VerizonMath - it's payback time!

VerizonMath is the story of one man's battle to resolve a Verizon screw up in quoting data usage fees as "point zero zero two cents per kilo byte" instead of "point zero zero two dollars per kilo byte". This caused him to run up a $71 data roaming charge instead of what he expected $0.71 or 71 cents.

George Vaccaro posts both emails and an audio recording of his dealings with Verizon and it is pretty stunning how much work (and patience) it took for him to eventually get this resolved. After initially being offered a 50% refund, he was finally given a full 100% refund but without any admission of error but he boldly went on to extract an admission of error and that they will revise customer service material. But wait there is more... days later they are still misquoting the rate in cents per kb instead of dollars per kb. Inspite of George's resolution and the publicity it gained, weeks later another person who had the identical problem has yet to get a refund.

I love the way this thread is going - I wish more people had the time and energy to follow through like George. It looks to me that well dugg stories and YouTube postings have true potential in getting exposure - and the irony of hearing the "this call may be recorded for training purposes" notification is so thick its probably lost on Verizon. Hearing two reps agree there is a difference between a dollar and a cent, and a half a dollar and half a cent but there is no difference between .002 dollars and .002 cents - well that's just priceless.

After reading and hearing all the recordings I start wondering "what if everyone starts doing the same thing as George?". How long will it be before it is just one deafening cacophony of complaints out there on the web with no specific action being taken? And how long before companies start trying to counter such trends with threats of legal action when customers post records of their reps and post emails from them? I know that ultimately that kind of thing will fail because it will backfire (blowback?) too badly - but it could get ugly for a while.

A few other comments on this:

1. I know being a CS rep must suck - I know someone who deals face to face with customers day in and day out and there are some real stinkers out there, over them phone it is even easier to get nasty. That is why I try really hard to be very courteous and patient with customer service people even when I'm near my wits end because they probably are as well. It usually pays off as my many (eventual) success stories with T-Mobile customer service have shown. It is frustrating that you sometimes do have to waste hours of your time and energy to get resolution. If we all calculated the value of our own "free time" on the phone in dollars per hour most people would give up long before resolution, it is simply not economic unless you're trying to get big bucks refunded.

2. I'm almost certain I got a similar misquote of data roaming rate from T-Mobile when I recently enquired about using it when traveling to the United Kingdom. When I went there two years ago it was completely free - part of my US unlimited plan, this time I think I got the point zero zero two cents per kb. I need to go back and check - if they haven't already wised up to Verizon's errors.

3. All this could be avoided if companies would only quote prices in dollars. But, as someone pointed out in one of the blog comments: many people just aren't comfortable with fractions of a dollar so that isn't going to happen.

4. But hello... being unable to distinguish a fraction of a dollar from a fraction of a cent - is it just too much to expect from people educated in "the worlds only superpower"? Vaccaro wasn't talking to uneducated or foreign nationals who might have a language problem, they could clearly hold and follow an English conversation, use a calculator, distinguish a dollar form a cent. So just what is going on with the education system and powers of reasoning in this country?

The inability of the two (and presumably several previous) people to make the cognitive leap and see and agree there was a problem is a striking demonstration of how ill equipped the average person now seems to be to make rational choices and process really, really simple mathematical concepts. Just how can we expect anyone to do anything as complicated as balance and weigh stuff like economic or scientific data when reasoning about which president to elect?

I start to wonder if it was an inability to doubt the corporate info or the computer that caused the reps inability recognize the error, or if it was a true failure of basic math because they don't understand how to use decimals and units in calculations? Obviously someone at Verizon eventually figured it out - was it because they were a) smarter or b) incentivised to (i.e. they realized it would cost too much not to figure it out).

5. Don't get me started on mass confusion that exists over if or when 1k is 1024 or 1000 and if a kb = kilo bit or kilo byte.

6. My inner conspiracy theorist would say that Verizon manufactured this whole thing and deliberately and rigorously trained their staff to confound and dumbfound people like George while secretly they busting a gut trying not to laugh at how hard the customer tries to explain the problem to them.

