or mistaken identity. After umpteen years behind bars the condemned prisoner is set free, after new evidence is uncovered that controverts the trial evidence. This has become commonplace thanks to advancements in DNA analysis. We try not to think about these cases when we trumpet the superiority of the American Justice System.
Lately, there seems to be a common thread in recent high-profile cases where the acquittal verdict was egregiously wrong in the opinion of many armchair analysts and talk show bloviators. The acquittal of Casey Anthony after her recent trial created a furor that has not been seen since the OJ Simpson murder trial in 1995. Anthony, who has gone into hiding because of death threats, has been called "the most hated woman in America" since everyone thinks she got away with the murder of her daughter, Caylee.
If you followed the trial, you probably came to the same conclusion the rest of us did: Guilty! The evidence was clear: The mother of the missing child never reported the child missing, and in fact was having a high old time, getting tattoos, competing in wet tee shirt contests, and generally acting with callous disregard for the fact that her baby was gone. This was enough to convict her in the court of general opinion. But the verdict was Not Guilty on all counts. Not reporting a missing child does not happen to be against the law.
In Boston last week another locally infamous case ended badly. The defendant was Albert Arroyo, a former fireman who had claimed disability exemption from his job as fire inspector (not a physically demanding job) because of back pain due to an alleged on-the-job injury. This same guy was simultaneously working-out with weights on a daily basis and was even competing in body-building contests. The Boston Globe broke the story last year and published pictures of a distinctly well-muscled guy posing for photos. Clearly a case of fraud. He lawyered-up. The fire department fired him when he refused to come back to work. Then the feds decided to charge him with mail fraud.
When the jury came back with a shocking acquittal, everyone was outraged. How could these dumb jurors not see that he was as guilty as the nose on your face, they shouted. Local Radio talk show bloviators dragged-out the old cases and questioned whether our system of justice works when jurors did not have a clue.
But when you consider the facts of the case, the real problem was that the jurors took their instructions seriously. They matched the evidence against the charges and found that the proof was lacking.
This did not mean that they thought Casey Anthony or Arroyo were innocent. In both cases, several of the jurors who were interviewed later said that they thought the defendant was guilty of a crime, but the prosecutors did not prove that the defendant was guilty of the specific charges. They didn't prove mail fraud, which was the charge in the Arroyo case. They couldn't prove murder in the Casey Anthony trial.
This doesn't indict the jury system, nor does it point to bad juries. I think it points to flawed work by the prosecution lawyers and investigators. In their haste to get favorable publicity, perhaps prosecutors rush to trial without a convincing case. I don't really know the answer, but the point is that we, the public, should withhold our judgement in cases like this and not "punish the messenger" for an unpopular verdict.
Lately, there seems to be a common thread in recent high-profile cases where the acquittal verdict was egregiously wrong in the opinion of many armchair analysts and talk show bloviators. The acquittal of Casey Anthony after her recent trial created a furor that has not been seen since the OJ Simpson murder trial in 1995. Anthony, who has gone into hiding because of death threats, has been called "the most hated woman in America" since everyone thinks she got away with the murder of her daughter, Caylee.
If you followed the trial, you probably came to the same conclusion the rest of us did: Guilty! The evidence was clear: The mother of the missing child never reported the child missing, and in fact was having a high old time, getting tattoos, competing in wet tee shirt contests, and generally acting with callous disregard for the fact that her baby was gone. This was enough to convict her in the court of general opinion. But the verdict was Not Guilty on all counts. Not reporting a missing child does not happen to be against the law.
In Boston last week another locally infamous case ended badly. The defendant was Albert Arroyo, a former fireman who had claimed disability exemption from his job as fire inspector (not a physically demanding job) because of back pain due to an alleged on-the-job injury. This same guy was simultaneously working-out with weights on a daily basis and was even competing in body-building contests. The Boston Globe broke the story last year and published pictures of a distinctly well-muscled guy posing for photos. Clearly a case of fraud. He lawyered-up. The fire department fired him when he refused to come back to work. Then the feds decided to charge him with mail fraud.