Hitchens vs. Ford

Sometimes you really need a contrary opinion which requires a contrarian which leads us straight to the door of Christopher Hitchens. So who better to dish the dirt on Gerald Ford in his Slate article The Ugly Truth about Gerald Ford". As he sums up:

To have been soft on Republican crime, soft on Baathism, soft on the shah, soft on Indonesian fascism, and soft on Communism, all in one brief and transient presidency, argues for the sort of sportsmanlike Midwestern geniality that we do not ever need to see again.

The Ford epoch did not banish a nightmare. It ended a dream - the ideal of equal justice under the law that would extend to a crooked and venal president. And in Iraq and Indonesia and Indochina, it either protracted existing nightmares or gave birth to new ones.

El Predicto strikes again

I think it, someone else makes it.

Priceless?

• Election stolen in 2000 - painful
• Election stolen again in 2004 - shameful
• Five years of "War on Terror" - pointless
• Taliban endorsement of "wise judgement" by American voters in '06 - priceless?

Fair plays dirty?

When FAIR runs a story claiming large corporate advertisers are boycotting liberal Air America it seems to me they are being unfair if they don't mention, or bother to research if those advertisers also boycott right wing radio stations and shows. Of course I don't know for sure if they do, but I have a gut feeling that some corporations just want to steer clear of any vaguely controversial media show - it doesn't matter if its Air America, Rush Limbaugh or Howard Stern. Perusing the list of 90 something corporations that wont advertise with Air America I see REI Sporting Goods - I somehow doubt if they particularly singled out a "left wing" radio station, I think the same probably applies to Epson, Sony and Microsoft.

When cartoon worlds collide

One of my favorite comic strips (okay, so its my only comic strip) is Dilbert. As Dilbert readers will know during the week there is usually a continous theme to the strips. This last week (and apparently for the next week too) he's been doing the Dilbert equivalent of "Too Much Coffee Man" who is another comic hero that I briefly got into (I have a TMCM mug and used to have a T-shirt as well). I'm not a big comic or cartoon fan, but I knew a friend of the TMCM creator and as people who know me know, I have a strange ability to suck down too much coffee at all hours of the day. Mmmmm, coffee.

Coincidentally travelling

Some people see coincidences as more miraculous than they are. I say take 6 billion people, shake-em all up and let them rip for 70 years or so and they well see coincidences a plenty, more than there are constellations in the sky.

So today (well yesterday and today) I flew from San Francisco to Chicago and then to London and met up with some old friends in London tonight for dinner.

Coincidence number 1 - my seat neighbor from Chicago to London was a young woman on route to Beirut (that's Lebanon folks). She'd never been there but was meeting someone who was flying in from Saudi Arabi there. So guess what kind of restaurant my friends in London had arranged for us to go to? That's right, Lebanese - I've never been to a Lebanese restaurant but it was pretty tasty. As Ben would say "I'm only here for the burned meat" and really can't go wrong with burned lamb. Mmmm.

Coincidence number 2 - my Beirut bound seat neighbor happened to have started her journey in Madison Wisconsin where she lives, and Madison is also where my dos amigos Erin and Dave hail from. And of course they also just happen to have moved to Chicago which is where that leg of my flight started.

Coincidence number 3 - sitting at SFO the gate next to mine had a last boarding call for passenger Colin Smith which is the name of someone I once worked with at a former company. Mr Smith never showed up but at dinner with my friends who were also from that company his name came up randomly. I haven't seen Colin in years, I think he's at Google now - sure would be nice to hear from him.

Coincidence number 4 - traveling from SFO to Chicago my seat neighbor was a former Vietnam vet who spent his time taking photos hanging from helicopters, in observation planes etc. He is now a consultant specializing in teleprescence and autonomous systems, something me and my business partner are both interested in. After further discussion we turned out to have a lot of interests in common - when someone can list a bunch of pretty obscure books and you've read them all you know there has to be some commonality to explore.

Coincidence number 5 - okay this is kind of weak but as you may of noticed I managed to find out a bunch of stuff about my seat neighbors. I usually try to bury my head in a book or put on the 'phones and tune out the world. Probably the last time I ever talked much to a seat neighbor was a guy who noticed I was reading a book on religion and proceeded to try and proselytize about his particular religion for the next two hours, hence the headphones. However this time I feel I lucked out sitting next to not one but two interesting people with something to say, dare I say - "It sure made the time fly" ???

Urban cleansing for the soul

Yesterday and last night we had our first rain in a long time. I went and checked - not a drop has fallen since May 21st, that's pretty much four and a half months without rain. Even then it was less than a half an inch for all of may - you have to go back to April to find any real rain.

I must say it was quite refreshing, and I was out in San Francisco coming home as it really got started, the streets were pretty deserted and a lot of folks were scurrying around because they were completely unprepared. It doesn't rain here just long enough that you really get used to it and when it comes it is a surprise, even if they tell you before hand. This morning the sidewalks are cleaner, my car is cleaner (but you probably wouldn't notice) and the air is cleaner - big booming cumulus clouds indicate the skies are sucking moisture up into the sky everywhere.

I've heard there was snow abot 8,000 ft in the Sierras - time to start thinking about the snowboarding season....

Lucky to be alive

Some of you may have read about the Boeing 737 that went down Sunday in Brazil with 155 lives lost. What was amazing was that the reason the plane went down was rapidly discovered - it had been in a mid-air collision with a diminutive executive jet, that sustained damage but managed to land with all seven on board safe and sound. Even more amazing was that a New York Times journalist was on board and his story is now online Colliding With Death at 37,000 Feet, and Living. I have to admit a mid-air is not something I ever worry about when flying, at least not in commercial planes.

What would Jesus blog?

I'm sure if there was a guy alive today like the biblically portrayed character of Jesus then he would have a blog because you know he would have to speak the language of the people to get his message across (and maybe do a bit of spamming bulk mail too). On his blog he would probably relate every day things to some eternal after life to help everyday Homo erectus get a grasp on the concept. Apropos this and my experience of flying this weekend I feel sure that Jesus on his travels would surely one day blog something like this:

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a traveler to enter the airline security zone.

Justice for Privacy Pretexters

I don't know about you but every time I hear the word "pretext" bandied about I keep thinking of something that teens do before they start txt-ing on their phones and not doing something on a pretext. Oh well, its probably just me.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when HP Chairman Patrician Dunn said how she knew nothing about the pretexting investigations and everyone told her everything was kosher. Then she went on with a bunch of her cronies to take the fifth to avoid incriminating herself, I mean take the fifth, WTF? Don't tell me... you were doing it on the advice of your lawyer. Maybe Ms Dunn if you've really nothing to fear you should start taking some advice from your conscience?

I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of people working for HP who have nothing to do with this and are deeply disgusted by the hijinx of their board. After all lets not lose site that someone was actually leaking information here - just following examples from the White House no doubt. Anyway, I'm not going to be buying an HP computer any time soon, maybe next time there is a snitch on the board someone might actually take a principled stand and call their board on a principle of ethics... if they have ethical leg to stand on.

And by the way - hasn't anyone at HP heard of anonymous Internet protocols - they are ideal for leaking confidential documents, no strings or pretexts attached!

Franklin Diplomacy

Today I was just heading off to work when I got stuck in my local streets behind one of those big ass SUVs I love to bitch and moan about. I think it was an Escolade but really the point was it was crawling along the street, stopping, crawling, stopping and I couldn't get around it. Then it stopped stayed there and I figured he must be about to park so I backed up enough so I could see his driver side mirror clearly and waited. Then I noticed his reverse lights came on so I started to back up, realized there was someone coming up behind me so I laid on the horn.