When the jury came back with a shocking acquittal, everyone was outraged. How could these dumb jurors not see that he was as guilty as the nose on your face, they shouted. Local Radio talk show bloviators dragged-out the old cases and questioned whether our system of justice works when jurors did not have a clue.
But when you consider the facts of the case, the real problem was that the jurors took their instructions seriously. They matched the evidence against the charges and found that the proof was lacking.
This did not mean that they thought Casey Anthony or Arroyo were innocent. In both cases, several of the jurors who were interviewed later said that they thought the defendant was guilty of a crime, but the prosecutors did not prove that the defendant was guilty of the specific charges. They didn't prove mail fraud, which was the charge in the Arroyo case. They couldn't prove murder in the Casey Anthony trial.
This doesn't indict the jury system, nor does it point to bad juries. I think it points to flawed work by the prosecution lawyers and investigators. In their haste to get favorable publicity, perhaps prosecutors rush to trial without a convincing case. I don't really know the answer, but the point is that we, the public, should withhold our judgement in cases like this and not "punish the messenger" for an unpopular verdict.
8/15/2011
Verizon vs Customers
The thing you need to know about Verizon is that it is not a big company, rather a bunch of smaller quasi-integrated companies. I say quasi-integrated because they do not seem to talk to each other. It is almost like a governmental agency in that it is difficult to communicate with and often dysfunctional. Verizon's three main arms Phone, Internet and TV pretend to be a single company, but any time you need to do something you bump into the reality that they are islands with very flimsy bridges between them. The website is maddeningly slow and unintuitive. Go ahead and try to get your cellphone pictures downoaded to your PC -- you will see what I mean.
Hmm, you say, A communications company that does not know how to communicate with its customers? How can this be? As an analogy, just think of the federal/state government. They are always talking about "what the people want," but in fact the pols and their minions that work in those organizations have little concern for their constuituents except during an election year. They see the continuence their office as the raison d'etre of their activities, at the expense of ethical concerns for public needs. This is how companies behave when they have a virtual captive market.
I am not taking sides in the current labor dispute between the union and the company's management. I hate both sides. I hate the management because they have the clunkiest, least customer-friendly internet presence of any company I have the misfortune to deal with. If you call them for help there are no human beings in any process that takes less than 30 minutes. If you stay on the line and work your way through a bewildering array of autmated attendant menues you can finally talk to a person. Who has the time or patience for that!
Why can't they get some decent web designers in to fix their unusable 1990's designed web pages?
I hate the union too, because they are willing to throw the innocent customers like you and me under the bus because they cannot settle the contract with management. They are willing to hold you and me hostage to their demands for heavily subsidized health care, job protection for incompetent union members, and other benefits. Why should we -- who pay our own health care costs and have no benefits - be sympathetic with a bunch of pampered union members, looking for more free stuff?
Strike? If I were Emperor, I would just find some people who wanted those jobs at the current wages and benefits. I think there are a lot of them.
So a pox on all of them.
Hmm, you say, A communications company that does not know how to communicate with its customers? How can this be? As an analogy, just think of the federal/state government. They are always talking about "what the people want," but in fact the pols and their minions that work in those organizations have little concern for their constuituents except during an election year. They see the continuence their office as the raison d'etre of their activities, at the expense of ethical concerns for public needs. This is how companies behave when they have a virtual captive market.
I am not taking sides in the current labor dispute between the union and the company's management. I hate both sides. I hate the management because they have the clunkiest, least customer-friendly internet presence of any company I have the misfortune to deal with. If you call them for help there are no human beings in any process that takes less than 30 minutes. If you stay on the line and work your way through a bewildering array of autmated attendant menues you can finally talk to a person. Who has the time or patience for that!
Why can't they get some decent web designers in to fix their unusable 1990's designed web pages?
I hate the union too, because they are willing to throw the innocent customers like you and me under the bus because they cannot settle the contract with management. They are willing to hold you and me hostage to their demands for heavily subsidized health care, job protection for incompetent union members, and other benefits. Why should we -- who pay our own health care costs and have no benefits - be sympathetic with a bunch of pampered union members, looking for more free stuff?
Strike? If I were Emperor, I would just find some people who wanted those jobs at the current wages and benefits. I think there are a lot of them.
So a pox on all of them.
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