SMACK

Oh well, there goes my third collision in that car in 13 years. One a hefty rear-ending (sufficient to give me whiplash for about a day) from a big Cadillac that didn't notice the light was red (or that I was waiting at the light...). I cut the guy a break - although my car was almost new the rear is actually very sturdy and all I had was some small imprints from his big wide front fender. It was actually pretty dumb because the whiplash could have ended up being much worse. The next collision was a front ender as I slid on a wet road into the back of stopped traffic on the notorious Hwy 17. Having a low front my car slid under the rear fender and it bent my hood somewhat and screwed up one headlight to point down too far. On reflection I really should have got that one fixed - it was the beginning of a steady decline in the exterior appearance, within a few more years it was already looking like a junker.

So enter the second front ender from my reversing friend in the SUV. Well after the guy behind me stopped honking (oh I was so tempted to reverse right into him...) the other guy parks and gets out. I get out and he just looks at my car. I look at my car. It took me a while before I noticed anything had changed. Basically he whacked my fender real hard (and dented it - big deal) on the right side and just about evened it up in the process since the first front ended had been on the left side. I think he dislodged another fog lamp but those hadn't worked in years and the other one was loose anyway. His monster seemed to have a smattering of my red paint over it but I couldn't really see that it was dented and he didn't even look.

Well I was about to say "Don't worry about it" when he thrusts two Franklins at me (you know $200) and says, "here I tell you what, have two hundred". So that was about it - Franklin diplomacy. I got more than I wanted, he got to keep his insurance clean and really my fender got straightened up.

Of course I really should have insisted on exchanging details - the $200 might have gone away then - later on I realized I didn't check my hood and sure enough its much harder to open now. However before it seemed to be barely closed, you could almost lift it up without the hood release being pulled. And I guess it was entirely possible he could have knocked my frame out of whack but it really didn't seem that hard - the fender took it and the first front end was much worse and had no effect. Ultimately if I'd gone the insurance route its anyone's give if I would ever have gotten any money since it would have been easy for them to argue the damage was already there since some of it has been there a looooong time and its hard to tell old and busted from new and busted. Plus they might have wanted to know just why my car is looking like such a wreck in the first place.

Next time I swear, I'm going to get a phone number - actually I did that once with my other car when it got rear-ended by a girl driving her mothers brand new Saturn. Made a real mess of her hood and I got $500 for scratches on my fender which no, I never took care of. Really, you couldn't see it for all the other scratches - that is what fenders are for. They should just put peel off layers of plastic coating on them or something.

Anyway, I feel like Ben Franklin just gave us some payback for that forged note we got passed the other day. Found money is all good as far as I'm concerned.

Not your soldier - anti-war for GENERATION TXT

I came across a flash movie called Not Your Soldier, it is aimed at young voters - those most likely to great drafted for Iraq. It is encouraging to see someone is thinking about getting the message across to "generation text" (as I'm going to call them - see the video to find out if you don't get it) which I suppose should be written typed as "GENERATION TXT" (or is it GNR8TN TXT?)

Yes I thought the chances of me actually coining that phrase were slim. A quick search proved me right. See the BBC page on Generation Text.

Flying on 9/11

Last week I flew to Canada via Las Vegas on September 11th. I didn't even think about the date until that morning but when we got to Oakland airport it was obvious it had had an effect on the flying public. We drove directly to the terminal drop-off point and parked with no waiting at all, something I haven't done there except very, very late at night. Then I went straight to the check in desk where the guy told me they had had only about 50 customers since the afternoon. I walked straight to the security check with not a soul in front of me. In fact I got there so fast I completely forgot to take my shoes off. Still the security guys were making full use of the extra time - I was given a complete shake down - they X-rayed my checkin baggage separately (don't they do that anyway?), poked my feet presumably to make sure they weren't fake, and searched all my bags. Once onboard although I had almost the worst seat on the plane - non-reclining last row seat next to the toilet - there was fortunately about twenty empty seats in front of me. All that made for a pretty relaxing flight into Toronto and I didn't once think about the plane being hijacked and crashing into a building...

Definition of a Terrorist

This is rather incoherent but...

I know Bush and other leaders of nation states get labeled as terrorists, and not only by the people they themselves label as terrorists. In my opinion it doesn't seem that unreasonable to me - often the only distinguishing feature between actions of "classic" terrorists like bin Laden or Hezbollah, and the nation state leaders is a matter of how well armed the people are, and whether they are a leader of a recognized nation state.

Well just now I read Howard Zinn's article "War-Mongering America Terrorizes the World" which seems to refine the problem of "What is a terrorist". Basically Zinn concludes if your actions inevitably lead to civilian deaths then you are ipso facto, a terrorist. I'm going to add that your actions must be intended to further some cause or other, presumably of some political nature - unless we want to allow for corporate terrorists (people who inevitably cause deaths due to known deficiencies their product in pursuit of profit).

I think Zinn's definition isn't quite there though, because basically almost any military action even in this day and age of "smart bombs" will inevitably lead to civilian deaths. So basically Zinn labels anyone participating in war, even between nation states, as a terrorist which doesn't seem very useful to me. I suppose you could ask the question "well did the action specifically target civilians?" but that also seems to have the flaw of "what is a civilian?".

In Iraq the US conveniently labels anyone who opposes the American occupation as "insurgents" so they become, in Bush's eyes, legitimate non-civilian targets and hence targeting them wouldn't be a terrorist act. In other peoples eyes they are still just civilians who oppose the military overthrow of their country. As another example in occupied France the allied forces would call the people who opposed German occupation "resistance fighters" or perhaps now "freedom fighters". We would certainly cringe at the thought of them being targeted and executed by the Germans. Yet really the Germans were just eradicating World War II "insurgents" something the US now legitimizes. This even seems to be happening at home, you don't even need to raise a weapon to be labeled as a terrorist, or a terrorist organization and lose all your civilian rights without recourse. Other people might just think you are legitimate dissenting civilians.

I wonder if 9/11 had only targeted non-civilian targets - like US Army bases would that have made Osama any less of a terrorist? Would he have instead been waging war against the US instead of terrorizing us? Would it have made the Bush rampage in Afghanistan and eventually Iraq any less inevitable?

Really I don't have a good definition of terrorist, but I do a) feel like the term is often applied for convenience to label anyone that is subjectively bad, b) our nation (and others) do knowingly engage in actions that inevitably cause civilian deaths, either directly or indirectly, and as such has lead to the "terrorizing" of people not directly and presently raising arms against us. As Zinn points out, this is at least immoral, if not as good as being a "terrorist" itself.

A year of rare piano performances

So far this year I've managed to catch both Keith Jarret and Oscar Peterson in concert. Jarret almost never does concerts and as for Peterson, well I have to admit I didn't even realize he was still alive and it was a super treat to walk down to Yoshis and see him right in my 'hood! It really doesn't get much better than this.

The real 9/11 conspiracy

9/11 conspiracy theorists and politicians should be watching Nova's Building on Ground Zero. Not only does it get a hell of a lot closer to providing a plausible explanation of the WTC collapses but also exposes an even more plausible conspiracy - that of government inaction to do anything about the lessons learned form the collapse and failure to implement improvements in building codes recommended by NIST. This includes really obvious stuff like wider stairways for escape, designing escape systems for full rather than partial evacuation so you can actually get people out before the structure exceeds its maximum fire rating, better fireproofing for steel that wont be damaged by maintenance or blown off in an explosion, and redundant critical systems.

What is driving that inaction? Well money of course, construction people, the government and others claim it would cost "millions of dollars in extra cost for each building" which is somewhat ironic when the government wrote a blank check in 2003 to invade Iraq that cost us hundreds of billions - a fraction of which would have paid for thousands of safer skyscrapers... If 9/11 had just lead to a big fire and a few hundred deaths do you think we would be in Iraq now?

Toward the end "Building on Ground Zero" focuses in on a new building in Shanghai destined to be the tallest in habited building in the world. The Chinese are proving to be anything but fruggle in that design - massively redundant structure, multiple reinforced safe havens accessible from stairs, interior and exterior elevators available for rescue to name but a few. The also mention the improvements used in the WTC 7 rebuild - far beyond code. So obviously some people get it, so why not just make all this mandatory and not leave the choice to be frugal and put lives at risk in the hands of penny pinching developers?

Think globally, entertain locally

I just returned from a weekend trip to Las Vegas which was my first trip back there since, well, last century - something like 1997 as best I can figure. Last time I had a lot of fun, this time it was mostly ho-hum. Could have been last time I was with a big group who were partying - this time my gal was busy with a convention and I was marooned in a hotel that offered little more than gambling, gambling and more gambling. Could also be that last time I won around $1,000 playing roulette and this time the machines, well they just sucked and sucked at the dollars in my wallet. Well more fool me. It was mildly entertaining I guess - but I suppose if they could just told me ahead of time how much I'd lose (or win) I could have stayed up in the room with a good book.

Perhaps the worst part was arriving - it really put a downer on the event from the start. You would think that Vegas with almost all its entertainment and accomodations arrange conveniently along the strip could manage a decent transportation system. You'd have thought that at the airport you could just jump on a train of some sort and be whisked at high speed towards the money pit. Oh no. Instead we spent 45 minutes waiting for baggage in what must be one of the worlds biggest baggage halls, and then 15 minutes wandering round like lost sheep trying to find our hotel shuttle - they don't have one after 10pm - and then a shuttle of any sort - they don't go to our hotel because its in the wrong direction.

So then we go look for a taxi find the worlds longest taxi line. It must be 50 yards long, perhaps even closer to 100. But wait, there's more... it goes to then end, and back and to the end and back, and... you get it. Standing out in the heat (even though its 11pm) we shuffle back and forth like some rats trapped in a maze designed by Escher. After a total of seven times we finally get to stand by our numbered post and wait. All this took an hour. A entire hour waiting for a taxi, seriously we could have walked half way there in that time and if you add in how long it took to get our bags and find the taxi line we actually spent 2 1/2 hours getting to the hotel after landing - the entire flight from Oakland only took an hour and a half!

So, you know me, I like to rant and rave but seriously, Vegas is one f**ked up place when it comes to getting around. I really can't imagine any European city managing to be so transportationally dysfunctional.

So we end up on the strip the next night (a $30 taxi ride each way from the South Coast Hotel) and have a fantastic meal at Bouchon which also takes us a half hour to locate in the hotel. You actually have to enter the hotel from the strip, walk out into the garage and take an elevator from there. But after the meal wandering along the strip I just couldn't help but wander at the inefficiency of dragging tens of thousands of people there every day from all over the country, or even the world just to shove them into a big air conditioned warehouse full of slot machines. No wonder the US is against internet gambling - we could all just sit our lazy asses on the couch and lose our money.

Sure you don't have all the shows to go watch on your couch but you know what, once apon a time people toured - in fact I think they still do. Where's the efficiency of dragging you entire audience to one fixed, hot and over air conditioned location vs. taking the entertainer to the people?

Personally I think Vegas really exists because Americans don't have enough leisure time. They just want to get the feeling of going away and have everything they want in one place - as one taxi driver put it - the "three gees" (gamble, get drunk, get laid). Above all it should all be doable in one weekend, or at most one week. I mean why bother fly to Europe to see Venice, Paris and great fountains when you can just go to the desert and do it there? (Okay I admit, the Belagio fountains are pretty dammed amazing)

Evolution stamps on mutant creationist thinking

What does evolution say about intelligent design supporters running schools? Begone fools, your line of thinking is an evolutionary dead end that would have lead us all from an overpopulated hell straight back into the muddy slime of polluted oceans. You evolved a brain to think - now use it or loose it.

Choosing not to work

There is an interesting NY Times article about more and more men over 30 choosing not to work after unemployment where previously it was assumed all men would try to get back to work. I note it mentions the unemployment rate being very low but that unemployment figures do not include those no longer actively seeking a job. So, as this article has indicated there is an awful lot of people, increasingly men, out there who have stopped bothering to look for jobs that is hiding the true decline in the workforce. Those figures are available (I haven't dug them out for a couple of year) and I'm sure they are illuminating.